I vaguely remember being aware of Cable back in the day, but can't really remember why or how; they were probably just one of those bands you kinda knew about. The band were brought back to everyone's memories in 2012 when Hundred Reasons and Hell is for Heroes played the 10-year anniversary shows of their excellent Ideas Above Our Stations and Neon Handshake albums - a flurry of shows were scheduled for December 2012 featuring Cable, Hell is for Heroes and Hundred Reasons. Many people of a particular age (my age) got very excited and I went to a couple of the shows.
Some friends of a friend were very excited for Cable at the show in The Coronet in London (a fairly hideous venue in Elephant & Castle that I’d never been to before, nor have I been to since). They were in the very small minority of people who were there to see Cable more than the other two bands and I think left afterwards. I enjoyed Cable’s set, but it was hard to get as excited by for two reasons - I’d never listened to them before (and nostalgia is a huge factor in these reunion shows) and that I was really looking forward to seeing HIFH and Hundred Reasons (I’d seen HIFH play Neon Handshake the day before and the day before that in The Peel in Kingston, and I saw Hundred Reasons earlier that summer, but still - they were both playing incredible albums that I love dearly).
I found this 7” just over a year later in Reading. I’d been record shopping in Reading a few times over the years, but hadn’t been there for a very long time by the time I went in 2014. For work I was having to go there a couple of times over a month, and made up for the long and tedious train journey by going record shopping on my lunchtimes. However, most of the shops that had yielded great finds in my teens had long since closed and there was little left. In fact, all there was left was The Sound Machine in one of the arcades, HMV and an Oxfam Books and Records; my lunchtimes were not as fun as I hoped they might be. My main memory of those trips to Reading was using the train journey home to apply for other jobs (one of which I got and, thankfully, escaped suit-wearing drudgery).
The Sound Machine was where I found my copy of Manic Compression in 2002, amongst a few other gems, so I was pleased it was still there. I was less pleased with the stock - after browsing through pretty much all of it, all I found was this 7”. There are many circumstances where I might not have bought it, but given I’d been in the (tiny) shop quite so long, I felt like I had to buy something. It had some excellent stock back in 2002.
Additionally, I was intrigued by the sticker on the sleeve explaining how the two b-sides were squeezed onto one side of vinyl. I’ve certainly not seen anything like it before - for the b-side, the left channel plays Dinky and the right channel plays Electro Gazelle. If you don’t have the ability to focus the audio through one speaker, then the resulting sound is a mess. It’s a funny idea and a novel solution, but entirely unnecessary - I’ve seen 7”s where the b-side plays at 33rpm rather than 45, meaning you can fit more songs. However, it played a part in me wanting to buy the record, so it worked in that sense (which I suspect might have been a large part of it). The second is slightly longer than the first, so you still hear a bit of it at the end, which makes you wonder how much you can hear of the other song even with the sound entirely to one side.
All the songs are fine, but getting into this band 15 years after their hey-day is not advised; it's hard to listen to them without thinking how late-90's their sound is. That's not a criticism - it was the late-90's, so it was fine - and I can't imagine many people will be in the position I'm in now. God Gave Me Gravity builds up to a decent ending, which I like. The b-sides are ok, but actually suffer from the novelty of their arrangement on the record, as both sound pretty flat in mono. I suspect I'd enjoy them more, particularly Electro Gazelle, in stereo.
Format: 7", folded sleeve
Tracks: 3
Cost: £2 second hand
Bought: The Sound Machine, Reading
When: 25/02/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
