When I did a few CDRs called The Sound of Young Java, I had considered calling the series The Sound of Young Bandung. The impressive amount of quality bands coming from that city in Indonesia has always surprised me. How come they produce that? I must visit Bandung some day. I hope. And try to answer that question.

In the meantime I thought about showcasing a band that deserves more love, Clubwater. When they were around it was way past the days I was releasing CDRs. Also way past the time I was in touch with many people involved in the Indonesian pop scene. So I missed them out. I did write about their self-titled CDR release on Shiny Happy Records back in 2021. This is what I said: “8 poppy songs coming from Bandung, Indonesia. Jangly, Smith-sy, I am enjoying their chiming guitars. The self-titled 8 song album will be out on February 14. It is coming out on tape on the veritable Shiny Happy Records! Three songs are available to preview, “Adult Angst”, “Secret Smile” and “Regret”. Enjoying all three! Looking forward to hearing the rest.”

All songs are available to stream on their label’s Bandcamp these days. The CDR is long sold out. The songs on this release were “Adult Angst”, “Secret Smile”, “Harmony of the Sea”, “Happiness”, “You”, “Regret”, “Lonesome Song” and “Half Hearted”, this last one a cover of the mighty Brighter.

Indeed, the band has been compared to Brighter, to the Field Mice , and other Sarah bands.

The band was formed by Muhammad Febri Hendarsyah on vocals and bass, Rega Zulhan Vocalian on guitar, Sendy Suberkah on guitar and Indra Maryoga on drums. All original songs of the band were written by Febri, with the exception of “Regret” that was penned by both Febri and someone called Ferdical. The songs were recorded by Irsyad Ali Sofi who owns and operates the Teargaslab Studio in Bandung.

The CDR came with liner notes from Tiok from The Sensitive and Heavenpunks. It mentions featuring the band on a fanzine called Letskissasecret. It mentions that he always wanted to compile the bands songs.

I have this feeling this CDR may be a compilation actually of all their records. Why? Because the band released a CDR on Shiny Happy Records (SHR 24) 7 years earlier, in 2014. This CDR was a mini 3″ one. Just like the ones I used to release. It included the songs “Happiness” and “You”. So to me, it makes sense the band was active during that time, in the mid 2010s and not in the 2020s.

Searching for more info, there’s a Soundcloud by the band, but only two songs are online, the same ones as their first release. They date from 12 years ago.

More recently Chaotic Pop Records from Tangerang, Indonesian, decided to include the song “Secret Smile” on a compilation CDR called “A Chaotic Pop Records Compilation – I Know It’s Only a CDr Release, But I Love It!” (Chaotic 6). This one came out in 2023 and featured many great Indonesian bands.

And then I notice the band has two different Instagram accounts. The newest one says the band is still active. That they have signed to Untune Record. I check. I see then that the band released a cassette last year, 2025. It has 10 songs: “Adult Angst”, “Secret Smile (Extended Version)”, “Harmony of the Seas”, “Happiness”, “You”, “Regret”, “Lonesome Song Feat. Candissa”, “Half Hearted (Brighter)”. “You (Single version)” and “Something Good (Bonus Track)”.

It says that this release is a reissue album actually with extra songs. Different artwork too.

Looking at this account I notice the band played a few weeks ago, on June 13, the Jakarta Popfest 2026.

So yea, the band is back. And I’m writing them a post about their story. And clearly this time around the story is not fully written. There are more pages to be written.

I would still love to learn more about Clubwater. Their music is fantastic, and I’d definitely would love more information about them, their band members, their songs, their gigs and more.

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Clubwater – Happiness

Molasses had two periods. One in Perth, Australia, with Paul Williams, Andrew Britten and Mia Schoen. And one in Melbourne where Andrew was replaced by Chris Gorman. I’m going to try to figure out when this change happened.

Mia is a musician I have always enjoyed. She has been in great bands, among them a favorite of mine, Sleepy Township. She has also been in Above Ground Pool, Driving Past, Huon, Mia Schoen Group, New Estate, Possum Moods, Powerful Owl, The Cannanes, The Enclosures, The Curse and Lucida. Maybe there’s even more. I believe the “Golden Hour” album was her latest as a solo artist, and that’s from 2017.

Andrew was in bands too, mainly Cease and Jaguar is Jaguar. On this last band he was joined by Paul. And of course, Paul had been in a few other bands like Above Ground Pool, Panel of Judges, Sleepy Township and The Fast Bikes.

