Thanks so much to Mark Pearson for this thorough interview! Ambition Records was one of the best indiepop labels of the late 80s, one of the ones that actually influenced my taste, and who knows, maybe there wouldn’t be Cloudberry if it wasn’t for his passion for indiepop then. I’m not exaggerating.

++ Hello Mark! Thanks so much for being up for the interview. I reckon you live now in Japan? How come?

Hi Roque! Thank you for asking me. It is a pleasure to answer your questions.

How come Japan? Good Question! After Ambition Records folded I decided to distance myself from the Indie Scene and concentrate on study. Then as luck would have it I got made redundant from my factory job in 1993. The redundancy money got me through university, where I studied Philosophy and English at the University College of Saint Mark and Saint John in Plymouth. I graduated in ’97 and got a post-grad diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. After much thought I decided that I couldn’t teach a language if I didn’t know what it was like to learn a one. So, I went to WHSmiths in Southampton and picked the first book that fell off the shelf. It happened to be Japanese for Beginners. I’d practiced Judo when I was a kid, and I’d picked up a bit of Japanese then, so I didn’t find it so difficult to get into. In fact it was fascinating language with an even more fascinating culture. It made me want to go to Japan. So in August of ’98 I came and made a life for myself here. I’ve got a pretty decent job now and I’m married with two kids. Life could not get much better than this.

++ So let’s go back to the late 80s, what made you start Ambition Records? What was your ambition? 😉

Well, you know, I could say that I wanted fame and fortune. I could say that I wanted to create something worthwhile. I could say that I wanted to make a bit extra cash to buy records. But basically I was an eighteen year old music addict who just wanted to escape the tedium of Factory Life. I repaired machine tools eight hours a day for ten years. It was tedious. Ambition was a way to let of steam. It was something to channel my creative energy into. It was a dream.

++ Why the name Ambition Records?

That was down to my guru and friend, David “Hammy” Hamilton. In 1985 I was eighteen. I used to go to Riverside in Southampton on Friday nights where I became friends with Hammy. We used to go back to his flat in Highfield and play records until six in the morning. Hammy introduced me to a load of second division punk bands from the late seventies, among them Vic Goddard and the Subway Sect. I picked up a copy of their 7” single Ambition from Underground Records in St Mary’s Street and after that it never off my HMV record player. I used to drive my parents nuts with it. I took the name from that.

++ Was Ambition Records the first time you supported, hands-on, the indie pop scene?

It was the natural progression from being a DJ. In 1987 I bought a seventies Dansette twin record deck and a couple of burned out speakers for an unspecified sum from Hammy and started up an indie night at the Labour Club in Southampton that remained popular among the indie kids, psychobillies, goths, and grungers up until 1990. We put on local bands and played music—mostly what I liked and what I thought everyone else ought to like. I played things like the Wedding Present, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Shop Assistants, and the Soup Dragons. Among the bands we put on were Accrington Stanley and The Kinky Boot Beasts. The Kinky Boot Beasts were a daft bunch who played shambling feedback guitars with moments of 13th Floor Elevator genius. When the KBB split Martin became one of our doormen and Richard Stark formed Jane Pow. Jane Pow would later blow Sarah Records’ Field Mice off the stage the night they played the Labour Club (They had a tendency to blow any band off the stage in those days). They told me with their usual arrogance that if I knew what was good for me I would sign them to my label. Signing to Ambition was a verbal agreement, so I told them there and then I would finance a 7” single and we went down to Bristol to record Safe/That’s My Girl.

++ The first release was a 7″ by the incredible Mayfields. I’m actually good friends with Mark and Iain, and I’m kind of curious if you have any anecdotes you’d like to share about them!

I was Djing at the Tinderbox—I think it was probably Loop or Pop Will Eat Itself. Iain might correct me. I was playing “On Tape” by the Pooh Sticks and Iain Mayfield handed me his band’s tape. He’d heard that I was thinking of starting a label and thought I should hear his band. The funny thing was I had heard of the Mayfields before. There were a load of Indie Pop Fanzines around at the time and their demo had been mentioned and reviewed in a number of them. I took the tape home and played it. And played it again. I thought it was fantastic. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I was whisked away by the Mayfields and my adventures as an indie pop guru began.

I went down to see the Mayfields rehearse in a church hall in Salisbury. I was hooked. The songs were so polished and tight. The lyrics were incredibly sharp. I wanted them to be AMB001. The only thing that worried me was that there seemed to be some real high tension among the band members. But I’d read the NME and I’d heard this was pretty usual in bands. Tension can make or break a band. In the end the tension in the Mayfields broke them.

Paul the bassist created the cover for the Girl of My Best Friend single.

I used to go down to Mark’s house in the Cotswolds. It was a lot of fun. Once we recorded a bunch of ultra-twee songs under the name of “The Chocolate Anoraks”. One of them was called Winnie the Pooh’s My Hero. It was too twee but a lot of fun. Unfortunately the tape got “LOST” and Iain got an electric shock off his bass.

I remember the last time I saw the Mayfields before they split up was the infamous Pooh Sticks gig at the Labour Club. We put them on as support but there was a lot of tension in the band and they split up not long after that. (Incidently we recorded the Pooh Sticks gig that night and it was released on Fierce Records under the name “Trade Mark of Quality”—ironically named after me)

++ So how did the band signing process work for Ambition Records? What were the requisites?

I was nineteen years old without a care in the world apart from which record I would buy next and when the NME was coming out. Neither did I particularly care for the business side of it all. As most of the bands would tell you, to sign to Ambition Records went a bit like this:

Band Member: “You’re Gnome aren’t you?
Gnome: “Yep.”
Band Member: “Well, what did you think of us?”
Gnome: “You blew me away.”
Band Member: “So, are you gonna sign us.”
Gnome: “Sure! Let’s record a single next week.”

++ Then you released Jane Pow. They were the only band that released two records with you. Which were your favourite songs from them?

My favorite Jane Pow song was without a doubt “That’s My Girl.” I insisted that was the track they recorded for their single. But Richard insisted they record a new song for the A side. I agreed; I was all for the band having control of their product. The new song turned out to be “Safe” and I loved that too. From Greg’s notorious stumbling drum intro, through the dropout guitars, Vincent’s classic melody, and Richard’s barely audible lyrics, it is a rollicking pop song that never got the polished production it deserved. I will never forget hearing it over the speakers at Abbey Road Studios as it was being cut. The engineer turned to me and said that it was a damn good song. He was not wrong. As for other tracks I liked, well I still get the shivers when I listen to “Warm Room” and I will never forget their live show at the Labour Club with Rupert and Richard smashing their heads on their guitars in time to “Above Your Head”.

++ The Love Buttons record is a bit hard to find! It’s sought after especially by Japanese fans! How many copies wre pressed? And I’m wondering if you can tell me a bit about this band, as there is not much information.

The Lovebuttons famous in Japan??? Unbelievable! They were a bunch of University student lads fronted by a sweet spicy girl called Jo Bisseker. They used to turn up at all the gigs and one day they approached me with a tape by their band The Buttons. It was classic Indie-Pop and I loved it. Unfortunately by the time they arrived on the scene I was beginning to struggle financially. My turntables had been stolen from the Labour Club, I was in debt because of the money I had put up for Girl of My Best Friend, who had split soon after the release of the single and showed little interest in promoting their record. In addition to that the “Bobby Stokes Salutes the Fall of Manchester” compilation album was costing me more to compile than I had anticipated. But Jo and the boys were insistent that they wanted their single to be on Ambition, so I said sure, go ahead and create it and I’ll give it a catalogue number　AMB007. They certainly came up with the goods and even changed their name, dispensing of the twee in favor of something that would reflect the sexiness of the band. Looking back I would have liked to have spent more time with them because they had a lot of passion and energy and they were very sexy. We pressed 500 copies and they sold out almost immediately. We should have pressed more, gone on tour and blown the world apart, but I was starting to feel the pinch. My only regret about those times is that I believe I let the LoveButtons down.

++ The other band I’m very curious on your catalogue is Girl of My Best Friend. First, because I like their name, and second because they made some great songs! But again, not much information about them. Anything you’d like to tell me?

Girl of My best Friend got their name from an Elvis song. They came from Northampton. I discovered them on Chris and Neil’s Corrupt Postman tape. Their song stood out above all the others because of the haunting quality of the singer’s voice contrasted against the jangly guitars. It was different. It was exciting. I went down to La Cave in Bristol to see them. They performed a really spooky set. I think they were supporting The Bachelor Pad. I offered to cut a record with them. They asked me if I was kidding. They came to Southampton to do a gig with Jane Pow. They performed a really spooky set. Not long after that I lost touch with them. I think they split up. I like to think they were a ghost who came to haunt me for a few months before disappearing.

++ Ambition 006 is Colette’s Groovy Badge. So, who is Colette?

A lot of Indie Kids used to write to me in those days to buy the records. Colette was one of them. A sixteen year old girl from Lytham St Annes with a passion for music and writing as intense as Jane Pow and the Mayfields put together. I thought if she were a band I would sign her. So I did. It was a true indie-pop moment. Colette went on to study English at Oxford University and now she is a best selling author.

++ What is the story behind the “Garden Gnome” fanzine? Why that name?

Why the name? Hammy again. It was six o’clock in the morning one Sunday in 1985 or 1986. We’d eaten our chips from Big George in Swaythling. We had emptied a case of lager. We had listened to everything from Scott Fitzgerald’s The Paranoid Ward to John the Postman’s Toothache. We had watched the latest episode of Filthy Rich and Catflap. Then Hammy put on Chance in a Million. You know the old show where Simon Callow played a guy who had unbelievable events happening to him all the time called Tom Chance. He was parking his car when he backed over a Garden Gnome. The head came off of the Gnome and Tom Chance said “Gnome Dead”. Hammy looked at me flaked out on his sofa and repeated it. The name stuck.
After that everyone knew me as gnome. So when I was looking for a name for the fanzine and I just knew it had to have a gnome in it so the brand would be instantly recognizable. There were 3 issues of the Garden Gnome Experience, which I wrote myself, and one issue of the Garden Gnome which I co-wrote with Colette. I wanted to create something disposable, and twee, and in the vein of all the other fanzines around at the time.

++ What was the idea behind the “Bobby Stokes Salutes The Fall Of Manchester” compilation?

It was 1976. Saints beat Manchester United with Bobby Stokes famous goal. Saints were thrown into the first division and suddenly we were playing in a much bigger field. Of course it was a field which belonged to the big guys, like Manchester United. Just like the music scene always belonged to the big guys up North. Inspiral Carpets, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses.

Then in early 1989 just before Madchester and the Stone Roses hit the big time their tour manager called me. He said the band was supposed to play in Salisbury, but the promoter had done a bunk. Could the Stone Roses play at the Labour Club on Wednesday night? I said, “The Stone Roses? Who are they?” He told me they were The Next Big Thing. Of course all the bands said that. I said they wouldn’t pull in much of a crowd on a Wednesday night and put the phone down. The following week the NME came through the door and who was on the cover but the Stone Bloody Roses. I could have kicked myself.
Bobby Stokes Salutes the Fall of Manchester was conceived as an ironic tribute to that moment. That was my big “Fall”, but I still remembered the time when Bobby stokes scored that famous goal.
I decided to invite bands that I respected from all over to contribute to Bobby Stokes. I sent them all a small amount of cash to work with. I told them it didn’t have to be too polished. It was supposed to be in the spirit of second division punk, (the punk that Hammy had introduced me to in his flat in Swaythling in 1985) the underdogs of pop paying tribute to the overlords. I loved the Madchester movement with a passion and I wanted to be in on it at all costs. When the songs started coming back I was stunned at the quality and what a mixed bag I had. Strawberry Story did a twee version of Made of Stone, The Cudgels carbon-copied What Do I Get? I even managed to get a track from Thrilled Skinny! But by far the best track on the compilation was Mad Cyril by Jane Pow. They made that song their own.

