Number 200 in these ongoing ramblings of mine feels like a real milestone, one that needs celebrating in some small manner. Then let’s celebrate it by noting that it is fitting that this 200th blog post concerns just about one of the greatest albums released in my lifetime and one which has never been very far away from my ears since it’s original release (it’s playing now)…30 bloody years ago !!!

By the time Jellyfish came to make their second album there had been changes. Guitarist Jason Falkner, who had also played much of the Bass on “Bellybutton”, had left over the lack of opportunity to write songs for the band which was tightly controlled by Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning Jr. Chris Manning’s (Roger’s brother), who hadn’t played on “Bellybutton” but had been drafted in to play Bass on the albums tours, had also departed. So singer/drummer Sturmer and keyboard-ist Manning were joined by guitarist John Brion (who would very soon join Jason Falkner’s post Jellyfish band The Grays) and Bassist Tim Smith (who went on to join Umajets who, if you like Jellyfish, are well worth searching out). Albhy Galuten was back to oversee production along with Jack Joseph Puig, Sturmer and Manning and oh what a marvellous confection they all created.

There are lullabies, songs about the teenage adulation of pop stars, unwanted pregnancies and possibly the best song written about “self satisfaction” since The Vapors “Turning Japanese” (you did know that was what “Turning Japanese” was about…right ?) “My hand’s a five leaf clover, It’s Palm Sunday over and over…He’s my best friend”.

Things start gently with “Hush”. One thing I discovered from the CD is that “Hush” and final song “Brighter Day” start and end respectively with the same keyboard note, so if you play the CD on repeat (which I used to do often) the album is a never ending loop, cleverly thought out stuff this was. “Hush” is a lullaby, delivered using those beautiful vocal harmonies that were shown off in “The King Is Half Undressed”. The voices fly about and swoop in and around the melody, it’s quite beautiful

 “Go to sleep and hush little darling

It's time for bed, time to put out the light

Sweet dreams are awaiting behind your closed eyes

And a blanket of night, Where the bed bugs don't bite”

The next 5 songs making up the remainder of Side 1 may be some of the greatest pop music ever made. “Joining A Fan Club” comes muscling in on a big fat guitar blast and lays out the joys and perils of teenage obsessions 

“Joining a fan club with my friends, Filling our bathtubs with tee shirts and 8x10's

He looks so dreamy, I'm in love from afar, When I'm picking up a fallen star”

And after recently watching a (frankly quite dull) 90 minute video about the making of “Spilt Milk” it was a very pleasant shock to hear Roger Manning Jr. say that the saxophones on “Joining A Fanclub” were arranged in homage to Roy Wood and Wizzard (we’ll get to them subsequently). The following “Sebrina, Paste And Plato” is a whimsical look at the lunchtime goings on at a school. 

“New Mistake” is the song mentioned above about unplanned pregnancy. Now I guess you’ve figured out by now that I likes a lyric and this song contains a couple of pearls, firstly about the “mistakes” christening

“So Father Mason, clutching his crucifix

Baptized the baby in whiskey and licorice

What a lovely way, drowning sins in tooth decay”

And later on while reporting from the future about the baby’s love life on growing up

“The ending turned tragic when many years later

The baby had grown up and married a pop singer

I think it was her turn to make her first mistake”

All this poetry wrapped in a swinging arrangement packed full of those vocal harmonies we’ve come to love. “The Glutton Of Sympathy” is a beautiful ballad and Side 1 ends on this albums lead single “The Ghost At Number One”. Guitars rumble and slash through the verses leading to a Baroque-ish feeling chorus telling of the trials and tribulations of a doomed star. It’s quite superb.

Right then, deep breath cos here comes Side 2…and while I’m writing this for you I’m listening to “Stack-o-Tracks” the instrumental backing tracks from these two albums (yes, I’m that obsessive!).

“Bye Bye Bye” breezes past all sweetness and light but gives way to something that is as close to Punk Rock as Jellyfish ever got. The opening chords to “All Is Forgiven” don’t sound like Jellyfish has before, they are loud, atonal, brutal and angry. Still they manage to lead you into a killer of a song with accusations jabbed at someone who sounds like they don’t deserve forgiving

“Hypocrite, four flusher, snake in the grass

Just a swindler and wolf in sheep's clothing

LIAR !”

That final “LIAR!” sounding like it jumped straight out of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Jellyfish didn’t often get nasty but they did here.

“Russian Hill” is a lush ballad set in the area of San Francisco famous for that winding street you see in so many movies, Lombard Street. “He’s My Best Friend” pretty graphically concerns the act of “self satisfaction”. It was originally not going to be on the album but the band decided it would add some light relief (if you’ll pardon the pun) and it certainly does that with some excellent “Carry On” style nudge-nudge…wink-wink lyrics including “At thirteen we shook hands”, “You don't need a brain to have a stroke of genius” and 

“He doesn't need a rubber sweater or alcohol

Cause he gets tipsy from exchanging looks

And a little misty reading sticky (blue dirty books)”

As I wrote about “Bellybutton” this is intricately constructed pop music with a sprinkle of fairy dust that sets it head and shoulders above almost everything of its time. Jellyfish burned bright and then were gone. What they were doing didn’t fit the times, this was the early 90’s when Grunge (aka bands who were too scared to admit they played Heavy metal in plaid shirts) ruled the airwaves and Jellyfish slipped between the cracks. I was “talking” with my friend Marcus, another committed Jellyfish enthusiast, about them while writing this. I again offered that Jellyfish should have been huge, he responded “I like to think that in a parallel universe, they are huge”…take me there…

The Ghost At Number One - https://youtu.be/YgKjC2V4xfk?si=Y84zwWCi0yxNAS1t

Jellyfish should have been MASSIVE and the fact that they weren’t is yet more proof, were anymore needed, that the great masses of the record buying public wouldn’t recognise greatness if it walked up to them, birth certificate in hand, saying “Hello, I’m Greatness, pleased to meet you”, but those that know, know.

