Okay. So I thought first to do the 3 posts a week before going into reviewing new bands. I think that’s a fair effort. I feel this is a good way to get myself back to it. It’s some progress. If this week and the next I can manage to do the story of 6 bands, I guess I can go back to reviewing new music. Time is priceless for me right now you know. I have emails I have to answer waiting and waiting. I have projects I want to do but are hard to follow up. So, bear with me.

In the meantime I want to share the good news that Shizuoka mailorder The Stone Records will be having Alfie copies for our Japanese friends. That’s a great thing indeed! Still no news from mailorders in Europe. I hope that changes soon.

About adding Alfie to Bandcamp, I decided not to as Bandcamp was sold to Epic Games. Also I don’t find a way to just share a few songs of the CD, it asks me to share all 18 songs. I don’t want to do that. These retrospectives should be a surprise to those buying them. I think there’s beauty to that.

Anyways, I have started looking for a new project for the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen. I have some ideas, but we’ll see if they work out.

Hope you all had a nice weekend.

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For many Flirt are Barcelona’s best kept secret. I only know their song “Arquitectura” which was such a hit for indiepop lovers at the time, the late 90s, early 2000s. Well, those of us who liked obscure Spanish indiepop… because the band didn’t have any releases you know. Most of us discovered Flirt through Soulseek or similar programs, where lots of demos used to be shared.

“Arquitectura” was part of one said-demos. It was actually put out on a eponymous CDR in 1999 and included 6 songs: “Arquitectura”, “Any of Those Crazy Things”, “Una Liga Menor”, “Caustique”, “Tu O Do, My Cultura” and “Why Do I Dance Alone?”.

We know the leader of the band was Lucas Arraut and that they appeared on two compilations, always with the song “Arquitectura”. First on the CD compilation (+ DVD) “100% Sinammon” released by Sinnamon Records (SINCD100) and later on a download MP3 compilation called “Planes de Futuro, Presente y Pasado” released by Discos de Kirlian.

It is through this last compilation that I learn that the band recorded another demo. I am looking for it now. See if I can find any info. But what also caught my attention is that Discos de Kirlian planned to release “Arquitectura” as an A side on a vinyl single. It seems they were working on it in 2011 with another label, Federación de Universos Pop. I guess that never happened? They even said what color the vinyl was going to be, red. Oh, what a shame! Would have loved this on record.

Discogs also lists the project Sideral as a related band to Flirt. Sideral was the moniker Aleix Vergés used as a dj and member of Peanut Pie. Was he in Flirt as well? The website Mondo Sonoro gives us some info about that…. he was the bassist! It seems though he has sadly passed away…

Then I find the blog Top 100 Vermouthsport Español that dedicates a post to them. Here we learn that “Arquitectura” is actually the 2nd demo.

I find an interview in Rafa Skam’s Yellow Melodies fanzine/e-zine. What info do we get from here? Well, that the band place the Ice Cream Pop Festival first of all and they also played the BAM festival… but then there’s so much more!

We find the band members names, Rodrigo on guitar, Joaquín on piano, Alberto on drums, N´éstor on bass and Lucas on vocals and acoustic guitar. It mentions that Joaquín was studying slavic philology and Alberto classic philology and was working in a computer-based job. Néstor had just graduated in law. We also know that Rodrigo was previously in a punk band called Los Nervios Rotos. Lucas had been in a band called Glamour. Alberto had played in Marea Baja, Sosas Cáusticas, Minema and Peanut Pie.

The songs were usually written by Lucas, a 90%. The other 10% were co-written with Rodrigo. They then go through the songs they played at BAM 1999, there we discover the names of two songs that weren’t on the demo I mentioned earlier, “Gloomy Words” and “Aro Emo Emotional”. And then I finally find information about their first demo, also on the Yellow Melodies!

So this first demo had four songs, “Gloomy Words”, “Where Do Stories End”, “She’s A Rebel” and “Putz Boy”. It was released on tape and from what I understand Rafa, from the Yellow Melodies, always had a dream of releasing these four songs on blue vinyl on his label Discos Imprescindibles. Sadly this hasn’t happened yet.

Then another article about them. Now on the well-known website Jenesaispop. This article was part of the website ‘archaeology’ series, where they cover obscure bands from the past. I haven’t read them yet but I see they wrote about El Viaje de las Flores, a superb band I interviewed ages ago!

Anyhow, here it mentions the band started in 1997. That their first demo dates from 1998 and the second from 1999. That they played in Madrid alongside Mishima. Suddenly, when everyone loves them, from fanzines to the music press, the band stops making noise. There’s silence. And the band splits. Lucas then becomes a journalist and works at Marie Claire, Vanidad and El País.

And that’s all I could find about them. One wonders if they played more cities other than Barcelona and Madrid. Why did they last so little and didn’t get to release anything? What labels were interested in them? Who knows, hopefully we’ll find out more about them soon!

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Listen
Flirt – Arquitectura

Still being very difficult to organize myself and find time to review new bands. Let’s see if by Monday I can do it.

