Well Popfest is over and I have to say that I’m very tired. I’m getting old, that’s clear. Nonetheless I had a very good time with old and new friends. And the bands were really great too. But I can’t review Popfest yet, I need some time to get in the right mood and recover some energy. So bear with me.

There are some important news to go over. First let me tell you that I’m very sorry that the May podcast hasn’t been published yet. I know we are already in June, but with everything that has been going on there hasn’t been any enough time to get it done. But I promise it will be out soon. This weekend I will start recording the June episode.

Most importantly though is that the Fibi Frap compilation arrived home. The release date is June 10th but all pre-orders have been shipped and any orders will be shipped immediately. Very happy with the sixth release of the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen series.

The bad news though is that the postage prices at USPS have risen. Almost a dollar for international orders. It’s really a shame. This hurts everyone. I will keep the same prices of all our releases for the time being. But the next releases will have to cost a dollar more. That’s how it’s going to be sadly.

Then there’s some good news from our friends at Firestation Records. I don’t know much of the details but 4 new albums have been announced: The Train Set, The Siddeleys, The Reflection A.O.B. and The Bridge. Super cool news! Not to miss any of them.

Then Shelflife has also some great releases, The Treasures of Mexico and the new Brideshead album. Seems this is going to be a very good summer for indiepop.

But before I close this post, thanks so much to Maz for organizing a great NYC Popfest.

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Today I want to head to Belgium. To the early 90s.

There has been some very good Belgium bands, good pop bands, but they’ve been a few. Here’s one that perhaps you haven’t been aware of.

Peter & The Lions have been Peter Léonard’s band. It was in 1991 when they released their first single, the great “Bye For Now”. A nice slice of jangle. On the B side of this 7″ released by Rainland Records (RL 009) was the song “Have You Ever…”. For this record Peter had the help of Jose Perez on bass and Yves Baibay on drums. The lyrics were written by Patrice Macar and Peter, the record was engineered by Yves Delannoy, mastered by Jérome Sandron and produced by Michel Van Achter. Peter was on vocals, guitar, keyboard, drum programming and even percussion.

On the back sleeve of the record we find that there was help from the Ministery of French Community in Belgium. I would guess it was some money for the label. I’m not familiar at all with Rainland, some of the releases are by bands I’ve never heard about like Tom Wolf, Owen Curtiz or Asoha. All their releases were out in the first half of the nineties.

Actually their next release after the Peter & The Lions single was the debut album of the band. It was also released in 1991 and had the title of “New Days” (RL 010). This record included only 9 songs: “Sixteen and Uncertain”, “Bye For Now”, “How You Manage”, “When Days Are Soft and Long”, “It’s a New Day”, “The Picture-Book”, “The Unreal Minute”, “The Land of Angry Men”, “Open Air Song”.  I don’t own it sadly, or ever listened to it, so couldn’t say who is credited in it. There’s one copy available at Discogs at the moment, but well, I find it a bit too pricey for me!

My next stop is Youtube. There are some videos dating from 2012 where Peter plays some songs from his double album “Postcards from Home”. It’s a bit different in sound to the earlier single, and you can actually listen to this album here. Also in this bandcamp of his there’s another album dating from 2007 called “Crossing the Strings”. You can check this one here.

We get to know some curious facts. We know that Peter is based in Liege and that he has been involved in other bands like “Where’s China?” (a post-new wave band), “Glassnotes” (a blend of rock, funk and jazz), and “Sing Sing” (an a capella quartet in french with a touch of ironic wit). Also the only person we see again from the early releases being credited is Michel Van Achter doing the mixes and the masters. These two albums were released by the label Home Records from Belgium.

On RateYourMusic we find mention of other releases by the band. We see a 1994 album called “Lost Paradise Songs” and a 2002 album called “Hold On”. From the 1994 album I could find two songs on a Myspace by Patrick Schouters (who I guess played in the band then). The songs are “Spotlights Burning” and “Fire and Water”. From the 2002 album I could find no information. I’d assume these records were mostly distributed in Belgium.

That’s more or less all I could find especially as there is an author out there called Peter Leonard as well. He is an American author of crime novels. Maybe some of you can help me know more about them! I would especially like to listen to their first album, and perhaps if anyone have spares of their first releases, well, would love to trade or something! Oh! And of course, as it seems the discography is a bit obscure, are we missing anything?

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Listen
Peter & Lions – Bye For Now

Short post this week as we have NYC Popfest just around the corner and even tomorrow we have a gig with The Prams, Papa Topo, Jessica & The Fletchers and Gingerlys. So pretty busy with all these things, count also that I’ve been a tour guide the past weekend.

I know the podcast hasn’t been published and we really wanted to do so before Popfest. We’ll see if tomorrow morning we can make it. It has been hectic. But after this month things should go back to their normal flow.

This week then I have a curious question for all of you, about what do you think about this song. It’s not indiepop, but it’s pop and it’s independent. The thing is, and you’ll notice, that this song reminds me way too much to another song released 11 years after. A song that was to become a big hit.

From Wikipedia we know that:
English Evenings were a British new wave duo that released one album in 1985 entitled After Dark. Before English Evenings, Lee Walsh was a member of the band Sly Fox, whose name later changed to One Adult. After the band broke up and with its members going their separate ways, Walsh secured a record deal under the name of English Evenings, together with bandmate Graham Lee. They released only one album in 1985, on the UK independent label Safari Records. Although their producer was the famous audio engineer and producer Phil Harding, they did not meet with much success.After disbanding, Graham Lee and Lee Walsh went on to later produce a football song for Leeds United in 1990, entitled “We Are Leeds”.

Most of their records were released on Safari Records, like the singles “English Evenings” (1983), “Touch” (1983), “Tear You Down” (1984), “I Will Return” (1985). But I’m mostly curious about their last single, the one released in 1986 on GFM Records (catalog GFM 106) called “Those Brilliant Teens”, a song about teenage suicide. That’s the the A side, whereas the B side was “The Other Side”.

So here’s the thing. The song is way too similar to Pulp’s “Common People”. And I’ve been curious about this similarity for a week now, since I heard this song for the first time. I really don’t know what to think, but I really doubt it’s just a coincidence. I’ve been googling around if any other person has written or wondered about it. There are, but a few. On Youtube there’s a comment.  On Rateyourmusic.com there’s also someone calling it a proto “Common People”. But that’s it. There’s nothing more. And I find this pretty odd.

You can also listen to a demo version of this song on Youtube.

I wonder, what do you think about this? Coincidence or not? Or maybe I’m missing something in the story that I have no clue?

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Listen
English Evenings – Those Brilliant Teens

Since the last post things have been very quiet. I asked for new band recommendations and I got none. Ha ha.

Podcast is still in the works. I hope that this week it gets published. Aside from that here at the label I’m just waiting for the Fibi Frap release and the 7″s that have been already announced on the website. I updated the site with some more info about these upcoming releases. That’s more or less what’s going on. As soon as I have news I’ll make sure to let you know.

