Hello! It’s been almost two weeks since the last update and I will be honest, I didn’t miss much blogging. I guess it must be because I was abroad on vacation and my mind was somewhere else. Now that I’m back in New York I started to miss this blog. I started to have nostalgia for endless afternoons looking for information about some obscure band and just writing some of my adventures and dreams.

There are a couple of news on Cloudberry side. If you head to the website you can check the Occasional Flickers A side for the next single they are putting out with us. The song is “Capitalism Begins at Home”, and it’s really beautiful. I always loved Giorgos vocals and had worked with his band before on Cloudberry with a 3″ and, even before that, on an album on Plastilina. Pre-order button will soon be up. So keep an eye.

About Tripping the Light Fantastic, as many of you have been asking me, it is being pressed at the moment. I will send to print the jackets during the weekend and will also sit down and write the inserts before it’s too late. I have this nostalgia for their hometown, for Hamburg, so probably I’ll be writing an ode to that fantastic city. So, if everything goes as I think it will go, the release date should be April 10th. Sorry for the delays, but all these price changes at the post office kind of pushed the release a bit.

The fanzine. Waiting for a song. That’s all. As soon as we have it. We’ll send it to print.

How can you help to speed up the process? Well, buying some records always helps! We did lose A LOT of money with the postage increase as we had pre-orders with the old postage prices. Of course it wasn’t the customers fault, so we sent the records, at an almost 100%, to everyone who pre-ordered. I think we did the right thing. Though it did hurt us proper.

While abroad I got to see Alpaca Sports live. Also got the chance to spend some time with them, so nice lunch, and then a bit of chit-chatting. They are fantastic people and I can’t wait until they come to NYC for Popfest in two months. Their live show was perfect. It felt like they’ve been playing for like forever. They know how to be tight and put a fun show. I believe they sold out all their records at the Madrid show by the way, and they brought lots. They were so successful there. The crowd was dancing and singing along the songs. A friend next to me told me he felt he was having a time warp to the early 90s, that Alpaca Sports would fit so nicely on one of those 3″ CDs that Marsh-Marigold used to release. I agreed. How couldn’t they fit along The Seashells or my beloved 50,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong? Top stuff!

Andreas and Amanda are naturals on stage. I know Andreas favourite band might be The Brilliant Corners, but when I see him strumming the guitar I think of Julian Henry of The Hit Parade. Not that I’ve ever seen The Hit Parade live, but it’s how I always imagined them. Amanda compliments the songs perfectly, hiding behind her goldilocks hair and appearing again, with whimsical charm and shy vocals. Pa Pa Pa. And start again. She told us about her Spanish jacket. Her amazing story. She wanted to go to some stores in Spain, but they have strange hours in this country. Closed on Sunday, closed in the afternoons. Strange. And Carl, is at the back, doing all the secret things that make Alpaca Sports sound great live. All those little sound effects are being taking at his little station at the back. It feels like he is some sort of mastermind in the shadows, enchanting all of us with the Alpaca Sports potion.

Another great “Cloudberry” moment was seeing The Garlands again. They headlined my party in Stockholm and they made me, and the crowd, swoon. It was quite interesting to see them in Sweden, the chatty Patrik and cute Christin not talking in English to the public, but in Swedish. It was a more natural feel to it that I enjoyed. They played all their hits. They made me so happy. Me standing at the front, watching how Maria’s fingers crawl over the bass fret. And Robert banging the drums, full power! Einar is dissecting his guitar, playing those wonderful chords that make The Garlands special. Christin, well, I want to hug her, she is just great with her soaring vocals. And Patrik, he is the FUN. He makes The Garlands feel like the indiepoppiest band on Earth.

Other “Cloudberry” band I got to see in this trip was Los Lagos de Hinault. It was the only band that Oscar from Zipper liked. And I find it easy to see why. The lyrics. They do write fabulous lyrics. You’d might think it’s a shame that they are written in Spanish and because of that not that many people can appreciate them. But the thing is, perhaps these lyrics wouldn’t be that great if they were sung in another language. Think about that. Quirky, smart, and bookish, Los Lagos de Hinault are in a class of their own in the Spanish Pop scene. They deserve much attention I think. Perhaps they won’t be huge ever, but they do deserve a cult-following. And judging by their live set, potent, direct, and with a lot of presence, I wouldn’t be surprised. My only regret, not having being able to secure a photo of myself with the whole band!

And the only other band I’m going to mention in this small review is Zipper. They played early on Saturday’s Popfest night. They were the special guests for this occasion as they had written the Madrid Popfest official song for this year. A blast of a minute and a half of pure POP! And how was their set? It was short, around 12 minutes or so, but it was a ricochet of fantastic melodies, fast guitars, catchy chorus, and an indiepop attitude that is so contagious. As always I’m so happy to see them, have some beers, some calamaris, some chorizo. They are the true indiepop band from Madrid. And because I’m so spoiled and lucky, they will be coming to NYC this year for Popfest. Can I actually ask for more? I wonder how many times I’ve seen them already. Thing is, every time they play they are so good that it’s never enough.

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Now let me talk about an obscure band. An Irish band! There are not that many more bands left to cover from the (by now) legendary mix CD Rupert gave me last year at Indietracks. Today let’s try to uncover the mystery of Cuba Dares.

The Irish Rock web site has a small bio about them:

Ronan Stoke’s band formed early 1982. Initially a duo of Stokes & Clancy plus a drum machine, this expanded Dennis Rusk (guitar), Tony Kennedy (bass) and real live drummer Barry O’Rielly. This lineup split when Ronan and Blathain moved the band to London circa 1984, where Rory Stokes, Paul Mooney and John McGrath all joined as The Sussed had split. Cuba Dares released one fine EP in 1986 (by which time Paul Mooney had moved on) which won single of the week in NME (among others) and is difficult to locate these days. The lineup that recorded the EP is listed above. They split sometime after.

There are reputedly many unreleased recordings.

The lineup mentioned in that bio is:
Blathain Clancy – vocals
Ronan Stokes – guitar
Rory Stokes – guitar/keyboards
Chris McKenna – bass
John McGrath – drums

They were based in Dublin and later in London.

Their discography only included that fantastic 12″ EP. IT was called “One Nine Eight Six EP”. It included on the A side the song “Yellow and Red” and on the B side the songs “Sweet Ephemeral” and “Lost Without a Trace”.

The engineer for this record was Simon Osbourne. And the record was released by Mastervolume Records. Catalog was MV12S1.

When I listen to “Yellow and Red” I do think of girl fronted bands of the late 80s like Suntime Glorious, Girl Of My Best Friend, The Honeymooners, Po! and The Sundays. to name a few. It’s a terribly catchy song with a great melody. It’s not super upbeat or anything, but it feels like it. I can picture it in a good indie disco, all the kids dancing even. “Bye Bye to all the dreams I had” Blathain sings. And I could feel that. Who hasn’t had their dreams shattered? Totally. You can identify with this beautiful song, can’t you?

The other 2 songs, the B sides, if you want to listen them, you can always head to their old and abandoned Myspace. “Lost Without a Trace” being my favourite of the two.

And this is all the information I could find online about Cuba Dares. I wonder what their name means. If it has anything to do with Cuba (most presumably, right?), perhaps they even lived there! I also wonder about those many unreleased songs that are said to exist. I’d love to listen to those one day! I’m sure they are fantastic. And also about their one and only release, how many copies were made, if there exist in some place a box with copies of this fantastic record. I’d love to own one one day, play it on my turntable. It’d be so great, songs like these deserve to be played on record, not as MP3, even less stream then! Anyhow if anyone of you out there know anything else about them, any anecdotes or anything really, please share! Would love to know more about their band story!