Lastly Chris was on the great Clag (I need to make a post about them), Doublechin, Jaguar is Jaguar, Mustang!, New Estate and Sleepy Township.

As you can see all of them were in top bands, they had great indiepop pedigree!

As far as I know Molasses is not that well known. At least for me. I don’t happen to own any of their releases, and that’s the reason I’m writing this post, to learn and discover more about this project.

The band two releases were split 7″ EPs. The first one was on Chapter Music (Chapter 11) where they shared the vinyl record with the band Minimum Chips. Molasses appear on the A side with two tracks, “Superpowers Activate” and “Hindsight” while Minimum Chips contributes “Baruberry”, “One That Got Away” and “Grogmonster” to the flipside. The record was released in 1995. The sleeve art is a photography of a house, I would think in Australia, with a huge cloud on top. Bad omens?

That is the original release. But there are some copies that had handmade sleeves with new inserts according to Discogs.

The second split 7″ came out in 1996. This time it was a lathe cut 7″ single, with two songs. The A side had Molasses’ “Hello Rain” and the B side had Sleepy Township’s “Houses”. Both bands as mentioned shared Mia and Paul in their ranks. Interesting enough the art is the same as the Chapter release, the same photographs which I believe Mia took.

It mentions that both songs were recorded in St. James in Western Australia. St. James being a suburb of Perth. At this time we still see Andrew in the band.

There are more songs by the band, perhaps enough to put together a compilation (Chapter, make it happen?). In 1994 they had a song called “Fingers in My Eyes” that was in a cassette compilation called “Too Much Ash” that Chapter released (Chapter 6). Then in 1995 we see the song “Brookton” on the Australian compilation tape “Molopo” released by From the Same Mother (FTSM 19). That same year the song “Moving” appears on the compilation CD called “The Butterfly” that was put together by Stand Against Sexual Assault. All of the songs on this CD were recorded live “under the blazing sun, on the roof of the Grosvenor Hotel, Perth, Western Australia on Sat. Dec. 3rd 1994 from non to midnight”.

In 1996 the band contributes the track “Nervous” to a CD compilation called “Family Album (A Compilation)” released by the American label Shy Boy Records (Shy Boy 01). It was compiled by Chris Henderson and Tami Heaton. Tami’s name I remember a lot from the indiepop-list.

On the 1997 “Live at the Cornflakes (An RTR-FM Compilation of Perth Original Noisesmithery)” CD the band contributes the song “Fingers in My Eye”. It is a live version of the track recorded sometime between 1994 and 1996 at RTR in the smallest room in the radio station at 8:30 am.

In 2002 the song “Finger in My Eyes” would see a new life on the compilation CD “Double Figures” released by Chapter Music (Chapter 44). Later, in 2009, I notice that the song “Optimistic” was released on a reissue of a compilation called “Asparagus Milkshake”.  This is a CDR but the original release was a tape from 1994 on Chapter Music (Chapter 4) that accompanied the fanzine “Salty and Delicious”.

Lastly in 2012 Chapter released “20 Big One 1992-2012”, which is. vinyl compilation that had the track “Swaddling”.

I keep googling and find something interesting. In 1995, when all of them were around 21 or 22, that’s when they moved to Melbourne. Another interesting detail is that the band before being called Molasses played their first couple of gigs under the name Jamboree.

And here is a super cool find. Molasses playing live!! I think the song is called “Vroom” and is being played at a benefit gig for the radio programme Drivetime from RTR. The gig happened at the old Myers Warehouse in East Perth. Amazing!!!

Let me know if you have any more details about them!

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Molasses – Moving

Sendai, Japan. The first time I heard about Rain Paints was thanks to a tape released by the very fine Japanese label Miles Apart Records in 2014. It was a tape that was part of their Cassette Tapes Club, and this one was the third release. It was showcasing 2 songs by Rain Paints, “Funeral Rain” and “10miles” and had the catalog number of MAP-007.

This tape, limited to 100 copies, came with a cool art of a boy and his dog eating a sandwich. It also gave us the details that the music was made by Yasushi Matsuo and tdsgk. Lyrics are also credited to both. The songs were recorded and mixed by Yasushi while the mastering is credited to Koji Takagi.

