We At Grain Festival (33rd Anniversary Remix)

A remix of the 1988 Ehrlich Bullet anthem to celebrate where it all began!

Running Time: 4:13

Later Released On: "Communitas: Volume I" - Magic Bullet & Friends (21 tracks)

Label: Music & Elsewhere (M&E MB-005)

Release Date: 1st October 2021

Format: Download

Buy Link: Bandcamp - GBP £5.00

Whilst technically unreleased at the time of writing, this track was put up on our Reverbnation on 20th September 2020 to mark the 33rd anniversary of The Grain Festival, a benefit concert for Greenpeace, at least the version of that great happening in the woods that took place on our side of the transdimensional divide. Recorded especially for the release of the ill-fated "Grain-Aid!" benefit tape in 1988, the original track was credited to Ehrlich Bullet, which in this universe, it is worth pointing out, was just me pretending to be a band. The name was part of an obscure clue as to my true identity, taken from the 1940 Edward G. Robinson movie, "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" (which is about the man who came up with a cure for syphilis, and no I never have), which if you switch the words around gives you "Dr. Magic's Ehrlich Bullet", et voila. Aside from the drum machine, that original track is comprised of mashed samples from recordings of the day, with each participant getting their own little solo clip as well. For the remix, we've added in some crowd sounds and new drums, plus extra samples, all bar one of which is also taken from the festival tapes. When you're sitting comfortably, I shall begin...

T H E   S A M P L E S   -   N E W   &   O L D  ;

o

1. Fat Comic - Oh, I feel so guilty for saying that, but it seemed funny at the time. Gary Pym was the MC for the day, a tough job, and like everyone involved, didn't take a penny for doing it. The crowd didn't always appreciate his somewhat un-PC club circuit humour, thus the addition to this new mix is appropriately him saying "Don't clap on your own, I'll throw you a fish." Seven years later, as Gary St. John, he did that wonderful cod-Elvis vocal on Rock And Roll Lifestyle for Creavolution!

2. Greed - Although probably the best known band there, they very graciously made zero fuss about all the Grain bands getting senior billing and happily opened the show, thus fielding quite a lot of technical problems for us in the process (fear not, there were more), hence the new addition being singer Paul Thompson shouting "No one can hear a fucking thing!"

3. At Twilight Time - Our side project, which for the purposes of the festival was all four of us with special guest poet Mal Cieslak (these days known as Mal Foster), who Gary insisted on calling Mal Ex-Lax after the infamous laxative, so that's the new clip from the day.

4. The Visionaries - Another guest band of whom we unfortunately had nothing to add, but at least the original sample marks their contribution.

5. Momento Mori - A kind of 'nearly a band', centred around the late Sid Philpotts and girlfriend / vocalist, Mania Rose, augmented by our own Jay and Kate. I owed Mania one, so made a point of taking out the sustained off-key note in the Ehrlich Bullet version. The new clip at the beginning is Sid shouting "Somebody give us a fucking clap!" But don't get the wrong idea, it was still daylight and I actually recall them going down pretty well.

6. Slack Bladder - Shit, they really suffered the inadequacies of the sound technician that day worse than the rest of us put together, and I thought he had it in for me! Lest we forget, the Bladder's sample is now book-ended by Martin Crook's plaintive "Sorry about this!" apology to the audience and "Look we're not getting a fucking thing!" to the bad tempered incompetent who did the PA.

7. Magic Moments ATT - You know who they were. And this is the one new bit that doesn't come from the festival tapes, actually being drawn from our joint encore with The Charles at the end of the first ever Grain gig, that's our Miss Moments singing "We are going against the grain!" And so we were, I'll have you know.

8. The Charles - Our bill topping gentlemen of the gothic punk persuasion, from whom we added their mourning the loss of Arthur Negus, with Chris Carter's heartfelt cry of "Who the fucking hell's gonna clean my furniture?"

And Satan flower kill happy flower and we all go home, yeah...

If you'd like to know more about The Grain co-operative, without which you wouldn't be reading anything on this website now, there's a very detailed 20 page feature with pictures and music on this website...

o

LINK: http://www.mickmagic.net/The%20Grain.htm

OFFICER KITTY!