Alfie news. Still no outlets for Europe. But in Brazil there will be copies at Locomotiva Discos in Sao Paulo. They are also getting copies of the Macguffins and Baby Lemonade compilations.

For US fans you can find the record at the best mailorder there is for indiepop, Jigsaw Records.

And that’s it. CDs are doing well. I will add the CDs to Bandcamp, see if those Bandcamp Fridays work for Cloudberry too.

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I return to the excellent “Everything But the Boys and the Girl” CDR compilation that Happy Extreme! put out in 2019. I wrote a bit about this compilation when I wrote about the band The Boy’s Short Hair on the blog.

The CDR is not for sale and came along a book titled “1986-1991” that is worth looking for even if you don’t understand Japanese. Right, forgot to say this was a Japanese release!

On this compilation there are many amazing bands I had never heard in my life and you wonder where they come from. There is no information!

So in the case of the band that I present you today, Forest Stroll, again I know absolutely nothing. That’s why I am writing about them, hoping to find out more details. Maybe some of you know something, even as little as where they where from. Anything will help.

The song I heard by them is the one included in the comp. It is called “Behind the Tree” and it is really amazing. It has this great female vocals, this classic 80s guitars, a bit like Marine Girls, and then some male vocals on the chorus. Thinking too of Grab Grab the Haddock. Anyhow, it is fantastic.

I wonder if the band hailed from Japan, though from the accents I’d like to thing they were British, but I have no idea. So yes, help me please!

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Listen
Forest Stroll – Behind the Tree

I think this week won’t be possible to review new bands. Let’s see if next week.

The good news is that Alfie CDs have started shipping! Very good news. The CDs look and sound great. The website is updated with the info and I will add the release to Bandcamp on the weekend. I will end up adding all Cloudberry Kitchen releases to Bandcamp but they will be a couple of dollars more expensive there as Bandcamp takes a cut you know.

For those in Japan the good news is that Disques Blue-very will be carrying some copies. I hope other mailorders, from other countries, also start carrying the CDs. I know the shipping is expensive but what can I do. Wish it was under my control.

If you have never heard of Alfie. I interviewed the band some years ago here. And you can listen to their superb single “Play On” on our Soundcloud!

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Yet another post that I left as a draft a few years back. I never ended up investigating and researching the Canadian band the Plasterscene Replicas!

I start on the safest place, on Discogs. There I see two releases. The first one from 1985. A 12″ vinyl EP. Self-titled. Released by a label called Voicespondence with catalog number VSP 015. I am not very familiar with Canadian independent pop or rock. So don’t know any of the band’s in the catalog. I do notice that Clive Robertson who engineered and produced this EP released solo records in this label.

Other credits on this record include of course the band members. This is helpful for sure. Wee know that Brenden Cavin was on bass and vocals, Rob Christie on drums, Stephen Stewart on guitar and vocals, Chas Salmon on guitar, keyboards and vocals and Rod Cohen on percussion.

The EP that had a photo of the band playing in the snow on the cover, and photos of the band (well, with the band members cut out, just leaving the instruments and background) playing live on the back cover, included four songs. The A side had “Turtle Song” and “New Warm” while the B side had “Somewhere in the Middle” and “Images are Clear”.

In 1988 the band releases their debut album “Glow”. It came out on vinyl and cassette and was released by Raining Records (RA101). 12 songs on this record, “We Can Walk”, “Things You Hold”, “Doldrums”, “What Could Be Incomplete”, “Trains” and “Pull Out” on the A side and “All I See”, “Hot Sands”, “Holler”, “Town Crier”, “Falling Down the Stairs” and “You’ve Got the Way” on the B side. The album was recorded and engineered at Umbrella Sound and Triton Sound, mixed at Umbrella Sound and also at Fifth Avenue Studio. These were studios in Toronto.

The art for this record is credited to Elaine Halpert with design by Annabelle Stanley. The photography was taken by Paul Orenstein. The producer and engineer was Michael Phillip-Wojewoda who also added piano, bells, scissors and tambourine to some tracks. He was part of the bands Disband, Pig Farm, Rheostatics and The Faceless Forces of Bigness.

We also know that Brenden Cavin was part of the band The Station Twang. Don’t know if the other band members were involved in any other bands. Then the only other info Discogs provides is for compilation appearances.

Both appearances date from 1987. On the LP compilation “For No Apparent Reason” released by X REcords (XR87001) the band contributed the song “Turtle Song”. And on the US cassette comp “Lake Toronto Compilation” released by Sound of Pig (SOP 117) the band had three songs, “New Warm”, “Something in the Middle” and “Images are Clear”.

I google a little bit more and find that the blog Wilfully Obscure wrote about the band in 2017. There I find some info as always. Most importantly a link the Now Toronto website. There an article dating from November 21, 2013, tells that sadly Charlie (Chas) Salmon passed away. On this article written by Joshua Kloke we find more details of course. We know that Salmon was born in 1960 and that he also was involved in many Toronto bands including FiIfth Column. Also that the Plasterscenee Replicas stopped playing in 1989 but did a reunion show at the Cameron House in August of 2007.

