It’s time for me to get back to blogging even though most of my energies, at the moment, are being focused on a new Cloudberry fanzine. A printed one, of course. It will include interviews to The Mai 68s, The Andersen Tapes, Socialist Leisure Party among others, and of course a 5 song compilation 3″ CD. I hope I finish it by the end of the month. Anyways, this doesn’t mean I haven’t prepared any interviews for the blog since coming back from Europe. I have! So I hope some of those will appear on the blog sometime soon. I also want to write and document about my fantastic trip to Europe because it was filled with indiepop stories. As soon as my memories are less fresh and vivid, I’ll get into that. At the moment it is still a bit too intense to think about it! I know what I’m saying as last week I had to write an article about my time in Berlin for the Japanese magazine Cookie Scene. It was such a bittersweet feeling to type my memories in the computer, I wish I was still there. I feel like having a whirlpool in my heart. Lots of memories sinking in the spiral.

So no wonder I’ve been very curious about Whirlpool Heart as of late. I had to send some MP3s to Firestation Records headquarters for Uwe to check run how unknown these songs are. It’s like doing the Carbon 14 test. He is the specialist. What did we get from the results? Well, he didn’t have a clue about who this band was. As far as I know there were only 3 songs released, all of them on tape compilations. Two of them, “Walls Spin Around” and “Too Late”, appear on the  Turquoise Trees tape, while “Flights of Fancy” appears on the Seahorses tape. Both tapes came along the Red Roses for Me fanzine. Does that ring a bell? The three Whirlpool Heart songs are haunting, with heavy guitars, dreamy melodies, boy/girl vocals, dark atmospheres. I really enjoy them. I usually like more upbeat, happier, sunnier songs, but Whirlpool Heart bewitches me somehow. Then it’s an easy guess that they took the name from the great Wild Swans song. What a song that is! By the way, have you bought the new Wild Swans 7″? It’s really good!

It’s been now a little over a year since I started this page, and during this past calendar, I’ve gotten tons of emails and blog comments with KNOWLEDGE about this music we like so much. I really want to thank all of you, including all the bands that came and got in touch with me. I never expected the blog to be popular, I don’t think it is, but having people pop up decades after their bands split is really heartwarming. And that’s what makes me happy to continue.

One last thing, I have a little clue that might help. On the Turquoise Trees sleeve it says:

“Thanks to… Carol Samways, Andy Ford, Neal Carr, Johnny Septic, Jon E.Hardy, Stephen Maughan, Stewie Anderson”

If the names are in the same order as in the bands that appear on the tape, which looks like it, Carol Samways was part of Whirlpool Heart. Maybe she was in bands before? Maybe in bands after? No idea. But, would you like to help me solve this mystery?

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Whirlpool Heart – Walls Spin Around

Tim Readman from the Watt Government just got in touch! He wrote me a bit more about the band and it’s quite interesting, so please have a read! Also you can find a live video for the song Working My Fingers to the Bone here! And while there please check a video of their previous band Arthur 2 Stroke and The Chart Commandos! Tim confirmed me there was only one single released but that there were many recordings made. Hope I get to hear them soon!

Watt Government were originally formed to do some opening spots on comedian Alexei Sayle’s tour of England in around 1982. At that time the band was me on electric guitar and vocals, Debbie Byron on lead vocals, and Steve Nash on acoustic guitar and vocals. Over time the band was reinforced by members of a band Steve and Tim previously played in called Arthur 2 Stroke and the Chart Commandos – Ian Thompson on bass, Graham Easthope on sax, Ross Winning on trumpet, Stevie Lee on percussionist and Davey Bruce on drums.

The name Watt Government comes from a few different places. First it is a play on words because it sounds like what government? That was a question we were asking a lot in the early 8o’s during Thatcher’s reign.

