New Fast Automatic Daffodils

Ahh Manchester, you gave us so much and demanded far more than it was worth in return. New FADS (I'm so cool I can call them that, that's what the hip kids did) released their first EP "Lions" in 1989; riding the Madchester wave into the NME and our hearts.

Lions, Big and Stockholm are great bits of music. Lions and Stockholm are the rocky-dancey-indie stuff we know and love, Big is a quite fantastic bit of early 90s almost dance music that's up there with Primal Scream's Loaded for invention and genuine novelty in the true sense of the word. They just don't write them like that any more, and more's the pity.

I remember getting this bit of vinyl. I was after a gig in the Students' Union at Manchester University in, I presume, 1993. They played in what used to be called the Great Hall and is now called the Academy 6 or something. You remember, upstairs by the big bar, the one that sold snakebite for somewhere between £1 and £1.15 a pint depending on whether the barman was a maths student or was "doing art" and couldn't add up properly.

I can't remember if I bought it or they were giving it away,but it's got two lovely live recordings on it and has a big hole in the middle - like the one old jukebox vinyl used to have - and it got me rummaging in the cupboard again for the plastic inster thingy that you need to play it on a record player.

CDs just don't have that excitement. Apart from the short-lived flirtation with 3.5" mini-CDs when the techonology was all new and exciting, they just don't have the interest value of trying to find a bit of plastic you know you've got somewhere just so you can listen to another bit of plastic you'd forgotten you owned. Can you imagine your Take That boxset being quite as thrilling in 15 years time?

So; here is Lions (Live) for your delight and delectation. According to the back of the sleeve it was recorded live at the Melkweg, Amsterdam, 29th November 1992 [FAD01; Play it Again Sam (1993) for john Peel-esque obsessives] and the other side is "Bruises".

Amazingly this bit of vinyl commands prices of almost 8 US dollars on the internet. Think of it, if only I dared part with it I could be rich! Please don't tell me what the exchange rate really is. Nice people to do business with.