And there’s more. On Youtube I find that the band made a promo video for the song “We Can Walk” from their album. It is amazing the amount of comments praising and remembering this song. Wow! It seems they were very well known in Canada and were played in TV and radio a lot. Then there’s a another promo video, this time for the song “All I See“. On the comments I read that Dough Koch was the cinematographer of the video.

This same Youtube account has even more treasures. There is a whole live gig of the band playing at The Cameron in 1987. It is audio only, no footage and has 15 songs in total including “You’ve Got the Way”, “Doldrums”, “What Could Be Incomplete”, “Pull Out”, “Photographs”, “Infant Outfant”, “Today”, “Painful Upset”, “Don’t Go Back Again”, “Trains”, “Holler”, “We Can Walk”, “Marjorie”, “How to Be” and “Falling Down the Stairs”. There is another gig, same format, from November 3, 1989, at Lee’s Palace. This time the songs are 11, “Town Crier”, “Hot Sand”, “Last Sunday Night”, “Holler”, “Magic Carpet Ride”, “Darkness”, “Distributing”, “Unwind”, “We Can Walk”, “All I See” and “Painful Upset”. Lots of new songs here. Maybe they were working on a new release?

A proper gig, with video footage is available too, from the time they played a CFNY sponsored event at El Mocambo on  November 7, 1985.

One of the songs from the gigs, “Don’t Go Back Again“, is available recorded in a studio. Maybe it is from a demo tape? We know some demo sessions happened at MCA in 1989. Some lo-fi recordings were done prior to them at Mike Duggan’s basement. On Youtube we find “Distributing” and “New Rules” as 4-track demos at the aforementioned basement.

Lastly it is worth mentioning the band has a Facebook page. Not much info there, some photos of DAT tapes, but not much more.

Anyways, this was a nice discovery for me. Hope it was for you as well. Anyone that has any more info, please share!

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Listen
Plasterscene Replicas – Trains

Finally back at home in NYC. I can finally announce the Cloudberry Cake new release! It is by the superb 80s Swedish band Alfie!!!

There will be new info on the website no later than this weekend. Need to organize myself. But I have to say that the new CDs look amazing!!!

Check the blog for more info next week too!

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Another band I tried to interview last year, 2020, was the Scottish band The Boy Hairdressers.

I was in touch with Joe McAlinden who would be in the BMX Bandits, Nom, Superstar, The Groovy Little Numbers as well as having a solo career. From what I understand his first band was the Boy Hairdressers and I thought we had to start his story with this band, hopefully later on we’d learn more about the other bands.

It didn’t happen. Maybe I sent to many questions? Maybe life got in the way. Things happen. But I would still like to do a little more investigation and research about this band. I also know some people that are only discovering indiepop are reading the blog, so bands like The Boy Hairdressers, who might be known to many, are also unknown to many!

The band featured Francis MacDonald, Jim Lambie, Norman Blake, Joe McAlinden and Raymond McGinley. Royalty for Scottish pop.

MacDonald would be in so many fantastic bands afterwards, Astro Chimp, BMX Bandits, Cheeky Monkey, Nice Man & The Bad Boys, Speedboat, Speeder, Teenage Fanclub, The Radio Sweethearts, among others. A solo career too.

Lambie was in Playing Soldiers and also released records under his name. He is now of course a world-renowned visual artist.

Raymond McGinley was in Astro Chimp, Snowgoose and Teenage Fanclub.

Norman Blake was in Teenage Fanclub, The Famous Monsters, The New Mendicants, The Reindeer Section, The Pastels, BMX Bandits, and more. A solo career as well.

So yes, they become well known names. But probably back in 1987 when they were in The Boy Hairdressers they weren’t that famous?

In 1987 the band released their one and only record, the “Golden Shower” 12″ on Stephen Pastel’s label 53rd & 3rd (AGARR 12T). This record had the band photo on the cover, printed in black and white, while on the back we find the same photo with a posterize effect. Norman is credited for vocals and guitar. Francis MacDonald for drums. Raymond on guitar. Joe McAliden on bass guitar and violin. Jim Lambie on vibraphone.

Three songs were on this record. “Golden Shower” of course was the A side. The B side had “Tidalwave” and “The Assumption as an Elevator”.

Back then, in 1988, the band contributed “Assumption as an Elevator” to the compilation “Take 5” that was released by Backs Records on LP (Shelter 4). In 1992 the same song would be included in Avalanche Records’ compilation “53rd & 3rd Records – Fun While it Lasted: (ONLY 006). This one was released on LP, and then in 1998 in CD>

Avalanche Records would  release another compilation featuring releases on their label, “53rd & 3rd Records Present – Agarr Retro (Fun While it Lasted Part II)”. ON this record, released in 2000, the band had the song “Golden Shower”. It came out on CD and vinyl with catalog number ONLY 16.

2006. Castle Music and Sanctuary Records releases “CD86 – 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop” (CMEDD1420). On this double CD compilation the song included is “Golden Shower”.

Lastly the band would appear on a few of Cherry Red box sets. First in 2013’s “Scared to Get Happy (A Story of Indie-Pop 1980-1989)” with “Tidalwave” and then in 2016 on the triple CD boxset “C87” with the song “Golden Shower”.

