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The Remaster Box Set II

The second set of remastered CD's for the sound desk of Kenny Jones. This set includes:

The lost album
Hive
War begins at home
Class of 66
Somewhere in between

and comes with a booklet of lyrics chosen by Mark and album cover stickers.

The Remaster Box Set (rebuilt)

This is as the initial release of this boxset but with a printed lyric book rather than hand-written by Mark. The albums are:
Breaking the silence
Intimacy
Promises
Empire days
Blue Alice blue
and it contains album cover stickers.

The Remaster Box Set

The Box-Set contains 5 CD's remastered direct from the desk by Kenny Jones. It includes, Breaking The Silence, Intimacy, Promises, Empire Days & Blue Alice Blue, plus a personalised handwritten lyric book (by Mark Long's own fair hand).

SOLD OUT (a new version of the collection will be available soon)

The Alchemy Session

This was the session that prompted the re-emergence of The Opposition. Mark and Ralph got together to see what it was like playing The Opposition songs again. It felt good enough to warrant getting a bass player in to try it properly. Ralph knew Bernard and he slotted in quickly. Pretty soon the idea arose of using this new line up to revisit some tracks in the recording studio to see what it sounded like. The addition of a cover version hinted at the emergence of a band sound that would eventually bear fruit with Somewhere In Between.

Somewhere In Between (Vinyl)

Some words on the making of this album.

Mark:
I’m not sure where songs come from. If I think about it too much they usually just vanish.

But sometimes it works like this. I have a deadline, the band are ready and waiting, the studio is booked, all we need is a bunch of 15-20 songs!!!

So, I retire to my home studio with an old acoustic guitar, a laptop, microphone, notebooks full of possible title, single lines, sometimes even a complete verse and lots of scribbling that I can’t read. And a large stack of blank sheets of paper.

Somewhere In Between (CD)

Some words on the making of this album.

Mark:
I’m not sure where songs come from. If I think about it too much they usually just vanish.

But sometimes it works like this. I have a deadline, the band are ready and waiting, the studio is booked, all we need is a bunch of 15-20 songs!!!

So, I retire to my home studio with an old acoustic guitar, a laptop, microphone, notebooks full of possible title, single lines, sometimes even a complete verse and lots of scribbling that I can’t read. And a large stack of blank sheets of paper.

Live Eighties

Special edition vinyl release produced for record store day 2018. We produced a fanzine to accompany this release which is only available when you buy from our online store (or at the gigs). If you have purchased it at a record store, send us a photo of you holding the album, and we'll send you a copy of the fanzine to go with it. The tracks come from two performances that were recorded for radio broadcast in the eighties.

Breaking the Silence

The vinyl re-release

Promises

Promises vinyl re-release

Intimacy

RE-released on vinyl and for the first time on CD, the bands second album.

Intimacy

The second album re-released on vinyl.

More Cupboards

Although the band was in a quiet period, Mark continued to write and More Cupboards is another collection of "sketchbook" experimentation as the possibilities and limitations of the home studio become more apparent to him.

It never had a proper release, although plans were made to offer is on a pen drive, and a booklet was printed to go along with it. Here is the introduction to that booklet and a download of the final version in pdf:

Return of the Brothers Dash

The Dash Brothers were Mark and Dan's first band. They had always been in touch so it had been natural to play together again when the chance arose. Originally it had started out as a Storyville project, but when Ralph re-appeared and the songs developed, it turned into the Class of 66 project. The storyville approach still appealed though, so when the other album was finished and there was still songs that worked better in that context, this album came about.

Cupboard 55

The purchase of a shiny new laptop ushered in some creative experimentation. Following the "home studio" approach of the first solo project, the home studio in question now included loops, samples and digital instruments that opened up what was possible. This album captures Mark's attempt to transfer his songwriting into new areas whilst trying not to lose himself in the endless possibilities the technology offered.

It originally appeared as a short-run CD but is now freely available to play and download from here

Arc

Mark and Ralph sat down together and came up with a list of their favourite tracks. They cut it down to an album sized number and here it is.

