Forty Minutes Of Pop Will Eat Itself

This goose lives at Portland basin in Ashton- under-  Lyne, East Manchester. When we were there a couple of weeks ago they warned us that the geese were nesting and could be aggressive if disturbed. They didn't mention this one though, who has necked two cans of Stella and now wants a fight. 

Pop Will Eat Itself are touring this autumn. I'm quite tempted. Back in autumn 1988 I saw them at Liverpool University. In my head they were one of the first gigs I attended in Liverpool, close to the start of the academic year, maybe just after Fresher's Week- but false memory syndrome has had me here because according to PWEI's own On Patrol gig history at their website they didn't play the Mountford Hall until 2nd December 1988. There is a live recording of the gig on Mixcloud, probably one I bought at some point on cassette from the bootleg tape sellers in the student's union. 

The gig was great, PWEI hitting the stage and giving us an hour of their mash up of rock, rap, dance music and samples. The room was a real gathering of the late 80s tribes, grebos, indie kids, and goths all standing around waiting. I was wearing Levi's, Converse, a black t- shirt and dark green waistcoat (with Watchmen smiley face badge) combo with, for some reason, a bandanna tied round my head. This sticks in the memory for reasons I cannot fully ascertain- as does my conversation with Tracey, a hippy girl who was on my course. We had a chat, all going well, but at some point I referred to Poppie Clint as Clive and Tracey was withering in her look and response. 'Clint, Adam, he's called Clint'. They came on stage to rescue me from my embarrassment (Tracey later came with us to see The House Of Love in Widnes though that could have been because Al had a car). 

Stourbridge's finest were huge fun, a riot of sounds, samples, buzzsaw guitars and shouting. B.A.D. may have got their before them but they were fairly ground-breaking in their approach and records. The mix below reflects that I hope, forty minutes of late 80s and early 90s collisions of styles, pop culture references all over the place, focussing mainly on singles and finishing with a song released for Italia 90, an unlikely music- football- politics crossover.

Forty Minutes Of Pop Will Eat Itself

• The Incredible PWEI v Dirty Harry
• Can U Dig It (7" Mix)
• Dance Of The Mad
• Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me, Kill Me
• Karmadrome
• Wise Up Sucker
• Def. Con. One.
• Orgone Accumulator
• Inject Me
• Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina

The Incredible PWEI v Dirty Harry is from the 92 Degrees single from 1991, a superb acid house/ film sample fest. 

Can U Dig It was a single in 1989, from their second album, This Is The Day.. This Is The Hour... This Is This!, a list of influences and references from TV, film, comics, records and that sounds like what life felt like in 87/ 88 from The Twilight Zone to Alan Moore (knows the score), V For Vendetta and Into The Groovy, Run DMC and Renegade Soundwave, Marvel and DC. Wise Up Sucker is from the same album, a single too as is Def. Con. One., the lead single from 1988's This Is This!, the archetypal grebo rock song, a collision of punk, hip hop, rock, indie and samples. Inject Me was on the album too. 

Dance Of The Mad is from 1990, a single that lost the word Bastards from the end of the title to make it more acceptable for TV and radio play. Produced by Flood and taken from the third PWEI album, Cure For Sanity, and recorded at Paul Weller's Black Barn studio in Surrey. It's Weller's studio now, I'm not sure if he owned it then. I can't imagine much common ground in 1990 between Weller and the Poppies but who knows.

Eat, Me, Drink Me, Love Me, Kill Me and Karmadrome are from 1992, a double A- side single. You need both sides. 

Orgone Accumulator is a cover of the Hawkwind song from a 1987 covers EP along with Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Love Missile F1- 11.

Touched by The Hand Of Cicciolina is from Cure For Sanity and a summer 1990 single, one of the songs of the summer (a summer that wasn't short of memorable songs). It features/ pays tribute to Hungarian- Italian porn star Ilona Staller who was elected into the Italian parliament in 1987. A couple of years later she offered to have sex with Saddam Hussein in exchange for peace. The piano riff, Gary Linekar sample and chant of 'Cicicolina/ Ciciolina/ This time for I- tal- ya', are all PWEI gold.