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Contributors
to the legendary 1978 Aylesbury Goes Flaccid vinyl compilation now
re-issued as a CD
the
Anal Surgeons reveal their embarrassment
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the anal surgeons
and aylesbury goes flaccid
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One
of the many curious facets of the Anal Surgeons is
that their brief career embraced both the play-for-free ethos of Here
& Now and Fuck Off Records, and the mad-for-money
proto-Thatcherism of Christopher Mead France, the local promoter who
encouraged them to form and who, at the Anal Surgeons first gig, had to
return 30p to every angry customer. It was France, too, who devised a
financially foolproof method by which he could release a compilation
album, Aylesbury Goes Flaccid, featuring the bands who had appeared at
his various pub venues without risking a penny of his own.
France insisted
that would-be contributors each guarantee to sell thirty copies which,
put another way, meant each band buying thirty copies of their own
record for £3 each. Thereby France recouped his costs before the record
even hit the shops. On subsequent sales, the bands, who did at least
acquire three hours of recording time, were due a royalty but because
of, according to France, a dreadful warehouse fire that destroyed all
remaining copies, no royalties were ever paid.
As far as the
Anal Surgeons were concerned, even this financial ignominy would be
bearable if the contributors, who had after all funded the compilation,
were actually featured in some modest way on the cover. Instead, the
name of each band appeared only on the tiny track listing label pasted
onto the back cover while the rest of the sleeve bore not one, not two,
but three photos of Chris France himself.
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Strangely
enough, this theme continued with the 2007 re-issue of Aylesbury Goes
Flaccid on CD; its attendant publicity release noting that the original
was the work of ‘young entrepreneur Chris France’, twice mentioning a
band – Marillion – who do not appear on the record and did not even
form until the year following its release, and making the mildly
amusing but quite false claim that one Anal Surgeon later became a
doctor.
At least the
refreshingly truthful CD sleeve notes restore some sense of order, and
quote Mick Sinclair’s memory of the three-hour recording session that
produced Wide Boy:
‘Wide Boy had
only recently been written, rehearsed just a few times and was
committed to posterity with nothing more elaborate than a nervy second
take topped with beat-the-clock vocal and sax overdubs. Most of our
allocated three hours was spent trying to squeeze into studio and
barely no sooner than we finished tuning up it was time to go home.
Later, considerably more time was spent explaining that we were from
Hemel Hempstead, not Aylesbury, and apologising for our dirge-like
contribution and a sleeve that, aside from being hideous, was too small
for the record.’
There are those
who think 'Wide Boy', with its subject matter of duplicitous dealings
and general spivery, was inspired by Chris France himself. While others
might think that, the band couldn't possibly comment.
Anal Surgeons
pictured in rehearsal mode:
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CONTACT
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