V01-T12 "All-Time Rock'n'Roll Classics Pt.4"

.....This compilation tape started out with a brief snippet of dialogue followed by a T. Rex cover by the Replacements. Although that cover was made for a stateside 12", my source for it was a double album label sampler from the French label New Rose, who distributed their records in Europe before they signed to a major. Although much of the sampler likewise drew material from the label's catalogue, some was recorded exclusively for it:

Volume 1: THE PITCHFORK APPROACH, track 12

• 01:18 medley{"MANIA" (Martin Cowan)
• 00:00 medley{"ANARCHY IN THE UK" (Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon, Glen Matlock)
• 00:00 medley{"COPACABANA" (Jack Feldman, Barry Manilow, Bruce Sussman)
• performed by Desperate Dave
• original source: VA 2LP LA VIE EN ROSE New Rose ROSE 50 (France) 1985
• and my source: the same

.....New Rose had it's origins with two French record store owners who tried their hand at launching a record label called 'Flamingo' as a sideline in the late 1970's. By 1980 they fell for British punk, and specifically The Damned, in a very big way. They renamed their store "New Rose", after The Damned's first single, and launched a new label by the same name, choosing a business model closer to Rough Trade or Rhino Records, in which the store and label share an identity and symbiosis with a targeted audience. They continued to incorporate references to The Damned throughout the label's terminology and iconography, including their subsidiary label 'Fan Club' and others. In fact, the four sides of this double LP sampler are named for the members of the band: Rat, Brian, Dave and Captain. This leads me to speculate that Desperate Dave may actually be lead singer Dave Vanian. Neither of the label owners are named Dave, nor are any other label employees credited on the album or persons thanked on their website. Each side ends with one of these medleys from Desperate Dave, but none of them include songwriting or production credits. And of the nearly 1000 releases, albums and singles, on all of their various subsidiary labels, not one other recording is credited to Desperate Dave. It's obviously a joke of some kind, I genuinely don't know if it's by Vanian or on him. With the unplugged electric guitar and janitor's closet production values, it could possibly be Brian James taking a poke at his bandmate. I just found it hilarious that someone, when they can't remember the lyric to a punk standard, panics and veers off into "COPACABANA".

.....The original versions of these songs, for the record, were (in order) by Irish band The Outcasts, British band Sex Pistols and American Barry Manilow. This volume has one more cover song and it's the next track up, but that one is going to be more reconstructed than deconstructed.