What else there is about them? There is a nice version of Joe McAlinden solo of “Golden Shower“. I guess that’s what inspired me to interview him. You can find it in his Facebook.

The other good find comes from Youtube. There there is a song that wasn’t included in the single. It is called “Don’t Need a Drum” and from what I understand it came from a 4-track demo from 1987. You wonder if there are even more unreleased tracks!

I look on Last.fm if there has been any scrobbles of other rare tracks. A track called “The Flying Helmet” appears. Who knows. Anyone has any information about this song? Another song that I see is called “Heavy Metal”…

Another thing I find online is that it mentions that Paul Quinn (Bourgie Bourgie) was at some point part of the band. Is that right?

And that’s all I could find. Strange for a band that featured so many well-known names. You’d expect interviews about this period of their music career. Or at least many blog posts. But nothing really. So here I am trying to do the right thing. And maybe some of you can help fill in the blanks with your memories!

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Listen
The Boy Hairdressers – Golden Shower

Finally good news for me. I am returning to NYC tomorrow. By no later than the weekend I’ll have news from the label that I hope everyone will enjoy.

Other than that I am starting to feel that maybe I can return to the old pace of the blog, with more posts and reviewing new releases. Let’s see how next week goes with the current way of doing things on the blog, and maybe I can organize myself to have a much more on-top of things blog.

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Another band I tried to interview was Stephen Maughan’s Denver.

I had interviewed Stephen about Bulldozer Crash, the wonderful band he was in before. As you know he was also on Kosmonaut and more recently on The Memory Fades. On top of that he was the creator of the legendary fanzine This Almighty Pop!

Denver was his project in the late 80s, releasing a few records.

The first one he released was the “World of Pages” 7″ on Elefant Records (ER-167). That was the A side and the B side was “Elizabeth Brown’s Wedding Day”. That was actually one of my questions, who was Elizabeth Brown!

This 7″ came out in 1997 with the sleeve showing a sunflower. It is also worth noting that Jyoti Mishra from White Town played keyboards on “World of Pages”.

In 1998 the band released a split 7″ on the Blackbean And Placenta Tape Club (ACME 25). The 7″ split was shared with Orange Cake Mix. Each band contributed two songs. Denver appeared on the A side with “My Rising Sun” and “Amber”.

Denver would work again with Blackbean and Placenta Tape Club. They would release “This Ain’t Funky Music” (BBPTC 117), a single-sided mini L with 5 songs. The songs were “Have You Ever Felt Like This”, “All That Ever Mattered”, “Margery Vickery”, “Echoes of You” and “Jupiter”. I have never heard this record sadly!

The only other release was an appearance on the compilation “Hard on the Eyes, Easy on the Hears”. This CD comp came out on Blackbean and Placenta Tape Club (ACME10) and included their song “Echoes of You”.

I found another song that remains unreleased: “Autosequence Interference“. It is on Stephen’s Youtube account.

I wonder then if there are more songs? I hope we find the answers after writing this post. And maybe there will be a chance for the interview to get answers. That’d be cool. Who remembers them?

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Listen
Denver – World of Pages

Not much news today. I will return next Wednesday to NYC and that is good. Less stress. Though of course the first days will be a bit complicated, getting organized and setting up everything for us and the baby at home.

So I am hoping to catch up with delayed orders no later than Saturday 26. I will have the new release to come out on March 10 but I will update the website that last weekend of February with all the pertaining information about this great new retrospective.

Other than that, I feel I am very much out of the loop of new releases. So if anyone has any recommendations of good indiepop that came out in the last few months please leave me some comments!

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As I was saying on my post about Godfish and previously on the post about Yellow Bird, there is another band with Tim Groves in their ranks that I want to write about, Spinning Belinda!

I had mentioned some of the other bands he had been in before (The Ultra Parents, The Gemms, Big Humming Noise, The Direction, Scuz, Pencils, Godfish, Yellow Bird) but I’ve been a bit slow discovering all of the songs he has on his Soundcloud.

Most of the songs had been uploaded time ago. 8 years ago for Spinning Belinda tracks. There are a few here. There is “June“, “Cold Sudan“, “Run” and “Liverpool“.

On this band Tim was the drummer. We know some details about the band and the songs too. We know Ali was on vocals, Cos on lead guitar, Steve Jenkins on guitar and vocals, Paul on bass and vocals, and as I said Tim on drums. There are no last names for the band members other than Steve’s. It seems Tim has forgotten them. He says that Ali and Cos were teachers, that Paul was Irish.

