The most exciting part of running a label, at least for me, is discovering a new band and offering them a release. Sadly, I don’t do that much these days. It was much easier when I was putting out the 3″ CDs as they were homemade mostly and it wasn’t an expensive ordeal. It was also much easier 4 years ago when people were spending more on records and it was a bit more steady the way I recovered the costs of the vinyl records I was putting out. Though this doesn’t mean that I’m not discovering new and exciting bands every so often, it does mean I can’t offer the release. So it’s only half of the excitement I was talking about, and actually the least exciting part of the two if you were to compare it.

And that’s because when offering a release you start a new plan. From the basic ‘which songs are going to be released’, to deciding the RPM of the record by acknowledging how many songs we’ll be including. From then on it’s a get to know the band phase, exchanging emails, knowing their hopes and expectations. At some point I may even interview them for my fanzine. We decide about the artwork for the record. We talk about setting a release date. We work as a team in every little detail. And that’s what I enjoy the most. Getting the product done. I read once on an interview to Roger Gunnarsson on how was his experience running a label and he mentioned that the fun part for him was exactly what I’m telling you. Then the records would arrive home and that was like the best moment. Piles and piles of boxes of vinyl, with beautiful color jackets. A success. He then said that after the records arrived home the excitement started to die out. And that is true for me too, it is not fun the next piece in the process of releasing a record, it’s not exciting at all to promote, or send them to distributors, writing press sheets, etc. Having to deal with that bureaucratic sort of system can’t be any fun. It’s not a creative experience, it’s not even rewarding. A lot of times it even ends up as nerve-wracking!

During the past 6 years I’ve been running the label I’ve released a lot of records. A LOT. And most especially I’ve worked with with so many bands. But the fact is, there’s been a bunch of other bands that I’ve contacted and for a reason or another I never got to work with them. I would have loved to have put something out by them, a CD, a record, but due to them or myself, it never happened. One of the bands I was interested in putting out at some point was The Arctic Circle.

Truth is I only contacted them once as far as I remember. It was on Myspace. Those days when it was the preferred platform for finding new music and being in touch with your favourite band. If I remember correctly I had just started releasing vinyl. Myspace with it’s new upgrade and faulty behavior won’t allow me to pull up the email exchange with the band. What I do remember is asking them if they had any interest in releasing a record with me. Their answer I believe was a yes. Thing is, I never heard again from them after that. I may or may not asked them again to see what was going on. But I never heard from them, years passed, I lost track of the band and only recently I have been rediscovering them.

Okay, that’s not completely true. There was a compilation called “Piece of Cake!” that included them. This compilation was released in 2009 as the first release ever by Big Pink Cake. As many of you might know, Big Pink Cake was originally  a club, an indiepop club, that booked bands and had disco nights in Bristol. The good readers of the blog would know that I have interviewed Matthew, half of Big Pink Cake. The other half is of course Heather. With Big Pink Cake I have a very nice relationship for many years now. They were one of the few clubs that gave away the Cloudberry 3″ CD compilation “Where are the Supremes Tonight?”. After that I’ve joined Matthew a couple of times on the decks, DJing music for some cool crowds. And it has to be the first time I met him, in Hamburg 2009, when he gave me the CD compilation “Piece of Cake!”. In this compilation that includes many favorites of mine like Horowitz, The Hi-Life Companion, The Parallelograms and more, the Arctic Circle contributed the song “Meanwhile Gardens”.

So yes, I was reminded of their existence. Why didn’t I try again to contact them? Probably I assumed they were no more. Or that they didn’t have any interest. I didn’t know much about them. I remember seeing some gig listings and their name on there. I’m pretty sure they played How Does it Feel? and many classic London venues. But as I said I lost track. I don’t remember even which songs I might have asked them to release with me. A good guess would be “Loofah Mitt” and “Prancing Pearl”. Though who knows, maybe “Mothers Ruin”? The title of the song makes me grin. The Mothers Ruin of course is the pub where Big Pink Cake used to happen at. I only visited once. I think in early 2010 after London Popfest. What a fun night that was!

On Discogs The Arctic Circle has another compilation appearance. With the song “Trawler” they appeared on the 2005 comp ” Oh Sew & Tell: A Stitch-Stitch Compilation” on the Stitch-Stitch label. My only knowledge about this label was thanks to Ray Rumours. But it seems I need to dig a little bit deeper with their releases. Maybe there’s a surprise or two. In the meantime I ordered the one and only release that is listed on Discogs, directly from the label. A 7″ with “Prancing Pearl” on the A side and “Mothers Ruin” on the B side. This was released on October 2008 and has the catalog stitch013.

There’s a small bio about the band in the label page, but I found a much better one on Last.fm:

Beginning in Edinburgh in 1999, Arctic Circle, now based in Bristol, were formed by Matthew Cheney, a singer/songwriter steeped in psychedelic folk and early 90s electronic sounds. With a fluctuating line-up, a sideline in social politics and establishing The Forest Cafe in Edinburgh, Cheney turned down label offers and set about managing the band himself, bringing in visual and collaborative art components. The songs remained acute observations about urban planning, social dynamics, instrumentals about natural Arctic phenomena and communication in relationships.
Once in Bristol, Cheney brought in an all-new lineup which currently includes Nicole Artingsall, Rozi Plain, Kaspar Lurcock, Francois Victor, Ladybird, George MacKenzie, Nina Wylie, Rose Clark, Hog, and Liam Kirby. The band completed a tour of Canada and the US in 2006 and became regular fixtures at the Green Man Festival. Arctic Circle are currently working on their third album. Previous releases Volume 1 (2004) and Volume 2 (2006) were released through Forest Arts Publishing. The first single Prancing Pearl/Mother’s Ruin were released on the Stitch-Stitch label based in Bristol and showed a far more band-oriented approach to songwriting.

I’m not sure if they are still going. As you see, they’ve been around for such a long time, and I didn’t have a clue. I thought back in 2008 they were kind of newish. But that wasn’t the case clearly. If you head to their bandcamp you’ll notice that there are recordings from 2003 all the way to 2011. All of the songs seem to be available for free download.

Something to check out is that they made some videos too. Seems they made two, “Meanwhile Gardens” and “True to the Trail”, though sadly the links seem to point to the same video, the “Meanwhile Gardens” one.

Also there are a bunch of links to live gigs.

For me the recordings that you can’t miss are the ones called 2009 EP. These are their best songs for me. They are top! This is the sound I remember loving, the songs I wanted to release. I’m happy that eventually someone put their songs out. Shame it wasn’t the whole EP, there 7″ could have easily have included “Shipping Forecast” and “Loofah Mitt”, as they are just fantastic!

I read a comment around saying that Stuart Murdoch was a fan. I can see that. There’s some sort of Belle & Sebastian influence, sure. But I think the band that reminds me more to them is another band I used to love back in 2004 like Tales of Jenny (who probably deserve a post in this blog), or even the later Zoey Van Goey, with their boy-girl vocals. You know, beautifully crafted melodies, crispy guitars, sort of folkish and literate lyrics, subtle keyboard arrangements, and sing-a-long choruses. Just beautiful!

But back to their biography, it says that they released two albums already and were working on a third. So the question is, where can one get the first two albums? And was their third album ever released? I wonder whatever happened to them. It’s surprising they didn’t become a well known name in indiepop, that they never played Indietracks or any Popfest. The songwriting quality was just brilliant. It’s a shame most of my friends don’t know it. Hopefully this little blog post makes them some justice.

A public address system (PA system) is an electronic sound amplification and distribution system with a microphone, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to allow a person to address a large public, for example for announcements of movements at large and noisy air and rail terminals.

So this is definitely not a public address. No sound here. But here we I am, ranting, wondering, and discovering new sounds. The usual. What’s been going on since last week? Of course, I need to give everyone an update. That’s how I proselytize here. Trying to convert everyone into indiepop militants against the hate of the Shoreditch hipsters. Kidding. Anyhow…

On the Cloudberry page I’ve added a pre-order button for The Rileys retrospective. I’m hoping to send to press the record by early November, so it’s out by Christmas time. That’s the plan. There’s also a new 7″ that will be released pretty soon by Spanish band Lost Tapes. On Tuesday check the website as well as the Cloudberry facebook page as there will be announcements there. There will be a video for the A side “War in the Netherlands”, as well as a downloadable MP3, and the beautiful artwork made by Marta Llumbart Jambert.

