Burn, baby, burn ... Disco Inferno!

One of the great things about collecting budget cover versions is the way collectors are willing to generously share their new finds, and last week, I was pleased to hear from John MackMersh, who'd come across a cassette on the little-known VFM label.

The tape in question is Disco Inferno, a nine-track assemblage of disco-style hits, which was issued in 1978. John sent over some scans, and very kindly also donated the cassette itself, so it is now safely in my all-too-little VFM collection.

Here are some images:

What a great item! I particularly love the '70s-style image on the front, complete with the roundel stating, "Special Price 99 Pence". VFM = Value For Money, so they lived up to their name.

Now, I did wonder about the tape: was this a newly-recorded disco-type album, or was it a collection assembled from earlier VFM releases? I was intrigued that there were only nine tracks, making me think of some sort of long musical sequence - those familiar with 'Stars on 45' will know what I mean.

John though stated these were standard cover versions, and when I got to listen to the cassette, I was able to confirm their origins. Luckily, one of my other VFM cassettes contained the track, 'Black Is Black', also included here - and a comparison revealed they are the same versions. So, this is a VFM compilation album.

This is the track listing:

1. Black Is Black   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 6]
2. The Shuffle   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 2]
3. Sunny   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 1]
4. Ma Baker   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 4]
5. Disco Inferno   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 4]
6. Red Light Spells Danger   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 1]
7. Too Hot To Handle   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 3]
8. Good Morning Judge   [from Hit Parade '77 Vol. 3]
9. Ain't Gonna Bump No More 

Given our previous efforts to compile a VFM discography, we have been able to identify the source album for eight of the nine selections, the odd one out being the final track. They are all from the previous year's Hit Parade '77 set, bar this one oddity.

It's curious that only nine tracks were included from a pool of perhaps 60 or 70 titles at VFM's disposal. There's no sign on the cassette itself that this was conceived as a 'volume 1' (which might explain other tracks being held off for a 'volume 2'), so Value For Money, yes, but a hint of short-changing, perhaps? The total running time (based on the speed of my cassette deck) is less than 17 minutes per side.

I bet you'd like to hear it? I don't usually upload sound files, since most of these cover versions were put out by small independent labels, some of whom are still exploiting them commercially. I would not want to undermine them by giving away copies, but in the case of VFM I know of no evidence they have been trading in any guise for the last 30-odd years.

So, for those au-fait with downloading files, here is a digital copy of the album. It's in MP3 for convenience, and bears all the hallmarks you'd expect from an old tape - so don't expect clean, crisp hi-fi.

Download link

To be fair, it's all the better for its imperfections. Step into your Tardis, rematerialise in 1978, and enjoy the experience, while picturing two little cog wheels going round inside a Hitachi radio-cassette. It's better than you may remember!

Thanks again to John for the cassette.

VFM - those Value For Money soundalike cassettes

On the heels of our post about the recently discovered VFM label's cassette releases (here), we were contacted by Adrian Chappell with some more info, and some fab scans of other tapes in the series. Adrian is lucky enough to have three of these in his collection, "Hit Parade '77" vol. 2"; "Hit Parade '77" vol. 5"; and "Hit Parade '78" vol. 4".

Before we go into this deeper, let's have a look at the tapes in Adrian's collection:

These are truly fantastic cassettes. When we first chanced on the VFM releases a few weeks ago, it was a bit of a puzzle as to what was going on - the cassettes are so rare that even finding out what was released was impossible. The burning question was ... were these tapes a regular series, or were they released as ready-made collections, like typical box-sets.

The answer, so far as we can tell from Adrian's scans, is more towards the latter - which is to say, they were not a regular series with new installments released at intervals. I'll give you my logic below.

This is the printed inner of VFM's "Hit Parade '77 col. 5" (click to enlarge):

It will be noted that several more tapes like these are advertised inside. This enables us to fill out several gaps in our listing. For the record, and with reference to the above listings, here's the discography of VFM's relevant cassettes, as known to us today...

========================================

THE BEST OF 1976 (VCA 013)

Dancing Queen / Don't Go Breaking My Heart / Rhinestone Cowboy / Una Paloma Blanca / When Forever Has Gone / Save Your Kisses For Me / Fernando / Beautiful Noise / Money, Money, Money / Sailing

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 1 (VCA 015)

Rock Bottom / Red Light Spells Danger / Lay Back in the Arms of Someone / My Kinda Life / Tear Me Apart / Another Suitcase in Another Hall / I Don't Want To Put A Hold On You / Going In With My Eyes Open / Moody Blue / Southern Nights / When / Sunny

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 2 (VCA 021)

The Shuffle / Free / Hotel California / You Don't Have to Be a Star / Sir Duke / Pearl's a Singer / Have I the Right / Whodunit / How Much Love / Oh Boy / Another Funny Honeymoon

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 3 (VCA 022)

The First Cut is the Deepest / I Don't Want to Have to Talk About It / A Star Is Born (Evergreen) / Tokyo Joe / Lucille / Too Hot to Handle / Lido Shuffle / Good Morning Judge / Got to Give Up / Rendezvous / It's A Game

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 4 (VCA 024)

Show You the Way / Baby Don't Change Your Mind / Telephone Line / So You Win Again / Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy / Sam / Rhapsody / Kyrila / Don't Let Go / Feel the Need / Disco Inferno / Ma Baker

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 5 (VCA 033)

