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Shiny And Black

by Jim Shepherd (Jasmine Minks)

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1.
Brother John 02:34
I don't trust you I don't know anyone who can I'd give you away If I thought that anyone would pay And one of these days Gonna tell your mum The places I find you Brother John It isn't so long You used to say you wouldn't lie I've heard it before You'll speak half truths til the day you die Thousands of people are like you Yet noone is quite like you I love you So one of these days Gonna take you away from all this noise I know it's too much All you need is room to breathe Away from the crowds Pleasant all round I'll find you your heaven Brother John I need you brother...
2.
As Always 02:40
I will love, I will always find you I will lead you to greater things than this Forget the past, it's all behind you You got to catch up with what you missed As always, it's like falling in love again As always, it's like finding your best friend I never knew all the places you'd been Still, you learn something every day It seems like I have always been in the dark It's like opening my eyes to a brand new day As always, it's like falling in love again As always, it's like finding your best friend The force of the soul Will make you do things You don't even think you can The force of the soul Has the strength of ten So when you're down You need something else to brighten up your life The lure of heaven is the thing to fill your whole inside And if you fall for it, I won't blame you I won't even mention it again Cos come my time, I will hope there is a heaven As always it's like falling in love again As always it's like finding your best friend again Falling in love again...
3.
If I knew you I'd be okay I promise I'd bend over backwards to please you Don't be put off by what people say I know it's true but give me a chance Is it really so bad, your eyes don't meet mine If we talked, I'm sure you'd relax What would I do if you went away I wonder if I'd forget in a day To be long-faced it's just not me I'd just have to throw my love all around Am I really so bad, I can't sit still I could stay, I haven't the will I can't get you No matter what I do Why can't you be nice to me You look down on me so seriously If I took you to your death You'd look back and see what a fool you have been Could it really be true, if thoughts could kill Everyone moves, you stand still I can't get you No matter what I do What can I do to persuade you? I can't get you No matter what I do
4.
Bodyguard 03:19
I got you always by my side I got you always on my mind I got you and I always know Where I go you will follow Cos you're my bodyguard You'll do anything I say I got you to keep me clean I got you to protect me Without you don't think I could live I can't do a thing for myself Oh, you're my bodyguard You'll do anything I say And I know that I haven't got much time Don't know how much longer I can bear this life Cos you're my bodyguard You'll do anything I say When I'm lying watching tv I just hope you don't leave me I have these nightmares about another life I couldn't go through this again Cos you're my bodyguard You'll do anything I say
5.
I watch on from a distance and I see The troubles brewing in your head You've been quiet for a while, time you spoke some You've been sitting at that window oh so long I can't take any more of your dim sarcastic grin Time to move on if you can Well I came to the country to find peace All I ever got was a mystery Take your time, cool your mind's what they told me I'd rather lie on a warm Atlantic beach I could ride with the surf Shake this chill right out of me And get some inspiration from the sea I wish you'd open up the window And let some fresh air in I'm not asking you to break down the walls Of this mad house that we're in You're young, you're beautiful And your hands so clean Your skin's so soft in the morning light The clearest I've ever seen You're young, you're beautiful And you don't have to look out that window You go out You got time on your hands You got the rest of your life You can go wherever you like I watch on from a distance...
6.
Got a feeling there's something wrong what's going on There's a buzz in my head and I can't get out of bed Got a feeling I've seen that floor some time before Got a feeling I'm gonna die and I don't know why Father comes through says I came in at 4 As he trips on my shoe and falls down to the floor Well I remember a girl, I left her with a drink My mind's in a whirl and my head's in the sink This sort of thing seems to happen all the time Paid on a Friday that's me for the night I think I should see a doctor for my health I got spots on my face and I'm dwindling all my wealth If I make it today I promise I will stop But I've said it before, it's a never ending plot This sort of thing seems to happen all the time This sort of thing seems to happen all the time Well it's a regular occurrence going down I feel it's not right but then it's not wrong I make all these promises to myself I know I just can't keep I admit it's a problem so there you are I've said it now can I go to the bar?
7.
I cannot wander far away from you Everything you ever said is true And I know that a time will come All the lies will be undone And I wonder where you're going Watched you naked,watched you change your face Dreamt about you as the night turned day Made excuses, the fault's all mine Made me empty, I just wanna cry And I wonder who you're seeing It's crazy but you're richer than me You're beautiful and are you still free Will your daughter who nearly killed you with birth Still see you for what you're really worth Crazy but beautiful, naked and so free...
8.
What I hear is not the truth All the lies surround me I try to fight it, not believe it I like to let things be I close my eyes and like my mind Darkness is the answer Bang my fists down on the table Reach for the whisky decanter And I know in my heart that it's over And I know deep inside that I've lost her Flower pass before my eyes Yet time goes by so slowly I see you dancing in the bustling Crowds down in the city I am jut a piece of card 2D flat and harmless If I walked by without a sound The wind would whistle your name And I know in my heart that it's over And I know deep inside that I've lost her Now I feel free Wanna run away from here And I know in my heart that it's over And I know deep inside that I've lost her
9.