We wrote a song called What Government which dealt with the actions of police outside the Orgreave Colliery during the historic coal miner’s strike of the 1984-5. Orgreave was a coal mine situated adjacent to the main line of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway about 5 miles south east of Sheffield. A widely reported clash during the strike took place at the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotherham on 18 June 1984. This confrontation between striking miners and police, around 10,000 on each side, was dubbed ‘The Battle of Orgreave’. Violence flared after police on horse-back charged the miners with truncheons drawn and inflicted serious injuries upon several individuals. In 1991, the South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out £425,000 to thirty-nine miners who were arrested in the events at the incident.

Watt also refers to Watt Tyler – Watt Tyler was one of the leaders of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. He was a slain by the King’s supporters after drinking a jug of beer “in a very rude and disgusting fashion before the King’s face.”

Watt also refers to the Watts riots – The term Watts Riots of 1965 refers to a large-scale race riot which lasted 6 days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965. It was a landmark event during the development of the Human Rights movement.

I think by now you will be getting the point!

Waiting for a Phone Call is a song about an imaginary phone conversation between Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Working My Fingers to the Bone is a song about not being able to switch off after work. It was inspired musically by African music- stuff like King Sunny Ade, Rochereau, Manu Dibango, The Super Rail Band and Fela Kuti.

Martin Brammer and Dave Brewis are school friends of mine who had success with The Kane Gang. Martin is from my home town of Seaham and Dave is from Whitburn, just north of Sunderland. They produced the first version of the song, which was originally to be released on the Kitchenware label. It was sent to be manufactured to our publisher, Hugh Phillimore, in London. His BMW was stolen with the master tape in the boot and never recovered so we had to re-record it. I had to talk the guys at Volume records in Newcastle into giving us the dough to re-record and release it.

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Watt Government – Working My Fingers to the Bone

Even though at the moment I’m swamped with work, duties, and life (because life is voracious), I really wanted to update the blog. One of these duties that keep piling, that I should be working on, is that of making a small fanzine about German pop. I’ll be in Berlin in less than a month and Luise and me are trying to do a little zine to celebrate the scene that is happening right now as well as some old favourite records from the past. There seems to be a healthy scene happening in Germany overall, with new-ish clubs as Adventure Playground, Hit the North, the Pop Kombinat! and the Pop Assistants. And I really believe they deserve some praise. So hopefully for the evening of the 9th, we’ll have these available. That night I’ll be at a small club called the Schwalbe djing, alongside with Uwe Firestation and Andy Pop Assistants, some favourite tunes. Really looking forward to that. If you happen to be in Berlin, please come by. I’ll post a flyer as soon as I finish that too (another thing to get done!).

While going through the German pop records I have, checking which ones would be best to recommend on the zine, I ended up with pulling out of my boxes a She Splinters Mortar 7″. But this one couldn’t wait. I had to play it immediately. While the record spinning dizzily on the turntable, I keep getting flashbacks of what I have to do. There’s a couple of interviews to do, there’s a release today on the Cloudberry Classics by Kosmonaut, the band from Stephen Almighty Pop! after Bulldozer Crash, there’s getting together some CDs to DJ later in Berlin, Stockholm and Hamburg, there’s writing the new Cloudberry zine, there’s artwork to be done for Plastilina releases, and there seems that the etcetera keeps growing as well. The horoscope witch said that September was going to be a tough month, a busy month, and she seems right. She says among other things: “These are nerve wrecking, draining aspects and you must do all you can to protect your health. Life events may wear you down, and should you feel overwhelmed, call a friend or a therapist, and do all you can to get more rest. ” Tough luck for me, seems resting is not an option. She does splinter mortar.