Hive

Mark and Ralph also decided to individually curate two other collections and this is Ralphs. It contains his favourite non-album releases.

If She'd Only Heard of Ray Charles

Mark's collection is some of the less mainstream tracks the band had recorded over the years.

Lost Album

This album wasn't released at the time it was recorded as the label lost interest, but the tapes were kept by Mark and released as the Lost Album in 2005

Scarf Sessions

Another tape Mark uncovered from the early days at Scarf studios.

Farewell to Storyville

Storyville were Mark Long and Lol Ford. Farewell to Storyville was their first album. They have worked together in other bands, meeting when Lol joined Mark in So. Subsequently they have also appeared together in the Opposition, working on Blue Alice Blue, War Begins at Home an Blinder. Some of the songs here were actually used in a different format for those recordings. This album represents a rediscovery of the work they did together at that time.

New York, Paris, Peckham

The first ever live album with two sets from the Empire Days era.

North Peckham Skyline

Blinder took a long time to put together, what with Marcus being in Paris and Mark in London. The studio in Paris also offered almost infinite opportunities to tweak, change, add to and rearrange. In contrast, Mark's home studio was basic in the extreme which forced him to focus in on the songwriting. When Blinder finally came out, Mark revisited the results of this more low-fi approach and decide to offer a low-end release to make them available.

From the original release website:

Blinder

After a long cross-channel gestation, Blinder is a collection of new material released on the newly-formed MrsJones label.

One

An EP of new material prior to the long process of putting together Blinder

War Begins at Home

With Marcus in Paris and Mark in London, this album represents a cross-channel collaboration that was released in France initially followed by a release in Poland.

Hold Me Tonight

Promotional single for the upcoming War Begins at Home album released in France

'81/'82

The first Opposition compilation released in France and Poland

Blue Alice Blue

The first album from the resurrected Opposition sporting a new line up but still driven by Mark and Marcus. They went back to the old ways of self-production and more creative control. The credits read:

0PPOSITI0N
Marcus Bell
Mark Long

This record was made by:-
Marcus Bell
Kenny Jones
Mark Long

Photo & Hand Tinting: Marc Hamilton
Design: Marc Watkins Associates

Crawl to Me

The first single from the record made having emerged from the So years with a new line-up

Someone To Talk To

A general release with different everything from the version released in France earlier, this was the second single from Empire Days.

Empire Days

This album saw more record company influence with the addition of a producer in an effort to change the sound a little.

Five Minutes

The first "official" release from the upcoming Empire Days album.

I Need Someone To Talk To

An interim release in France under the Charisma imprint that preempted the Empire Days set, mixing the main track from that with two tracks from Promises.

Factory Gate

A promo release shortly after Charisma had been bought by Virgin

Innocent

Second single from the Promises album.

Promises

The first album recorded for Charisma. The songs had been played live extensively prior to recording and would have been very familiar to all the fans on release.

Stranded

First single from the Promises album and the first release financed by the deal with Charisma.

Intimacy

Having acquired this self-financed record when they signed the band, it now got an official UK release with a slightly different cover.

My Room Is White

This is the first Opposition release on Charisma and was done as a promotion for the upcoming UK release of Intimacy

Intimacy

The first version of this album that was released in France.

Breaking the Silence

The album that first showed the direction the band were moving in as a three piece. It was recorded after hours at Nomis in London as a project with Kenny Jones who was working as an apprentice engineer and was allowed a personal project as part of the process.

Black and White

The first single from the Breaking the Silence album, a project entirely financed by the band themselves.

Very Little Glory

Co-released with Victims of Circumstance on the collaborative label Double Vision, featuring Very Little Glory on one side and the VoC tracks Wires and White City on the other.

This Year

First Opposition release. Recorded at Scarf Studios and part of an album that was not released at the time. This release was the only one for this version of the band whilst it was extant.

Vinyl Bundle

All three re-released albums on Vinyl plus a bonus download card for the Alchemy Session.

Mark Long Bundle

Three of Mark's side projects.