Last weekend I got to see The History of Apple Pie on Friday at The Living Room in Manhattan and Joanna Gruesome at Baby’s All Right on Saturday in Brooklyn. I got to chat with both bands, and I was happy to see them giddy about playing in New York. Both bands told me that the crowds here had been very good and very into them. I’m always skeptical about this of course, because usually indiepop shows in New York only gather 10 or 15 fans at the most, but I guess, because they were part of the CMJ thingie, and the lineups were quite mixed in musical styles, they got some new listeners and fans.I was especially surprised by Joanna Gruesome’s crowd. I saw people pogo. Dance. And some even knew the songs. That’s surprising as their album is pretty recent. When was it released? A month ago? Also I was thrilled by their new vocalist. I had seen them before at Indietracks, and I remember someone different. I had read too that Lan had been part of Evans the Death but when I saw them, she wasn’t there either. So that was all new. And she was a great front woman I have to say. Great addition to the band, she brought a lot of energy, excitement, and attitude. The terrible part of the gig was that we had to wait for like 40 minutes because they were missing an amp. Gladly Mr. Fortuna Pop was around, being a fantastic roadie, and fixed the whole situation. It was really heartwarming to see Sean -Fortuna Pop- taking care of the band like a true manager, taking care of every detail.

About The History of Apple Pie I was really surprised they never saw the girl behind Cool in a Crisis, that defunct label that put out their first tape, a split with Sweater Girls, a bunch of years ago. She lives in NYC. I guess, I was quite right that it was just a fad. There were a bunch of hipsters that jumped into the indiepop bandwagon around 2008-2010. Of course, I was told that I was mean and hateful and all those things. But hey, you know, time proved me right. The band has a new 7″, that I’ve really enjoyed, and they sound much better than the first time I saw them, at the London Popfest of 2011 I believe. I still have their setlist of that gig somewhere. I still think “Mallory”, their first single, has to become an indiepop classic in the near future.

And that’s how my indiepop week ended. I took some “groupie photos” with the bands and that was it. Now I don’t see any exciting gigs coming up. I guess it will be pretty quiet until NYC Popfest. Saving energy until then.

Talking about saving energy, next weekend I’m going to the Catskills, to a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere just to relax and drink with a bunch of friends. It looks pretty exciting. The owner of the cabin told us to beware of leaving food out as bears can show up. I doubt I’ll be hiking, though my friends seem to be keen on that idea. For me the plan will be to disconnect. Barely be online. Get to play some board games, or card games. Drink. Maybe visit Woodstock. Something like that. A relaxing weekend. Okay, this is more like replenishing energy. But it works, right?

Oh! and before I forget, on Plastilina we have a new release coming up, a co-release with Fortuna Pop. It’s Cocoanut Groove’s new album “How To Build a Maze”. You can pre-order the CD from the Plastilina website already. It will start shipping not later than November 15th!

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Lately I’ve been in touch with a great Portuguese indiepop fan, Joel. He has sent me and introduced me to a thousand new bands. All of them obscure, exciting, jangly, the kind that I like. Some of these bands he had shown me I knew by name, others I’ve heard one song, and others were totally new. I’m very grateful to him for it. Today I’ll try to solve the mystery of one of these bands, a band I had heard one song “James Dean” on Youtube ages ago, and that thanks to Joel I heard the B side, and eventually made me curious enough to track some more songs of them online.

So, let’s start this way. Head to ReverbNation. Here you’ll find 7 songs by Public Address. These are “James Dean”, “Why Does My Heart Ache” , “Goodbye From Her (demo)”, “Can You Hear Me Now? (demo)”, “She Don’t Remember (live)”, “Katherine’s Kite (live)” and  “Rescue (live)”. The first two were part of the one and only 7″ they released.

Of course, this is not the first James Dean song by an indiepop band. From the top of my head I can think of the one by James Dean Driving Experience, “Dean’s Eleventh Dream”, and My Favorite’s “James Dean (Awaiting Ambulance)”. But this one is truly great too! Could have been a classic if more people knew about it. Great jangly guitars, great melody, great lyrics, great vocals, great everything! Just the kind of pop I love here in Cloudberry!

According to the ReverbNation page we know that the band was around 1985 and 1987. The only other piece of information is that they came from Worksop. Strange, as usually bands fill in their band members, and some bio, on these sort of pages. But hey, I took this job as a detective, so let’s keep digging.

Worksop is the largest town in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England, on the River Ryton at the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. It is about 15 miles (24 km) east-south-east of the City of Sheffield and its population is estimated (mid-2004) to be 39,800. Worksop is included in the Sheffield City Region of England. It is also twinned with the German town Garbsen.  Worksop is known as the “Gateway to the Dukeries”, so called for the number of ducal residences in the area.Sherwood Forest. I’ve always wanted to go there. I always liked Robin Hood you know. I’ve been close. In Nottingham, but never for more than a couple of hours. The longest was that time with Nana and Andreas when we were given a tour of the city council. What a fun day that was.

The record doesn’t seem to be listed on Discogs. But I found it on 45cat. There are scans for the sleeve and the labels. And so we learn that the band was formed by:
Derron Rafter – Drums
Stuart Smith – Lead Guitar
Glenn Day – Bass
John O’Sullivan – Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
Mick Ellison – Keyboards

The two songs on the 7″ were recorded and mixed at Input Studios, on December 1986. It was produced and arranged by Public Address. Engineered and mixed by Nick Wild.

The label that put it out was called The Fabled Stable Records. It was released in 1987 and the catalog number is SLS 101. I assume this was the first and last release by this label. Most probably a self-release.The credits for the songs are quite simple. “James Dean” was written by John O’Sullivan, while “Heartache” was written by Public Address. And this is were I hit a wall. I keep googling but nothing else shows up.So this is the time when I ask you people out there. Do you know anything else about this band? If you ever saw them live? If you happen to have any spare copies of this record? I’ve never seen it on eBay, and only seems to be listed once on Popsike.Please, help solve the mystery. This is a Public Address.

If you are familiar with the blog, you might have noticed that there are like two or three album reviews. That’s not many. I don’t usually like to review albums. It requires me to become a bit more scientific when listening to music, use stupid words, and get myself in the same league as a lot of morons out there that write a lot of bullshit. I prefer to avoid that, I don’t want to be an album reviewer. But, sometimes, some albums come by, and they are just fascinating, and those times, which are few, I think, “most people” need to hear this. I’ll try then to convince you that Los Directivos only release ever is worth your time.

“Por amor y jerarquía” can be translated as “For love and class” or maybe as “Because of love and class”. Either or, it works. That’s how Los Directivos only album, and only release so far, is named. The terrible part is that it was released in 2010 and it has slipped from everyone’s best of lists since then.

Well, here I am, not trying to make justice, because the CD makes itself justice by painting the Spanish society with such honest music. I can’t remember the last time I felt a record expressed so clearly, so sincerely, the whole idiosyncrasy of a generation. A generation of Spanish people, that we know, are not having it easy in their own country. We read about that in the news all the time. But there’s something intrinsically interesting about it, about the Spanish culture, that even in the worst times they are able to laugh about their misery. And I think this is where the record excels, in their lyrics. And of course, it’s no surprise that that is the case. I’ll tell you why.

I wasn’t aware of this record until earlier this year. It all happened while I was visiting Madrid Popfest. One of the bands playing and that I was actually looking forward to see after a lot of correspondence and after working together, was Los Lagos de Hinault. Those who aren’t familiar with this fantastic Spanish band would know that they released a split mini-CD with Cloudberry, and then an album and a split 7″ with El Faro on Fikasound. As I’ve written before on the blog, their show was among the best of the festival. I love every bit of it. It was even great to see people singing along to some of their songs. Because their lyrics are fantastic as well.

Make the connection. Carlos Ynduráin, is part of both bands. But of course I haven’t heard of Los Directivos yet. I didn’t  have a clue they existed. I did know about Portonovo, Carlos’ previous band, who released a soon-to-be-classic album on Jabalina many years ago. That record I did buy on the time it came out. But as most of the times I find about things through friends, through recommendations. It’s funny though that some people say silly things that they can’t recommend me anything, that I will probably know it or that I would hate it. You can’t imagine how I love good recommendations and even better when they have people that make music with class and love. It was like that that I learned of the existence of Los Lagos de Hinault, through one of the most passionate fanzines in recent history, Aplasta tus Gafas de Pasta. How did I learn from Los Directivos? From the one and only, the incomparable, the most interesting (as well as the loudest!) person in the Madrid pop scene: Miguel Stamp.

Next year I admit I will miss seeing him at Madrid Popfest -because I’m not going, he most probably is- but the thing is if you meet Miguel you better listen carefully to everything he recommends. Because it will be a lot. Also, he will dislike every single band you have released on Cloudberry. Well not all. But a bunch. And also many of the ones playing at the festival. Fair enough. I’m the same. I like people that are not afraid of calling things by their name. And Miguel is like that. And Carlos is like that. I can tell. Funny thing, I was telling Miguel after Los Lagos de Hinault show that I really loved their show, and he immediately asked me: “Have you heard Los Directivos, Carlos’ other band? son la ostia“. I had no clue. He said that I had to listen to their album, that it was by far one of the best records released in Spain in the last decade. So, let’s find Carlos in the Sala Siroco and ask about it.