Steve Jenkins was in the Chalk Farm. Cool! Maybe that’s a way to find out more. Because I interviewed Steve time ago! When I asked about his other projects he said:

I auditioned as a drummer for Spinning Belinda. I wanted to learn to play the drums mainly to make me a better drum programmer, but also because I thought it would be cool to have played guitar, bass and drums in different bands. At the audition I was blown away by the quality of the songs, suggested that they deserved a better drummer than me and asked if they would allow me to audition as a guitarist. I got the gig and roped Ken in to play drums and later persuaded Tim, the other old CG’s drummer to take over from Ken. At the time I thought the songs were great but the sound was a bit staid and boring and would struggle to get noticed. I started writing my own songs with Ali, the singer and formed Bel-Air Lip-Bombs out of that. Initially Paul, the song writer behind Spinning Belinda was persuaded to throw his lot in with us and we performed a mixture of my songs and his songs which I re-arranged and tried to make a bit more interesting musically. Nobody understood what I was trying to do, including me, but it worked well live in spite of this and we did a number of really successful gigs. Unfortunately we struggled to make things work in the studio and by 1993 Paul had decided to return to Ireland and Ali became disillusioned and quit.

Shame! The songs are great. And you do wonder why they never released anything! Another detail is the Ken Steve mentions would later bee in The Free French.

We know too that the song “Liverpool” wasn’t really called “Liverpool” but “Pretty Remains”. That all of the songs we know, these 4, were recorded in March 1992 at The White House Studio in Weston-Super-Mare.

“Run” was intended to be the A side of a single that never happened. “Cold Sudan” was also known as “Never Get Excited” and it is my favourite song I think!

Now I look at Steve’s Soundcloud. Here we find another Spinning Belinda song. This one from a live rehearsal! It is called “Really Something” and it sounds great! And we find here Paul’s last name… he was Paul Kelly!

And one more. The last one. It is called “Kiss Me” and this one was also written by Paul Kelly and was recorded at Steve Jenkins bedroom on a port-a-studio in 1991. How cool! Are there more songs by them?

What else can we say about them? That they took their name from the Prefab Sprout song? Sure.

Then I find that Ali’s last name was Griffin. So we are just missing Cos’ last name.

And that’s it. Sure. I think I should drop Steve a note, ask if he is up for another interview! We need to know more about them!

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Listen
Spinning Belinda – Cold Sudan

I’m feeling much better. Only sometimes my throat itches. The problem now is that I couldn’t fly last Friday. We tested positive on Thursday.

We talked with Delta and we had many difficulties in changing our ticket. They wouldn’t change it for Saturday the 19th which was the day we’d have wanted. Supposedly you get to change the ticket once with no charge of money, they have a one-time exemption. But the representative we got on the phone wouldn’t allow us to do it, mostly because it wasn’t convenient for the airline that day. So he booked us on the 23rd which is a Wednesday, in the middle of a work week.

So yes, the label continues to get delayed. I want to announce our new record, but it will have to wait when I return so I can take photos of the CDs of course.

Also fulfilling orders and updating the website will take some time, probably no later than the weekend of the 26.

By March I hope things will be normal…

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I had previously written about The Pop Guns, one of the bands Graham Fellows had been. He is mostly known for being in Jilted John and later as a solo artist releasing the classic album “Love at the Hacienda”. Today I want to write about another of his bands that is not that well known, Going Red.

There’s lots to write about Graham Fellows (I am linking to his Wikipedia page just in case) and the music he has made. Would be amazing to do an interview with him. I wonder. Maybe he is too famous for this blog. But some of his projects like Going Red, for some reason not that famous! But the music is nice, so why not share with all of you. Maybe you know it, maybe you don’t!

I need a copy of the band’s only 7″. I hope I make a copy mine soon. I have been slow about it even though I have had this record on my wantlist for like forever.

Released in 1980 by MCA Records (MCA 673) and Razz Records, the single had “Some Boys” on the A side and “Tune Kevin’s Strings” on the B side. One thing that is worth mentioning is that the band’s name appears as Going Red? on the sleeve. With the interrogation mark. I think the band is just called Going Red, so I will continue calling it that way.

The cover has Graham Fellows in the shower. Clothed. But it looks like he has shampooed? On the back of the sleeve we see Graham again continuing to shampoo in different vignettes. Very cool. The back of the sleeve also has some credits of the other musicians. We know Graham played vocals and guitars, Russel Giant on percussion, Mervin Cloud on guitar and vocals and Francis Charlton on bass guitar. The producer was Fraiser Henry. According to Wikipedia Chris Sievey (The Freshies and Frank Sidebottom) was involved in this record, possibly as one of the names from the credits.

On the labels we see that Graham Fellows name is written as G. Fellove. There seems to be two different versions of this 7″. One released first by Razz Records (Clean 1). Both are from 1980 and the only difference that I see is that of the label design. The Razz Records release is just a red sleeve while the MCA and Razz Records release has a sleeve depicting a sky and part of a rainbow.

Aside from this the band appeared on the 2018 compilation “Harmony in my Head: UK Power Pop & New Wave 1977-81”, a 3CD release by Cherry Red (CRCDBOX62). The song as you’d guess that they contributed was “Some Boys”. This song was also included in an unofficial LP called “Powerpearls Vol. 8” that I don’t have a clue when it was released. It appears on Discogs though and includes well known bands like Direct Hits or The Times.

I couldn’t find much more info about this project. Would be nice to know if they had more recordings or if they played live much. Maybe some of my UK friends remember this project. Would be cool to know more details!

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Listen
Going Red – Some Boys

Hi! I am back.