I wanna know things that I don't I have a thirst for knowledge I used to be lax, have boredom attacks And miss every day in college I want to communicate with people Bring out their ideas A language is a strange thing Do you really understand it? You look out a window and it's all bright You see what's going on But it's locked and it's thick Noone can hear you Can you hear me calling I'm breaking down that window I'm looking and talking I'm touching and feeling But you'll have to be careful 'Cause when breaking through Those shards of glass Invisible to the eye They can get you, they can scar you It's a chance you take Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Can you hear me? I'm here, I'm really here...
10.
I wish there were more hours in a normal day I'm working all the time for love I know we're not that rich But what we have is more We don't need help from Mr God above Little things they mean so much We carry on without a grudge We lead two lives, which one is real The bridge we form with dreams of love Will lead us to a better life Crossing over to a different time We may be far away from bigger city lights But in our hearts the fire's burning bright The little things that keep us going through our lives We keep singing on right through the night Little things they mean so much We carry on without a grudge We lead two lives, which one is real The bridge we form with dreams of love Will lead us to a better life Crossing over to a different time...
11.
Out Of Sight 02:28
All these people in the world that I know Staying hidden out of sight Stand around and let the grass grow It gets so high before your very eyes Jim got married only last year Peter went a left for hotter climes Bill's still a barman working down under And Jane's got a new lease of life Yet everyone in this world Could write a book about their life If we just knock down those heroes Built up by you and me to oh so high Mark he moved to London Walter moved to Aberdeen There are people moving far away Never to be seen again Out of sight, a long way away It doesn't seem so far today As long as we are still keeping in touch Nobody'll be out of sight for very long
12.
She Knows 02:56
She's got eyes like pools of blue She's got determination too She'd do anything for you It is anxious to watch To be careful but not touch Dangerous knowing too much 'Cause she knows, she knows, she knows How many people are like that? To be led so easily You may think you know but you don't But what if you could age only From the inside and not be seen You could still keep that childhood dream 'Cause she knows, she knows, she knows It's hard to say you care for someone Who's not real, just a picture on your wall And if I could take her to you You wouldn't believe what you see An illusion of a child But inside as wise as me 'Cause she knows,she knows, she knows I don't care...
13.
Marcella 03:46
If you're missing the one you love Then take heart from this poetry If you feel like you can't go on Then you'll never be made to see 'Cause I must take this to the end And I do this for a free land If you think that it's not my will Then mother don't be ashamed to say If I wasn't so damned sure I resolve to see the day I live to see this land come free And tell the truth of this mockery Take good care of my family Don't they know it's gotta be Listen to me and you might begin to see Listen to me...
14.
I look around, I see nothing but fighting I see all these young kids on the street into drugs and everything An old lady looks out her window But she keeps the window locks tight She'll venture out at day but never at night I feel unsafe in my home town Hanging around the docks at night Where the harbour surface glistens You can drink til you drop or just talk and talk Noone ever listens A girl offers me sex from a window I turn my head away I would if I could but I can't Haven't got money anyway When I return to my home town Junkie city, not worth their weight in salt I don't really blame them It's not their fault I look around me, I see nothing but fighting I see all these young kids on the street into drugs and everything I look out my window I keep the window locks tight I'll venture out at day but never at night I feel unsafe in my home town Junkie city, junkie city...
15.
I left town in another guise Some say to get away from you The tricks that you tried were no surprise There's none I think you wouldn't do Well it's a long way down And I know that you're gonna fall A long way down from here Your mum and dad will be so annoyed They've booked our day to be wed I couldn't stand them anyway I'd much so rather see them dead Well it's a long way down I know that you're gonna fall A long way down from here I booked myself on a foreign train Six pack of beer in my hand I don't know where I'm going to As long as it's another land Well it's a long way down I know that you're gonna fall A long way down from here Now that I'm gone I sure miss that place I miss it like a hole in the head I'm lying here in a sunny haze I only miss you in bed Well it's a long way down I know that you're gonna fall A long way down from here...
16.
Two Lines 03:07
You know I went out one day To make my way in life I left you never said goodbye Took that train as far as it went I don't look over my shoulder There's noone bothering me But I might be on the move again I find it keeps me happy Two lines into the distance One line into the sea That's the kind of thing in front of me Settling down I don't know those words It's more like filling your cup I can see it all while I'm young But then you know I'll never grow up You come to a point You think you're experienced But you'll never know it all If you get too clever then you'll trip up And it's a long, long way to fall Two lines into the distance One line into the sea That's the kind of thing in front of me...
17.
No matter how well I do financially I'm always struggling in life Thought it'd made a difference By taking myself a wife I still move around Never really knowing where I am I'm having fun But when the morning comes I'm never any further on And when I go far away There's always a thread keeping me attached I don't care which country I'm in You see I've got no patriotic ties I pledge my allegiance to noone I need my autonomy The world seems made of gold plate When you scratch the surface all the beauty goes Can't say I'm unhappy though Let's say I'm a thoughtful one I'm not being rude It's just I feel I'm losing you Got itchy fingers, itchy feet Got to play my guitar on the street I pledge my allegiance to noone I need my autonomy The world seems made of gold plate When you scratch the surface, all the beauty goes When you scratch the surface
18.
A vague memory of a train journey In darkness with hills peeping out Round one last corner Now it's today Well it's daylight now A friend is showing me round My head, it hurts and it beats Don't remember a thing And I can't keep my feet The world came alive with a shout It's daylight It's beautiful It's light I don't remember It's beautiful Shiny and Black Shiny and Black