Sadly Carlos didn’t have any copies with him during the festival. But he promised me to mail me one soon. That was March and I still had some time left in Europe, visiting after Spain, Estonia and Sweden. Good times. Celebrating my birthday. So I kind of forgot for a bit. One day though, when I was already back in the big apple, I received a yellow envelope stamped by Correos de España, and it doesn’t require much effort to guess, it was Los Directivos album.

Of course on the album his name is not listed. On the band photo his face is covered. The same as his bandmate. Their names are listed as Claudio McKinsey and Iñaki Andersen. Clearly those are not their original names. I still don’t know the name of the other half of Los Directivos. There is some interesting facts on the credits. The album was recorded and mixed during the months of January and March in 2010 at three studios: GDM, Vilanova and La Geltrú, in Barcelona. It was produced by David Rodríguez. Mixed and mastered by Pere Serrano.

The credits are as follow:
Claudio McKinsey: vocals
Iñaki Andersen – bass, drums, keyboards, synths, and backing vocals
Ana Fernández Villaverde – backing vocals
David Rodríguez – guitars, backing vocals and some keyboards
Don Pimpón – drums and percussion

Of course, for those who follow the Spanish indie scene will find Ana Fernández Villaverde a familiar name, that’s because she is kind of famous under the moniker La Bien Querida, releasing a bunch of albums on the Elefant label.

From the day I received the album and on, for at least two weeks I listened to it non-stop on my cd player. Maybe for you two weeks is nothing. But for me, that I’m listening new albums ever single day, and changing the CD from the portable player after 3 days after it’s first play in average, two weeks is a very long time. I’m 100% sure that I haven’t listened a record this year more than this one. It would definitely go to the end of year list if it wouldn’t have been released 3 years ago!

It’s a big shame that a lot of people will get turned off because the album is in Spanish. Not understanding the lyrics is not the best situation, I agree. But for all the other people, that do get the charm and the intelligence behind them, well, we only can feel the awe for such great penmanship. It may also  have to do that it is a record done by 30 year old guys telling their experience as 30 year olds. And I’m reaching that age, and I feel it talks to me. I happen to identify myself with so many of the situations that appear as little vignettes on the 12 tracks of this album released by Islam Records.

I’m fast forwarding to song number 7, “La Tortura” (the torture). This song could be a hymn against the hipsters perhaps, claiming with a line that says “in my times, this didn’t happen, indie was indie and the rest was the rest”. This is the torture about bands like Beach Fossils or Craft Spells, who I would clearly put them in the “Rest” pile. But of course, not every one out there is wise enough.

Rewind to track 5, “Rojo y Nieve”. This is the straight jab to Spain’s face. With another fantastic line, “love in Spain doesn’t shine in red and yellow, it shines in reds (communists) and bitches” (of course in Spanish it rhymes with brilliance!), they claim a new decadence in Spanish society even mentioning that in places like Switzerland and Austria are civilized countries, unlike their own Spain.

For me, the beauty of the album is discovering and rediscovering the lyrics. They are captivating. They are smart.

You’ll ask me then, what about the music. The music is great! It’s a mix of guitars and drum machines. Some effects here and there. Nicely produced. It’s a beautiful marriage of brilliant songwriting and musicianship! There’s black humor, there’s bright ideas, there’s this thing that not many albums give you. It leaves you thinking. It leaves you trying to solve and understand what inspired the band to write it. You know this is just not play entertainment, this is not music to go out dancing. There’s a commentary here. This is deeper than your regular ukulele indiepop album. This has guts. It has passion of course too.

One can also wonder if this album is just full of cynicism . And the answer for many will be probably yes. There’s this defeatist sort of vibe in the songs. But for me it works in the opposite way. It points out what’s wrong, it makes fun of it, and tries to open our eyes to what’s happening out there. It doesn’t ask anyone to change, because that’s not what it is about, that’s not their job. It is for us to understand, to make the change.

If you want to laugh, if you want to wonder, if you want to have a record on repeat, I urge you to discover Los Directivos. I’m not sure where to buy their record, but they do have a Bandcamp. You can of course stream the album there, but way better is to really own it, don’t you agree?

This is the proper Spanish indiepop, the one that has taken the cue from the La Movida in the 80s, mixed with the C86 vibe. The real indiepop, the one that sadly Elefant has obscured with all their 60s happy-go-lucky stuff (aside from some exceptions of course!). I wish there were more bands like Los Directivos. In the meantime, we can look forward to Los Lagos de Hinault next album.

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Listen
Los Directivos – Rojo y Nieve

How is the state of indiepop today? That’s the first question I ask myself every time I sit down to write a blog post. A lot of times, like today, I have absolutely no clue aside from some bits and pieces that I get from Facebook. Like the Berlin Popfest this past weekend. I would have loved to be there, but I couldn’t afford it nor I had any more vacations days to get myself to the German capital. I saw on Youtube, with the happiest smile, how Amanda from Alpaca Sports joined The Brilliant Corners to sing “Why Do You Have To Go Out With Him…”, what a treat the popfesters enjoyed!

So I wasn’t there. I was in Providence, Rhode Island, this past weekend. I went on a road trip with three of my New York friends. It was quite a nice adventure, with almost perfect weather. I was impressed by how young this city feels. I barely saw people over 30 years old I think. The town revolved and was catered for the Brown University and Rhode Island School of design students. It must be great to have an education in a town like this. Party after party. Not surprisingly we ended up crashing a house party on Saturday night. That was fun. Sadly what matters the most in this world, record shopping (kidding!), was a total failure there. Visited two record stores and found perhaps 4 or 5 7″s I would have bought, indiepop records, if they weren’t over $5. Come on. The Hope flexi for $20? I got that one for like a pound in London.

Here in NYC we have CMJ around the corner too and some bands are coming to town. I know I will check out Joanna Gruesome, a band many of my hardcore indiepop friends don’t like, on Friday 18th’s night. I think they are alright! Not the bee’s knees probably or deserving too much hype, but quite a nice band, fun to listen and who have a bunch of catchy tunes. I missed them a year ago at Indietracks for a reason I don’t remember, probably watching another band, so will check them at 285 Kent, the venue with the worst restrooms in Brooklyn. Then on Saturday 19th I will see for the second time, after London Popfest 2011, The History of Apple Pie. To be 100% honest I haven’t followed them in the last couple of years. Especially because their records cost crazy money to purchase from the US. Anyhow, I just love their song “Mallory”, so that’s good enough for me to check them out this weekend. Hope they have more tunes like that!
Everyone is raving these days about The Proctors CD. I still haven’t gotten it, so I can’t rave about it. Hopefully I’ll get it from Ed the next time he visits NYC. What I have been planning though is a new European trip for next year. Around Easter I want to do this sort of trip, Paris-Oslo-Gothenburg-Uppsala-Stockholm. Though there’s a chance I do Barcelona instead of Paris. I’m still in early stages of planning. It doesn’t come out as a very expensive trip though to my surprise and I’ll get to see some new cities, meet friends I haven’t seen in years, and visit one of the places that always makes me happy, Stockholm.

That’s more or less where my state of indiepop is right now. Not that much happening but not totally dead like the revamped indiepop list seems now. I guess the excitement only lasted for a week or too. On the Cloudberry side of the spectrum things are very quiet after the two 7″ releases last month. These days it’s all about raising money for The Rileys CD. The art has been finished and approved so we are very ready. I should start working on a new fanzine too, for next year. What colour should it be? That’s always the interesting question.

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“Genius ! from 1987 the brilliant Fish Hildas single on Fish Disc Reputedly the worst selling single via Rough Trade/Cartel (that can’t be so!) …rumour has it The Stingrays may know more !”

That’s the legend on the Youtube link to The Fish Hildas’ “How I Itch To Stitch My Pitch” song. The A side of their one and only 7″.

A comment then appears on the Youtube link:

“I’m married to the drummer. She played it to me on our first date and it blew my head off completely. It sounded (and still does) to me like it should have come from around 1981. It’s got that lo-fi Postcard/early Teardrops vibe. Among a bunch of great lost 80s indiepop singles this is right on top of the pile. I’m glad I’ve got the drummer. Thanks for posting.”

And then the uploader replies:
“EXCELLENT NEWS ! Yes it certainly sounds more post-punk than proto-indie ! I was working for Rough Trade in the late 80s and a colleague flagged it up for me…blew my tiny mind wide open too ! It’s got a lot of fans around my friends. Give her my best wishes, Cheers !”

How I ended there, I can’t remember. It was a couple of weeks ago. I was lucky enough that a Dutch seller on Discogs had this record listed, and bought it immediately as it seemed the right thing to do. It wasn’t listed in any Popsike listings, or musicstack, or eBay. So perhaps it was really rare, so paying $11 for it plus postage didn’t hurt too much.