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Listen
Cuba Dares – Yellow and Red

NYC Popfest just announced the lineup for this year’s edition. What can I say aside that it’s a fantastic one. Getting to see for the first time The Bats and The Wolfhounds is something I’ve been wanting for a long time. Seeing The Close Lobsters again, after their Madrid Popfest show, the best gig I saw last year, is making me giggle of excitement. Maz told me last Saturday that this was the Popfest that he is the proudest of organizing so far. And I can see why he says that. I can only hope for May to come fast. It’s just two months and change away!

The Monochrome Set, the mighty Monochrome Set, are headlining too. I saw them two years ago at the 100 Club in London. Next to friends who were making out, pints pouring, me and a girl, the red curtains which I hear are no more at the club, and that big 100 sign on the stage. Bathrooms always all the way to the left. That was the day of the infamous DJ party. I hear this year was a bit like that, with Rihanna and Beyoncé being played for the indiepop crowd. Who knows what happens in London sometimes. Still my favourite city and would have loved to attend London Popfest last weekend. But anyhow, yes, The Monochrome Set. And they’ll play “Jet Set Junta” and “He’s Frank”. Can’t ask for more.

For the label it’s also a great time. Our two latest 7″ releases will be here represented by the bands. Alpaca Sports and Flowers are coming! On top of that other Cloudberry graduates like Zipper, Cassolette, The Hobbes Fanclub and The Proctors will also be here. I’ll be very busy filming many of their songs it seems!

Now what else can I hope for this fantastic festival? I do know many international friends will be coming, and lunches and dinners will happen. I’ll be hosting friends too, so maybe I’ll get to play them my favourite records. and gossip about indiepop. And there will be a Mondo dance party on Saturday which should be the bomb. Partying there every month is fine, but can’t compare it with a crowd full of indiepop people that do know by heart “Sensitive” by The Field Mice, instead of silly girls looking at you like you are outworldly for knowing songs that they have never heard in their life, and shouting your lungs out!

But before all this I have a date with Madrid Popfest this weekend. And then my birthday party the next weekend with Alpaca Sports and The Garlands. It is already shaping up as a great year. So don’t miss me too much, I’ll come back with indiepop stories from Europe in two weeks time. No gossip though. I’m so not into that 😉

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This week obscure band is Rawhide Chomp, a band I discovered years ago on Myspace. So straight from there a little bio:

Formed during the mid 80’s in St.Helens, Rawhide Chomp were born when ex Riotous Hues Phil Smith and Gaz Capper bumped into pie king Paul Cross and his mate Jamie Flannery. Many an happy hour was spent practicing at the Fringe offices before the Chomp played their first gig. This was supporting the Tractors upstairs in McDonalds. Many gigs, real and imaginary, followed before this Chomp played it’s final show supporting the La’s at the Monro in Liverpool. After a brief spell of laziness, Rawhide Chomp reformed without Gaz and Jamie. Ex -Dixie Cartoon Mike McCauley joined as singer and Simon Pratt (Kingston and the Hunters) became drummer for a brief spell. Now 21 years later, the Chomp are reborn. Polish your shoes so you can gaze into them again. Expect new material soon!

So they were back together it says. They joined MySpace in 2008, so that might be the time when they were making new songs together or perhaps only rehearsing the old ones. If they ever played again live or recorded new songs I don’t know. It seems their story ends there. But let’s dissect that bio.

St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens with a population of just over 100,000, while the larger metropolitan borough had a population of 176,843 at the time of the 2001 Census. Today, St Helens is very much a commercial town. The main industries have since left, become outdated, or have been outsourced leaving the float and patterned rolled glass producer Pilkington’s, a world leader in their industry, as the town’s one remaining large industrial employer.

Never been to Merseyside myself. It’s one of the places that’s on my list for this year if I don’t end up going to North Wales.

The band Riotous Hues. They probably deserve another blog post on the blog, so wait for the next episode in this same channel. For the time being you can listen to “She’s Left” in Youtube.

I see the Monro as a fancy Gastropub in Liverpool. I find it a bit odd that it was there that they played with The La’s their final show. Maybe it was another Monro? Or perhaps during the years it evolved into a more of a upscale place? It doesn’t look like a place for electric guitars!

About the band The Tractors I couldn’t really find anything. Perhaps too much of a common name to Google. Maybe somebody there knows anything about them? Were they guitar pop?

And so what is a Rawhide Chomp? It seems they are according to some stores:
Great value for money and super tasty, these Rawhide Chomp Stix are a great treat that can be used for rewarding positive behavior, training and snacking between meals.
Helping to improve the health of both their teeth and gums, the treats can also freshen their breath. Dogs love rawhide as it satisfies their natural instincts to chew.

There is also some other tidbits I could gather from the photos they have on their Myspace.
– Their first gig was at the McDonalds restaurant supporting The Tractors on Tuesday 17th June 1986
– On Saturday August 16th of that same year they supported Half Man Half Biscuit
– It’s amazing to see gigs back then cost 75p to attend!

And that’s all there is online about this band who seems to have put a couple of demo tapes out but no releases. But perhaps, I ask, they had songs on some compilation albums? Their previous band, Riotous Hues, appeared in a couple, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe someone out there can recall.

So yes, if anyone knows anything else and wants to fill in the blanks about this obscure but very chiming-guitar band, just how I like them, please leave a comment! Would love to hear more about them.

See you in two weeks!

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Listen
Rawhide Chomp – Louise

A short and sweet post this week. Because I’m terribly busy. A good kind of busy. I’m not complaining. Have been having guests and international friends around. There’s been gigs and parties. And to my surprise I’m not tired. Lots of energy on me. Though I admit that I’m stressing a bit as I only have one day off, Sunday, before my trip to Europe. I hope I prepare and plan accordingly for this trip in the amount of time I have left. I haven’t figured out so many things yet, so I really need to get on the top of my game asap!

The BIG thing, the THING I want to tell everyone, but most especially those in Stockholm, is that I will be celebrating my birthday there and I have all the details now. So, I hope to see some of you there. It’d be great. I haven’t really celebrated my birthday in such a way ever, so I kind of have some expectations this time. This is the Facebook event link. https://www.facebook.com/events/431360733609198/?ref=ts&fref=ts

For those of you without Facebook, this event will be happening on March 16th (actually a day after my birthday), at Southside Pub. The address is: Hornsg. 104, 117 26 Stockholm. It will cost 70 KR to get in and things will start at 8pm. It’s an over 21 event and it’s hosted by the So Unbelievable girls. That’s Emelie and Christin, two of my dearest Swedish friends. Emelie actually designed a cute flyer too that you can see here.

As you can see, there will be two fantastic bands playing that night. Two that I have been lucky to work with in some releases: The Garlands and Alpaca Sports. I believe it’s Alpaca Sports first show in Stockholm too! If you like indiepop,  you can’t miss this gig. And there will be some DJing too. And hopefully some dancing. Oh! I can’t wait!

Do say hi if you come!

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The Garden of Eden (Hebrew גַּן עֵדֶן, Gan ʿEdhen) is the biblical “garden of God”, described most notably in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2-3), but also mentioned, directly or indirectly, in Ezekiel, Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament. In the past, the favoured derivation of the name “Eden” was from the Akkadian edinnu, itself derived from a Sumerian word meaning “plain” or “steppe”, but it is now believed to be more closely related to an Aramaic root meaning “fruitful, well-watered.”  The Eden of Genesis has been variously located at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates in northern Iraq, in Africa, and in the Persian Gulf. The Eden in Ezekiel, however, is unequivocally located in Lebanon. For many medieval writers, the image of the Garden of Eden also creates a location for human love and sexuality, often associated with the classic and medieval trope of the locus amoenus.

And if my party in Stockholm, a city I love and brings great memories, might be my Garden of Eden (oh dear, that was terribly cheesy), then I want to present you a very obscure band called Eden!

I can’t seem to stop associating the name with a character of this anime I’ve been watching every weekend, Saint Seiya Omega. There’s a character called Eden of course. That’s why. Thing is, I grew up watching the original Saint Seiya back in the 90s, I can’t stop watching this new series even though many people say it’s not as good. Well, I don’t care. For nostalgia purposes it’s fantastic.

