Pop Will Eat Itself

We love Pop Will Eat Itself here, and we have mentioned one ex member selling off merchandise before. Here is the latest one on eBay – and these notes are great for an explanation of the album titles

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Adam Mole’s ‘The Mrs. Won’t Pay For A Caravan Fund’

Hello and ‘welcome to my world’. Every two weeks I plan to auction (via eBay) ‘Pop Will Eat Itself’ related ‘lots’ in a quirky, experimental, mildly amusing, most unlikely scheme to raise enough cash to purchase a nice cosy vintage caravan… for myself!

This conceptual extravaganza is also described in glamourous literary fashion at James Brown’s ‘Sabotage Times’ website.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/music/adam-mole-needs-a-caravan-so-hes-selling-his-pwei-memorabilia/

Here for auction is lot ‘PWEI019’.

A veritable smorgasbord of ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ cool. Some items celebrate the follow up remix album; ‘Two Fingers My Friends’.

Every item is pretty rare and in excellent condition, collectively a highly desirable dose of ‘Molerabilia’.

  1. 1.       12” ‘RSVP’ American promo only release on the ‘Nothing’ label. Features the single/breakfast mix/dinner mix and supper mix.
  2. 2.       Record store plastic promo carrier bag… ’is this the future… pwei… dos dedos mis amigos’.
  3. 3.       My ‘PWEI’ itinerary for UK and Ireland-8th March to 20th March 1995 detailing band, crew, travel, venue, hotel, promoter and press schedules. ‘Two Fingers My Friends’ tour.
  4. 4.       American press photograph from the ‘Nothing’ label.
  5. 5.       American ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ promo only Cd on the ‘Nothing’ label.
  6. 6.       ‘PWEI’ access all areas pass for ‘amalgamation’ world tour 1994.
  7. 7.       Metal ‘PWEI’ pendent… ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ album design.
  8. 8.       ‘PWEI’ access all areas pass for ‘Two Fingers My Friends’ tour 1995.
  9. 9.       ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ on cassette with the infamous ‘cigarette’ case. Uk ‘Infectious’ release.
  10. 10.   American promo postcard from the ‘Nothing’ label.

Just a reminder of the legends playing live circa ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’.

In 2012 ‘Cherry Red’ records released re-packaged extended versions of the first five ‘PWEI‘ studio albums.

They will release the 1994 album ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ in the next few months. The package will also contain tracks written, demoed and recorded for our abandoned 1996 scheduled album release. Rudely interrupted by our decision to split up! These twelve tracks will finally be heard for the first time!

The eagerly anticipated ‘PWEI product’ will boast extensive sleeve notes detailing my personal memories from this historical moment in time. Ultimately I don’t want to reveal too much now, but I promise anecdotes so here they are.

“How did you come up with your album titles”?  

“Funny you should ask, I’ll tell you”!

‘Now For A Feast’

A new publication accompanied us on early tours of Europe. ‘Viz’ magazine was staple diet, much of its content became ‘tour language’, ‘Now for a feast’ was one of these over used ‘tour sayings’. This album was actually a compilation of all our early singles and b-sides and the title reflected the generous number of songs squeezed onto one record, many under two minutes long!

I remember Rich had a talent for drawing the ‘Viz’ character ‘Roger Mellie (The Man On The Telly)’, consequently many dressing room walls were decorated with our favourite TV anchorman.

Pictures were regularly unscrewed from hotel walls; there was never an intention to squirrel away stolen works of art, merely cheeky schoolboy endeavour to introduce our own brand of ‘PWEI’ interior design to shabby European hotel rooms! After all we were all still in shorts and barely out of school ourselves. Ok, I was about 26 but I justify such vandalism by imagining their surprise when many years later bored Swedish ‘handy men’ remove hotel pictures to be faced with a smiling Roger Mellie. I would like to think it makes for a pleasant change… beats the comedy nob anyway!!!

‘Box Frenzy’

The term ‘box frenzy’ was coined by our friend, touring sidekick and future guitarist… ‘The Buzzard’.

I can’t remember every tawdry detail but I think he was looking forward to, or reflecting upon a night of passionate sexual debauchery, such a cosy evening he would call ‘going box frenzy’!

We were far more innocent than our sexually experienced friend but we liked the ‘naughtiness’ of it. Our new found love of beat boxes and frenzied sample robbery evident on this album made his rather ‘coarse’ yearning for female company seem appropriate. It stuck!

I do remember one other suggestion… ‘Next Time Fireworks’.

Seemingly more relevant and again a little bit naughty, it highlights a re-assuring but desperate promise made to girlfriends that if lucky enough to be afforded another chance, premature ejaculation would definitely not be a problem… surely? 

Across the world in 2013 many girlfriends, wives and partners have finally given up hope! Sorry!!!

‘This Is The Day, This Is The Hour, This Is This’

‘This is the day, this is the hour’ was a voice sample that had a BBC war time radio announcer feel to it. We ‘ripped it’ for our first ‘live’ intro tape. The tape featured various air-raid sirens, cross faded sweeps and general Armageddon chaos. A storm ahead!

We also used the sample in the song ‘The Fuses Have Been Lit’ and were looking to find another short sound bite to follow the existing sample and make a statement, one that would also sound good as an album title. I suggested the ‘this is this’ sample after hearing the words spoken by an ‘Oscar’ winning actor featureing in a popular ‘Academy Award’ winning blockbuster. It fitted every purpose. Sorted!

‘Cure For Sanity’

I think Graham had this title well before we actually finished the recording. To me it calls into question the whole basis of sanity whereby average hard-working families struggle for fifty years to bring up a family, working themselves to death to pay off the mortgage and finally get to retire… into bad health, then, lose the home they have struggled to maintain in order to pay off three years of residential care and for what? To be deemed normal, to be deemed part of the establishment, to be deemed a guardian of this treasured sanity we all strive to achieve. Personally for me this album title called into question this ingrained lifestyle, bred into us from birth! Just believe and ’PWEI’ could be your anecdote or at least a temporary anaesthetic!

The only other suggestion was ‘Rapocalypse Now!’ However we all felt that although we had elements of rap in our music, this was too blunt a title, one which we should leave to a future rap artist or band to discover. ‘Word’!

‘The Looks Or The Lifestyle’

Again I think Graham came up with this title, I always imagined he was questioning what preference you have in life; spending time on your looks or just ‘going for it’ with your lifestyle! We were the latter! I could be wrong!

We agreed to have photos of the band on the front cover, something we had vigourously avoided in the past. We insisted they had a distorted image. Such a request involved heavy expense at the time, having to utilize studio photography and state of the art computer generated technology. Now, most kids could provide equal worth on a street corner with a free app on a £20 phone.

‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’

I think we were sat in a bar in Oldham town centre prior to a sound check and noticed this really cool looking bottle of tequila behind the bar. The bottle was black with gold writing. It was called ‘Dos Dedos’, translated meaning ‘Two Fingers’.

Straight away we liked the idea for an album title but didn’t want to appear too arrogant especially to our loyal, hardcore fan base. We added the ‘Mis Amigos’ (My Friends) to be less ‘f**k you’, more ‘cheers, have a nice day’!

 And that’s about it. We simply used the English translation for the re-mix album… clever eh?

The ‘lost’ album to be included on the forthcoming ‘Cherry Red’ release had no working title back in 1996. It has now!

…a lick of the old cassette box…

Ok, I know what you’re thinking but you are wrong, you really are this time… give us a break!!!

See our previous posts on the mighty PWEI More PWEI PWEI Live

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