I liked the song. That is pretty obvious. It’s one of those indiepop tunes that sound like proto-indie (here I disagree with the uploader!). A tune that could have sat nicely in those Messthetics comps. It has those rough edges, with fun and poppy music, and dislocated vocals. It’s a rarity.

Where did they get their name from? That I don’t have a clue either. But it may have to do with this?
“The name Hilda (Pronounced: HIL-də) is originally a short form of names containing the Germanic element “hild” (battle). And the meaning of Hilda is “battle woman”. It was used for both English and continental Germanic names. The name became rare in England during the later Middle Ages, but was revived in the 19th century.”

I do know though that the record was released in 1987 on their own FishDisc label (catalog F1) and the B side for this 7″ was “Big Fat Gun”. And both songs are credited to a Felix.

I keep digging and I stumble with issue 13 of the Underground magazine that was published in April 1988. That one with The Flatmates on the cover. On this mag there is a small review of the record and I read it out loud:
“MYSTERIOUS FISH
So, who are The Fish Hildas, and where did their record come from? This mysterious seven incher, “How I Itch To Stitch My Pitch”, sounds like a wide-eyed Kerouac crooning over a Spike Jones jazz track. It’s strange  and no mistake and if seen should be grabbed and cherished.”

And then I suddenly find a worthy clue. I find Bongo Debbie’s old Myspace page. There she states that she was once part of this band. That’s the first name I see linked to the Fish Hildas. The cool thing is she has been involved in so so so so many bands during the years that I hope one day she might tell the story about this rare 7″! Among those bands you can definitely mention Creation’s own The X-Men, The Armitage Shanks, The Earls of Suave, The A-Lines, Baby Birkin, The Dutronc, Buffets, Thee Headcoatees, and MOST importantly my beloved Would-Be-Goods.

So there’s that. Who were the rest of The Fish Hildas? Was it really the worst selling 7″ in Rough Trade history? Did they record more songs? Did they play any gigs? So many questions then, waiting to be answered!

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Listen
The Fish Hildas – How I Itch to Stitch My Pitch

Last week I counted the amount of posts left for this year, not counting interviews. That’s 12 more posts including this one. I assume it will be 11 as I will be away for a week in November. So 10 more after this. I wonder then if this has been my most prolific year as a blogger. I ask myself too if people still consider themselves bloggers. Are there many blogs left? I feel many bloggers these day feel more like columnists, working for newspapers, magazines and such in their digital platforms. I saw though in the last couple of days the return of a favourite blog of mine though, 7 Pulgadas. When did his blog start? 2004? A long run from Alex, right? After a long standby as most of his records were in boxes thanks a very long move between houses in Madrid he is back. And it makes me happy that there are people who care about sharing their indiepop knowledge in the world, who respect bands and artists and who get involved in making this scene a better one. People who know Alex know that all of what I’m saying is true, not just because of his blog, that’s certain, but also from being part of the great Madrid Popfest, a regular indiepop festival attendee, and a good friend.

I started blogging in 2004 too. I had a Spanish language blog called Mira el Péndulo. The name came from a song by a Spanish band I was really in love then, El Niño Gusano. I still like them, but perhaps not as much. I started to blog inspired by the Indie-MP3 blog that was pretty popular then. That one was Tom’s blog. It closed some years ago and I wrote a big blog post about it I remember. As I was saying, I was inspired by it because they would offer an Mp3 from some new-ish band, or sometimes even an old classic band, with a link to their Myspace or to their website, and a little review. I thought that was the perfect format to introduce a band. And so I set up a blogspot, even with the same design and look as Indie-Mp3, and started blogging in Spanish because at that time there was nothing like it in my native language.

That’s the time when I discovered a couple of like-minded bloggers, all of them based in Spain. Their format varied, some wrote longer pieces, some shorter. Some wrote about old bands, some about gigs. Some preferred sharing many songs, some not even one song. But we all read each other, we all respected each other, and so a little community of indiepop bloggers was born. It’s funny that after many years I have actually met many of them, especially three that I always love to see at festivals together. That’s Alex of course, Manolo and Javi. Manolo had one of the best blogs in my opinion when it came to reviews of albums. His posts were long and he never shared an Mp3.  The blog was called 360 Grados de Separación. It is still online but he hasn’t updated much in recent times. He is missed. Javi in the other hand, the biggest Go-Betweens fan in the world, had his blog Lost and Found where he introduced to all his readers, this time in English, lots of obscure indiepop gems from the 80s. It was him, and of course the Leamington Spa series, that influenced me on what to recommend and showcase in this blog. Because, for new bands, there are TONS of other blogs and pages.

Then of course Mira el Péndulo was hacked by who knows who. The wordpress was hacked and there was no way to bring all posts back. Everything was lost. Not just what I wrote but also what my collaborators wrote. Because at some point I shared my blog with other friends that wanted to write some indiepop related posts. I remember Romina, from Argentina, that would correct my terrible grammar and write amazing posts about the sweetest sounding bands. Then there was JC, from Chile, who wrote smart posts that questioned the established taste of indiepop kids. One of my best friends José Emanuel, who I had a band with once and who was lately in Eva & John, wrote a bunch of posts about very weird and quirky indiepop bands. Then also Carlitos, from Peru and Eva & John, wrote a bunch of posts of the tweest kind. All those posts lots. I didn’t know what to tell them. I felt ashamed. I should have kept a backup, but I didn’t. I believe that’s the moment where I stopped believing in digital formats. That’s when I knew an MP3 collection was nothing, not even dust, it was nothing. Because all these things don’t really exist.

After a year without blogging I came back in 2008 with this blog, and then the rest is history. This is of course the longest blogging career I’ve had. As a Cloudberry cake chef. I didn’t think this was going to last this long. I came back because I was bored but what I was reading and because I couldn’t find any information about the bands I wanted to read about. Those days I was very close to my friend Emma. I thank her for pushing me to write again. She insisted I had to do it, and she even used to help me in writing interview questions. There’s one that is a favourite of mine, to the band Pink Noise. She wrote all the questions. It’s quite whack. She also answered all the questions a fanzine sent me as a Cloudberry interview. The questions were so boring, the usual questions people ask, so I let her be wild with her imagination. I think the Twee As Fuck crowd weren’t pleased with those answers about monkeys and razor-blade vinyl records. But well, that’s another story.

Anyhow, the thing is that I started blogging in Cloudberry Cake Proselytism in October 2008. It’s October 2013. That’s 5 years, right? Well, Happy Birthday to Me!!

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Have you ever heard The Candy Dates? Probably not. But they have an album that is a gem of indiepop. Fun, bright, smart, bouncy, and a treat to the ears. Sure, some of you might say they remind one to Throw That Beat in the Garbagecan!! And that might be true, these fellow Germans have that same taste for great pop music. But who cares, the Candy Dates are great in their own league and I recommend you getting their album Yep! that was released in both LP and CD. And trust me, it’s not that hard to track down!

The CD version was a sole release of Twang! Records (catalog TCD 5899) while the LP was a joint release between Twang! and Semaphore (catalog 27 777). I believe Semaphore was a Dutch label with an office in Germany also. Twang! was definitely a German label and had some nice releases.

The tracklist was:

1 Downtown Park
2 Six Tambourines
3 Big Big Kiss
4 Happy Hills
5 My Absolute Favourite Girl
6 Honey
7 Marlene
8 Top Ten Idol
9 Sophisticated
10 Brian On The Roof

The CD has an eleventh track, but it’s a 2 second one. So don’t worry about it! It’s a hidden track. Both the album and LP were separated in half, the first five songs were under the side called Cake One, and the last five songs were in Cake Two.

The album was produced by Andi Jezussek who was in a band called Breeder I believe.

The Candy Dates were formed by Gunnar Berndorf on vocals, drums and tambourines, Tobi Friedrich on vocals and guitar, Jockel Staron on vocals and guitar, and Lothi Berndorff on vocals and bass.

The band, as the label, were based in Berlin. The record was released in 1992 and the artwork reminiscing Roy Liechtenstein was made by the band themselves with help from Pat on Riesen for the layout. The photo of the band on the back cover was thanks to Frank Wegener.

There are some thank you notes on the CD. It says:

Thank You:
Robyn Wills, Andy, Frank, Pat, Manu & Uwe, Daniel Sprock, Herr Hanich, Hopek, Ralf Bieneck (DT 64), Antje Tiemeyer (RRB), Malum, Peter Perett, Raymond D. Davies, Joe Nolte.

Cool thing on the CD is something a lot of people are missing these days. All lyrics printed so one can sing along!

But let’s get back to that Thank You list. Is Uwe the Uwe from Firestation records? Probably but probably not. But Herr Hanich. That one we know. That’s Matthias Hanich who was also in Angry Flowers and later in the Groovy Cellar. But most importantly Matthias Hanich had been in a band with Gunnar Berndorf in the mid 80s. Yes! In 1984 they had been together in a band called The Artpress.

