(2020) Kursaal Flyers – Little Does She Know: Complete Recordings





Review:

In the days before punk rock, Kursaal Flyers straddled the line separating pub rock and power pop. The line was so thin it would seem to disappear in the rearview mirror, but when Kursaal Flyers were active in the mid-’70s, they were subtly pulled in two different directions. They’d tour on the same circuit as their friends Dr. Feelgood, but they also signed to Jonathan King’s company in 1975, then worked with pop impresario Mike Batt after singing to CBS for The Golden Mile in 1976. Batt gave “Little Does She Know” a grandiose arrangement designed to conjure memories of Phil Spector, and it was enough for the single to crack the U.K. Top 20; however, instead of being their breakthrough, it was their only hit. The band made it through 1977, playing harder and faster on-stage, an evolution captured on their incandescent ’77 single “Television Generation” — a pop record with its eyes on punk, not the 1960s — but lead singer Paul Shuttleworth decided to go solo by the end of the year. Kursaal Flyers disbanded after his departure — drummer Will Birch went on to form the Records, who cut the power pop classic “Starry Eyes” — but they reunited in the mid-’80s, a resurrection that resulted in 1988’s A Former Tour de Force Is Forced to Tour. All of this music is boxed up on RPM’s 2020 quadruple-disc set Little Does She Know: Complete Recordings, which not only contains the aforementioned albums but the two albums the group made for King (Chocs Away and The Great Artiste), the ripping 1977 concert album Five Live Kursaals, plus a handful of singles, stray tracks, unreleased songs, and radio sessions. Listening to the collected work of the Kursaals accentuates how they were torn between their country-tinged roots and pop inclinations. Often, the band’s studio productions were a shade too bright and polished for the material, but there’s a charm in how the group gamely attempted to hit the charts, plus underneath the gloss there are a number of remarkable songs, usually written by the combination of Will Birch and Graeme Douglas. A lot of these songs are best heard on Five Live Kursaals, which is leaner and meaner than the studio set, but it’s also true that the clutch of 1977 studio recordings that also spawned the Birch/Richie Bull composition “Television Generation” are immediate in a way that the earliest Kursaal records aren’t. Still, the amiable country-rock and pop of the three studio albums is charming and often effective — and, in the case of “Speedway,” quite brilliant — but it’s also easy to see why Douglas calls A Former Tour de Force the group’s “best recordings” in Birch’s liner notes. On this reunion record, the two sides are integrated and the Kursaals are not only focused but having fun, and that means this box is the rare set where the latter-day recordings help shine a light on what the group did so well.











Tracklist:



CD 1:

Chocs Away!

01.Pocket Money

02.Hit Records

03.Kung Fu

04.Tennessee

05.Chocs Away

06.Speedway

07.Brakeman

08.Now I’m Back

09.Yellow Sax

10.Silver Wings

11.Cross Country



The Great Artiste

12.Ugly Guys

13.The Great Artiste

14.Fall Like the Rain

15.Cruisin’ for Love

16.Back to the Book

17.Palais de Danse

18.Pain and Misery

19.Hypochondriac

20.Television

21.Drinking Alone



CD 2:

Golden Mile

01.Little Does She Know

02.One Arm Bandit

03.Drinking Socially

04.Two Left Feet

05.Modern Lovers

06.Street of the Music

07.Radio Romance

08.When the Band’s on the Stand

09.Detroit Tin

10.Third Finger Left Hand

11.Ready to Go

12.Little Does She Know [A-side edit]

13.Girl Talk [B-side]

14.The Questionnaire [unreleased 1977]

15.The Sky’s Falling in on Our Love [A-side]

16.Revolver [B-side]



CD 3:

Five Live Kursaals

01.Original Model

02.Yellow Sox

03.Pocket Money

04.Cruisin’ for Love

05.The Sky’s Falling in on Our Love

06.Little Does She Know

07.Street of the Music

08.TV Dinners

09.Speedway

10.Revolver

11.On My Mind

12.Anna (Go to Him)

13.Friday on My Mind

14.Television Generation [A-side]

15.Girlfriend Kinda Guy [unreleased 1977]

16.Everything But a Heartbeat [unreleased 1977]

17.Girls That Don’t Exist [unreleased 1977]



CD 4:

A Former Tour de Force Is Forced to Tour

01.IF You Would Only Talk to Me (Like You Talk to the Dog)

02.Pre-Madonna

03.Tonight Before Tonight

04.Man in Mohair

05.A Former Tour de Force Is Forced to Tour

06.Luxury Lane

07.My Sugar Turns to Alcohol

08.Paranoid Weekend

09.Old Men Need Some Lovin’ Too

10.Monster-in-Law

11.Cruisin’ for Love [A-side remake]

12.Slimmin’ [B-side]

13.Walkin’ to School [unreleased 1976]

14.Route 66 [from Southend Rock Compilation]

15.Tennessee [radio session 1975]

16.Foggy Mountain Breakdown [radio session 1975]

17.Yellow Sox [radio session 1975]

18.Route 66 [radio session 1975]





Media Report:

Genre: power-pop, rock

Format: FLAC

Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM

Bit rate mode: Variable

Channel(s): 2 channels

Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz

Bit depth: 16 bits


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