TRUNK 25th ANNIVERSARY 2 LP SET

Well, it has been 25 quick years since the first Trunk LP was issued. So I thought I’d celebrate with a new release which started as one and ended up as a double as there was almost too much to cover and think about. Some of this music has been issued before, some has not. And artwork is by the living legend David Shrigley.

The sleeve notes say it all really:

Trunk Records was started in 1996. 25 years ago. Blimey, that’s gone quick. At the time I had no idea what was really going on or what I was doing. I was just a manic record collector - heavily into film music, TV music, library music, folk, jazz, exotics, electronics, all that odd shit - and I’d just got a bee in my bonnet about starting a label and got some mates who were also into funny music to help me out.

Before I knew it I’d found the music I wanted to issue and done a deal. Next thing we all pooled our money and got enough together to press the first Trunk Records vinyl LP. The resulting compilation - The Super Sounds Of Bosworth - was the first ever commercial library music release. We sold out. It worked. People liked it or certainly wondered what the hell it was all about. From there I set about issuing more music that I was desperate to own on vinyl that didn’t or hadn’t ever existed on that format. Right from the start it was a purely selfish project. The unissued soundtrack to The Wicker Man was next, which took three years to get it all found, mastered, sorted and issued. And what a ridiculous impact that made on all sorts of things and the ripples are still rippling away now. Then I moved on to masses of other overlooked musical madness, including The Clangers TV music, experimental sounds made by kids at old schools, rare British jazz, strange electronics, amateur cosmic operas, dirty talking, ASMR, lost jingles, buffet car announcements and in my wake other labels started springing up doing the same thing - simply bringing the unthinkable, the unsuitable or the unloved into the world of vinyl. And it’s all still going, with new similar-minded labels starting up even now.

When and if people ask me what I do I used to say “I make records”, or “I run a record label”. Over the years that has changed and slowly morphed into other things too: I still make records but I also make arty books (The Music Library, Sainsbury’s Own Label, Wrappers Delight, Wobbly Sounds, Dressing For Pleasure, Auto Erotica, The Art Of Smallfilms etc), art prints, tee shirts, record bags, peculiar live shows, radio broadcasts, packs of cards, pretty much anything I can’t help myself doing and I love it all. So now I just tell people “I do what I love”. And I try and tell anyone or everyone I know to do the same thing (not to do what I love, but do what they love), especially if they are fed up, bored, frustrated, unemployed, hate their work, hate their life or are desperate and daring for some kind of supercharged change.

So what we have on this compilation is a vague celebration of the last 25 years of doing what I love, and finding what I love and issuing what I love so other people can maybe love it too. This really is and has been something I can’t help myself doing. If I was doing something else, like working in a bank or as a bus driver or dog walker or male model, I‘d be dreaming and longing to find music and issuing it. Since I started the label the actual finding of music to issue has all come quite naturally, magically and joyously as a result of spending decades looking in strange places for funny sound and even funnier musicians.

What started out as an obsession mixed with a desperate need to create and share has turned into Trunk Records Ltd, a 25 year old disorganisation of one person (with good friends helping with artwork, mastering, on-line activities and everything else) that has quietly stirred musical things up when no one was really listening or looking in the same place. This was never the intention, it has just ended up that way. All that time I have been pushing library music, weird British film music, esoteric oddness and more. 25 years ago no one gave a fig about that sort of music - you’d have to look under the record racks in the shit boxes on the floor of record shops for it. Now it has its own sections in record stores the world over, and makes it to the wall too. And rightly so. I’m really not sure what section this LP is going to end up in yet though.

And now my kind of music is everywhere - admired, collected and finally heard for what it has always been. I’m not saying that it’s all down to me and Trunk Records, but I and it have certainly played a small but important part in moving it up from the floor and into the racks. And lighting the path to a stranger and more interesting musical world than the one that was listened to before.

Do what you love my friends, it makes a big difference in so many ways. And thanks for listening as always

Jonny Trunk 2021

 

TRACKLISTING

SIDE ONE

Bartleby Opening Cue - Roger Webb
A Tune For Lucy - The Inigo Kilborn Group
Make Me Rainbows - Mark Murphy
Zeus - Jonny Trunk
Sunbeam - Kenny Graham And His Satellites
About Bridges VCS3 Melodies - Delia Derbyshire (from the Hooykaas / Stansfield film)
The Tomorrow People Theme - Dudley Simpson
Fight - The Musketeers (from The TV Series The Flashing Blade)

SIDE TWO

Lux Eterna / Aurora Borealis (from The Remarkable Earth Making Machine) - The Park Lane Primary School
Car Boot Sex Tape
Drama Workshop Tape 3 / 1 - Derek Bowskill With The Michael Garrick Quartet
Fiend Discovery And Titles (from Blood On Satan’s Claw) - Marc Wilkinson
Circles - The Cults Percussion Ensemble
Camel Riding (Noggin The Nog “Nog Music”) - The Vernon Elliott Quintet
Sound Images - Coggins And Cook
Sara’s Tune - David Lord With The Prime Ensemble
Speech Exercises - Trees And Flowers - Children Of The Italia Conte School

SIDE THREE

Front Titles (from Kes) - John Cameron
Liyaduma - The African Swingsters
JB Dubs - John Baker
The Millionaire - The Dudley Moore Trio (from the soundtrack of Bedazzled)
Time Stood Still - Paz
A Quiet Place - Karin Krog (arranged and conducted by Don Ellis)
International Harvester - Mike Sammes And The Mike Sammes Singers
The Ladies Bras - Jonny Trunk And Wisbey

SIDE FOUR

You Are About To Use The Telephone
Silicon Chip - Basil Kirchin
Robot Man - Barry Gray
The Electron’s Tale - Tristram Cary
Track 2 From The Night Train Tapes - Kenny Graham And His Afro Cuban Chums
O Willow Waly (from The Others) - Isla Cameron, The Ivor Raymonde Singers
Child Vocal Tape - Basil Kirchin
I Like It! - Mike And Bernie Winters