Soup Dragons - Profile

by Fiona Hutchings

published: 26 / 4 / 2023

Fiona Hutchings checks out Precious records’ four latest 10 inch classic BBC radio sessions. This time it’s The Soup Dragons on the turntable

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The Soup Dragons John Peel session 24.02.86 Janice Long session 01.09.86 John Peel session 06.01.87 Janice Long session 30.06.87 Precious Recordings of London have one of the most accurate label slogans since ‘If It Ain’t Stiff, It Ain’t Worth a F*ck”. ”Let’s make this precious,” they proclaim. So far, that’s what they’ve delivered; something that hits the brief every single time. This quartet of live sessions by The Soup Dragons proves, once again, that Precious loves music – and that The Soup Dragons deserved more recognition than they received. If, like me, your knowledge of the group is mostly limited to their cover (and improvement on the original), ‘I’m Free’, this limited edition set of four 10” records is going to provide a short, sweet but illuminating education. I say mostly because ‘Divine Thing’ is also a criminally underappreciated dirty dance ditty (at least on this side of the pond). These records use the distinctive checkerboard design we already expect, with red and black for Peel and yellow and black for Long. Each record contains a little packet of postcards too. The images include promo photos, with the odd gig poster. Presented in an envelope with a branded sticker in place of a wax seal, it feels like pieces of ephemera from 80’s British music trapped and preserved. It’s not something musicians today have to worry about, but finding images of your favourite bands used to be a lot harder. It’s worth noting that on Christmas Day 2021, Janice Long died of pneumonia. At the end of both sessions recorded for her is the note ”thank you Janice - you were a good friend and we love you.” These sleeve notes are personal, reading like something of a diary or open letter. Over four records, each member of the original line up shares their own recollections which, when read in recording date order, provide a potted history of the band. Singer and guitarist Sean Dickson tells the tale of how a band who had not yet played a gig ended up supporting the then newly formed Primal Scream at the ‘infamous Glasgow happening Splash One’ thanks to a tape playing in an American clothing store. A flexidisc landed them NME single of the week via a fanzine and, in a scene that could have been in a movie, a phone call is made to Dickson from the BBC. Before we know where we are, John Peel is offering Dickson £150 so they can afford to come down to London and record a session for him. This was the start of a long friendship between the two. The tracks of this first session capture the youthful exuberance but still sound remarkably assured for a band so early in their career. Perhaps supporting a nascent Primal Scream as a baptism of fire will do that to you. ’Slow Things Down’ has shades of The Clash with a definite Scottish burr that places them at the other end of the map from Strummer and co. ‘Learning To Fall’ ends with a mass singalong after the band dragged The Shop Assistants from their own session for Janice Long in studio 2. Next up is guitarist Jim McCulloch. He paints a picture of a group of 18 or 19 year olds with endless energy and the musical skills to start getting experimental. He describes how BBC sessions felt like a good way to demo new versions of older songs, as well as trying out brand new material. Some of the tracks in this collection haven’t been heard for a long time. McCulloch himself remarks that he’s hearing tracks he has no recollection of playing on. For him the 36 bars of Joe McAlinden’s violin, which add a deliciously mournful air to proceedings on ‘Same Old Story’, came as “a bit of a surprise”. Bassist Sushil K Dade takes us from a long train journey listening to freshly combined mixtapes and pop magazines as the band travel from Glasgow to record another Peel session. They experienced the “international psychedelic scene”, which always seemed to be wherever Dan Tracy of Television Personalities was – it was his floor they were sleeping on. For this taping, they went a bit off-piste as far as Peel might be concerned. While he might have preferred original compositions, what he got was a riot of cover versions. The Go-Gos, The Who and Hendrix were firm favourites of the band, reflected in the session’s performances. I can hear shades of the late great Terry Hall in Dicksons vocal for ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, even if that’s not the version they are referencing. ’Purple Haze’ is joyous, but special mention goes to the cover of ‘Listen To This’ by Red Krayola. They stretch the original three seconds to about six or so. Dade is somewhat critical of imperfections in this group of tracks, but I struggle to hear them. It’s a band playing live; I don’t want it to sound perfect. Finally, drummer Ross Sinclair has his say. He is now probably better known for his art, in particular his Real Life project, than his time in The Soup Dragons. Here, his thoughts on the finale provide something of a prequel. He takes us back to 1985, a band finding its members and losing some along the way. ’Can’t Take No More’ remains as fresh now as when it was played at their early gigs. For Sinclair, listening to this recording – captured a couple of years later for the Long session – evokes memories of creative transformation, experimentation and of a band near signing for Sire. The final track, ‘Turning Stone’, never made it to vinyl until now. Ending the collection with the song they often opened with live feels somehow perfect. In well under an hour, you can play all four records, read all the sleeve notes, marvel at the images and feel that bit better informed about the musicians who were The Soup Dragons for a decade. Who embraced everything from jangly guitar-driven indie sounds to avant-garde micro songs to euphoric dance anthems of freedom. In putting together releases in a way that treasures the artists and the songs, Precious continues to offer something to old and new fans alike.