APPROACHING THE AGE OF FIVE (Part 1)

The plan is to share some of the stuff picked up on vinyl in recent weeks as the blog enters its 60th month of existence.  Some of it will be a wee bit rare but not too obscure.  Hopefully it will reflect what it this venture has been and continues to be about.....

I'm kicking the month, unsurprisingly, with something from Scotland and something from the 80s.....

After the debut cover of Boys Keep Swinging  in late 1979, The Associates (the 'The' part was dropped a few years later) signed to Fiction Records and released The Affectionate Punch as a 45 and then an 10-track LP of the same name in August 1980.  The next bit of music that was released was this in April 1981:-

mp3 : The Associates - Tell Me Easter's On Friday
mp3 : The Associates - Straw Towels

As you cans see from the image, it has the catalogue number of SIT1/12 meaning it was the first ever release on the Situation 2 label which was an offshoot of Beggar's Banquet and which lasted until 1992, seeing 40 LPs and 92 singles along the way.  Not many of them graced the charts......

 The Associates would release a total of 5 singles for the label, all in 1981, and all of them, along with three other tracks would eventually make up Fourth Drawer Down, the band's one LP on Situation 2.   Next stop was the parent label of WEA and the fame but not fortune that came with Sulk and the hit singles of the spring and summer of 1982.

Happy Listening