A little bio found on Facebook says:

The Artpress, whose melodic and beautifully constructed power pop made the band an instant success in Lower Saxony and other parts of Europe, released their one and only piece of vinyl under a long term deal with Worldcup Records in 1988(?). Due to management and distribution problems the single entitled “Mystery Girl“ c/w “Get Smart“ only reached 101 in the pop charts. Both numbers are up-tempo, guitar-fuelled with a wonderful 60s mod feel. This is your second chance – so don’t miss it.

They were based in Göttingen and the band members were: Harald Fischer, Matthias Hanich, Gunnar Berndorff, Ronald Kruschak
(Carsten Richter, Ralf Fricke, Jörg Waltje).

I also tracked down that Tobias Friedrich had a band afterwards called Viktoriapark who released an album in 2008 called “Was Ist Schon 1 Jahr?” and also another album called “In Teufels Küche”.

I also found out that Gunnar wrote a book along two other authors, Barbara Berndorff and Knut Eigler. This book is called Musikrecht and shame on me that I don’t know much German so I cant tell what it is about!

And that’s about all I could find about this fantastic band, that I don’t know much about, but did record this one fantastic album! I really recommend tracking it down if you can. And if you know anything else about them, if you ever saw them playing live, if you happen to have any more unreleased songs or anything, please share. There’s a nice comment section right here!

Edit: Andreas again comes to the rescue with some new insights:
Regarding your blog entry for The Candy Dates (and The Artpress), Gunnar Berndorff is also the drummer for The Groovy Cellar who’ll play Berlin Popfest on Saturday (and whom, along with Most Wanted Men, I’ve put on as supports both in Berlin and Hamburg in the past). He’s actually a colleague, i. e. a lawyer, and “Musikrecht” translates into “music law” (part of media law). A very nice guy, too.

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Listen
Candy Dates – Six Tambourines

Almost October now. This year has gone so fast! There are no more festivals left for me, though I know some of you will be heading to Berlin Popfest, the last stop of indiepop vacations this year. How I wish I could join you!

Today I finished sending all pre-orders of the Boyish 7″, three days before the release date. Now onto emailing all the mailorders, tell them I have a fantastic new record out. I feel by next week things will get a bit calmer as I still need to order all the boxes, inserts and polybags, put them together and then store them. These things take time, especially as I have the new Pro Evolution Soccer, which is taking me quite some time at nights, after work.

Next weekend I’ll be heading to Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve never been, and I’m just going to check out. Seems like a nice, little, quaint town. What to do? I’m open for suggestions. I’ll just be there for Saturday and Sunday. Need to check if there are any good record stores. From the top of my head, Small Factory were from there, right?

Indiepop-wise New York is quiet. Aside from a future meeting with Shelflife boss who is visiting town, I feel the city doesn’t offer what London offers to indiepop people. I get terribly jealous all the time. I did buy tickets to see My Bloody Valentine, $70. Yes, plus all those crazy fees (one is called convenience fee) then it was like $80. I guess I convinced myself that I have to see them live once, at least. Before they die (?).

The indiepop-list is back, and after a few hiccups (like a silly issue with the illustration used on the website) it’s up and running smoothly. I even posted three replies to it in a single day. I don’t remember replying to threads so many times in the past. So that’s quite an achievement. Of course my friend Mr. Hyde Murphy was cheeky like always, and questions the $7 price for the 3″CDs at Cloudberry. Though explained over and over, and with facts, in this blog, breaking down the price, the guy is still clueless. But what to do, some people are not good at maths or the real world.

I do want to recommend a book this time on the blog. It’s been out for some years now but I only knew about it after Henrik from Twig recommended me the documentary about it. The book is called “Last Shop Standing” and it’s written by Graham Jones. It was such a refreshing read, with lots of anecdotes about the music industry. On top of it all there’s a chapter about The Cherry Boys, yes, the ones that wrote Kardomah Café. So Graham was their manager, so he tells the whole story about them and also some tidbits about the band that followed, Exhibit B. Both great bands, both great guitar pop bands that I always enjoyed. So that was quite a treat! Also in the book Graham discusses lots of issues about the “industry” like MP3s for example. I tend to agree with all his views. I love that these kind of views about how great physical records are actually get published. We do need to make a stand!

And the other discovery this past week was a compilation by Said Liquidator that I found on Discogs. I didn’t have a clue that it existed but it’s a 2 CD compilation with all their recordings, even live recordings. It seems it’s only a 200 copy release so better head there before it sells out. Really enjoying it as I only knew the fab “Third Man” and “Say What You Feel”. I especially love their “Liquidator Jingle” song. Maybe I should try to track them down for an interview!

Other good releases of late are the new Proctors album and the Go Violets EP. I don’t own these yet, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will. Today I’m listening once again to the Homecomings “Homecoming with Me?” album on Second Royal. It’s so ace. The Japanese seem to be making a stir in the indiepop scene now. Lots of great new young bands springing from out of nowhere in the streets of Tokyo and beyond!

And I know, you are wondering when The Rileys album will be out. Well next week I hope to tackle the artwork, it’s very close to be finished and after that I’ll send it to press. Sorry it’s taken a bit too long but you know it’s only me running the whole thing and with two new releases this month I’ve been swamped!

But hey! Let’s move onto our very obscure band of the week!

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The Herbs. I’m sure you know The Raw Herbs. But The Herbs? I didn’t use to know them until many months ago I found them through that great blog that is From a Northern Place. A blog that though lacking writeups (wish they had some!) offers a track from an obscure record, and drives me into hours and hours of indiepop investigation!

With The Herbs though I hit a wall quite fast. I couldn’t find anything really. Even Rupert at Turntable Revolution wonders about them back in 2010.

So I’ll tell you what I gather from my little detective work.

The 7″ EP was released by a label called Andy Harper Records. Did Andy Harper had a big ego? Or maybe he was one of the nicest patrons? Or even perhaps he was part of the band? We don’t know. There is no catalog number though so it’s fair to assume this was the one and only release in the label.

The record included four songs. On the A side we had “New York Nightmare” and “U Boat”, whereas on the B side “Strum City” and “One Down and 2 To Go, This City Sure has Sold It’s Soul”. That last one has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

I live in New York, so I’m pretty curious about the first track. So if anyone could share it with me?

The record was recorded in 1990 at Tony’s during the month of March and April. The cover photograph was taken by Graham Buckerfield. With all those palm trees and the 4×4 on the street I would dare to guess it’s been taken in Los Angeles. Definitely not New York.

You might think this record was American with all these nods, but this sounds totally British. The three first songs are credited to someone with a last name Healey. The last song is credited to Healey/Russell.

And that’s it. I hit a wall. Sure, 45rpm is the speed of the record if you care much for that. I do. Sometimes.

I don’t own this 7″ and it seems it hasn’t popped up much on eBay. It’s not even listed on Discogs. But I would love to have it, or at least listen to it in it’s entirety! I also wonder if they had more songs. If they fitted 4 songs on a 7″ something tells me they did have many more songs recorded.  Also, where were they from? Did they play many gigs? I would love to know more about them! If anyone out there knows more let me know!

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Listen
The Herbs – Strum City

Welcome to another exciting blog post at the most amazing indiepop blog of the galaxy. What do we offer you? The latest reviews of the latest MP3s of the coolest labels that will link us to their facebook page. Some years ago we used to receive some free physical records from labels but these days we are so content with an MP3 and a mention. We’ll copy/paste some press release. In a best case scenario, if we are feeling terribly excited about your music we’ll write some lines about your band telling how original you are but at the same time mentioning four or five influences we think you have so it’s easier for people to try and download you and them at the torrents and p2p secret networks. Why not, that’s the future isn’t it?

What’s new? We have two new releases for you. Because Cloudberry living now at the city that never sleeps, well, we don’t sleep either. This month we come with two new 7″s, one by Greek, by way of Edinburgh-Scotland, band The Occasional Flickers and Tokyo’s Boyish. I’ve talked a bunch about both bands and both records in the blog so I’ll spare you about that this time. The important news is that you can order them both right now and I’ll ship them to you immediately. The official release date for the Flickers was the 15th and for Boyish the 30th, but they are already at home waiting to be sent to a new home.

This week I received the last Kill People You Like fanzine. You can see some photos of how gorgeous it is here. Not much on it written, but design-wise, passion-wise, and craftmanship-wise, this is a must have. Included two is a unmissable CD with lots of great tracks, many of them exclusive to this release. Among my favourites on the CD are the Flowers and Eva & John songs. Also there’s a mini-zine I wrote for them that for some reason I wrote in Spanish. I thought as the people behind the fanzine were Mexican, well I better write it in Spanish. They were so kind though to save me the trouble and they translated the whole thing for me before publishing! At the time I’m writing this the zine might be already sold out but I believe some mailorders may have some copies (?).

