BandSoc

Band Society Volume 01

2002

The first ever Bandsoc CD, thought up and organised during the last Wednesday signup of the 2001/2002 academic year, just after Phoenix Down had won that year’s Battle of the Bands.

It was then given out when university re-started after the Summer holidays. Nottingham’s famous and now-sadly-deceased Xylophone Man can be heard providing guest vocals at the end of the Swound! track.

Band Society Volume 02

2003

And The Adventures Of… managed to arrive an hour and a half late for their recording slot for this CD, and still managed to come out with a decent recording, and Life By A Picture decided to record an acoustic song when half of the band couldn’t make it.

Meanwhile, Johnny Castaway, a “supergroup” consisting of members of Headrush, None Of The Above and Swound!, arrived at the studio with only the bare bones of their tune written.

After polishing off a crate of beer, they recorded the instruments in one take, and then ad-libbed most of the vocal parts. Apparently their one goal was to make their track longer than Isle Of Ewe’s song from Society Volume 1. They succeeded by over two minutes, finally clocking in at 10 minutes 18 seconds.

Band Society Volume 03

2003

In order to shake things up a little, the format of this volume was changed a bit: any band wanting to record for the CD had to cover a song by another Bandsoc band. Six bands took up the challenge and we were left with six covers, each of which I can proudly say sound nothing like their originals.

And The Adventures Of… - This Swound! cover was, unsurprisingly for ATAO…, barely written when they arrived at the studio. Still, 3 hours later, they had recorded one of the best Society Volume tracks to date, featuring gang vocals sung by the majority of the active Bandsoc members at that time. A few weeks later, after finishing a headlining set at The Social in Nottingham, ATAO… were heckled with calls for this song as an encore. Despite not having actually played it since the recording, they took it on anyway, causing a stage invasion. Good times. None of Swound! can actually remember the title to this song, and so it is commonly known as The Weezer Song.

None Of The Above - When NOTA decided to cover People At Sea, the only recorded version of their chosen song was from a minidisc plugged into the venue’s mixing console at a gig. After working out how to play the song, they were all set for their recording until, on the morning of their studio slot, they got a text message off their guitarist saying he couldn’t be bothered to record it. They still recorded as a three-piece, with the bassist and singer filling in on guitar, the finished product apparently sounding very different to what they’d intended. The track features Malcolm from Headrush on backing vocals.

ManPlayingKazoo - This particular And The Adventures Of… song was chosen on the basis that the singer liked the lyric “i ain’t seen nothing but concrete, so why d’you call it the earth?”. The recording features backing vocals by MPK’s latest drummer, who’s testosterone-filled voice impressed the Swound! boys so much that they nicknamed him “The Scrote”. Nice.

Headrush - Soon after recording this track, Headrush played it at what they considered one of their best ever gigs. Unfortunately, a local reviewer didn’t quite see it the same way calling them “Head, rush for the door” and stating that “it speaks volumes that the best song of their set is their cover of a song by fellow university band None of the Above”. Poor Headrush.

Swound! - Considering that Swound! are in fact a rock band, it always confused me as to why they decided to do a ska version of ‘The Killing Fist’ by Bandsoc metallers, Wookie. Still, they pulled it off with style, even adding a Goodfellas-sampling rap at the end of the track. Listen out especially for guitarist Pollard’s impression of a seal halfway through it. He was “well proud” of it.

Degree Of Azimuth - This track was a late entry for the CD, meaning that Bandsoc had already copied the first 50 CDs without it. It was added to the later CDs however, leading to the back cover of the CD case stating that you might get it “if you’re lucky”. The track features samples from Flash Gordon, which bizarrely someone in DOA owned on vinyl.

Band Society Volume 04

2003

After realising how effective the previous three volumes had been, Bandsoc’s then-vice-president Howard McDonald decided to expand the format at this point, resulting in almost double the number of tracks as each of the first three CDs. New band Dragonflies Draw Flame were the first to record, but on arriving at the studio on the Friday evening they discovered that there’d been a power cut, so Howard ended up driving them back there early the following morning to get them recorded. In a rather strange move, some of the vocals on their track were recorded “through a snare drum”. Weird. Meanwhile, ManPlayingKazoo’s track featured the second guitarist they’d recruited about three days previously, swearing which was subsequently removed in future versions of the song, and an unintentional submarine sound effect.