about

This collection of songs form a narrative which tells the (fictional) story of my life from 1979 until 1989. I call it my Indie-pop opera. Recorded on 4-track cassette in 1988-89 when I was writing songs for The Jasmine Minks Creation Records album Scratch The Surface. Only 11 made it onto that album. Here I present all 29 songs in their entirety...

My mother was adopted as a baby and, as she put it, used as a slave on an Aberdeenshire farm from when she was old enough to be useful. She had 7 children, 5 of whom were adopted or fostered, before she married and had my sister and me. She kept this a secret until her dying day (although she dropped little hints I did not realise what they were hinting at until years later). She worked hard all her life, often being the main bread-winner in our house. She died when I was 16. She was the most generous and loving person one could ever hope to have as a mother. I dedicate this album to her memory.

Introduction - how this album came about

I was tidying up the house, getting rid of lots of old junk when I came across and old 4-track cassette machine. I used to record my demos onto this before everything went digital. I was surprised that it worked (it played but didn't rewind or fast forward). There were a load of cassettes in a pile so I started listening to them. Most of them were from a period from 1988 to 1989 when I was writing songs for an album we did then (see Making of Scratch The Surface below). What surprised me most was just how many songs there were (about 30 from the middle of 1988 to early 1989). I spent a long time mixing them onto my 16 track digital studio although with the nature of 4-track recording many of the tracks were bounced (a method of mixing 3 tracks into one to free up more of the tracks for new instruments) onto one track so were effectively mixed already, quite often leaving a vocal and lead guitar and organ to mix separately. I have tried to take away some of the hiss with digital restoration but the overall sound is listenable I think. After digging out the lyrics and, after a few tears and smiles, I have put them into an order making a narrative which tells the story of a teenager/young man from 1979 until 1989. I call it an Indie-pop opera in reference to the name this music was later given. I hope that my children (and grandchildren) will listen to this if they ever want to know what life was like for someone like me then. I won't foist it on them now but maybe when I'm gone they will be interested in finding that some of the emotions they have lived through have been passed down to me and, through me, onto them.

