How my mid-1980s funk band was revived in 2019

Although I have kept playing over the years, I've not worked in a regular gigging band performing our own material for a long time. So one of the unexpected thrills of 2019 for me personally was the re-release of a single I recorded with a band back in the 1980s.

World Series were a jazz-funk band in the period 1982-84, when the so-called 'Britfunk' movement was in full swing. You may have seen us if you were going to gigs in London at that time.

We played at various music clubs such as Dingwalls in Camden, the Cricketers at the Oval, the Rock Garden in Covent Garden and the Production Village in Cricklewood. We also had regular weekly gig at the Bull & Gate pub in Kentish Town, where the photo below was taken. 

The line-up at this time was myself on drums and percussion, Keith Mawson on bass, Mike Frankel on guitar and vocals and Andy Park on keyboards. Pablo Cook joined as percussionist soon after our first recording session.

In 1983, Mike, Keith, Andy and I recorded three tracks at Woodcray Manor, a farmhouse studio in Berkshire. We chose two of the songs from our set, Head Over Heels and Try It Out, for a double A-side single, which was released by a small independent label, Baskerville Records.

Here are the songs:

Try It Out by World Series

Head Over Heels by World Series

Back then, the single was played on Robbie Vincent's soul show on Radio London and a few other local radio stations. We did a few promotional appearances with DJs such as Pete Tong. We continued to play live and drew increasing numbers to our gigs, but no major record companies came knocking.

World Series on stage in 1984

36 Years Later...

Fast forward to 2019 and Mike, now living in Greater Manchester, was contacted by French DJs Clémentine & Saint-James from Parisian label Chuwanaga. They said they had got hold of a copy of Try It Out/Head Over Heels and were interested in re-releasing them both.

At first we were sceptical, but Saint-James assured us he really liked the tracks and was producing a 1980s Britfunk revival festival and accompanying album. He would remaster our songs and release them as a stand-alone single.

Since Mike couldn't immediately lay his hands on the master tape, I sent my test pressing of the original 1983 single to Paris, in the hope that they could use this as the source for the remastering.

Mike's sleeve notes for the back cover of the re-release

Amazingly, through the wonders of 21st century recording technology, a few weeks later Mike and I received an email with a link to the cleaned-up and newly mixed songs. The results were remarkable given the source material.

This was a massive thrill for Mike and I, having never imagined that our music would be revived in this way. But that was just the beginning.

Over the early summer months of 2019, Chuwanaga Records rolled out a pre-launch marketing campaign for World Series on social media.

"We're super excited to finally share with you our next release, an almost forgotten 7" by Britfunk band World Series, bringing together jazz-funk, AOR and a really funky vibe.
 
"Available very soon on July 1st: a perfect fit for summertime

The single was played at their DJ gigs and festivals during the summer. They posted a clip on Facebook of a beach party in the south of France, with everyone dancing to Try It Out. Unbelievable. Mike and I knew what we were doing at the time was good, but to have it appreciated like this so many years later was just surreal.

Clémentine and Saint-James went to London in June for the Britfunk revival festival. One Saturday night they appeared on the Gilles Peterson show on BBC Radio 6. Gilles devoted an hour of his show to Chuwanaga's Britfunk revival and during the show, they played Try It Out in full. That was a proud moment, our first play on national radio.

The single was launched in July and became immediately available on Spotify. My daughter works in advertising and one day she sent me a photo showing they were playing World Series over the sound system in her office.

It was just one bizarre thing after another...

Back in the day...

After these recordings in 1983, World Series continued to gig around London and build a strong and loyal following. Like a lot of bands, we were at our best in a live situation and our act was improved further with the addition of Pablo Cook on percussion. Later on that year, Andy left the band and we recruited Mark Ambler, an excellent jazz pianist and synth player, who had a brief time as a pop star with the Tom Robinson Band.

Although we continued to refine our live act, something of the original chemistry and camaraderie had been lost. World Series broke up in 1984 just after we recorded our next single. And that was it. 

You throw these things away without proper consideration when you're young, thinking you'll just move on to something else. But the reality is it's hard to recapture the momentum of a band that has worked at building a sound and an audience.

