Man on The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown - by Roger Shepherd — Roger Shepherd

While I have always had reservations about this release, I can see that I must learn to embrace it. Firstly as a part of the Flying Nun oeuvre that is personally unavoidably connected to me - as an almost forgotten quirky Christmas release in one remote corner of 40 years worth of Flying Nun’s more “conventional” releases. Secondly, whether anyone likes it or not, as a tiny particle of a much bigger and weirder genre - that of the Christmas record.

...Headless Chickens was a band that used a lot of technology and guitars...Conscious of what they were rejecting and knowingly embracing new music-making methods and sound, the band had created a watershed moment. The future had arrived....

...These three Alec Bathgate albums illustrate a distinct progression; from the tentative Gold Lamé to the assured, complex and accessible masterpiece The Indifferent Velvet Void and, finally, the quirky at ease collection of instruments, Phantom Dots....

The Gordons showed us that it was possible to do something completely different in 1980 by cutting out the cliched rock conventions, cranking up bold and modern musical ideas, and effectively using repetition and volume. They blew everyone and everything away. No one knew that loud was a thing before The Gordons.