The Homosexuals Discography
© 2004 by Chuck Warner

Virtually everything below appears on Astral Glamour, a 3-CD deluxe set of the Homosexuals' complete original releases --plus a dozen never-before released. (Our first conventional CD issue, btw. 32 page color booklet, photos, posters, artwork, over 3 hours of music...)

Please note that the Black Noise catalog-numbering has nothing to do with the dates of the recordings or their eventual release-dates. Also note that EVERYTHING on the It's War Boys label was an independent project by Jim/L.Voag (see below). [LP] means the track was reissued on the 1984 Recommended LP, [RE] means it's on the 2004 RéR/Morphius CD reissue.

 

The Homosexuals (Lorelei no. 1) recorded at Surrey Sound with Chris Gray in 1978: lyrics printed on computer-paper (Chris has re-surfaced at a brand-new studio in Falmouth, England: perhaps your band should look him up?... Troubadour Studios)
A) Hearts in Exile [LP, RE]
B) Soft South Africans [LP, RE]

Bigger Than the Number...Yet Missing the Dot 7"
(Black Noise no.1) Clear vinyl.
Recorded by Bruno and Anton after Jim had left the band

1) You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To -part 1
2) You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To -part 2
3) Prestel
[1 & 3 reappeared on the Venceremos cassette, apparently dubbed off of a test-pressing of the single, because it's not quite as horrible-sounding as the clear vinyl]

The Homosexuals EP
(Black Noise no. 2) Bruno, Jim and Anton, recorded at Surrey Sound.
The first batch featured handpainted covers, although it's probable that the band got tired of decorating quite early on (We've never seen one and it's entirely possible that they helped paint the complete edition of Jim's L.Voag-Move 45 instead). "Second edition" covers are purple "bags" with a white printed sticker. Different mixes of #5 & 6 were re-released on the LP and ReR CD.

1) Astral Glamour [LP, RE]
2) Collected of You
3) The Birds Have Risen [LP, RE]
4) Divorce Proceeding[s] from Reality [LP, RE]
5) Mecho Madness
6) Vociferous Slam

Ici La Bas / Les Incroyables EP (Black Noise #4)
Surrey Sound sessions: each track is credited to a different "band" or pseudonymous musicians, although it's still Bruno, Anton and Jim at Surrey: "Total Drop" also appears (as the Homosexuals) on the Recommended 7" sampler.
1) Regard Omission [credits: sax-The Master / guitar J.V. Sang]
2) The Total Drop ­[credit: Ici la Bas]
3) Galore Galore [credit: Yanto Novitch]
4) Nippon Airways [credit: Dirty Mary Brown & the Mysteries]
5) Flying [credit: The Prolific Urdos] [originally one of Bruno's Rejects songs, ]
6) Cause a Commotion [credits: drums-The Master / guitar-vox J.V. Sang / flute-Alex Smart]

Sir Alick & the Phraser 7" ([Black Noise] 7 no. 5)
Bruno playing everything himself at Surrey Sound from the same era as L.Voag's "Move" 7" and the George Harrasment tracks. B-side has help on bass from Chris Grey.
Reissued twice more: first in green sleeve with silk-screened plastic outer bag as Sir Alick , and then in a red sleeve as The Homosexuals (with the identical disc and labels, two additional sleeve-designs --also by Suzy)
A) In Search of the Perfect Baby
B) Nursery Chymes

George Harrasment / Masai Sleepwalking LP (Black Noise #6)
Surrey Sound sessions: Fragments of Bruno and Anton's "solo" LPs, though much of it never got beyond Anton's guitar-tracks. Vocal versions did exist, however, and the Astral Glamour set contains all the originals plus 8 restorations... Jim appears on two cuts including "Collapsible You."

side 1: 1) Visions Expanding 2) Charlie Watts 3) High and Low 4) Black noise 5) Yoghurt 6) Ants on Safari 7) In My Age 8) One Minute 9) Victoria Falls 10) Calvary 11) Funeral 12) Gimme Gimme 13) Two Horizons 14) Another Step 15) Symphonic Thais 16) Making Eyes

side two: 1) Collapsible You 2) Across Continents 3) Eclipse of the Moon 4) ToTo Rello 5) Especially to You 6) Re Entry 7) Symbols I Love 8) Cheetah! 9) Early Developments 10) Final Distance

Venceremos cassette
A collection of tapes put out by Suzy (Bruno's wife, who joined the band in 1979) and Anton in 1982.