They released just 2 albums, “Bellybutton” and 1993’s “Spilt Milk”, less than 90 minutes of music in total. I’ve listened to both albums (and the demo’s and the live recordings and the instrumental versions) so often there is barely a note I don’t know intimately. Both albums are utterly faultless. This is intricately constructed pop music but constructed with a sprinkle of fairy dust that sets it head and shoulders above almost everything of its time and just as much that has come after it. Ya had enough of the superlatives yet ? It’s honestly that good. They also looked fantastic, like psychedelic, cartoon Victorian street urchin extras from the Wizard of Oz!

I’m pretty sure I first heard this album on a record company pre-release cassette that was being handed around the tour bus on a Wonder Stuff US tour. We were all blown away by it. TWS sound engineer Simon Efemey told us later that Jellyfish had all been at a Stuffies show in San Francisco, oh what might have been if those two musical forces had got their heads together.

“Bellybutton” is a beautifully crafted, scintillatingly executed thing of melodic wonder. Equal parts American sunshine pop, Kansas, Crosby Stills and Nash, Player, Queen, ABBA, Supertramp, Psychedelic Rock, The Monkees and The Chocolate Watch Band, all woven together perfectly by producer Albhy Galuten, the man most famous for creating the first drum loop, on the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”. Every song is a highlight, it would be impossible to pick out just one, but I will…

Jellyfish’s debut single was “The King Is Half Undressed”, a glorious thing made of wobbling keyboards, shimmering guitars and thunderous drums with a chorus to kill for. Then at 2 minutes and 22 seconds in, they fall into a dreamy multi-part harmony vocal interlude before they all come crashing back into the chorus. We went to see them at a long gone club in Birmingham, Goldwyns, in 1991, we were so excited. As the gig progressed singing drummer Andy Sturmer introduced “The King Is Half Undressed”. I remember thinking “I bet they don’t do the 4 part harmony bit” and wondering if they did, would they do it like Queen did the operatic bit in “Bohemian Rhapsody”, by playing a pre-recorded section and then the band picking it back up ? Well, they didn’t do a Queen, they did it, live, absolutely pitch perfectly and it bought the house down, quite incredible. Oh and the video for the single has a Whippet puppy in it and anyone who knows me knows why I love that.

This is a very recent addition to my collection, this week in fact, and the first time I played it I realised it was my first time hearing it in a non-Digital format (apart from that record company cassette) and my word, not only are the songs faultless this record SOUNDS magnificent. As I said earlier if you know Jellyfish then you know. If you don’t know them, please do me the favour of trusting me, go treat your ears and listen to either, preferably both, of their albums. I honestly envy you hearing them for the first time.

The King Is Half Undressed - https://youtu.be/AgdgptaBma8?si=VAd5MGhN1Q-TTNiy

“Assemblage” is a compilation album made up of tracks from Japan’s first 3 albums, released by their original record company, Hansa, around a year after “Gentlemen Take Polaroids”, no doubt hoping to cash-in on some of the success Japan were now having. Side 1 covers tracks from their first 2 albums “Adolescent Sex” and “Obscure Alternatives” when Japan were a very different sounding band from the Euro/Japanese art-rock influenced outfit they developed into. Back then they were digging a much more Glam Rock/New York Dolls era vein with rocky guitars and David Sylvian’s uncharacteristically whiny vocals. There’s nothing approaching outstanding here, the best track is “Suburban Berlin”, which sits somewhere between the Glam stylings and the art-rock sound they developed later, and “Adolescent Sex” a weird mix of synths, dance floor bass and a pseudo metal guitar riff..

The main interest for me in this album is over on Side 2 where things get much more interesting. Here we have 2 tracks from Japan’s 3rd album “Quiet Life” (the title track and a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrows Parties”) and 3 songs released only as singles, “European Son”, a cover of Smokey & The Miracles “I Second That Emotion” and the big club hit “Life In Tokyo”. This is where Japan’s sound has changed markedly to a more EuroDisco/Berlin/Asian influenced style aimed squarely at the dance floor. Back in the early 80’s an alternative scene was developing around Post Punk and electronic dance music, “Quiet Life” and “Life In Tokyo” became big floorfillers in what we then called the Futurist clubs (Birmingham’s Rum Runner and Romeo & Juliets et al) but eventually became dubbed New Romantic. We weren’t dancing to no Spandau Ballet though, it was Japan, Bowie, Kraftwek, Bauhaus, Krautrock, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Brum’s own Fashiön that were filling the floor.

Japan’s move to Virgin Records saw them develop their sound further as we already know, but the start of that development can be heard here on Side 2 of “Assemblage”.

Life In Tokyo - https://youtu.be/nsbrw9Y6_ng?si=rcnh-k8cSHAW98ba