Customer Reviews

Draining the Glass

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In college back around 1984-6 I was a huge Jazz Butcher fan. I have pretty much everything of theirs on vinyl (until they signed to Creation records in 1987 and the suckiness started). This is the bulk of their PRIME stuff: Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present, Drink, Zombie Love, Real Men, and Southern Mark Smith. A few tracks should've been here such as Jazz Butcher Meets the Prime Minister, Red Pets ("Olga Corbutt drives me mad/I'll buy some vodka for her dad" is a classic line!) and especially the quinessential rare b-side The Devil Is My Friend which was a favorite at their live shows. I dock the collection a star for these omissions, but most everything else is worth the price of the CD. This was the best stuff of the band by far and Max Eider and David J (ex-Bauhaus) were still helping Pat Fish's band. When they left the humor level died down significantly. A must have collection for fans of mid-80's alternative music!

The Jazz Butcher is an awesome songwriter. He has written so many great songs that any collection would be missing something, but this is about as good as it gets. Big Questions (The Gift Of Music Volume II) may be just as good, but it is criminally out of print so you will miss songs like "Rebecca Wants Her Bike Back", "Olof Palme", "Conspiracy", "Vienna Song", "Death Dentist", "Thing", "Hard", "Mersey", and "Peter Lorre", but this is the best replacement in the meantime. Other drawbacks are that you miss great songs from all their great albums and there is as much or more filler here than on their other classic albums, but if you just want a collection this is pretty darn good and the best one available. Pick this up quick because Jazz Butcher works go out of print fast. He is a cult artist that will reward those looking for something special and different.

I bought this awhile ago because I have been fan for many years and misplaced my out of print "The Gift Of Music" disc. I found that most of the songs I missed for so many years were finally available again here. I catch myself listenting to the tracks from this CD more than any others in my collection. One track I was missing most was the JB v. PM. I found my "The Gift Of Music" this weekend at a friend's house (still in great condition) and am still happy that I bought Draining the Glass, and happier I got my disc back with JB v. PM on it. Some tracks are the same but there is enough difference to make this worth the purchase. If you don't own any JB, this is the one to have.

I bought this one for their 1980s alt-rock hit "Party Time" and really never heard any of the Jazz Butcher's other material. Multiple plays of this CD makes it sound better and better.