The 7″s continues to play. 2 songs on each side. I was recommended this 7″ by Uwe a long time ago. I haven’t played it for months and it sounds as fresh as the first time. On the A side you find “Straight From Her Heart” and “Goldmine”. On the B side there’s “All Comes Out” and “Bird of Prey”. The music, the nerve, the style, the way the guitars chime, they sound as if they were part of the Leamington Spa series! Immediately, for some reason, I’m reminded to the Reserve while listening to “Goldmine”, and perhaps to The Visitors too… but then maybe I’m just thinking of similar song titles? The bass line is great on this tune, which I think it’s my favourite. “All Comes Out” Is also really nice! This one has jangly, clean guitars, very similar to the Desert Wolves guitar textures. So who are these She Splinters Mortar? There’s a mysterious name on the record labels. It says: Harald Dawo. A quick google search says that Harald Dawo is a car photographer based in Cologne. Could that be him? I wonder so. The record was indeed recorded in Cologne, which is quite a hint to believe it could be him. It was recorded in September 1987 at the Whitehouse Studios. There are some other names, the sound technician was Detlev Schmitz, who also did the production and mixing, and Bernd Bodtländer, who took the photos of the band for the sleeve. Also this is the first release on the Die Schwarze Sieben label, which was based in Wiesbaden.

There seems to be at least another 7″ by the band with the A side “Distress”. Never heard this one. Also there is an album called “Jaguar” which was released in 87 as well. Never seen this one either. Also Twee.net lists a tape called “Rund Um Die Welt” were the song “Mind Cries Mary” was included.

And that’s about all the information there is available I think. And of course, if you are up to solving the mystery about this really nice band, do it! Any anecdotes or information is always welcome! And now I should go get some more stuff done, but first, I have to give the record another spin.

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She Splinters Mortar – Goldmine

One of the worst moments in running the Plastilina label was the failed release for the California Snow Story album. We had already promoted in our website, approved the artwork, received the master, saw it leek on soulseek, but at the last minute we had to drop it. Why? Well, I guess it’s not worth it to go into details, let’s just say it was a ‘misunderstanding’. A month later the album was released on the, now sadly-defunct, Letterbox Records label in UK. “‘Close To The Ocean” was a gorgeous album, a step further for the band David Skirving (an ex-Camera Obscura) founded years before. The biggest improvement was that of the band becoming a duo with the addition of Sandra Belda. Her name was unknown for many (if not all) popkids but happily I was already familiar with her previous band: Superété. I knew, since day one, that this combo, these Batman and Robin of pop, were going to be able to craft a lush album.

I always found quite curious that the press release for the California Snow Story album mentions Sandra’s past: “Sandra was previously the vocalist in the highly rated Valencia-based duo Superété. Superété recorded music in Spain in 2001/2002 and played frequently in Valencia and Barcelona in 2003 and 2004.” I’m not being sarcastic or arrogant if I say that the band was and still is unknown to most of Spanish popkids. Of course, shame on them, but the band didn’t really do any proper release. I do know that in their hometown, Valencia, they were quite popular though. I remember many years ago, probably around 2004, while working on a compilation for a Peru-only release called “Es Pop Mamá!”, I was in touch with a band called Bisiesta, from Valencia as well. The guy from the band got me in touch with Sandra as he was so excited that someone so far away knew about this band he also enjoyed a lot. Those were the days when no one was on facebook or myspace, so it was straight to MSN, on a three-way conversation. Sadly Sandra was a wee busy working at the hospital and couldn’t talk much. I joked saying she was the “Enfermera de Noche” (the night-shift nurse) which is a classic Spanish pop song by La Mode, we talked a bit about music, and then she had to go to do her duties. I never heard again from her till the day we got in touch about California Snow Story.

Back then there was a Superété website (which was www.superete.tk). I think at some point there was a Myspace. Today there aren’t any remains of them, it’s like Scipio Africanus’ troops punished them. But if memory serves, Superété were a duo, a boy and girl duo, just like California Snow Story. It was formed by Sandra and Julio in Valencia. I’m guessing the press release is wrong when it says they recorded songs between 2001 and 2002. Their first EP dates from 2003. The second was released a year after and it’s a bit different, you can tell the band grew up. Also, worth searching is a EP released by Julio under the name Julipop. How does it sound? Not so far from Superété, just that it had male vocals.