As it gets closer, I feel a bit sad that I won’t be going to Indietracks. I know I’ve been critical, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like going there. Maybe I’ll return next year. I also noticed that there is going to be a Manchester Popfest in August. It’s going to be happening on the 15th and 16th of that month at two venues, the Kraak Gallery and the Islington Mill. I haven’t been to any but the lineup seems pretty interesting. There’s a bunch of bands I don’t know, so perhaps I should take a look? The prices for the festival are very reasonable, 13.50 pounds per day or 22.50 pounds for both days. It’s a good deal indeed. They will also be screening the Sarah Records documentary (I’m looking forward to watching it at NYC Popfest), they’ll have zines and djs as well. Seems like a good time to me! It’s really great that other cities are embracing the Popfest idea.

About these unknown bands to me, well, let’s check them out? That could make a good post, right?

I’m starting with Slowcoaches, who seem to be headlining one of the days. This is not indiepop per se, it’s a punk band and I actually like it. I usually don’t enjoy much of the punk being made these days, but this one is pretty good, they have a great sense of melody without losing their rawness. Quite a surprise. I’m 100% more into this sound, this mash-up of indiepop with punk, than when they bring me these folky-hippie-pop stuff. This is much more interesting. Definitely a band to keep an eye.

Keel Her is another new band for me. There’s so many releases on their Bandcamp.  Again a much punkier approach to pop here. Sometimes this reminds me to the early 80s, a bit of Modettes, Slits, Kleenex. Not bad. Some other times I hear the sound of Brooklyn, of the new generation of hipster bands and I’m not 100% convinced. There are a bunch of releases as I said, but only a handful of songs to actually listen. I can’t make up my mind, but I think I’d be curious to watch them if I was going to Manchester Popfest.

So far Pega Monstro is my favorite new band at Manchester Popfest. What a nice discovery. Indiepop from Portugal! Haven’t heard any indiepop from Portugal since Safety Matches! I just love how Portuguese blends with the distortion, the bass, with the crazy drumming. Punky indiepop. And of course, extra bonus points to Manchester for booking a band from a country that doesn’t get much attention at indiepop festivals.

Seeds of Doubt is yet another new band for me. I’m surprised by this, see, that’s why I was asking for new band recommendations. Not the kind of indiepop that drives me crazy, more angular than jangly generally, but when they go jangly, they have top songs like “Shelf Life” that has that classic indiepop feel. Looking forward to check the bunch of releases at their bandcamp site later today.

The Scottish band Spinning Coin seem to have a following and they are releasing a tape soon. First time I hear about them, and I feel the blog post is getting longer than I expected. There are many more bands for me to cover, so perhaps I should stop here with this band and next week continue with the rest. From Spinning Coin, I can’t say much, I have only heard the one song called “Pimp” and I’m not sold. A bit too cavernous and rocky for me. I will keep investigating.

And of course, I’ve added links to all of these bands for you to check out. You know it can happen that you like them much more than I do, or the total opposite too. So check them out. It’s always a nice thing to do, spending countless hours listening to new music. And thanks for that to Manchester Popfest for offering a totally new group of bands! That’s is exactly what Popfests are all about, introducing and supporting up and coming bands!

Oh! And before I forget, you should all listen to Roger Gunnarsson’s new project Leaderboard new song: Noble Heart. I know it’s not indiepop, but he is a genius.

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Lately I feel that Ireland is a country most of us indiepop, neo-aco, C86, or whatever name you want to call us, collectors and lovers, haven’t really explored much. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to dig deep there, especially if when you do you find bands like Scale the Heights!

According to the Irish Rock website, Scale the Heights were an energetic guitar band (no synths) compared in the press to The Smiths and Housemartins, with American influences, including some ‘cowpunk’ influences though perhaps that would now be called ‘Americana’. Recorded a well received demo in 1988 and won the Carling/Hot Press  Award for best unsigned act the same year, the prize being a one-off single deal with WEA. Still active in 1990. Liam Kirkpatrick and Paul McAllister currently (2011) record as Latecomers.

From that site we also find that they were from Maynooth, Kildare.
Maynooth is a university town in north County Kildare, Ireland. It is home to Maynooth University (also known as The National University of Ireland Maynooth) part of the National University of Ireland, a Pontifical University and Ireland’s main Roman Catholic seminary, St Patrick’s College. Maynooth is also the seat of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and holds the headquarters of Ireland’s largest development charity, Trócaire.

Okay that makes sense, university town and bands usually go hand in hand. We also get to know that the band started around 1987 and the members were David O’Driscoll on vocals, Tony Doherty on guitar, Liam Kirkpatrick on bass and Paul McAllister on drums.

It was the next year, in 1988, that they start selling a demo tape with the songs “Where Will We Be”, “Goodbye to All That” and “Two Wives”. It is the second song that I’m guessing made Warner Records sign them.

Yes, WEA was to release a 7″ record the next year. In 1989 we find on the A side “Goodbye To All That” (recorded December 1988 at Lansdowne Studios) and on the B side the song “So Soon” (recorded November 1987 at Lab Studios). The first song was engineered and produced by Chris O’Brien with assistant engineer Robbie Adams. The second song was engineered by Eoghan McCarron.

I haven’t found this record yet. Doesn’t seem to be listed on Discogs and haven’t seen it on eBay. This is quite strange as the record was put out by WEA so it’s kind of obvious to assume that a bunch of copies were pressed. Perhaps there’s little interest or knowledge. But if anyone has a spare copy or know where I can get one, please help this man in need!

The only other place I found some information about the band was on the superb Fanning Sessions blog. From there we learn that: On 01/05/1989 they recorded a Fanning session featuring tracks ‘Cold’, ‘Happy Ever After’, ‘One Step Away’ and ‘Go Hang Yourself’.

They also have some reviews from that time:

They featured in a number of Hot Press end of year critics roundups, here’s what Damian Corless wrote:
“Band Of The Year, however, without a shadow of a doubt, were Kildare’s Carling/Hot Press winners, Scale The Heights, who combine an incendiary live attack with some of the finest songs ever written in the history of the planet – I kid you not” HotPress Critics Roundup 1988

“On the home front there was nothing to equal the thrill of Scale The Heights’ live attack.” HotPress Critics Roundup 1989

Also on that post on the Fanning Sessions blog you can listen to more songs by Scale the Heights like “1938”, “Proud of You”, “Down the Hill” or “Blindman’s Clothes”. My favorite of them all is the single. That’s the song you can’t and shall not miss is the fabulous “Goodbye to All That”, a true indiepop gem!  My second favourite is “Down the Hill” for sure. It comes packaged in chiming jangly guitars.

Anyways, that’s more or less all I could dig from this obscure Irish band. But perhaps someone out there, perhaps you, could help me fill in the blanks, what happened to this band? Have you heard the other songs on the demo? Did they record anything else? What are they doing now? So many questions that would love to see answered!

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Listen
Scale the Heighs – Goodbye To All That

Still suffering the pains of allergy here. How are you all enjoying this year’s spring? Hope that much better than me!

Last weekend I finished recording the May edition of the Cloudberry podcast and the files are already in Toni’s magic hands for them to be equalized and all those things that sound people know how to do. So it sounds better, and so all these files are pasted together. This month’s podcast is a celebration of NYC Popfest. That’s the theme for the month. On top of it all, I interview Masami from the Japanese band Wallflower who will be playing their first show in the U.S. during the festival.

On other news, I want to point you all to pre-order the reissue of Easter & the Totem’s “The Sum is Greater Than Its Parts” on Sol Re Sol Records. It’s on LP and it includes the artwork and the songs from this classic album! I don’t want you to miss this. I was lucky to score the original one when in Toronto many years ago thanks to the awesome friend that is Jessel! But those who don’t own it, or just want an extra copy, you can just grab it for a very good price, $13 plus shipping here. If you remember, the band has also been featured on the blog when I interviewed Mike Berry, one of the members.

