Glass Hymnbook (1980 1982)

Religious Overdose, from Northampton, were the first band to send me a tape. It was strange and I liked it. The full sequence of events are lost in the mists of time but basically I asked them if they wanted to make a record, they said yes and, after a trip up to Northampton to meet them and see them play a gig, I got them down to Ciaran's flat in Poplar, East London to record it. They didn't have a drummer at the time thus saving his neighbours a bit of grief. For some reason or other we all liked the earlier version of 25 Minutes better than the one Ciaran recorded and used that for one side of the single, with his recording of Control Addicts as the other. It sold its first run of 1000 pretty fast, thanks to John Peel and the relentless flyer / fanzine attack of lead vocalist Alex Novak. 500 more were pressed and the colour on the label of the second pressing was changed to green from orange and the sleeve to black and white from green and black. We had no real distribution, just word of mouth, selling directly to shops like Small Wonder, Rough Trade, Red Rhino up in York. You could do that back then. People were interested. I remember Geoff Travis himself ringing me from Rough Trade to order 100 more each of the Religious Overdose and Ciaran Harte releases. It felt like we were part of something. The second single I Said Go and Alien To You was recorded at a studio in Rushden, called Rocksnake, with added drummer Pete Brown john. Plus back at Ciaran’s they cut Blow the Back Off It for The Wonderful World Of Glass Volume 1 compilation LP. The third single, a 12'" double A featuring two long tracks, In This Century and The Girl With The Disappearing Head, was recorded in a studio in Denmark Street, London (the famed Tin Pan Alley) with myself and Ciaran Harte producing. So there you have it really: 3 singles, a compilation track, plus a solo cassette album by Richard Formby - Outside The Angular Colony in less time than it’s taken putting this CD into production. David Barker - Glass Records Redux May 2017