Aztec Camera - Green Jacket Grey (1981)

Following their appearance of the 'Urban Development' cassette compilation in 1980, playing their Cure/Joy Division-inspired post-punk, Aztec Camera signed to Postcard records and released 'Just Like Gold' in March 1981, followed by 'Mattress Of Wire' a few months later, and the next step for the band was to be their debut album for Postcard, titled 'Green Jacket Grey'. Before that could happen, however, the band left Postcard, signed to Rough Trade and started work on a 'new' debut album that would eventually become 'High Land, Hard Rain'. There were rumours that studio sessions had taken place and demos had been recorded for 'Green Jacket Grey', and eventually a poor quality tape of these sessions surfaced, but as would be expected from a 30-year old bootleg, they were hardly cutting edge quality-wise. However, someone has gone to great lengths to restore them to a position of being probably as good as they will ever sound, and so we can piece together what 'Green Jacket Grey might have sounded like. 'Remember The Docks' and 'Another Room' were briefly part of the band's early live set, but were soon dropped, while 'Orchid Girl' was rumoured to have been written about Una Baines of the Blue Orchids, and was eventually re-recorded and released as the b-side to 'Oblivious' in 1983. The title track of the album was originally intended to be the band's first single back in 1981, backed with one of their Cure/Joy Division rockers 'Real Tears', but in the end they went with 'Just Like Gold' for the debut 7". 'Release' goes back to Roddy Frame's pre Aztec Camera days, featuring in the sets of his first band Neutral Blue, and it was re-recorded for their actual debut album 'High Land, Hard Rain' in 1983. 'Pillar To Post' was the first song that Aztec Camera re-recorded following their move from Postcard to Rough Trade, and I've tried to clean up the first 60 seconds which were a bit muffled before the sound cleared during the first chorus, while 'Nothing In The Sky' had real issues, as the song was split into two parts with a big gap in between, presumably because the original tape ran out and, instead of recording the whole song again when it was flipped over, they decided to just carry on recording! An attempt had been made to repair this by editing in a 1981 performance of the song from Manchester, but I didn't feel it was totally successful, so I've patched in the first verse again and then tagged on the original ending. If you want to hear the original demo then it is up on Soundcloud. The band also recorded a demo of what was then called 'Send Letters', so by adding that and the rejected first single b-side we have what could have been Aztec Camera's debut album had they not left Postcard during the sessions. I've housed it in a cover featuring a painting by David Band, who did a lot of their artwork later in their career, so enjoy these early recordings by a much missed band. 

Track listing

01 Remember The Docks
02 Orchid Girl
03 Another Room
04 Green Jacket Grey
05 Release
06 The Spirit Grows
07 Real Tears
08 Pillar To Post
09 Nothing In The Sky
10 Send Letters

Aztec Camera - Aztec Gold (1990)

Aztec Camera was formed in 1980 by Roddy Frame, then just 16 years old and living in East Kilbride in Scotland, and the initial lineup of the band consisted of Frame on guitar and vocals, Campbell Owens on bass, and Dave Mulholland on drums. They made their recorded debut on 1980's 'Urban Development', a compilation cassette of local unsigned bands released by Pungent Records in association with Glasgow-based Fumes Magazine. In March 1981 the group released a single through the respected Scottish indie label Postcard Records, and 'Just Like Gold'/'We Could Send Letters' rose to number ten on the U.K. Independent charts, leading to British music journal New Musical Express giving Aztec Camera their seal of approval by licensing an alternate acoustic version of 'We Could Send Letters' for their 'C81' cassette compilation curated and released by the magazine. After releasing 'Mattress Of Wire'/'Lost Outside The Tunnel' on Postcard, they signed with Rough Trade Records in 1982, and released the single 'Pillar To Post'/'Queen's Tattoos', following which Dave Mulholland left the band, with John Hendry taking over as drummer. In 1983 the band released their debut album 'High Land, Hard Rain', which earned rave reviews (with many citing the fact Frame was just 18 when he wrote most of the songs) and respectable sales, especially in England. The band expanded their lineup by adding guitarist Craig Gannon and keyboardist Bernie Clark to the fold, and riding high on the success of their first long-player, they enlisted the services of Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits to produce their second. 

1984's 'Knife' was slicker and more ambitious, and I felt that it didn't have the rugged charm of their debut, and Frame was also becoming disenchanted with his band-mates, so by the time he went on tour in support of the 'Knife' album, Campbell Owens was the only other original member of the group, although it would in fact prove to be his last tour with Aztec Camera. After a stopgap EP of live tracks and B-sides was issued in the United States in 1985, their third album, the R&B-influenced 'Love', appeared in 1987. Though it was issued under the group's name, Frame recorded the material with a handful of session musicians, and from that point on, Aztec Camera would not have a consistent lineup on-stage or in the studio, with Frame assembling a different set of players for each project. 'Love' proved to be a commercial success in the U.K., rising to number 10 on the album charts, but it barely made the Top 200 in the United States, and the next two Aztec Camera albums, 1990's eclectic 'Stray', which included a collaboration with the Clash's Mick Jones on the song 'Good Morning Britain', and 1993's electronic experiment 'Dreamland', didn't even chart in America. After 1995's 'Frestonia', a low-key and primarily acoustic effort, failed to excite fans or critics, Frame retired the name Aztec Camera, and for his next project he released 'North Star' in 1998 under the name Roddy Frame. In their early days Frame was quite prolific, and so b-sides were often non-album, and the best are collected here, along with original versions of their singles where they differed from the album version, and their contribution to a 1990 split single with Kirsty McColl & The Pogues, taken from a Cole Porter tribute album. 

Track listing

01 Abbatoir (from the 'Urban Development' cassette 1980)

02 Stand Still (from the 'Urban Development' cassette 1980)

03 Real Tears (from the 'Urban Development' cassette 1980)

04 Token Friend (demo 1980)
05 Mattress Of Wire (single 1981)
06 Just Like Gold (single 1981)

07 We Could Send Letters ('C81' version 1981)
08 Pillar To Post (original single 1982)
09 Queen's Tattoos (b-side of 'Pillar To Post' 1982)
10 Walk Out To Winter (original single version 1983)
11 Set The Killing Free (b-side of 'Walk Out To Winter' 1983)
12 Orchid Girl (b-side of 'Oblivious' 1983)
13 Haywire (b-side of 'Oblivious' 1983)
14 Jump (b-side of 'All I Need Is Everything' 1984)
15 Bad Education (b-side of 'Deep & Wide & Tall' 1987)
16 The Red Flag (b-side of 'How Men Are' 1988)
17 Do I Love You? (split single 1990) 
18 Consolation Prize (b-side of 'Good Morning Britain' 1990)
19 True Colours (b-side of 'The Crying Scene' 1990)
20 Salvation (b-side of 'The Crying Scene' 1990)