Demos of Old Track-by-Track (available from i_obtain@hotmail.com)

1979:
Paid for by Virgin Publishing and recorded at the famed Pathway studios (Elvis Costello recorded his first album there) an attractively dishevelled and well funky little 8-track in Stoke Newington (still going I'm told). This was my return to music after a couple of years getting tormented and living a dissolute, if colourful, life in a squat with a bloke called Dexter Dalwood (formerly bass player with the Cortinas -Bristol punk band-he's a painter now).

The musicians are:

Bruce Mcrae (bv's)
Dave Marx (bass)
John Ellis (gtr)
Richard Wernham (drums)

• Opposite Way in the Rush Hour -romantic view of being a arty muso type in the straight world but not of it. I dunno, I get annoyed with the former me in this mode. Nice noble chords tho'.
• Feeding Time -about being of unusual sensitivity in a Kilburn greasy café. There should be more food songs I think. I like the 'ordering' bit on the fade -'prawn cocktail' already. What a little proletarian I was.
• Rossmore Road that fine proto-Psychogeographical anthem in it's rough state. The forerunner of all the Urban Mysteries of Sacred City. Listening to 'Beatles Zebra Crossing' (a paean, of course, to Abbey Road's iconic street-intervention) a friend of mine was moved to comment that it had taken me 13 years to get half a mile up the road.
• Muscle and Movement the harsh credo under which I suffered during the squat years. Proddy work ethic by any other name I'm afraid, with an unmistakable homo-erotic quality. Strange Days.

1980:
Virgin had agreed to release Rossmore Road but I thought I'd push my luck by asking to demo some more tunes because you just never know when you'll be in favour again.

Recorded at Wharf Studios in Southwark

Good band on this:

Rob Hendry (gtr)
Marion Fudger (bass)
Richard Wernham (drums)

• Vampire Skinhead: a strange little gem. The whole Two-Tone, Ska thing didn't happen for a year or so after we did this which just goes to show how ideas are all very well but sometimes you gotta get off yer chuff if you want to reinvent Popular Music.Lots of bum notes on the keyboard riff because it was a Wasp synth which has a flat plate marked out with keys where the keys should be (hence affordable). Now a collectors item -as many horrible things eventually become.
• Taking over I.C.I.the last (ironic) gasp of my teenage socialism. (as Orwell says 'all intelligent teenage boys are Socialists -at that age one does not see the hook hidden within that rather stodgy bait') Hey -it's a love song. Top organ solo tho' I says it as shouldn't.
• Big Soft safe Family. If you will forgive a bit of navel-gazing here: this was the last song I ever wrote that made proper literal sense. That social commentary- 'this is this -some things are like that and this is what I think about it'- kind of tune .I re-lyricised this with something strange and enigmatic that used a lot of Baader Meinhoff/hostage type imagery, if memory serves. I never did anything with it but the gates were open and a World of Weirdness beckoned

Go Bang

• Got Heat: w-e-e-e-l… Wish I was like Homer Simpson who doesn't regret anything he's ever done, but I can't get that primal confidence going and I kinda wish I hadn't done this. One of those 6/8 'when the going gets tuff' grooves which I do like- but hey -that's not gonna save it I don't think.
• Newman rather nice version of the not-so Newmansong. Inspired a bit by George Michael's 'Faith' single (eclectic, moi?)
• Purified Oh bloody blimey. A peculiar little psycho-drama this: me as tormented soul, Sids as supportive babes/ psychiatric nurses. Boy, we were game for owt.
• Over the Wire: I like this better than the album version-bit more primitive as befits the subject matter. That glossy 80's thing never suited us really did it?

Sacred City

• Beatles Zebra Crossing I love this. Yes I do. What a fucking good tune this is.
• Gum a tale of mystical (and circular) urbanism over the groove which became 'Exquisite Corpse'. I got quite fond of the cast who are:

Kevin Patterson
Ms Adwa Ndoube (and her sister's friend -not pictured)
Francesco and Paolo Gardinelli
And introducing the Gum as itself…