Unfortunately, Bobby Stokes never made it to vinyl, which I guess was also with the spirit of the times. I made about two hundred cassettes and they were sent out all over the world. I even had a Japanese guy turn up on my doorstep asking for one. He said he’d travelled to England to collect rare records and tapes. Of course I let him have it free of charge.

++ You mostly released bands from Southampton, am I right? Not counting the Bobby Stokes compilation, which was the band lived farther away from you that you released? Did you get to see all the bands you put records out live?

Strawberry Story were from Northallerton. They travelled to Southampton to do a gig at the Labour Club. A band called Aspidistra covered James’ Come Home. They were a bunch of nice friendly chaps from Scotland. And if I remember correctly, Pure were from Glasgow. I got to know them through the Fanzine network.

++ Which other bands from the period would you have loved to release? Was there any band that was Southampton “best kept secret” that never got to be released?

Oh, Yes! I would have loved to have gone back in time and snapped up the Kinky Boot Beasts before they disseminated into Jane Pow. They were funny, trashy, exciting, and everso young. I often tried to get Richard to reform them for a mini-album that was to be called “Bowl Haircuts and Pointy Boots!” But I could never convince him. And then there was the Chocolate Anoraks…

++ So when and why did you call it a day?

It was the day after I pressed 500 EVOL singles and EVOL told me they had decided to split up, thank you very much. I managed to sell about fifty copies of the single. I still boxes of them in my parent’s attic in Southampton—if they haven’t been trashed by now.

++ Do you still follow indie pop? If so, what are your latest crushes?
Indie Pop will always have a place in my heart, Roque. I am a little out of touch these days, though. (I listen to a lot of podcasts about writing. I write science fiction and fantasy stories that are published in small press magazines you can find links to some of the stories at markleepearson.blogspot.com .) The songs on my ipod are all about ten years old. Right now I am listening to Belle and Sebastian’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I never gave up on the Wedding Present; I still think George Best is the greatest album ever recorded. I also listen to Sleeper a lot—especially Smart and The It Girl, and I have just read Different For Girls by Louise Wener.

++ Being in Japan, I’m quite curious, what are your favourite dishes there?

The food here is great! Much more of a variety than can be found in the UK. Where do I start? おにぎり、 カレーライス、豚カツ、鯖味噌、秋刀魚、牛丼。。。the list is endless. Just don’t get me on the subject of whale. Someone thought it funny to order in a restaurant without being honest about what it was. When I found out the truth, that someone was soon crossed off my New Years’ card List, I can tell you. And Japanese beer is by far the most refreshing beer in the world. Stop by some time and we’ll share an Asahi Super Dry.

++ Let’s wrap the interview here, anything else you’d like to add?

If you want to be successful at any level of the game you have to work hard to improve yourself. You have to get out there and brand yourself, find out what is different, special about you and shout it from the rooftops. If you are in a band and you are not out there promoting your own stuff, playing the gigs, spreading the word about your product, then you are doing yourselves a disservice. Don’t leave it all to the labels and publishers. Nobody is going to do it for you. Nowadays, nobody is going to come knocking on your door to ask if you have a record they can buy. You can have all the talent in the world, and you could have written the most amazing and original songs ever, but if you don’t do something for yourself, then you ain’t worth a thing. There are so many opportunities around now to be creative and get known. The internet is a wonderful thing. People say that the internet is killing music. I disagree. It is providing us a space in which anyone can be successful if they work hard at it. Success is not limited to the bands on the big labels any more; success if for the ones who work the hardest. Now is the best time to form a band. Now is the best time to start a label. Even if you come away with nothing but an empty pocket at least you can say you tried. And even if you fail, there might be someone in twenty years down the line who will come back and say, what you did back then was pretty cool, you know. Now wouldn’t that be something?

All the best with Cloudberry Records, Roque. It was a pleasure talking with you.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen 
The Mayfields – World of Your Own (From Ambition 001)

Thanks so much to Mathias Hill for the great interview! You can check more about Die Busfahrer on their myspace. Now time to discover one of the strangest and most creative bands from the late 80s and early 90s in Germany.

++ Tell us a bit of the early days. Who were Die Busfahrer? How and when did you start a band? How did you all knew each other?

Die Busfahrer were, in the very beginning, two friends, me (Mathias Hill – voc. and melodica) and Tobias Usula (voc.), living in a small town called Bad Soden-Salmünster, in Hessen/Germany. We were friends from kindergarden age on and in 1986, at the age of 14, we decided to start a band. we called the band “DIE PENTECHOS” and as we didn’t have any musical basis at all, it was quite terrible.

So in early 1987 we asked Magnus G. Schmerfeld, a guy we just got to know, if he would like to play the Casiotone. He did. So we recorded our first proper song “Mofa fahrn”. After a while, it got played on the radio by our hero Klaus Walter – he is some kind of a hessian John Peel. He compared our music to Andreas Dorau and so we got into listening to his stuff as well as (a bit later) Die Merricks. And we loved it.

Meanwhile, in 1988 we found a friend from school as a guitarrist, Volker Hagemann, but after putting together a Pentechos tape with approx. 12 songs, we dissolved the band. The Pentechos were just home recording with a cassette recorder, never playing a single gig, basically just a reason to tell school mates that “we’re in a band”…

We didn’t manage to get a good reputation because we weren’t punk rock, we didn’t have a drum set or electric guitars, and i guess Magnus, who is a real good keyboarder, was a bit pissed off that his friends were mocking about him – being a Pentecho wasn’t really cool.

But I insisted to re-form the band with the same members, but a different name: DIE BUSFAHRER. the plan was: we wanted to record a tape of the busfahrer without any information about the band, so people would ask themselves: “Who are these cool guys..?”

Magnus said: “Okay, i’m in, but only if we don’t play any live gigs”. We wrote some songs like “LKW Führerschein” (“truck driving license”), “Rasenmähn” (lawn mowing) and “Cowboy Horst” and we didn’t play live until 1990.

Then came Rocko Schamoni, a nice guy from Hamburg, and asked us to take part in his tour. He was on the edge of becoming famous at that time, he had a major record deal and his album was produced by Bela B. of “Die Ärzte”, one of our favourite bands of all time!

So we played our very first gig at Batschkapp/Frankfurt in front of 500 people. Schamoni did some kind of a casting show with his support bands, and as we were quite drunk and quite charming, we won the hearts of the audience. I guess this evening was the real birth of DIE BUSFAHRER.

++ Why did you call the band The Bus Drivers?

Well, that’s easy: Didn’t you know that this was the profession of George Harrison’s father?

++ Where does the unique style of Die Busfahrer comes from? I hear some influence from maybe Die Dorau und Die Marinas? Could that be? What else was an influence to your music?

As told above, we were compared to Dorau before we really got to know his music. Of course, we knew his song “Fred vom Jupiter” because it was a massive hit (to this day, i guess almost every pop interested person in germany knows this song), but we weren’t aware of how he carried on. After being compared with him, i bought his early records and we all really liked it.

But in the beginning, we were really heavily influenced by Die Ärzte (the doctors), some kind of a fun punk/pop band with a unique sound, but to be honest: I guess you won’t hear similarities to the bus driver sound.

But we got in touch quite early with Frischluft Tonträger, a nice P!O!P!-label from Friedberg and we managed Krischan, the label manager. So the bands from this label, Honigritter, Fahrraddiebe, Der Wind in den Weiden and first of all Die Merricks became a major influence for us.

To this day, the only Frischluft long playing album (“Mit Sonnenschirmen fingen wir den Blütenzauber”) and the first two Merricks album have some kind of a holy status for us.

++ You come from a small town in Hessen, was that some kind of handicap to make your band more known? Was it easy for you to get gigs around?

It definitely was. But even if we would have been from Hamburg (were most of the really influential stuff came from in those days), we wouldn’t have made our way as we were too naive in those days. But we never complained, we made friends with Marc Liebscher from Blickpunkt Pop, with The Merricks, with I,Ludicrous, one of our favourite bands from England, and so we managed to play in Munich, Hamburg, London, Reading.

++ You toured London and Reading! How did you end up going to England? How was this experience? How different was the crowd compared to the one in Germany? Any anecdotes you can share ?! 😀

Lots of anecdotes – I was a pen pal to Will Hung from I,Ludicrous since 1988. I’ve heard of them via Klaus Walter, he played quite a few of their songs, and they’ve also been favorites of John Peel. After a while, in 1992, I decided that they needed to do a tour in Germany, So I organised a little tour for them, it was a bit chaotic, but everyone who saw it still talks about it today.

And so Will thought that the bus drivers should play in England. He put together the two gigs (in 1993 or 94?) and we drove to England with an old VW van. As we slept in the van, we didn’t need a hotel. Especially the gig in London was very good as we’ve spent a wild evening with the opening band, they were called Psychopussy and they were really nice and funny people.

The crowds really liked our stuff, especially as it was quite exotic for them that we were singing in german. (BTW: Will wrote a review of the gig, it can be found in the BUSFAHRERSTORY)

++ You released two EPs: “im Elektroland” and “in der Walpurgisnacht”! What do you remember from the recording sessions?

We recorded the first EP live on one sunday afternoon in 1991 in my bedroom. In “LKW-Führerschein” you can hear a live crowd roaring during the keyboard solo. This was a crowd we recorded on tape after a busfahrer gig and we just turned up the stereo during the solo, that’s all. No mixing, no overdubs.

(On a second sunday afternoon, we glued the covers together)

“Walpurgisnacht” was recorded by Thilo Päch/Tapp Production in a small but proper 8 track studio in Schlüchtern. The studio was above some kind of a farm and during the recordings a little girl came in and asked about the cars in the backyard – we didn’t quite know what she wanted until it turned out that one of the horses had slid and fell on Tobias’ car. Quite weird…

Thilo is still a good friend of ours and he recorded two albums of Magnus’ and my new band, Rockformation Diskokugel, which is still going –> www.rockformation-diskokugel.de www.myspace.com/rockfo

++ Which is your favourite Die Busfahrer song and why? Are there any more recordings from Die Busfahrer that are still unreleased?

I still like most of the songs. They have a certain innocence and naivity to them and that’s what i like about them.

Some of the unreleased songs:

“Mofa fahrn” – Our first song, recorded on tape and played on the radio – but we never managed to get a proper studio recording and we never played it live- perhaps i should make an MP3 of it.

“Rasenmähn” – Always a great live favorite, we did a studio version and it can be found on a tape compilation on Steinpilz Tonträger.

“Statist bei Stefan Derrick” – A song about being a bit part actor in the german crime TV series “Derrick”. We recorded it in the very last days of Die Busfahrer and the busfahrer version is still unreleased. But we re-recorded it with ROCKFORMATION DISKOKUGEL and it can be found on our first album (“La Bola Privada”, Apricot Records / Blickpunkt Pop).

“Primitive Busfahrer” – A cover version of the Felt song “Primitive Painters” with german lyrics about the band, some kind of a “Ballad of the Busdrivers”… Magnus and me have always been huge Felt fans and there’s even a Busfahrer version of “Voyage to Illumination”. This one (Primitive B.) is the last song the bus drivers ever recorded. It can be found on our myspace-site.

(Unfortunately, we never heard from Lawrence, I guess he doesn’t have an e-mail-account..)

++ These two EPs were released on the Eiswürfel Tonträger label. It was your own label, right? How was the experience of running a label? What’s the complete catalogue? I haven’t found much info about it online!

Let me think about it:

eis-1

Die Busfahrer – Im Elektroland
7″, Eiswürfel Tonträger (1991), 500 copies

titles:

· Cowboy horst

· Alles klar

· Elektroland

· Lkw-führerschein

Some of the records have silly writings on the cover-inside.

——————————————————————————–

eis-2
wegweiser durch’s eiswürfelland
c-60-cassette, 20 tracks, eiswürfel tonträger (1992), lots of copies

labelsampler feat. die merricks, schade schokolade, busfahrern, blinzelbeeren, prinz eugen, im zerrspiegel des mutantenzirkus, married minds, rosecoloured pinholeburns, sofa head, dancing chromosomes, kitchen cynics,…

As far as i know all the songs are exclusive. the song “grundsuppe” by prinz eugen ist censored.
There are two different versions of the tape with two different covers and two different kitchen cynics songs on them.

