Steve Wheeler – Low Flying for Beginners

Steve Wheeler
Low Flying for Beginners
1984 Broken Records (UK) (BRS 014)
Plymouth, England, United Kingdom

Written, Performed, and Produced by Steve Wheeler
Steve Hemlock – Old Soldier
Louise Sturtridge – Girl
Wheeler, Nick Wilkes, Gavin Ranford, and Gnome – ‘Coff Chorus’

Low Side:

1. Suffer, Little Children
2. My Uncle Said
3. Video Games
4. Belfast Photographs
5. Disco Floor
6. Methylated Spiritists
7. The Accident
8. The Coffin Fit
9. All This Must Go
10. You’re Never Alone with Schizophrenia
11. Paint Me Red
12. I Did My Best

Flying Side:

1. Low Voltage Prayer
2. Key
3. Newspaper Man
4. Blood Transfusion
5. Return to Boyhood
6. Creative Genius
7. Thoughts
8. Nun Today, Thankyou!
9. Eyes
10. D-Day
11. Honest Poem
12. Crosspurpose

This is a pretty cool album of most spoken word performances. Kind of like Steve Scott, but Wheeler uses sound effects and tape manipulation more than found sound loops. For example, “Video Games” uses a bit of Noise percussion and video game sound effects. Also, don’t let the number of songs fool you – this is a short album, with some tracks under 30 seconds long (and only a few going over a minute and a couple going over 2 minutes). A couple of tracks are musical in nature – “Disco Floor” is pretty much a song (and a cool indie Crazed Bunnyz-esque one at that), and “Creative Genius” has some experimental noise/indie sounds interjected like you hear on Marc Plainguet or other projects influenced by that scene. The poems are sometimes obvious, sometimes deep in thought – a good mix if you ask me. This is the same Broken Records (UK) label that The Barking Dogs were on, and a quick search reveals two albums by Mark 2 (Stranger 7″ and Wrong Sida Life 7″) that feature Steven Wheeler fronting a band – both also on Broken Records. After doing some searching, I found a Steve Wheeler in Plymouth, UK (the mailing address for Broken Records) that is actually a big deal in my field of study (Educational Technology). Interesting. Maybe Broken Records was his label all along? But weird connection that he went into academia and is now known for a non-music related field.