Anyhow, enough of rambling. Who were these so obscure Eden that don’t have anything written about on the internet. I even see Rupert at Turntable Revolution wondering the same thing. For me they are kind of new on my radar. I have no clue about their existence until some six or so months ago. Again it was the fabulous CD-R Rupert shared with me that would open my eyes to this gem of a band. The song “Confusion” would convert me into an Eden fan, even if I only had listening to this one song and nothing more.

After you listen to it, you’ll understand what I’m saying. This is proper indiepop. Great indiepop. Some crunchy guitars, then some fantastic jangle and is that a trumpet? Great vocals. Catchy melodies. Just all the ingredients to make us all fall for it. This song appeared as a B side on one of their “Form Follows Function” 7″ EP. On the A side the song was “Taxi Cab” and on the B side “Joni” and “Confusion” were included.

This record was released in 1987, catalog being Den 3. The label for all their releases was Den Records. Pretty obvious that it was their own label. They just dropped the E from Eden, simple arithmetic. It seems they might have been from Norfolk, but I cant be 100% sure.

There was another 7″ release. This time it was “Glisten” on the A side and “Glorious” on the reverse. The catalog is Den 4.

The other known release by them was their album “Celeste”. It was released in 1988 and it included the songs “Glorious”, “Sugar”, “Blue News”, “Die Lonely”, “Flowers”, “Glisten”, “It’s  for Good”, “The Twist” and “Ophelia”.

Some curious thing about their releases is what seems to be their logo: an Apple. It makes sense though? Eve, the snake, the apple, the Garden of Eden…

And here is the interesting and mysterious thing about them. The back cover of Eden’s “Glisten” single lists many band members: Christ Wyatt, Jeff Powell, Nick Hardy, Sara Dimmer and Jeff Arbuckle. The thing is that four of these members, Wyatt, Dimmer, Hardy and Powell, were part of Lawrence and the Comfortable Society who I wrote about some time ago!

But that’s about all I could figure out about this mysterious band. I sadly don’t have their releases, and these are not listed on Discogs I’m afraid. So I don’t have a clue about band member names, or any of the recording details. But, now I rely on you. Do you know anything about this fantastic band? Did they have any other releases? Did they play gigs often? If anyone has spare copies of their records? Or perhaps MP3s of their other songs? I’d love to listen to them!

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Listen
Eden – Confusion

Stickleback: The Gasterosteidae are a family of fish including the sticklebacks. FishBase currently recognises sixteen species in the family, grouped in five genera.  An unusual feature of sticklebacks is that they have no scales, although some species have bony armour plates. They are related to pipefish and seahorses.  Stickleback are most commonly found in the ocean, but can be found in some freshwater lakes. The freshwater species were trapped in freshwater lakes in Europe, Asia and North America after the ice age, and have evolved different features from the ocean variety. They feed on small crustaceans and fish larvae.

What do I know about fishing? Not much. When I was a kid my mum used to take me and my brother to a fishing town, south of Lima, in the desert next to the Pacific ocean. There we’d spend some hours at sea, on a wooden boat, with a fisherman guide, and us throwing our bait, trying to lure big fish. I don’t recalling fishing any fancy fish, no flounders or seabass. I remember fishing a lot of catfish. They were ok to have them fried, but not really for an appetizing ceviche, my favourite dish in the world.

The last weekend I was in Charlotte, North Carolina. There was no special reason, but to explore a new place. A cheap flight ticket and a cheap hotel room lured me. Upon arriving on Saturday afternoon a sudden and unannounced snowstorm hit the town, leaving me stranded at a BBQ place for hours. I thought it was going to be a bad omen. Happily it wasn’t and the rest of the long weekend (it was President’s day yesterday, Monday) was a bit cold, but sunny.

The thing that shocked em the most was how everything was so inexpensive there. I couldn’t believe I was having $2.99 pints at a restaurant and $4.75 at a bar. There was no minimum for paying with card either. While talking to the townfolk I was impressed that they would pay just $650 for a three bedroom house. Compared to New York, even to Miami, it’s really ridiculously cheap.

I feel they don’t receive many tourists, though the town is known for hosting plenty of conferences. Perhaps they are used to business kind of tourists. People immediately asked me where I was from. I didn’t fit in the city clearly. At first I thought because it was a mostly Anglo and African-american town, but in the end I ended up seeing Latin restaurants all over the place. Especially Honduran and Mexican.

I bought a bunch of records at Lunchbox Records. The clerk was Venezuelan and was really helpful. It was a bit odd that he thought I was from Spain. The best find was without doubt #Poundsign#’s “Wavelength” album which I’ve been looking for a while. I found it for dirt cheap. $7 for the LP.

There were random encounters. At a BBQ there was a German waiter who talked to me in German as he thought my accent was German. I understood what he said, he was telling me he was from Frankfurt, but I was so cold that I couldn’t even say that I sprechen knleine deutsche or that I visit quite often, or something. It was a bit too random. That same night, walking on the big expansive sidewalks along Woodlawn Road, looking for a CVS or a Walgreens, my friend asked for directions to the only other couple walking around. Turns out, this older couple were Swedish, on a road trip, starting in Florida and that had already passed by Atlanta. It was terribly funny when I started talking to them in Swedish. They were quite impressed and perhaps a bit inebriated (as good swedes?) as they recommended us a steakhouse instead that served great wine. “So everyone in New York speaks Swedish?” the lady asked. She was great, so comical saying oka-iiiiiiii, with her thick nordic accent.

On the way back to the hotel, after hanging out in downtown area (which was called Uptown here), we met a Canadian couple, from Montreal. Time to talk in my rusty French. Funny enough it came natural to me, must have been all the cheap pints of the day. They were on a conference for some telecommunications business. They were looking for their hotel. I hope they found it. They were tipsy to say the least.

Next day, after having Arby’s (because I don’t know where’s an Arby’s in NY and it’s the only thing I do miss from my time in Texas), walking around Charlotte’s downtown, looking for a museum, I stumble again with the swede couple! They tell us they had been thinking about us because they saw a Walgreens! For them I was the svenska pojke already and we talked a bit. It seems they were having the time of their life.

During the rest of the trip I visited all museums but the Nascar Hall of Fame. Who cares about cars. Ate BBQ a couple more times. The sweet North Carolina style BBQ. Went to a mall and went to some more bars. I probably will never visit Charlotte, the Queen City, again, I’ve seen everything it had to offer. But I had a great time, and enjoyed that I didn’t have to spend too much to enjoy it there.

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Back to fishing then. To The Sticklebacks. That’s right, there are no Cloudberry related news this week. I’m terribly busy posting records all over the world. It’s quite busy when you have two new releases to come out around the same time and only having two hands! But bear with me, after the small “Cloudberry” tour in March, there will be many more news! Promise! And later this week I will let you know about the special event happening in Stockholm on the 16th. If you are in town, please come say hello!

So, The Sticklebacks. Very obscure band. I’ve seen them show up on eBay a couple of times in the last years. I never bought the records though. I didnt know how they sounded. Happily the fantastic blog “From a Northern Place”, that I recommend checking often, has shared the A side, “All You Get”. And what a song that is. It has that fabulous jangle from Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes and Yeah Jazz, and you end up startled, wondering, what the hell happened? Why weren’t they more famous? More known at least!

Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae. Music in this genre consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass parts (this stripped down track is sometimes referred to as a ‘riddim’)

Dub House was the label that trusted in their music. Or perhaps it was their own label? I don’t own the record yet. But I’m on that now that I’ve heard how good this song is! And don’t you worry, the song don’t sound reggae (or dub) influences at all. It sounds like perfect and classic jangle pop!

The B-side of the record is a cover, “It’s For You”, by The Beatles. And the record was released in 1987.

