the PCBs

As has been mentioned here before, dodgy stereo is result of the combined efforts of more than one person. One of the more amusing projects that came to be from this collaboration was 'the PCBs'. I hadn't heard this recording for a few years, but have had moments of fond memories of the making of it. The blurb online states:

"Let's get together tonight. We'll stock up on cigarettes and beer... Why don't we write and record as many songs as possible. No more than 10 minutes per song... What do ya say?"

This may not be a direct quote of what we said to one another but it pretty much sums up the attitude we took to making everything that evening, when we wrote, recorded, and mixed down everything in one night. We challenged ourselves to get productive without being precious about what we were making - If anyone of us came up with an idea we would run with it.

This was all made back in the late 90's (1997/8?) when we had upgraded from four track tape recording to eight track recording. Although we were starting to use PCs at the time, cassette multitracking was what we used most often.

A similar approach to recording was used when making the Translucent Knees material years later, but at that stage the computer had really taken over and the sound quality/production values probably wouldn't have been achieved as quickly otherwise.The main thing is that the dodgy stereo attitude to genre was there - hi-fi / lo-fi / anti-fi / dodgy stereo meant these things weren't important. I think this is still true today as each of the artists still make music that uses whatever tools are at hand to make the sound that's in their head come of of speakers and into other people's ears.

Recently one of the PCBs put the material online on myspace, where you can now go to download and enjoy listening to the music we made. There are three mp3's the track listing being -

the PCBs Side A - 1.Dodgy Stereo Jingle 2.Plastic Boy 3.Cray-Zee Man 4.Little Flower 5.Tight Spot 6.Green Watch 7.Beady Eyes

the PCBs Side B - 8.Russian Reggae 9.Tenner Sea 10.Slug Porn 11.FrankQuinnStein 12.Dole Pineapple Chunks

PC/BC - 1.PC/BC 2.Sunday Life 3.Theme From Pingu 4.Dollar 5.Bum 6.Sud O Bangor 7.NiceHamDay 8.Hamburger Shots

The PCBs was chosen as a name for the group as it was made from the first letters of our names; Phil, Colin and Barry. It is also an acronym for Printed Circuit Board among other things.

Phil (and Hazel) recently made this video to one of the sleazier tracks the PCBs made...

Slug Porn

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