A BSOG Deconstructed: China Crisis – Docklands [part 2]

Yesterday we took a hard look at the accumulated China Crisis collection. But music doesn’t exist in a vacuum the size of my Record Cell. There was also a fan-run China Crisis website called Docklands that was helpful in that time period. I scoped over their discography to make sure that I had what I needed. Now it was time to build the project spreadsheet that would define where I went with this project, and how I was to achieve it.

Defining the Project Order + Scope

The first spreadsheet is reproduced below with notes detailing where the song came from originally, whether it was analog or digital, and ultimately, where I was going to source my master from. I am a lazy Monk, and I will usually defer to a digital master in 99% of all cases*.

track	source used	analog	digital	original source
African & White [orig. ver.]	African + White [inev] 7	•		African + White [inev] 7”
Be Suspicious	African + White ‘93 CD5		•	African + White [inev] 7”
Scream Down At Me	Collection CD2		•	Scream Down At Me 12”
Cucumber Garden [ext.]	Collection CD2		•	Scream Down At Me 12”
African + White ‘82 [ext. remix]	African + White ‘93 CD5		•	African + White [virgin] 12”
No More Blue Horizons [ext. ver.]	No More Blue Horizons 12”	•		No More Blue Horizons 12”
No Ordinary Lover	Collection CD2		•	No More Blue Horizons 12”
Watching Over Burning Fields	Collection CD2		•	No More Blue Horizons 12”
Greenacre Bay [ext. ver]	Collection CD2		•	Christian 12”
Performing Seals	Collection CD2		•	Christian 12”
Tragedy + Mystery [ext. ver.]	Tragedy + Mystery 12	•		Tragedy + Mystery 12”
A Golden Handshake For Every Daughter	Collection CD2		•	Tragedy + Mystery 12”
Fire + Steel [mix]	Hardest Hits V. 5 CD		•	Working With Fire + Steel 12”
Dockland	Collection CD2		•	Working With Fire + Steel 12”
Forever I and I	Collection CD2		•	Working With Fire + Steel 12”
This Occupation [ext. mix.]	Collection CD2		•	Wishful Thinking 12”
Some People I Know To Lead Fantastic Lives [ext. ver.]	Wishful Thinking 12”	•		Wishful Thinking 12”
Hanna Hanna [ext. ver.]	Hanna Hanna 12”	•		Hanna Hanna 12”
Here Come A Raincloud [live]	Hanna Hanna 12”	•		Hanna Hanna 12”
Hanna Hanna [live]	BBC Rock Hour LP	•		BBC Rock Hour LP
Wishful Thinking [live]	BBC Rock Hour LP	•		BBC Rock Hour LP
Christian [live]	BBC Rock Hour LP	•		BBC Rock Hour LP
African + White [live]	BBC Rock Hour LP	•		BBC Rock Hour LP
Working With Fire + Steel [live]	BBC Rock Hour LP	•		BBC Rock Hour LP
Animalistic	Black Man Ray 7”	•		Black Man Ray 7”
It’s Never Too Late	Black Man Ray 12” #2	•		Black Man Ray 12” #2
Animalistic [a day at the zoo mix]	Collection CD2		•	Black Man Ray 12” #2
King In A Catholic Style [ext. ver]	King In A Catholic Style 12”	•		King In A Catholic Style 12”
You Did Cut Me [live]	You Did Cut Me 2×7”	•		You Did Cut Me 2×7”
Christian [live] #2	You Did Cut Me 2×7”	•		You Did Cut Me 2×7”
Seven Sports For All [live]	You Did Cut Me 2×7”	•		You Did Cut Me 2×7”
96.8	The Highest High 12”	•		The Highest High 12”
Orange Mutt-Mutt Dance	The Highest High 12”	•		The Highest High 12”
Trading In Gold	What Price Paradise CD		•	Arizona Sky 12”
The Instigator	Collection CD2		•	Best Kept Secret CD
Little Italy	Collection CD2		•	Best Kept Secret 12”
The Instigator [italian fuzzbox ver.]	Best Kept Secret 12”	•		Best Kept Secret 12”
St. Saviour Square [12” mix]	St. Saviour Square CD3		•	St. Saviour Square CD3
Back Home	St. Saviour Square CD3		•	St. Saviour Square CD3
Diary Of A Hollow Horse [acoustic version]	Red Letter Day 12”	•		Red Letter Day 12”
African + White [steve proctor remix]	African & White ‘93 CD5		•	African & White ‘93 CD5
Everyday The Same [Riff + Hum club mix]	Every Day The Same CD5		•	Every Day The Same CD5
African + White [steve proctor ext. remix]	African + White ‘93 12”	•		African + White ‘93 12”
Tell me What It Is	Every Day The Same CD5		•	Every Day The Same CD5
Everyday the same [Drum-a-Pella mix]	Every Day The Same CD5		•	Every Day The Same CD5
Here Come A Raincloud [live w/Peter Coyle]	Black Man Ray [live] CD5		•	Black Man Ray [live] CD5

* Except where the label has brickwalled a digital master…

I had managed to mail-order the first, indie single that China Crisis had released. The Liverpool label Inevitable issued “African + White” b/w “Be Suspicious” in 1981 and it was the release that brought the group to Virgin’s attention. I imagined that the single was re-recorded or remixed when Virgin re-issued it. I did have the Virgin/Inevitable 12″ of the re-issue, and knew that the A-side of the 7″ differed from that of the 12″ version.

The B-sides of the first and second issues of the single also differed. The Inevitable 7″ had “Be Suspicious” as the B-side and the Virgin/Inevitable 7″ had “Red Sails.” But “Red Sails” was a track on the China Crisis debut album, and not a track that was needed on this project. These BSOG’s are meant to round up only material that was not issued on the group’s straight albums. So live tracks, remixes, non-LP B-sides were in the cross-hairs for this project. It was not meant to replicate the band’s singles inclusively.

Believe it or not there was a single commercial CD project, similar in scope to what I do in the non-commercial, personal world, that took all of the group JAPAN’s singles issued from the band’s Hansa masters. The staff of BMG/Japan who compiled “The Singles,” [see right] took each A/B side issued from the groups recordings for the Hansa label and slapped them onto a disc in the order that they were released in, such that several songs were repeated exactly in the 2xCD’s running order because the label released some recordings/songs more than once! That is an anal-rententive level of curation that even passes The Monk by! Sure, sure. I’m detail-oriented, but not that obsessive!

Next: …the remastering begins