The other good news is that last week Pale Spectres sent me some mixes for the 4 songs that will appear on the awaited 7″. They sound fabulous really, and these were not even the finished mixes! So it seems that pretty soon the songs will be ready and finally we’ll be releasing them. The songs are: “Bicycles”, “D(r)iving”, “Didn’t Know Where To Go” and “Goodbye”. I think a lot of people have been waiting for such news!

Also I would keep your eyes peeled on Pale Spectres’ Thomas’ new solo project, “Tomiji”. It sounds super!

In the meantime, here I am waiting for the Fibi Frap CDs, waiting for NYC Popfest, and taking it easy. Nevertheless I do have a question for all of you, are there any great new releases that you’d recommend me? I kind of feel I’ve been buying too many records, but all of them from many years ago! And second question, are there any cool indiepop bands in Sweden these days? It feels it’s all so quiet there! Which is quite a surprise!

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This week I’ll recommend you a very nice record that you should be able to track down easily. It’s obscure yes, but it doesn’t seem that rare online. Discogs at the moment has copies at very reasonable prices.

The year was 1986. The band was called After This and the label Operation Afterglow. This label was actually a sub-label of Les Disques du Crépuscule. A sub-label that the Belgian label had set up in the UK after the demise of Operation Twilight (yet another sub-label). It was short-lived but released not only this record. Anna Domino, Paul Haig, Winston Tong and Front 242 were part of it as well.

After This released only one record during their career and it was this one. On the A side the song was the precious and timeless “Fields” whereas on the B side we find “Hollow Hills”. On the cover artwork we see a photo of some zebras. The catalog number was OPA 012.

The record was released both as a 12″ and a 7″. The songs are the same really, though there’s an extended version of Fields on the 12″.

We know that both songs were written by a Richard Lowe. I don’t know much about him aside from a comment on Youtube saying that he used to manage the band Catatonia.

On the back cover, among photos of a llama, a red panda, some flamingos, and two other animals I’m not sure what their names are (one is a sort of horned antilope and the other one looks like a spotted dear) we find some more info. The design of the record was done by P. Moore, it was produced by Alan Rankine and the photos were taken by M. Baker for mugshots.

Well, well… Alan Rankine was the same Alan Rankine of the Associates. Would it be a good guess to say that After This hailed from Scotland then!?

Oh! and the back cover also has the lyrics for the A side. I can sing along then 🙂

That’s really all there is to this record. How did I discover this band? Well, I got the record from Uwe some years ago. But I knew about the songs thanks to some MP3s that used to be shared on Soulseek inside a folder called “Future Leamington Spa”. There were a bunch of bands there that I had never heard. I don’t know who compiled them. But I was always curious about them. One of them was After This.

Now, do you know anything else about them? Are there any more recordings? Would be cool to learn more what happened to them!

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Listen
After This – Fields

Finally May arrived. Arrived with allergies, spring and pollen, sure thing. But also with NYC Popfest. This year as I’m not traveling to Indietracks, this will be the main (and possibly only) indiepop event I’m going to. So that’s pretty exciting!

During the time I was in China it seems that the lineup changed a bit. I came back to see some surprises on it. I thought maybe I should go through these new additions as I did with the earlier announcements.

The biggest addition and surprise was Cold Beat from San Francisco. A friend from work recommended me this band two months ago. We were just talking about our latest purchases on Discogs. He told me he had just bought a 12″ by this band. He said that I might like it. And hell I did. I immediately bought their album and 12″ single on Discogs. I thought better buy it now before it becomes popular and pricey even though these releases were some years old. Some days later I was talking to Maz from Popfest about Popfest and even though it was already late and the lineup had just been announced that I really loved this band and I couldn’t believe it had been under everyone’s radar in indiepop, that a friend that has nothing to do with the scene had pointed them to me! Anyhow, Maz loved them but I never thought he would book them!! Of course this makes me terribly happy, I will get a chance to see them. Named after a The Sound song, this is a very cool sounding band, fronted by Hannah Lew from Grass Widow (who I was never a fan go figure) and all their records have been self-released on their own Crime on the Moon. If you haven’t heard them yet check this video for the song “Out of Time“.

The Holiday Crowd will be coming back. It seems Palms on Fire didn’t get their visas sorted. No surprise, that’s always a pain for bands that need one. Especially indiepop bands that have little means. This is a pretty good replacement though as The Holiday Crowd is one of the best indiepop bands around for sure. My only complain of course is that they have already played Popfest and I love seeing new bands always. That doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy their show. Last time I saw them they were just astounding, great sound and a fantastic frontman. So if they repeat just 20% of that show, I’ll be more than happy. I actually thought they weren’t playing anymore as they had been so silent for the past few years. This is definitely good news, perhaps there’s a new release in the horizon?

Pete Astor will be playing the free show on Saturday. Makes sense. He is coming with The Loft and it’s definitely a good idea to see him playing solo. I did once as I have mentioned before in another post at the Lexington in London. He is really good playing his songs acoustically, it’s really cozy, and the stories in between songs are ace. I think this will be the sleeper hit for the Popfest. A treat that I hope not many miss (Saturday afternoon show is by far the least popular Popfest slot).

So those are the three additions for this year’s festival. But I haven’t talked about the DJs, have I?

I’m not sure who is DJing between bands on Friday or Sunday. Does anyone know? On Friday there’s a Cameo DJ party. As always Maz is the go to DJ if you wanna dance to some classic and new indiepop tunes. On Saturday the treat will be seeing Daniel Novakovic from So Tough So Cute DJ at the Knitting Factory. I look forward to this, as one of the best indiepop dance nights I’ve ever danced to was in London Popfest when Daniel literally had the dancefloor on fire.

What else is there to know? I don’t know. Perhaps restaurants around the venues that I recommend? haha. Maybe.

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I was remembering today the band Hartfield from Japan. I don’t think there was any reason in particular. I just remembered that I really liked their album and I wondered what happened to them. I never knew much about them to start. I thought it was just a boy and a girl but it seems there was a bit more to the story.

When they played live they did have a full band, but Hartfield was really just Takateru Kagawa and Yukari Tanaka. First question then, were they a couple?

My introduction to them came with the 2003 album released by Clairerecords (fern 048) and also by Vinyl Junkie (VJR 010) called “True Color, True Lie”. Okay, the proper version is that of the Japanese label, who licensed it to the Florida one. The album included 13 fabulous swirling dreampop songs mastered by Tomonobu Hara and mixed by Scott Cortez (from Astrobrite). The photography for the sleeve came thanks of Aya Watanabe, Naru & Hartfield.  The US version of the album included “Wonderful Word” and “Free Again”, two songs that weren’t on the Japanese version of the album.

I was in love with a song on it called “Girl Like You”. I thought it was a masterpiece.

I didn’t follow them then. Today I find out they released another record, a mini-album. It was called L.I.B.R.A. and was only released in Japan by Vinyl Junkie (VJR 015). It came out in 2004 and included 6 songs including a remix of “Girl Like You” by Pia Fraus. Included in the CD were two promo videos for the songs “Today Forever” and “She Knows“. The support members for this record were Tatsuhiro Miura on drums and Takeshi Komine on bass. The mix for the record was done by Pia Fraus. Seems that the title of the album means “Leave it Before Ruins Again”. Right?

