The first Hardsparrow album,
Oh, What A Sorry Life, is now available in a super-limited tape edition. There were only ever about 20-odd CDRs made of this, back in the day, but now this tragic classic of maudlin lo-fi can be yours to own on an incongruously bright-pink cassette, with a Bandcamp download code included.
You can hear the whole album on Bandcamp
here, at least for a little while. I had planned to take the best tracks from the album and use them as part of a Hardsparrow compilation - there are two or three tracks on the album that it makes me cringe to listen to now (mainly due to dodgy vocals). But, much stirred by the lessons of Popeye, I strive not to self-edit, so I've decided to let people hear it as it was, warts and all. And, the odd patchy tune aside, there's a surprising amount of stuff on here that I still think is not too shabby! You know, considering that I did it and everything.
Enjoy it in your home.Most of the album was recorded in the space of a month, in Charlton, in the summer of 2004. It was actually through giving the Pictish Trail a copy of this at Adem's Homefires fest that I got my first Fence Homegame gig, which has, of course, led to all sorts of trouble ever since. But I've also added in a couple of tracks (
Ballad of Gordo and
Quaggy River Rag) which date from sometime in 2005, when I was living in the middle of a school playing field in Kidbrooke, to make the thing fit onto two sides of a tape.
The cassettes cost £5, including postage - if you'd like one, please send via Paypal to hardsparrow@gmail.com. Or you should be able to just click the button at the bottom! But I bet it doesn't work.
* * * * UPDATE * * * *
TAPE NOW SOLD OUT, SORRY!
