Colin was a lovely fella, I’d guess 10 or so years older than me. He used to come into the shop a couple of times a week and just chat about music, and if I had anything weird and strange that he didn’t know he’d generally buy it. He had an encyclopaedic musical knowledge and had seen almost anyone you could name live. He was constantly out and about at gigs seeing new bands.

I started hearing from other people that his record collection was stored in a freight container it was so vast. They’d also tell me how he would regularly finance new bands that he liked, sending them into the studio and pressing up their records. He started telling me about a band he’d seen in a small pub in Wales somewhere who he thought were fantastic and they were gonna be huge. He financed their recordings and the pressing of an album and one day he dropped by the shop with a copy of this album and said to have a listen and let him know what I thought next time I saw him.

It’s a beautiful thing with a kind of Impressionist design on the cover, pressed on Blue vinyl. Did I like it ? Not really, it reminds me of some bizarre union twixt The Fall, Captain Beefheart and Kings Of Leon, not really my thing at all. The sad part (or maybe not given the previous sentence) is that I never got to tell Colin that as before I got to see him again I got the news that he’d passed away. I very likely won’t play this often if at all but I’ll certainly never part with it cos it’s a reminder of Colin, a genuinely cool and generous man.

Gasoline - https://youtu.be/pRD8XYxceuQ?si=mb6b6sSUerTT2NHF

Probably my favourite Icicle Works album. I remember hearing the single “Understanding Jane” on the radio and being knocked out by it. On hearing “Evangeline” a few months later I was sold.

Ian Broudie (you remember him, right ?) was bought in to produce. This lead to the overall sound of the record not being as clean as their first 2 albums, if I’m to be kind the whole record is kinda muddy. BUT…and as you can see it’s a big but…the songs more than make up for the mud. There’s a clutch of great pop songs, the almost folky “Travelling Chest”, and “Who Do You Want For Your Love”. We have the two already mentioned singles both coming on like some punky garage band sometime between ‘67 and ‘77. McNabb uses that rich voice to great effect on a bunch of songs I can always hear Scott Walker singing, “Hope Springs Eternal”, “When You Were Mine” and “Walking With A Mountain” (the latter is not a cover of the Mott The Hoople song BTW).

And then sitting innocuously toward the end of side 1 there is the epic “Up Here In The North Of England”. You know McNabb is serious as the slightly unnerving guitar riff begins and is soon joined by a deep booming noise (strings or synths, I don’t know what it is) that sounds like the ships horns of old out on a foggy Mersey river. McNabb then delivers a lyric addressing drugs, Lennon, Cold War paranoia, football hooliganism, fast food, TV comedians stereotypical Scouser jokes, all wrapped up by the lyric

“The southerners don't like us, Who can blame 'em seems we're always in the spotlight”

“Understanding Jane” and “Evangeline” were minor hits (#52 and #53 respectively) but the Icicle Works never achieved the success their records deserved. They made 2 more albums (“Blind”, featuring the fantastic “Starry Blue Eyed Wonder”, and “Permanent Damage”) and split in 1991. Ian McNabb is still recording and touring and occasionally making great music but the Icicle Works should have got more than they did from this business some call music.

Up Here In The North Of England - https://youtu.be/ArFjrliRmSw?si=5740zsMCorS80KR_

The title, taken from the lyrics of the song “All The Daughters (Of Her Fathers House)” (“Brother the small price of a bicycle isn't mine”), is an unsubtle jab at former Tory (spit) Employment Minister Norman Tebbit’s suggestion that inner city protestors shouldn’t riot to protest unemployment but do what his dad did to find work, get on a bike and find a job (the fact that there weren’t any jobs due to his government’s policies appears to have escaped him !). It sets out, before you’ve played a note, exactly where the Icicle Works stand politically, just in case you didn’t already know.

This was the Icicle Works second album, released in 1985. Their first had given them a minor hit in the US with “Birds Fly…” so it’s something of a mystery as to why this album never received a US release. The band were operating in the same area as U2, and Simple Minds who were doing well Stateside at the time and this lack of a release likely terminally harmed their chances of cracking the USofA.

We start on a high with the single “Hollow Horse” bringing along more of those chiming guitars and thundering drums we encountered on “Seven Singles Deep” and every bit the follow up to “Birds Fly…” that would have seen the OK in the US. “Perambulator” is an altogether more aggressive thing that still hangs off a monster hook and a riff reminiscent of Department S’s “Is Vic There ?” with a hint of The Byrds “Eight Miles High”. Track 3 is another single, “Seven Horses” which makes you wonder what the record buying public were pre-occupied with that stopped this from being a massive hit.

And on it goes riff after chorus after thundering drum break after faux Motown bass line after beautiful ballad. Sounds gave it a 5 star review on release and still the Icicle Works are something of a footnote in the history of the 80’s rather than being widely held in the high esteem they deserve. It shall always make me wonder why.

All The Daughters Of Her Fathers House - https://youtu.be/HC4jL3kyLxk?si=mrGPr20GnSXbAotZ