Brit rock, Culture, Goat, Hard Rock, Music, Record collecting, Vinyl

The Goat In The Machine

  • Goat Live If You want It
  • Udder The Bridge
  • If You Want Blood, You Goat It
  • Goat To Get You Into My Life
  • Baby, Please Don’t Goat
  • Kid
  • Janie’s Goat Gun
  • Billy’s Goat Gun
  • The Future’s So Bright, My Goat Wears Shades
  • Goat Your Rocks off

goat-as-you-like-01

I had a lot of fun playing with titles for this post* but particularly so today writing about Goat.  Nope, I don’t mean your eccentric Swedish types with a weird schtick about being a lost African tribe, although I do like ’em, I’m talking about the Brighton based UK combo from the very early 90s.  They released a mini-LP called As You Like and a full LP called Medication Time that I bought on cassette mostly because I liked the cover – I’ve always been a sucker for marble or tile effect covers.

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Medication Time had one really good track, ‘Lying In The Flowers’, on it; their initial effort As You Like didn’t.  I’ve listened to this 1990 LP four times in the last few days and I struggle to remember much about it at all.  It’s cursed with sounds that were very 1990 but not very 2016, which possibly smacks of them trying too hard, in a pinch they sound a little like The Cult doing funk rock, which correct me if I’m wrong, is not a desirable thing.  The very best bits of As You Like are the shiny bits on the cover, I only realised yesterday that the pattern on the cover was the band’s name repeated over and over and the track ‘Don’t Cry’, which is a bit meaner and earthier than the rest and a lot better as a result.

Love this!
Love this!

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From their second LP I bought the single Good Times twice.  Well, once was a bit of a rubbish shaped picture disc and once was a 12″ with a metal plaque and a newsletter.  The later is rather fun actually, the plaque a bit on the pointless side and the music much better.  ‘Good Times’ is a good rocker with a good tune, hamstrung by production that sounds a little treble-y to my ears.  The B-side on both my versions is a stonking cover of the Stooges TV Eye, which captures the white-out intensity of the original and a live version of a track from As You Like called ‘Fallen Over You’, which is more ragged and energetic.

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Goat were very much of their time and I would happily pick up a vinyl copy of Medication Time if I saw one, but I can’t see myself coming back this way for a bit.  I’ve just goat a feeling.

711 Down.

PS: The usual 1537 caveat applies, this is far better music than I have ever put out – I’m just a dweeb with a keyboard, these guys tried – they win.

*it’s often my favourite part of writing a post anyway.

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Jat Storey

A man with too much vinyl and an itch in his typing finger.

32 thoughts on “The Goat In The Machine”

  7. I was given a free demo cassette at 1990 Donnington and it had a couple of Goat songs on it. I can’t remember what the songs were but I do know they were both pretty good. Never knew they put out a couple of albums, thanks for enlightening me.

    Reply

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