These are the two self-released EPs by Superété:

Cuando Amanece EP
01. Te Vas a Enterar
02. Septiembre
03. Cuando Anochece
04. Mi Robot
05. Cuando Anochece (Bot mix)

Superété EP
01. Tu Silencio
02. Martina Feliz
03. La Groupie Asesina
04. Te Vas a Enterar (Bot mix)
05. Cuando Anochece (Sleepdancing bot mix)

I’m giggling while listening the wonderful “Martina Feliz” (Happy Martina) who seems was a big fan of Le Mans! Or “La Groupie Asesina” (The Assassin Groupie) with those brasses and devilish lyrics! Or the playful “Mi Robot” (My Robot) which reminds me the happiest moments of the genius Antonio Galvañ from Parade.

They played many gigs in Valencia, even opening for Cola Jet Set, now a known name for UK people after their gig at Indietracks. Also the duo played along other favourites of mine, Nobel, who surely deserve some lines in this blog. On top of that, Sandra was also involved in writing stuff for the Jamacuco fanzine, which still is around. I guess I can still ask Sandra about the band, but I haven’t been in touch in such a long time. I wonder what’s she is up to. Maybe there’s another California Snow Story album cooking? Maybe this time, I can be part of it? Or maybe I should just wait again a couple of years for news.

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Superété – Martina Feliz

At last a quiet Sunday. It’s sunny outside, the day looks great from my window, but today I’m staying in. I have lots of work to do, and there’s football to watch. But before I start with these very important tasks, and, while I’m waiting for lunch to arrive, I thought ripping some vinyl. It’s been a while since I got to recommend a very obscure band on the blog. While I’m waiting for my ham-pepperoni-chicken-onion pizza, to taste it, to have a bite, let me introduce you to Taste This.

I feel this is as obscure as it can get. If you search on google, shows up that Da Capo store in Netherlands used to carry it. And that’s all. On top of that, there’s barely any information on the sleeve. The front cover says the name of the band, the back cover has the track names. And that’s it. A side being “Sweet Refrain” and B side being “Right Mood”. On the 7″ labels there’s a bit more of information. It says Made in Australia.  So that’s a start. The label is called Formula, but finding information about it, seems impossible as well. Two other details, the producer of this single is Larry Ponting and the engineer is Tim Ryan. Do these names ring a bell to you?

There’s no information about band members or even when was this single released. By the sound of the band I’d say late 80s, as it reminds me a lot to bands like The Crystal Set or The Benedicts. But then that is a wild guess. Both songs are really nice pieces of jangle pop. I had a hard time choosing which song to share with you as both are quite distinctive. “Sweet Refrain” is a slower guitar pop song, much in the vein of Perth fabulous Stolen Picassos. “Right Mood” is much more upbeat on the other hand, like an epic version of These Future Kings. Don’t know how hard it is to track this record. I found it on ebay for 5 bucks a couple of months ago, so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be hard for you. Anyways, have a listen! And if you happen to know anything else about this very mysterious band, please give me a shout!

PS. We need that Australian obscure 80s pop compilation soon!

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Taste This – Right Mood

I’ve always wanted to collect stamps but I never did. I do have tons of stamps all around my cork board that I’ve saved from the packages I receive from all over the world. Packages containing indiepop of course. But I wouldn’t say that’s a collection. I mean, I dont have a clue which are the rare stamps, or the ones that cost a lot of money. Also, many of the ones I have are repeated. I have tons of that Swedish one that has an osprey, for example. So many, that I could make a wallpaper out of it!

Yesterday, while waiting for some friends to arrive for an indiepop listening party, I was going through some of the stuff that came on these packages. Looking this time in my demos/CD-R/tapes box. There’s lots of stuff that deserve a writeup I think! But the one that caught my attention was this CD-R by this lovely Swedish duo. Why? Must have been the extreme cuteness of the pencil coloured sleeve or the handwritten tracklist on the back. Or the sweet note the girls wrote me?