Dog Mating Rachael were a new band who eventually settled on their name after rejecting ‘Nonsense Upon Stilts’ because its abbrevation was ‘NUS’. Which of the names was worse is still under debate. November Moment’s track was not actually by November Moment, and was in fact written and performed solely by the two guitarists of said band. They’d requested that it be credited to ‘Pile of Gaze’, but due to a clerical “error” it wasn’t, as can be seen from the artwork.

This volume was the first of the Bandsoc CDs to feature solo artists, namely ManPlayingKazoo’s guitarist as Widdleman, and their singer as Eyes Dilate. The Widdleman track was eventually performed live for a “lucky” audience at Bandsoc’s Summer Garage Party in 2005, and the Eyes Dilate track was “gay”.

Volume 4 was eventually given out at the start of the 2003/2004 semester and features the drawing of the least-round bass drum ever seen.

(Thanks to Howard McDonald, Chris Walls, Dan Snowdon and Simon Curd for their contributions to this description).

Band Society Volume 05

2003

In an amazing display of Bandsoc organisation, this CD was recorded, printed and given out before everyone left for Christmas at the end 2003. Kicking off the CD was Osiris, a new band who’s first Bandsoc gig had been witnessed by about 5 people at one of the ill-fated Sunday night gigs at The Ark. This track was followed by a particularly accomplished tune (considering they had only been together for two months) from Piano, featuring the now-infamous Banjo on vocals. Real name Benjamin, no one could know that almost three years later he would be arrested for stealing thousands of pounds from his bandmates. As of mid-2007, Piano are signed to Zestone Records and have just completed a 9-date tour of Japan. Banjo is no longer with them.

Volume 5 also featured the debut from the new Bandsoc metal-band Silencer, who made the mistake of originally announcing their name on the society’s messageboard as “To Die For”. A big mistake: for the next two years, they were referred to only as “2D4″, and the heckles at their gigs consisted purely of chants of “2, D, 4! 2, D, 4!”. Eventually they gave the public what they wanted and changed their name back to To Die For. Forget drugs and cigarettes, that’s peer pressure for you right there. Suckers.

The Red Room was the first band of soon-to-be-president Rowan, and was the first in a long line of Society Volume tracks to take the piss out of the oft-mentioned Howard. (Also see: Beatbot). Dragonflies Draw Flame meanwhile, after their love-it-or-hate-it track of Volume 4, returned with the ludicrously named “Don’t forget what I told you, don’t talk about it, but don’t forget”. The mysterious Widdleman also re-appeared with a slap-guitar-filled track which (to most people’s surprise) featured absolutely no bass guitar.

Last but not least, there was Beatbot, alter ego of Lloyd Staszkiewicz. Lloyd was actually still at school when this CD was made, but had submitted his track to Howard anyway as his three older brothers were involved in Bandsoc at the time. Howard refused to include the track, possibly because the CD was supposed to be a compilation for Bandsoc bands, but also possibly due to the fact that the song consisted almost entirely of the lyric “Spank my monkey”. Beatbot responded to this ruling by releasing the track “Howard Is Gay”, complete with closing line “Take your Bandsoc CD and shove it up your ass”. So impressed was Howard with this new tune, that he decided to put it on the CD. But after a fairly lengthy discussion about political correctness, it was decided that the honour should go to “Spank My Monkey” instead. Overall, a win for Beatbot!

Oh, and in case you hadn’t guessed, that’s Howard on the front cover. He’s being eaten by the recording studio’s dog, Gypsy: an event which (thankfully/unfortunately*) didn’t actually happen in real life.

*delete as appropriate

(Thanks to Chris Walls and Chris Haywood for their contributions to this description).