On the cover we see one of the band members in a close-up. On the back cover we see all the band members having a good laugh. I guess the cover star was the vocalist and the writer of “All You Get”, Keith Gilles. He is sporting a very good haircut, very 80s! The rest of the band was comprised by Kevin Plummer on guitars, Alan Neal on bass and Owen Seymour on drums. The record was produced by Neil Scott.

I’ve googled and googled for more information about them to no avail. Many questions are up in the air. Who were Dub House records? Did they have more recordings? Even, releases? Whatever happened to them? Where were they based? Why didn’t this release become an indiepop classic? Who came up with that cool guitar intro? And so on. Questions that will be unanswered for not too long I hope!

Anyone out there remembers them? Anyone knows anything else about them?

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Listen
The Sticklebacks – All You Get

All ready. All set. I got my stupid tourist visa. Ready to spend vacation time next month in Europe. The lineup of Madrid Popfest has been confirmed and all I can say it is that I’m looking forward to it a lot, especially to see bands I’ve never seen before like The Haywains, Northern Portrait and Alpaca Sports. This time though, I’m traveling by myself so I’m much more open to meeting up with friends and exploring the city, something I didn’t do much last time. Last time I dedicated my days to day travels to different cities around Madrid like Segovia, Toledo, Avila among others. It was fantastic, though being by myself, I don’t see much of a point, who will take photos of me posing as a good tourist for example? Record shopping will be a must, and so, if anyone wants to join, let’s do that. I’m also very excited for the Madrid restaurants with their 10 euro menus, which was something I really enjoyed the first time around.

But the best news of this week has to do with the release of the Flowers 7″. The official release date is the 15th. One day after Valentines Day. Do you celebrate that? I wonder. I’ve never read or heard any indiepop kid celebrating it. But then, it’s perhaps something very private or probably indiepopkids hate capitalist inventions like that. What do I know. Anyhow, the record is ready and it’s shipping to all over the world. It’s perhaps the records with most pre-orders that Cloudberry has released. Very anticipated debut by the London trio!

I’ve only seen them once. Last November, when I decided to travel to England even though I wasn’t going to meet the girl anymore. It was a difficult decision because it was going to bring memories and perhaps I wasn’t going to like my holidays as much as I would want to. But at the same time, life goes on, and because of something circumstantial like that, I couldn’t just trash my plans I thought. I had already told many of my British friends during Indietracks that I was returning to London later that year, that we’d find a place for her to leave her cat safe and sound and all, and that we’d enjoy at least a weekend together there. In the end, it was just me. I expanded the weekend to a whole week. Went all the way to Scotland and back, back even to the southern tip of Great Britain, to Portsmouth and all. And as always I saw castles.

It was that day that I went to Arundel with Paloma, who happily joined me at last minute, who was strangely and randomly enough staying just a tube station away from where I was staying at Chez Navarro’s. After sightseeing around Arundel and having still a couple of hours to burn, we looked at a map and decided to keep exploring. For 10 more pounds we could go to Portsmouth and back. I didn’t know much about Portsmouth, aside from the football team, but sounded like a good plan. We had already circled Arundel and there was not much more to see. Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t fantastic. I truly recommend people visiting it. The castle is beautiful.

We both wanted to go to the Flowers gig that night. Happily Rachel had been nice enough to put me plus guests on the guestlist. So that wasn’t something to worry. But just the timing. We had to take all these trains back to London and we had to do transfers. A mistake in trains could make us miss the gig. We were thorough and asking the officers and such we finally succeeded and returned to London just in time. We had some so-so food at a Weatherspoons around Buffalo Bar and got just in time for the first band.

Two folk bands and two indiepop bands was the premise for that night. Don’t hate me if I don’t remember the name of the folk bands. But the indiepop class was represented by Cosines and Flowers. Flowers were headlining. Cosines had among their ranks many people I know like Alice, Dan and Johnny. Also my dear Kajsa was playing with them. It was a pleasure to see her playing keyboards again, smiling, dressed in a cute pink dress. She has one of my favourite smiles. A smile that I first met in Stockholm so many years ago and that I seem to see at least once a year since then. Can’t really complain, with the distance and all, must be one of my international friends I see the most. But anyways, I had been to the Buffalo Bar to see Flowers. And so after buying and buying San Miguel beers, because Rory wouldn’t give me a free one (!), it was about time for Flowers to get on the stage.

You’ll think I’m biased, but the thing is, that Flowers were amazing. They were a new band, but they sounded like soldiers of many battles, tight, and very confident. They knew what they were doing. Rachel with her one-string bass, Jordan with his noisy guitar and Sam banging the drums with a true C86 beat. I knew they were fantastic, I knew that since I found them on bandcamp ages ago and bought their 2 demo CDRs. But seeing them live, and making all the crow to be awe-struck, confirmed it to me. They were special. Wait, they ARE special.

The 7″ took a bit of time to be made. Issues with computers, with artwork, and stuff. But it was all worth it. It sounds great, it looks great, and it feels great. Four short songs of noisy pop, with vocals that remind you of a bygone era, like when people listened to The Parachute Men or The Nightblooms. But updated. Updated to sound like a band from today. Not surprisingly another Cloudberry graduates, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart invited them to tour around Europe with them. And it’s also not surprising that they have already signed a deal with Fortuna Pop to release an album later this year (also The Spook School joined them at this, could it be that Fortuna Pop trusts Cloudberry’s taste?).

If you haven’t already, please do check “When You Lie” on the Cloudberry website. It’s just a teaser, but it’s a fantastic song. If you like it, do order it. Or if you are in London pick up a copy at the next London Popfest where they will probably amaze everyone!

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But let’s move to the obscure band of the week: Boxing Clever.

I remember looking for them many years ago, with no success. I remember finding one of the members on Myspace, I think he was involved with some sort of punk band. Sadly I never heard back from him. I wanted to interview him about the band for the blog of course.

The only piece of information comes from the Falkirk Music Scene page. It says:

BIOGRAPHY:
Falkirk / Edinburgh pop / rock act formed in 1988 by ex-Breakfast Boyz member Justin Skelton (vocals / guitar). He added local drummer Ian Wallace (ex-Nirvana, no not that one!) and Edinburgh musicians Gus Carmichael (keyboards), George Christie (guitar) & Eddie McGlone (bass). The band released one single in 1989, “Toy Soldiers”, on the BMG label before splitting. Skelton later ran a rehearsal room, whilst Wallace joined The Cotton Train.

RELEASES:
“Toy Soldiers” (12 inch single, BMG, 1989)

None of those bands named in that little biography had any releases sadly. So it’s hard to track them through them.

The Urban Dictionary says that Boxing Clever means: to use inventive thinking above all other attributes in order to achieve an end goal.

Is that why they named the band like that? One can only wonder. The truth is that the only other bit of information I could gather was from the back cover of their 12″ release. A 12″ I haven’t had any luck in having or finding.

We know that all songs were written by Justin Skelton and then arranged by the rest of the band. The songs that were included in this release were “Toy Soldiers”, “I Just Do”, “Nobody Else I Know” and “William”. There’s a little information about each one of them:

Toy Soldiers – Recorded at Palladium Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever and Chris Harley. Engineered by Keith Mitchell.

I Just Do – Recorded at H.M. Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever. Engineered by Alan Cuthberson.

Nobody Else I Know – Recorded at H.M. Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever. Engineered by Alan Cuthberson.

William – Recorded at The Howf. Produced and engineered by Justin Skelton.

Keyboards and accordian were provided by Gus Carmichael and John Sweeney respectively.

All tracks published BMG (a major! horror!) Music Publishing LTD. But it was released by Beaver Records.

The sleeve design was thanks to Rose O’ Connor. And the record came out in 1989.