You know, this was a last.fm miracle. I was the top listener of this band back in early 2006. One day I get an email asking me: “I’m just curious how you found out about My brother’s stamp collection!”. Just like that, out of the blue. I did learn that the band was a duo formed by Marita and Matilda, from Sweden. And how wouldn’t I be a top listener? These were lovely songs of the twee variety: very lo-fi, toy instruments, glockenspiels, and girlie vocals.

After that I emailed with Marita a couple of times and told me a bit about the band:

We just made a couple of songs for fun and recorderd on tape, like 2 years ago. So right now nothing really happens. But maybe we will do something soon, at least I want to! It’s quite funny, because we were not inspired by anything specific when we wrote the songs. I had learned to play like three chords on the guitar, so we just improvised! (February 2006)

A curious thing, that not many know is that their song “Rocker Boy” was covered by Nixon on his 2004 release “Crazy, Sexy, Cool” (it appears on this release as Rocker Boi – yes with an I instead of a Y). I believe Matilda was a good friend of Roger.

Then one day I received this fantastic CD-R on my mailbox. And I loved it. It included all of their recordings which were:

1. Shoes Not Books
2. Candy Song
3. Rocker Boy
4. Breakfast Fun
5. Romantic Comedy
6. High Heels
7. Sneakers
8. The Best Day

I never heard again from them. They told me they wanted to record more songs. I hope they did. I wonder how they sounded like. Maybe like this KitKat I’m eating now, sweet and crunchy? Or like a rosé wine? Maybe you like them too

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My Brother’s Stamp Collection – Romantic Comedy

Yesterday I went to the movies. I saw this trailer for (500) Days of Summer where the boy is listening to the Smiths “There’s a Light That Never Goes Out” on his ipod (or cd player, can’t remember exactly!) inside an elevator. There’s a girl too there, and she talks to him: “I love The Smiths”. And eventually they fall in love and you know… eventually break up. I don’t know if the movie will be any good, maybe it’s just another chick flick… but isn’t it a lovely way to start a movie? moreover, isn’t it a lovely way to meet a girl? I wonder why it took so long to Hollywood studios to figure this out!

Longing for something as fantastic to happen, and probably because of the influence of that gray donkey skin sky smashing the summer through our huge window, suddenly I felt arrested by melancholy. No wonder I’m stuck listening to this song a thousand times now. I just love (<3) this song. I just ask will somebody, one day, give Pat Fish the credit he deserves?

Here I am, I’m just lying on the floor with you
We had to get drunk, it was the only thing we could do
Well, it’s funny ‘coz I thought that it could have turned out quite romantic
But it isn’t like that, which is fine, ‘coz it means I can stand it

My best friend’s girlfriend… I’ve got a girlfriend
And you’re somebody’s girlfriend too
You know it only ever makes me down

Oh look, it’s easy,
You come round my house, give me information, then you go home
Well, it sure beats talking all that foolish rubbish on the telephone
But I don’t know about all the implications of all this,
I just feel so-so,
But it’s a measure of a feeling that I can’t identify
that I can let you go

My best friend’s girlfriend… I’ve got a girlfriend
And you’re somebody’s girlfriend too
You know it only ever makes me down

Something’s got a hold on my heart and it’s making me down
You left me singing
“Don’t sleep in the subway darling,
Don’t standing in the pouring rain, Maureen.”

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The Jazz Butcher – Girlfriend

Molesworth Records? Newleaf Records? Does any of these names sound familiar? Not to me. But today I pulled out from my collection this fantastic 7″ by The Nightjars which is catalog HUNTS 06. So there must have been 5 previous releases on this label(s). At least I can tell that this 7″ shouldn’t be too hard to find on ebay or other online stores for a good price. Now what about the other records?