Now, it seems they had a following in South Korea. In 2005 Pastel Music releases in that country a two CD compilation (!!) aptly titled  “True Color, True Lie + L.I.B.R.A. & MORE”. In it all songs they released are included but also we get some remixes by Astrobrite of “Strangers When We Meet” and “16 Lover’s Rain”, an acoustic version of “My Christiana” and a cover of “Never Ending Story” (!). Someone on Discogs has commented that “This release comes in two separate jewel cases with separate catalog numbers. True Color True Lie has an exclusive insert in Korean about the band. ” But I can’t be sure at all. I have never seen this release but I will try to track it down! Seems like something I really need!

Now we do a bit of backtracking to 2001. That’s the first time Hartfield appears to be released. They contribute the song “Girl Like You” to a compilation called “Seven Winters” released by G.A.C. records in Japan. It’s a shoegazy records with shoegazy bands. Then their second compilation appearance that I know of is in 2003 when they contribute “(The Stars Will Shine Above All Of) The Streets (Alternate Mix)” to the “Pacific Union” compilation. Again a very shoegazy record with bands like Airiel, Pia Fraus or Monster Movie (and our favourite indiepop band Silver Screen).

The last time we hear from them was in 2006. On a compilation called “Never Lose That Feeling Volume Two” released by Club AC30 (AC303032) they contribute the song “Soon”, which is a cover of My Bloody Valentine.

Online I try to dig more information about them. I find a cool review of their first ever solo gig in Japan, at a venue called The Shelter. You can read about it here. That was 2004.

Then there’s a review page for their album. There are two English reviews and one in Italian. I mean, if you already know that you have to check it out because I’m recommending them to you, maybe these other reviewers will convince you. So try it.

And last but not least there’s a bio on last.fm. From it we learn some important facts:
– They released three cassette singles by independence production and sold all 1,000 copies of them at independent record stores in and around Tokyo. Hartfield was later signed to Vinyl Junkie Recordings. They participated in a promotional compilation CD Way of a Ray which was released from VINYL JUNKIE Recordings.

–In 2006 they toured the east coast of the US with Chicago’s Airiel, playing with such artists as A Place To Bury Strangers, Alcian Blue, Stellarscope, along with playing at the Pop Noise Festival in Philadelphia.

-Upon returning to Japan, Hartfield was looking for a new label to support their future albums and tours. As fans awaited the next release by Hartfield, no news surfaced, and the future of the band went on hiatus. It is unconfirmed whether or not Hartfield will create a new record. Their website www.hartfieldweb.com, is no longer up, leading many to speculate that the band has possibly broken up.

And that my friends, is where I lose their trail. There’s barely anything written online. Perhaps there is in Japanese? But that I couldn’t tell sadly. I wonder what happened to the members? If they recorded more songs? And if so, if they will ever release them? Are they still playing music under another name? Why the silence? I really liked this band.

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Listen
Girl Like You

Hello Popkids! Another week, and just a month away for NYC Popfest!

What should we cover on the blog this week aside from our obscure band? As I was saying last week, there’s this horror feeling that I’ve been out of the loop for the past month when it comes to indiepop! Maybe some of you have ideas of interesting topics to analyze or cover? If so, would love to hear from you.

On Cloudberry news I can now tell you that today I mailed the Fibi Frap master to the pressing plant. So, hopefully it will be released within a month. After that I will release a new 7″ by a band between Europe and North America. Between Glasgow and Buffalo, NY. Who are they? Well, the are called The Color Waves. And this is their Facebook page.

I won’t give away yet all the surprises that we have in store but I can tell you that the songs on the record are called “Chirology” and “Rose”. Both of them are lush and beautiful and at the moment they are being mixed by Cristóbal from The Royal Landscaping Society. The artwork was done by the great French illustrator Catherine Cordasco. In the next few weeks we’ll update the website with information about the record and pre-order buttons. I think for everyone that loves the sounds of Harper Lee, Brighter, The Marine Time Keepers and even The Royal Landscaping Society, this record would be just up your alley. This is for the classy, elegant and nostalgic popkids like you!

The other project we have started working on the past month is the next Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release. We are at the moment gathering photos and flyers for it. The songs will be mastered pretty soon too. Who is this mysterious band? Well, can’t say much right now, but it’s a band that’s been interviewed in the blog before. And it’s from the UK! As I said, all these surprises, all these secret projects I’m working on, I’ll be letting everyone know in the next weeks and months. I think all in all there will be a bunch of great releases this year. I’m very proud of what Cloudberry is doing this 2015 and it’s all really thanks to all of you, because of your support by buying our records!

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Typhoon Saturday. I first heard about them on the Shelflife blog many years ago. The other day at work, for some reason, I remembered them. I showed them to a friend after he asked me about bands from that period. I do own two of their three 7″s but it’s been a while since I played them.

I think of all of them, the song that Ed posted, “What Do I Do?”, is my favourite. It’s such a great burst of pop. So catchy and so clever with it’s boy-girl vocals. But what happened to them? Well, actually there’s a lot of interesting information online!

First stop is the Shelflife blog obviously. What does Ed tells us?
I don’t know much about Sheffield’s Typhoon Saturday, but I love this track! They seemed to release just three 7″ singles and then broke up. Members like drummer Anthony “Tich” Critchlow went on to form Living in a Box (remember them?) and guitarist Nick Robinson went on to most notably They Must be Russians, Comsat Angels, and a bunch of solo projects (he’s also a practitioner of origami according to wikipedia).

Of course this story has a Liverpool connection… This single was produced by Steve Lindsay (bassist in Deaf School, Big in Japan (for 4 months), The Planets, etc.). I read that Typhoon Saturday pretty much hated his production of the song, but the label, Polydor, and their manager didn’t give them any other option but to release it as is. Yeah, it is a bit 80s “over produced,” but I still think it’s great.

Cool thing is there’s a comment on this same post by Nick Robinson. He says that the demos they made in Sheffield had so much power, which were lost on the official release.

Then we check their discography:
What Do I Do / Fascination – 1982 – Polydor POSP413
Another Flight / Let’s All Dance – 1982 – Polydor POSP442
I have Love / Social Insecurity – 1982 – Polydor POSP501

Not much to say about these records aside that it would be a good idea for you to get them! I’m missing “Another Flight”, maybe I should try to get it this week! Also something to mention is the artwork. I really like it. It’s pretty simple, kind of pop art, always with a smart color palette. Umbrellas, drinks and a paper plane illustrate the covers.

Next up there’s Nick Robinson’s blog. I hope he doesn’t mind if I reproduce some of his comments about his records. About “What Do I Do?” he says:
Yes, my first proper crack at pop stardom. Recorded at the Producers Workshop, London in ’82, produced by Steve Lindsay (who had his own failed career with The Planets”). I remember the toilet in the studio had “Captain Beakey” wallpaper, since that classic was recorded there. Needless to say, we merrily defaced as we sat there.
The recording process itself was a huge disappointment, since Lindsey exercised his control and we were told to basically “shut up and do as we’re told”, by our manager Frank Silver. The end result was 500 miles away from the exciting demo we’d cut in good old Alan & Oz’ Input Studios (long since demolished) back home in Sheffield, being limp-wristed and light-weight.
It got plenty of airplay on local radio and a full page advert in Melody Maker, then promptly stiffed. The B side was much closer to my musical sensibilities, being darker and swathed in echoed guitar. We recorded the follow-up single “Another Fight” at the same sessions.

