Many years ago I used to be in contact with Mick Magic, and his band Magic Moments at Twilight Time. He also ran the Music & Elsewhere label and was an important part of the UK underground scene, with 599 releases!! Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how, we got back in touch again about six months ago through Facebook and one evening both he and Adam Crary (from Specimen 37) were being particularly rude about my listening habits as listed on LastFM. That’s the great thing about Facebook, you can be insulted by people on the other side of the world in real time! Anyway, one thing led to another and Mick sent me a copy of his MMATT album ‘Creavolution’, and also put in the post a copy of this compilation that he released in 2001.
I didn’t come across this at the time, but it features 15 songs by different artists, and the whole idea was that this was a not-for-profit release designed to promote the bands featured within. To say that some of it is totally off the wall, is putting it mildly, but there is a compelling naivety to some of these songs. I particularly like the closing song “Real Love and Communication” by Steve Andrews & Ned Zero which seems to contain just about everything in six minutes. Mick wrote the sleeve notes and has spent four or five lines trying to give an impression of each artist in his own imitable way, for example “Steve is one of the underground’s most famous nut…er…eccentrics”.
If you long for the days when cassette tape albums were the order of the day then this is definitely for you. For details of this and everything you ever wanted to know about Mick’s label or band then visit www.mickmagic.net. He has spent many hours cataloguing everything he has been involved with and the result is a site that you can literally spend hours inside just investigating.
