Skan
releases:
| format | date | label | country | time | | MC | 1979-03 | n/a | UK | 48:28 |
tracks:
| 1 | Für Helene Part I | 14:00 | | 2 | Sequences | 10:08 | | 3 | Four And Three | 5:30 | | 4 | Encore | 6:08 | | 5 | Für Helene Part II | 12:19 |
musicians:
| Brian Devoil | drums | | Clive Mitten | bass | | Andy Revell | guitar |
Info
This tape holds the first studio recordings the band made. The recordings were done live, at an empty hall at Reading University, Reading, England, in March 1979, using a PA hired from a company called Skan, hence the title of the tape. This tape was never actually released. No cover was made for it either. It's listed in the discography, because it is a well-known tape. Yes, only a three-piece band. No keyboards used. The whole tape was recorded live, except for a small piece during Für Helene Part I, which has Andy Revell playing guitar while the tape was running, recording it onto another tape. Brian Devoil: "That must have been the first ever overdub we ever did." (Source: BD) "Für Helene"
Some parts of this version of Für Helene Part I were later incorporated into Sequences. This tape holds the full-length version (although at the early gigs, a version of 20 minutes was played). At a certain point, the band played the rhythm section only, which is the version known to most of us, since it is the rhythm section that was released on the Live At The Target LP. "Sequences"
On this tape, the band's first studio recordings (the band's third live gig, in November 1978, was already recorded), Sequences was only eight minutes. Later, it was used as a kind of melting pot for musical ideas, and it changed quite a few times, and it got longer. This song was recorded again for the First Tape Album (seventeen minutes), for Live At The Target (twenty-one minutes), and, with Geoff's vocals, for Live And Let Live (slightly under seventeen minutes). "Four And Three"
With a time structure of 7 / 8, Four And Three was a nice title. This song was later expanded with a second part, totalling up to nine minutes. It was renamed to a lot of things, among which Entropy. That second part later became known and was recorded under the title of C.R.A.B. At one point, Entropy was expanded again with a third part, which later also was recorded separately: World Without End. "Encore"
This is another track that changed over time, but not as much as Four And Three and Sequences. The title also changed, as it was played live and recorded for the First Tape Album as Encore Une Fois (which is French for One More Time.). Abberations
This tape was never officially released. However, as with many tapes by many bands, somehow tapes like this find their way to a lot of people anyway. Things might happen to the tape in the process, and I once got a very high-generation copy of Skan, on which the Für Helene parts were titled Part III and Part IV. The tape speed was too high, probably to get the 48 minutes onto a 45 minutes tape side. It seemed there was an extra track on this tape as well, Sequences (Reprise). This was the part of Für Helene Part I with the overdub. Re-issue
Two of the tracks (Für Helene Part I and Four And Three) have been re-issued as bonus tracks on the MC re-issue of The First Tape Album (the re-issue is called The First Tape Album Plus), available from Brain Devoil. See the Merchandise for more information. It is still unknown whether there are any plans to re-issue the whole of Skan on CD.
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