New York now is a bit quieter after the demise of Dominican indiepop stalwarts Franny & Zooey. It’s been a bunch of months that I’ve had a share of indiepop in the city, going to many venues just following this quintet. Yesterday JJ, the guitar player, left for Santo Domingo until probably next year, so no indiepop for us in the city for a while. Their last show happened on Wednesday and it was quite a success even though the venue, The Flat, behaved really like assholes. And not only was their lack of help but their crazy prices for beers. I’ve never seen a place selling a Bud for $6. Not even in Manhattan. The good news about this gig was that it was the American debut of Astrid’s Northern Spies. If you read the blog now and then you’d know that she comes from Sweden and played at one of the train shows at Indietracks. This time she was a little less talkative (fair enough there were less people as she was opening at 8:00pm), but again she dazzled us with her amazing voice. It’s always a treat to listen to her songs. I was very happy to have skipped everything I had to do this day just to be able to be on time.

But before I stop writing this “short” post in a very busy week, I want to salute team Indietracks for announcing that the festival will be back next year!! Yes! So July 25 to the 27. Have you marked your calendars? I hope so. I plan going for my fifth year in a row. This time I will go back to the Alfreton Travelodge, like the first two years! Back to that seedy Little Chef for breakfast, to that picnic table at the entrance to share wine with Andreas and Nana, to have beers there with the French and the Swedes. Exciting times ahead! Book your hotels soon because it seems all prices are going up! I got a double room for 96 pounds. These days it seems they are going for 130 pounds or so. The Premier Inns are going crazy and charging almost 300 pounds for their Ripley location. What will you do? I hope you don’t end up camping!

The important thing is, you better come! And which bands will play? No announcements yet, but if I’m allow to guess the obvious, I think The Flatmates will play, don’t you think?

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Today I fly all the way to Australia. Where exactly? I don’t know. Or to be more exact, I don’t remember as I was once in touch with Kieren Fitzpatrick from the band but those were the days of Myspace and well, all that correspondence between us is lost in the midst of a Myspace inbox.

It was back in 2009 when I contacted him trying to find more information about his old band Love Minus Zero. It was the days when I wanted to do that sort of Australian “Sound of Leamington Spa” series. As I’ve said many times it didn’t happen because Egg Records wanted to do it and I didn’t want to clash with anyone. I can be very diplomatic. In any case I did ask Kieren to do an interview for the blog, I wrote some questions but sadly I never got any answers. What I did get were a bunch of unreleased songs that sounded amazing.  The songs were:

– Whose Side are You On (demo 1988)
– Then It’s Gone (demo 1988)
– Porcelain (demo 1988)
– That Brings Me Down (unreleased single 1989)
– No Tomorrow (unreleased single 1989)
– Mary (unreleased single 1989)

If there were more unreleased recorded songs by Love Minus Zero I wouldn’t know. But these sounded great.

The first time I ever head them was through the song “Fade Away” that was included in a Waterfront Records compilation called On The Waterfront (catalog DAMP 31). On that compilation it was the A3 track, and the A4 track was also theirs, it was “Into the Night”. The credits for these songs according to Discogs are:

Bass: Gregory Kasch
Drums: Je Genua
Guitar, Vocals: Kieren Fitzpatrick
Guitar: Michael Royce

I sadly don’t own either this compilation or the one record they released. It seems not too difficult to track their 12″ and I should try to get it on my next paycheck. It was an eponymous EP released in 1988 on the Green Fez label (catalog FEZ 308). Credits as follow:

Artwork By – Jane Cameron
Bass, Vocals – Gregory Kasch
Engineer – Tom Colley
Guitar [Guest Musician] – Brad Fitzpatrick, Michael Royce
Piano, Organ [Hammond] [Guest Musician] – Damon Giles
Producer – Love Minus Zero, Tom Colley
Trumpet [Guest Musician] – Peter Dudman
Vocals, Drums – Joe Genua*
Vocals, Guitar, Twelve-string Guitar – Kieren Fitzpatrick
Written-By – Love Minus Zero

From the guest musicians we gather:
– Brad Fitzpatrick seems to have been involved in The Bam Balams too. I assume he is Kieren’s brother (?). If so, they were based in Sydney and so can it be safe to assume Love Minus Zero hailed from that same town? I think so.
– Damon Gilles is better known for have been part of The Moffs who recorded many records under their 60s sound being my favourite “Another Day in the Sun”

And the tracklist was:
A1 Wondering Why
A2 I Am Your Friend
A3 I Believe
B1 Beware
B2 Come On

All different songs from the Waterfront Records compilation. That’s why perhaps Kieren wanted to release some sort of album when I was in touch with him.

There’s also another Love Minus Zero track on yet another Waterfront compilation. On Waterfront catalog DAMP 43, on the “On the Waterfront Volume 3” compilation the song ‘Wondering Why’ was included. But this is just the same as the one in the EP.

And that’s all there is about them. Now that Myspace disappeared I don’t know where to contact Kieren. I wonder if he will find this, and maybe perhaps remember the interview! Would be great to know the story of the band. But if anyone out there know anything about this obscure Aussie band, don’t doubt to share!

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Listen
Love Minus Zero – Fade Away

How was I supposed to feel the past weekend? I did travel upstate to Beacon, a charming and quaint little town, to visit their one and only attractive, dia:Beacon. A fantastic museum with pieces by renowned artists like Stella or Flavin, names that I remember like yesterday from my days in university. Everything was huge in the museum. Every piece. Every installation. Even the museum was huge. High ceilings. Stairs. Basements. Even the parking lot. I love traveling by train. That’s one thing I love about Europe, though there I end up going to a castle, or to a cathedral. But better not compare, it’s all different here. I traveled in good company this time around, and on top of that had cheap and tasty dim sum. True, I never had cheap and tasty dim sum in any of my European train travels.

I did have Chinese food once on a train travel in Europe. We were in Swansea a year and change ago. I was still in love, and I believe she was too. I hear these days she moves in with her new-ish boyfriend. Moving fast and big steps  my lucky mittens. How things change in so little time and how easy it is for some people. Anyhow, she taught me that time what was a water chestnut. I didn’t know it’s name before even though I had had it many times before. I think I thought it was some sort of crunchy potato kind of. If you are Peruvian you might be familiar with ‘olluco’. I thought it was something similar to that. That’s why I remember that day having Chinese food at around 6:00 pm, like a proper American because we had to burn time until the next Swansea-Cardiff train at 7:00pm. It was empty the restaurant. And there was no fortune cookie.

At the Beacon Dim Sum place it was different. When leaving there was a big bowl with tons of fortune cookies for one to take. How much fortune one can get?! I asked myself. I looked around. No one was checking. I grabbed a handful of fortune cookies and put them in my tote bag. To my surprise many of my friends that day did the same when leaving the restaurant. I guess, a lot of fortune is always a promising thing.

But the fact is there was no fortune. On Friday I headed to Erik’s to watch the game with a bunch of Peruvian friends. The game that we had all been waiting. Peru-Uruguay in Lima. At the Estadio Nacional. We had no injured players, most of our players starting in their clubs and giving fine performances. Only Zambrano from Eintracht Frankfurt was suspended, but it wasn’t much of a worry. We were supposed to win this game and be very close to qualifying. But, if we tied or lose our chances were going to disappear. Guess what. We lost. 1-2. Unbelievable. A game that we had in our pocket for the first 42 minutes when Uruguay barely crossed the midfield. When we created chances. When there was a penalty the referee didnt give us. When Pizarro once again failed to deliver an easy goal opportunity against Muslera. The fact is, we Peruvians are not made for clutch time.

When we need to win, when we need to make the kill. We don’t.

And that’s how I felt the whole weekend. The whole week. Heartbroken. Not by a girl like a year ago but by my national team. A team who got nervous, who kicked the table before it’s time. Who got exasperated and got red carded. When things were so close, when things needed cold blood, and good decisions, and to think with the head and not with the heart, that’s when we lost the game.  Some people in the many forums I read, blame it to a lack of world-class quality in our players, but I don’t believe that’s it. I don’t want our players be like Luis Suarez acting like everyone is breaking his leg after a little foul or provoking every opponent. That’s not fair play. Or Lugano jumping with his elbow on the opponents head to every loose ball. I don’t want that. That’s not class. That’s dirty. That’ not good. But I do want them to keep calm, and not break into desperation when everything is against us including referees and the mafia driven Conmebol. I hope this lesson is learned by the younger kids that will take on qualifying to Russia 2018. Because I’m very sure we will make it. We have a good generation coming up and we don’t need a effing visa to go to Russia unlike the EU who treats us a little less than terrorists. So we’ll make it, just keep the hope and don’t despair.

