The Carvells: Part 2, and Magnum Bonum

In the dark days leading up to the apocalypse of Skate and Annoy’s web meltdown I featured the Carvells video for L.A. Run. Well, of course that led me to do some further investigating on the internet, and by “investigating,” I obviously meant draining my Paypal account by having a record shipped from the U.K.. In the meantime, House of Neil uncovered a contemporary (at the time) cover of L.A. Run by the Swedish band Magnum Bonum. And yes, it’s in Swedish.

So here is my copy of Skateboard Rampage. It’s in not so great shape. Regardless, It doesn’t look like they used a well exposed picture to begin with.

The back of the LP talks about how “The Carvells” are basically a vehicle for Alan Carvell and producer Ron O’Shea. (Hey… Eric Shea gave the origianl tip for this…) One glaringly obvious omission, any mention of actual skateboarding. It’s like they copped to the exploitation on the liner notes.

It does feature this awesome band logo with a guy on a skateboard who looks like he just came back from a tryout for the Baseball Furies.

Enter Sweden’s Magnum Bonum. They managed to release a Swedish cover of the song in the same year (1978) that the U.K. version was hit. The Swedish album cover is about as inspired as the Carvells. What do these guys sound like? They lean towards Sweet instead of Abba. (But not on the Carvells cover though…)

Here’s the single version.

The Japanese import stands head and shoulders above any of the others. The image is fuzzy because the band’s site only has small pictures. That’s right, they reformed briefly in the 1990’s. I’ve got an email into the contact, hopefully they will respond with some better photos and maybe some more information.

Speaking of Japan, The Carvells LP has not been reissued as a stand alone CD, but the entire contents are available on a Japanese collection of Alan Carvell tracks. I don’t have a stylus on my turntable, and it’s not even hooked up anymore, so I found it easier to order the CD on eBay. Turns out it’s being shipped from Japan to the UK so they can ship it here. Bummer. In the meantime, check out L.A. Run (Skateboard) as sung by Magnum Bonum (Translation: Magnum Bonus ?). Sven or Lars there on the right needs to fire his stylist or suck in that gut.