Rough Terrain: Slark Lywilsbie

Slark Lywilsbie by Rough Terrain Music by G. Davies. This arrangement by Rough Terrain. Engineered, mixed and produced by Paul Bateman. Recorded at Daylight Recording Studios, Honiton, summer 1988. Remastered at Wud Records Studios 2010. Copyright © 1988 Wud Records. Copyright ℗ 1982 Explicit Music. Performers: Andy Richardson - guitar George Davies – guitar Jerry Peirce - fretless bass Danny Bouget - drums, percussion Fun Facts: This is another of Rough Terrain’s quirky instrumentals. This one is in the key of F major. It was written at around the same time as Frog, which appears on Rough Terrain's Howell Road Demo and their Exit Stage Deaf compilation. Professor Dinboffin always referred to this tune as ‘Jack Rabbit’. It was first played by Now, although no recordings of it have been found as yet. This sounds rather unlike the live version that Rough Terrain would play. The live version was somewhat more raucous and heavy without any acoustic guitar or percussion. For this studio version, George played the in-house Fender acoustic using the softest plectrum he could find (a white Jim Dunlop) for flappous maximus. Danny played some of Daylight Studio’s percussion instruments as well. The strange little melody of the rising scales at the end was very much a part of the piece although that part was rarely played live as George would usually play the main lead guitar part. Andy again plays the rhythm guitar on Nicodemus. The name Slark Lywilsbie was derived from ‘Slark’, a utopian city in a novel George had thought up but never wrote, and ‘Lywilsbie’ was from the ands and beginnings of the names of two beautiful girls from school that George missed after he left. ‘Lywilsbie’ is pronounced ‘Lie-WILLS-Bee’, with the stress on the second syllable. Laney invented and choreographed a special and rather ridiculous dance for this tune but sadly it was only ever performed in private. See also: http://www.wudrecords.co.uk/artists/rough-terrain http://www.explicitmusic.co.uk/lyrics-information/rough-terrain/daylight-demo/slark-lywilsbie https://wudrecords.bandcamp.com/track/slark-lywilsbie https://twitter.com/WudRecords