Of course my certainty and hope for the next qualifiers don’t take away my disappointment right now. We were close once again like in 1997 when we were eliminated by goal difference in favor of the arrogant little strip of land called Chile and I cried in front of the the TV alone when we lost that game in Santiago. Again a clutch game. And we lost it. The TV showing how the Chilean police hit our players at the airport. The Chileans attacking our players with racist chants and holding little black plush monkeys. You see European friends, you ban and disqualify teams like that. In South America no one cares. It’s all about money. And yeah, Chileans believe sometimes they are descended from those Aryan gods the third reich went looking in the Himalayas. The world a lot of times doesn’t make sense. I know.

That’s how I feel at 29. Happysad and very hopeful. 2018 will be the year when I’ll see Peru again in a World Cup. I may just as well skip traveling next year to Brazil and instead save that money and go to UK for Indietracks, for Indiepop, my other passion. Footie and girls are not all in this life you know.

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cantel : The raised section of the medieval war-saddle, high to keep the knight in the saddle.

Interesting, I love the medieval times, the crusades, castles and all that. But I doubt their name comes from there. Let’s check if as a last name it makes more sense.

Cantel: This very interesting name is early medieval and job descriptive, and refers to a bellman, one who rang the ‘Chanterelles’ – the trebles, or who sang the treble in a choir. The derivation is from the Olde French, the word being introduced by the Normans after 1066. There are at least five modern alternative spellings including Chantrell, Chantrill, Cantrell, Cantrill and Cantwell, sometimes the name is a diminutive meaning ‘Son of Cant or Chant’. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Philip Canterel which was dated 1203, in the “Staffordshire Assize Court” during the reign of King John, known as “Lackland”, 1199 – 1216.

I wonder if any of these entries shed some meaning about the band The Cantels. The truth is that we know a bit about them already because I wrote about their previous incarnation, The Capitols, some time ago.

One of my interesting ideas about their band name comes from the A side of The Capitols single. The name of the song was “Who Can Tell?”. So if you get ‘Can Tell’ you get Cantell. That’s almost as Cantels, right? Just an idea.

The only member I’m sure that was on both The Capitols and The Cantels was Sue Emilon.  But maybe there were more. I still don’t know who was Jimbo on The Capitols 7″.

The Cantels only released one 12″. It wasn’t an album but a max single. The A side had “I Want to Be Alone” and “Emily”. The B side had “Poor Misguided Fool” and “Pictures in Your Mind”. On the capitols we know Sue wrote all the songs. Here she wrote 1 and 4 and co-wrote 2 and 3 along with Simon Vincent (though on Discogs it credits it to a S. Maragah).

We do have names for the band mates on the back cover, but not last names. All of them start with an S. Coincidences? Sue played guitars and sung. She also played the piano on “Emily”. Steev drummed. Simon played guitar. Spencer bass. And Simon Vincent played organ.

There are some nice liner notes, some thank you notes, that read like this:
Thanks to Jane, Simon V, Rob and Anna, Phil Savage, Trevor, Simon Romer
Love and Thanks to Jane for giving me the Words to Emily

The record was released by Bubble Records in 1988, catalog Bubble 001, so I assume it was self-released.

The only other sort of clue is that they hailed from Moseley in Birmingham. I’ve never been there but I’ve read both The Rotter’s Club and The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe, so it is kind of familiar to me.

And that’s really all I could find about them. I often ask myself if these names were fake names or not. On The Capitols I got to know that Tank was really Pete Byrchmore. Here in the Cantels it’s already puzzling that all have names starting with S. Also Sue Emilon was already using this same name when she was in The Capitols when everyone was using fake names.  Emilon being more of a French saint name.

Do anyone out there know anything else by this enigmatic band that? Did they record more songs? Did anyone catch them live? Whatever happened to them? I don’t want to leave them alone!

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Listen
The Cantels – I Want to Be Alone

So it’s time for Cloudberry news on the blog. After going through through memory lane, remembering the great time we’ve all had at Indietracks this year, it’s time to catch up with all the things I’ve been working on since coming back from the UK.

There’s quite a bit of news on the label side. On the blog side you must have noticed that I’ve published many interviews and I hope to continue with that trend. There are still so many bands with their story untold. And of course, I believe, they deserve better in these days, the internet days.

The first important piece of news is that the Feverfew album is now sold out. If you still want it  you can still find copies at many mailorders around the world, but those will be the last copies.  So make it fast. I’m very happy about the success of our first Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release. It proved to be a good idea to take that route, to make retrospective albums of some of my favourite bands from yesteryear.

Continuing with the Cake Kitchen there’s a new album coming out. It’s already mastered and we are taking care now of the artwork which is close to being finished. The new album that will please many 90s indiepop fans is by The Rileys and it includes the whole span of their careers as one of the most refreshing bands from the early years of the aforementioned decade. The album includes all their classic songs from their albums, singles and compilations as well as a bunch of unreleased tracks. In total there are 21 songs and as usual the CD comes in our book-style digipaks with full liner notes. The works. Keep an eye on the website or the blog for information about the release date, hopefully we can announce that soon!

But in the NEAR future we do have a couple of records to keep you all busy. This month, September, is a month of treats. First of we start with The Occasional Flickers 7″ release on the 15th, and then on the 30th, we’ll bring you Boyish 7″. It’s been a long time since we put two records out during the same month, so you can imagine how excited but busy we are.

For both upcoming 7″s we already have pre-order buttons on the Cloudberry site as well as a download MP3 for you all to have a taster. What to expect? Well, The Occasional Flickers are a band that I hold dear and who with Cloudberry have had two related releases. One a 3″ single back in 2008, “When The Sky Looks So Gray” and then with the song “Fly Kite” on the 3″CD compilation “The Skyscrapers Of St. Mirin”. On top of that, their first album, “Scattered Songs” came out in our sister label Plastilina. So, a household name here. This year Giorgos and company return with the smashing “Capitalism Begins at Home”. Witty and smart as always the Edinburgh by way of Athens band have also made a video for this song that you can watch here. The B side for the single is “Visions of Geraldine” and the artwork was lushly painted by Ola Rek who is part of the band.

On the other hand, this is Boyish’s first appearance on vinyl (The Flickers released their debut “Rain Until Monday ” on 7″ vinyl in 2003!). The Boyish record is a 4 song EP aptly titled The Hidden Secrets. The other songs in the record are “Dress Up, Make Up”, “Shadow of You” and “Sha La La”. Two of the songs appear in Boyish’s album and two of them are exclusive to this release. All of them have been remastered for this special occasion by Cris Romero from Sundae and The Royal Landscaping Society at Cherry Sound Studios. As always he has made them sound amazing. If you like breezy shoegaze this is the record you’ve been longing for! I’ve been a big fan of Iwasawa since the days of his previous band, Pastel Blue, so it was quite exciting to undertake this project together. The artwork for this release comes thanks to A Little Island.

But the news don’t stop there. We have also unveiled the artwork and the track list for our 34th 7″ that should be appearing by the end of the year. This one comes from France and it’s by the super duper mega hyper amazing Pale Spectres. The track list will include a Cloudberry favourite, “Better than Love” that appeared on our sea green compilation last year. This is a reworked version of that tune. Also on the 7″ you’ll find “Bicycles”, “Didn’t Know Where to Go” and “Supermarket Love”. Clearly, you want this.

Not a bad end of year for Cloudberry, don’t you think? And it’s all because of you, because without your support to the label, to the bands, to the scene, we couldn’t continue putting out records.  So from here a big THANKS to everyone that has helped us this year in a way or another!

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There’s this beautiful song called “I Want to Wear Your Love Like Gold” by the mysterious The Boy Scout Love Triangle, that sometimes appears on my iTunes while I’m working. I believe I downloaded this a long time ago from a blog. It’s really really pretty. So I decided today to google it, see what I can dig.

First stop, Youtube. Someone has uploaded this song. And there’s a photo of a cover of what looks like a record. I know where to look now.

Second stop, Discogs. The record is listed. It’s a 7″ and this song was the A side. There’s another song on the A side, “Shane”, and three on the B side, “Apocalypse is my Maiden Name”, “Fell for It” and “I Never Said I Liked You”. I wonder if all these songs have a similar sound to “I Want to Wear…”, or if they are a bit different. Who knows. Sadly there are no records listed here for purchasing.

The label is called Sprogg Pop Records. It seems this was the only release by the label according to Discogs but there’s some information: Sprogg Pop was a short-lived label run by Ohio-based Nick Wilson, a.k.a. Nick Sprogg, Poppa Hopp, Nicky Ill, or Nicky Illiopolis.  Ohio-based Nick Wilson, a.k.a. Nick Sprogg, Poppa Hopp, Nicky Ill, or Nicky Illiopolis, is a member of Dirty Birds, The with RJD2. Wilson ran the Sprogg Pop label and a music publicity company called BPM Promotions. He also co-owned & operated the Battersea Park Music label.