Synopsis (relevant songs in brackets)

My Home Town
(Brother John) I'm looking after my little brother who has learning difficulties. He's a pain in the arse sometimes because he runs away. But he's great fun to be around too and as long as nobody upsets him he's fine. I manage to get out and about at the weekend, going drinking with pals and going to gigs. (As Always, Can't Get You) I fall in love with persistent regularity, I love the drink and the camaraderie of the gigs and our scene in my home town. I'm full of energy and confidence at times. (Bodyguard) My mum has cancer and she can't get out of bed - she tells me her story about being adopted and how hard life was then. She grew up to be a young and beautiful woman and everybody loved her. She appreciates that I help her and, in between getting annoyed at her (or maybe God) for being ill, I imagine her as this young woman with the world at her feet (From A Distance) but also with a dark story lurking in the background. A few weeks later mum dies and I carry on my life like before, not really mourning, drinking too much, in disbelief I suppose. (These Things Happen) Mornings can be bad. I get a girlfriend (Mother's Girl), she's older than me, a single mother and from the richer part of town, very intelligent and, although I really like her, she gets me down eventually - I'm jealous and she likes to be everybody's best friend and is a bit reckless at times. (I've lost Her) I keep thinking I see my mum walking down the pavement when I'm in town. My brother turns 18 and moves into sheltered accommodation so I decide to move away to London. (Can You Hear Me) I want to make something of my life, I want to go to college and study maths - I was always good at maths at school.

The Big City
(Little Things) My enthusiasm for life is lifted at times in the hectic overdrive of the big city. I get lost in the the anonymity of the crowds and intoxicated by the little things around me, the parks, the beautiful people around and the friendliness of the people I meet. (Out Of Sight) It's a busy time - I have a flat and everyone I know from my home town comes to visit for a while, some are inspired to stay in London or move further afield, some stay for a wee while then go home. It's dizzying but fun. I make new friends too, working in the city. I fall in love many times and meet some strange characters, including a tiny Australian woman, who never gets taken seriously, even though she has a degree in economics from Cambridge University. (She Knows) If asked a difficult question I'd say 'she knows!' I begin to feel that I need a career instead of the dead-end job I'm in. I think about joining the fire brigade or of becoming a nurse. The financial sector does not interest me any more - I want to be in a career helping people. My job is really getting me down. I'm drinking a lot and have developed a liking for amphetamines consumed in the pub with alcohol to make me appear more straight (I don't like addicts!) (Lost and Living) I'm Surrounded by Yuppies all day I get despondent and suicidal and I keep thinking that my mother is still alive somewhere, hiding from me in some strange game and that she'll be coming back any day. (Marcella) I start going on political marches and get political, really inspired by the hunger strikers in the Maze prison in Belfast and getting disillusioned with mainstream politics whether Labour or Tory. (Hell and Back) Although the pubs are only open until 9pm in the city there are plenty places to party until the early hours and the amphetamines help to keep me awake, although I pay for it with rash comments to friends and brushes with dangerous characters in the quest for the drugs.

Returning to My Home Town
(Junkie City) I take a trip home to my home town. I can't believe the changes in the town - it seems yuppified, for want of a better word, yet there seems more poverty too. (Sad Boy) I walk around all the places I used to live - we were evicted regularly when I was a young boy and it all comes flooding back to me. (No More Work) My father is retiring (although he never worked much in my life anyway). (Nothing To Hide) I head back to London in a strange mood reading the paper on the train about the new nuclear weapon programme being introduced.

