Here's their Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:
In short, they're basically a one-hit wonder. They only recorded one album, shortly after their big hit. Given their limited success, I was surprised to find there are enough surviving BBC sessions from them for a 46 minute long album, with all of them officially unreleased. My theory is that this was exactly the type of "rock" music that the BBC loved: catchy, mainstream, non-controversial pop. BBC DJ Brian Matthew seems to be a particular fan, since all of the sessions here were hosted by him. He kept hosting them all the way until 1972 (at least), even though they stopped having any chart success by 1969.
Should you download this album? I doubt many people will, since this group is so little known. But if you're into catchy, lightweight British pop rock, this is pretty good. There are some covers of famous songs that I don't think they recorded anywhere else, such as "The Tracks of My Tears," "Take Me for a Little While," Midnight Confessions," "My Baby," and "Sunday Morning Coming Down." They also did "Never My Love," but there's a studio version of that one.
"Caroline" is a particularly interesting song, because it was written for them by Roy Wood of the Move. It sounds exactly like a Move song, but it's one the Move never recorded themselves.
Most of the BBC sessions albums I post have the problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. I have to say this was the worst case of that that I've come across so far. DJ Brian Matthew talked over all but three of the 17 songs here, often talking over both the intros and outros. Sometimes he even talked over the singing, which is something even he rarely stooped to. I've noticed a trend that the more poppy the music was, the more DJs tended to talk over it. For instance, I doubt even Matthew talked over Jimi Hendrix or Cream song intros very much.
Anyway, I did the usual technique of using the X-Minus audio editing software to wipe the DJ talking while keeping the underlying music. However, for a few songs, I had to do additional work to restore the vocals where Matthew talked over them. Luckily, in those cases it was things like choruses at the ends of songs or "la la" sections that were repeated elsewhere. So I was able to patch in the missing bits from other parts of the songs.
01 Jesamine [Edit] (Casuals)
02 The Tracks of My Tears (Casuals)
03 Take Me for a Little While (Casuals)
04 Midnight Confessions [Edit] (Casuals)
05 Toy [Edit] (Casuals)
06 I Can Tell [Edit] (Casuals)
07 Fool's Paradise [Edit] (Casuals)
08 Sunflower Eyes [Edit] (Casuals)
09 Who Belongs to You [Edit] (Casuals)
10 Naughty Boy [Edit] (Casuals)
11 Caroline [Edit] (Casuals)
12 Never My Love [Edit] (Casuals)
13 My Baby [Edit] (Casuals)
14 Someday Rock ’n’ Roll Lady [Edit] (Casuals)
15 Sunday Morning Coming Down [Edit] (Casuals)
16 Tiger Girl [Edit] (Casuals)
17 Nature's Child (Casuals)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15288195/TCasuls_1968-1972_BBSessions_atse.zip.html
The more obscure a band gets, the harder it is to find a decent photo for a cover. That was definitely true of the Casuals. I found a fairly good color picture, shown above. But it had lots of issues. For instance, the heads were weirdly elongated, and two of the faces were tinged green. So I had to do some work in Photoshop to make it look decent. There was a brick wall background, but due to the misshapen heads and other issues I found it easier to remove that and replace it with a similar background.
By the way, the clothes the band members wore in this photo is misleading. This picture must have been taken in 1967 or 1968, when psychedelia was all the rage to the point where even pop bands like the Hollies dressed exactly like this. But there's virtually no psychedelic elements in their actual music.
I think Brian Matthew was probably the BBC's worst offender for talking over the music. Alan Freeman was another. (John Peel, who always respected the music, did it least.) I've read that the practice was intended to discourage people from recording the songs off air instead of buying the records.
ReplyDeleteYeah, definitely about Matthew. I don't buy that excuse, for several reasons. One, only a very small number of people had recording equipment in the 1960s. It was the 1970s when that caught on in a big way, and that's when the practice stopped. And two, it varied so much from DJ to DJ that it must have been personal choice. For instance (and as you point out), even way back in 1967, John Peel hardly ever did it, although he did slip up every now and then, especially at the ends of songs.
DeleteThey may have been a one hit wonder, but what a hit! Jesamine has long been one of my favourite late 60s songs.
ReplyDeleteThank you,
G.
I know you guys have a different opinion than I have. The reason the DJs in the 60s talked over the intro is very simple: That was the way DJing was done in those days.
ReplyDeleteIt all came from american AM radio DJs, who sang and shouted with and over the music. Just try to listen to some of these guys: Emperor Rosko, Murry the K were some of the greatest. So were in my opinion Brian Matthews and Alan Fluffy Freeman. I loved it and still do love it.
You have diffrent opinions. Fair enough. It's Paul's Blog and he can do do what he wants. And I'm very grateful for his work (even without the DJs talking...). THANK YOU.
Greetings from Italy
Willi
I hear you. If I were listening to an entire BBC show, I would want to hear the whole thing, DJ talk and interviews and all the rest. Just like if I were listening to a broadcast of Murray the K or something like that. But listening to a BBC sessions album is different, in my opinion. I'm listening to that for the music, not the whole shebang, so I want to hear the music.
Delete