1) Airplane [Basically the folk-song "Freight Train," which is a shame because it's got an amazing (and melodically unrelated) psychedelicized instrumental track. Ownership if the song is murky, meanwhile, so we had to leave it off the box...]
2) (I Know) Who Put the Jung in the Jungle Drums (all by Suzy)
3) Prestel [45 version]
4) It's What's In It, Isn't It?
5) Still Living in my Car [CD]
6) Adventure Master of the Future
7) Radio Ham Stormy Jam
8) You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To part 1 [45 version]
9) Mad Bombers of Major Valour
10) Pamela
11) There Are Shy Moons [a bunch of cool guitar-doodles over someone else's song playing backwards: you'll have to hear it on the cassette...There's also a backwards 40-second fragment of a Homosexuals song that may appear in its entirety later on: we've turned it around on disc 2 of Astral Glamour]
12) Oh Baby Baby
13) Magic Moments I
14) Magic Moments II
15) Mitsu at the Controls
16) Jesus

The Recommended Records Sampler (#2) 2LP
Walk Before Imitate [from the same live-to-tape session at Surrey as the nine previously-unreleased tracks that appeared on the Recommended LP in '84] [RE]

The Recommended Records Sampler (#8.9) 4-song EP (1983)
Total Drop -- the same recording, but a notably different, sparser, janglier mix. Not reissued anywhere...

The Homosexuals Record LP (Recommended Records)
A reissue of the first single, 3 tracks from The Homosexuals EP, 6 songs* from the live-to-tape session at Surrey Sound that was one of the first things recorded there (You can tell which songs those are because of the awful distortion), 3 alternate mixes ** and Jim's wonderful "False Sentiments." Remastered by Bob Drake. Bruno's handsome mug appears on the cover courtesy of one of Suzy's videos...

1) My Night Out *
2) Technique Street *
3) Vociferous Slam (a different mix from the EP with some tape-wobble but many more effects) **
4) Soft South Africans "#1" (a previously-unreleased rough-mix) **
5) Neutron Lover *
6) A Million Keys *
7) Naming of Parts *
8) Kiss With Venom *
9) Divorce from Reality
10) Hearts in Exile (45 version)
11) All About Cheap
12) Soft South Africans (45 version)
13) False Sentiments
14) Mecho Madness (a radically different mix from the EP) **
15) Astral Glamour
16) The Birds Have Risen

The Homosexuals Record CD (ReR MEGACORP/Morphius Archives) January 2004.

The booklet includes a reproduction of Graham Keatley's beautiful limited-edition poster that was briefly available from Recommended, assorted lyrics and liner-notes by Ed Baxter of Alcoholic Records/LMC/Resonance Radio.

1-16 are all the tracks from the LP, and although they've been remastered from tapes there are no musical differences. The sound's a lot punchier and brighter thanks to Bob Drake's remastering but all the distortion, dropouts, uneven levels, etc remain in their original glory. The longer timings are strictly splicing noise, stray chords and dead air.
17) Collapsible You (a longer, more dub-stye mix that turned up in Chris Cutler's unused tapes: the 3:45 original is on George Harrasment and AG)
18) Snapshots of Nairobi (instrumental: never released: there's also a live vocal version on Astral Glamour)
19) "Soft South Africans (raw)" Actually this is the original rough mix of "Hearts in Exile" with all the vocals and the three guitar-parts that Bruno faded out (in response to which Anton faded Bruno's vocals up-and-down, dub-style. This is the pre-mixing counterpart to the rough mix of "SSA" from the LP and it's an incredibly major "find" (It'll be on Astral Glamour, too, of course.)
20) Walk Before Imitate (from the Recommended 2LP sampler)
21) Still Living in My Car (from Venceremos)

For completists, here are the reasons to own the ReR CD as well as Astral Glamour:

(1) It's a faithful reproduction of the original LP
(2) alternate mix of Vociferous Slam
(3) alternate mix of Mecho Madness
(4) alternate/longer mix of Collapsible You
(5) better recording-quality on "Still Living in my Car" and? "Snapshots" instrumental
(6) Graham's poster

Astral Glamour 3CD set

(Hyped to Death/Messthetics #204) Contains everything above...apart from the two items that are/were other people's songs. Highlights include:

81 songs in vastly-improved sound from all earlier releases on 3 CDs in a deluxe Digipak

5 songs never released anywhere before in any form plus 7 more with restored/recreated vocals.

