This is a great artifact from the early days of dels fandom, when men were men (well, as is apparent from the photos within, boys, actually.) and initial d's were lowercase. Once again caps must be doffed to the then-dels tireless then-manager, Barbara Shores, whose determination put the dels on the map in the U.K. and even made inroads in the U.S.A., which certainly set the stage for their eventual success -- such as it was, Justin Currie might well add. I'm sure Barbara was behind this little artifact. I'm not sure of its origins; I was a card-carrying member of the dels fan club, and received loads of memorabilia (more on that to come) but never saw this until I found it tucked in the sleeve of a used copy of their first LP several years later at good old Yesterday and Today Records on Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland (Respect!). But I can't say for a fact that the photo album originally came with that record album, in some limited edition release, or was just stored there by the previous owner. I suspect the latter, but if any other del-heads can shed any light, please do!
Meanwhile, here is the whole book, all 16 pages scanned as one .pdf file. They're not the cleanest scans in the world, no, some a bit crooked or with staples showing etc., but that'll just add to the authenticity of the experience of really thumbing through it, right? :^) Enjoy this trip down memory lane, to a more innocent time... when Justin's cynicism was still mostly feigned.
Oh, and as for that trove of other early dels memorabilia... that's for another post. Soon!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=53CNGPT0
Thanks...that is really interesting. Nice to see Justin still has that same sense of humour too...pretty entertaining read. :)
ReplyDeleteYou posted a request for a setlist to the Unthanks Liverpool gig on my blog hotelmaidssmileinunison a while back.
ReplyDeleteJust got the message...here is the setlist:
01 Nobody Knew She Was There
02 Twenty Long Weeks
03 Lucky Gilchrist
04 Banter/Because He Was A Bonny Lad
05 Annachie Gordon
06 Banter/Sad February
07 Guard Ye Man
08 Banter/Where Ye Been Dick?
09 Living By The Water
10 Felton Lonnin
11 At First She Starts
12 The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw
13 Banter/Tar Barreling?
14 Blackbird
15 Banter/With All The Men?
16 Banter/Heres The Tender Coming
Apologies its a bit off message for your blog...but i cant find your email address,
cheers,
BB
Only found your blog recently and been amazed at all the great DA stuff you have uploaded - thanx a lot! It brought back great memories and made me dig out all the old singles (remember vinyl?). I came across the band while in the UK in late '88 / early '89 and have been collecting their stuff ever since. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see them play live and there don't seem to be many live recordings out there. It also seems that nowadays Justin gets even less recognition than before so thumbs up for your great work!!!
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Anon, and you're welcome! Thanks for the enthusiastic response. As I said, I'm soon gonna post some more early dels memorabilia, as well as a few rare Justin solo tracks.
ReplyDeleteBelated thanks to you 2of3 for your continued support, and thanks to you too BB for your reply to my request. BB's cool blog, with one of my favorite ever blog titles, is at:
http://hotelmaidssmileinunison.blogspot.com/
Hello. Thanks for posting The Family Album. I think I can shed some light on its origins. Yes, it was the creation of Barbara Shores the Dels manager. It was not included in any album but went out through there fan club. Incidentally I had the honor of running their fan club for a few brief months in 1989/90 while living in Glasgow and just before Barbara left their management and returned to America. Also, I am from Rockville MD and worked at Y&T Records with Skip Groff the owner. He would frequently preserve the provenance of items for sale by keeping artifacts with recordings. So if you found it in a Dels album it is because the person who sold it had placed it inside. Thus, that was likely a Dels fan and fanclub member. I saw them over 12 times in US and UK and lived briefly with Paul Tyagi when I moved to Glasgow in 1986. What a great crew they were. Somewhere I have a newsletter that I put together when I ran the fan club. If I can find it I will scan it for your collection.
ReplyDeleteTony Cohen- Olney, MD (cohensemail@aol.com)
I too own one of these. I was given it by a friend shortly after it came out. I believe he had been a member of the fan club. That was a great find to discover it is a record sleeve!
ReplyDeleteThe booklet was definitely included with some promo copies of the debut LP - that's how I came by mine (I was 'radio' at the time...).
ReplyDeleteI'm Kandice Shores, Barbara Shores Niece. I have never met barbara, in fact my father has been looking for Barbara since before I was born and I'm 21 years old. They never exchanged negative words, and there's no hostility between her and my dad. He doesn't know why he hasn't had any contact with his sister. I've been looking off and on, surfing the web for the past 8 years. I have found nothing :( If you know anything that would help please email me @ Kandiceshores@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteI knew Barbara fairly well. I helped bring the Dels to Milwaukee for two gigs in 1986 and they stayed at my house. I stayed at Barbara's in London in '87. Tony, did you live in the Gibson Street flat with Paul and Lynn Harvie? I was there just once. Kandice, no one has had much of any contact with Barbara in decades. I think she turned up at a Dels gig, maybe in Tennessee or something a long time ago and I feel like maybe I got an email from her once. Maybe 10 years ago. But that was the only time I've heard from her since she and the Dels parted company. It's too bad.
ReplyDeleteBobby (btanzilo@yahoo.com)
Hey Bobby. I just saw your posting on The Rare Stuff. I did indeed live with Paul and Lynn on Gibson St. for a short bit. And after that in a flat with them on Great Western Road for a few weeks. Gibson Street was the place! Paul used to make home brew beer and store the kegs in a closet at Gibson Street. One time after I first arrived there to live in 1986 I answered the door and Lloyd Cole was standing there. I would have passed out but I had met him before at the 9:30 club in DC so we sat, had tea, and waxed about music. Holy Crap!!!
ReplyDeleteLater, around 1989 I stayed again with Paul and Lynn just before the broke up. Lynn offered to marry me because I wanted to get residency. But she was dating a lovely woman and I of course like guys, so I decided not to mess things up for her and come back to the states. Glasgow and Gibson St. were where it was at. Boy were those the days!
BTW- Did you and I ever meet? I was the dorky, black American, with glasses.
Tony
My name is Susan and Barbara was a friend of mine and I stayed with her a couple of times when I visited Glasgow. When she first came back to the States, she stayed with me at my house in Orlando. In fact, she left at my house a lot of early Del Amitri posters, etc, saying she would come back to get them. She also left with me her beloved cats, Carson and Prudence. I know she returned back to Glasgow for a brief time and then bought a house in Green Forest, Arkansas. I visited her there and then when I went to live in Glasgow for 6 months in 91' she came to visit. She kept in touch with me up until 9 years ago. Kandice, I have a few pictures of her and if you and you dad would want a copy, just get in touch. My email is miyori@juno.com.
ReplyDeleteI worked with Barbara in London in the early eighties. I went with her to Del Amitri gigs and the boys came into our office to help us stuff brochures (it was a travel company). Sadly I have not heard from Barbara since about 1984 when the company folded.
ReplyDeleteMy name's Carol and I'm also an old friend of Barbara's. I originally met her and the dels when I worked at Chrysalis. I lost contact with her in the mid-90s but she got in touch again in 2001 and I went to visit her in Portland Oregon. I last heard from her about a year ago, when she said she was leaving Portland for Idaho... She didn't respond to my last email and she was changing her email address.. hope she gets back in touch when she feels like it.
ReplyDeleteany chance of re-uploading this pdf? thanks
ReplyDelete