And that’s all there is. I could tell you  a bit about Falkirk as it has some interesting history, if you like though? Well, so…

An Eaglais Bhreac is a derivative formed from the Scottish Gaelic cognate of the first recorded name Ecclesbrith from the Brittonic for “speckled church”, presumably referring to a church building built of many-coloured stones. The Scottish Gaelic name was translated into Scots as Fawkirk then later amended to the modern English name of Falkirk. The Latin name Varia Capella also has the same meaning. Falkirk Old Parish Church stands on the site of the medieval church, which may have been founded as early as the 7th century.

 The Antonine Wall, which stretches across the centre of Scotland, passed through the town and remnants of it can be seen at Callendar Park. Similar to Hadrian’s Wall but built of turf rather than stone so less of it has survived, it marked the northern frontier of the Roman Empire between the Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde during the AD 140s. Much of the best evidence of Roman occupation in Scotland has been found in Falkirk, including a large hoard of Roman coins and a cloth of tartan, thought to be the oldest ever recorded.

And that’s all I can tell you about Boxing Clever and Falkirk, and Scotland this week. Though probably after listening to the song, you’d wonder why there’s no more information about them. I ask myself the same. Wish I knew if they had more recordings. If they appeared on compilations. Whatever happened to them? Where are they now? So many mysteries. Maybe some of you remember them? Maybe some can fill in the blanks!

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Listen
Boxing Clever – Nobody Else I Know

So that petition I urged everyone to sign at the White House page has expired because it failed to reach the amount of signers required. It’s probably how things will be then for at least a year, high postage to send records abroad. I don’t want to cause panic, but it’s pretty obvious we won’t thrive though some geniuses at Darla are boasting that they are having amazing sales and all other record labels are whiners. Good for them. It shows how “indie” they are, giving a f@ck about the rest.

Doing some research around, looking for reasons for this collapse of our beloved USPS, explanations on what had happened I found two very interesting posts on the eBay Forums:

Globally, Some countries have been in the middle of an economic downturn. Since the USPS International rates are standardized across most countries- changes for the majority effect even the minority. Plus it makes things less complicated. Many countries want MORE money, and by definition share of the money spent on postage, to process international mail that comes into their country. Very Cheap International Postage made the amount of money, when split between both the USPS and the receiving country kinda small. So they have corrected it so that both the USPS is happy with the money they make and that the receiving country is happy too.Since the UPU the body that help sets the rates only formally meets every four years we get sticker shock.

As far as UK buyers are concerned, there will be huge ramifications of this USPS price hike. This is because there is a paltry £15 limit (which was REDUCED from £18 recently) on the value of any incoming parcels, and this INCLUDES the postage cost. Anything over that gets slapped with a 20% customs charge and – wait for it –  a flat £8 “administration” fee. So even a small hike in postage will mean that buyers, even of small light and inexpensive items (like myself), will be deterred from continuing to buy, since the new prices will most likely push the value over the UK tax threshold. Ironically, it will really only be worth buying expensive items on eBay, as the taxes and charges won’t dwarf the cost of the actual item!

We haven’t really thought about these ramifications that these new prices will have. But there will be a domino effect, no doubt. It wouldn’t surprise me that other countries start raising their prices. The only ones that might be celebrating with this situation is the Canadian post. You ask why? It is very common in that Canadians living next to the border, would just cross it to post their things, even when they wanted to send their envelopes and parcels within Canada as it was always cheaper. Will they cross the border now? Perhaps not, as the prices will be around the same.

So for now, we can only sit and wait, see what all this USPS mess will bring us all. I had to raise all Cloudberry prices at the moment, and I’m happy to say that there is still support from fans. I hope it continues this way. It all depends on you all who support bands and labels that we continue our indiepop dream.

Yes. There are Cloudberry news. So let’s move to that. Happier topic.

Three days to go for the release of the Alpaca Sports 7″! As you all know, as you all have heard, it’s a cracker. And they’ve worked hard on it, recording videos for each of the three songs of the vinyl. Head to the website and listen/watch and order. They will be promoting the record very soon too in Madrid Popfest. And in Stockholm too, at the So Unbelievable club, where I will be celebrating my birthday. Oh good times ahead. Two days ago, Andreas gave a solo Alpaca Sports show in Lima, Peru, too. From what I hear it was an amazing success. I still haven’t seen them live. And I can wait for next month. No surprise they were voted best new band of 2012. And I hear they will be in the US this year too!

Then in less than two weeks the Flowers 7″ will be out. Will write more about this release next week. You don’t want to miss this one. Pre-orders have been pouring. And I’ve read some reviews saying they might be the next big thing? I wouldn’t be surprised. They are special.

But I wanted to tell you about the new fanzine I’ve been working on, and this time I’ll be super thorough not to make pagination mistakes. Promise! The CD is almost ready, and I will be announcing the tracklist soon. Right now you can preview one of the tracks on our soundcloud. It’s called “If It’s True” and it’s the fab Tiny Fireflies behind it. And about the paper zine, I’m just missing a couple of pieces. Hopefully I can finish writing it this week if I have enough time.

Also there are new bands that will be working with us on new 7″ releases. Can’t say the names yet, but, I’m already very excited. One is from Japan, the other based in Scotland. That’s enough hints I can give you all!

And now, let’s finish this week’s post with a very obscure band, The Fontaines.

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Fontaine is a French word meaning fountain or natural spring. 

Fountain – is the title of a famous sculpture by Marcel Duchamp.

So where do you think the band got their name from?

The Fontaines only left us one 7″ record. Two songs that were recorded in 1987. Upon listening to them, you’d understand why they are not enough. They are too good, especially the fabulous B side, that one can only crave for more.

The label was 51st Parallel. Probably their own label. A self-release. The catalog number is FONT1.

There are two 51st parallels:

51st Parallel North: At this latitude the sun is visible for 16 hours, 33 minutes during the summer solstice and 7 hours, 55 minutes during the winter solstice.  The catchment area of London can be broadly defined by the 51st and 52nd parallels.

51st Parallel South: The 51st parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 51 degrees south of the Earth’s equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and South America.

Most probably named because of the northern parallel.

The A side was “I Want Everything”. The B side was the amazing “Bernadette”.

I first heard about this band thanks to the list on Twee.net of future bands to be showcased on the Leamington Spa series. Then later I remember “Bernadette” being uploaded to Youtube though it’s not there anymore. And lastly on the amazing compilation CD Rupert from Turntable revolution shared with me. Actually, Rupert, on his blog, had found some interesting facts back in 2009 (!) and I hope it’s ok to refresh them here in my blog:

Recorded in three days in August 1987 this superior independent release vaulted into the pop world to a clamour of indifference. Unfair treatment indeed. With lyrics redolent of Morrissey after an all night kitchen sink drama video session they may well have been ready to perch on the throne of misery the Smiths were about to vacate. Nothing more was forthcoming though and this slice of pulchritudinous pop was consigned to the carrier bag of discarded dreams.

The band consisted of Brian Green on vocals, Duane Fontaine on guitar, Louis Jones on guitar, Andy Reynolds on bass and Ed Grimshaw on drums. I had an email from Dr. Andy Reynolds who tells me that Louis Jones and Ed Grimshaw went on to form the Warm Jets and Brian Green went on to record an LP with Hugh Cornwell, then went to Nashville and now teaches song-writing MA in Bath. Apparently there exist videos of the band performing other songs which may one day appear on Youtube. Dr.Reynolds is now a reader in medieval archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in London. Perhaps five hundred years from now someone will dig up an old Fontaines record and marvel at this gleaming example of mid eighties pop.

I haven’t had the chance yet to find myself a copy of the record, but some kind person has uploaded the back sleeve of the 7″ and there are some more clues about this amazing release. For example there are credits for Matthew Reynolds who played harmonica and trumpet. That it was recorded at Sam Studios on the 28, 29 and 30th of August 1987. There are thanks to Bryan & Alex Deacon, the Locks, Nick Adams, Terry Medford, the JimBeamGang, Derek Batey, Julian & Florien for their help + advice. Farewell to Eamonn.

