Hi, and welcome to the latest newsletter from Squire! This week we are inspired by the summer sun to set the mood and listen to favourite Squire playlists! First of all, congratulations to Ingo for winning last weeks Every Trick (In The Book Of Love) white label test pressing competition!
And thank you again for everyone who entered the competition by sending or posting a photo, and a special thank you to everyone who is buying into the Squire single releases! Here's a link to the catalogue and on the picture below, if you are still pondering which colour to buy!
We are always intrigued by how you discover Squire, and how you listen, or get your regular fix of Squire magic! We were inspired this week by the photo of Big Smashes in a car stereo - posted on the Squire Facebook Group page.
It gives us the chance to reflect on the Big Smashes album that was released on Tangerine Records in 1992.
The album was unique for various reasons. First, it was the very first time Squire had appeared on Compact Disc. Secondly, the CD release gave us the opportunity to compile and remaster the tracks from the original tapes with Denis Blackham, who has mastered all Squire's releases since 1979s Walking Down The Kings Road! The release allowed everyone to update their collections, from the worn out scratchy and deleted vinyl copies, to the new pristine fidelity of digital! And it sounded amazing!
Since CD allowed a longer format from the usual 20 minutes a side constraint of vinyl, we were able to combine tracks from Get Smart! The Singles Album and September Gurls - 3 absolute classics! With extensive sleeve notes, it filled the gap in Squire's post vinyl era, and allowed new fans to discover the music at a time when vinyl was becoming passé, pressing plants were becoming redundant, and releases were CD and cassette only.
The Tangerine label was run by Chris Hunt, John Ashworth, and honorary Squire member Paul Bevoir, who has appeared on stage with Squire many times, notably in California in the 1980s, at the 1999 London Mods Mayday, and often since, (and also designs the Hi-Lo Records sleeves!)
They created the label to focus on releasing classic repertoire from The Jetset, Squire, Cleaners From Venus, and many others.
The Big Smashes track list was compiled as a favourite set list, rather than following a chronological or original album order - so it is a Squire playlist!
The release was so successful that we decided to repeat the formula for a second compilation, called Get Ready To Go! which concentrated on the pre Get Smart! era and included tracks from Hits From 3000 Years Ago, Get Smart!, the Fan Club Album, and also included for the very first time the missing Girl On A Train recording sessions that had been abandoned when Get Smart! was planned.
The release followed the same informative sleeve note style, and was also remastered from the original analogue tapes by Denis Blackham.
And so unreleased songs like 'The Place I Used To Live' and 'Over You' appeared alongside studio versions of 'Noonday Underground', 'Modern Love', 'Make Love To You' and 'Has Our Love Gone Bad', to make the ultimate Squire MOD compilation! To support the release, a vinyl EP with 'The Place I Used To Live', 'Over You' and 'Make Love To You' was release concurrently on Detour Records.
This Get Ready To Go CD release was the perfect match to Big Smashes, and so you had early Squire / later Squire on two complimentary CD releases!
Interestingly, the album was planned with a different sleeve to the final release. The originally printed sleeve featured the Anthony, Kevin & Jon line up. It was later decided to change the sleeve to the iconic scooter mirror cover as it best reflected the early style of the repertoire. However, both sleeve versions are out in the world and the Anthony, Kevin & Jon sleeve is particularly rare.
Indeed, both CDs sold ot quickly, were deleted and have been unavailable since their first release thirty or so years ago, and command high prices on Ebay!
As a special summer celebration, we have recreated the albums as playlists on Spotify and YouTube!
Here are the Spotify playlists!
You are welcome to let us know if you’d like Hi-Lo Records to re-release them on Compact Disc!
Here's another link - to Get Ready To Go!
Of course Hi-Lo released all the original Squire albums on Compact Disc in 2007, remastered yet again from the original tapes, and with even better fidelity since Analogue to Digital convertors had improved in the intervening years, but the original transfer on the Tangerine CDs sounds fantastic and adds a slightly different aura to the sound, and both CDs remain collectable, and very listenable - indeed as evidenced from the in car photo, they still play and are played regularly! And still sound as good as the first play! They are the perfect Squire playlist albums!
Here's a link - and on the disc below to the YouTube playlists.
Enjoy & Best Wishes from Squire!