——————————————————————————–

eis-3
i, ludicrous – we stand around
7″ep, eiswürfel tonträger (collaboration with roman carbage vinyl) (1992), 660 copies (and 6 testpressings)

titles:

· We stand around

· Quite extraordinary (live)

· Oh really

· Spock’s brain (live)

Football anthem which was voted “gloomy but optimistic single of the week” by new order in the n.m.e. in 1992.

——————————————————————————–

eis-4
Married Minds – Bewahret einander vor herzeleid
7″ ep, Eiswürfel Tonträger (1993), 550 copies.

titles:

· Toysoldier song

· Oedipus rex

· Kurz ist die zeit

· Gefall’ner engel

· Come again and we will see

Magnus’ solo project, quite dark , but very nice. There are two different versions with two different backcovers. this was the last time christian hauke designed the labels.

——————————————————————————–

eis-5
Friends Ahoj – Grandstand Girls
one-sided 7″, Eiswürfel Tonträger (1993), 550 copies.

titles:

· Grandstand Girls

· Have you seen that Girl?

Some of the records include a stamp out of g. gottschling’s collection and a pack of ahoj-brause. Some kind of an off-shoot from the Merricks, with Günter Gottschling singing, quite charming, very 60s-pop.

——————————————————————————–

eis-6
Die Busfahrer – In Der Walpurgisnacht
7″, Eiswürfel Tonträger (1994), 550 copies.

titles:

· Beliebt

· Walpurgisnacht

· Roy Black (Popstars in der Arbeitswelt, teil 1)

· Ein mann ist keine maus.

Some of the record labels have pictures of the band members sticked on them.

——————————————————————————–

eis-7
Various – Die Schönste Platte der Welt
cd, 19 tracks, Eiswürfel Tonträger (1994), 1000 copies. Our only CD; a compilation with Eiswürfel-related bands covering each other; with Merricks, Friends Ahoj, Schade Schokolade, Die Busfahrer, Kitchen Cynics and many more

titles:

· Schade Schokolade – Sommerlied

· I, Ludicrous – Kick into his face

· Die Busfahrer – Liebe aus der dose

· Sirken Sikora – Die krawatte. konzert für den wellenbahnhof. satz iv (frech, geschwind!)

· Married Minds – Die ersten tage des frühlings

· Die Merricks – Johnny der held

· Schade Schokolade – Tomatensuppe

· Die Moosblüten – Allein zuhaus, so ist das leben

· Sirken Sikora – Partymädchen

· I, Ludicrous – Hats off to Eldorado

· Friends Ahoj – We Might be Giants

· Kitchen Cynics – feel the hope

· Der Profi – Mona Lisa in 3-d

· Married Minds – Mistakes

· Friends Ahoj – The man who sold Manhattan (for a dime)

· Der Profi – Cheer up

· Die Busfahrer – der getarnte macho

· Die Merricks – Brian, bitte bahai

· Kitchen Cynics – It’s your own fault if you’re feeling lonely

——————————————————————————–

eis-8
Die Busfahrer – in: absolut klassische meisterwerke?
cd-r, cassette, eiswürfel tonträger (forthcoming, 200?). Still Unreleased.

best-of-Busfahrer, featuring live and cellar versions of the classic single tracks as well as unreleased gems such as “Rasenmähn” or “Hagemann”. If their lawyers don’t do anything about it, it will also feature guest appearances of The Merricks, I,Ludicrous and Klaus Walter.

++ What was the biggest highlight?

The whole time being in the band was a highlight!

++ Why and when did you call it a day? You did reunite after for some gigs, right? How was that experience?

We did reunite for a one off in 1997 which was also the first gig of Rockformation Diskokugel. Very strange.

And then we played on a festival in our hometown in 2006 which was very nice.

++ What are Die Busfahrer members doing nowadays?

We all have proper jobs.

Hagemann is a business man, Tobias is a craftsman, Magnus is a music teacher and me, I’m a school teacher.

And then there is Kick, a punk rocker who replaced Hagemann on guitar in 1991. He’s still a punk rocker.

++ Now just out of curiosity, what’s the typical dish of your area? and your favourite beer? and…. what team would you like to win Bundesliga next year?

dish 1 – Handkäs mit Musik – hard to explain, vegetarian, cheese, very strong.

dish 2 – Rippche mit Kraut – pork with sauerkraut, very meaty, very strong.

beer – Augustiner hell

Bundesliga – I don’t have a special bundesliga team but I’m always happy it any other team but Bayern München manages to become champion.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes, I’d like to send you some photographs of the band members, as soon as i found them.!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen 
Die Busfahrer – Roy Black

Thanks so much to Johnny Busby for the interview! The Clergy were a fab guitar pop band from Rockhampton, Australia. Also I would love to thank Hugh Owens from the Summer Cats who introduced me and found the “Pieces” 7″ for me 🙂 You can check Johnny’s new band Halfway on their website, myspace and even on facebook!

++ Hello Johnny! Thanks so much for being up for an interview of your old band but I know you have a band going on right now called Halfway, care to tell me a bit about it?

It’s an 8pce rock band with some trad/country elements like pedal steel, banjo etc. We’ve made 3LPs to date & the most recent was produced by Robert Forster.

++ Okay let’s go back in time now. Were you involved in any bands before The Clergy? What were you doing just before starting the band?

No, The Clergy was my first band. Started it after I left school. I was 17 with my sister & a couple of friends. Based in Rockhampton, Central Queensland.

++ How did the band start? How did you all knew each other? How was the recruiting process?

Just boredom really. We were getting into good music through mail order catalogues like Au-Go-Go & we just got it going. I wasn’t sure what to do after school. None of us could really play. So we just learnt to play & write songs at the same time. It was a group effort between myself, Steve Sutherland & Mick Baker & my sister Cherri Busby. I met Steve just through having similar tastes in music.

++ Why the name The Clergy?

Not sure really. Classic bad first band name? I think we thought it fit the band well & would instantly make us different to the other bands in Rocky. We didn’t want to be mistaken for a cover band & the name did that job very well.

++ There were many great pop bands in Australia during the late 80s, did you have any favourites? What influenced you into making guitar pop music and say, not metal or punk?

The Stems, The Hummingbirds, The Go-Betweens, The Mad Turks, The Lime Spiders, The Triffids, loved them all & I still do. I love melody & song craft so punk never appealed to me that much. Though I think there is a lot of punk rock in the bands I’ve mentioned. I like the attitude but I like songs to have melody, most local punk bands were just about noise. I love Radio Birdman, the Stooges, the Saints & Husker Du but they all have melody on their side.

++ I have always wondered about this, how big, how important, is the influence of The Go-Betweens in Australian guitar pop bands? Do you think the influence is bigger now or was bigger before, in the 80s? And by the way, do you have a favourite? Grant McLennan or Robert Forster?

Well they still have a huge influence on us now, even after all this time. I live in Brisbane & they have just had a bridge named after them! They are becoming part of popular culture. It’s an amazing effort for such incredible outsiders. They are a national treasure.

I only knew Grant briefly before he passed away. Chris Dale & I were fortunate enough to win the Grant Mclennan Fellowship in 2008. Which is an award for songwriting chosen by the ex Go-Betweens members. Which gave us the opportunity to meet Grants family & get to know the band. Since then we’ve also worked with Robert on our own record. They are/were both really intelligent & very generous people.

++ I only have the Pieces/Sebastian 7″ which I enjoy a  lot. I was wondering if you could tell me what each song is about? Maybe Sebastian was based in a real character?

Pieces was an early attempt for me at writing a song just right off the top of your head. A few cool parts & just feel really. No real focus or purpose. Just letting the song write its self.

Sebastian is based around the story of St. Sebastion. The guy that the Romans couldn’t kill.

++ Then you also released a 7″ single for the song Rosethorn. You were telling me it did very well in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Was it easy then to distribute and promote your records? Who were the most enthusiastic with your releases?

Rosethorn was our first 7”single. It was all DIY. Send the 7” in the post or take a trip to bris & drop the records off at Rockinghorse, Kent & Skinnys (local indie stores at the time). 4ZZZ in Brisbane were really great to us back then as well.

++ And also you released an album that came out only on tape. I did notice that a lot of Australian bands released their stuff on tape. Do you have a clue why was that? Can you tell me a bit about this album? Like what was the tracklist and how many copies were made? If there was any changes in the lineup? etc?

There were only a couple of pressing plants & it was very expensive to get a 12” pressed. So a lot of bands opted for tape. In hindsight it’s a regret but we’ve just had the new Halfway LP released in vinyl so that’s made up for it a little.
We did 250 tapes all up. They sold out pretty quick.

++ What about gigs? Did you gig a lot? Which were your favourite gigs overall?

We played under my house. $2 to get up the driveway 3 bands & free cask wine.
As for actual venues… We played mostly at a pub in rocky called The Grosvenor & a place called The Blue Stein.

++ What are your favourite moments of The Clergy? You can share any anecdotes 🙂

Probably just playing shows under the house were the best times we had. It was always a good mix of bands, lots of fun, punk bands country bands whatever really. Cops dropping in over noise complaints. That sort of thing.
Also some road trips to stock our records in Brisbane were cool as well. We were 650km from the capital, so it was a big effort.

++ I know there was a big scene of guitar pop in Perth during those times and a  bit in Melbourne. How was the scene in Brisbane? What were the venues you used to like? And what about other like-minded bands?

The Clergy never played Brisbane. Just Rocky. There were plenty of great bands around though. The Madmen from Townsville were a real stand out.

++ And talking about Brisbane, what’s the best it has to offer to visitors?

Brisbane has The Troubadour in Fortitude Valley. It’s the best live venue in the country. Only holds about 200 but it looks great & its run by great people. Also the Junk Bar in Ashgrove. GOMA, the gallery of modern art in Brisbane is brilliant. Rockinghorse Records in the city in an institution.

++ So why and when did  you decide to call it a day? What did you all do after?

Steve moved over seas to London & things eventually fell apart. Mick Baker left eventually as well. I started another band called St Jude with my sister Cherri.
Unfortunately Cherri was tragically killed in a car accident in 94. I left for Brisbane & met up again with some other Rocky friends Chris Dale & Elwin Hawtin. We kept going with St Jude for a while & eventually got Halfway together in 2000.
Steve Sutherland & I are still good friends. We work together in north Brisbane.
Haven’t seen Mick in years but the last time I saw him he was living in Brisbane as well. But we’ve lost contact.

++ And one last question, what does John Busby likes to do when he is not making music?

Hanging out with my wife Shannon at our apartment in Brisbane. Reading, watching St. George play rugby league, listening to music, particularly vinyl, watching old tapes of Roberto Duran.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks for the interview. Been a while since I’ve talked about this stuff. It was a good time.
Cheers John

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen 
The Clergy – Pieces

Many thanks to David Myhr for the interview and also I appreciate his patience very much. It’s been such a long wait till this website was up again and I could publish this FANTASTIC interview about one of the most obscure 7″s of Swedish indiepop (or powerpop?!). Many may have heard The Merrymakers, but just before they started releasing records, they were called Ant-Mansson and put out a great 7″! David was kind enough to talk about his band and more!

++ Hi David! Thanks for willing to do this interview. How are you doing? Any news on The Merrymakers side?

Thanks Roque! It’s an honor and we’re also quite surprised that anyone outside of our small town in the north of Sweden has heard about Ant-Mansson(!).

++ Now let’s go back to 1989, or is it 1988? Not many know that before The Merrymakers there was a band called Ant-Mansson, was this your first band ever? What inspired you to start it?