Back to the City
(Ideas To Live)(Misery) I get bored with work and get back into heavy drinking sessions. (Long Way Down) I get bored with my current girlfriend, who is wonderful, but whose parents want us to marry and I'm definitely not ready for that. (Two Lines) I take every penny out of my bank account and disappear for a few weeks to the south of France. (Reaching Out) After I return, we split up and I end up in a bedsit, wandering the streets for while trying to get my head back together. (Searching) I'm reading a lot of spiritual and occult books and beginning to get vivid thoughts, dreams and even voices speaking to me although noone is there - a light switches on, 'there is nothing to fear either from people or governments or religion'. It's all ok or so I thought! (Second Chance) I bump into my old girlfriend, we hit it off and, quietly get married - bad idea. (Scratching The Surface) Within a few months we've split up and I'm struggling to control the voices in my head. I have a complete mental breakdown and end up in hospital. The care of the staff there and the counselling I receive ground me as I finally grieve for my mother. (Shiny and Black) I wake up to a more realistic view of life and start those small steps in adulthood...


Song Story

Act I
Scene I - Take
Introductory instrumental evoking memories of the 1960's of main character's childhood when he was moved from pillar to post after evictions and parents moving jobs many times

Scene II - My Home Town
Brother John - looking after younger brother
As Always - friends, energy, confidence
Can't Get You - the unobtainable girlfriend
Bodyguard - palliative care
From A Distance - trying to cheer up someone, who is in a daze
These Things Happen - hangover blues
Mother's Girl - she gets down too, she's got money but it's not enough
I've Lost Her - unable to accept the loss of a loved one
Can You Hear Me - hopes and career opportunities

Scene III - A new life in the city
Little Things - appreciation of life
Out Of Sight - friends are always on the move - some arrive, some leave, in a state of constant flux
She Knows - the girl who never grew up, the eternal little girl, intelligent but refusing to accept the responsibilities of adulthood
Lost and Living - dark thoughts, non-accepting of reality
Marcella - inspired by people who have something they believe in and have a purpose in life
Hell and Back - the dark side, the drink, the drugs, feeling detached from society

Act II
Scene IV - Revisiting my home town
Junkie City - I take a break home only to find the place has changed beyond recognition
Sad Boy - reflecting on childhood memories and how it affects me today
No More Work - father retires and can't cope with the lack of activity
Nothing To Hide - I read the papers and the wrong people get the headlines (a politician who is unveiling the new nuclear deterrent)

Scene V - Back to the city
Ideas To Live - bored with work, bored with everything
Misery - the morning after the night before
Long Way Down - pressure to marry, to grow up, wanting to run away from it all
Two Lines - travelling, escape
Reaching Out - returned broke, nowhere to live and overwhelmed by the busyness of city life
Searching - strange voices, are dreams real? looking for something spiritual
Second Chance - bouncing back, faith in a higher power
Scratching The Surface - it's difficult to find the beauty sometimes...

Scene VI - Redemption
Shiny and Black - a dream/ stepping out of the darkness into the light...


The Making of Scratch The Surface

Scratch The Surface was an album we (The Jasmine Minks) released in 1989. It was our last album for Creation Records. We had already released:
1234567 All Good Preachers Go To Heaven (a 6 track, mini-album)
The Jasmine Minks (the 'blue' album)
Sunset (a compilation for the European market, originally released on Megadisc Records with previously released songs and a few unreleased ones)
Another Age (our first album after the loss of my song-writing partner, Adam Sanderson)

Let's start with Another Age. I wasn't used to writing a full set of songs on my own but, somehow, we managed to put together an album which sounded integrated. Our previous albums were cobbled together from different sessions with a huge variety in feel, making them sound bitty and hastily put together, which they were. Another Age was like starting over - for the first time Alan McGee (our boss at Creation Records) had left it up to us to organise and compile an album. I much preferred this amount of control. Tom and Martin had become a great rhythm section and Paul Cooper joined all the sounds together with his Leslie-effect organ sounds. Guitarists blended around those sounds easily, whether it was Wattie Duncan or Dave Arnold. Gone was the jumping about of genres of our previous records and in came a coherence which blended a pop sensibility of Brian Wilson with a Byrds' strumming guitar feel. It worked and everything seemed to fall into place, regardless of how weak I felt my lyrics were compared to Adam's.