32 page booklet containing a lengthy bio of the band, dozens of never- published photos (besides the shots on the first 45, these are the only photos ever published), posters, and more...

Astral Glamour disc 1 1 Hearts in Exile (45) 1ST 2 Soft South Africans (45) 1ST 3 Astral Glamour EP 4 Divorce Proceeding (from Reality) EP 5 Collected of You EP 6 Vociferous Slam (EP mix) 7 Mecho Madness (EP mix) 8 Flying ICI 9 Technique Street ICI 10 Mecho Madness (punk mix) SS 11 (Do the) Total Drop ICI 12 Walk Before Imitate SS 13 Neutron Lover SS 14 Naming of Parts SS 15 False Sentiments LP 16 Birds Have Risen I EP 17 Birds Have Risen II EP 18 Kiss With Venom LP 19 A Million Keys LP 20 My Night Out SS 21 All About Cheap LP 22 Hearts in Exile (full mix) RE 23 Soft South Africans (guitar mix) SS/LP 24 Collapsible You GH 25 Regard Omission ICI 26 Galore Galore ICI 27 Cause a Commotion ICI 28 Nippon Airways ICI

Astral Glamour disc 2 1 Prestel 2ND / V 2 You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To (part 1) 2ND 3 Calvary GH 4 Symphonic Thaïs GH 5 ToTo Rello GH « 6 Yoghurt GH 7 Mad Bombers of Major Valour V 8 Re Entry GH 9 You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To (part 2) 2ND / V 10 Snapshots of Nairobi (live at the Whisky a Go-Go) * 11 Mitsu at the Controls V 12 Still Living in my Car V « 13 Jesus V « 14 Magic Moments part 2 V 15 Magic Moments part 1 V 16 Cheetah (vocal) * 17 Early Developments (vocal) * 18 One Minute (vocal) * 19 Making Eyes (vocal) * 20 Vision Expanding (vocal) * 21 Charlie Watts (vocal) * 22 Galore Galore (vocal) * 23 Across Continents GH 24 Final Distance GH « 25 Pamela V « 26 It's What's In It, Isn't It? V

Astral Glamour disc 3  1 Nursery Chymes (by "Sir Alick & the Phraser") 2 In Search of the Perfect Baby ("Sir Alick") 3 Snapshots of Nairobi (instrumental) SS 4 My Size Side [unreleased]* 5 High and Low GH « 6 Black Noise GH 7 Ants on Parade GH 8 In My Age GH 9 Woman/Man [unreleased] * 10 Victoria Falls GH 11 Oh Baby Baby V 12 Making Eyes GH 13 Charlie Watts GH 14 Symbols I Love GH 15 Especially to You GH 16 Two Horizons GH 17 There are Shy Moons (backmask) * [V] 18 Adventure Master of the Future V 19 Early Developments GH 20 Gimme Gimme GH 21 One Minute GH 22 Cheetah GH 23 Visions Expanding GH 24 Who Put the Jung in the Jungle Drums V 25 Radio Ham Stormy Jam V 26 Another Step GH 27 Funeral GH

A excellent illustrated discography of the It's War Boys label (and most of the above as well) appears at heartsinexile@aol.com's
Unofficial Homosexuals Discography Page (Took me a while to figure out that Max has also posted images of everything... Be sure to click on the titles!)

And finally, there are the "lost" recordings (most of which remain so...):

Rejects 4-song demo, Rejects Virgin demo
Anton's solo sessions recorded with Bruno before Surrey.
Homosexuals at Bray Studios (also pre-Surrey Sound)
The rest of the Surrey Sound tapes (legend says they were taken for safe-keeping after Bruno began talking about let's destroy everything)
Live at the Whiskey: Virgin Mobile Sound Studio recording (their final recordings with Jim)
Session at Aswad's studio 1979-80
Tin Pan Alley tracks from the Prestel/Magic Moments session
Scores of videos
and the suitcase of 80 cassettes stolen from Bruno's squat in 1982 or 1983.
More will be revealed, however: stay tuned for Magical Clamour or whatever we decide to call the next one!

If you're just seeing one big screen now -without a directory on the top- click HERE for our easy-to-browse frames version.