Besides: China Drum - Even I Can Give It Meaning

Posted: Thursday, July 7, 2011 by Fashion Munx in Labels: ,
3

You know your music is good when Leatherface decides to cover you, and Northumberland's China Drum have that distinction. For those of you that know China Drum you are already stoked hopefully. If you haven't had the pleasure of listening to them, China Drum released their debut LP, Goosefair in 1996. It remains one of my all-time favourite British punk albums with a sound that to me fit snuggly somewhere between Leatherface and Idlewild. The sad part is they seemed to kind of blow their load with that album as their follow up while still anchored by solid songwriting seemed to shift into what can only be described as "alternative". Slower tempos and longer running times doesn't always mean worse but in this case it did. Eventually they changed their name to The Drum and by their third LP they were hardly recognizable as the band who had released Goosefair.


Lucky for us, China Drum released a grip of singles in support of their first two full-lengths with tons of non-LP goodies packed in. Even I Can Give It Meaning is a collection of those singles minus the A-sides. This is actually one of the larger collections I've compiled coming in at a honking 30 songs and over an hour and a half of great music. There is alternate versions of a lot of the band's best songs and a lot of choice cuts that were just as good if not better than their best album tracks. Enjoy!




1. Great Fire
2. Biscuit Barrel [Acoustic Version]
3. Meaning
4. Down By The River [Live Version]
5. Simple [Alternate Version]
6. On My Way
7. Barrier
8. Brain
9. One Way Down
10. Sleazeball [Live Version]
11. Barrier [Live Version]
12. Drown It
13. Walk
14. Cut Them Out
15. Careful With That Chieftain Adam
16. Wipeout
17. Baseball In The Dark
18. Sleazeball [The Empirion Remix]
19. Fall At Your Feet
20. Jack
21. Down By The River [Acoustic Version]
22. Loser
23. Wrong Again
24. Bothered [Acoustic Version]
25. Sleazeball
26. Don't Throw It (It's A Rock)
27. Somewhere Else [Acoustic Version]
28. Guilty Deafness [Live Version]
29. Wipeout [Live Version]
30. Baseball In The Dark [Live Version]
  • 1 - 4 originally appeared on the Great Fire 10". Fluffy Bunny Records 1994.
  • 5 & 6 originally appeared on the Simple CD single. self-released 1993.
  • 7 - 10 originally appeared on the Barrier 10". Fluffy Bunny Records 1995.
  • 11 originally appeared on the Fall Into Place CD single. Mantra Recordings 1995.
  • 12 originally appeared on the Can't Stop These Things CD single. Mantra Recordings 1996.
  • 13 - 15 originally appeared on the Last Chance CD single. Mantra Recordings 1996.
  • 16 - 18 originally appeared on the Wipeout CD single. Mantra Recordings 1996.
  • 19 - 21 originally appeared on the Fiction of Life CD single. Mantra Recordings 1997.
  • 22 - 24 originally appeared on the Somewhere Else (Version #1) CD single. Mantra Recordings 1997.
  • 25 - 27 originally appeared on the Somewhere Else (Version #2) CD single. Mantra Recordings 1997.
  • 28 - 30 originally appeared on the Stop It All Adding Up CD single. Mantra Recordings 1998.



3 comments:

  1. chad says:
    July 8, 2011 at 1:12 PM

    this is awesome! you basically did what i was in the process of doing... saved me a bunch of work too! thanks!

    also, i didn't think many people knew about this band, they're definitely one of those hidden gem type of bands, at least for their early stuff... anyone who is a fan of Leatherface & early Snuff will be into this. thanks again.

  1. biopunk says:
    July 11, 2011 at 11:57 PM

    Wow! Thanks Fashion Munx, I'd only heard 'Goosefair', so this comp is awesome!

    Cheers!

  1. Unknown says:
    June 24, 2015 at 2:04 PM

    Hey! Any chance of making the links non-private please mate? Would fkn love to hear these tracks again.