But this wasn’t the first time Rain Paints were releasing music. Previously, in 2013, the band released a self-titled 7″ with Beko from France. The 7″ included the song “The Sun is Down” on the A side and on the B side there was “The Sun is Down (The Beauty Remix)” on the B side. I didn’t get this record as I didn’t see the point of a B side being just a remix. I know. There was a version of this 7″ though that was much more worthwhile to get. One that included a 3″ CDR that came with the songs “Sunday”, “Anything”, “In the Clouds” (which featured La Neige), “The Sun is Down” and “The Sun is Down (The Beauty Remix)”.

This same year, 2013, a cassette titled “Sense of Lost” was released by Bikini Lounge from Japan. This tape was a split tape with another Sendai band, Thee Loves. Each band contributing 3 songs. On the B side is where we find Rain Paints with the songs “The Sun is Down”, “Come Just Make You Happy” and “Sunday Morning”. All of the songs of this tape are on Soundcloud.

2015 would also see a release that flew under my radar. A split 7″ on the Alone Together (AT004) and Bikini Lounge labels. The split had the Manchester band Horsebeach on the A side with the track “Broken Light” whereas Rain Paints appears on the B side with the song “Kill Me With Your Smile”. This release is on Bandcamp too if you want to check it out.

When it comes to compilations I know they had the song “25th December” on the compilation tape “Christmas Small Gift Vol.2” that Miles Apart Records (MAP-010) released in 2014.

And then this is where I lose track of the band. What happened to them after? Japanese friends, can you help me?

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Rain Paints – The Sun is Down

Many times in Germany. But never in the south of Germany. Munich remains a place I would like to visit. That’s where we are heading today on the blog.

It is possible that the band Bismarck Idaho best known fact is that Momus produced four out of 5 tracks of the band’s one and only release, the “Beckenbauer EP” CD from 1994.

The EP was released by the label Blickpunkt Pop (BP 001) ran by Marc Liebscher, also Munich based. This label is well known for having releasing the band Sportfreunde Stiller (who has the song “Ich, Roque” to my own amusement).

The EP included the songs “Pop Song”, “Beckenbauer’s Last Temptation (Kaizer Edit)”, “Iceflowers”, “The House that Jack Demolished” and “Beckenbauer’s Last Temptation (Distorted)”. As mentioned the first four tracks were produced by the great Nick Currie, Momus.

Momus mentions that he was invited to Munich early in 1994. He says that he didn’t care about sports but he thought the idea behind the song “Beckenbauer’s Last Temptation” was very interesting for him, where the German football legend is crucified and sees his life goes by before his eyes, remembering his best moments on the field. He mentions the name of two band members, Achim who was a theology student as well as the son of a pastor and Konstantin.

The song “Beckenbauer’s Last Temptation” would get some more tracking, appearing on the compilation “Munich Goes Pop” in 1994. Released by Roguish Records (RR004)  the compilation features bands from the city. The only band I know from this compilation is Friends Ahoj who I have interviewed in the past. I should explore these bands.

Also what about the name of the song “The House that Jack Demolished”? That must be a nod to the Go-Betweens’ “The House that Jack Kerouac Built”.

That’s all I could find about the band. Any more information would be great. Love the EP!

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Bismarck Idaho – Beckenbauer’s Last Temptation

The Kate Rays is Kim Floyd’s current project. You can find the music she makes with Tony Chance on bass and Mark Hubbard on drums on Bandcamp. I recommend it. But I discovered some tracks on Soundcloud that predate The Kate Rays and that got me curious.

Kim who usually sings and plays guitar is now based in Jacksonville, Florida. I believe at some point she was in New York City. I wonder where she was in 1997. The tracks from her project Tintern Abby date from that year.

There are three songs on Soundcloud: “Foreign Types”, “Degas” and “Novocaine”. Were there demos? Were they part of a release? I couldn’t find any information.

The name of the project is clearly taken from the beautiful Tintern Abbey located in Wales. I must say I visited it once, more than 10 years ago and was blown away. They are the ruins of an abbey, but it is amazing, the location, the structure that still stands, the moss, the stonework, the green areas around it. I went to Chepstow from Cardiff. Visited the castle there. Then took a bus to Tintern Abbey. It was empty. It was just for my then girlfriend and I. And then it rained and rained. It didn’t impede us from having a good time exploring the site. I remember there being a pub very close by where we went to have a late lunch, it was cozy and warm. But I can’t remember its name.

Tintern Abbey is a ruined medieval abbey adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this location forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England. Founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, it was the first Cistercian foundation in Wales, and the second in Britain (after Waverley Abbey). The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. Its remains have been celebrated in poetry and painting from the 18th century onwards. In 1984, Cadw took over responsibility for managing the site. Tintern Abbey is visited by approximately 70,000 people every year.

