"We bring to your attention, an invitation to the bizarre." So goes the final song on Canadian born guitarist and songwriter Ron Warren Ganderton 1979 LP with his group Sound Ceremony. Ganderton self-released three LPs with the band while living in the United Kingdom during the 1970s and 80s. First came Guitar Star (1978), then Sound Ceremony (1979) and finally Precious As England (1981). Despite some modest distribution and frequent gigs, the band never seemed to really take off and Ganderton eventually returned to his native Vancouver (where he still resides), leaving hundreds of unsold records in the attic of his house. While these copies seem to have been lost to the ravages of time. All of the group's efforts are undeniably unique, but their middle record is the true brain-damaged winner of the bunch. The record surely fits somewhere into the UK punk explosion of the day, but it's also looks back to the mid-sixties rock that Ron cut his teeth on and ahead to some sort of maniac future form of entertainment that perhaps has not been invented yet. Ganderton's mildly "out of it" stream of consciousness lyrics show a clear lack of self-censorship and that's really one of the albums strongest assets. He has created this character of himself as a huge rock star and a sex symbol, and who are we to deny his claims?
Sounds like a jacked up mix of Modern Lovers if they were football hooligans and a British Velvet Underground.
This extraordinary collaboration between former Swell Maps guitarist/vocalist Nikki Sudden and Birthday Party/Crime & the City Solution guitarist/vocalist Rowland Howard comes highly recommended to those following the post-punk axis that spawned Nick Cave, These Immortal Souls, and the Wreckery. The pair first worked together on Sudden's solo album, Texas, which was also released on Creation and featured brilliant performances from Howard in his trademark knife-edge blues guitar. Further collaboration seemed inevitable, as the duo incidentally shared many connections in the post-Birthday Party scene. Rowland Howard frequently worked with the late Epic Soundtracks in Crime & the City Solution and later in These Immortal Souls. The legendary drummer and vocalist was Nikki Sudden's brother and a key figure in the urban blues sound that grew out of the splitting of both the Birthday Party and Swell Maps. Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc is an outstanding opus derived of the duo's shared love for the crafts of Alex Chilton and Big Star in their darker moments, Lee Hazlewood, Serge Gainsbourg, sinister country, and Delta blues. The reissue version contains the original album, which at the time of release in 1987 was a dark surprise from the post-punk underground. The album set the precedent for the formation of These Immortal Souls, where Rowland Howard would later present his best songwriting on record. This album holds its own next to later masterpieces Get Lost (Don't Lie) and I'm Never Gonna Die Again, while Nikki Sudden continued to mine the Rolling Stones and T. Rex's songbooks for inspiration with the Jacobites and the French Revolution. The extended reissue includes The Wedding Hotel EP plus the outtake "French Revolution Blues" and an incredible and unreleased 12-song live set from 1987 recorded in Germany, with Sudden and Howard both on guitar and vocals abetted by the Gun Club's infamous drummer, Desperate, and bassist Duncan Sibbald.
