Frankie Stubbs - Heart Is Home 7"

Sounds of Subterrania (2018)

Before I begin writing about this record specifically, I want to very quickly mention that I found out this weekend about the passing of Marc Maitland (Mates to some).  Known to me as the drummer of fantastic bands like Blocko and The No Marks.  I only knew Marc a little bit and had only ever interacted with him on the internet, but he was such a nice, genuine guy who was always so excited that someone liked his bands.  The world will miss him terribly and I hope he knew that the records he made had a big affect on some guy all the way out in New Jersey.

Mentioning this at the beginning of a Frankie Stubbs review seams appropriate.  Snuff, Chopper, Broccoli and Leatherface were my gateways into the mid 90s UK punk scene, arguably my favorite time in the history of the earth for music.  Those bands lead me to Blocko and that lead me to Marc.  Frankie Stubbs is one of the grandfathers of that scene.  Though my path to Leatherface was different than most (Snuff to Chopper to Broccoli to Leatherface), I still ended up very quickly realizing what an incredibly important and influential band they were.  They still rank in my top three bands of all time and there's not a single Frankie Stubbs related record that I don't love with all of my heart.

The 7" contains a different version of "Heart Is Home" than is found on the severely underrated Leatherface album Dog Disco.  The version on this 7" is Frankie's voice accompanied only by piano and violin.  It makes an already beautiful song that much more impactful.  I really love this version of the song and am happy to add it to the other solo Frankie Stubbs releases I've acquired over the years.  I wish he put out records more frequently, but I will take what I can get.

This 7" also has a gimmick called Vinyl Video.  Supposedly if you purchase a converter, you can play one side of this record and a video to the song is encoded into the grooves.  It's a pretty neat concept, though I personally can't fathom buying the converter necessary to view this.  It makes the record more expensive than your typical 7" and makes it so it's essentially one sided, but to be fair, the artwork is quite incredible.  Regardless of the cost, there is no way that there would ever be a Frankie Stubbs record not in my collection.  I couldn't have it any other way.

Frankie Stubbs - "Heart Is Home":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hYuhGY1fY