Of the other band members, I am still in contact with Mike and Pablo. Mike plays live in and around Manchester, working under the stage name Mickey Van Gelder, performing his own compositions, inspired by blues and jazz standards. He is also a lyricist and occasional singer with the French R&B/jazz group The Swinging Dice.

Pablo Cook went on to great things as a percussionist with artists such as Moby, Pulp and William Orbit. He was a member of Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, worked with Lily Allen on her first recordings and most recently, he played at the farewell concert for Soft Cell at the O2 in London.

Thanks to the folks at Chuwanaga, the music of World Series lives on.  

2022 UPDATE: The World Series music continues its surreal afterlife. Here's French disco-funk band 'Echoes Of' rehearsing for a gig in Paris in March 2022 and playing Head Over Heels.

Try It Out / Head Over Heels by World Series are both available on Spotify.

If you'd like to buy the vinyl version, click on the link below. Enjoy!

https://chuwanaga.bandcamp.com/album/try-it-out-head-over-heels?fbclid=IwAR0FH8IF386eFKmUvJqejUMJtRiwysNcrb_OXTJD9JpOzyEv1YrEzx6sChY

 IF YOU LIKE MY BLOG, PLEASE HIT THE FOLLOW BUTTON ON THE SIDE PANEL THANKS

Also on this blog:

Music While You Work - A Lockdown Special

A Tribute To Jazz Giant Chick Corea 

An Appreciation of Joni Mitchell's classic 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns'

My Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival Diary 

Jimi Hendrix and some Christmas gift suggestions

HO HO HO!!

HERE'S MY GROOVY NEW LP, JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS.

Yes, it's December 1967 and Jimi's playing Santa Claus, bringing you seasonal joy with his new waxing Axis: Bold As Love.

The second of his three classic studio albums, 'Axis' combines some of Jimi's most psychedelic guitar experiments with his most sensitive songwriting. 

Tracks like Little Wing (truly one of his greatest songs) and Castles Made of Sand showed Jimi was so much more than the wild man of Borneo he was portrayed as by the media back then.

The recording was done mostly in London at Olympic Studios. Despite the ground-breaking guitar effects and stereo panning featured on tracks such as If 6 Was 9 and Bold As Love, the album could potentially have sounded even better if Jimi had not left a master tape of side one in a London taxi. 

The lost tape had to be remastered in one overnight session and Jimi always felt the rushed nature of it compromised the record. But to these ears it still sounds amazing, especially considering the limitations of using 4 track recorders.

Fast forward to December 1969 and Phillips/Fontana were trying to convince us to buy these goodies right away, because if we waited until Christmas eve they'd be sold out. 

Now let's be honest, Santa would not have been delivering many copies of any of these records. Scott 4 is beloved of wise-after-the-event hipsters, but it was his worst selling of the four 'Scott' albums.

The 'David Bowie' album, renamed Space Oddity in 1972 after his second coming with Ziggy Stardust, was another flop in 1969.

And Flaming Youth are only remembered now because their drummer was Phil Collins - that's him at the bottom of the diamond on the cover.

Of the four featured albums, Greek diva Nana Mouskouri was probably the best seller at the time; popular with the mums and dads, don't you know.

And of the others, well Blue Mink were having hits and Melting Pot is one of their best, so that would have probably been the best seller of the lot.

Elsewhere in this pre-Christmas 1969 edition of UK music paper Melody Maker, CBS were onto a winner with the new album from Janis Joplin, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

With a new more soulful sound, a shift away from the psychedelic rock of Big Brother & The Holding Company, Janis was ready to rip up the joint as she did at Woodstock that summer. 

The new album should have done better sales-wise but some fans were put off by her change of direction. 

But to my ears, it was a vast improvement and positioned Janis in a much more soulful setting. 

Judged on its own merits, the record has some strong songs, including Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) and To Love Somebody. Check out those links, seriously. It's easily my favourite of her albums.

Island Records were also advertising in this edition of Melody Maker in December 1969. One or two of these albums, notably Fairport's Liege & Leif, Jethro Tull's Stand Up and In The Court of the Crimson King, had already been on the charts.

Others, such as Quintessence, Mott and poor old Nick Drake would see little Yuletide activity.

