Cassettes: Home Taping Is Killing Music

This was recorded in 1998, and I never thought it was as good as the couple of tapes that had gone before. For instance, songs like "Post-Jazz Prog-Rock Virgin" and "A Trip To The Zoo" being painfully obviously made up as I was going along. Most of it was quite well done though - I recorded it at the same time as I was recording the first AAS single, which had "Clubbing In The Week" and a new version of "Fucking Hippy" on it, which means it all sounds similar to that New Style, and indeed the versions of Red And White Sockets" and "Another True Story" are the same as the ones that eventually got a "proper" release. It also features Most Likely Candidate For Eventual Re-Recording: ""Professional, Competent, Rocking and Tight", as well as "Born With The Century" and Carol And The Mandolin", but as as set of songs together it just didn't have the same sense of fun and thrills as the two before it. By now I was thinking of how much more fun it'd be to play with some other people again, largely due to the presence of Mr Francis Albert Machine on trumpet on two of the songs, "Hung Up" and "It's Not Like It's A Sin".

A few weeks after the single came out I asked the aforesaid Mr Machine if he'd join me and Mr Tim Pattison (with whom I'd played in the band The Council) in recording a new version of "Born With The Century", which was for the next single release. We enjoyed it so much we decided to keep recording, and so The Validators were born.