A History of the Tortoise Head, part 3

Looking back, the mixtape was a crucial element in our little culture that formed the hinterland to Tortoise Head. In about 1987, Lee bought a car, a Ford Cortina, in which Lee, Ed, Rich and myself went to Stithians in Cornwall for a week's holiday, in the summer before we went to University. In the car played Ed's Compilation tapes, a series which extended, I think, well into the teens before they were discontinued. The Compilation tape series were what would be known now as mixtapes, audio cassettes Ed made with his record collection on his Dad's Technics midi stereo, which sat next to the Betamax in Ed's front room. Only now do I realise that we were a disconnected part of the whole mixtape culture that took place in the 1980s, that has ended with the rise of the hegemon iPod and the switch from analogue to digital.
Ed was a purist with regard to mixtapes. He would only record on TDK D90s, the bottom end of the market - no Metal Oxide or Dolby 'high' for him. (Ed's purism in this regard extended into the Noughties. When I sent him a mix CD of stuff a few years ago, he responded with a batch of 4 TDK SA90s - I barely had anything to play them on.) This DIY ethic was a kind of samizdat publication, a way of disseminating his own pop cultural preferences among his friends. Staples of the early Compilations were the Ramones (especially Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin), early ZZ Top, Motorhead, Black Sabbath of course, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Ed had a thing at the time of Southern Accents where he would call anything cool 'Southern') and now-disavowable 1980s rock anthems as Bryan Adams's 'The Boys of Summer'. (Most appropriately for this time, this begins: 'Got my first six-string/ Bought it at the five-and-dime'.) Except for The Damned, Ed's punk sensibilities were definitely American rather than British, whereas my first love had been The Jam, and had been a Mod, so was steeped in The Who and The Kinks and that snotty English mode.
Compilation 4 was the defining document: Ed had seen The Cult playing 'Love Removal Machine' on tv, and had fallen in love with its Deep Purple riffs/ rip-offs and half-ironic 'stoopid', Neanderthal rock. (The album was, of course, produced by Rick Rubin of Def Jam and Def American, but Ed ignored the hip-hop connection. Ed was also into Aerosmith but again blanked 'Walk this Way'.) So the majority of Electric found its way onto mixtapes, and the subsequent Sonic Temple (renamed Chronic Temple) did as well. For me, The Cult were always a guilty pleasure.
The Compilation tapes were a set of signposts to the kind of music Ed wanted to make in TNS and Tortoise Head, and his vocal delivery became inflected through an ironic take on Ian Astbury's own stylised rock-god pastiche. I brought the Stones, classic English rock like The Who, indie noise-rock like The Jesus and Mary Chain and the Huskers, and of course the Pixies to the table.
Tortoise Head. File under: 'beat rock combo'.