In my favourite (and consequently top secret) charity shop for these things I acquired Echo & the Bunnymen's Crocodiles the other day (nice copy, original inner bag and all that). I was a bit too young (or uncool maybe) for Echo & the Bunnymen in their original incarnation, I only remember Bring On the Dancing Horses from the time, and I thought that was rubbish.
However when I got my first little record player I thought I ought to get a record to test it out and so popped round to a record shop just around the corner (the short lived Play It Again Sam, it's all about location, location, location). For some reason I picked out a 12" of Seven Seas. It's a good single but I was soon infatuated with the b-sides, acoustic versions of Stars Are Stars and Villiers Terrace (and the Killing Moon but that's not from Crocodiles).
Far better than the album versions, lots of interesting instrument choices: a harpsichord, double bass, a sitar or some other churning, ringing thing. And all somehow very autumnal (probably suggested by nothing more than the lyric about the stars shining so cold).
E&TBM are always autumn into winter for me, too.
ReplyDeleteTop stuff, love the Bunnymen.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear Davy, I wonder what it is about them? Possibly their often being described as an overcoat band?
ReplyDeleteSA - I love every track on Songs to Learn and Sing (and the b-sides I mention) but I've not got into their actual albums. On Crocodiles it's only the singles that really grab me.
On the subject of the Bunnymen, yet another of my wife's brushes with celebrity - she was sat next to Ian McCulloch in a pub ages ago and had no idea until one of her mates told her. Apparently he's very tall indeed.
The top few inches are hair
ReplyDeleteIt's up there with William Reid and Robert Smith, hmm, I feel another list coming on...
ReplyDelete