sound of the suburbs

It's a funny thing blogging, you spend large parts of your time either researching, writing or thinking about your posts and most them go without comment, while other touch a nerve and generate some feedback. Then there are posts that you had almost forgotten about, such as my thoughts on Back To The Planet that I threw at you back in July last year, which for some strange reason has motivated two responses this week almost a year after my original musings! First up anonymous, him again, informs us that the bands second non cassette album 'Back To The Beep' is the worst album he has heard in his whole life, pretty strong stuff that seeing as the competition for such a tittle is very strong, personally I'm in no position to judge as I don't know the album. What was more interesting was a mail that I received from Michael Reid who informed me that Back To The Planet have joined that never ending list of reformed bands, having got back together for a low key pub gig in Camberwell last December. They had always been very much a festival band, they were closely linked with the rave / free festival movement of the early 90's that led to the infamous Criminal Justice an Public Order Act, so it should come as no surprise to see that they are playing a number of festivals this year including the flagship of all festivals Glastonbury, this forthcoming week end and sold out, the playfully tittled Endorse It In Dorset festival, 10, 11 and 12 August along with the Undertones and Dreadzone, tickets available. The following week end they will be heading back down the M4 to Devon where they play Beautiful Days. This seems to have rather a crusty feel to it with The Levelers, New Model Army, Banco De Gaia and Radical Dance Fraction sharing the bill along with other artists including Boney M. Don't rush out and buy tickets as this is obviously a popular festival as they were sold out back in April!!!
When I recently converted some old vinyl to MP3 there were in this batch the 12" singles from Back To The Planet so for your further listening pleasure here are the remixed versions of three of them. 'Revolution Of Thought In Dub' comes from their 1992 debut single on Arthur Mix Records. By the following year they had been picked up by the major Parallel Records for whom their first single contained this extended mix of the naive 'Please Don't Fight'. The same year saw their final shot at major backed chart success with the pop inflicted 'Daydream' remixed here by non other than On U Sound studio wizard Adrian Sherwood, this had it have been recorded by Happy Mondays would have been a hit. These three songs will probably sound a bit dated and dare I say twee to younger readers, but just think this is what your parents or older brother and sister were grooving to 15 years ago.