About “Another Flight” he also has something to say:
Recorded at the same time as our first single, this too suffered from appalling production. So much so, we decided to call in singer Elaine’s boyfriend Kevin Bacon from the Comsat Angels to record and produce a completely new version at Fairview Studios just outside Hull. We thought our version was clearly superior, but the manager, smiled, agreed then released the shite version. We should have noted his intent when he told us he made more money from his car park than from his bands.
I’d worked out a nice double tracked melody for the solo, but the producer thought otherwise and moved it to lie underneath the last verse. Arse! To achieve a thunderous percussive sound on the B side, he had our drummer sat down slapping his thighs. It got a couple of good reviews, then died the death. As the immortal Les so succinctly put it, “Shit business, this”.

And about their last record, “I Have Love”:
This was our final incarnation, with Tich Critchlow on drums. He moved on to form Living In A Box and showed us all how to make money…
The recording sessions of my last 45 with this band covered the full range from ecstatic to miserable. We were sent first to Chipping Norton studios, to lay down the backing tracks. As it turned out, the cordon bleu cook, the barrels of Hook Norton beer and the racks of porn videos in our individual cottages took their toll. After the allotted week, we’d got the drums recorded and that was all. We’d also jammed to the B side song in order to get the drum tracks for that.
On to Britannia Row to add the rest of the tracks. Took on and lost a game of snooker with Nick Mason (Floydian co-owner of the studio) Producer Carey Taylor (who went on to work with KD Lang, George Harrison & others – he’s now a millionaire) was a bohemian type who had the idea of turning us into a smart, funky outfit, so out went the distorted guitars I loved so much, in came Nile Rodgers styles. A highlight was the hiring of Raf “Baker Street” Ravenscroft to do some brass stabs and a solo (“this song doesn’t suit a guitar solo Nick”). I also laid down some piano, before succumbing to a nasty virus & heading home whilst the others sat in on the mixing.
So, I get my cassette through the post and Lo! the piano parts had been redone by the guy from Darts. The B side, which we’d all forgotten about, was all beautifully produced drums, with us banging away over the top of it, thinking we were doing guide instruments for overdubbing later. Come the guitar solo, instead of the awesome noise-fest I’d planned, there was… nothing, just strumming away on rhythm. Jeez. They’d also vari-speeded it up a semi-tone, rendering Elaine’s vocals a tad more Mickey Mouse than we cared for. It bombed.
Shortly afterwards, I was relieved of my duties in the band, the best reason they could come up with was the width of my lapels, which clearly indicated I was out of touch. I should have quit long before it came to this, but you should try walking out on a band with a Polydor deal. They recorded a 4th single, pre-announced in the local paper as “having NO guitar anywhere!” but Polydor saw sense, pulled the plug and it was never released. Tragedy.

And that’s quite a lot isn’t it? Usually we don’t find much more about these cool obscure bands in general. But still there are many questions to be answered. For example, what about those demos Nick mentions on Ed’s blog? Were they lost? I would love to hearing them. Or what about the 4th single they recorded? Are there any other recordings? And then of course would be great to hear if they played many gigs, or how was their relationship with Polydor? And so on! Do any of you remember them?

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Listen
Typhoon Saturday – What Do I Do?

I’m terribly jetlagged as I write this. But hey, I feel the blog and the site needed an update as soon as I was back in NYC.

Sadly during this time that I was on vacation the podcast wasn’t posted. I was talking earlier today with Toni and because his responsibilities with school he hadn’t had the chance to finish putting together the show. I hope it will be ready this weekend though and I’ll let you know possibly through Facebook or on next week’s blog post. Immediately after posting the podcast I’ll start recording the May episode. May is just around the corner and with it comes Popfest too. So should be pretty busy and exciting as well this coming month.

First thing I’ve done as I arrived was getting in touch with the pressing plant so I could get the Fibi Frap CDs pressed. So I’m on that, don’t you worry. There’s been some pre-orders during the time I’ve been away. I’m very thankful to those who placed them. Looking forward for more of them in the coming weeks. I think the CD should be ready by the end of May or early June as the latest. I really hope I can bring some copies to sell at Popfest.

As many of you know I went on vacations to China. It was my first time in Asia too. I had a blast. It was much better than I expected. From the Great Wall to the Terra Cotta Warrios, to the Temple of Heaven to the Longmen Grottoes. They were two of the most productive weeks I’ve done when it comes to be a tourist, I went all over, tried all the foods, and visited as many places as possible. I’m exhausted really.

I was also pretty much out of touch of indiepop, though I feel I saw a video on a bus of a Chinese girl covering a Saint Etienne song, though I may have just imagined that. So now it’s time for me to catch up as well. But today I want to go over an obscure band, to keep the tradition going, and next week perhaps do a review of up and coming bands. Sounds good? If so, let’s move on.

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Well, I chose to dig some info about the Irish band Shocking Stockings mostly because they wrote a song called “Red China” and I thought, how proper, it goes pretty well with my last few weeks.

We need to rewind the clock many years. All the way to 1980. To the days when indiepop wasn’t a thing. To the days when indiepop was starting to brew. If you are familiar with bands like Scissor Fits, Girls at Our Best, The Mo-Dettes, The Gymslips, The Chefs, etc, etc. The Shocking Stockings will be up your alley. There’s that punkie attitude and there’s the naiveté too. It’s pretty good indeed!

So one release only. In 1980 on the Carrere label (CAR 147). A 45 with two songs, “Red China” and “You Move the Movement” on the B side. Both songs credited to Niall MacMahon and both produced by Phil Chevron. The A side was remixed by Peter Hinton. You can listen to the B side here.

In 2010, Niall macMahon, the leader of the band uploaded a video of him playing “Red China” that year. You can check that here.

The Irish Rock site has a lot of info about the band. It’s a good resource definitely starting by the band members:
Bree MacMahon – vocals
Niall MacMahon – guitars, vocals
Dave Bourke – bass guitar
Terry O’Sullivan – drums

There’s a bio:
Niall MacMahon was in various obscure outfits with names like Spike, Niall-on & the Shocking Stockings, Gott, The Maidavaleables and Brute Force & The Ignorance.

Shocking Stockings (originally Niall-on & the Shocking Stockings) were a post-punk new-wave band with an ironic repertoire of pastiches that ran from Reggae through Funk and Disco to Rock, with humorous political and/or social commentary lyrics.They released a single on Carrere Records and recorded an LP titled ‘Nylon’ which was never released (details taken from Hot Press vol.4 nr.2, June 1980).