My first band was a rock’n’roll/blues cover band actually. We called ourselves 2nd Hand B Band and we played covers by ZZ Top, Johnny Winter, Eric Clapton, and stuff like that. When Peter Arffman (ex Karlsson) and I started to write our own pop songs heavily inspired by Lennon-McCartney we started our own little duo called Ant-Mansson in 1988. It was like a home recording experiment on a four channel cassette portastudio. We tried smoking cigarettes, drank wine, made interviews with ourselves on VHS video and we toyed around with the idea of being composers of great art. Of course we weren’t. We were quite lousy to be honest, but it was great fun! No limits. A song could be made with lyrics and everything in an hour. No second thoughts… Those early demos are the real bootlegs. But I can assure you they won’t be released. They are in safe deposit on a cassette at home somewhere…

++ Who were the members and how did you knew each other? Was it easy to find members for the band?

Originally, as I said above, we were a duo but we soon formed a group with our first choice of drummer, which was Kenneth Berg who had played with us in 2nd Hand B Band, and also even before that with Peter in another group as 11-12 years old, called Måfå. Kenneth brought in a football player, a really nice guy, called Patrik Fernberg on bass. Not only was he nice but he was also a proud owner of a Hofner violin-shaped bass (just like a certain Paul McCartney…). So he was in. Later we brought in a class-mate of Peter called Patrik Bergman on keyboard.

++ What about the name Ant-Mansson, where does it come from? Does it have any meaning?

We picked the name Ant-Mansson which was our version of Lennon-McCartney. It was just that Myhr-Karlsson sounded to Swedish for us and we wanted an “international touch” and decided to make a direct translation from Swedish. Ant is the meaning of the Swedish word “myra” which was kind of close to my surname Myhr and “man” was the meaning of “karl” in Karlsson which used to be Peter’s surname back then. So it came to be Ant-Mansson. A bit forced to say the least. We never really liked the name. And even worse when it was pronounced by people in our home town Piteå. It became a joke in the end.

++ You only released a 7″, which included 2 songs, “I Know” and “Get Me”, care to tell me a bit about these two songs?

Both was originally and mainly penned by Peter at least as far as I remember. He was quite good at writing three chord catchy pop songs already then. He had a sense for hooks and simplicity. And also wrote lyrics that at least sounded like somewhat decent lyrics. I guess he let me sing one of them as a sign of democracy and I added my harmonies and my musical arrangement ideas to it. And of course the three other members did their part of making it a full arrangement. The only thing apart from this that I can remember about the songs is that we played them at various rock contests which was like a way to get heard back then. We got quite far but no to the big final.

++ How were the recording sessions for the record? What do you remember from it?

It was recorded in a small local studio in Piteå called Nybergs Studio and it was quite an adventure to enter a recording studio back then. Stefan Forsell was the man behind the desk and he was kind of a local legend in the music scene over there. I remember he brought a cell phone to the studio which was unseen before that. It was like a whole bag and must have weighed about 10 kg.

++ Who released this record? Is it true that only 600 copies were made? It’s so hard to find!

I think we paid for everything ourselves and released them on our own without any kind of backing from any label. I’m sure that we only made 600 copies. And we probably just sold like 150. So somewhere in my basement I’m sure I would find hundreds of them if I looked hard. Anyone interested in buying a copy can just send and e-mail to david@monogramrecordings.se – but at your own risk!

++ Were these the only two songs that you ever released? Maybe there was some compilation appearance or something? Maybe demo tapes?

As Ant-Mansson I think this was the only thing we released. We made demo tapes and put them on a CD-R once (when one burnable CD costed 40 bucks) but it was only around for internal use. I don’t think it stood the test of time too well so I think we’d better leave it as it is…

++ Your sound during the years has changed quite a bit. How do you feel these two songs have aged?

It’s hard to say. It’s an immature group in their teens doing their best. I guess it might have some charm and there’s nothing wrong with the melodies. The lyrics I have no idea. They sound good to me but I don’t know if they have any meaning. And the performance leave a lot to be desired by todays standards I think. Also the vinyl pressing I remember was quite a disappointment.

++ How about gigging? Did you gig lots? Any particular gig that you remember?

We played a lot of gigs back then. Mainly local gigs in the northern Sweden. Some rock contests and many, many cover gigs at local bars, like “Pentryt” which is a local chinese restaurant/pub/pizzeria where we played dozens and dozens of gig. But then we mainly played covers from the 60’s, like the Hollies, the Rolling Stones, the Byrds, the Kinks, and stuff like that.

++ So The Merrymakers were initially the same members as Ant-Mansson, right? So why did you decide to change the name?

More or less, yes. Patrik Fernberg left the group and Thomas Nyström joined. And then we were the same five member that made up the first line-up of the Merrymakers. We decided to change our name because we were very focused on getting signed to a record deal (which we later did) and wanted a more catchy name. Kenneth said at a name-brainstormning red-wine-party that we had at Thomas house that we ought to look for a name the described what kind of people we were. I looked up the Swedish word “festprisse” (people who like to party/drink a lot) and found “merry-maker”. So we decided to go or “The Merrymakers”. Years later we weren’t too happy with that name either, but that’s another story…. after all most band names are crappy if you analyze them. I mean “The Beatles” – how good is that?

++ How do you remember Sweden in those days? Was there any scene or support to guitar pop bands? Were there any other bands around that you enjoyed?

The society in Sweden has been quite supportive of young musicians and there are music schools you can go to and there were organizations called “studieförbund” (adult educational associations) that helped out young bands quite a lot. It was easy to find a rehearsal space and people in general were supportive. The local paper wrote about us and all in all we couldn’t complain. There was these rock contests that attracted big audiences and were quite well-organized. They were looking for a new “Europe” (they had also won a contest like that earlier in the 80’s). Then the indie-pop scene started with small record labels popping up. For instance we were aware of A West Side Fabrication in Skellefteå (an hour south by car) with bands like the Wannadies, This Perfect day and a lot of other bands but we weren’t as cool (or as good) as them so we didn’t end up there.

++ Whereabouts would you see Ant-Mansson, and later The Merrymakers, hanging out in Stockholm? What were your favourite spots in town?

As Ant-Mansson we were still up in Piteå in the north. As the Merrymakers when we were only three guys left (Peter, Anders Hellgren who had joined by then, and myself) we moved to Stockholm. We hung out at various bars in Stockholm and I guess that Kvarnen and a street called Skånegatan were (and still is) kind of favourite hang outs. Although it was more “hip” in the 90’s than now.

++ I was in Stockholm last year, I really enjoyed it there, det är mycket bra!, and I plan going again soon, hopefully! I was wondering what’s your favourite restaurant in town? You know, something kind of typically Swedish? And also if you have any favourite record store? I was at Nostalgia Palaset and that was really good!

Again, I’d recommend Södermalm and to eat herring and meat balls or pytt-i-panna at places like Kvarnen or Pelikan or if it’s summer you have to visit the outdoor terrace of Mosebacke. For bars I’d recommend Snotty’s, Pet Sounds Bar, or Noel’s at Skånegatan or Debaser at Medborgarplatsen or Slussen.. As for records I think the best is Pet Sounds (again Skånegatan).

++ Oh! One last question, what do you feel closer to you, the term indiepop or powerpop?

Powerpop!

++ Thanks so much for the interview, anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you so much for your unexpected interest in Ant-Mansson! And keep your eyes open for my solo debut album which will be out in 2011. You’ll know more in the late fall at my Facebook Fan Page (David Myhr) or at www.myspace.com/davidmyhr

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen 
Ant-Mansson – Get Me 1

Here we are after a month, thanks to terrible service from my past hosting provider. They had a server failure and they seem not to care about backups. So in the end I changed servers and have manually posted every single entry, link and hopefully comments, on the blog. To resume the blog I have a fantastic interview with the obscure Stoke band: The Singing Curtains! I only knew them from the Kite Tape so learning more about them is really exciting!  Thanks so much to Karl, Ken and Nigel. And really I appreciate your patience! Took forever to be able to publish this interview!

++ Hi! Thanks so much for getting in touch! I was always curious about the track on the Kite tape. Care to tell me a bit about “While The Children Build Sandcastles”? What’s it about and how come it ended up in this tape compilation?

Karl: Thanks for the questions! This whole wave of nostalgia has come in force: I hooked up with Dave Wood from the Sainsburys on Facebook recently for the first time in about 18 years and saw they had been immortalized by Cloudberry. At precisely the same time, Takashi Yonezawa contacted me by email: he had put ‘While the Children…’ on Youtube some time ago. We were amazed to come across it! I have no idea what the song was about, I only plucked the strings on the bass that Ken and Nigel pointed to. We always struggled with song titles; this one came from a holiday brochure my mother had in our house when we were rehearsing one day.
The tape compilation was done by a friend’s brother some time after we split, I think.

Ken: As to the lyrical content – standard woe-is-me teenage angst

++ So was this song part of some demo tape? If so, tell me what other tracks did you record for it? What was your whole recorded output? Did you appear in any other tape compilation?

Karl: It was on a demo recorded at ‘the Barracks’ in Newcastle under Lyme in 1987. That and the other three tracks: ‘And Now a New Pool’ ‘Up’ and ‘Sit and Read’ constituted the whole recorded output of this indie supergroup. By the way, you may be able to detect another travel brochure-inspired title there.

++ Looking back in retrospective, what was your favourite song of yours? Why?

Karl: I liked ‘Up’ as it led off with a fast upbeat bassline.

Ken: I liked a song we had called ‘You Dress Well’, unfortunately lost to posterity, but containing an interesting chord structure, which you have no way of checking.

Nigel: I don’t know about favourite song, but I remember one called ‘Sounds Vaguely Italian’. And it did.

++ Was there never a chance to get your songs released? If you were to choose a record label from your time that you would have dreamed to have your songs released in, which one would it be?

Karl: I recall we sent the demo to tons of labels, but strangely no-one was interested. It was an early lesson in disappointment. We went up to Manchester one day to Factory Records hoping to see Tony Wilson. We handed in the demo and they were kind enough to let us raid the poster-cupboard. Great fun for teenage music-mad lads. On reflection we weren’t really that ‘Factory’ – maybe more 53rd & 3rd?

Ken: I was obsessed with Factory and it would have been a dream to be on there. However, as Karl says, our music was very un-Factory-like.

Nigel: According to Peter Hook’s book How not to run a club, demo tapes sent to Factory but rejected were taken to Strangeways prison once a month to entertain the guests! Maybe we were big in East Wing?

++ So let’s go back in time, even before the recordings, how did The Singing Curtains start? Who were the members and how did you know each other?

Karl: Originally the members were: Ken Brough, Karl Rowley and Nigel Massey, plus Andrew Crawford. We formed in 1985 when we were 15-16. We were all at the same school and lived fairly close to each other. I’d known Ken since I was 5. We were all into the same sort of music and forming a band seemed natural, except that I had no musical ability whatsoever. So I got the bass. The drummer was originally a pathetically tinny machine. Musical differences saw of Andrew and at VIth Form we were introduced to Mark Hassall who was an excellent drummer, who kindly agreed to prop us up.

++ Was this your first band ever?

Karl: First and last.

Ken : I was in a similarly ephemeral band at University called Spicy Toes. Don’t ask.

++ Who came up with the name The Singing Curtains? What does it mean?

Karl: We ended up with a shortlist (which included Derek Nimmo’s Aorta and the Petrified Jack Russells) and literally picked the name by lottery. It means nothing, though spookily if you google it nowadays some manufacturer is actually selling singing shower curtains. I think we should sue.

Ken: I came up with it. Along with about forty other possibles on a list which is probably still in my parents’ attic. My favourite was Wank PA.

++ You were from Stoke, right? Do you still live there? Has it changed much?

Karl: We were. None of us live there now, though our families still do. The coal pits have closed and the pottery firms have downscaled. It went through a bit of a slump but I’m sure it’s still an interesting place to grow up. The oatcakes are still God’s own food.

++ What were your favourite spots in town to hang out? What was a usual Singing Curtains Saturday evening/night?

