Beaver Patrol is not one of the most enlightened records in my collection. However compared to some of the stuff my mates in Aberdeen were listening to at the time such as 2 Live Crew and Schoolly D it could have been a feminist anthem.
This track takes me back to the Mudd Club on Monday nights in Aberdeen during 87/88 where this kind of thing was heard all the time.
I quite liked Pop Will Eat Itself or the Poppies as they were known. The name comes from an article by David Quantick in the NME about the band that would become Carter USM.
PWEI started off as an indie band but soon became influenced by hip hop and traveled the same road as Age of Chance using drum machines and samplers as well as the conventional instruments. I have to admit that I prefer Age Of Chance, however the Poppies did release a few classic singles, Beaver Patrol, a cover of Sique Sique Sputnik's Love Missile F 1-11, Def Con 1 and Touched By The Hand of Cicciolina, a tune which tries to lobby for an Italian porn star turned politician to be the person who presents the World Cup to the winning team at Italia 90.
For nearly twenty years I thought that the poppies had written Beaver Patrol. I found out a couple of years ago that the track is in fact just another of their cover versions. It was originally recorded by The Wide Knights in 1965, an American garage band from the Pacific North West.
Pop Will Eat Itself - Beaver Patrol
The Wilde Knights - Beaver Patrol
