LP - JOHNNY MOPED - THE SEARCH FOR XERXES Reissue of "lost" 1990 album

Johnny Moped's "lost album" from 1990, finally gets a reissue! I
like this album, Johnny hates it. But why? I think it's more "Johnny
Moped" than any other album out there. What other album has entirely
penned JM songs/ditties like 'Soldiers' and 'Moped crash' plus ad-libs
and all the other little interludes in between the tracks that are pure
"Moped". Johnny thinks it sounds like a "disco" album, which it does in
places, but, hey-ho, it was 1989 and it was the age of Stock, Aitken and
Waterman. At the time there had been no Moped band since 1985-ish
and certainly Slimy hadn't been in the band since the early '80s. Also,
there was only one album out there, Cycledelic so there was a lot of
songs destined for a follow up album that never happened and it looked
like we were going to be a one album band. So, with so much
unreleased material and a chronic lack of "mopedisum" I decided to
embark on a little project_ This album came out in 1990 on Deltic
records but the deal was that I had to produce a finished master tape
that could go straight to the cutting room and be pressed, so I
borrowed a 4-track Teac and a Roland sampler and Roland drum
machine and got to work. Some of the tracks sound like they were
recorded in someone's bedroom, that's because they were, but Captain
recorded some great stuff on his 8-track where I had recorded Johnny
"live" and handed over a tape for him to work with ('I'm a Spasm',
'Soldiers', 'Cut across Shorty'). Also, he provided some decent backing
vocals on other tracks ('Corpse Boogie', 'Hiawatha'). The album came
out in 1990 and to promote it we put the band back together... in a
different format. The Johnny Moped Big Band did a series of gigs where
we started with two guitarists, bass drums and Johnny for three songs
and then swapped to different musicians during 'Wild Breed' for another
three songs. Then we'd bring the whole lot together for the rest of the
set. The photos on the back cover are taken from the "live at the
Cartoon" video. Notice Johnny's original Moped jacket had long gone
missing, and he was wearing a grey tasselly "thing" I made for him. He
didn't like it at all, so I donated my own studded leather jacket and he's
worn it ever since. The front cover is studio shots taken of Johnny for
the album that were never used at the time (how did we end of with
such a bad drawing of him instead on the original album?!) So_ this has
been lovingly re-mastered by Jez Larder after Captain managed to
retrieve most of the material from the very old DAT tapes. Some of the
"interludes" were missing, and I've had to get them off the vinyl (see if
you can spot 'em!). Enjoy! - Dave Berk May 2022
TRACKLISTING: 01. I BELIEVED HER LIES 02. EDWINA 03. EVERY DREAM CAME
TRUE 04. CORPSE BOOGIE 05. CUT ACROSS SHORTY 06. I WANNA DIE
07. ZOGALOOGAJERGABROX 08. SAD SACK 09. SOLDIERS 10. SAVE THE BABY
SEALS 11. MOPED CRASH 12. I'M A SPASM 13. HIAWATHA 14. SOLDIERS
(ALTERNATE VERSION)