Karl: Leadbelly’s and the Dew Drop in Hanley. The former was populated by the entirety of the cool people in Stoke in the mid-Eighties, and us. Quite a few bands played there. A typical night I seem to recall was Leadbelly’s spinning out a fiver on beer and then Chico’s: the nightclub in Stoke. It had a very sticky floor and an odd smell but there was a great mix of alternative-types and they played some spot-on music.

++ What were other bands from the time that you liked? I hear you were a bit Talulah Gosh fan? Were you indiepop kids back then?

Karl: I was probably the most Start-Rite of the lot, and had the girlfriend to match. I loved Talulah Gosh, the Pastels, the Clouds, the Razorcuts etc. Equally (and inconsistently) I liked Joy Division, Laibach, the Stockholm Monsters.

Nigel: I was, and still am, a big fan of Laibach and saw them play in London a few years ago. I also attempted to rekindle my teenage interest in the Wedding Present and saw them on their tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of their George Best album. I celebrated at the back of the bar from the comfort of a Chesterfield sofa and sipping a cup of tea!

Ken: I was a big New Order fan, as well as Felt, Blue Aeroplanes and Durutti Column. In an ironic twist, we not only didn’t transcend our influences, we descended below them.

++ Oh! and what about fanzines? Were you involved with them?

Karl: Not in Stoke, though obviously we knew Dave Wood who was quite into that scene. In Oxford after we split I got to know the guy who produced ‘The Dreaming Spires’ when I regularly attended gigs in Jericho.

++ And gigs! Where was the farthest place from Stoke that you got to play in? Which other gigs you remember? Any anecdotes that you could share?

Karl: I think once we got our passports out and went to Burslem. The best one for me was the one where we supported the Darling Buds. One Saturday morning my mum shouted up the stairs that there were some girls on the phone for me. I went down to take the call and it was ‘We’ve Got a Fuzzbox…’ They were due to play in Stoke and I’d written to them to ask about supporting them. In the event they’d got their supports sorted out but they were really lovely, and I was, at 16, really chuffed that they’d rung. My favorite anecdote is an exchange between Ken and a member of the Band ‘True Flies’ post a gig in town. True Flies were a bit older than us and a bit hippy, particularly their lead singer. Anyway, after the gig I’m at the bar with Ken and the guitarist from the Flies. Ken is slagging off their performance, describing them as ‘A bunch of talentless ageing hippies’. The Fly responds: ‘I’d rather be a talentless ageing hippy than an eighteen year old arrogant twat’ to which Ken beautifully ripostes: ‘I’m nineteen, actually.’

Ken: to be fair, they were rubbish.

++ If you were to do a top five of Singing Curtains history highlights, which 5 moments would you save forever?

Karl: Attempting to smoke tea when rehearsing. Someone had said it was a legal high so we brought some PG Tips bags to the studio and I spent ages unpacking then repacking a cigarette with tea. When I came to light it all the tea fell out. When eventually we lit it it tasted like s*** and had no effect. In general rehearsals were great, my abiding memory is just crying with laughter. We divvied up the time with the Sainsburys, and that was really good fun. We improvised an excellent version of ‘How do do it all do it’ and adapted Run DMC’s ‘My Adidas’ into a tribute to the then-popular antiques expert, Arthur Negus. The final gig at Katz was excellent too; a really good atmosphere.

Ken: I’d agree. Our rehearsals, if they could be called that, were just three hours of arsing around and laughing seemingly constantly. When I picture the rehearsal room in my mind, I never visualize us actually standing up or playing instruments, but dicking around. We also tried to smoke banana skins.

Nigel: I enjoyed doing the gigs… I think there were five of them.

++ So when and why did you call it a day? What happened after with you guys?

Karl: 1988 when two of us went to university. Ken was completing his third year at VIth Form and then went up to Manchester. It wasn’t practical to carry on. We all kept in touch as friends, though.

++ Are you all still in touch? What do The Singing Curtains do nowadays?

Karl: I speak to Ken every few days. I haven’t seen Mark for a decade, apart from on Facebook. Nigel went to the Royal Academy and is an artist. I’m a barrister.

Ken: I’m a solicitor.

Karl: Oh yes, it’s a real rock and roll story.

++ Okay, let’s wrap it up. But why don’t you me about any other passions you have aside from music?

Nigel: Fine slippers.

Karl: I’m quite bookish. I also really enjoy cycling.

Ken: I’m a big reader as well. In both senses.

++ Thanks so much! Anything else you’d like to add?

Karl: Just to thank you too. It only took us 22 years to get discovered! Pretty good, I’d say.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Singing Curtains – While The Children Build Sandcastles

Thanks so much to Dave Squire for the interview! The Five Year Plan was another seminal band in Bristol, some of them will join later Tender Trap, Sportique and Beatnik Filmstars, among others. They only released a handful of things: a 7″ and a 12″, plus compilation appearances but I know there are many tracks lying around that I hope can be released one day on a retrospective album! Check more about The Five Year Plan on their myspace.

++ Hi Dave! Thanks so much for doing this interview! How are things going? Any special plans for the upcoming summer?

Things are good here thanks. Personally got an exciting summer as myself and girlfriend leaving England to move to the USA for 2 years. We have both got teaching jobs in Washington DC – really looking forward to that and exploring a new city and country!!

++ So let’s go back in time. Why did you decide to start a band?

I didn’t start the band, that was Tim and Rob. They started playing and practising, mostly in Tim’s garage and Rob’s living room while still at school. Finding drummers was difficult in our village so they asked someone who gave drum lessons to recommend his next pupil! That (luckily)was Phil Cox who was 13/14 at the time – I used to go and watch them rehearse and then replaced the original keyboard player (when i say keyboard I mean Casio button keyboard at the time!) after a couple of gigs.

++ The Five Year Plan is kind the continuation of a previous band, The Inane, right? What were the main differences between these two bands?

The Inane were a 4 piece, we played a few gigs all around Bristol really, picked up some decent reviews and most of what we recordedis nowavailable on “The Only Fun In Frampton Cotterell” (download through iTunes, Amazon etc) – obviously a reference to one of our favourite bands, Josef K, and the name of our home village north of Bristol.

We were meant to have a single released at the time which didn’t happen and I think we were disappointed, perhaps felt a bit restricted by just having the four of us and so metamorphosed into The Five Year Plan.

++ So how did you all knew each other? How did you all met for the first time? Were you friends beforehand being in the band? What will you consider the classic lineup of the band?

Me and Rob have known each other since we were about 5 years old (40 years ago now), and then Rob was at secondary school in Bristol with Tim. Oh yes well as The Five Year plan we wanted a slightly different sound, got Rob’s neighbour Andrea Moffatt in on guitar after we’d got Katy West in on vocals. I think Martin Whitehead, who was a friend of ours and of course ran Subway Organisation, knew her – she came along to an audition/practice, sang Femme Fatale and was in. We always wanted at least another guitarist liveas well as Tim and a mate of ours, Jeremy Woods, later joined as well. Andrea left and we had another guitarist joined for a while but didn’t really fit in – at one stage Richard Bell from The Blue Aeroplanes played with us as well, he played a few gigs and played on some recordings we did.

++ Why the name The Five Year Plan?

The Five Year Plan? We liked the sound of it! It was a bit left wing, we had a song “What Is To Be Done?” that re-used the title of a Lenin book. Bloody Thatcher was running the country at the time!

++ Bristol during those late 80s was a happening place, from The Brilliant Corners to the Flatmates, Sarah Records to Tea Time Records, etc, etc. Why do you think Bristol was having a much more robust scene for guitar pop bands than most of the other cities of UK?

In retrospect Bristol was a pretty happening place throughout the late 70s and early, mid and late 80s, I’m not sure we appreciated it at the time! Anyone who wants to know more about Bristol music should check out Bristol Archive Records here on Myspace – Mike released our Inane recordings and loads of great stuff – one of our favourites was The Electric Guitars who we saw a lot of times.
We knew the Brilliant Corners, in fact one of our early Inane gigs was with them – always thought Davey Woodward was a great and very underrated songwriter. The Blue Aeroplanes were good of course. I flat/house shared with Martin and Sarah from The Flatmates and Tim played in the Flatmates at the end – unfortunately literally the end as he was in a fight with Martin on stage at ULU. I don’t know whether Bristol had a particularly stronger scene than anywhere else to be honest. We knew Claire and Matt from Sarah records to say hello to but I don’t remember many of their bands being particularly local – Tramway I think butI never saw them live.

++ Talking about Bristol, I was there last February, really lovely town. I’m wondering if it has changed a lot since the days of The Five Year Plan? Where were the places to go to see bands or to hang out? There was Revolver Records too right?

Bristol? I don’t live there anymore, in fact I haven’t since the end of 1989 so I’m probably not the best qualified to talk about how it’s changed. Lots of the places that we used to go to and play have gone of course, like Revolver Records and venues like the Stonehouse, Bristol Bridge, Tropic and Western Star Domino Club. Again Bristol Archive Records myspace site and web page talks about a lot of the defunct venues. The Thekla and the Louisiana are still going I think and special mention th the Thunderbolt which an old mate of ours from Frampton, Dave Macdonald runs, putting on live music.

++ Would you share any anecdote or secret about the Bristol scene that many might not know?

Bristol scene anecdotes? Not sure again that I know that many!! Sharing a flat with Martin Whitehead as I did when he was running Subway and putting on gigs was always interesting – I can reveal that Pop Will Eat Itself were very house proud and very good guests, washing up after themselves. The Clouds (including Norman Blake) had some novel ways of getting themselves alchohol when the shops and pubs were shut!

++ Who were Breaking Down Records?

Breaking Down Records? Was us basically, named after The Only ones song, although yes, the Airspace LPs were also released on Breaking Down.

++ I have the 7″ for “Hit the Bottle”, but you also released a 12″ for “Nothing Will Go Wrong”, which I still haven’t been able to find. Care to tell me about this one? What do you remember from the recording sessions? Is it much different to the sound of the 7″?

I’m not surprised you can’t track down a copy of our first single! We only pressed 500 copies, 12″ only though I have met people that actually bought it. There were 4 songs, Nothing Will Go Wrong, Brand New Car, Give Me A Lifetime & Something To Make You Laugh. I think some of the songs will appear on the compilation that Tim is putting together for Bristol Archive records. The recordings could probably have been a bit more muscular than they were, certainly live versions I’ve heard were more dynamic, and in the case of Brand New Car, much faster!

++ You also participated on both Airspace compilations? How did you end up in those? Those were compilations to raise money for a charity, right? Do you remember what kind of charity it was?

Yes, we were on both Airspace compilations – as far as I remember the charity was to provide opportunities for children with various physical disabilities to enjoy activities like trampolines etc. Bit vague I’m afraid. I’m pretty sure that Rupert who was a member of The Groove Farm worked for them and organised the records and we lent him the label for release.

++ I’ve heard you got many unreleased songs. What happened? Why weren’t they released? Are there any plans to release them one day perhaps?

There are quite a few unreleased songs – we planned a single late on and as usual for us it didn’t get round to appearing!!As said before, Tim is putting together a compilation for Bristol Archive Records like he did for The Inane – there are a few bits from gigs that might get used, the first single, the “Martin Bramah” recordings, and also songs from a session that we did with Richard Bell from The Blue Aeroplanes salvaged from an old cassette!

++ So you wrote a song called Martin Bramah. I have to ask then, if you ever saw The Blue Orchids live? Maybe you even got a chance to talk with Martin?! And yes, what are your favourite 5 songs by them?

The song “Martin Bramah” would have been on that – Tim and Rob especially were big fans of The Fall and we all loved The Blue Orchids – Tim has, of course, recently had Martin Bramah guesting on a song by his new band, the Short Stories – check out their myspace page too, they’re excellent!Wesaw The blue Orchids supporting Echo & the Bunnymen in Bristol andalso at a gigat theLyceum in London with the Comsat Angels and (I think) The Sound. I saw The Sound masses of times so it’s difficult to be sure

++ I’m also wondering about the song “Pumpin’ for Jill”, was it based in a real character?