So Ohio then. I read that the vinyl itself is gold. Makes sense with this song. The catalog number is SP001 and the record was released in 1991. The credits on the record state:

Performer [Played & Sung By] – Christina Myers, Gaye Cronley, J. Stickley
Photography [Back Cover Photo – Harmony H78] – Michele Kinnamon  
Photography [Front Cover Photo] – P. Cassely
Producer – Craig “Big Daddy” Dunson  
Written-By – Stickley
Notes All songs recorded at Eardrop/Pica House in the Spring and Summer of ’91. ‘Shane’ is for Shane Mc., ‘Never Said…’ well…hello pastels!

The Pastels??? Were they fans of the Glasgow band? There is a link for more images on the Discogs listing of the 7″. I can see the artwork cleared. But there’s also what seems like an insert. On it we learn that there were t-shirts made for the band too, with the cover artwork of the 7″ on the front and on the back details of their 91-92 tour.  There’s also what seems a fanzine called “Love In” that is described as the official fan club magazine of The Boy Scout Love Triangle. It used to cost a mere $1. It also has an address for Sprogg Pop. We now know that they were based in Columbus, Ohio.

Gaye Cronley would form later, along the producer of this record, Craig Dunson the band Vibralux who had a 7″ on the Candy Floss label in 1994. This was the home of some known indiepop acts like Red Chair Fadeaway, Red Dye No.5, The Delightful Little Nothings and more. I have never head Vibralux. Time to see if I can find a cheap copy. Seems to have good credentials!

The other member of The Boy Scout Triangle that I know continued making music was John Sitckley. He was involved in a band called The Patsys who released one album in 2006 called “Both Sides Never”. You can stream it on Myspace.

This is where I stop digging. This is where I stop finding clues. This is where I hit a wall.

If anyone out there knows anything else by these unsung heroes from Columbus, Ohio, I’d love to hear it. And a spare copy of the 7″ aptly titled “L’eternité Du Tout” (“The Eternity of Everything”) would be nice to find too, so I can play the record at home, time and time again, and to finally hear the other songs from the EP!

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Listen
The Boy Scout Triangle – I Want to Wear Your Love Like Gold

This week I’m thinking of doing two different posts. One for the obscure band and then one for the Sunday Indietracks review. The main reason for this is time. It’s easier for me this way, definitely.

The other reasons are that I don’t want this post to get lost among my usual babbling. Why is that? Because I really want to contact this obscure band and I’m hoping someone can help me. Why do I want to contact them? I dream of releasing a retrospective compilation of their stuff. Well, if they happen to have more than 8 songs recorded that is. I have to be reasonable sure. But I would love Shine! to be part of the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen series as I would love Nine Steps to Ugly as I’ve mentioned in a previous post. Right now I’ve just announced The Rileys CD on the website, the 4th release on a series I’m every day prouder and prouder! And also this past week the first release of the series, the Feverfew compilation, achieved the status of sold out record. I’m very happy that releasing many of my favorite obscure bands have proven successful, that one doesn’t need to follow trends when the music is good and most especially, timeless.

So Shine!

Who were these mysterious people that released a flexi and a split 12″? Who were the enigmatic band that appeared on a couple of tape compilations? The answer is, I don’t know.

There’s a name that is recurring: Martin Neumann. But he took the photos for the cover artwork for both of their releases. Most probably he wasn’t part of the band. So that’s a dead end.

There’s a contact mail though on the back cover of the split 12″. The name is Alisdair Macdonald. There’s an address there. The town is King’s Lynn in Norfolk.

King’s Lynn, also known as Lynn, is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated 97 miles (156 km) north of London and 44 miles (71 km) west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800. 

The etymology of King’s Lynn is uncertain. The name Lynn is said to be derived from the body of water near the town (the River Great Ouse as it prepares to enter the Wash): the Celtic word Llyn, means a lake; but the name is plausibly of Anglo-Saxon origin, from the word Lean, implying a tenure in fee or farm. For a time it was named Len Episcopi (Bishop’s Lynn) while under the jurisdiction, both temporal and spiritual, of the Bishop of Norwich; but during the reign of Henry VIII it was surrendered to the crown, and it then assumed the name of Lenne Regis, or King’s Lynn. In the Domesday Book, it is known as Lun, and Lenn; and is described as the property of the Bishop of Elmham, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  The town is and has been for generations generally known by its inhabitants and local people simply as Lynn. The city of Lynn, Massachusetts, just north of Boston, was named in 1637 in honour of its first official minister of religion, Samuel Whiting, who arrived at the new settlement from Lynn, Norfolk.

I have a strong gut feeling that’s where they were based.

Their releases.

The first release was the flexi. It included two songs, “Millions and Millions” and “The City can Wait”. It’s great. The trademark fast guitars are here. Sure it will remind you of the Wedding Present with vocals closer to the classic indiepop. And also the choruses, with backing vocals, again closer to the sort of indiepop that was loved in fanzines during the late 80s. This flexi at the time was only 50pence. How have times changed. I do wonder if the flexi, as it was accustomed at the time was sold along a fanzine. The flexi was out on March 1989 and was released as I said earlier by Baz McHat Records. The catalog number was MCHAT 01.

Who were Baz McHat records? The internet answers for us:

Funded from the profits of the nine Baz McHat Promotions (1988) and early Wilde Club gigs, this flexi-disc label was the pre-cursor to Wilde Club Records. Both Shine!’s ‘The City Can Wait’ and the Bardots’ ‘Sofaelaine’ received airplay on John Peel’s Radio One show.  The label was run by Barry Newman, who began both The Wilde Club and Wilde Club Records.

There was another flexi on the Baz McHat label before it turned to Wilde Club Records. The second flexi would be a split flexi by The Bardots and Sofaelaine.  This is an important fact as the next release by Shine! would be a split 12″ with, guess who, The Bardots.

Released in 1989, this amazing record, this split 12″, contains one of my favourite pop songs ever: “Bite the Apple”.  The other song included is nice too and it was called “It Could Never Happen to Us”. Both of these songs were produced by Howard Turner and Shine! and recorded at Raven Studios in Norfolk during August 1989. It was released in the Wilde Club label and it was the first release ever put out by this label who’d get some more attention later when they eventually released Catherine Wheel. Both of the songs were on the B side while on the A side we had The Bardots with the immense “Sad Anne” and “Summerhouse”.

Some time later they would appear on a compilation released by their label called  “I Might Walk Home Alone” with their song “Bite the Apple”. This was 1992 already. And this was the tenth release on the Wilde Club label.

In the blog we’ve mentioned the great “Everlasting: A Tape Compilation” cassette before. Among favourites of mine like The Aurbisons, Holiday Makers, A Riot of Colour and more, Shine! appeared on this compilation released in 1988. The song that they contributed was “The Art of Lying Low”.

But there’s another tape where they appeared, at least that I know, there might be more! The tape was called “Everlasting Happiness” and I believe I’ve talked a bit about it before too as it was made by a very good friend of mine from Hamburg while he lived in Scotland. Mr Andreas who I was happy to see once again at Indietracks not so long ago. On this tape Shine! shined (sorry for this terrible pun!) with the first song I ever heard from them and made me look for the rest of their records: “I Just Can’t Celebrate Today”. A blast of cheerful indiepop! I was hooked immediately.

I’ve been a fan for a long time. And this is as much as I’ve been able to gather about them. So maybe someone can help me. I know it’s not just me who loves them. I remember my friend Nana for her 30th birthday made the most beautiful flyer using the artwork for the Shine!/Bardots split 12″ which you can see here. That was the night I DJed in that city too. It was one of the best nights ever. And Shine! in a way, was part of it.

So yes, let’s try to find out more about Shine! And perhaps in the not so distant feature a new retrospective CD can happen of one of the bands I’m most curious about!

++ UPDATE: Andreas who made the Everlasting Happiness tape wrote me today with some corrections and some interesting details about Shine!

“Everlasting Happiness” was compiled in my wiggly hometown called Worms during the last year of secondary school in 1990 and released in early 1991 during my civilian service as a paramedic (first edition of 100 copies and second edition of another 100 copies sold out within weeks or months). The law studies in Glasgow happened three years later in 1994/95.

For most bands on “Everlasting Happiness” (and bands that didn’t make it on there) I have basically every song they had ever recorded until 1990 (including, for example, Nine Steps To Ugly, The Golden Dawn and The Mayfields). A notable exception is Shine! who had released two official demo tapes at the time and I only have the second one entitled “Numbrainedeadumbrain” (this is currently all packed up on the attic, I remember about 9 songs which are absolutely fantastic, i.e. this would be a very worthwhile retrospective compilation)

++ UPDATE 2: Andreas pointed me to some interesting stuff!

Found out the band members names:
Tim Warnes – Bass/Vocals
Andy Bunting – Guitar/Vocals
Paul Cator – Guitar/Vocals, the later of Ivy
Mark Coulson – Drums.

Yes, that’s the Ivy that was on Sarah Records!

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Listen
Shine! – Bite the Apple