Micro-Chips & Fish (single)

Micro-Chips & Fish
Single by The Red Crayola
Released	October 5, 1979
Recorded	~July 1979
Studio
Label	Rough Trade
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Track listing

• Micro-Chips & Fish
• The Story so Far

Background

Rough Trade press release

Did you hear the one about The Red Crayola, Radar Records, WEA, Red Records and Rough Trade? It seems that the band's latest single, 'Micro Chips And Fish' c/w 'The Story So Far', was recorded a full three months back. It was a test. WEA money went into it via Radar but WEA didn't want to know so Radar was going to let the Crayola put it out on their own label, Red. But, 'Red' was already a record company and Radar weren't 'in a position to manufacture', i.e. no money was available for such projects. (Enter Rough Trade) The record had been produced by Geoff Travis and Mayo Thompson and Rough Trade offered to put it out. After much ado over the details of the release of the single and the band from Radar, Rough Trade announces the release of this dogged record. Therefore, the press release which previously announced this release has been rescinded and is replaced by this one. In conclusion: 'Micro Chips & Fish'/'The Story So Far' is released this week on Rough Trade Records, a happy ending to a pathetic shuffle.

• 
  Rough Trade new releases October/November 1979
• 
  "Micro-Chips" press release

Cover art

The back cover photo was taken at the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion, Greece. Mayo Thompson visited Greece in the summer of 1973. See: Manos Hadjidakis

• 
  Temple of Poseidon

Personnel

The Red Crayola

• Gina Birch - vocals
• Epic Soundtracks - drums
• Lora Logic - saxophone
• Mayo Thompson - vocals, guitar

Aswad

• George Oban - bass
• Angus Gaye - drums

Technical

• Mayo Thompson - producer
• Geoff Travis - producer

Reviews

Slash

October 1979

Kick

I keep playing this rather regularly. It doesn't hurt one bit, convincing structure, nice sound, modern feel, all that. But I'm waiting to feel something, anything in me once it's over. There is a lot of that sax/funk bass combination that is usually so lethal, but here it is more toyed with than slung across (as with the Contortions) and all you end up is a few minutes of sophisticated hip doodlings. These people have decided that in the future the form will be the content and act accordingly. And the couple of abrupt changes in style and tempo that are scattered about don’t seem to erupt from necessity but from restless impatience with their own approach. The front and back cover of the record are rather obsessed with tourism for some unclear reason: a bunch of postcards are used for the lettering on the front, and the back is a picture of typical tourists aimlessly wandering amidst some antique ruins. Does that mean Mayo Thompson feels like a tourist in today’s music world? Looking for artifacts and clues that will enable him to relate to his surroundings??

Record Mirror

November 10, 1979

Or should that be micro chips and fish? Or microchips and fish? These and other such questions prod and provoke me brain as The Red Crayola plink their way through their minimalist paradise. Brings a new meaning to the word accessibility: sampled in the same small doses as the click of a light switch or the whirr of the coffee grinder, it is truly illuminating.

Smash Hits

November 10, 1979

Better things from the special one-off line up of Red Crayola and their intense experimental 12 incher "Micro Chips and Fish"/"The Story So Far"--well worth checking out.

Vague

December 1979

We found Red Crayola nice enough but rather arty. Mayo Thompson is from Texas and is 35, he looks like the manager but does in fact sing and play guitar. His musical influences are Pere Ubu, Can and James Blood Ulmer. Lora Logic is 19 and plays sax and sings, as she does with her own band Essential Logic. She told us she had no regrets about her X-Ray-Spex days and really enjoyed that scene. Lora and Gina Birch from the Raincoats reminisce about the Roxy but that’s as far as it goes, Red Crayola are essentially progressive. Lora’s influences are T Rex and Split Enz. Next came Epic Soundtracks, the drummer from Swell Maps (later of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds). He told us he likes Can, TV Personalities, PIL, Robert Wyatt and Subway Sect. His ambition is to go on Multi-coloured Swap Shop and be a walking dictionary. I think Mayo said he is very morose. At this point Gina went off playing with some roadies who pushed her around the hall on a speaker. We continued talking to Mayo, who said Rough Trade were proving a good outlet for the different musical directions he was taking.

Red Crayola have in fact been going for 23 years, I think. None of the original line-up are there anymore but Mayo has been with them since the 60s. Red Crayola signed with Radar in 1978 and did their first gig since 1967 at the Hope and Anchor. Their 1967 album ‘The Parable of the Arable Land’ was re-released, and also a new single ‘Wives in Orbit’. Then they played support to Pere Ubu on their European tour and their album ‘Soldier Talk’ was recorded with help from Pere Ubu. After the album was released Red Crayola embarked on their own tour supported by Scritti Politti. Their new single ‘Micro-chips and Fish’ also features George Oban and Angus Gaye from Aswad. The second album from 1968 ‘God Bless the Red Crayola and All Who Sails With It’ has also been reissued. Red Crayola is a weird set up and what they are about still isn’t clear to me. They told us about another incarnation as a heavy rock band called Womaniser which I think we believed.