I am still not in NYC. I started to have symptoms of Covid a day before flying back. That was last week. My parental leave is over now and have started to work. Things are a bit complicated. I am not sure when I’ll be able to fly back. I have the ticket changed to this Friday but I will need a negative result on the Covid test.

So label things are being pushed back. I need to announce a new release. The records are at home in NYC but I haven’t been able to pick them up. I am sending a key to someone in NYC to help me secure them. Don’t want them lying on the lobby of the building.

I mentioned on my previous post that I was going to try to post during my leave. Well it turned out I didn’t have the time. My mind was somewhere else too. So I am very much clueless about the state of indiepop in the last months.

Going forward I will try to make it easier for me. I think I will post on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. If there are interviews, then they will be posted in the latter set of dates.

Maybe I’ll get back to posting 3 times a week at some point. But right now I need to get back into the routine.

Also I am not sure if I’ll be reviewing new releases. I’ll stick to the old bands for now. Again, probably until I get back to the routine and feel comfortable to do so much digging and searching.

Having said that, I will have some great offers on the label as soon as I get back. I need space at home and need to get rid of boxes of records. So expect some cheaper prices soon.

Also those who have ordered records lately, I am very sorry for the delay. I am happy to return the money. The first thing I’ll do upon returning to NYC will be mailing these orders. I can’t say when that will be. But of course no later than the end of February. I think negative results take about 7 to 15 days with omicron.

So yes, that’s the news so far. As soon I know the records are secure I’ll let you know about the next Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release. It is a goodie. A hint? A Swedish band from the 80s!

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So I wrote a few months ago about Mrs Kipling that featured Kirsty McGee on vocals and guitar. I mentioned that she was also in another indiepop band, Slumber, and later on she would become a well known figure in the UK as a folk artist. So big that she even has a Wikipedia page.

I said that I was going to write about Slumber. Why? Because it is a very nice band. And it is also a cool collaboration between her and another well-known indiepop legend, Mark Randall of The Fat Tulips!

And indeed, also a a few days ago I wrote about Sundress, where Mark was collaborating with Sarah Brown. So yeah, it all comes full circle with Slumber.

Mark of course is also well known as a visual artist, being part of the stuckist movement and also for being in other important bands like Confetti (which I should write about), Oscar (another band I need to write about!), The Liquid Fruit Machine (I don’t know this band) and The Pleasure Heads (I wrote about them!).

As Slumber the band only released two records, two EPs. The first one, from 1992, was the “Holly & IV” 7″ released by Sunday Records (SUNDAY 020). This record included just two songs, “I’ll Never Know (Another Christmas Day)” on the A side and “The Thirteenth Day of Christmas” on the B side. Very much a holiday record, right? The songs were recorded in October of 92 at Sideways Sound. The B side “they believe was written by Martyn Bates” but they weren’t sure. They knew it appeared on an El Records compilation LP.

Two people are credited in this record. David on guitar and Amanda on violin and backing vocals. Not sure who Amanda was but David F is actually Mark Randall. So yeah, the Peterborough native was just using a different name.

According to Discogs Slumber hailed from Northampton. And so the Northampton band went to sign first to an American label, Sunday Records, and next to a Japanese one, Vinyl Japan. It is on this label that they released the “Sleep” EP in 1993. This record was released on vinyl (TASK 21) and cd (TASKCD 21).

Four songs were included on both in the same order. “Sleepy Avenue” and “What did You Do” on the A side and “Remember Me” and “Wasteland” on the B side. The songs were recorded at Startracks in Manchester where the producer and engineer was Matthew Robson. Again we see Amanda credited for violin and vocals.

The sleeve has on the front cover a photo of a girl. According to the credits the cover star is called Christine. Was she in any band?

Aside from these releases the band appeared on a few compilations.

On the 1993 “Sunny Sunday Smile” CD comp by Sunday Records (SUNDAY 640) the band had the songs “Night” and “Sunday”. The year after, 1994, on the classic Vinyl Japan compilation “What Do You Want a Japanese To Do Again?” (ASK 36) they had the song “Wasteland”.

In the year 2000 they had “Remember Me” on “Our Floating Images of Youth”, a double CD or triple LP compilation released by Vinyl Japan (ASK100), and also their song “I’ll Never Know Another Christmas Day” would end up on “Rolling Meadows Songs About Our Past Vol. 2” CD comp on Sunday (SUNDAY 850).

Lastly in 2019, with the comeback of Sunday Records, their songs “Sunday” and “Night”, appeared on the double CDR comp “A Sunday Records Compilation” (SUNDAY 1004).

I couldn’t find any other info other than their discography to be honest. Not sure if they recorded anything else or if they ever played gigs. Who would know?

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Listen
Slumber – Remember Me

Day 614. Out of town but trying to keep this up with a baby and all! If I miss some days with posts don’t be surprised…

The Pleasures Pale: it seems this is a must have record! 4 songs from 1987 are being released now! 25 copies only! It is being released on 12″ vinyl and this EP of unreleased songs is titled “Twitch”. Two songs are available to preview, “Only the Rich” and “Most Precious  Things” and they are great, especially the 2nd one. I may have to miss this as I will be out of town… but hopefully you don’t.

