I bought this in 1991 when I was a cash-strapped teenager, saving up my meagre part-time work pay in order to regularly pop into Langland Records – generally to browse, sometimes to buy. Langland Records was something of a legendary record shop when I was growing up in Telford, if for no other reason than you could pop to the White Lion over the road, buy a pint and bring it back to the shop whilst looking through records and hearing whatever bizarro metal/prog music was being played over the shop’s crappy sound system. It’s long gone now, as are so many record shops. Shame.
The Telescopes were one of those primo-era Creation bands that everybody loved for a while, and this record is a stellar example of their shoegazey middle period. Quite a history, The Telescopes – from white noise screaming misery in the mid-80s, through blissed out shoegaze in the early 90s, through to a period of nothingness followed by the improvised soundscape drones that they regularly release these days. Hell, I’ve even released a record by The Telescopes, which is something I never dreamt I’d be saying when I picked this up back in ’91.
This record reminds me of much simpler times, when every record bought was listened to over and over and over, before disposable income stopped each purchase being quite so magical and special. At the start of my record buying in the late 80s I didn’t even have a record player, and I’ve got many fond memories of camping out in my parent’s dining room or my sister’s bedroom, listening to weird and wonderful stuff to the bemusement/amusement of my relatives. Things haven’t changed so much – although I’ve now got my own record player…
I still have my Telescopes 12″‘s and early albums, they were great when they arrived on the music scene in the late 80’s, “7th # Disaster” “Perfect Needle” “To Kill A Slow Girl Walking” “Precious Little” “Everso” “Celeste” and “Flying” were all brilliant singles, loved the “Taste” album and the self titled second album, gotta be honest I’ve heard nothing of the newer material and must rectify, bit gutted I couldn’t go and see the recent Telescopes gig at The Cellar Bar in Oxford, esp as it was the old material (although minus all the original band members apart from Steven).
Ah, that Cellar gig was outstandingly good – One Unique Signal (who were Stephen’s backing band for the show) conjured up a pretty exact replica of the old late 80s Telescopes sound. Amazing.