The
Tights on Cherry Red Records |
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Bad
Hearts / Cracked / It
The three tracks on this ep
were recorded on 16 track over a weekend in Cheltenham at Millstream
Studios 1978, produced by John Acock.
This was the first time the band had recorded in a 'real' studio.
The demos submitted to the record company were recorded in a builders
lock up amongst scaffold, planks, and plant machinery. All that remains
of the demos is a single cassette tape, with several unheard recordings
All rhythm tracks were 1st or 2nd takes, with vocals and lead
guitar added as the only overdubs.The instruments and amps used were
all copies, or home made. However after John Peel played 'Bad Hearts'
on the radio, and Record Mirror made it 'Record of the Week' the initial
2000 copies sold out fast, making it number 6 in the punk chart.
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Howard
Hughes / China's Eternal
This
double 'A' sided second single was recorded a few months later over
two days, again at Millstream Studios, with the same crew.
With just a £200 publishing advance, the band updated
their gear to something less crap....a new bass guitar and a marshall
stack.The production on the guitar and bass was fantastic.. so the
boys let rip.
Barry Island played bass, and ropey analogue keyboards. Rob
Banks played wonderfully out of tune guitars. Malcolm Orgee sang
like he was 16 yrs old....which he was!
The cover picture is of Charlie Watts' limo, the newspapers
in the windows were added later.
Only 4000 copies of the single were pressed, but it did appear
on an album entitled 'Business Unusual', and several hundred 'cassette
singles' were pressed...(the
first and probably last ever) very rare.
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The
Guardian - City Diary - by Adam Jay '04
The British Phonographic Industry effectively called time on the
cassette single yesterday, when it disclosed that not one tape had
been shifted in the first quarter of the year. It's 26 years since
they were introduced - with the release of The Tights' unforgettable
Howard Hughes. Perhaps that's why the format has suffered such a
drawn-out death, having not been seen in public for years.
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