“Tragi-comic vocals (Beefheart meets Chadbourne meets Dennis of Dr Hook and goes for a stroll around Stephens
Green, Dublin) and clever poignant moving lyrics”–NME

Niall released a solo album in 1988. Folk Roots described it thusly: “He starts off by plundering Ennio Morricone, dips boldly into the eccentric world or reggae folk hero Lee Perry, mercilessly satirises the British ruling class,
and winds up with a veritable masterpiece of bitter-sweetness about Ireland and the lot of the emigré.
Fashionably enough it sounds like a demo (which is occasionally a bit of a shame, especially when you have a song as realistic and movingly unromantic as Don’t Ever Take Me Back Across To Ireland). Plenty of people are doing this now, but this is cheerfully random enough not to sound contrived or self-conscious. The opening track,
El Sid’s, for example, isn’t as funny as you initially imagine it, but is about football hooliganism
draped in the arrangement of a tacky spaghetti western. Then again, Like An Alien has him  sounding like a dead ringer for Warren Zevon.”– Folk Roots Magazine, August 1988.

About that album we know it was released both in LP and tape format and included 7 songs. They were produced by Philip Chevron, Joe Foster and Niall MacMahon. Would it be the same Joe Foster we all know?

A 1997 release is credited as “related”. It’s by the band Lila and the release name was “Damn the Colours”. It was released on MTH Records in the UK. It was an album of Niall’s songs recorded by Lila MacMahon in various 90s dance genres.

Last stop is the website of Mosa Records, a label that seems to do digital releases based in Spain but run by Irish people. On an update dating November 2nd of 2012, they announce the release of the Shocking Stockings album “Nylon” as a digital release. I, of course, have never bought anything from iTunes and don’t plan doing it. This means I won’t be able to listen to the whole songs (you can listen to clips on the site). I would be more than happy to pay the same amount of money or more for a physical release. I wouldn’t mind even if it’s a handmade CD. But Mp3s? Ugh! But anyhow, this release includes, I’m assuming, all their recorded output: “Police Questions”, “She”, “White Eggs”, “Red China”, The Tony”, “Axeman”, Sad Politician”, “You the Movement”, “Hounted House”, “Pose” and “Plastic Rock”.

The 7″ they released seems not too difficult to find according to Discogs. I still haven’t got it, but I plan getting it as fast as nice copy appears online. It doesn’t seem like an expensive record either. Which is good. But what about the rest of the songs? Will they ever be released properly? I would love that. Anyone remembers anything else about this band? Were there more recordings? Any compilation appearances perhaps? Would love to know more!

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Listen
Shocking Stockings – Red China

Hi! How are you all? This week I have a small post once again. Thing is I have little time in my hands as I’m preparing to go on vacations and I want to finish with all the deadlines I have, run all the errands I need to run and so on. I’m leaving this Friday to China for around two weeks. As some might have noticed on the Cloudberry site, all orders placed after tomorrow won’t be posted until the 24th of April.

The other news on the Cloudberry site is that now you can pre-order the Fibi Frap CD. When I return from China I’ll be sending the masters to the pressing plant. So we are looking for a late May release. I’m very happy about this release. It’s a very obscure Swedish band but I grew very fond of them years ago when I had no clue or had no contact with them. Took me ages to get in touch with the girls.

Fanzine are out and selling fast. People were really excited these days after listening to the magnificent cover of “Red Sleeping Beauty” by The Royal Landscaping Society. Don’t miss this one.

On other news, yesterday I finished recording the April podcast. I hope to post it before I leave, but if Toni can’t have it ready by then, I trust he’ll be able to publish it. Remember in China I won’t have access to Facebook or Gmail. But do send your answers for the clip of the month. I’ll reply when I get back. Promise!

So that’s more or less what’s cooking at Cloudberry HQ. Very excited about traveling. Very excited that NYC Popfest is just around the corner. Excited to get to see friends very soon. It’s all happening. New releases too. Can’t complain!

So no posts from now until I return! Be good in the meantime!

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“I Know a Gondola Panda” I read on the Firestation blog years ago. There was a list of recommendations of records to search for. Immediately I googled for them. Google asked, do you mean “I Know a Gondola Punter”? That was it. There was a typo, a funny one definitely, but I had found a new band to look for.

That was many years ago. Since then I tried bidding twice on eBay for their one and only 10″ and both times losing. You know me, I try to avoid paying large sums for records. Right now you could buy it on Discogs sure. But with the shipping costs it will end up costing me around $50. I think I will be cool paying around $30. That’s the max I’ve set. I know, different people have different max prices they are willing to pay. Some people just buy their “definitive” and “important” records, so they allow themselves to pay crazy prices, but then, they don’t buy anything else. I in the other hand love buying new and old records, and many of them. I really want to hear songs I’ve never heard before. It’s an addiction I guess.

Anyhow, as you can expect because this is the obscure section, about this band there’s very little online but let’s try to go over about what we know.

They released their single 10″ in 1988 on Plop Records. Catalog number was 1. Possibly then a self-release. It’s funny that on Discogs it’s listed as shoegaze. Definitely it’s not shoegaze. A comment says:
The original poster galled this a “shoegazing” band. I think that’s a NME89 somesuch title for esoteric jangle pop British genre, which this bad really doesn’t fit. The vocal are hard-core Punk in a northern Brit accent. There a girl doing backgrounds and harmony, but this is bullet-punk that sounds pop.

I wouldn’t call this hardcore myself either. It’s punky sure, and reminds me of a mix of The Haywains and Strawberry Storey. Indiepop would be a better genre if you ask me!

The tracks are:
A1     Yell factor string bleed (was: Mary)
A2     Plectum trash (was: Ich Bin)
B1     dum dum-dum dum dum-twang (was: Dance)
B2     talksingyell (was: Shekan)
B3     The backyard choir (was: Millk Tray Man)

Not sure about that “was”. But seems more people know the songs by the name inside the parenthesis.

We also know that the record included an insert with the lyrics for all the songs. The lyrics are really good. They are so funny and ironic, they kind of remind me of the Spanish band Aerolíneas Federales.

Their EP by the way is titled “OO Bang Jingly Jang”. And the band hailed from Stafford.
Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It lies approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of Wolverhampton, 18 miles (29 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Birmingham. The population in 2001 was 63,681[1] and that of the wider borough of Stafford 122,000, the fourth largest in the county after Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.

There is a castle in Stafford. I like castles. Maybe I could visit sometime. The Ancient High House in the town centre also looks really cool.

I haven’t had the chance to listen to all the songs included in the record yet, only “Mary”, “Dance” and “Shekan”. Both are top tracks! Maybe someone can help me listen to the rest?

There are some more songs that I have had the chance to listen though, and those are “Building Bridges” and “Up Against the Wall”. You can find these two on a Myspace that the band used to run years ago. I wonder then if there are many more unreleased recordings!

And that’s when I hit a wall. Does anyone remember them? Anyone have a spare copy for me? 🙂 Are there more songs? What happened to the members after the band split? Were they involved with music? Would love to know more about this band. Really like their songs!

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Listen
I Know a Gondola Punter – Shekan

A short post this week.

Yesterday I started working in the April podcast. Interview is done and some of the songs are already selected. Hopefully I’ll finish recording it this week as next week I’m off for vacations. Would love to be able to publish it early next week for you guys. The theme for April will be “spring”.

On other Cloudberry news today I sent all the pre-orders for the fanzine. It took some time, but I hope the wait was worth it. Now I will get to work on the Fibi Frap release. As soon as I get back from my vacation I’ll send it to press. Things are moving, slowly perhaps, but moving.

Also a new 7″ is on the works and will announce it next month. Artwork is almost finished. A hint? Well, it’s a collaboration between Europe and North America. It’s really beautiful. I think Cloudberry fans will love it.

