The Balcony - Portrait (1983)

Here's another rarity from the early 80's Liverpool music scene, with a self-produced cassette tape from The Balcony. The band were formed by Dave 'Yorkie' Palmer (ex Dance Party, Egypt For Now, later Space) on vocals, Mark Cowley, Steve Powell on guitar, Mark Davies on bass, and they were a radical pot pourri of styles, with a tougher, leaner funk base, but with a psychedelic edge was still evident. In fact, Yorkie even managed to get 60's guru Mayo Thompson, of Red Crayola fame, to produce the band's first single 'Surprise After Surprise'/'The Lizard Hunt' in 1982. Later lineups included the addition of a brass section, consisting of Phil Lucking, Mike Kidson, and Martin Green, and at one gig they had three drummers. One of their songs, 'Too Late', was featured in the Chris Bernard / Frank Clarke film 'Letter To Brezhnev', and after a long gap they released their second single 'Redder Than Burning Coals' in 1986. Their third single 'A Cover Version' was effectively banned due to it's lyrical content, and so was never commercially released, and as a result of this the band split up. In their few years together they recorded two sessions for Radio One, for John Peel and Saturday Live, and their Peel session has long been a favourite of mine, having kept the tape that I recorded off the radio for nearly 40 years. All three songs from the Peel session are on this tape, albeit in different versions, but the rest of the songs are just as good, and so it's worth checking them out to hear a band that really should have made it bigger then they did. I've had to replace the final track 'Those Dangerous Dark Nowheres' with another rare track 'Windmills', as it's been impossible to track down, but 'Windmills' is a worthy replacement.   

Track listing

01 Things Worth Giving
02 Someone
03 Too Late
04 Ecstasy Can Take The Blame
05 Am I Really To Die By Your Knife
06 The Lizard Hunt
07 She Keeps Her Secret
08 Surprise After Surprise
09 Don't Take Photos
10 Windmills