There are a couple of cryptic images and words. “Hines for President!”. “Love in Batch”. A map showing Finchely Road. And write to them at a PO Box in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Let’s keep on digging. So Andy (Andrew) Reynolds actually has a Wikipedia page as he has become a successful archaeologist publishing several books.

And the band Warm Jets, that had Louis Jones and Ed Grimshaw, also has one. Grimshaw had been part of another band, even prior to The Fontaines. They were called Ophiuchus and you can read their whole story here as well.

That’s all there was left from The Fontaines. One fantastic 7″. One very hard to find too. Perhaps not many copies were pressed. But as always I do end up wondering if they left any other recordings. Perhaps some demo tapes. If only those videos Rupert talks about would show up on Youtube one day. To unveil a mystery. To know more about this fantastic band that history decided to keep them in obscurity. Unfair. Songs like “Bernadette” should have been a huge hit.

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Listen
The Fontaines – Bernadette

Paul Hopkins, who played with Life Studies (read about them here) just before they broke up, has kindly shared with me some songs from a practice session.

I joined the band for one gig after they’d released the single. Martyn the bass player had gone to Israel and Phil and Graham needed a bass player. I bumped into Phil on a Gloucester -bound coach at Heathrow airport and he asked me if I wanted to play – hence the practice session recording at Spadger – just myself, Phil and Graham. They formed the Trout Faced Few not long after  with some people from the Erratic Strides.

The songs were recorded on a cassette recorder as part of a practice session in preparation for a gig at the Flying Machine, Brockworth between the release of the 45  ‘Girl on Fire’ and the demise of the band.

This is Leave Me Alone, a New Order cover.

This is Inside Out.

This is 1000 Closing Doors.

This has been already a difficult week. The United States Postal Service has raised the postage prices. It’s expected that every year they do so, and for the last couple of years their increases were really reasonable. This year in the other hand has been insane albeit not for domestic postage. It has been international postage what had been hurt the most with increases of almost 100%!

What used to cost around $6 to post a 7″ abroad now costs almost $10. Small labels that don’t really have big distributors behind them, that rely on individual buyers abroad will be hurt the most. Thus, Cloudberry will be really hurt. Unless of course international fans don’t mind paying now much more for postage than what they are already buying. We’ll see.

Sadly I spent yesterday afternoon updating the paypal buttons with new prices. Please do write me if you want to combine postage. We’ll always try to work something out. The terrible part of it all  is that all these new prices weren’t calculated in the pre-orders for our next three 7″s. This will only mean that we’ll be losing a hole lot of money when posting these pre-orders. But what can we do? What’s fair is fair. Perhaps we shouldn’t do pre-orders anymore if the USPS are going to come with crazy surprises like this one.

I do see a good opportunity though for international indiepop fans. It might be a good time to start a mailorder in your country as people will probably prefer buying records that way as it might be cheaper as the mailorders usually buy in bulks. Or perhaps the existing mailorders will take advantage of it all and become more central, more important and more successful too. This is all yet to see, but the chances of thriving are big I think.

On a not so related note, the New York Subway fares are also increasing. My monthly pass will go from $104 to $113. Everything’s going up!

Anyways, back to the big issue of the week. Sure these prices are less competitive than the ones we used to have. It’s funny. I used to complain of German postal rates. But they have gone cheaper in the last couple of years. I think that you can mail 5 7″s for 5 euros. That’s a super price. The US instead think we should have Japan-like prices for our postage. I wonder if many of the other small business around won’t be affected by it. Probably they will. And is this the way the American government tries to help it’s businesses?

I read in some forums some Canadians cheering for this postal increase. Their reasoning being that they couldn’t compete with the previous US prices. The Canadian postage being quite pricey. They said the previous US prices were unrealistic, that they were subsidized, and now things are getting fairer. Maybe they do have a point. But doesn’t it feel terribly stupid to pay 10 dollars postage for something that costs really around 5 dollars? Doesn’t make any sense.

I can understand that prices had to go up. But I do hope the USPS bright minds come with some flat rate ideas as the German did. That would alleviate this complicated panorama were are seeing. In the meantime I urge everyone that reads this to sign this petition, we need to fight in every front to make indiepop survive. This might be the biggest blow I’ve experienced since starting the label. I have to be honest that, for the first time, the future of the label is a bit scary.

PS. I have one good news. The Flowers 7″ will be out February 15th. More on that next week! Keep your eyes peeled!

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PATRIC (Pathosystems Resource Integration Center) is the Bacterial Bioinformatics Resource Center, an information system designed to support the biomedical research community’s work on bacterial infectious diseases via integration of vital pathogen information with rich data and analysis tools.

The only famous Patric I could think of:

Jason Patric (born June 17, 1966) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is known for his roles in the films The Lost Boys, Sleepers, Your Friends & Neighbors, Narc, The Losers and Speed 2: Cruise Control. His father was actor/playwright Jason Miller. Patric is the maternal grandson of Jackie Gleason.

Not many clues there about the mysterious, enigmatic and obscure Patric.

A couple of weeks back Stephan from Germany sent me a couple of songs from this mysterious band. He asked me to blog about them. The information online seemed scarce, but I actually ended up finding a 12″, their one and only, for a good price. The songs were brilliant. Perfect jangly pop. Chiming guitars, and the kind of British vocals we all love!

The songs were: “The Message”, “On the Road”, “It’s Over”. My favourite being “The Message” with those girl backing vocals. It kind of reminds me a bit of The Bats! But UK style? Yeah, something like that. Strangely. It’s pretty good.

This record that has on the front cover a black and white photo of who I would guess is the real Patric was produced by Chris Groothuizen, engineered by Charles Bullen and recorded at Cold Storage, Brixton. There are special thanks to Sarah, and the cover photo was taken by Suzy Gibbons. It was released by Orange Records (catalog JOOS IT) from Camberwell, south London.

On the labels of the record we see credit to a P. O’Connor. Probably then, Patric O’Connor?

There is some information though about what happened to our hero Patric after this release. He joined the House of Love (?!). Well, not quite. He joined the remaining members after Terry Bickers left and Guy Chadwick was having a sabbatical. With them they formed a band called My White Bedroom who released an album with Plastic Records in 1991. I have never listened to it, but I plan buying it next week, it doesn’t seem hard to find, though with all these price increases perhaps I should cut my spending! The Youtube uploads of some of their songs are nice… Anyhow…

On an internet forum I read one of the guys that was in Counterfeit (the band on Creation Records and who had a re-release not so long ago on Vollwert) saying about My White Bedroom:

The band were originally called “Patric” – at the time the only HOL member was Chris Groothuizen (the bassist who didn’t make the HOL reunion).

Vaguely remember the My White Bedroom record – but I have the only 12″ Patric released – “The Message”.

I played with Patric and The Motorcycle Boy at the Goldsmiths Tavern in’89 with a band called Stranger – we changed our name to Counterfeit, made one shit Creation 12″ and split up

On this same forum, on a message from August 18, 2008, our hero Patric shows up and decides to tell us the story of the band! So hold on tight and read:

My White Bedroom was formed in late 1985 and performed their first ‘proper’ gig at The Ambulance Station in early 1986. They continued in one form or another until 1996.

In 1989 after being dropped by Orange records Patric approached Chris with the idea to make an album . Chris had taken over Plastic records from Guy Chadwick and was keen to sign up new acts to the fledgling label. Money was raised from various quarters ( Alan McGee stumped up a couple of grand) and the record was recorded in two weeks at a studio on Bedford Hill in Balham in December 1989. More recording and mastering followed in 1990 but it wasn’t released until May 1991.

Some of the musicians on the album had played in the band at various points during the 1980’s :

Simon Walker joined the original My White Bedroom lineup in 1986 and was with the band for two years before he went on to join HOL after the departure of Terry Bickers. Simon played lead on ‘Lazer Gun’ , ‘The Garden’ and ‘This Time’.