Nick Drake - Heaven In A Wild Flower

As this weekend marks the annual pilgrimage of Nick Drake’s most devoted fans to Tanworth-In-Arden - the village in Warwickshire where his family lived - I thought I would explain how I came to love his music.

It was the guitar playing that caught me first, specifically the harmonic richness of his sound through the use of alternate tunings. I don't think enough was made of his pure talent as a guitarist during his short career.

In the mid-80s I bought a cassette copy of an Island Records retrospective called ‘Heaven In A Wild Flower - An Exploration Of Nick Drake‘. I played it constantly (you remember how cassettes in your car stereo would loop continuously). It is pretty much ‘The Best Of Nick Drake’, cherry-picking tracks from the three albums in roughly chronological order.

It also, from the outset, highlights Nick Drake the guitarist. His first album, Five Leaves Left, begins with the song Time Has Told Me. I've never understood why this song was featured so prominently, here and on subsequent sampler albums. To me it's a lacklustre plod and a rather old-fashioned arrangement. It certainly doesn't highlight Nick's guitar playing at all.

Heaven In A Wild Flower begins instead with Fruit Tree, a beguiling introduction to Nick Drake’s world, previously hidden away on side two of Five Leaves Left.

After he died, in November 1974, I had read Nick Kent’s NME long-form obituary, ‘Requiem For A Solitary Man’, which familiarised many people with his story, if not his music. Even that excellent piece wasn’t enough to generate significant sales of Nick’s three albums, Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter (1970) and Pink Moon (1972). For myself, I knew them then, but I only grew to love them later.  

My copy of Nick's first album

For me, the key to this new appreciation was the sequencing - the order of the songs. Heaven In A Wild Flower works so well as a compilation because there's a seamless musical arc created by the first few songs. 

His voice draws you in, masterfully recorded by engineer John Wood. Above all else though, Nick was an excellent and original composer for acoustic guitar. His playing was clean and often highly technical. That slightly hesitant, exploratory guitar line at the beginning of Fruit Tree is your doorway into his world.  

Cello Song was track 2 on ‘Heaven…’ upping the tempo and building the intrigue with a more assertive (and tricky) guitar figure, and some inspired accompaniment from bassist Danny Thompson and conga player Rocky Dzidzornu. Then comes ‘Thoughts Of Mary Jane’, with its lilting pastoral melody. Over the first three tracks, a variety of moods have already been created.

Not taking anything away from the individual songs on Five Leaves Left ; River Man and Three Hours especially are astonishingly accomplished pieces. But it's important, with an artist like Nick, to set the scene properly. Song programming is so important on records. I genuinely believe that if Five Leaves Left had been programmed differently, it would have been more successful.

And it very nearly was.

The original master tape box for Five Leaves Left has a suggested alternative numbering for the tracks, as follows:

Side One

Fruit Tree

Cello Song
Thoughts of Mary Jane.......

River Man is suggested as track 5, instead of track 2 as it appears on Five Leaves Left.

I’d like to believe that is why Heaven In A Wildflower is programmed as it is, because Joe Boyd, or someone at Island, decided to try the sequencing suggested on the original tape box. 

 

Having said all the above, this new bid to gain acceptance for Nick Drake in the 1980s made not the slightest difference to his sales numbers. You'd think the sheer quality of the songs would have been enough to gain wider recognition. But the world still wasn't ready. Heaven In A Wildflower was actually deleted by the time Drake's music started to really become popular in the late 1990s. 

 

An original pressing of the second album, Bryter Layter,
with the two posthumous compilations on cassette, all quite rare today

At about the same time as Heaven In A Wildflower in the mid-1980s, I bought a compilation issued by Joe Boyd's Hannibal Records, called Time Of No Reply. This contains early demos, outtakes from Five Leaves Left and some songs that might have made it onto a fourth album. They were recorded as far back as 1968 in some cases. 

It is hard to understand why some of them (the title track, Joey and Clothes of Sand for example) were not released during his lifetime. His playing is clean, crystal clear and emotionally engaging, sometimes painfully so. The album also included songs from his last recording sessions, including the bleak cri de coeur 'Black Eyed Dog' and the simple beautiful melody of Voice From The Mountain.

