Z-Block Records and Reptile Ranch:
A Brief History

by Andrew Tucker

The members of Reptile Ranch hail from the Welsh valleys, around Newport in Gwent. The band developed from the amateurish musical doodlings of a bunch of musicians who started to play together through 1976-78. The line-up stabilized with Simon Smith (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Mark "Spike" Williams (guitar, violin, vocals), and Phil John (bass).  Typical of the "anyone can have a go at anything" spirit of the times, instrument changes were commonplace, but the above lineup constructed the core of the Ranch’s repertoire. While they were supplemented by a drummer for most recordings, live they were drummer-less. Impossible to objectively categorize at the time; the music was a kind of punky psychedelia, not a million miles away from the rich furrow currently being ploughed by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynki.

The coordination of the group's activities fell to myself.  The term "manager" was a dirty rock ’n roll word at that time. 

Z-Block Records (named after an annex of the Crosskeys Sixth Form College in which the members congregated to avoid lessons) was formed in 1979.  The debut release was a Reptile Ranch single, "Don’t Give The Lifeguard a Second Chance" /"White Tiger Burning (WTB)."  Inspired by the Desperate Bicycles, Scritti Politti and like-minded DIYers of the time, the single featured both songs on both sides, in an effort to save money. The sleeve featured a game illustrating the ease of the record’s manufacture and a rather naive exhortation for anyone in a band anywhere to follow suit. (Which of course thousands did during the next year or so, flooding the fledgling independent distribution operation with loads of inept rubbish, and fortunately the occasional raw gem). At the time it was the principle of putting the means of production in the hands of the producers that was seen as important, rather than the quality of the material produced.

In evangelistic mood, Z-Block relocated from the small mining village of Crosskeys to the big city -- Wales’ capital, Cardiff. (Crosskeys is about 5 miles up the valley road from Blackwood, the home of the Manic Street Preachers.)

Determined to spread the gospel of independent record production to local bands, an evaluation of the local talent and live venues available was undertaken. Expecting to sweep all before us, it was something of a shock when the first band we went to see was Young Marble Giants. Even playing to an almost empty Grass Roots Coffee Bar, with an indifferent audience of wannabe punks and local layabouts, they were obviously something very special. Over the next few months, we got to know them well and played a number of gigs together. It was always hard to maintain objectivity concerning the YMGs. A bunch of people that you knew and liked, worked with, helped and encouraged were producing some of the greatest music of their time. Seeing them play live every few weeks, it was possible to overlook how good they were and almost take them for granted. Stuart, Phil and Alison seemed to be the finished article: they’d created a unique sound, had a large selection of great, incredibly catchy and memorable songs...and yet they seemed somewhat unenthusiastic and uninterested in promoting what they had to the world at large. It was as though they realized themselves that they had created something remarkable, and it was almost too much of an effort to have to prove to anyone else what they had achieved. Understandable, maybe, given the indifferent response elicited from the average Cardiff punter at the time.

Over the ensuing months enough local bands, who were prepared to pay the initial recording and manufacturing costs, were identified for inclusion on the Cardiff compilation album Is The War Over?  The phenomenon of local area compilation albums was rapidly spreading around UK cities at the time, and provided a method of releasing a record (an almost mythical activity for most of the Cardiff bands) even more cheaply than with singles. There was little quality control involved in the selection of bands--if you turned up to the meetings and brought a cheque, you were in. That said, of the bands involved YMG, Test to Destruction, New Form, Riotous Brothers and Beaver were all firm allies of Z-Block before the project began.

Recording took place at a makeshift studio constructed on the first floor of Grass Roots. Each band was allocated 6 minutes to fill with as many songs as they liked.  Reptile Ranch recorded a song written and sung by Spike, "Waterhole." The YMGs chose "Searching for Mr. Right" and "Ode to Booker T."

They weren’t happy with the quality of the recording, but the tight budget and lack of time meant that the songs couldn’t be changed. 2,500 copies of the album were pressed; Rough Trade bought one thousand, which covered the costs and allowed all the bands to make a small profit. Local shops shifted quite a few, while other distributors took reasonable quantities.  The venture was considered to have been a success. The bands were all given copies to do with as they wished, but there were still several hundred copies left, which have since disappeared into the ether. 

For the YMGs, the rest is history.  Geoff Travis liked their contribution to Is The War Over?, signed them to Rough Trade, and on they went to fame, fortune, and impeccable cult status. 

As for Z-Block and Reptile Ranch, things looked rosy for a while. Rough Trade helped finance the next two releases, a four track EP by Reptile Ranch featuring “Young Executives”, “Ice Blue”, “Henry,” and another song written and sung by Spike called “Saying Goodbye.” Next came a compilation EP of 4 bands who hadn’t made it onto the album: Boy Wonders (featuring YMG younger sibling Andrew Moxham on drums), Decadent Few (featuring Dave Hodell,  who has a co-credit on the Weekend song "Nostalgia"), The Czechs and The Ghoulies.

There was talk of Reptile Ranch supporting YMGs on some European dates, but that came to naught. Despite, or maybe because of, the success which was deservedly befalling the YMGs, the spirit in the Z-Block camp was low. During 1980-81, internal tensions and differences were coming to a head. The distractions of life outside the private world of Z-Block were pulling people away from the mission to spread the independent word, and the fun of being in a band seemed to be ebbing fast.

One interesting side venture which took shape in the spring of 1981 was a Cardiff "supergroup" featuring members of Reptile Ranch, Puritan Guitars and New Form. The Skeleteens were formed as an acoustic busking band, ostensibly to finance a holiday in Paris. They did make one major appearance supporting The Fall at Cardiff University.

There was no big bust up of the band or label.  It just kind of dissolved away in a combination of non-activity, lethargy and indifference into ultimate nonexistence. Spike went onto various musical endeavors before teaming up with Alison and Simon Booth in Weekend. (Interesting footnote: Simon Booth was previously a member of Stepping Talk, earnest indie-politicos formed from the Camden enclave of Scritti Politti afficianados.  They supported the YMGs on their debut London performance.).  Phil John went on to work as a Welsh TV drama director, amongst other things. And Simon Smith drifted out of the local music scene and hasn’t been particularly active since.