So yes, a little vacation for me. This means that any orders placed between the 9th and the 22nd of April won’t be posted until April 24th. So please, if you need any particular record you get it asap!

I’m traveling to Asia for the first time. To China. Let’s see how that goes. It’s not an indiepop trip this time. Just going to be a proper tourist. I’ll be visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an and Luoyang. I was hoping to go to Hong Kong but time-wise and distance-wise didn’t end up making sense. I hope to go back. Well, if I like it. I’m sure I will. Should I check any record stores there?

Also just a heads up that a bunch of our 3″s are now sold out. There are still some releases available but to be honest there are not many copies for each of them.

So that’s more or less all news I have for you all. I’ll come back next week with another obscure band and, crossing fingers, the link for the podcast. See you then!

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The Mechanical Hearts. Who were they?

There’s barely any information online about this band. Why am I not surprised?

Only one release as far as I know. 45cat lists one with “Precious Time” on the A side and “Pay the Driver” on the B side. It’s a 7″ released in 199 and the songs are a true slice of guitar pop. Really good actually!

The catalogue number though brings the first questions. It is MECH 017.

The label was called Mechanartz. But I can’t find any other releases in their catalogue. Supposedly if this was 017 then there should be other earlier ones, right?

We know that both songs were composed by a Nick Jones. Also both songs were produced by Paul Hodson.

A little bit more of digging and I find out who the members were:
Nick Jones: guitar
Pete Hughes: vocals
Chris Brown: keyboards
Mick Billington: drums
Stefan Kowalczuk: percussion

I find this information on the biography page of 45cat. Strange enough it seems it was updated not too long ago. I say that because it seems one of the band members has updated it and mentions that there is a current lineup and they are still writing and recording new songs, hoping that they will release new material soon!

The current lineup is:
Nick Jones: guitar
Craig Westwood: bass/vocals
Mark Overton: drums

Seems that Craig Westwood joined them already in 1991, just about the same time of the release of the single.

On Youtube there’s another song by the band called “Southside Blue”. This song appeared on the ‘The Demise Of The Executive Perambulator’, a compilation LP of Birmingham bands. This compilation was released by Catapult Records.

And that’s more or less what I could find online. Does anyone know if they ever released the new material they were working on? If there is more of the old material? Whatever happened to this band?

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Listen
Mechanical Hearts – Southside Blues

I’ve been wondering what happened to the bands that played NYC Popfest 2007. That was the first NYC Popfest (ok, there was one before but was kind of in a different era) and it was also the first one I attended. It was such a good time, made many new friends, and at that time, saw many bands that I could never imagine I was going to see in my life. I was such an innocent popkid, naive and all, and was just in awe all the time. Sometimes I wish I felt the same way when I go to festivals. Anyhow, 8 years after, what happened to the bands?

So I’ve been going through websites to find the lineup, my memory is not the best, especially when it comes to bands I didn’t like or I missed for a reason or two.

On Thursday the big name were the BMX Bandits. Happily they are still going strong. I remember taking a photo or two with Duglas and him being very surprised that two Peruvians had come to their show. I remember they almost didn’t play as one of their members had been detained at the airport for having pot or something like that! In the end they played such a beautiful show, with everyone singing along to Serious Drugs. Other bands that played were Pants Yell! who were selling a fantastic t-shirt with a soccer player (who I don’t know who it is!) on it. I was never a big fan of theirs. Later the leader of the band played NYC Popfest with a band he formed after called Cuffs. Wasn’t my cup of tea either. Don’t know what they are up to these days.

Other bands on that Thursday were Yellow Fever from Texas. Seems they are still going under the name Deep Time. They were more on the rockier side. Another band that played was Lispector. Their bandcamp seems to be updated with a bunch of releases up to 2014. So I assume she is still recording and releasing. Again not my favourite sort of music, but it’s good to see that bands are still producing music. The other band from Thursday was one band I actually really liked a lot, The Metric Mile from New York. It seems that their bandcamp was either hacked or doesn’t exist. This duo made some beautiful pop and released one 7″. At some point I think Peggy from the Pains was playing with them too. Anyhow, whatever happened to them? Are they still making music?

On Friday I remember clearly how amazing were two bands: The Baskervilles and The Secret History. About the latter I know quite a bunch, releasing a record two years ago and playing Indietracks too. Now they are making music under the name of their previous band, My Favorite. Wonder if they’ll switch back their name at some point. About The Baskervilles, well that’s a mystery to me. I think I played their records way too many times. I really liked them, I liked their aesthetics, their tunes, their lyrics and even the choices they made for playing and recording covers. I would have loved to put something out by them too. Where are they now? NYC needs bands like this!

Other bands were The Smittens, who I assume are still going; The Reverse, who I can’t seem to find much online; Mitch Easter, who I would also guess makes music; and Affair D’Coeur, who were one of the most interesting small/unknown bands in the festival. They were based in Brooklyn and made a nice sort of fuzzy crash pop. I remember one of them was involved in releasing the Swedish band Crime Time’s tape. I think they were done as a band many years ago. Where are they? Are they still playing in NYC?

Then we went to Coney Island for a free show. Erico from the Canadian distro Popolar drove us from Manhattan to Coney Island. Peter Hahndorf was sporting his best shorts. We walked along the boardwalk. It was so sunny and hot, it was hard to stand still. I had a burrito at one of the many Mexican restaurants close to the amusement park. I can’t remember much about the shows. I was glad to see Bunnygrunt but by this time they had become punkier than their early and loved releases. They are still making music, will play Indietracks this year. Cars Can Be Blue played too, at that time they were quite a hype with their lyrics that were definitely something else due to their profanity. I haven’t heard much about them since the time they were denied to enter the UK and everyone went ballistics at the Anorak Forum. I think they eventually toured the island a year later playing Indietracks as well. I saw them once in Miami, which was pretty odd as no indie bands would come. Then other bands that played were Best Fwends and The Gritty Midi Gang. I seriously don’t remember them at all. So I googled them. Best Fwends has a bandcamp and their latest upload was an EP from 2013. The music, well, is not for me. It’s a bit too all over the place.  About The Gritty Midi Gang band, they seemed to have hailed from NYC. I found a song on Youtube called Valentine’s Day and it’s pretty fine. As I’m living now in NYC, I’m very curious that so many people during this time were making indiepop tunes in the city. Where are these people now? Why are they hiding?! They should go take the venues and play shows!

Next day on Saturday we all went to see Harvey Williams. It was a treat to hear him play his Sarah classics. Wish only he had a band. Saturday night is hard for someone with just a piano although we all really liked it. Harvey still performs solo to this day.

Other bands that played and we loved were The Ballet, who played Indietracks in 2013, but have been very quiet release-wise which makes me think they are no more and only reunited especially for that occasion, and My Teenage Stride, who had that superb indiepop hit called “To Live and Die in the Airport Lounge”, are no more as far as I know. I see some of the members at shows just as part of the crowd. Yet Another NYC band that disappeared. The Besties played that show and they’ve reunited since a couple of times. I liked their early demos that were shared in Soulseek back, back in the day. I was a bit disappointed when they got a bit punkier and shoutier. When they were sweetly twee they were at their best. Anyhow, then there was Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, and that my friends is not indiepop so I skip it. I guess Brown Recluse Sings is also no more. They released on Slumberland and since have been quiet. Their last release was in 2011, so a safe bet is to say that they are doing something else. The only other band I’m missing was Ballboy. They were truly fantastic and after that Popfest I bought all their records I was missing. They were my favourite gig that night. They are still going.

