Tuesday 5 August 2014

Agent Provocateur - You're No Good

OK I know this isn't Punk or new wave (and no this posting is not about lingerie), but I have a few oddities in my collection that I would like to share as personally I rate them and it does no harm to stray into other genres now and then. To be honest when I first played this I though it was indie and then I looked them up to find more and discovered that they were classified as dance, trip hop and big beat (I wouldn't know one from the other).

Agent Provocateur was a collaboration between John Gosling (also know as the Mekon) Mathew Ashman (ex Bow Wow Wow), Dan Pepe, Danny Saber (formerly Black Grape) and female singer Cleo Torrez. They released one album "Where The Wild Things Are" which featured the single "Agent Dan" with Shaun Ryder on vocals.

If you like "You're No Good" then your in for a treat as there a three different versions here, and all of them are excellent. Ever since I first played this I have always loved it, on track one the twanging guitar is perfect with Cleo's vocals telling you "You're No Good". If you listen to "Semtex Gun" you can see why they are labeled dance, but even though I'm not a dance fan even this has grown on me.

So try it out and leave a comment, I would be interested to see what all you punk fans think of this.

Band: Agent Provocateur
Label: wall Of Sound
Year: 1996
Tracks:
1. You're No Good
2. You're No Good (Mekon 7" Mix)
3. Semtex Gun
4. You're No Good (Depth Charge Mix)

Ripped from not so glorious CD

6 comments:

Simon No Mates said...

This is a cover of an ESG song... the all-female South Bronx 'No Wave Funk' (my words) band.
Check out...
http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/esg1.html

Nuzz Prowlin' Wolf said...

Fuck whether it's punk or not gary, great post, their agent dan 12" is rather fine aswell, I'm having probs with my record deck at the mo, otherwise i'd post that. If yer not into yer dance but you still don't mind a bit of it, Flowered Up are a good bet if you aint already heard 'em, gonna post one of theirs soon, massive backlog of stuff though, restricted to tapes and cd's though.

Punkzer0 said...

Thanks for that Simon, I didn't know it was a cover. having listened to ESG's original I think this one is better, although I do like the very stripped down and simple style of ESG. I going to try out some more ESG now so thanks for that. For those of you want to hear ESG try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRS1LSTNAuo
or go to lastfm where you can here the original recording.

Punkzer0 said...

You're right Nuzz. if its a gem it warrants posting. Would love to hear Flowered UP, so I will keep an eye out for your posting (I visit most days so I shouldn't miss it)

Spizzle said...

Great coupla tracks Gary, well worth posting.

Simon No Mates said...

No problem... but I prefer ESG. I've been a fan a while anyway.
Also, it's the same John Gosling who was in Psychic TV for a bit.