Miracle Legion: a live recording by the New Haven band has just been uploaded to Bandcamp. “We’ve Played this Measly Town Many Times” is the name of this release recorded on July 14, 2016, at the Linda in Albany, NY. The whole gig is 18 songs and you can listen all of it now!

The Ashenden Papers: two new songs by the Concord, California, project of Jason Dezember. This new single is planned to be included in the band’s upcoming album. “Little Jumpy T” and “Your Starlit Eyes” are the names of these songs that feature Rose Melberg on backing vocals.

Dayflower: 3 new songs by our Leicester friends! It is the “Sonic” single with two more tracks, “Dream of Shore” and “Too Far Gone”. As usual the songs are fantastic. This time around they are fuzzier, where reverb reigns and pop melodies abound. Really nice.

Artsick: Slumberland Records is releasing a bunch of goodies lately, I should get around to review and listen all of them. I’ll start with Artsick who are releasing a very Shoppies record called “Fingers Crossed”. Formed in 2018 by Christina Riley of Burnt Palms, Mario Hernandez of Kids on a Crime Spree and Donna McKean of Lunchbox, this is the band’s first album. Check out the preview song, “Despise” which is ace!

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As I’ve been going through a bunch of Sunday Records releases that had the great Mark Randall from the Fat Tulips in them, now is the turn of Confetti. I guess the one left is Oscar? And well, the Fat Tulips! But I am right now looking into the more obscure bands, so yeah, the ones that released less records and are less known, let’s start there.

Confetti was another cool collaboration. It was a duo formed by Mark Randall who went by the name of “David” in the records and Julie Robinson, who used the name “Virginia Aeroplane”. Julie was in the superb band The Artisans who released the “Jazz Serenade” 7″ and who did a lovely 3″ CD retrospective with us, Cloudberry! And of course on The Sunbathers who released a split 3″ with me and who I’ve seen play live at Indietracks. Oh! Why didn’t I think of interviewing her before writing this piece? I should try, right? But it doesn’t hurt to write about Confetti. Their songs are ace. All of them!

The band released four singles and later on the “Retrospective EP” which collected all their fifteen recordings. All of these songs were recorded at Sideways Sound in Attenborough, England, and were engineered by Martin Cooper.

The band’s first release was a split-flexi with the Fat Tulips. This was the “Heaven Flexi”. This one had two songs by each band. Confetti had “Diet (Remix)” and “Brige 61”. Some of these flexis came with an extra flexi that was mispressed. The catalog number for this record was SUNDAY 010, yup it was released by Sunday in 1991. “Diet (Remix)” is a cover of the Au Pairs.

“Haberdasher” was their second EP. This one came out also in 1991 on the Fat Tulips’ label Heaven Records (HV 06). The record came with a small Confetti logo card and a photo postcard. That’s not all. Copies of the fanzine Heaven Sent issue 4 came with this record too. And yes, there were two versions of this record. There were 100 numbered copies with a hand-made sleeve and others with a purple sleeve with two girls sitting down looking attentively at something. The songs on this record were “Who’s Big and Clever Now?” on the A side and “It’s Kinda Funny” and “Yes Please!” on the B side. “It’s Kinda Funny” is of course a cover of the Josef K classic.

Sunday Records would release their third record, “Sea Anemon EP”, in 1992. This was SUNDAY 012. From what I understand there are blue and yellow print sleeves for this record. I have the blue. The songs here were “Whatever Became of Alice and Jane” on the A side and “Here Again” and “River Island: on the B side.

The band’s last release came on Marineville Records (MARINE 4) in 1992. This was the “Presentl EP”. I don’t know why it has an L after Present. But that’s how it is. The songs on this record were covers of The Wedding Present! So we find “Corduroy” on the A side and “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” and “Once More” on the flipside.

The last release is the one I am missing. It is the “Retrospectivel EP”. Again that L in the name of the record. This one had 1`5 songs. They were released on CD by Vinyl Japan in 1994. Catalog was ASKCD39. The songs were: “Who’s Big and Clever Now”, “It’s Kinda Funny”, “Yes Please!”, “Tomorrow Knows”, “Warm”, “Jenny”, “Bridge 61”, “Diet (Remix)”, “Whatever Became of Alice and Jane”, “Here Again”, “River Island”, “Nothing II”, “Corduroy”, “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” and “Once More”.

The other songs that were not in the 7″s and are in this compilation appeared on various compilations. Let’s do it chronologically.

The first ones date from 1991. On the classic “The Waaaaah! CD” released by Bring on Bull (BULL 3-0) the band contributed the songs “Jenny” and “Warm”.  That same year their song “Nothing II” appeared on the tape compilation “123456 Road Runner” released by Glidge Records (GLIDGE 001).

In 1992 just one appearance, it was going to be in the French label Anorak Records. The tape was “Teeny Poppers” (SHOUBIDOWA 01) and the song they contributed was a live version of “Who’s Big and Clever Now?”. I think this track is exclusive to this releease.

