2008 News

2008 has been the year of PHONES SPORTSMAN! He was a founding member of Swell Maps but gave up music in the early eighties. He has now returned to a very prolific musical career with a 7″ single, an album and a ‘mini’ album released on Topplers within the past 6 months!  …  Look out for a fantastic new release by Jowe Head soon! This is a session recorded live at New York’s premier ‘freeform’ radio station WFMU. The session will be interspersed with some extra ‘field’ and ‘live’ recordings!  …  Salt Doll is a band with connections to Steve Treatment, The Au Pairs, Poison Girls etc but that won’t prepare you for the gentle, bitter-sweet folk of their debut album ‘The Washed Ashore Collection‘  …  Also look out for cheap and nasty releases on our cheap and nasty offshoot label Topplers Lite. These CDs only cost £1 (prices correct at time of print!) and feature Scots comedy rockers The Plimptons, Leeds’ finest band The Container Drivers, Banjo pickers Tam’n'Luggs and other weird stuff…    Find out more about everything at topplers.netrecent releases 

The NoMen Have Their Own Website

www.thenomen.org

The NoMen have spent the last 4 years recording their own versions of songs from the ‘golden era’ of DIY punk. These recordings have been available online and also as very limited CDR packages available only from the band… Now you can hear ALL the band’s recordings on their own website! There are songs by Swell Maps, The Television Personalities, O Level, The Desperate Bicycles, The Cult Figures, and many others. There are also a few tracks of NoMen own compositions and a “solo” album by George NoMan!

New downloadable albums… FREE!!!

Over on the real website at topplers.net there are five complete MP3 albums you can download. Each album comes with a PDF document containing the album artwork and information! They are -
The Keys to Talgarth Road by the NoMen. This was the first real CD released on Topplers.
Half Satan - an unpleasant droning experimental soundscape!
Pincer Movement - Jowe Head’s classic solo album from 1981 covered by the Nomen.
Peas & Gloves - The NoMen again, covering more of Jowe Head’s songs.
Alpha Hey - John Fahey influenced guitar sketches.

More albums will be added soon from the Topplers back catalogue!

New Releases by Toxik Ephex

In collaboration with Aberdeen label “Green Vomit”, we have released a double CD of Scotland’s top anarch-punk band of the eighties and nineties, Toxik Ephex.
The band launched their recording career in 1982 with a track on the CRASS compilation LP “Bullshit Detector2″ and went on to release a variety of 7″ singles and LPs all of which are contained on this CD.
Although they officially split sometime in the mid nineties, they still get back together for the odd riotous reunion and even released a new 7″ single in 2006 (a demo version of which is included here).
This CD contains a complete live concert from 1985 which has never previously been released and is a great testament to how good, and under rated, Toxik Ephex really were!
The CD cost £6 plus post in the UK and is available online now from the topplers shop.
Toxik Ephex double CD

Still Updating Website


There are a few more updates to the main site…
The NoMen page is back with a dozen free MP3s - More to come soon including downloadable albums of their Steve Treatment, Jowe Head and TVP covers!

Updates to Website

The Jowe Head page is the first to be updated! More pages to be added soon…

Jowe Head’s C.V. already reads like an obscurity-loving indie-rocker’s wet dream - cred-heavy stints in Swell Maps and Television Personalities assure him cult hero status, even if he never touches a microphone or an instrument again.” [Spledid Magazine 2005]

New Releases

2007 will see new stuff from the Knockouts and Mr Luggs, the 1st CD release for Toxik Ephex’ back catalogue and more weird things! Web site will be updated soon!

Website disapearance!!!

As part of our systematic upgrade of the website we unfortunately did something that wiped the site from the screen! (”It works OK on mine,” says the guy who updates it..) Normal service will resume shortly!

A HUGE STEP BACKWARDS!

One of our favourite artists is John Fahey, the American primitive guitarist who’s work ranges from gentle finger picking to extreme, experimental soundscapes!We were aproached by Alpha Hey who claimed to be the spiritual heirs of the John Fahey sound and presented us with an albums worth of instumental picking and computer generated noise!It wasn’t quite up to the standard of a Takoma or Revenant release, but it was good enough for Topplers!After editing it down to reasonable length we looked for an unusual way topresent this retro recording and found a company that still make shellac 78rpmdiscs.These beautiful 10″ discs will not be available through the Topplers website (too fragile) and can only be bought from Alpha Hey themselves! A digital download will be online shortly.

Nikki Sudden Tribute



A tribute CD to the late, great Nikki Sudden is being released by Sunthunder Records in Italy. Among the acts covering Nikki’s songs are The NoMen who do a rousing version of “All the Gold” which was on Nikki’s first solo album ‘Waiting on Egypt’ from 1982.

Check the label’s MySpace site to see the excellent artwork by Jef Aerosol.