ROY HARPER : LOONY ON THE BUS

1. No Change (Ten Years Ago)
2. Playing Prisons
3. I Wanna Be Part Of The News
4. Burn The World (Part 1)
5. Casualty
6. Cora
7. Loony On The Bus
8. Come Up And See Me
9. The Flycatcher
10. Square Boxes

Label : Awareness Records

Length : 44:15

Review (Wikipedia) : Loony on the Bus is the 15th studio album by Roy Harper and was released in 1988 when Harper required cash in order to start his own company. These demos finally served their purpose by funding Harper's 1990 album Once. The album is mostly a collection of demos and tracks originally intended for release in 1978-9 under the title Commercial Breaks. The original release was held back because of disputes between Harper and EMI over funding and content and resultantly, it was not until the release of Loony on the Bus in 1988 that most of the tracks became publicly available. Seven songs are taken from the original track listing for Commercial Breaks (tracks: 1,2,3,6,9,10,& 11), two songs still remain exclusive to this release (tracks 5 & 8), and two tracks (4 & 7) though exclusive at the time of release, would later be released as bonus tracks on the eventual 1994 CD release of Commercial Breaks. The album's title was inspired by a review of one of Harper's earlier albums in a women's magazine. The reviewer stated that Harper reminded her of "...the loony on the bus".

Review (AllMusic) : Containing songs recorded mostly from 1977 through 1980, Loony on the Bus is not really a retrospective, but instead a compilation of material that was originally intended to be released as Commercial Breaks in 1979. That album didn't come out until 1994, so this 1988 release was of interest mainly to fans who could finally listen to this long-lost material. It's not great, just average for the period, a kind of innocuous folk-rock that really is quite unique to Harper. The 1994 release of Commercial Breaks makes this album somewhat redundant, although Harper-philes may want it for its collectibility.