KELLY'S HEELS

With a marketing nous that makes the Heels' strategy of sneaking-it-out-while-nobody's-watching look like the satire on music-biz success stories it probably is, Rinaldi Sings unveil their new album - The Party's Over - this Summer just in time for the country's opening up cavortings! So why is it mentioned here?, you ask. Well, apart from being our friends, the album also features Jim Kimberley on drums and Bob Kelly on guitar and probably more backing vocals than anyone really wanted. The accompanying booklet also features pictures of alcoholic drinks. What are you waiting for??

Who'd have thought the middle of a global pandemic wouldn't be a good time to launch a new album? Uh, well, everyone except us, it appears. When the Music Business pulled up the drawbridge and posted armed guards around all of their suspended product, muggins 'ere thought it would be the ideal time to unleash SOUND PROOF on a stimuli-deprived world. Good in theory, but it hit more than a bump in the road when we discovered that, although you can get records pressed during a pandemic, you can't deliver them in to distributors! How we laughed as we designed a narrow walkway through our box-filled house and accepted this as the new living space for the foreseeable future.
The album's available as a download, of course (all the usual suspects), but while that's a convenient space-saver for anyone interested in hearing the album, it doesn't make any kind of dent in our inventory. Who knew a 'Limited Pressing' could take up quite so much room?? Well, us, obviously. With the benefit of hindsight. Sigh. Thank goodness we went with the Miniature LP/CD look for the sleeve - a traditional crystal case would've seen boxes spilling out into the street and the necessary installation of an honour box for payment.
Hmm. There's a thought...

OK. Good talk. More soon...

Here's an interesting mash-up to get your teeth into:-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eDwZBhXvW4I

The video is about as primitive as it's possible to be without just being a photograph, but it's a thing, I guess.

Before Kelly's Heels, there were The Ashes. In fact Kelly's Heels was originally a name I came up with for a multi-tracked choir of backing vocals (all me!) on an Ashes album, which I wasn't allowed to use for some reason. At least it gave me a port in a storm when The Ashes collapsed during preparations to record our 4th album, which duly became the first Heels album. Selective Amnesia is the first of a possible trilogy of Ashes releases - I think volume 2 is supposed to be Picking Off Survivors and volume 3 is Tested To Destruction, but I'll have to check.
Anyway, 15 tracks from the 3 Ashes albums, which met a variety of different fates. Some may argue with the selection (we certainly did!), but for the moment it's what there is. A matching design to the Popboomerang Heels 'Best Of', this one is another Warnfuzz release.

Originally planned as a mini-album to mop up some (subsequently finished) leftovers from Playing Into Your Hands, this eventually became the similar-sounding follow-up title to our 2015/6 album when I couldn't think of a better title for it. The leftovers mini-LP remains a figment of my imagination, though it does leave me with a small cache of unreleased material in case I need an odd track for something (No, I can't think of a situation at the moment, either). Housed in a relatively swanky gatefold digipack it does make itself easier to find amongst piles of CDs, though it's not as charity-shop-proof as the single-sleeved Playing Into Your Hands and Sound Proof (try locating those ones with a sweeping glance in your local Cats Protection League CD bin!). This was the first album entirely recorded and mixed by Julian Simmons, after Ian Shaw decamped to the Florida Keys to continue his sun-soaked recording adventure. (Defiantly English, the Heels choose to record when it's raining whenever possible. Or snowing.)(We can record when the Sun's out, of course, but we have to know that a feeble English Sun is wreaking havoc on the country's infrastructure simply by not being grey to be comfortable with it.) None of which tells you very much about these songs. Well, obviously I recommend snapping up the physical album while it's available, but you can always sample some of the songs on iTunes or Spotify, but if you buy the album as a download you don't get the booklet, which does deal with the songs in a slightly less opaque way. Aren't I annoying?