Anyhow, as mentioned there’s no more info about Tintern Abby. The song “Novocaine” has its lyrics posted on Soundcloud. Thats nice. The other things don’t have any more details. The song “Foreign Types” was also recorded by The Kate Rays. “Degas” clearly is named after the painter.

There are some photos where we see that the band was probably a trio. We see Kim playing guitar, someone playing bass and another person drums.

And that’s all I could find about this project. From photos it looks like the band played live. Where? Not clear. But I hope we find more details about the band soon!

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Tintern Abby – Novocaine

Graham Moore. UK. The Crave. These are the 3 details I have.

There’s a Soundcloud with a bunch of songs, from different periods. All uploaded by Graham. there are other bands here like Geek Theatre, Electrocide,  Baby Doll, Wisconsin Terror Project and The Invisible Cowboy. This last one I believe was the band that was just before The Crave as it mentions a 1992 release on a compilation. The other bands I have no clue but if I was to guess they came after.

For The Crave the more interesting songs are Lazy Summer Day and Jenni. Both of them seem to come from an EP called “Greetings from Planet God” released in 1995. I haven’t been able to find this EP online. Was it a self-release? A tape perhaps? Don’t know the tracklist either. There must have been more songs. Just know that “Jenni” was the 3rd track.

Then there are more songs and the quality is more demo like and sometimes the tracks are rockier too. There’s “Destiny”, “Lies”, “Life’s A Gas” (T-Rex cover), “Always There” (recorded in 1990/91), “Bending Over Backwards” (1991), “Stone” (1994) and “Strawberry Bitch” (1994).

I see that at some point the band was a 3 piece with Graham Moore and two more. Last names were Farrell and Buchanon. It looks like in the early days it was Graham and someone called Avril, no last name.

There is also a recording at Network Radio from July 26th 1996 of them playing “Big Fun”. It mentions that Christophe F is on lead vocals. Could this be F as in Farrell?

One comment mentions a location called The Buddle where the band used to play. I am not a 100% sure. But there was a Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend. That’s near Newcastle. Could the band hail from that area.

And that’s what my detective work got me. Some interesting bits but not too much. Anyone know anything else about this band?

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Crave – Lazy Summer Day

Everson is a city in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,888 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the fifth largest city within the Bellingham Metropolitan Area.

That’s where the next band/song takes us.

It seems the band was called Supersonic. And they recorded a very nice track called “Hush” in 1993 in a studio called Seventh Heaven in Everson, Washington State, on the Pacific coast.

This I have found on the Supersonic soundcloud account of Ben Walker. There are many other songs but they all seem much more recent (well, recent as 4 to 14 years ago when the tracks were uploaded).

The other tracks can be nice, but I think “Hush” is my favourite, it has that particular sound and guitars that I love.

I want to find out more. One thing I find is that there is a Seventh Heaven Entertainment group in Everson. A music company that works as an indie label and publishing company.  Not sure if the company is still going, but they do have a website.

Of course it is hard to find much information about a band called Supersonic. All hits are for Oasis. One thing I do notice from Soundcloud is that Ben is based in Mount Vernon, that is about an hour away, south, from Everson.

Seems like I can’t add much more information to this post. There is not much more to go on. There are no other band members listed, nor if there were releases or gigs.

But I think this track had to be shared, it is pretty good!

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Supersonic – Hush

Wallsend is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies four miles east of Newcastle upon Tyne.

In the mid-90s, in Wallsend, there was a band called The Sojourners. I just found about it on Soundcloud. Davy Craig, who was part of the band, uploaded 14(!) years ago a bunch of tracks. They cover a few different styles, but there’s a very good one that just makes this post worth doing, a track titled “Don”.

According to the little description the song was recorded at Impulse in Wallsend and is named after Don from Hoults Yard Rehearsal Rooms. The music is by Davy and the lyrics by Steve Jobling. Another extra bit of info is that the song was inspired by Donovan, The Beatles and The Smiths.

There are other tracks, also recorded at the same place and the same year. I’ll go through them.

“47 Hastings Parade” which was the name of the street Davy used to live in Hebburn. Then there is a demo of the track “Biscuit”, this one with lyrics by Ash Timmins.

“Blue Skies” is a track with both music and lyrics by Davy. “61 Miles (To London)” is a story of a journey to London when you are nearly there but stuck in traffic. Seems like everyone knows this story.

