Rampton by Come
COME : RAMPTON (1979) LP
The opener The Prats was deliberately cut backwards on Rampton as it actually contained ideas intended for the first group I was in, Essential Logic. It felt natural to reverse it as it was a state of transition. Come Sunday was the first music planned for release I recorded after leaving Essential Logic in early 1979. Interestingly, after it was recorded I was asked by Virgin A&R men if they could hear it. After being led into Virgin’s swanky audition suite by some incredibly uncool executive, one can just imagine the response. It also prompted an invitation from Siouxsie and The Banshees to audition as their new guitarist.
It, as were the other songs on the Rampton LP and all subsequent Come Organisation recordings that I was involved in, was recorded at IPS Studios located near the Hammersmith Palais in West London after a recommendation by Daniel Miller. He had just recorded his debut Silicon Teens’ album there. We’d previously spent a couple of months together on the Rough Trade tour, he along with the amazing Robert Rental, not to mention the headliners Stiff Little Fingers.
Daniel also kindly helped out with all the synthesiser sequencing of the tracks and was hugely helpful providing all the necessary contacts and advising on the processes of making an independent record and setting up a label. I learnt so much from him about music, particularly electronic music, when we were on tour and fortuitously for me he lived just around the corner in Golders Green, London. Come Organisation couldn’t have happened without all of his very kind help. The Trenches is the original title of the track from the Rampton LP Iron Man. The original band members credit is an apocryphal list, beyond the mentioned synth parts I did everything else. I was probably inspired by Daniel’s fictional Silicon Teens project in this instance.
The cover design was achieved by pasting a printed A3 sheet around plain white sleeves. The original versions also included another grey A5 sheet on the rear of the sleeve with all the printed information. Typically inside the LP and depending on when it was ordered there would be a Come Organisation pricelist and possibly a copy of the latest Kata magazine (mostly issue #02) too.
Beyond possibly some kind of influence from Industrial Records’ original release of TG’s Second Annual Report, I’m not entirely sure where the idea came from to take this exact approach with the A3 wraparound. However, it was certainly a means to bypass the censorship issues extremely prevalent at the time, particularly at sleeve printers, not to mention in record shops like Rough Trade’s.
Incidentally, the very name Come Organisation was inspired by the name of UK sex shop chain and publisher Private Organisation who perhaps not coincidentally were publishers of the terrible ‘Whitehouse’ porn magazine (what a great name though, showing just the right kind of subversive irony aimed at would-be censor-in-chief, the awful sanctimonious Mary Whitehouse).
William Bennett.
Tracklist
| 1. | The Prats | 5:50 |
| 2. | Come Sunday | 3:44 |
| 3. | Iron Man | 4:08 |
| 4. | Sex | 3:19 |
| 5. | Rampton 1 | 3:54 |
| 6. | Rampton 2 | 2:13 |
| 7. | Shaved Slits | 8:27 |
Credits
Recorded at IPS Studios, Shepherd's Bush, London.
Produced by William Bennett and Peter McGhee.
Guitars, percussion by William Bennett.
Synthesisers by Daniel Miller.
Artwork by William Bennett.
Original vinyl LP mastering by George Peckham.
Digital mastering by Denis Blackham.
Originally released on vinyl by Come Organisation label in 1979.