On Sunday The Pains of Being Pure at Heart played. At that time no one knew much about them. The 3″ from Cloudberry had been out for weeks only. With many lineup changes the band is still going even releasing a pretty good record last year. The sadly missed Pipas played too, and I was very happy to meet Lupe that time. They weren’t going to play many shows afterwards but they did play a beautiful and memorable show at the Chickfactor gigs some years ago here in NYC. Lupe now playes in Amor de Dias. Pipas has been hibernating (or at least I want to think that as I want them to play again!). Pelle Carlberg came all the way to Sweden to play. He didn’t have a full band and played accompanied by another guy. It was sadly a so so show. I would imagine he still makes music. His last update on his website is from August 2014.

Human Television, CAUSE-COMOTION, Michael Leviton and Dear Nora played as well. None of them are still making songs. Katy Davidson from Dear Nora now tours and plays with the well known band Gossip.

Surprisingly that first Popfest lasted until Monday! I only caught half of the bands and some of the hamburgers that some of the people involved in the Popfest were selling.

The Lil Hospital was great. They are no more but Kevin still makes music with The Hairs. Allen Clapp & His Orchestra was the band I would have loved to see that day but had to leave to the airport. He has no new releases but seems active on his Facebook page. Surefire Broadcast are no more, you can only find a Myspace. The Gazzetteers I believe are on a standby but Jigsaw Records released their third album last year. This album though had been recorded some years before, but only saw the light in 2014. The other band that played that Monday were Titans of Filth. Their last release was from 2013.

What do I find from this. Well, I would have thought more bands would have bitten the dust, but it seems half of them or so have survived and are still going after 8 years. In that sense this theory that indiepop is kind of dead would be proven wrong. What is true though is that the NYC bands that played that Popfest have mostly disappeared. A true shame though as I live here now.

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Time to check the obscure band of the week. This time another “classic” band for all of us that like obscure indiepop: Queue Dance.

I thought I had covered them before, but no, I hadn’t. Quite surprised by this. So it’s time to amend this and try to find out all I can about this obscure duo from the 80s.

What did they release? Well, to start one 12″ with four songs: “Not the One For Me” as the A side and “Never Take a Bite”, “Where Would They Go?” and “Are You Doing Whats Expected?” on the B side. All tracks written and arranged by Bourne and Goddard. Who were they?

Well, Nick Goddard was the one playing guitar, bass, vibraphone, keyboards and drum machine. Jo Bourne was on vocals and any additional percussion.

“Not the One For Me” was recorded by Roger at Soft Option Studios in London. “Where Would they Go?” was recorded by Mark at Blue Box Studios in Hove and “Never Take a Bite” and “Are You Doing Whats Expected?” were recorded at Pylon Studios in hove as well.

The sax on “Not the One for Me” and “Where Would They Go?” came courtesy of Eileen Lawless. Drums on “Not the One For Me’ were played by Andrew Blackwell. The nice and cool artwork for the record was done by Michele Allardyce. The record was distributed by Backs/Cartel and the label was Pylon with the catalog number ALI001. The record was released in 1987.

They also had two songs on a compilation 12” called “Paper Boats in Puddles”. The two songs included were “For a Moment” and “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”. One song on each side. On this compilation we see only one name that rings a bell, that’s of Jesus Couldn’t Drum. This record was released by Hang Ten Records. I haven’t heard the other bands included in the record like The Little Legends, Vava Voom, The Red Squares, This Colour. There’s a song on Youtube by The Rev, and it’s totally fine, though not really indiepop. Do you know if any of these bands are worth checking out?

Question is, did they release any other songs? Are there any other recorded songs still unreleased? Maybe someone knows?

The sound of the band is described by Rupert from A Turntable Revolution like “(it) sounds like it stumbled out of a 1950’s revue written by Helen McCookerybook”. He couldn’t be more right. On top of it all, the band hailed from Brighton/Hove area. The Japanese in this case would be really happy to call this neo-acoustic.

Googling around I found that Nick Goddard at some point was part of the Brighton punk band Jonnie and the Lubes. You can read their whole story here. I kept digging and found a comment by Michelle Allardyce, the person who did the artwork! What a find! On a blog post about a club called The Zap she writes about Queue Dance performing there. And says:

I played percussion in several bands at the Zap during the 1980s/early 1990s. Queue Dance: (jazzy swingy pop) were lead singer Jo Bourne, Nick on guitar, Pete on bass, Eileen on saxophone, Andrew on drums, Jenny Cruise on backing vocals, me on percussion. We did a tour of Brighton one May Festival in the mid 1980s (which I think the Zap helped organise), on a flatbed truck with the Little Green Hondas (ukelele surf band), a magician and a fire eater. One of those festival gigs was at the opening of a public toilet in Hangleton! Frazier Chorus (sometimes called Plop or Fishing For Clouds): (laid back synth pop) were Tim Freeman lead vocals and keyboards, Chris Taplin on clarinet, Kate Holmes on flute, me on percussion. We played Sunday lunchtimes for a couple of years in obscurity before releasing a single with 4AD and then 2 albums on Virgin Records. One gig at the old Zap we supported MAX – their celebrity entourage included Trojan and Leigh Bowery – I remember thinking who’s that twat with the fried egg on his head? Silly me! We played the first gig at the new Zap with our support band the Indian Givers after it was extended from the original 2 arches. We had a few singles in the top 50, did a Peel Session, had videos shown on the Chart Show and won the video vote on Saturday Morning Superstore but we weren’t part of the Brighton ‘scene’ at the time so you’ll never see any mention of us in any history of Brighton bands! Bing Bang Buffalo (country billy) were Jo Bourne lead vocals, Nick on guitar, Steve Gelliot on bass, Sean ‘Sharky’ as a prototype Bez on maracas! and me on snare. We supported Terry & Jerry (rockabilly) and Attilla The Stockbroker (punk poet). Spacecake: (1960s kids TV theme cover band) were Jonathan Lemon on lead vocals + ukelele, Alan Way on bass, Colin on keyboards, me on percussion. We only played Ghent festival, Amsterdam Milkweg and the Zap. I also played percussion with Jo Bourne as XiXi accompanying DJ Chris Coco at the Coco Club I saw lots of brilliant, diverse and inspiring bands and DJs at the ZAP – some faves: Mark Almond as Mark and the Mambas, The Rapiers, Blubbery Hellbellies, John Hegley, Brighton Bottle Orchestra, Ivor Cutler, Captain Stupid, The Shamen, Digital Underground, Bone Orchard, Ten City, Danny Rampling, Tony Humphries, Joey Negro.
By Michele Allardyce (28/08/2008)

Wow! She was involved in many bands indeed. Frazier Chorus perhaps the most known one. Then it’s interesting that she played again with Jo Bourne from Queue Dance in the band Bing Bang Buffalo. Another interesting point is that Jenny Cruse was in Queue Dance live band. Jenny Cruse also appears in the “Paper Boats in Puddles” compilation.

This was all I could find out, but maybe someone out there knows more about this band? I would love also to hear the other songs, the only song I know is “Not the One For Me” thanks to the From a Northern Place blog. Would love to know more!

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Listen
Queue Dance – Not the One For Me