So the band took the name from Nightjars, which are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds with long wings, short legs and very short bills. They are sometimes referred to as goatsuckers from the mistaken belief that they suck milk from goats (the Latin for goatsucker is Caprimulgus). Some North American species are named as nighthawks. Nightjars usually nest on the ground. Sounds interesting?

Actually, yesterday I was visiting a friend that is a bird watcher. He goes every Saturday at 5am to the Everglades to photograph different birds. Even though there are no nightjars in this swampy, grass river, you can find a diversity hard to match with birds like ospreys, hawks, mockingbirds, etc. But for me it’s hard to go and wear those huge boots and be target of all the thousands of mosquitoes that live there. But on top of all, I couldn’t wake up that early to go there. Impossible! Oh! And if you are into alligators and crocodiles, this is the only place in the world were you can find both living close to each other.

But far away from here, in Wistow, Cambridgeshire, there were five guys that were The Nigthjars back in the early 90s (and maybe in the late 80s; I couldn’t tell, this 7″ is dated 1990). Don’t know if they were into bird watching or not, but they were John Lindsell (vocals), Michael Green (guitars), Tim Slater (guitars), David Wick (bass) and David Fletcher (drums). This 7″ includes on the A side the song “Acid in Your Face” and on the B side “Hang Me out to Dry”. Did they release any other records? No clue. Google doesn’t seem to know much about them. I did find out that it was an NME single of the week.

And this is no surprise as Acid in Your Face is a burst of C86 style pop, very much in the vein of The Soup Dragons first singles. Yes, if you like teenage, fiery and distorted guitars, this is for you. And why not, if nowadays you like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, this should be up your alley. Although, expect it to be more shambolic! The B side is quite different I think. It’s a bit slower and it’s haunting… the intertwining of the two guitars is brilliant! The vocals are a bit darker while the song is still poppy and catchy, like a mix again of the Soup Dragons and early Mighty Lemon Drops. I really, really, enjoy it!

On the liner notes:
Recorded at the Flightpath, Cambridge
Produced by Tim Harding and the Nightjars

All songs written, arranged and performed by the Nightjars.
All lyrics by John Lindsell.

That’s all the information there is. And of course, maybe you know more about them and you can share. I would love to get in touch with the band if possible, would love to know if there are more songs recorded or if there were any other releases.

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The Nigthjars – Acid in Your Face

Not very sure where the name Watt Government comes from. Not very sure about who were the Watt Government or if they released any other records. The only thing I know existed, the only thing that you can google, is this 7″. And maybe if you are lucky, like me, you can find a copy for a fair price. I’ve seen some Japanese stores sell it for good money, but it seems in UK it’s still not very well known so that’s your best chance to get hold of this fabulous single.

Among the people that carry the Watt last name and were related to some kind of government, I could find the Australian politician William Watt. But seems a bit strange that they would name the band because of this person. There’s also this news article from 1982: “Govt. auditors reported accusing Interior Secretary James Watt and wife of misuse of government funds; details given. Case noted involving their use of the Custis Lee mansion.” The headline for this news article was Watt / Government. Strange. Still doesn’t make much sense. Maybe the name is something much more obvious and I can’t figure it out!

Among some facts that are pretty clear to me is that the band was from UK and the record was released in 1986, our favourite year. Also, this 7″ has two songs, one on each side, my favourite being the A side, the catchy “Working My Fingers to the Bone”. The B side is good as well and it’s called “Waiting for a Phone Call”. It was released by Volume Records and this is number 18 in their catalogue. There’s not much liner notes but if it helps:

“Recorded at Lynx. Engineer Mickey Sweeney. Produced by Watt Government. (Special thanks to Martin Brammer, Dave Brewis). Re-mix at Fairview Studio by Mike Chapman, Roy Neave and Watt Government”

