Looking back on it, maybe the Peel session was the best thing BDS ever did. It’s all subjective I suppose, but Cynical Smile and Life’s Demand sound great and it’s hands-down the best version of Never So Funny that we recorded. Also, Nick’s vocals sound wonderful. I never thought of him a singer per se, but there’s no question that he steps up on these songs and does a really great job.

What kind of freaks me out about the whole BDS thing is how little I remember about any of it. It’s just a blur. Shame really, but then it was long time ago. This lot were recorded on 24th Feb 1987. Hope you like ‘em:

• John Peel intro - 628kb
• Need To Love - 4.4MB
• Life’s Demand - 5.2MB
• Always Away - 4.5MB
• Cynical Smile - 5.6MB
• Never So Funny - 3.3MB

One thing I do remember clearly about this session was that I didn’t have a proper guitar amp at that point so I took along my 12W Marshal practice amp and essentially used it as a distortion pedal by plugging the guitar into it and then taking a line out of the back and sticking it into a 100W H&H bass combo that we’d scrounged from somewhere. The result was pretty good. Definitely more fizzy than any guitar sound I’ve had since, but the Beeb techies certainly did a good job in making it sound dense and powerful. Also, because the 12W is a tranny amp it has a bit of a Husker Du sound to it and it holds the individual notes really well.

BTW, while I have the floor, I’d like to thank John Hannon for giving me the “Grandfather of UK Emo” tag. Wasn’t sure how I felt about it the first time he said it, but listening back to these tracks the Embrace/One Last Wish influence is pretty obvious and I don’t think anyone else was doing that in 1986-87, so maybe he’s right. Interestingly enough I think Squirrelbait was at least as much (if not more) of an biggest influence on BDS than the DC lot, but you only have to compare Always Away with anything from Squirrelbait’s sublime Skag Heaven album to see just how far I was from the mark. It didn’t help that I could hardly play guitar, but even so, it is pretty basic. talking of which, that song and Need To Love are the two here that I can’t really listen to 20 years later. A bit basic, a bit embarassing. I was growing up in public as a songwriter that’s for sure. One minute you’re sitting in your room, writing a bunch of stupid songs about your ex-gurlfriend…next thing you know it, they’re being broadcast to a national radio audience by the best DJ in the world ever. And the funny thing is that I only just realised how weird that was. 20 years on and it finally strikes me as a bit strange.

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

Bad Dress Sense released a 4 song 7″ on Vinyl Solution in 1987 called Cynical Smile. It was a budget job intended to give away to zines and to sell at gigs (for a princely £1 a pop!). As a result it came in a white bag with no information on it and a blank, but bright orange label. The record itself was pressed in green see-through vinyl.

Because I fancied one myself and because people kept asking me, I knocked up a sleeve for family and friends in various different colour combos at the punk rock copy shop that Rob Tennant and I used back then to make our flyers.

That was all a very long time ago.

Last month Sean Forbes asked if he could get a copy of the sleeve for his absurdly definitive punk rock vinyl collection. I didn’t have any spare sleeves, but did offer to scan mine for him so he could print his own. There’s probably one in 3 million chance that this info is of any use to anyone else, but because I went to the effort of scanning it for him, I thought I might as well post the images here. So, if anyone needs that BDS single sleeve cover follow these links:

• Front cover 100% resolution scan (2.5MB)
• Smaller image of the front cover, sleeved (394kb)
• Back cover 100% resolution scan (2.9MB)
• Smaller image of the back cover, sleeved, sowing folds (310kb)