“Harry” is a track of a guy with the same name from Leroys in Hebburn. The lyrics were written by Davy and Steve Jobling. Then there’s “Distant Prayer”, “The Fiddle” and “Daddy”.

Lastly there’s “Beneath the Waves”. Here there’s a list of all the band members. So it was Ash Timmins on vocals, Davy Craig on guitars and e-bows, Stephen Jobling on bass and Luke Phillips on drums.

That’s really all the information about the band I could find. I do see Davy had been in another project called DRILL and that he has some songs solo.

Wonder how active they were on their day. Did they play much live? Did they release anything? Would be good to find out.

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The Sojourners – Don

I hope I am getting the band name correct and that they weren’t called something else. I found this account by a Duncan Forgan that has 19 tracks recorded between 1995 and 1999 by what looks like a band called The Cairo Years.

The quality is varied, but there are some gems not to be missed like “Summer Starts Here” or “City Sickness”.

The tracks available are: “Girl You’ll Never Know”, “Telling Jokes at the Astral Flights”, “Can’t Recall”, “The Other Side of Summer”, “Over You”, “Am I Bothering You?”, “City Sickness”, “Summer Starts Here”, “What’s the Gain Girl?”, “Warm Sun Rising”, “Papal Confession”, “Here’s To My Life”, “Lifeboat”, “New Kensington Stroll”, “The Fast Society”, “15 Years”, “Amsterdam Canals”, “Thirteen” and “Estrangement Song”.

All of them were uploaded 5 years ago. Aside from these songs there are a few more but they are not tagged as The Cairo Years. Maybe these were other projects of Duncan.

I do think I know what is Duncan doing these days. He seems to be living and working in Southeast Asia, mainly in Bangkok. He is a writer and broadcaster, especially about Asian travel, culture and cuisine, for different publications including TIME, Esquire and The Guardian. Previously he had been a features writer for newspapers in Scotland (where he is from) and an editor of travel guides in the Middle East.

He has plenty of articles online, here is one about Japan’s Nothern Soul club scene.

I am just going through some of them. I wonder then about these songs. If he was based in the Middle East at some point. Maybe “The Cairo Years” may mean recordings he did while he was living in Cairo?  Who knows. It is a possibility. Or just a coincidence. Don’t know if he lived there.

Many questions are to be answered, but it is really cool to see someone that has worked for news organizations and has good music taste, feels very close at home.

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The Cairo Years – Summer Starts Here

Tigerella was another band I discovered through Shelflife CD-R series. Their self-titled EP was the fifth release on that very important series of releases our friend Ed released back in the early 2000s.

The EP was released in 2003, in January I believe, it included just three tracks by the Los Angeles five-piece. These songs were “Existential War”, “Rid of You” and “E-Ticket Ride”. The songs were bright. The guitars chimed. Very nice!

The band was formed by Bryan Yoshida and Gilber Chinn on guitar and vocals, Seiji Morioka on drums, Felix Lau on bass and Yvonne Ng on vocals. I believe on the recording Linda Yoshida also contributed with vocals and later on Felix would be replaced by Steve (don’t know the last name) for their 2nd release.

The Shelflife EP was actually recorded in the year 2000. It waited a bit to be released. It was recorded by David Nolte.

The band released their self-titled album on Shmat Records with the catalog number (SHMAT04). I see a bit of a different sound in this record. It is fine, but a bit more indierock of the time. I prefer the first EP if I am honest. In any case the record came out September of that year and included 12 songs, “Filet”, “The Curse of the Matador”, “Stun Machine”, “Tidepool”, “Caleb”, “Junior”, “Insomniac”, “Jack London”, “Sailor Song”, “These Bears Can’t Be Real”, “Crash Course” and “Calculus of Love”.

The only other release of the band was appearing on the compilation “A Map of the Woods” (SHMAT 05) released by Shmat in 2003 where they included their song “Stun Machine”.

This label still has a working website and there there is a small bio for the band. We learn that they were formed in 1998.

Looking at other projects I notice that Bryan Yoshida played bass on Retro Notes. I also believe Bryan was the one behind Shmat Records, supporting bands from Southern California. He mentions that he has worked as a web designer, programmer, writer and blogger but now he focuses on his vintage modern shop A la Modern.

Did they all stop making music then? Im curious to know if any of the band members were involved in any other projects. Anyone knows?

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Tigerella – Rid of You