So what does it sound like? Japanese people would immediately label it Neo-Acoustic, and if that rings you a bell, that means that it sounds fantastic. Ok no, I’m kidding, it does sound fantastic, but that’s not a good answer. It’s what indiepop pre-indiepop sounded like. It does remind me to bands like A Craze, Tralala, Big Outdoor Type, Friday Club or The Moody Elevators. Very upbeat pop, with trumpets, horns, classy keyboards. And of course a girl singing. “Working My Fingers to the Bone” is without doubt, one of the best “discoveries” I’ve done in eBay this year. Yes, I bought it blindly, and Im happy that it was such a wonderful round plastic full of surprises, with fun arrangements like that whistles at the end or that “pop-pop-pop” sound at the start. What makes that sound? you tell me. I don’t have a clue what instrument it is. Then the chorus comes and I want to start dancing. The song continues it’s upbeat march: a very positive vibe even though the lyrics are not that positive. Gee! working your fingers to the bone? Maybe it’s a good message for these times of economic crises? Now it’s time to work work work! No vacations allowed because next day you may or may not have a job! Oh dear!

Please, if anyone knows anything or even a bit about this band, please share. I’m always eager to know more about people who made my day, who make life a little bit nicer everytime I put their music in my turntable.

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Watt Government – Working My Fingers to the Bone

Many years ago I stumbled, I believe in soulseek (Twisterella room maybe?), with some songs belonging to a band I had never heard about before: Boys Like Charlotte. I’ve been googling for years now and always the only entry I could find was a best of list in Twee.net where someone had voted for the band. I didn’t know where they were from, when were they around or who were they. I assumed there were no releases. The songs I had were tagged as demos. The song names were:

+ Cry Myself
+ I Say it’s True
+ Hiding in the Sun
+ Now That You Are Gone
+ What You Say
+ Through the Rain

These songs sounded very British, like those late 80s pop band demos. You know, these tapes that many bands recorded back then and now are totally forgotten or lost. Well, happens these sounds came from Sweden and Tommy Gunnarson, Heavenly Pop Hits factotum and future writer of the definitive book about indiepop in Sweden, solved the mystery for me.

Not so long ago I was talking with Tommy about the future Sound of Starke Adolf compilation. We were talking about Aerospace and their great songs, and that there was an unreleased song that for some reason didn’t end up in their EP. I told him how talented was Toby, that I loved his previous band Stevepops as well. We kept talking about Swedish bands and somehow the name Boys Like Charlotte popped into my mind, I asked Tommy if he had a clue who played in that band. “That’s Toby from Aeorospace as well” was his answer. Wow!

I’ve got in touch with Toby and asked him in a couple of emails about this fantastic and obscure band. Toby was very kind to fill in the blanks and share with me the story about the band. Here are some bits and bobs of what he told me:

As I recall the best songs are actually missing from your list; the fuzzy “Down, Down, Down” and three tracks of jangle that really want to be Happydeadmen songs.

Well, the reason there is no information about Boys Like Charlotte is because I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing at the time.

Boys Like Charlotte existed in two eras actually – the first one being from about 1988 to 1990, basically between two versions of Stevepops (with or without a drum machine actually, as well as in Swedish and in English) and then there was another era as stevepops folded about 4 years later.

The first Boys Like Charlotte stuff was done just as the Swedish indie (jangle/wimp/shambling/anorak/take-your-pick) scene was taking its first few steps. There was very few bands around; happydeadmen were the only ones that had released anything, and The Wannadies and This Perfect Day were still unknown to anyone living south of Skellefteå, all other bands were leftovers from the drab goth stadium era of Echo & The Bunnymen and (early) U2. The fanzine Sound Affects had done their first few issues and Marcus Törncrantz had advertised the sale of Grimsby Fishmarket. Red Sleeping Beauty and Acid House Kings were still in the bedrooms. There was one record store in Stockholm that stocked Sarah/Subway records 7” and I think they used to order 5-6 copies of each release; most often that would mean one copy each for Marcus Törncrantz (Grimsby Fishmarket), Niklas Angergård (Acid House Kings), Mikael Mattson (Red Sleeping Beauty) and I although I doubt that we even knew each other at the time and god knows who bought the remaining few stocked records.