Chris Groothuizen met Patric in 1985 and spent many an hour ‘jamming’ and honing his bass playing skills in a Camberwell squat before joining HOL in 1986. He played bass on all the tracks and produced the record .

Pete Donaghy was an American guitarist who played with MWB when they supported HOL on the English leg of their European tour. He played lead on ‘The Ocean’ and ‘Into the Light Now’ .He went on to form Mung in the 1990’s .

Pete Evans was the HOL drummer and is still with the band today. He played drums on all the tracks.

Mick Gallen was an Australian musician who played the Doors style keyboards on ‘Lovechild’ and a few other tracks.

Backing vocals were by Patric’s sister Rachel.

All lead vocals and other lead and rhythm guitar parts were sung /played by Patric who also wrote all the songs.

The album had some ecstatic reviews and went on to sell a respectable amount in spite of having no promotion and being deleted by Creation Records after it’s initial run.

Hope that clears up a few facts for anyones who is interested,

cheers – Patric

And that’s the end of it. No more information about this obscure Patric. If they had been going though for so long, they might and must have more songs. And that would be amazing.  If they played any gigs? If anyone of you saw them play? I wonder what happened to him after the My White Bedroom record too. If he continued making music. As always so many mysteries. But here, I will urge you to get yourself a copy of the Patric 12″. It’s a long lost classic. You’ll like it!

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Listen
Patric – The Message

Poppyhead is a form of carving of the end of a bench or a choir stall. Its name is unrelated to the poppy flower. It is derived, by way of Old French, from the Latin word puppis, which means the poop or the figurehead of a ship. In its simplest, and its most usual form, it has the appearance of a stylised fleur-de-lys. In some cases, it consists of a much more intricate carving; for example in Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, some of the poppyheads represent the seven deadly sins.

Back from a nice weekend in San Diego and waiting for me 500 vinyl records for Alpaca Sports. The only missing piece now are the inserts and they will be arriving on Friday. Pre-orders then will start shipping on Saturday. I love when we make it on time, before the release date deadline. But it won’t stop there, there’s more work to do as we have Flowers coming out on February 20th.

I took the red eye flight on Monday night, arriving at 6:20am yesterday. 2 hours of sleep at home. And then to work, on the coldest day of the winter so far. Today is as cold though and for the first time I use a huge puffy jacket to work. Looking good doesn’t matter anymore when it is this cold. It was a very long day yesterday, but quite rewarding as I met Ed for dinner in K-Town. He brought me the latest Shelflife releases which was a surprise. There is one 7″ that everybody should get this year, and that’s the Goodly Thousands one that he just put out. It’s beautiful. I joked about “stealing” him this band. It’s that good. While you are at it, do get Nalda’s new album and the Pia Fraus compilation.

In San Diego I didn’t step into any record store. Actually it was an indiepop-less weekend. I didn’t even bring music with me. I stuck to doing the touristy stuff. Seeing the sights. Enjoying the beautiful weather and with stoic discipline having only Mexican food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

$44 to get into the zoo seemed a bit over the top. The world renowned San Diego Zoo. But I’m not much into saving money when I’m on a trip. I always convince myself saying “once in a lifetime”. So in there I went and saw for the first time panda bears, red pandas, koalas, okapis, and komodo dragons. I had a really good time watching at the apes and monkeys as well. Since I was a kid they were my favourite with their silly occurrences.

Another fun thing was taking a cruise into the Pacific Ocean for whale watching. Sadly the cruises don’t get too close to the whales so bringing binoculars would have been a great idea. But I didn’t know. I thought the whales were going to be jumping next to the boat. Nonetheless it was fun and I saw plenty of whales spouting and diving, bringing their huge tales out of the water. Best of all of this 3 hour tour was that they served very cheap beer on board.

True was that there was cheap beer everywhere. So unlike here in New York. We even crashed into an art gallery opening where there were two kegs of beer. And it wasn’t cheep beer, it was some San Diego microbrewery brand. It was good. Even in the zoo beer was at reasonable price.

Huevos rancheros for breakfast. Lobster enchiladas. Swordfish tacos. Shrimp burritos. Machaca. Chiles toreados. And so on. Everything served with rice and beans. And tortillas. Everyday it was a feast of Mexican food. And again it was cheap. I always ended up ordering so much food because I thought a $6 dollar portion wasn’t going to be enough for me. So I ordered more food. Always. I must have gained weight this weekend. Happily I don’t have a scale at home. So I won’t worry.

On my last day in San Diego I went all the way to Cabrillo National Monument, which is the northern tip of the bay, it looks like a huge elephant trunk that embraces San Diego and the Coronado island. Up there you get some amazing views of the city. You can also see Mexico on the horizon. It was really pretty up there, next to an old lighthouse. There’s also a path there to some tidal pools where you can spot different species of sea-life like anemones and colorful crabs. Next stop was San Diego’s old town, that I would guess is not really that old as it looks kind of fake, like some those “countries” in Disney’s Epcot Center. Still it was really pretty and picturesque. Mexican-style town. The Old West.

Upon coming back, going through all my emails, Uwe reminds me of The Poppyheads. And whatever happened to them?

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For a Sarah Records band there is very little on the web about The Poppyheads. It’s true that it is one of the most sought-after 7″s released by the Bristol label and it was an early release on the label. Perhaps that’s why. I don’t own a copy sadly, and perhaps never will as I don’t feel like investing over 80 pounds for a 7″. Unless I win the lottery that is.

Maybe back in the day they did appear in many fanzines. I don’t think I own any that have an article on them but maybe some of you do? If so, maybe there are interviews and rare photos of the band? These days no one writes about them, and not even those download blogs are offering any of their releases.

They had two releases. One on Sarah as many of you know, and a flexi on the pre-Sarah label Sha La La that Matt Haynes also ran. The sound had changed in between releases. From the ramshackle beauty of the flexi to a more Pastels-kind of sound on the Cremation Town 7″.

As I said the flexi came first, in 1987, and came along the Are You Scared to be Happy fanzine. It was the sixth issue of the zine. I do own the flexi, not the zine sadly. Hard to buy them in bundles these days. The flexi is titled “Postcard for Flossy” and has a fun artwork in yellow and blue with small profile pictures of each of the band members. It was catalog number Ba Ba Ba-Ba Ba 004 and had four songs on it’s one and only side, “Sun Shines Forever “, “Changes Yesterday”, “First Thing” and On And On”. On the back cover there are some credits: “Rob played twelve-string guitar, Del shook the tambourine and sang too, Andrew played bass, David sang and played guitar and Nigel hit the drums”.

In April 1988 Sarah 006 was out. It was the Poppyheads new 7″ and had three songs, two on the A side and one on the B Side. The songs were “Cremation Town”, “Pictures You Weave” and “Dreamabout”. It is one of the most beautiful 7″s ever released in indiepop history. The cover and the back cover have monotone pictures in green taken by an enigmatic Melissa. These songs were recorded at The Facility 31st January 1988 and it came with a black and white poster of the band. Now the credits in this release are more descriptive:
– Bass – Andrew Zurek
-Drums – Nigel Blackwood
-Keyboards – Del Davies
-Producer – Chris Martin
-Written-By, Guitar, Vocals – Rob Young
-Written-By, Vocals, Guitar – David Barbenel

The beautiful, my favourite song of them, “Dreamabout” also would appear on two Sarah Records compilations, on Shadow Factory and Air Balloon Road as well.

Among some tidbits that I found online about the band there is the fact that they were from Cambridge and that Rob Young is a music author, journalist and current editor-at-large of The Wire, a British based experimental music magazine.  Young has contributed to various publications including The Guardian, Gramophone, The Independent On Sunday, Uncut, Frieze and Jazz Times. Actually if you follow this link you can read some of his articles.