Many of the songs on Time Of No Reply are certainly good enough to have been included on previous albums, but it wasn't until after Nick died and they checked the vaults for unreleased material, that Boyd and engineer John Wood realised what treasures they still had.

It's easy with hindsight to speculate whether Nick could have been better presented as an artist. There is no question that he possessed the talent to have made a successful career in music, if circumstances had been different.

He was a gifted guitar player, but because he used a number of different tunings, he needed time to retune his guitar between songs. Audiences at his few concerts would become restless and Nick, lacking the booze-fuelled bravado of a John Martyn, didn't have the banter to keep the audience engaged.  

Nick's refusal to actively promote the records by playing live would have been extremely frustrating for the marketing people at Island Records, who had many other artists to focus their attention on. 

As Nick himself wrote to a psychotherapist in 1973, "There was a lot of pressure around, and I suppose I sort of cracked up."

 

His withdrawal from live performance was undoubtedly a major factor in his failure to break through. His only known radio session was recorded for John Peel between the first two albums. This was all well before the video age. There is no film of him in any form as an adult. 

 

The indifference of the record buying public must have come as a shock to Nick, especially after the sacrifice he made by dropping out of Cambridge in his final year. His deepening depression has been well-documented, but perhaps not enough has been said about the lighter side of his personality. 

 

The hardback book compiled by his sister Gabrielle, entitled 'Remembered For A While' gives a well-rounded account of Nick's life and shows how the darkness that fell on him was perhaps not inevitable.

Nick's music is a very personal thing, but I was delighted to find that the annual gathering at Tanworth is an uplifting celebration. Although he didn't live to see how much his music has touched people, there is some consolation in the fact that his music lives on and now inspires many millions of people around the world.

IF YOU LIKE MY BLOG, PLEASE HIT THE FOLLOW BUTTON ON THE SIDE PANEL THANKS

See also on the blog:

The Making of Five Leaves Left - A Worthy Grammy Nominee

A Visit to the Annual Nick Drake Gathering

Duncan Browne's Journey - and comparisons with Nick Drake

Where to buy vinyl records

Note: I update this from time to time, but best to check the store is still there before you set out. 

On my travels, I am always searching for places to buy good quality records. Of course there are second hand record shops all over the place, but here's a list of physical vinyl stores I have visited in the UK, the US, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Most of these stores sell new and second hand pressings. Happy hunting!

LONDON

Flashback - 50 Essex Road, London, N1 8LR. A five minute walk from Angel tube station

The basement of the store is all vinyl and they have a really good and varied selection, and not over-priced like the Soho stores tend to be. Well worth a visit.

Out on the Floor - 10 Inverness Street, London, NW1 7HJ. Close to Camden Town tube station.  This three-level, three-shop operation has a good selection of 60s and 70s rock, folk and soul. 

  

Sister Ray - Berwick Street, London, W1. Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus tubes.
Along this one stretch in Soho, you have two choices. Sister Ray has good quality vinyl and plenty of collectibles (but very pricey) and a few doors down there is Revival Records with a good stock of rock, soul and jazz vinyl. 

Record & Tape Exchange - Notting Hill Gate. Rock and folk downstairs, soul and jazz upstairs. Worth investigating as their stock is surprisingly varied and good quality for RTE. 

Honest Jon's - 278 Portobello Road, London, W10 5TE

The vast majority of the vinyl here is new pressings - the store specialises in soul, reggae and jazz. 

The best shop for old vinyl in Portobello is downstairs at Rough Trade on Talbot Road.
There are also several market stalls selling second hand vinyl of variable quality under the Westway flyover.  

BRIGHTON
Lots of choice in Brighton, but these are the ones I have been to, bearing in mind I am looking for second-hand vinyl.