I decided to prepare better for the next album. I started by giving up my full-time job as an electrician on the building sites around London and taking a part-time job at a bookies (betting shop) in West Croydon, South London (strangely called Mecca Bookmakers). This gave me time to spend writing songs. My wife backed me in my decision and carried on working full-time, effectively supporting me financially too. Things went slow at first and I couldn't really come up with much. I gave up work altogether to focus on songwriting. From then I spent weekdays writing tunes on my guitar strumming away until I came up with something that sounded nice or original (sometimes both). I'd sing instantly made-up lyrics to them and jam away, furiously writing down stream-of-consciousness words that fitted the meter of the song. Amazingly what came out often made sense. I didn't even realise at the time that the songs have a narrative: I was often singing to my mother, Doris, who died when I was 16 and who I had never mourned properly. A lot of these stories were conversations with her or recollections of things we'd gone through (we struggled with poverty as a family throughout my childhood but there was a lot of love). As I got more and more into writing I also began to write about experiences from my life in the last ten years or so. I'd write about the highs and the lows. I've only just realised how these songs tell my story, somewhat changed as I made them more fictional. I was wandering through my thoughts like navigating through an unmarked minefield. I developed my own way of talking to the songs through my inner world/mind. I was freed by the need to try to hide my feelings - I was enjoying letting everything out, expressing something I didn't even really understand. I didn't care if it fit into the existing British Indie scene - I hoped our guitar pop could reach the charts again (this was years before Britpop I hasten to add). I just went with the style we started on Another Age but my songwriting skills were getting better as I was able to dig deeper into what I wanted to say and make the melodies more original.

I liked using the Roland drum machines. I bought one (TR-505) in 1986 and upgraded to a newer model (TR-626) in 1988. They were easy to programme and kept me in time, something I had realised was very important for the first time when recording Another Age (I insisted that we recorded using a click track 'metronome' for each song and it made us sound so much more professional). I also bought a cheap keyboard with organ and piano sounds on it as well as a Yamaha sequencer which was extremely laborious to programme (I never used it very much - I'm a very impatient person). I had my Ovation 12-string electro-acoustic which I'd bought second-hand three years before. I had a lovely vintage reissue of the '57 mustard coloured Fender Telecaster - I loved the simplicity of this guitar and the rock n roll sound I got with it for rhythm guitar. I bought a 1969 black Gibson Les Paul for lead guitar sounds (later stolen after a gig in Manchester) - this guitar provided a long sustain and added nice tones on songs. I bought a black reissue Fender Stratocaster and used this loads too, especially if I wanted some bright lead guitar. Half way through the recordings I picked up a battered electric piano from a charity shop for a few pounds - the keys were a bit heavy for a non-piano player like me but I got some good sounds from it. Minks bass player Martin lent me his Fender Precision bass and an AKG microphone and that was the total of kit I had (apart from the hi-fi speakers I used for monitors) and my Fender Twin 100w amplifier. A very basic set-up.

I'd start the day by walking the dog to the park in South Norwood, picking up some yogurt and bread from Safeway on the way home. I'd have a cup of tea and put some records on: from memory I'd say Big Star double re-issue album, The Beach Boys' Surfs Up and Dexys' Don't Stand Me Down were rarely off the turntable (although a lot of Funkadelic, Prince, The Kinks and Capt. Beefheart were on too). Then I'd go through to the spare room where everything was set up for recording. I'd record everything - I'm an Aberdonian after all and we don't waste anything. For a while we had our roadie, Mark, staying with us. He was not an early riser and he'd be sleeping in the spare room until late afternoon. I'd try to be quiet but I'm sure he was awake during the recording of most of those songs - occasionally he'd sit up in bed and say he liked something or, more often, had constructive criticism of what I was doing then lie back down again and go back to sleep, surfacing around tea-time. I was having the time of my life - this was what I wanted to do and the creative life has amazing benefits in raising happiness in general (why do you think therapists say it's so good to write down your thoughts!) It gets something out that is stuck inside and has a soothing effect. Once you get that bug of writing songs which cleanse you and make you feel so good you don't want to stop. Maybe that's why I came up with so many songs for the album. 12 would have done but I came up with 30. Narrowing it down was not easy. It's the later stages that are stressful for me - recording in a big studio and trying to create something which has some integrity while being very business-like.