Pumpin’ For Jill? it’s an Iggy Pop song, not sure what album it’s on a late 70s/early 80s I guess. I think it was in Choo Choo Train’s live set (they also did Shake Some Action and a Paul Collins song and teenage Kicks I think as well). Me and Tim got on well with them, Tim offered to pay for some time in the studio. They did the backing tracks very quickly, they took ages teaching me the keyboard part (I had to use more than 3 fingers at a time!!) and Tim sang lead, with us all lending backing vocals. Loved doing it, and hoping it will turn up on the 5YP compilation.

++ What about gigs? Did you gig a lot? Do you remember any in particular? What about that gig with The Housemartins in the Thekla?

The gig with the Housemartins was great. I was a big fan and had already seen them loads of times in London. The Thekla was packed and I’ve still got a tape of the gig – again bits should be on the compilation. We didn’t play much outside of Bristol, supported The Weather Prophets, Jazz Butcher, Nightingales

++ Why and when did you call it a day with The Five Year Plan?

I think at the time none of us were quite committed enough to keep things going. Also we all started living in different cities so things kind of petered out. Rob of course has played with Heavenly, Marine Research, Sportique and now Tender Trap. Tim played and plays with Beatnik Filmstars, Kyoko, Forest Giants and now the Short Stories who everyone should check out. Jer has a covers band, we think Phil is a builder in Spain and Katy is still in Bristol I think. I haven’t done anything since music wise apart from listen to other people!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Five Year Plan – See You in Heaven

Thanks soooooo much to Dennis Wheatley for this interview. The Doris Days is my favourite band that never got to release anything. They were so good! I had the chance to exchange a couple of emails a year ago or so with Hayley who was also in the band, you can read about it here. Now luckily I had the chance to talk with Dennis, who was the band’s leader, on this extensive interview. I hope their recordings resurface one day, for now be sure to check this bootleg of The Basement gig on Dave Driscoll’s blog. Enjoy!

++ Hi Dennis! Thanks so much for doing the interview! Who were The Doris Days? When did the band formed? How did you know each other?

The Doris Days were:
Dennis Wheatley- me – singing, guitars, drum machines and songs
Vanessa Norwood- singing
Nic Wilson- trumpet, cornet
Simon Forrest- cello
Ed Down- guitar
Hayley Morton- keyboards
Rachel Norwoood- guitar
The band essentially grew out of songs I was writing on a course in Brighton called Expressive Arts.This gave me access to a studio (which I’d literally take my sleeping bag into for the weekend) and so The Doris Days’ recordings were made before any notion of a band. It was just me layering stuff and eventually found Simon and Nic who played trumpet and cello which started to take the songs into a whole other space which was lovely.
Ness was my girlfriend, Rachel was her younger sister (so young in fact that I think she was barely 16 at the time).
I’d met Hayley through Ness and Ed. Well Ed he was the odd one out. He wasn’t living in Brighton (in fact his day job was repairing RAF fighter jets in Norfolk) he would travel down whenever he could, full of mad energy and enthusiasm (quite a lot of it in Hayleys direction it must be said!).
He was brother of Simon Down and co-owner of the Pink label (June Brides, Wolfhounds, etc, etc)
I’m struggling to remember how we met but I remember being at his house in East London playing some songs in a lofi way and ed saying that although he couldn’t really play the guitar yet he absolutely wanted to be in the band.
It was quite a diverse bunch of people to say the least, but there was a lot of good feeling and excitement about the whole thing.
I was always quite ambitious with what I thought the band would be capable of. My reference points at the time would have been Phil Spector and Trevor Horn. BIG production!.

++ Was this your first band? Were band members involved with any other pop bands before or after The Doris Days?

Not my first band really. They would be:

One Potato- me and Stephen Harris (later of “The Aurbisons”),

Flapp- me and Sandra/Fred (who was in “12 Cubic Feet”)

Solid Space- I joined up with Matthew and Dan and we played a few gigs wrote some songs and recorded a bit in Brighton.

One Potato – used the name again for a series of gigs (”One Potato One”, “One Potato Two” etc etc.. think we got up to six?). The nucleus of these nights were myself, Jane Fox (Marine Girls) and Olly Sagar (amazing singer songwriter who sadly not enough people have heard!). We’d sing songs like Lazy Ways (I got to sing that) and other songs by Olly and me. Looking back it was part cabaret/part gig. We used to charge £1.25 to get in, spend all the money on making things to give away on the night (one night everyone got a shoe box with a present in it given out by a fully costumed father christmas in the middle of summer). We’d get other people to play too. The only ones I can remember are Clive Pig and Virginia Astley. I’d show my holiday slides, we’d play the strangest music (Reg Barney, Hughie Green, all sorts of nonsense),

I stood on stage with “Grab Grab the Haddock” a few times playing out of time percussion too, does that count?

++ Why did you choose the name The Doris Days? Were you a fan of Doris Day at all?

No not a fan at all. My dad is a huge Doris Day fan though so I’m sure that had more than a little to do with it,constantly hearing her name, etc.I was pretty relieved to change the name eventually.

++ Were you indiepop kids? I mean, did you listen to indiepop back then? or maybe even today? What were your favourite bands then?

No, not really.
I’d embraced that scene quite a bit.. I’d been on tour with the June Brides and Shop Assistants doing their live sound mixing and loved the spirit of their time. Loved meeting up with people all over the country and writing loads of letters about nonsense! loved everyone throwing themselves around in small rooms above pubs.
My music tastes had always been pretty diverse. I loved Chic as much as I loved the new Bodines single.
Favourite bands of the time would have been The June Brides, biased of course because I saw them so much. The Television Personalities for their unpredictability swagger and poise! Durutti Column,Microdisney, The Wild Swans,Eyeless in Gaza, New Order, Nick Drake, Love, Felt, Josef K, Primal Scream (there formative year anyway!), The Go Betweens, The Cure, The Buzzcocks, McCarthy, Cabaret Voltaire, lots of stuff on Crepescule, Wim Mertens I’ll have to stop the list now but I used to go to sleep listening to Virginia Astley’s “From Gardens Where We Feel Secure” or Durutti Columns first album. I was also a sucker for electro pop and loved the sound of the Pet Shop Boys early on.

strong>++ You only recorded one demo, right? Which songs were included there? Was this recorded at Grant La-Di Da’s kitchen?

You know I really can’t remember recording a Doris Days demo. I don’t think we did as such, all of the recordings from that time would have been done at college. I’ve been throwing all of the old reel to reels away recently(digitising some along the way).<
I don’t think we recorded at Grants as the Doris Days. I do remember us rehearsing later on as ‘Pacific’ and also playing a couple of songs at one of his kitchen gigs again as Pacific but just me, Ness and Rachel(think we played a cover of ’streets of your town’).

++ By the strength of what I’ve heard (which is the live gig Dave shared in his blog and “Another Day”) I’m surprised you didn’t release anything! Why was that? Were you in any other compilations?

Well things moved pretty quickly. (I think?!) between being “The Doris Days’ and renaming and resizing as ‘Pacific’.It was essentially the same band minus Hayley and Ed

++ Why didn’t the split 7″ release with The June Brides happen? Maybe you had any other releases planned?

Again this is where memory fades. I do remember having a silly falling out with Grant over something and I think this may have been it.
I honestly cant remember if he didn’t want to release it or I didn’t!
I seem to remember it was one of my recordings of a live June Brides show in Holland (?) with a rather raucous version of Sheena is a Headbanger (joined by ‘The Janitors’ on stage), probably sounded a good idea at the time. Hey Grant have you still got my cassette?!! I’m sorry if it was my fault!

++ How many songs did The Doris Days had in their repertoire? Did you gig a lot?

Probably about 10 songs! No we didn’t gig a lot, I think the basement gig you have was our second (final?) gig. That was the night Hayley and Ed got so drunk and disorderly that I asked them to continue their studies elswehere. (half joking).

++ I heard you were quite involved with indiepop and among other things you were part of the Big Twang club in Brighton! Which were the favourite gigs you booked? What was the best of running a club during those years

Yes, the Big Twang.That was great fun to be involved with. It was set up by four of us who wanted to create something a bit more homely! Create an atmosphere and community that would enjoy seeing each other every week and come along what ever the band.
It kind of evolved out of the Potato nights I’d put on previously.
Good value (always 3 bands for £2.50), a weekly fanzine type thing given out at the door, we’d try and decorate the place (the old Escape Club on the seafront in Brighton) by getting the end of print rolls from the newspaper printers. Huge rolls of newsprint that we’d hang up and paint things on.
I’d also show my slides again(!) and bit by bit I started to operate the sound mixer for the bands because the PA guy got fed up with me constantly asking him to turn something up or down.
This is how I ended up doing the live sound for the June Brides and the Shop Assistants.
Favourite gig would have to be the Magical Mystery Twang. Not sure how I organised it but I had this utopian idea that running a club would mean taking everyone on a journey at some stage. A kind of collective escape with our shared soundtrack. I was thinking of hiring a cruise ship but I figured the club wasn’t that popular yet so I settled on the idea of hiring 2 coaches and having a mystery tour.
Idea being that no one would know the bands who were playing they would all just trust me and buy the tickets!
Decided to charge £6 a ticket, asked the coach companies how far we could get for £400 they said Dorset so I said fine we’ll go that way. Spoke to someone who’s name I cant remember who lived in Dorset (friend of ‘The Chesterfields’) and somehow arranged to book a skittle alley in a pub in TempleCombe to house a gig.
I asked the June Brides and Shop Assistants and both were up for doing it, great news. I also asked the Television Personalities who loved the idea of it but then had to back out because of something terribly important that I cant remember.
Clive Pig agreed to be a wandering minstrel for the day and the rest as they say is history, well kind of.
I love Dave Driscoll’s description of the days events, very accurate me thinks:
http://fruitierthanthou.blogspot.com/2008/08/magical-mystery-twang-with-clive-pig.html
The best of running a club was the collective energy and spirit, anything seemed possible.
It was all incredibly easy and down to earth as well. I’d speak to Alan McGee and say what 3 bands can we get for £250 and he’d always try and make me take the Weather Prophets. I’d always say No please can we pay more to not have them!! I think we ended up with them though. Alan was very persuasive!

++ Were you involved in the fanzine scene at all? Any favourites? Were the Doris Days featured in any?

No not really involved. I think the Doris Days were in some but I can’t remember which (bit of a theme my memory, sorry!)I used to get loads and loads of fanzines through the post and at gigs all over the place.

++ Do you miss those days in Brighton? What was the best of being part of The Doris Days?

I don’t miss those days, no. I’m always happy to move forward and embrace new things. I really enjoyed that time though. Felt very lucky to be involved in lots of different things, gave me a lot of confidence to go forward.

++ Why did the band called it a day? What did The Doris Days do after?