Across The Tracks - 110 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AF
A very good selection and reasonable pricing, here's a link:
https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/across-the-tracks-brighton

The Record Album - 8 Terminus Road, BN1 3PD
Tucked away behind the railway station, this has a good selection, with a special section on music from the shows. Pricing was a bit steep, I thought.
https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/record-album-brighton

Wax Factor - 24 Trafalgar Street, BN1 4ED
Another one with a good selection for those looking at original second-hand vinyl
https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/wax-factor-brighton



MANCHESTER

Empire Exchange - 1 Newton Street, Manchester M1 1HW
http://www.recordshopcity.co.uk/the-shops/empire-exchange

Vinyl Revival - 5 Hilton Street, Manchester, M4 1LP

http://vinylrevivalmcr.com/shop/

KIngbee Records - 519 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 0UF
http://www.kingbeerecords.co.uk/

CARDIFF
Spillers - 31, The Morgan Arcade, Cardiff, CF10 1AFA long-established oasis for record collectors. I first went there in the 1980s to buy a CD copy of Todd Rundgren's 'Todd' for £4.  http://www.spillersrecords.co.uk/

NEW YORK CITY

East Village, two shops worth visiting:

Good Records – 218 East 5th Street, New York, NY 10003

Gimme Gimme – 345 E. 5^th St. New York, NY 10003

HONG KONG
There are two good second-hand vinyl shops in Central district. One is on Cochrane Street at the junction with Lyndhurst Terrace, just down from the Lush store. You can see it from the escalator. It's called Wall of Sound. It's up 3 flights of stairs. 

The other store is at 74 Stanley Street, opposite the street food vendors, on the second floor. It's called Classic Shop and also sells hi-fi gear.

There's also a second-hand book and CD shop, Collectables, recently relocated to City Hall in Central. which has a lot of second hand vinyl, not very well categorised, overpriced and poor quality for much of the stock. 

Old Sound Collection (13F, Sino Centre, 582 Nathan Road) has boxes of vinyl, loosely ordered but worth a browse. The owner will normally give you a good discount for multiple purchases. 

In the same building, there are two or three other vinyl record shops. Check the shop listings board on the ground floor.

White Noise Records (1F, 720 Shanghai Street, Prince Edward) has a mix of new and used vinyl, with good selection of Jazz, Prog Rock and Indie. 

Shun Cheong Record Showroom (8th Floor, Wing Lung Bank Centre, 636 Nathan Road) has only new vinyl but a very extensive selection, including Mobile Fidelity and other high quality pressings at reasonable prices. They also have a store just off Queens Rd in central.

NEW  ZEALAND

Real Groovy - 438 Queen Street, Auckland

Auckland may be a bit out of your way, but if you are in the city and looking for a top class vinyl emporium, you would be hard-pressed to find a better one anywhere. All the vinyl is well categorised, with sale items separated from quality and collectable items. Very good pricing policy and an additional 10% discount for every NZ$200 you spend. 

In Wellington, check out Slow Boat Records (183 Cuba Street), who have a good stock of classic and collectible vinyl. Of course, you don't need to be in NZ to check them out. Both these NZ stores have good websites where you can browse their stock.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney 
Mojo Music - 73 York Street (near Wynyard Station)
This store has second hand vinyl only and a club in the basement playing vintage records. It is well worth a visit as they have a good selection of jazz, blues, funk and soul, as well as many good quality rock rareties. 

Red Eye Records - 143 York Street (behind the QVB)
Here you will find a mix of new and used vinyl - a wide selection including bootlegs. Not the cheapest place but worth visiting if you are also interested in unofficial live DVDs.

JAPAN
Tokyo
I have found many amazing rare bootlegs in the shops around the Nishi-Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Shops such as Back Trip, Airs and Shinjuku Records. This blog page has a comprehensive guide to record shops in the city. 
http://www.vinylrecordcollector.net/2012_11_01_archive.html 

And here's a recent recommended vinyl stores list from the Discogs blog:
https://blog.discogs.com/en/best-record-stores-tokyo/

I will update this listing whenever I find new shops worth checking out.
Here's a list of '18 record stores every music lover needs to visit at least once':

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-greatest-record-stores-in-the-world-2014-2

And here's a list of websites dedicated to vinyl enthusiasts:

http://www.themusic.com/search.cfm?groove_cat=2&sidebar=groove

http://www.backtoblackvinyl.com/index.php

http://www.recordshopcity.co.uk/

http://www.insound.com/vinyl-records/

http://vinylfanatics.com/

http://www.musicstack.com/item/375599543

http://myvinylreview.blogspot.com/

http://www.diversevinyl.com/