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| Popmatters |
 Groovy Records has become somewhat legendary in underground circles—founded by Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks), the label’s total output numbered three releases, all featuring Shelley in some capacity, all released in 1980, and all rare enough that one legend has Jim O’ Rourke unloading his copies of the Groovy releases in order to finance a trip to Japan. You won’t find Buzzcocks’ cast-offs among the original three releases, nor on the previously unreleased fourth disc, Strange Men In Sheds With Spanners. Instead, it’s all highly experimental, peculiar, and occasionally musical sounds that dominate. The first of the Groovy releases, the four-song Free Agents (Francis Cookson, Eric Random, Barry Adamson, and Shelley) release £3.33, maybe the most far out of the quartet, opening with a 17-minute piece (all four are numbered but not titled) that sounds like a glacial eruption or perhaps a World War II air bombardment of Great Britain. Or both. Of the four pieces here it’s arguably the most compositionally sound and the most interesting. Although, as is often the case with experiments, the energy and enthusiasm overrides content so that by the second track of the second side the ideas begin to repeat themselves and it becomes apparent that much of what’s here is haphazard mucking about that has good intentions but can’t always deliver the goods. The album’s closing track, a six-minute foray that recalls Fripp and Eno’s better work salvages the record, suggesting that £3.33 could have easily been halved, making for a more coherent and peak-oriented record. Shelley recorded Sky Yen in 1974 before the Buzzcocks emerged. He used primitive electronics, emerging with something that sounds like a dentist’s drill on an expressway to your skull whilst some sinister someone submerges your hand in ice cold water and a dancing clown appears to do birthday magic tricks for you. A real gem for the noise the enthusiast but basically absent any true compositions across the two 20-minute tracks....full text |
| Dragcity |
| The complete set of Groovys make it to digital for the first time ever! The pride of 1980s good-time avant works from up North, including the Free Agents £3.33, Pete Shelley Sky Yen, Sally Smitt and Her Musicians Hangahar, and the newly unearthed, equally great Strange Men In Sheds with Spanners. CD Box includes an interview with Pete Shelley himself and a very Groovy box to hold in yer minature LP sleeves....full text |
| Spincds |
| · Untold even in its own era, the Groovy story can now finally be told - a series of musical incidents that rubbed to and fro across the grain of the early 80s, contributing in some way to the mad drift in all directions that forms of popular music were headed. · The 60s get a lot of lip-play over the exploration of new forms and the explosion of freedom, while the punk era is often regarded as a conservative backlash, but neither of these perceptions comes close enough to the truth to explain how naturally the whole Groovy thing fell together under the auspices of The Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley....full text |
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