He has published a bunch of books already too:
-Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music (Editor, 2002: ISBN 0-8264-6450-5)
-Warp – Labels Unlimited (Black Dog Publishing, 2005: ISBN 1-904772-32-3)
-Rough Trade – Labels Unlimited (Black Dog Publishing, 2006: ISBN 1-904772-47-1)
-The Wire Primers Book (Editor, published by Verso, October 2009)

There’s also a story involving him, Factory Records and the fantastic Stockholm Monsters. As a youngster, Young allegedly wrote to Factory Records, looking to procure a copy of Stockholm Monsters’ latest release for a review in his fanzine, Tony France; the return letter was a rather succinct: “Fuck off and buy their records.”

About the other band members I couldn’t find any information. There’s a cello player called David Barbenel though who was playing for the Alan Tyler & The Lost Sons Of Littlefield. Could it be him? There’s a slight possibility as there are some members in this band that used to be in The Rockingbirds who were kind of close to the indiepop scene back in the early nineties releasing some records in Clawfist Records.

And that’s about it. I’ve heard there are tapes with more songs by The Poppyheads but never had the chance to hear to them. I wonder how many songs were actually recorded. Will they ever release a retrospective like their other Sarah Records peers did? I do know Firestation is interested and that would be a great thing for indiepop fans! If anyone has any memories, or any anecdotes or anything at all, please share! I really would like to know more about The Poppyheads, their legacy is little, but it’s really precious!

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Listen
The Poppyheads – Dreamabout

Cristóbal sends me a message, “have you seen the Twee.net results?”. It’s last Monday and I’m waiting for a friend to have early lunch. Korea Town. 12pm. Just an hour before work. I haven’t seen the poll results. I don’t expect any blatant cheating as Series Two did many years ago, but I expect some dubious labels to show up. It’s part of the game. Anyways, it’s never more than 30 or so people that bother to vote. But my reasoning being that these are the 30 people that are really into indiepop, that do care to express their mind.

Upon devouring my soup with noodles and sliced ribeye, and having a nice time with my friend who just moved to New York from Miami to work at the NY Times, I walked the 5 long blocks that separate the K-Town and it’s fun karaokes and AP’s building in a non-descriptive street. First thing to do when waking up the computer, check the Twee.net poll.

I admit I wasn’t surprised to see Cloudberry getting just the exhilarating amount of 2 votes. If one was by Cristóbal, then there is one more fan in the whole world. Many thanks to that one person who voted for me. Matinée won the category with 8 votes.

The blog did win, or to be exact, tied with three other blogs on the first place on the category Best Blog about Indiepop. We got three votes as A Layer of Chips, Indefinitely Blue and Frigopop also did. Cheers for that. Quite an accomplishment. If I remember correctly the blog also did very well in the 2012 poll.

On the best band category it was lovely to see Alpaca Sports on the 3rd place with 5 votes. Alpaca Sports is our next release. And actually the sleeves for the upcoming 7″ single arrived this weekend. Now just waiting for the vinyls! Another Cloudberry-related band, The Garlands, came in 7th place. The winner of this category was no other than Allo Darlin.

For “Best Song”, it was great to see “Helen of Troy” by Pale Spectres on 4th place. Twig also had a song called “Helen of Troy” on the 3″ mini CD. Pale Spectres, who appeared on the CD of our last fanzine, will appear in an interview on the next fanzine now. And we are planning a 7″ release for this year. Crossing fingers. Again Allo Darlin wins this category.

The Garlands snatched a third place as “Best Album”. I would have loved to release this album of course. I voted for it as well. Once again Allo Darlin wins this category.

In “Best New Band”, Alpaca Sports win with flying colors. A well deserved first place with 8 votes. Pale Spectres, with 5 votes, came 4th. The surprise is Charlie Big Time, who are by no means a new band, as we released a 3″ CD in 2007, and later another song on the second Cloudberry fanzine in 2008. But this time they appear in this category as the 5th place.

“Best gig”? Allo Darlin keeps on winning. But second place is the Close Lobsters and their Madrid Popfest gig. I don’t understand how this gig didn’t win first place as it was so special. It was just legendary. Sorry Allo Darlin, you might have more fans willing to vote than The Close Lobsters, but their gig deserved first place. And the second place, if we are just fair and square, should have been The Aislers Set at the Chickfactor show in New York. Sadly it seems it was just me who thought this way as that gig only got one vote.

“Best Indiepop site” goes to Frigopop. I wonder what’s the difference between indiepop blog and indiepop site as these days it seems they are both the same.

“Best paper fanzine”. Oh here I’m actually so disappointed. The fanzine I make with so much love didn’t get even a single vote. Oddly enough the last fanzine sold out in just weeks. In previous years we always won this category. It was our stronghold. This year, no votes. But our fanzines sell faster. Go figure.

“Best mailorder” goes to Pebble Records. Second place for Jigsaw and third place, and please don’t get scared by this answer, “Bandcamp”. Yes you read that right. BANDCAMP. I can only ask, what is wrong with people??

Something I do miss from previous years of the Twee.net poll is the ability to check individual votes. That’s no longer the case, and now all votes are secret.

What does this all mean for Cloudberry, most probably it states the fact that we are not very well known. That even though we can be very productive our lack of “big bands” leaves us in the outskirts of the indiepop scene. That may raise the question, do we even want to be a bigger label? Certainly the answer is no, we are happy with how we work and what we do. I like the pace of Cloudberry. Will it be possible to keep doing the same and at some point gain more recognition? That’s something, entering in 2013 to our 6th year, I’d like to see. Perhaps the next Twee.net poll will answer those questions.

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Today I have a very obscure band. One that there’s almost zero information about online. It is true that they have a discogs entry and their two songs are on Youtube, but any sort of descriptive information about them is non-existent on the web. I heard about them, just by the name, from Stephan, a friend and a follower of the blog (who I owe some MP3 rips. Will do this week! Promise!). I eventually found the 7″ for cheap on eBay. Like for 3 dollars if I remember correctly, plus shipping. So I assume it’s easy to find for all of you treasure hunters.

picture (n.)  “drawing, painting,” from Latin pictura “painting,” from pictus, pp. of pingere “to make pictures, to paint, to embroider,”

innocence (n.) “freedom from guilt,” from O.Fr. inocence “innocence, purity, chastity” (12c.), from L. innocentia, from innocens “harmless, blameless” (see innocent). Meaning “lacking in guile or artifice” is from late 14c.

Two words from latin origin put together, Pictures of Innocence is the obscure band of the week.

The blue monotone cover sleeve has a picture of what I would guess a Chinese man, an elder man, smoking some sort of pipe. He is wearing shades. His hands are bony. And there’s smoke all around. On the right bottom corner the name of the band and the name of the A-side, “No-one Crying”.

This A-side is the best song of the 7″. A mix of synths and electric guitars, very much the style of pre-indiepop times. This is from 1983 and you can already sense where jangly pop was heading towards to in the British isles. The pop sensibilities of later C86 bands are here, but of course, it’s a bit different. It’s a different period altogether. But it’s great too as any pop lover would attest.

The record was released by Little Prince records, this release being the first reference of the catalog. This makes me deduce that this was a self-released record and the band ran the label. On one of the 7″ labels, you know the center part of the record, there’s a drawing of the Little Prince, who I assume most of the readers of the blog have read?

The B-side is “Love & War”. This song is a bit more synth-pop driven, more early 80s sound, with what I guess is a saxophone (?) too. It’s not as catchy as the A-side, but still it’s quite enjoyable. On this track the vocals are very late 80s indiepop I think. I’m brainstorming right now, thinking which band the vocals reminds me of, but I can’t just figure out, though I feel I have the name of the band on the tip of my tongue.

But as I said, about the band there’s nothing at all to uncover. We don’t know the band members’ names. Or if they had any releases. Or where in the UK were they from. And that’s if they are from the UK! If they played any gigs? If they were part of any scene? If they recorded any more songs? If they were involved with other bands? All questions are unanswered but hopefully not for long. Maybe some of you can help?

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Listen
Pictures of Innocence – No-one Crying