I Remember Elvis Presley / Telephone Man / Oxygene / Wondrous Stories / I Remember Yesterday / Best of my Love / Cool Out Tonight / Lets Clean Up the Ghetto / Thunder In My Heart / Down Deep Inside

========================================

HIT PARADE '77 vol. 6 (VCA 034)

Silver Lady / Black is Black / Waiting in Vain / Sunshine After the Rain / Float On / Nobody Does It Better / Think I'm Gonna Fall In Love With You / Magic Fly / Another Star / From New York To LA

========================================

HIT PARADE '78 vol. 4 (VCA 066)

Giving Up Giving In / Darlin / Instant Replay / Eve of War / Picture This / Rat-Trap / McArthur Park / Sandy / Again and Again / Where Did Our Love Go

========================================

HIT PARADE 79 vol. 1 (VCA 080)

Forever in Blue Jeans / Heaven Knows / I Was Made For Dancin' / My Life / Can You Feel The Force / Lucky Number / Oliver's Army / I Will Survive / Tragedy / I Want Your Love / Don't Stop Me Now / Fire

======================================== 

By checking the vintage of the hits, we can see that they do at first seem to fit the pattern of a regular series. "The Best of 1976" is just that, and was presumably the first such release from VFM.

When it comes to "Hit Parade '77", we have listings for all six in the set, and the tracks cover successive periods in the charts of that year - vol. 1 circa April; vols. 2 and 3 circa June; vol. 4 circa August; vols. 5 and 6 circa November.

The others follow the same pattern. "Hit Parade '78 vol. 4" contains tracks from the very end of that year, so looks like it could be the fourth of four from 1978, while "Hit Parade 79 vol. 1" has hits which all date to around April 1979.

So, clear enough you may think - but...

What proves to me that these are not a regular series is that the same printed inner can be found on the VFM cassette, "The Hits of the Shadows". The catalogue number of this album is VCA 016. This means it was sequenced between volumes one and two of "Hit Parade '77" - and since it contains track details for volumes three and four (VCA 022 and VCA 024), they must have all been released at once; if three and four were yet to be, they could not be itemised on VCA 016.

This all but proves the hit covers tapes were not released sequentially. While it's possible they were released in batches (in fact, quite likely) my hunch is that the tracks were deliberately selected in chronological order, to make the story of each year as it goes.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about this, and if I am, I will be happy to learn more from anyone who knows! It would be truly amazing to find another regular series which has escaped us for so long, but personally, I think the odds are against. If you disagree with my logic, leave a message!

My thanks to Adrian Chappell for the scans and info.

VFM label cassettes - a hint of more undiscovered sets

Last week, a cassette appeared on Ebay which I'd not seen before (thanks to Ian Byrne for the heads up). I'll show some scans first, then take a look at what it might be...

 

As you can see, this cassette goes by the name, "Hit Parade '77 vol. 6" - and it's that "vol. 6" part which makes you wonder... were there others issued as well? I did some digging around, and basically drew a blank. The VFM label is featured on Discogs as a minor budget outlet, but none of the other cassettes are of soundalike chart hits like this one (not that the listing is anywhere near complete).

Checking through the tracks on this one reveals something else - all ten were hits in August/September 1977, so this is more of a topical selection than a yearly retrospective. Like the other budget series, it has a snapshot of the charts at a particular point in time. So, volume 6 of a regular series, running through 1977 then?

Maybe not. One important note in the packaging is the date of issue - given as 1978. So if this is a selective collection, my hunch was that it was issued the following year as part of a box-set. The other volumes presumably covered different parts of 1977... and yet even this theory doesn't quite add up - look at the cover. It shows a price point of 99p - so it was probably on sale individually.

Strange that absolutely no info seems to exist about this! Let me do my bit to get VFM and "Hit Parade '77" on the map, with this blog post, and here, a track from the album - a version of Bob Marley's "Waiting In Vain":

Finding this tape set something off in the back of my mind. It looked strangely familiar but I couldn't place it. The cover art reminded me vaguely of the "Smash Tracks" tapes from Artisty, but it's clearly not a part of that set. A dig through my pile of unknowns, oddities and mystery tapes resulted in my finding another cassette from VFM - one I'd cast aside as unidentifiable, but which now sits alongside the above.

This one is "Hit Parade 79 vol. 1". The artwork is different yet similar (see the starburst lines around the edges):

Not having had a clue about this one before, I hadn't attached any significance to the "vol. 1" designation, but now of course it looks like part of a second set (or should we say, third, considering 1978 came between them).

The tracks on this cassette were mostly hits in March/April 1979, although a couple are a bit older. At the point these were released, Coombe Music had cornered the UK covers market, supplying recordings to both of the main series in production at the time - "Parade of Pops" and "Top of the Pops". The dozen tracks on this cassette are Coombe recordings, and many of them can therefore be heard on those albums as well (mostly, Parade of Pops volume 8, and Top of the Pops volume 72).

Again, that "vol. 1" nags at me. There are probably more - and as this covers an early part of 1979 - say, the first quarter - there's every chance that further volumes extend through the rest of that year. Were they released sequentially, or all at once? I'd love to know!

As before, I have copied over one of the tracks, a cover of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", and you can feast your ears on it here:

I get tired of saying it, but here it comes again: please help us if you know anything more about these tapes. Drop us a line - we'll be most grateful and you will help us with one of the dark corners of UK cover version history.