In 1993 they appeared on Sunday Records’ “Sunny Sunday Smile” (SUNDAY 640) CD. Here they have two songs, “Nothing II” and “Tomorrow Who Knows”.

Then it is 1998 and their Wedding Present covers, two of them, “Corduroy” and “Once More”, end up on the tribute album “Once More – A Tribute to the Wedding Present” released by Orange Slices (Citrus 1).

In the year 2000 the band gets a bit more attention. “River Island” appears on “Our Floating Images of Youth” compilation on Vinyl Japan (ASKLP/CD 100) that was released as a 3 LP compilation or a double CD. That same year Sunday Records includes “Here Again” and “River Island” together as a single track on “Rolling Meadows Songs About Our Past Vol. 2” (SUNDAY 850). Lastly there’s another tribute to the Wedding Present on Orange Slices. The song “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” gets included in “Dare – A Tribute to the Wedding Present Volume 2” (Citrus 2).

Their last appearance was on “A Sunday Records Compilation” double CDR released in 2019 by Sunday (SUNDAY 1004). The songs they included were “Tomorrow Who Knows” and “Nothing II”.

What else can we find online? Maybe some odd bits of information.

The band only played five gigs. Four out of these gigs were supporting the Fat Tulips.

Then my friend Manolo wrote about them back in 2006 in his blog 360 de Separación. Not much information there but reading his post takes me back to days that so many people were blogging about indiepop. Sad that that’s not the case now.

Not much more info about them. Would be nice to know where were their 5 gigs. And who did they play with the time they didn’t play with the Fat Tulips. Why did this collaboration start? Why did it last so little? Did they write more songs that didn’t end up recorded? Maybe one day we’ll get answers!

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Listen
Confetti – Whatever Became of Alice and Jane

Day 611. Cloudberry goes on vacation starting today. Will try to keep the blog updated but the on the label front I won’t be fulfilling orders until February. Will have a new release then too. I’ll share the news on January!

Thee Terrible Hildas: “Get Surfing!” is the name of this 3-song EP I just discovered on Bandcamp. And it is really good! Released digitally by Kabukikore from New York you end up wanting a physical record for this song. This project seems to be a global project, formed by people from all places including Seattle, Leicester, Krokstadelva (Norway) and Basingstoke. Now, The Chesterfields used to have artwork done by The Terrrible Hildas. Is there a connection there?

The Crooner: Make Me Happy just posted the song “Dew Goddess” by The Crooner. Listening to this track is great. It is perfect for a rainy, cold, day like today. Soothing. Mellow. You understand why The Crooner is one of the best bands ever to come from Athens, Greece.

Mañana el Espacio: the Caracas indiepop band, possibly the only indiepop band in Venezuela (?), has put out a new digital single. Titled “Celebran por Nosotros” which means they celebrate for us, is a fine slice of guitar driven pop. When is this band releasing a record? I feel they have enough songs by now!

The No-Yeahs: a new song from this wonderful project by girlonbus! This is great news. This new track “Plaintive Missive” is amazing, a new favourite for me. Sounds like The Tidy Ups, no? Wow. A bit like Free Loan Investments too. Or The Motifs? This is very very good. I hope it gets a proper release. On top if it all there’s a video for this song too!

Happy Pills:  “Half Asleep” is the new single by this favourite Japanese band of mine. The Fukuoka bedroom-project has been in my radar for so long, always recommending them on my blog. This new song is one of his best, so don’t miss it out!

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I’ve been meaning to write this post for years. I always wondered about the Printing House, who, as far as I know, only released one song back in 2005.

The song was called “The Treachery” and it is so good. I knew the person behind this song was Hewson Chen, who as of late is in the NYC band Lake Ruth. And no, sadly, I have never seen them or meet them, which is kind of odd and sad as I also live in NYC. Just bad timing when they played gigs I guess… bad timing for me…

In any case this project was back in the day. And it does sound different to Lake Ruth. I guess it is a bit closer to another superb band he was in, Vitesse. Oh, I’d love to write about Vitesse too. I like their albums a lot. But this is a good introduction to his music I think.

“The Treachery” was the opening track on a compilation called “The Speed By Which We Fall”  (RR02) that was released by Rollerderby Records. This was a US label that released records by Experimental Aircraft, Rachel Goldstar and licensed South Ambulance’s self-titled album from Labrador.

On this compilation the band appears next to other fine bands including Air Formation, Azalia Snail, Flowchart and Vitesse.

On the compilation there are credits for “The Treachery”. So we know there were two more members in this band, Jenna Alden and Michael Tepper. Jenna had been in The Middletown Creative Orchestra while Discogs doesn’t list any other bands for Michael.

Other bands that Hewson was in include the amazing Alsace Lorraine (I met one of their members once, back in 2007, he told me he was an undertaker… cool!) and The New Lines.

Sadly there is no more info on the web. The song is fantastic, so I hope we learn more details eventually… who knows, maybe they played live? maybe there are more recordings?

Edit: 12/10/2021. Well, my friend David shared with me another song called “Hidden Cities” that seems to be unreleased and dating from sometime around 2005. Not sure where he got it! Anyone knows any info about it?

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Listen
Printing House – The Treachery