We didn’t call it a day. It was a bit unwieldy because there were so many of us and I guess something had to give. Hence the shrinkage to 5 instead of 7.
We then played an audtion for Alan McGee in my bedroom and he invited us to join Creation Records.
He wasn’t that keen on the name ‘Doris Days’ and so we thought of something a bit more appropriate and renamed the band ‘Pacific’.
Pacific made a couple of EPs for Creation. Played a few gigs the first and biggest being the ‘Doing it for the Kids’ all day show at the Forum (Town and Country Club as was then) in London and a tour with the House of Love.
We left Creation because there wasn’t the money to fund a big production in the studio to make an album .. which at the time I felt we needed.
We signed as Pacific to EMI/Capitol and Pacific shrunk from 5 to 3 to eventually 1: me.
Strange time because I was really getting into dance music, really loving stuff like ‘Strings of Life’ which I just couldn’t get out of my head for days.
We had a decent advance and spent it all on a couple of weeks recording one song in Sarm East and West Studios, lLondon and not really having anything to show for it.
£30,000 gone from the budget so I had to record at home and the only thing that was ever released on EMI was 2 promo 12″ by Pacific titled ‘Compassion’
An instrumental Balearic ditty that would be rerecorded as ‘Compass Error’ by my next group ‘Atlas’.
‘Atlas’ was myself and my A&R man from Capitol/EMI Tony Newland.
We made quite a few 12″ ‘Noontide’, ‘Compass Error’, ‘Beauty’. Did quite a few remixes of others (Fluke, Swordfish, Monaco, House of Love!) and eventually went quite downtempo with an albums worth of songs written with the rapper/poet Mc Buzz B.
Highlight for me of that period was meeting and working with the late great Billy Mackenzie. We recorded a cover of the Randy Newman (via Nina Simone) song ‘Baltimore’ and also worked on a Billy and Paul Haig song ‘Give Me Time’.
He was such an amazing character. Still sends shivers up my spine remembering the sound of him singing ‘Give Me Time’ in my hallway, so loud, incredible control. He would always be singing new songs to you. Would look you in the eye and sing the whole song a cappella from beginning to end.
I ran away from music for a while after that. Wondered what would happen if I threw myself into something else.
I chose architecture and had an amazing 4 years ending up living in Los Angeles working in a tiny office having the time of my life drawing up plans for Pierce Brosnans painting studio amongst other things.
I started listening to music again and really enjoying it. The local station was KCRW with a show called ‘Morning Becomes Eclectic’ was just amazing at the time. 3 hours of Avo Part next to The Beach Boys next to Eels etc, etc. It’s still going but not as good as when Chris Douridas was the DJ.
I was offered some money to come back to the UK and make an Atlas album. Billy Mackenzie said yes to singing some of the songs and so I agreed.
I came back and within a few months Billy had died.
I worked on with the Atlas project and eventually met someone called Nina Miranda (Smoke City, Underwater Love, etc, etc) who was in quite some mood to break free of her Smoke City constraints. She really sounded like a bird out of its cage and sang some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Really magical to record her.
We made an album together as ‘Shrift’ (bit of a connection back to the Brighton days). Started off in this amazing studio space by london bridge which had a window out onto the Thames. Ducks would come each day to be fed and we let the sound of the river into the recordings. That space is now a Starbucks.

Here’s a short film for one of the songs.<
http://vimeo.com/1297050

These days I’m doing less writing and more mixing.
I will definitely make some more music soon but for now
I do sound mixing for film and tv programmes, after all everything is music!!

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks for the interest

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Doris Days – Another Day

Rorschach, a seminal Bristol indiepop band formed from the ashes of The Harpoons and who will later become Santa Cruz. Have you heard about them? Well, they only released one 7″, “Two Busted Flippers”, which is busting good! So you better pay attention this time around! Last year they reunited for a one-off gig in Bristol, and hopefully there will be some more of those. Thanks so much to Geoff and Steve (Yabbo), for being up for this interview! Also don’t miss this video of the band from last year’s practice before their reunion gig!

++ Hi Geoff! Thanks so much for being up for the interview! How are you doing? When was the last time you picked up your bass?

Geoff: Hi Roque. Sunday night. I recorded a track for my mate Tim Rippington with Tom Adams on drums. More of them later.

++ So let’s talk about Rorschach. The band was formed after The Harpoons, who I hope are a matter of another great interview. How did you all decide to start a new band? Who were the members?

Yabbo: From what I remember Jon Brokenbrow (the Harpoon’s drummer)hadquit and we decided to start a new band with the same line up – but withCris Warren on drums. Geoff and I had become friendly with Cris whileout busking in Bristol. Cris would tag along sometimes and playharmonica.

Geoff: the Harpoons had run their natural course. The new line up and material was a lot fresher and more punchy.

++ How did you know each other? And what inspired you all to have a band?

Yabbo: Geoff is my oldest friend – we met at primary school when wewere little children. I met Pete Stillman when I was about 14 and thethree of us pretty much learnt guitar together – often practising at ourhomes. We had a lot of very poor quality equipment. Because we were alllearning at the same time I think it was easier. Geoff and I met Scottin an old nightclub in Bristol called ‘Yesterdays’. We were looking fora new singer for the Harpoons and we went up to various good lookingblokes and asked them if they could sing – one of them was Scott. I seemto remember that he never got in touch, but then we met him again at aparty and it came together. He was a good front man – handsome andcharismatic – and he could sing.

Geoff: He wasn’t our first choice but he was the right one.

++ Is it true that Rorschach was named like that because of the character of Watchmen?

Yabbo: This is true – Pete, Geoff and I were all big comic fans at thetime and I remember going to conventions and meeting Alan Moore andFrank Miller – amongst others. I thought the character Rorschach inWatchmen was interesting – and I liked his name. There have been severalother bands with the same name.

++ If so, were you all big comic book fans? What other comic books did you like?

Yabbo: Big Spiderman fan – still got hundreds of mags. Also liked manyother Marvel characters – and Yummy Fur.

Geoff: I was big into Spiderman too. Also 2000AD back in the day.

++ Is the name of the EP, “Two Busted Flippers” a nod to Blood Simple by the Cohen brothers?

Yabbo: The name is a direct quote from the film – as you’ll hear at theend of Octopus – where there’s a clip of dialogue. I don’t know why wechose to call the record that – but I’m glad we did.

++ I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about each song on the EP? Like what’s the story behind them or any anecdote about them? Like, if Gabriel a real character?

Yabbo: Geoff wrote Captain Elastic – which is a great song – and Iwrote the other three. Gabriel is a just a love song about wantinganother chance. I called it Gabriel because of the power angelssupposedlyhave. Personally speaking – having written a lot of songs fora lot of bands – it’s one of my favourites. The one point of interest isthe line ‘Get your thoughts on line, there’s only one way and it’smine.’ That was written before the internet (at least I wasn’t aware ofit) and I intended ‘On line’ to simply mean get ‘get yourself together’.Luxury is a very short blast of powerpop. I played the solo on it -usually Pete played solos – but as it’s only one note it wasn’t toohard. Octopus is a song about creativity and doing loads of things
simultaneously. I was doing a lot of painting at that time as well asmusic and other stuff and I felt like I had limbs sticking everywhere.Unfortunately nothing generated any cash.

Geoff: Captain Elastic follows on from the Watchmen idea.It’s from the perspective of a small boy describing his favourite superhero who turns out to bea bit of a let down in reality.

++ What do you remember of the recording sessions?

Yabbo: Not very much – in truth recording usually involves a lot of
hanging about in dull rooms eating sandwiches.

Geoff: It’s so long ago I can’t remember specifics but Steve’s right – neither of us have much patience
for the process of going over mistakes and getting things precisely right.I much prefer getting things down as naturally as possible and moving onto something new.

++ Who were Big Truck Records?

Yabbo: It was our made-up record label. I think Pete chose the namebecause one of the characters on Brookside (the old Channel 4 soap) usedto call people ‘Big Truck’ as a term of endearment.

++ I also read that the EP received nice words from the NME and also from John Peel himself! And I bet you got more great press. What was the favourite thing they ever said about your band?

Yabbo: I’m sorry I don’t remember any press comments

Geoff: Me neither. Do you have any evidence?

++ Was this all you released? Why didn’t you get a chance to release more records underRorschach? And by the way, did you have any more songs? If so, I’d dream about a retrospective CD!

Yabbo: We did release a few cassettes – in limited numbers – includingthe Summer Palace which I’m very proud of. Sadly some of the originalrecordings have now gone missing. We never had much money, otherwise wewould have recorded and released much more. We never had any recordcompany funding – we paid for everything ourselves.

Geoff: We had little grasp of how to get involved with people who couldmake these things happen for us back then. It may sound a bit of a cliche butwe were never part of a ‘movement’ or a clique. Bristol was at the hub of Indiepop with Subway and Sarah records but we never fell into the right categories forthese or made the right friends.

Having said that we did release another EP as Rorschach in 1991 on the local Popgod label.It’s called the ‘New Kids’ EP. This was after Steve and Cris had left the band andmusically it’s quite different from Flippers. You may detect a certain ’summer of love’ influence.

++ I was in Bristol earlier this year, and likedthe city. It has a nice small town feeling, and I liked the hilly streets. Has it changed much from the Rorschach days? What were your favourite spots to hang out there then? Do you still live there?

Yabbo: We all still live in Bristol. The place has changed a lot – it’s much more difficult to park these days in the centre. Most of the places we used to perform like The Bristol Bridge Inn, The Western Star Domino Club and The Granary have long gone.

Geoff: ‘More difficult to park?’ You sound like John Shuttleworth!Bristol is a small city. It’s quite green with plenty of parks and the harbour in the centre of town makes it feel quite unique and can be quite beautiful. The downside to being a smallcity is that big projects are delayed or never happen at all. We often miss outcompared to Cardiff for example. For me, the worst change has been the building of massive expensivehousing developments on old industrial land on the harbourside.

++ What about gigs? Which venues were your favourite to play? And which gigs do you remember the most?

Yabbo: I always enjoyed playing live, although it was a hassle movingthe gear in and out. Playing the Bierkeller was fun – and Plymouth Poly.We probably only played about 25 gigs. I do remember that the very firstone was in a house in Fishponds in Bristol – on the same day as LiveAid.

Geoff: Was that Scott’s first gig? I think I got asked to leave that one.I remember playing in a church hall in Bishopston. That was a cracking night.

++ Bristol had quite a nice amount of exciting bands in the late 80s, from The Brilliant Corners to the Groove Farm. Who were your favourites in your town?

Yabbo: I liked the Corners – we played with them a few times. Most ofthe other acts seemed much more serious than us and they had betterequipment.

Geoff: The Coltraines were around then aswell. We also played some early gigs with Automatic D’lamini
who were very impressive and lovely people. John Parish went on to work with Polly Harvey.

++ You reformed for a one off gig at the Louisiana on 12th October 2009 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the EP release. How was that experience? Any differences from your heyday 20 years ago?

Yabbo: The gig was great – and we actually made some money. I think aswe were older we were all much more polite to each other.

Geoff: It’s funny how much more fun it is when you’re not trying to make it big.

++ I read that there is a full documentary about the band in the process of being made. When will this be out? What can we expect from it?

Yabbo: I shall be astonished if that ever gets made

Geoff: We made a video of us rehearsing which is/was up on youtube. Cris was talking aboutmaking an elaborate documentary detailing the history of the band using a complicatedmathematical formula. I think he’s still doing the maths.

++ When and why did you call it a day? What did you all do after?

Yabbo: We fell apart when Cris went to college in Hull. I went off andformed Quinton, the others carried on as Rorschach for a while, beforereforming as Santa Cruz.

Geoff: Most recently I joined the Beatnik Filmstars when they reformed aboutthree years ago. That was a lot of fun. At the moment I’m diddling around with aneight-track trying not to watch the football.

++ So what are you all doing nowadays? Any plans to do a another Rorschach gig maybe?

Yabbo: I currently present the daily lunchtime show on BBC RadioBristol

Geoff: We talked about doing another gig. Then we stopped talking. We may talksome more about it when we can think of something useful to say…

++ One last question, who do you think will win the World Cup? Any opinions about the English team?

Yabbo: Don’t remind me – but why not check out my England song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gkb1PtkE_c

Geoff: I told him to record a Dutch version but he wouldn’t listen…

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Rorschach – Gabriel:: Rorschach

In the 90s there was a lovely indiepop band in Japan called Christopher Robin. The only release I knew from them was a song included on a Pushbike Records compilation from 1994. This compilation was called “Into Somethin’” and of course, it’s been sold out and impossible to find for so long. Happily some weeks ago I found Mitsuki on Youtube where she has uploaded many songs by her old band as well from her new band. I was so happy and asked her if I could ask her some questions. Here is this small interview! Hope you enjoy her music! It’s brilliant!

++ Hello Mitsuki! Thanks for being up for this interview! Very honoured. Where in Japan are you? Do you have any special plans for this summer?

I live in Kobe. There are some nice beaches.I have no plan in this summer.

++ Let’s talk about Christopher Robin! Tell me how did the band started? When was this and who were the members?