We would nod at each other at Happydeadmen shows (as they were the only band that ever played live, we saw each other at the most strange places such as punk rock squats and dive bars) but that was about it.

I had no idea what to do with the stuff I put on tape – I probably did give one copy to John Boqvist who later went on to play keyboards in Aerospace and somewhere along the line he must have passed the songs on to someone else. I just put the finished songs on tape and then put them in a drawer and moved on. They were never properly packaged, there was no demo or anything, just one or two copies of the original mixes – and I just found some of those tapes a few months ago, so god knows who even transferred them to any digital form. So the fact that anyone, at all, even knows about the band is a complete mystery to me.

I think I might have done about 10 songs over those two years, all stolen from what I was listening to at the time; it’s just blatant rip-offs of The Darling Buds/Flatmates/Primitives/Shop Assistants done with borrowed guitars played through a minimal guitar amp set at 10 and an Alesis sequenser to power the drums and bass off a Roland MT-32. After seeing happydeadmen enough times I got myself an acoustic 12-string and proceeded to rip them off as well (and stealing unashamedly from McCarthy). I used go to the UK on my own using a eu-rail pass and pick up the NME/Melody Maker at Victoria Station and then just travel the UK for a week or two to see any jangle/wimp/shambling/anorak- band that was playing at the time (I don’t think I even talked to that many people at all during those travels, I was just too shy, but I did get to see The Sea Urchins, McCarthy, This Poison and The James Dean Driving Experience among others and they are still some of my favorite bands of all time) and when I came home I just redid the songs that I’d heard (as well as bought) to my best ability.

Most of the songs were total rip-offs; I stole the melody and lyrics from The Flatmates I Could Be In Heaven (“I wanna hang around with you”) for a song called Down, Down, Down. Looking back it was more like an academic course in indie songwriting than anything else.

In the spring of 1990 we (re)formed Stevepops and the anorak/jangle was democratically kicked out of the sound for our more punkish roots – the anorak thing was dying and we felt more at home with the sound of Mega City Four/Wonderstuff/Decendents/ Odd Numbers thing anyways. From a career standpoint it was probably a really bad move as the Swindie scene exploded (with The Wannadies, Popsicle, This Perfect Day, Brainpool, Cardigans etc) and we were on our own way star struck by skateboards and a very distant following of the US post-hardcore scene. Stevepops did their third ever show opening up for Fugazi and I still have the note given to us by Guy Piciotto (with the words “here’s the address to a friend of mine, he’s got a great label and would love your stuff”) with Calvin Johnson’s address. We never even though about sending him anything, we were more focused on getting a show in Gävle. Any interview stevepops did at the time was marred by miscommunication and a lack of shared culture. Indie fanzines would ask us questions about our favorite bands and look like question marks when we went off on the brilliance of Black Flag, Minor Threat, Big Drill Car, Hüsker Dü or the Descendents. And all the hc-kids ignored us because we played indiepop. As stevepops folded I got back to doing solo stuff, but it was a different era; there were tons of great lo-fi stuff coming out on K/Kill Rock Stars/Homestead etc, so the only thing that stayed the same was the name.

The second coming of Boys Like Charlotte was slightly more public – I played two shows (one in a corner of an apartment at a party way past midnight and the other opening up for Stereo Total) – and even managed to give away a song to my friends as a Christmas card (so there was a proper cover for that one song). The sound of Boys Like Charlotte 2.0 was the sound of Elliott Smith and The Softies only done really badly.

Then I formed The Shermans with Mikael Mattson, quit after doing 6 songs and 3 shows and formed Aerospace as a direct consequence to going to The Bowlie Weekender in the spring of 1999. The rest is more publicly known I assume. Thanks a thousand Toby! Hope I get to listen those 4 songs! I bet they are fantastic!

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Listen
Boys Like Charlotte – Now That You Are Gone