Video
Over the years, there has been video footage of videos of The Cygnet Ring uploaded to the likes of Youtube, mainly thanks to former member Steve Broomhead who's been dusting off the old tapes and capturing them with good quality throughout. More recently he set up the Steve Broomhead Archive channel, where plenty of footage of The Cygnet Ring is being uploaded. Do subscribe if you can, especially as there is a whole Playing At Trains gig from Canterbury for you to watch and enjoy over there!
Here's all the Cygnet Ring-related videos in one easy to find place, if you know of any more, please contact me. They're listed here in approximate date order of being made, so to provide an archive to you, the fan.
The video appears above the description, so you can read it whilst watching the video. Enjoy!
18 Daze
18 Daze was a popular song by Rus Harrison's former band, Playing At Trains, and therefore it was no surprise that it appeared as a single and indeed on the Higher demo tape. The video was filmed in Guildford on apparently the hottest day of that year, with mainly the band playing in a field there along with effects laid over the top of it for good measure. It does look like everyone was having a good time making it though!
Love Crime - Live on Granada Reports
Granada Reports was the news bulletin for the local area of the North West of England. Filmed at the Albert Dock in Liverpool and presented in this episode by Bob Greaves and Lucy Meacock, the band showcase Love Crime to the audience - and note the larger than life member of the public who walks past during the broadcast.
Love Crime
Of course, as the band were signed to part of Warners in 1992, this also meant that the budget for filming any music video was a bit larger as well and so the band decided to do some sort of psychedelic indie theme to it, which actually worked quite well - mainly with some live footage of the band at the time as well. Certainly you'd feel a bit trippy after watching it, anyway. Katy Lynne was the director, and William Oakley the producer, and the date code on the video coincides with the release of the re-release single (April 1992).
Tell Me What Your Girlfriend Said
Many thanks to Steve Broomhead of the band for putting this one up. It shows what life was like when you were trying to get airplay on the radio - you'd turn up at plenty of local radio stations and play live acoustic versions of your songs in order to be heard. Here's a wonderfully preserved version of the above track, with Rus in the middle, Steve on the right and Geoff Donkin on the tabla drums. It sounds really fresh, even with the rigours of apparently doing three of these shows a day!
Let It Fall
Acccording to Steve Broomhead, this version was recorded in February 1992 but did not make the Hopeful Monsters album (a real shame in my view.) As such, the video Steve put together here was just using one photograph, as it was more to showcase the song in its entirety - and with good reason too.
God's Other Children (Live, Surrey University)
This was from the band's gig at Surrey University, in Guildford, and was filmed from the mixing desk with a static camera (the days of live concert footage back then) and is dated 11th October 1992, possibly which would have been part of the Hopeful Monsters album tour, I guess, as there's a monster-type graphic in the backdrop for the stage itself. Note too how the live version is some two minutes longer than on the single version, this is most likely due to some improvisation from Rus Harrison himself, especially later in the song!
Big Sky (Demo Recording Session, 1993)
The final recording session of The Cygnet Ring, as captured by Steve Broomhead. A 16 track machine with desk and monitors was hired for a week to record some new demos, and this included the track Big Sky as one of the four and a half tracks that were recorded during that session. Would be nice to hear the complete recording of this track for definite!
Love Crime (ukelele-based cover version by Smokey Stubbs and Adzuki)
Well, who'd have thought it? A cover of "Love Crime" and everything? Well, it exists, and hasn't been uploaded for long, so something which certainly excited me when I first saw it, and they've got the words spot on too. It was made for Ukelele Underground member Ukeshale's "Go 90s" contest, with 1990s songs done mainly on the ukelele. It really does do the original justice and even tries to look like the original video, how neat is that eh?