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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Mischievous Deeds - Wishing You Well


7" Single, released in 1982



I recently bought a half dozen "new wave" records on eBay for a couple of quid. I'll probably post all of them in the coming weeks, however this one is the strangest. When tagging the files I don't usually have a problem coming up with a genre description but this time all I could think of was "cheeky". I'm not very familiar with Safari Records except that they had English Evenings and Toyah on their roster in the early 80's, but I've no idea about this lot. This is a record that could only have been made by a British artist, in the tradition of the Kinks or Small Faces - just like the typical British cartoon postcard on the cover, this is a tongue in cheek paean to windswept English beaches, ice creams, bikinis and 'avin a larf. It certainly put a smile on my face. Maybe you will enjoy it too.

3 comments:

Mable's Loft said...

Ha ha, this was a band my uncle and his mates had in the 80's! They were from Camberwell, London. This song cracks me up! They also did one called Get on your Bike Argentina!
Kelly x

Anonymous said...

Ha ha ... I can tell you anything you want about these guys! I was friends with them and ended up joining them on guitar after a couple of line-up changes. This was a pre-me song, written and recorded by some friends who had a studio, and I think the guitar solo was played by one of the studio technicians. Mischievous Deeds (the name was a play on a band called Dirty Tricks). They were a Camberwell-based outfit who only ever gigged in local venues, except for some rock festival on Canvey Island. They used to stick A5 posters everywhere claiming to be the 'No 1 Rock Band' ... in actual fact they played not-so-good covers of Zep, Yardbirds, etc. I won't give out full names, but the singer's name was John (last heard of living in Brighton), bass player Steve (now lives near Woking), Gordon on drums (he was good friends with Fred Rowe, Ian Dury's manager) and Peter on guitar. They used to rehearse in the basement of Brunswick Park School. So with John and Peter moving on, I joined and we became 'Living by Design', who in reality probably did even less, but at least played some more melodic music, albeit very New Wave'ish. As far as I know, I'm now the only one still playing ... in a 70's / 80's funk covers band somewhere in Berkshire! Hope that's enough to fill the void! :) ... cheers, MB

Anonymous said...

Does anyone have photos of Mischievous Deeds or Living by design. Thanks