Sunday 15 January 2012

A Silly Tree - September 1980


By September 1980, A Silly Tree had already dropped several of their earlier songs, concentrating on their more extended rhythm based material. They made two sets of recordings at Pen-Y-Bryn Manor during the month, the first featuring more focused versions of some of the songs that featured on the August recordings, and the second set featuring a hint at future directions.

This second session saw the original trio augmented by singer Maria Hycz, who had previously played with Alan and Gary in The Zuggs, whose songs "Isn't Life Such Fun" and "Hazard" had formed part of A Silly Tree's early live sets. The three songs featured in this session displayed a radical departure from previous material, with Mark playing guitar on two of the songs and an abandonment of the afro-rhythms that had began to creep into the group's material. More contemporary groups were beginning to use ethnic influences and A Silly Tree became suspicious of this trend for dubious cultural colonisation, seeing a possible escape route in jettisoning rhythm altogether at times. Although Maria's tenure alongside the original trio was brief, she was to return to the group the following May as part of the final line-up.


A Silly Tree - Pen-Y-Bryn Manor
September 1980

Mark Creathorne - Drums / Guitar (8, 9)
Alan Holmes - Guitar / Drums (9)
Maria Hycz - Vocals (8-11)
Gary Stubbs - Vocals (1-7) / Bass

1. Still a Problem (Stubbs) 5.05
2. Surfin' 63 (Creathorne/Holmes/Stubbs) 7.32
3. Still a Problem (Stubbs) 5.10
4. Big Time (Stubbs) 4.46
5. Hazard (Holmes) 3.01
6. Accusation (Creathorne/Stubbs) 7.23
7. Accusation (Creathorne/Stubbs) 6.48
8. She'll Never Know (Holmes/Hycz/Stubbs) 6.15
9. Storyteller (Creathorne/Hycz) 4.18
10. Guilty Feeling (Holmes/Hycz) 5.05
11. Guilty Feeling (Holmes/Hycz) 4.56

get it here (part 1)
and here (part 2)

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