A press release with the heading "The Return of The Buggles" can only be opened with a sense of trembling anticipation. And, being a press release, can only lead to a slight "oh" of disappointment.
They're not returning. But Trevor Horn's post-Geoff Davis Buggles album, Adventures In Modern Recording, is getting a spiffed-up re-release. With extra demo stuff. Including Videotheque being demoed by Buggles, who were going to do it orignally. Before Horn gave it to Dollar. It would make a bit more sense as a Buggles track, when you think about it.
This is all out on the 19th April, on the Salvo label. Salvo are working their way through the archives of ZTT:
This album is part five in the Element Series, a brand new stream of reissues of classic albums from the Zang Tuum Tumb label. Look out also for Element 06: Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition) by Frankie Goes To Hollywood (out 26.04.10) and Elements 01 to 04: deluxe, double-CD reissues of 808 State's ten year legacy of dance innovation (out 22.03.10).
Can this mean a reissue of Das Psych-Oh Rangers stuff is in the future?
There's a tussle at the top as YouTube, Amazon and iTunes struggle for supremacy in our Easter weekend battle to determine who's best at finding the random list of tracks we scribbled down in the late hours of Maundy Thursday. But now comes a big ask: who can give us a song by an act who are - despite having been on ZTT alongside Propaganda and Frankie - so obscure, they don't merit a Wikipedia page.
The Das Psycho Rangers (or, sometimes, Das Psych-oh Rangers) exist mainly in my mind as a haunting, 4ADesque Janice Long session. The standout track from that session was Homage. Do any of you digital stores hold the studio version?
Spotify: Now, however much pity you might feel for Spotify, you're not going to expect us to give them marks for bringing up Power Rangers soundtrack songs in response to this search, are you? Zero, again.
Last FM: The CBS team aren't bemused by the two names - in fact, they've never heard of the Psych-Oh spelling. But there aren't even any suggestions for tracks from the band, so zero.
iTunes: Please, pleads iTunes, Powersearch. I'm sure my power search will turn up something.
But, no. Not a thing. Zero.
we7: Again, nothing. Last FM is starting to look a lot cooler, because at least it's heard of them, even if it has to make that noise you do when asked for an opinion on a band whose existence you have registered without having ever heard their music.
YouTube: The comments on the band's one appearance on YouTube, with Love Terminator, suggests they were trying to rip off Zodiac Mindwarp - and from here, you can see where that charge might have come from:
But why would you try to steal ideas from Zodiac Mindwarp, which was essentially Motorheadinjury?
A two point bonus to YouTube for having something, although it does piss a bit over the memory of the Janice Long session iteration of the band. Which, to be fair, is something Zodiac Mindwarp might have done.
Amazon: When Amazon flops, it flops badly. "Hey - how about picking up this Kelly Clarkson song instead?" Zero.
Imeem: An almost empty results page tries to interest me in a Psycho ringtone. I walk away, backwards, slowly, smiling... no fast movements, no fast movements... - zero
eMusic: Roy Rogers? Are you joking? Zero.
There's a salutary lesson here, if you wish to hear it: ZTT were indie, but not, by any means, an insignificant force in the 1980s music scene. That no legal service offers anything approaching their complete catalogue shows how far we are from having everything online. We're not even near everything you'd expect yet.
With that thought, let's take a look at the latest standings:
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