Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - BBC Radio Sessions 1983-84

In 1984, while you were listening to Michael Jackson and Def Leppard, I was rocking out...to Michael Jackson and Def Leppard.  Ok, there, I admitted it.  It wasn't until the latter half of that decade that I wised up and very rapidly began immersing myself in this thing of ours called alternative rock/post-punk/indie/punk, etc.  One of the single most seismic forces that lured me over to the "proper" side of the fence was the Leeds, UK outfit Red Lorry Yellow Lorry (or "Lorries" for shorthand).  My first exposure to them was the video for the Nothing Wrong era track "Only Dreaming," which I believe aired sometime in 1989 on 120 Minutes.  Soon thereafter I purchased Nothing Wrong and was completely bowled over to the point where I was calling up record stores out of the pages of Goldmine magazine in search of whatever albums and singles (mostly pricey imports mind you) I had yet to lay ears on.  It occurred to me back then, just as much as it does today - if Joy Division and Killing Joke copulated, the Lorries would have been the not-so-bouncy love child.  They never asked for the "goth" tag that dogged them throughout their career, but it persisted, which I'm sure led to a decent quotient of RLYL record and ticket sales.

With a gale force rhythm section, SG guitars plowed through stacks of distortion-ravaged Marshalls, and Chris Reeds deep, world-weary golden throat, they offered everything I was looking for in a rock band.  Of course, it didn't last, and by the early nineties the original lineup: Reed/Wolfie/Leon Phillips/Chris Oldroyd parted ways.

In 2008 I posted the aforementioned Nothing Wrong and you responded with several hundred downloads.  Haven't offered anything by then since (save for a couple comparisons) as much of their catalog has been reissued.  The cluster of BBC sessions (two Peel, one Janice Long) I'm sharing has never been commercially available however.  All three are contemporary to nearly a dozen singles the Lorries churned out in the mid '80s, which preceded their first two albums, Talk About the Weather (1985) and Paint Your Wagon (1986).  Included is a take of the pivotal "Monkeys On Juice" single, and the track "Conscious Decision," which was never recorded for official release.  Audio quality varies.

John Peel session 1/13/83
01. Conscious Decision
02. Happy
03. Sometimes
04. Silence

John Peel session 11/16/83
05. Strange Dream
06. Monkey's On Juice
07. See the Fire
08. This Today

Janice Long session - January 1984
09. Feel a Piece
10. Hand on Heart
11. This Today
12. Sometimes

https://rapidshare.com/files/1484967612/rlyl_radiosessions.rar