Carefree in Caerphilly 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Another fantastic day in the U.K., this time touring Caerphilly Castle -- a sprawling medieval stronghold famed for its vast moat and leaning tower. Tomorrow we’ll visit another celebrated citadel (in Chepstow) -- I’m married to a kastle kween, whereas I pretended my Fisher-Price fortress was my play village’s local theme restaurant -- before heading to Exeter for the Altered Images concert of my (childhood) dreams. 

Fun fact: Following her band’s breakup, singer Clare Grogan attracted what she later called a “crazy bidding war” and signed with London Records. 

She then recorded the solo album “Trash Mad” in New York with former Altered Images bandmate (and later husband) Stephen Lironi. 

The album was produced by Mark Kamins, best known for producing Madonna’s debut single, “Everybody.” But when its lead single, “Love Bomb” (b/w “I Love the Way You Beg,” failed to chart in 1987, London Records canceled the planned follow-up, “Strawberry,” and shelved the LP.  Another album track produced by Kamins, “Reason Is the Slave,” eventually surfaced on London Records’ 1987 various-artists compilation “Giant,” but that was it.

Although Kamins had an impressive résumé -- as an A&R man for Island Records, he signed the wonderful Waitresses and Was (Not Was), and as a remixer put his stamp on records by David Byrne, Bow Wow Wow and Kajagoogoo -- looking back I’m not entirely convinced he was up to the Grogan task.

(She wouldn’t release another album until Altered Images’ “Mascara Streakz” in 2022, which I can’t get enough of.)

The intriguing part is that even Grogan does not currently seem to know where a usable master of “Trash Mad” is. In 2024, she mentioned searching her attic for the album’s digital audio tape (DAT). In a 2025 interview, she said the album definitely exists and that she owns – or once owned – a copy, but thinks it may be at somebody else’s house. She jokingly added: “It couldn’t have been that bad.”  

If anyone has a bootleg, please contact me!