We started Christopher Robin around 1994.Mitsuki, me, was on vocals. Masaki Yamada on guitar and Masanobu Yamada on bass.

++ How did you know each other?

We are childhood friends.

++ What about the name? Why did you call the band Christopher Robin?

Christopher Robin is a name of the most famous boy in the world. We liked that.

++ I can’t find any information about the discography of the band Mitsuki! Can you help me with that? I know there was a song on a Pushbike Records compilation and that’s all!

We released three albums on the Milky cassette label. We also contributed four songs in the Omnibus compilation album on Milky.

++ So what would you say is your favourite Christopher Robin song?

Sea Bone.

++ What influences and inspires you to make music Mitsuki?

Books, music, movies.

++ Did you play many gigs?

Yes we did. The gigs of our pop band were all planned for myself.

++ Even though I don’t understand the lyrics, I enjoy that it’s written in Japanese. Most Japanese indiepop bands seem to sing in English though. Why did you choose for Christopher Robin to have songs in your own language?

Because I think the my own language can usually represent me best in the lyrics.

++ So what happened with Christopher Robin? Why did the band split? When was this?

We split in 1997, because we were busy at work. Working hard.

++ You are doing your solo stuff now which is very nice too! Care to tell me a bit about this new project of yours?

Recently I am making acoustic music. Christopher Robin’s members help me.

++ Tell me what’s your top 3 dishes of Japanese cuisine! And if you can, explain me what do they consist of?

1. Okonomiyaki: It’s like a pancake. It has cabbage, flour, egg and pork.
2. Udon: It’s Japanese noodles. It is bonito’s soup.
3. Nikujaga: It is a boiled food of the sukiyaki taste. It has potato, onion and meat.

++ One last question, what is your secret skill Mitsuki? Tell me something most people don’t know about you?

… What will it be?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Christopher Robin – Cloudy

I’m very pleased to interview The Sainsburys! And also very happy to announce that this June 30th a retrospective CD by them will be out on Cloudberry! It includes all of their recorded songs and it’s just fabulous! Because of that, and because The Sainsburys are such an underrated band, David Wood, from the band, and me, had a nice talk!

++ Hello David! Thanks for being up for the interview. So, we are releasing a 3″ CD including all the Sainsburys songs. All the recorded output! For those who have never listened to the band, who I would suspect are many, can you tell them what to expect from this record?

Hi Roque! Thanks for asking me! Firstly, Ant sends his apologies, he says he can’t join us today as he has to attend to his mum’s garden. The Sainsburys existed for a very short period in the late eighties.

We were, basically, inspired by being aged 17, and by the music of the time. We were also inspired by the fact that if you were into indie music, and you owned a guitar and/or a tambourine, then you could get get yourself a band, and maybe even a gig or two.

Peel, Kershaw and Nightingale were playing The Railway Children, The Wedding Present, The Shop Assistants, The Primitives, Close Lobsters, The Darling Buds, and The Bhundu Boys. We loved all of it, along with a few bands that had been around for a while such as New Order, Echo and The Bunnymen ,The Smiths, The Fall and Husker Du. Local bands were a massive reason why we wanted to be part of the scene. “My mate’s mate is in a band you know, and he is having a record released” was the kind of talk that made us want a piece of that too….The Rosehips were our heroes, in our minds, they’d hit the big time, their first single making it way up into the indie charts.

In short, we were trying to create songs with pace and melody, “Talulah Gosh jamming with The Bhundu Boys” as we were once described.

++ So let’s go back in time to 1987. You started a band then called The DirtTruckers. Was this your first band ever? What did it sound like?

DirtTruckers was my first band. There were four of us, Doulton Redmond (vocals), Neil Harrison (guitar), Mark Hassall (drums) and myself. We played one gig at Bridge Street Arts Centre, with Bubblegum Splash …..I think. As far as I can remember, it was distorted jangly guitars.

++ You said you were inspired to start a band by the other local bands in the indiepop scene in Stoke of Trent. Which were these other bands that you loved? Were you all friends?

There were quite a few bands popping up in Stoke, The Rosehips having the most success. Exit Condition were a brilliant band inspired by the American punk scene. The Flood, The Vicarage Gardens and The Singing Curtains were also knocking about then. The latter we enjoyed friendly rivalry with and we’d take great joy in
heckling at each other’s gigs. (As I remember, Mark used to drum for them too. Mark tended to be in every band in Stoke at that time, but the point of difference for The Sainsburys was that our band was the only band he wrote the music for.) Once, a Singing Curtain phoned me up and offered us a lucrative record deal, pretending to be Martin Whitehead…..I was gutted when I heard at least 2 other Singing Curtains burst
out laughing in the background…

Yes, we were all friends….so much so we freely borrowed each others drummers and guitarists on a frequent basis.

++ And then Paula joined to sing in the band and The Sainsburys were born, right? How was the recruiting process? And yeah, how did all The Sainsburys knew each other?

Mark and I decided that The DirtTruckers should move on and a female vocalist would be required. The recruitment process was very simple. Why should we conform to usual formalities of actually hearing the proposed singer, sing before signing them up… this, after all was rock n roll. Basically, we both thought Paula was cool so we asked her to join.

++ And why the name The Sainsburys? You don’t like Tesco?

To be honest….I haven’t a clue where the name came from…..all the names we could think of were rubbish….The Sainsburys was the least rubbish of all I guess.

++ So tell me about this song Canal John? Who is it based on?

Paula wrote all the lyrics….she never would say who this canal based youth was…we just presumed that it was about the same bloke who had the fetish for cakes in “Cake Shop”. So if you see a man of about 40 eating large quantities of cakes on the towpath of the Trent and Mersey Canal…he’s your man.

++ And the Cake Shop? Do you know there is a very nice venue in New York with the same name? Many great indiepop gigs are held there!

Ace….If that isn’t a good enough reason for The Sainsburys to reform for one last gig…I don’t know what is…although Ant has asked me to add that there is more chance of him being capable of playing for Stoke City FC than being able to keep up with the old Sainsburys Jit.

++ I think, Ate the Most should have been a HUGE hit. It’s even great to dance! How did this song come up? What is it about? And then I’m curious, who wrote the songs in The Sainsburys?

Paula wrote the words, Mark wrote all of the music including the vocal melodies and the lead guitar melodies. Mark came from a choral background. He applied his experience to melodies especially later on when he was a member of The Venus Beads and writing their songs too. At first, we just jammed songs out
in my parents garden shed but gradually Mark took over and we started to play better tunes like “Ate the Most” and “My Favourite Colour”. Before we split up, we were playing some great tunes that seemed to be much more melodic and sophisticated. Songs like “If You Gave Me Your Jacket” and “At the River”, spring to mind and we played these at a few gigs. I’ve got an old, very badly recorded gig somewhere, and you can
tell that the songs were taking on a much better, more thought out form…this was all down to Mark.

I’m afraid I don’t know what the song is about…I presume “Ate the Most” is yet another reference to the fat guy eating cakes by the canal?

++ Was there any interest from labels to release your songs? It’s hard to believe they weren’t released then. They are so good!

I don’t think there was any interest from record companies (although Ant seems to think otherwise)…but then I think that was partly our own problem as I don’t think we marketed or pushed ourselves forward enough. It wasn’t enough to be just doing a few gigs here and there, we should have been making labels listen to our music more, like other bands did…..especially with stuff like “Ate the Most”.

++ I remember reading about The Sainsburys in a couple of fanzines, were you an avid reader of them? How involved were you in the fanzine scene? I was also wondering, these zines usually would give away
tapes, was there any Sainsburys’ songs on them? Yep, I used to enjoy reading them. I did my own once…it was awful.

Glen Rosehip’s “Vandolized Idol” was my favourite, I also liked 2 Pints Take Home.

We were on a couple of tapes, the one I can remember is Shoot The Tulips. I think there were tracks on there by Talulah Gosh, The Groove Farm and one or two others. There was talk of us doing a flexi at one point too but I don’t think that ever happened.

++ You played gigs with the likes of The Darling Buds, The Groove Farm and The Rosehips. Any particular anecdotes you could share? Wish I could have met Andrea then myself!

Anecdotes? There’s been much water, wine, whisky and beer under the bridge since 1987.

I remember that at the time, I couldn’t believe that at the age of 17, I was part of a band supporting all my musical heroes….The Darling Buds, The Groove Farm and all those others. Sometimes, when Ant and Mark were playing gigs as members of The Rosehips, I’d get to tag along and we’d get to meet even more of our heroes….I remember having tomatoes on toast with My Bloody Valentine at Rocker’s flat after a Rosehips gig once….now that’s pure rock and roll.

I was lucky enough to spend a few days down in Caerleon near Newport with Harley, Bloss and Andrea from The Darling Buds just before there first top 40 hit. Many beers were had and at one time I’d be able to tell you a few anecdotes about it…but I can’t remember them.

I loved the gigs that we played at….we just treated them as a night out and had as much fun as we possibly could. Playing gigs on stages in far away places like Bristol on stages where our heroes played was a dream come true for us.

++ What other gigs do you remember?

Remember Fun and The Orchids came down from Scotland once to do a gig in Stoke and my mother made them all sleep in the garden shed. I don’t think it was a comment about their music particularly, she was just mean.

One of the best nights of my life was a New Year’s Eve in Bristol. For one reason or another, my parents had forbidden me to go out that night, so in true, rock n roll style, Ant came and picked me up and I “ran away” to Bristol for the night, specifically to the Flatmates New Years Eve gig/party, at the Tropic Club I think.

Rocker then took us to every New Year’s Eve party in Bristol and we got back
to his flat at about 9.30am.

++ Do you still listen or follow any indiepop bands? How do you remember the scene then? Was it friendly and supportive?

I still listen to loads of music from the late 80’s and early 90’s. I’m sure l listen to George Best at least once a week. I love My Bloody Valentine from that period but rarely do I find an appropriate time to listen to it these days. MBV at it’s best needs to be at number 11 on the volume dia. The kids moan if I go beyond 4. Still listen to Husker Du…and I enjoy trawling through youtube to find vids from those days. If I could only have on cd in my collection it would be George Best.

The only band I keep up with today is Teenage Fanclub….I like loads of new bands though who owe alot to the indiepop of the late eighties…new bands like Stornoway I think are ace.

I remember the scene then very fondly, especially as given the age that I was, I absolutely lapped it up. I used to love getting into Ant’s battered old mini and driving to gigs all over the place. Everyone was very friendly and gave us loads of encouragement, especially The Rosehips and the Buds.

++ So what happened? Why did the band split?

We didn’t really split. Mark started to write some ace songs, ones that were noticably different. Paula announced that she was going off to university and we just carried on with Mark’s songs. The music was becoming more serious, the gain knob was being more and more clockwise every practice session, and Mark and Ant were set on a new direction. We asked Rob to join and that was it…I left and then The Venus Beads had evolved.

++ And were any of you involved with music after? Are you all still in touch?

I’m in touch with Ant regularly. We go to watch Stoke City when they’re at home. Ant has been involved in music ever since, he owns and manages The Sugarmill, an ace music venue in Stoke. I’ve not spoken to Mark for years and haven’t seen Richard or Paula since the day they left The Sainsburys. I’ve tried to find them on Facebook etc but no joy.

++ What does David Wood does nowadays? I’ve heard about a nice fancy wine store, is that so?

Yep…I own a wine and whisky shop, called The Wine Shop..in a very obvious “Cake Shop” kind of way. I also own an independent whisky bottling company.

The shop is ace, quite old fashioned, loads of lovely wines, continental beers, spirits etc… all top notch.

++ What’s your favourite wine then?

Very difficult question! I love really gutsy Sauvignon Blanc, typically from New Zealand, but also a sucker for a really oaky Chardonnay, such as Marmesa Hollister Peak Chardonnay from California….I’m a big fan of whisky too.

++ Thanks again David, anything else you’d like to add?

If anyone knows the whereabouts of Paula, Richard or indeed Canal John, the overweight guy who ate the most cakes…please let me know?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Sainsburys – Ate the Most