I made cassette mixes along with lyrics sheets and chords for the rest of the band. Tom really listened and offered advice - he came up with his own input into the album before we went into a rehearsal studio in Old Street to get ready for the recording sessions. I had a dream that it would be like The Beatles recording the Let It Be album (a film I loved). In a way it was like that if you know your Beatles' history, the crumbling of the band, slowly but inevitably. I wanted desperately to make a great album. But I was having to teach the songs to everyone except Tom - I had written out the lyrics and chords but only he had spent the time learning the songs in advance, giving him the chance to add his own creativity to them. He was coming up with great beats and taking the lead vocal on Misery as well as lots of other backing vocals. Consequently we had very little time to develop the songs before going into record and dropped some really good songs on the flimsiest of reasons (wrong key, too difficult or, most often, because they weren't immediate enough).

The recording session for the album was booked at Pat Collier's Greenhouse Studios near Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. We had a week booked and we weren't ready - I was annoyed at that but didn't know what to do. I get frustrated in recording studios, knowing that we have very little time and so much to do. I like to be very well prepared and expect everyone else to be prepared too. They are expensive places and the pressure is on to get good results. It is a subjective thing of course but I do feel that the sterile atmosphere is at odds with a good artistic production and it takes a lot to put these things out of mind to get that timeless album we, as rock musicians, are always looking for. Somehow we got a decent album recorded (the songs probably held it together) although we mixed it badly. I asked a childhood pal, Les Clark, to design the cover for us. I gave him a photograph I had taken of one of those wooden churches in the USA (actually in a wee town near the famous Suwannee river). He did a good job, giving it a simple, reflective and spiritual feel, perfect for the songs. The album title Scratch The Surface although a song on the album also summed up that the album only included some of the songs which, if added, could have provided a double album.

It was a while before the album came out. We did manage to do some gigs to promote it but the feel we had was probably too USA sounding for the British audience and it didn't sell well. There were some exceptions (Tonbridge Wells, Hampstead and Manchester Boardwalk being some of them). And then Tom broke his leg playing football. We did play some gigs even without him, using a multi-talented pal, Foosky (he even played when we supported Mo Tucker in Leeds). Soon after, Ed de Vlam, our amazing guitarist left to go and live in Spain and I was distraught without him - in the couple of years he was with us he was so supportive and I had learned so much from his talents and calmness. He wrote and sung a wonderful 'hidden' song at the end of Scratch The Surface 'Playing For Keeps' and I envisaged him taking a bigger and bigger role in the band, perhaps taking over from me as lead singer and songwriter (he could do both with amazing virtuosity).

We had come a long way since we first started playing at The Living Room 6 years before. We'd matured into a solid band with a range of songs to call on in our live sets. But we weren't getting the good support slots we used to with bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jazz Butcher and Primal Scream. We faded into the background - me and my wife split up and I went to study to be a school teacher of practical subjects (my work on the building sites got me into that course). We have made some sporadic comebacks as The Jasmine Minks since then and may do some again. But those 6 years were the most concentrated and formed us in more ways than 'just' music. For me, as a songwriter, I have never again been so steeped in the art as I was then. I have written many songs since and even got that manic bug for completing an album again when we did Popartglory for Alan McGee's later label, Poptones. But I'd lost the finer songwriting skills I spent years developing in the 80's and was putting more effort into sounds rather than song structure. I have a back catalogue of dozens of songs never released, so I don't really feel the need to write songs any more as I can always dip in to my pile of lyrics and chord sheets if I ever need songs again...

Jim Shepherd
August 2018

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released August 8, 2018

Jim Shepherd: vocals, guitars, organ, bass, drum programming, piano

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Jim Shepherd (Jasmine Minks) Scotland, UK

Member of The Jasmine Minks, who released albums on Creation Records and Esurient from 1984-89 and then with Poptones, Bus Stop and Cherry Red Records since. I release occasional records on my own label, Oatcake Records, and have collaborated with others such as APB, Sleepyard and The Beat Hotel. My first solo LP/CD is out now. I also still play and record with The Jasmine Minks... ... more

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