The Dinosaur Record

Super Tempo
STMP 9017
1980



Several years back I was one of a team of committed audio monganauts called Radio Savage Houndy Beasty. We blagged space on the local student radio station and did some late night far out stuff, really abrasive challenging stuff, some really beautiful stuff, some blissed out dreamy soundscapes, spoken word comedy, lots of swearing, all powerfully fuelled by a big blue bong. Trawl the downloads if that intrigues you.

It felt like a band that jammed, but we used other peoples recordings as our instruments. Lots of sound effect records, samples and loops (where other people tend to pick good beats and breaks, we'd be more likely to have foghorns and washing machine noises), and a lot of crap records found in charity shops.

When I first saw The Dinosaur Record I presumed it'd be an album of stories or something. But it's actually ten twee anthropomorphic songs for children.

Written by a team of Mike Croft and Chris Croft, with backing vocals from Janine Croft, Rachel Croft and Emma Croft, it's clearly a family affair. Thank fuck for that, I'd hate to think anyone had paid kids who sing so badly out of tune.

Brontosaurus, Will You Wait For Me is a song about a child wanting a pet and finding a brontosaurus to whom the youngster implausibly asserts 'I could take you home, nobody would know'.

Our credulity is stretched even further in Triceratops Rock by the bold claim that 'the rocking triceratops invented the rock n roll'.

Reggae rhythms lope away under the lyrics of O Stegasaurus, which at least stays closer to the facts. Praising the animal's 'own special style', the singer laments not sharing a world with them. Describing himself as the 'biggest fan' of this particular dinosaur, we get somewhat unnerved by the declaration that it is 'lovelier than any man'.

And then, just unable to go a whole song without a ludicrous factual error, he describes it as being 'half a mile long and ten feet tall'.

The stegosaurus was in fact around 30 feet long and 14 feet tall, and looked like this.



If it were half a mile long and ten feet tall, it would look like this.



I'm sure you'll agree that, compared to other stegosaurii, that stegosaurus does indeed have its own special style.

The RSHB reworking of Brontosaurus Will You Wait For Me can be downloaded here, but frankly nothing can make you as baffled as the straightforward originals, one of the all-time great 'what the fuck?' albums.

As you'd expect from a record designed to be cared for by small children, there's a hell of a lot of crackle.

[MP3s deleted to make way for new ones. If you'd like me to send you them - via a transferbigfiles.com link so they don't overload your inbox - then leave your email address in the Comments]