Townsend Records

Ian McNabb

Lost Icicles Volume 2

Download £7.99

November 17, 2008

The way these tapes came back to me is bizarre. Mike Badger (founder of the La's) was having a cigarette outside a studio in Preston recently when he saw someone throwing a bunch of reel to reel tapes into a skip. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned over to have a look. They turned out to be a bunch of Icicle Works tapes that we'd all forgotten about. He grabbed them and passed them on to my guitar doctor Belgian John. I then went to retrieve them and was frankly amazed at what I saw. A full concert from Boston 1984 and about thirty other unreleased tracks. I was stunned to see the original masters of 'Are We Dreamers' and 'Irish Soldiers', recorded at Rock City in Shepperton studios, intended to be our debut single but shelved when we fell out with Scratch records who paid for them. A bunch of songs I'd forgotten about: 'Clockmaker', 'All Is Right' amongst them, and loads of embryonic demos that would eventually become songs on our first and second albums. The demo of 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour' with completely different lyrics. I was gobsmacked. I've included 18 tracks on 'Lost Icicles Vol 1' and it makes for a very interesting listen for any Icicles fan (of which I include myself).
'Lost Icicles Vol 2' is an incendiary document of the first Icicle Works line-up blowing the yanks away on our second U.S. outing in 1984. I can't believe there's only three of us playing that music. We worked fuckin' hard. The only live version of 'Scarecrow' to my knowledge. These tapes are a piece of history and I've decided to release them as download only. The digital download is top quality (I tried it myself). For a silly price you get a lot of great music. Don't wait for a physical release - there won't be one.

Crank it up!

Ian McNabb
Liverpool
October 2008.