Band Society Volume 06

2004

Volume 6 began with another track from The Red Room, who, due to a reshuffle since Volume 5’s track, now had one of their past guitarists on drums. One of life’s true naturals, he had to use modified rubber washing-up gloves to protect his delicate hands. Nevertheless, listen out for the surprisingly good drum-fill at 2:21. The opening track was followed by the Armchair Generals with a tune inspired by ‘1984′ (the book, not the year), and then by the obscurely titled ‘(U) Domain’ from ManPlayingKazoo, a slight departure from their usual fayre. Apparently the ending sounds like ‘Columbia’ by Oasis. Also featured was a track by Divine Rooster, the only material to ever appear from long-time-Bandsoc member, Bianca, and a song from Mosaic, possibly one of Bandsoc’s only jazz bands.

By including a controversially-abundant five solo projects, Volume 6 marked the beginning of a lengthy debate within Bandsoc: should the Society Volume CDs be the territory of conventionally-configured bands alone, or should any musical project be accepted, regardless of how many people had been involved in its conception?

Fundamental CD issues aside, however, Volume 6 contained solo tracks by acoustic-act Sam Hutchinson, who has since described his song as “pulling the envelope/fucking awful”, and Mike S-C, the singer from the Volume 4 debuting Metro Joe. Also featured was a track by solo prog act Six String Stuntman Steve (soon to become fully-fledged prog band, Stuntmen), which contains one of Bandsoc’s most infamous misheard lyrics, “semi-erectional fears” (semi-irrational, apparently). Finally, finishing off the CD was Widdleman vs. Beatbot, a collaboration “across 2 continents (time and space)” between the two solo projects.

The artwork for this CD documents a now-oft-forgotten Bandsoc tradition: the Zoidberg. Initiated by front-cover stars, Adam and Aidan (of November Moment fame), it consisted of running around doing impressions of Futurama’s favourite crustacean (”wup-wup-wup-wup-wup”), complete with the appropriate hand and mouth actions. It was like a secret handshake or something. Zoidberg himself appears on the back of the CD wearing a t-shirt declaring “And all things must end”, a line from the Volume 5 track from the by-now-infamous 2D4. As you may have noticed, Volume 6 probably represents the height of Bandsoc’s “clique”.

The CD was given out at Bandsoc’s 2004 Battle Of The Bands Final at The Rescue Rooms. November Moment won, beating ManPlayingKazoo by just 1 point.

(Thanks to Chris Walls and Sam Hutchinson for their contributions to this description).

Band Society Volume 07

2004

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Band Society Volume 08

2005

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Band Society Volume 09

2005

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Band Society Volume 10

2005

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Band Society Volume 11

2006

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Band Society Volume 12

2006

This was the first double CD (if you ignore the fact that Volume 9 had one CD dedicated to the 2D4 track), the second which ripped this one off was Volume 14 released a year later. CD 1 was titled ‘Past’ and featured the best from the previous 11 Volumes (and so, I’ve just realised, it’s pretty pointless me uploading this.. however I’ve spent ages tagging the mp3 files so I’m not going back now! [actually, looking at it, there are a few tracks on this which aren't on the previous volumes, so disregard that!]). CD 2 had new stuff and was called ‘Present’. Suspiciously enough, the first track on the CD is by Botnik, who went on the win the 2007 Battle Of The Bands Final, and was the then-President Lloyd’s (Beatbot, and now drumemr in Swound!) band. Coincidence? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Band Society Volume 13

2007

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Band Society Volume 14

2007

In a stroke of genius Tim Yearsley, the newly elected President, decided not to find out what number the last volume was, and hence this was labelled Volume 13, leading to much confusion. Due to the usual careful BandSoc planning, I didn’t receeve a copy of this CD, and hence have no artwork for it, but as far as I remember it was pretty boring. This was given out at freshers fayre, as normal, and ripped off Volume 12, offering new tracks (CD 1) and old stuff (CD 2).

