Produced by Art Snay @ Arabellum Studios, summer 81. This is the song that started all the rest for me. It was overheard by Magazine's manager after Howard Devoto decamped and that is how I got to play with the rest of the boys for the next year and some. It never would've happened w/o Artie. None of it. 

It Hurts Me To Remember

From the Mechanical Servants EP Min X Match 1980 Produced by the marvelous Art Snay

Study Up

This song was done in our living room outside Nashville in probably 1996 or so. Written by me and Luther Beckett and put together by us as well under the moniker Poppytrail. It's one of the strangest songs I've ever been part of and one of my favorites as well. 

Slow Boat To Oblivion

From the same time and place as Slow Boat and about as odd. We'd decided to just do what wanted to do. Exactly what we wanted to do as it was likely no one would ever hear it anyway. Screw 'em. And up will now, and may even now, nobody really has. So this is unreleased Poppytrail that Luther and I did when I had about given up on trying to "do" music but hadn't really told anyone.

It's Not The Little Things

This little number was given to me as backing tracks by Jerry and I was asked to write something to go on top, so I did. This was done while The Special AKA was in its formative stages. To the best of my recollection personnel included Jerry on piano, Brad Bradbury on bass and John Shipley on guitar. It was a lot of fun to do, I can tell you. Jerry was a good pal of my pal Johnny Jostins and we were all either living in or from the Coventry scene, so everybody knew everybody, there was a lot of music around and it was a great time to be there. I was very lucky to get plopped in the middle of so many talented and really nice people. 

The Hit List (collaboration with Jerry Dammers)

I wrote this in 1995 or so when I was waxing nostalgic for Mechanical Servants and the stoopit confidence of youth. It was recorded as Poppytrail in the living room in Nashville with Luther Beckett doing the guitar and bottom end stuff, me on keyboards and trilling bits. MekServ could've done a good version, I think.

My Imaginary Friend

Here is the last song I wrote or recorded. This would've been in '96 or so. I guess it's about me quitting music after having it being the centerpiece of my existence since I first hit the stage in Boris Godunov at 13 or so. It had simply been the way I had defined myself since I had been a kid and now I would have to find some other way to answer the inevitable, "And what do YOU do?" I never really have. 

Anyway, Luther Beckett on rhythm things and guitar, me singing and keyboards as per usual. Sounds like my bass line as well but I'm not sure. So, in the end, this.

Penny Dreadful

I used to absolutely hate this track but I think it was mostly because it was a miserable experience to record it. This is me, Barry Adamson and John Doyle produced by Adrian Sherwood, who was an absolute bastard to me. It was the only horrible experience I've ever had in the studio. i usually love it. He was a dub/reggae producer and no respect for me or the structure of the song I'd written for us and I wasn't too cool with that. He sort of wanted me to sing, little girl, and then let the men do the work. Not happy. But i like it better now. 

The Great Divide

More unreleased Poppytrail. A Nashville living room production with me and Luther Beckett carrying out our usual duties. I remember having fun writing this one. I give full credit to Mickey Spillane for the title, but it was too good not to use. Hard-boiled.

I, The Jury

In retrospect, I have done a lot of recording in living rooms far and wide. This is the revised and expanded Wonders of the Deep. So I penned it as usual, Johnny Jostins and Lee Shale on percussion and backing vocals and me doing my normal keys and singing thing. I think that was everyone on this one but we had a tendency to drag in anyone who was passing, so if I've left anyone out, I apologize and seek amendment.

The Tastemakers

Possibly one of the very few songs written about those bloodsucking vultures, A&R men. This is unreleased Poppytrail circa 95. Luther Beckett on gloriously distorted guitar, rhythm stuff and bass. Me doing all the rest of the crap. It had become totally clear to me that I was going nowhere but nowhere unless I wanted to sit around doing menial jobs for 15 years while this internet music thing shook itself out. I didn't. Very demoralizing to have to make an appt. to speak with the PD at some podunk college station in Nebraska who was only interested in swag. I actually used to bake them cookies. Awful. They USED to just love getting new music. Huh.

Purely Perfect

Here's a released but basically unheard track from the Poppytrail CD, Nectar. We never found any more effective distribution for it than throwing it out the car window. I don't love the recording and don't think it does the song justice, but I do love the song. Luther Beckett on guitar and rhythm stuff. Me singing and doing anything involving keyboards. It seems even more pertinent today when I spend half my income at Hot Topic, for my sins.

Revolution At The Mall

Done in the unheated lounge in Coventry circa 1983 basically live on a 2-track TEAC reel-to-reel. This is  Wonders of the Deep with all available passers-by roped in (always fun): Johhny Jostins on percussion and ritmo box, Lee Shale on percussion, Gill on oboe, possibly Doc Lang on various noises, me on chirping, keys and melodica. I dig the drama.Spy-like. My eternal fave.

The Human Jungle

This is the first song I recorded with The Greeks (Dave Formula, Barry Adamson and John Doyle) and I believe it was the first one that I wrote after joining up with them. This would have been the Fall of '81. The usual suspects doing what they usually do. There is a ridiculously cheap video of this done in Formula's apartment in Stockwell. That's how rich we were. I can't remember who paid for the recording. Not us. Virgin? Anyway, I kind of like it now after a long period of not.

I Close My Eyes

About my favorite song from the one and only Poppytrail CD. It sounds vaguely like a love song but, as ever, not. Really about how people just get all infatuated with your mind, so witty, so funny, so quick and such a large frame of reference, right? Until, not so funny, quick, etc. when you don't stop thinking, analyzing, pondering, won't let go of a concept and other things that intellectual obsessives tend to do. Took me about 35 years to figure this out. Got it now. But as always, catchy chorus, because as Mary Poppins used to say, "A little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down." Couldn't agree more.

My Lobotomy

Okey dokey. Unreleased Poppytrail from '96 or so. If I am going to write with someone else, which I really try not to do, I'd rather they weren't there. So write your parts, give the tape or whatever to me and I'll write mine. And that's what Luther did here. So he did his parts and I put the vocals and keyboards over them. We did this in Nashville where everyone is a singer/songwriter but not REALLY. REALLY you are a waitress or an IT guy or you're a PA at a publisher's and not getting any work done at all. It got to the point where you just didn't want to tell anyone what you did, you felt like such a loser. Everyone there had spent all their money to get there and didn't have enough to leave. Though meeting George Jones while he was huffing on a cig while filling up his Jag (license plate NO-SHOW 3) almost made it all worthwhile. : )

Awake and Swing

A Poppytrail track from the virtually impossible to distribute without mailing it to strangers CD, Nectar. But a nice one, imo. A cheerful ditty about the many joys of friendship, for which I have less than no use these days. And 'twas 13 years in TN what did it for me. So if I sound a bit fed up and pissed off, well, good. I achieved my goal. And this little number once more brought me the joy of singing a song I'd written about someone to their face and from the stage they paid me to sing it on. That is what is known as the upside. 

Twigs

Pamela Kifer to start with but Pamela Ex now as I am Ex Mechanical Servant, Ex The Greeks w/ Dave Formula, Barry Adamson & John Doyle, Ex Provocative Agent w/ Barry Adamson & John Doyle, Ex Wonders of the Deep with Johnny Jostins, Ex collaborator w/ Jerry Dammers, Ex Big Iron, Ex Miss Pamela Truex, Ex Poppytrail with Luther Beckett ....Ex everything, you see. And as I unearth music, I'll post it here Deeply grateful for anyone listening and/or caring. xoxo Pamela

Pamela Ex

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