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I'm going to go to a different topic in this journal. I'll admit that talking about failed albums, especially those that deserved their fate, drains me out quite a bit - that means a look into Allman and Woman will have to wait for a long time. I take too long and go into things more seriously than what I should.

in my research, I have actually been getting into singles that "Bubbled Under" the UK Top 75, possibly sparked by my interest in one of my favorite underdog bands of The 80's, The Icicle Works - the band known in The US with Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream) and in The UK with the light but still pretty cool Love Is a Wonderful Colour. The saddest thing was that Arista, the label that released the Icicles' first album flat out rejected their great second album, The Small Price of a Bicycle as "Punk Demos" - although I think that the company were saving all their promotional monies for Whitney that year and weeding out their Alternative wing (what little of it they actually had by then!), but that's just my opinion and I hope that someone will do a full research on that. Most of the rest of the world followed suit that year, with only Canada being treated with an EP of some of that year's music by the band.

Little did I really know back then was that as they had a little success with their albums If You Want to Defeat Your Enemy Sing His Song and Blind, almost every one of their singles except for a couple hovered around the 100-76 area of the chart. At first I owned that famed Guinness book of records that made the 75, but I wanted to know more and thankfully I came across a couple of sites, one having it's compiled charts took down by the BPI, which detailed things more for me. Being one of the many New Pop kids that was also an Info Freak (o - yes, a Jesus Jones reference!), you could say that I had some headaches and a lot of fun finding out what went on in that Limbo world between making the big chart and totally failing.

My research starts in at 1983, kind of a perfect way to actually get into the 80's way (although I'm sure that my LP Chart search goes a couple of years before that!).

Right now, let's take a look at the Bubbling Under Adventures of the Icicle Works' through the years featuring their main lineup of Ian McNabb, Chris Layhe (Bass), and Chris Sharrock (Drummer - later in World Party, The Las, and I think even Oasis for a short while!).

This part will look at 83, 84, and 85, three pretty cool years of music that still has a strong cult today.

On 7/1/83, after a 1981 cassette called Ascending and the classic "Nirvana" debut single (which was a small Indie hit in 1982), "Birds Fly (A Whisper to a Scream)" made it's very first attempt to rise into the charts hitting in at #90. Later it would peak in the Top 60, but this first edition carried the B Sides of Reverie Girl and Gun Boys on the 12 Inch with the first song only on the 7...aah, the days of multi-formating.





As some remember, in The UK, they had a pretty good Top 20 hit with "Love Is a Wonderful Colour" and then another run of "Birds Fly" that went to #53 that actually had a shave of Top 40 Action in The US where where jangle sound had a number of fans that were more comfortable with their great Guitar music than what a lot of people were passing off as New Wave (I think there was a Budweiser radio commercial to that song then as well...that was when even Oingo Boingo had a TV ad for the beer company, not the best of promotion ideas for a New Pop crowd who were mainly not amused - but I digress). The second version of the single had In the Cauldron of Love plus Scarecrow and Ragweed Campaign for the 12 ("In the Dance the Shaman Led" was the US B-side).

Then after a while of promoting in the US ("I Never Saw My Hometown Till I Went Around the World" would be a good way to hear McNabb's views on the touring subject) in October, 1984 saw their return with "Hollow Horse" go all the way, way up to...#91. OUCH! What is seen as one of their greatest singles of all time came in a month of other great singles that under performed such as Cabaret Voltaire's legendary "Sensoria" (#95) and SPK's "Junk Funk" (#94)...in VERY good company even if the sound is clearly 180 Degrees apart from those two great Electronic cult hits.

Although one can say that "Hollow Horse" was too Guitar rocking for the Pop charts this time, with the fans of "Love Is a WC" possibly in shock at the Rock image they were headed for, one could also point to the slightly clumsy video as a cause of the single's failure as well.



Here's the appearance on The Tube with a great comment from Jools Holland at the start.


Later on in May 1985, there would be the Motown-influenced "All the Daughters of Her Fathers House"...don't ask me what it means. A classy B&W/Color video was made of "Their Fab New Single", but even that would not do the trick. They were already in the breed of great 80's bands who created Byrds/Buffalo Springfield influenced music, and were tough enough to be as popular as the Long Ryders and very early REM even after tasting a brief moment of stardom, The Icicles were still putting up a good fight to return to the Pop charts in an era of Wham.



In June, 1985 came the classic "Seven Horses" which at least scrapped it's way to #82 in the same week as The Cure stole a lot of Alternative thunder debuting with their amazing Poptastic comeback "In Between Days" (a long runner on the single charts peaking at UK #15) plus a cult hit in The Untouchables' "I Spy for the FBI" steeling even more with a song that was produced by Jerry Dammers (#59, but hovering around for a month and a half it seemed). This was seriously a case of bad timing here...it was a dog eat dog scene, after all!

Starting off with Ian on the Modern MOO-g Tech of the day, here's a live performance...




As their second album, The Small Price of a Bicycle, was rejected by Arista as "Punk Demos" (My thoughts on this rejection, the label was saving all their money for the promotion of Whitney Houston...just my guess as their Alternative section was very, very slim) and not released by other countries around the world following it's UK#55 peak (well, at least Kate Bush stole a lot of thunder from the rest of the competition, so I'm not complaining this time!), there was one last epic of 1985 in "When It All Comes Down", another song which I think had no video to promote it for the second single in the row. The "Midfield General" (thanks, John Peel!) is with a beard in this live clip on the Whistle Test, and the end credits show a very interesting line up for the next show (The Clash in their Cut the Crap lineup...need to look for that one!)



To those wondering about how the studio version sounded, here's the original mix (there was a re-do for a 1992 Best Of...). Still wondering why this missed the chart all together (now...damn me and my cheesy references even if it does fit).



To wrap things up, here's the B to "Hollow Horse", the cult classic "The Atheist", plus "Seven Horses" B, "Slingshot" featuring Sharrock's thundering Drumming that made the early Works' sound.



Part Two soon, but there's other sounds I want to get to as well...enjoy!