CD 1 features a 1:06 track by Swound!, which features 34 seconds of rain, before the main 32 second song begins. The song appears to be inspired by the name of a Swound! side project called “Knock Knock. Who’s There? Zombies.” (see Volume 13). Confusingly, the “Knock Knock. Who’s There? Zombies.” track “Bust-A-Move” is now a regular part of the Swound! set, so much so that they released it as a single in late 2008. Due to the fact that we were shit, the Ghost Cassette recording on here overran by quite a long time, and by the time we left Swound!, who were recording after us, seemed pretty pissed off (and for some reason were all wearing fake moustaches..). I always hoped the shortness of this track was due to us wasting so much time, but it turns out it wasn’t. The OBN track is an early version of Hemifield Neglect, and is awesome. The Lumiere track is probably the last recording to include frontman Al on guitar, before the rest of the band finally told him to stop trying and they changed their name to BiPolar Bear. All I can remember about Endgame is that they had a girl on bass who used to only play one note. Some people said the Ghost Cassette track apparently sounds like the theme tune from Casualty, but those people’s opinions don’t really count for much. The Dragonflies Draw Flame track came just before they decided to call it a day and concentrate on covering Avril Lavigne acoustically, and in my opinion is by far their best track.

CD 2 has a track by the Guru Trials, who I’ve never heard of. Rob Weiss, the Vice-President at the time, put a shout out on the forum for tracks by old bands, and this is what came back. Because non of the committee (apart from Judas, but I doubt he cared) knew the names of pre-2005 BandSoc Bands, a band called Rhyn managed to get on the CD. Their bassist Dan, who was a fresher at the time, simply read on the forum that they wanted mp3s from ‘old bands’, so just sent some of his tracks from his band from home, a genius bit of CD infiltration. Interestingly enough, the old CD contains 3 bands who are actually still together (Threnody, Club Sex [as Don Broco] and Rhyn).

Band Society Volume 15

2008

Due to the confusion caused by the misnaming of Volume 14, this CD was delayed in its release while I worked out what it should be called. The OBN track is the same as the one on their EP, leading me to the obvious conclusion that they did in fact cheat and had longer than 4 hours work on this track (something I’d never do myself…). BiPolar Bear, formerly Lumiere, return with a more defined sound. This track is also on their EP, but I don’t think they cheated. Buff Orpington, named after a breed of chicken, famously gave out bits of chicken at their Battle Of The Bands heat. They came 4th. Chasing Skylines were a fantastic, yet short-lived, band who’s best track was by far their cover of the Ghost Busters’ theme tune. This was what their other stuff was like. The Ghost Cassette track was the first to feature Snaily on vocals, and as is expected it over ran by about an hour (luckily for us, The Right Friends who were after us were about an hour late, so no one got pissed off or wore fake moustaches). The Pantheon track was famously used at the Battle Of The Bands Final (at the Rock City Basement) After Party to remove a group of chavs from the living room, due in part to some very drunken and over-enthusiastic gang vocals and moshing.

Band Society Volume 16

2008

Abandoning the 2 CD trend that had been building over the past two years, Sparkles, the Vice-President (me), decided that the average BandSoc fresher didn’t care if the bands were new or not, they just wanted an example of what could be done. So came Volume 16, a flawless mixture of old and new, remastered by Guy Elderfield of Random Recordings especially for this release.

The Swound! track, now called “We Are A Danger” and apparently their next single, took ages to mix as they and Guy (the engineer) couldn’t agree at a mix. The Ghost Cassette track, Marionette, over-ran as usual, and is the only Ghost Cassette recording to feature Chris ‘Shapiro’ Smith (of the Crimson Roadmap) on guitar and backing vocals. The OBN track is a remake of their Volume 14 track “So Y’All Want A Single?”, and has actual lyrics. Apparently the song is about a rare condition where you can only perceive things at one side of you. Or something. The Botnik track was written at the studio itself, and it’s name is taken from an answer Rowan (live member of Botnik, Swound! guitarist and former BandSoc President) gave to the question “what’s your philosophy on life?” - “Life Problem Solve Problem Continue Life”. The …And Stars Collide track was recorded as part of their EP, and therefore is a cheaty track, as is the Chasing Skylines track. The Sensitive and Rhyn recorded their tracks at the same time and submitted them online.