Paul May, who wrote Final Curtain fanzine years ago, got in touch via MySpace recently and sent me rather a nice photo of myself playing at an early BDS gig (back when I still had hair). A nice gesture to be sure and one that deserves a deed in return. So, Mr May, here are the tracks from the BDS 7″ that you wanted to hear. Nothing special, but probably a nice trip down memory lane.

The first 2 tracks were recorded at the same time as the mini album Goodbye…It Was Fun (in fact Cynical Smile is taken directly from that release), 11:59 is a cover of the Blondie classic and the other two are re-workings from our very first demo, Gothic Monstrosities.

The single had blank labels, no cover and never received a proper release. It was part promo and part merch. BDS split up very soon after it was released however (actually, very possibly before it was released!) so not many copies were shifted as merch and I ended up with quite a few boxes lying around in my room. At this time I was also playing in the Stupids and we’d sold out of our own equivalent 7″, Leave Your Mark, so nothing to sell at gigs. Ever the opportunist, Tommy Stupid, decided that because there was no band name printed anywhere on the BDS record, we could get away with selling it at Stupids shows because no-one could play it till they got home and even then most people wouldn’t know the difference. He was right and it was only £1, but still….

For the 2 tracks not taken from the mini album sessions, Nick and I got hold of the original multi-tracks from the first BDS demo and re-recorded the guitars and vocals. I’d changed the title and lyrics of, Never So Funny, and it was now called, It’s All In The Mind. I also wanted to re-do the guitars on Dark Night because Marty from the Stupuids had played them on the original demo. The short solo is still him, but the rest are me. The drums and bass are the same as on the Gothic Monstrosities cassette release.

This just popped into my head; the guitar intro on Never So Funny/It’s All In The Mind was stolen from the bassline of No More Pain by Embrace.

• Cynical Smile (5.8MB)
• 11:59 (3.5MB)
• It’s All In The Mind (2.9MB)
• Dark Night (4.5MB)

Vocals: Nick Norris - Guitar & B Vox: Ed - Bass: Paul Condon - Drums: Jason