Aeons ago I wrote about the Spanish duo Toilettes. This is what I said:

Toilettes: I heard “Observatorio” on the CD16 and thought, where does this beautiful lo-fi racket comes from? They hail from Barcelona and they are two girls, Joana Mallol and Julieta Caprara. They have a tape out (I don’t know if it is still available) on Discos Walden/Discos Populares and it includes 8 songs, all which you can stream on their Soundcloud. This is really, really great. Pop that reminds of flexi girl-fronted indiepop bands like The Felicitys, The Definite Article, or even Talulah Gosh!

It’s been almost 10 years since the release of their self titled tape. And I am honestly confused in how come their music didn’t make more of an impact,  and how they didn’t release more records. And on top of it all, did Joana and Julieta continued making music with other bands?

The “Toilettes” tape came out on May 19, 2016, on Ediciones Populares (EP09) and Discos Walden (DW52), both Spanish labels. I am much more familiar with Discos Walden who has released many bands I enjoy as well as some top-notch books related to indiepop and DIY. The album only had 8 tracks, all songs under one minute. The longest song clocks 1:39 minutes. Imagine.

The tracks are “Observatorio”, “Coge el Dinero”, “Salgo a la Calle”, “El Metabolismo”, “Dulce Hogar”, “Persiguiendo el Mal”, “Serpiente de Papel” and “Viaje a Zurich”. Julieta played electric guitar, electronic drums, backing vocals. Joana played keyboards and sang. The music is credited to both and the lyrics to Joanna.

As mentioned earlier, their track “Observatorio” was part of the terrific compilation “CD16” that my friend Joel released under Impermeable Records (IR-CD001). A compilation that captured the great moment indiepop was having with a great crop of bands in 2016.

On the band’s Soundcloud we encounter a few tracks not present in the tape like a cover  of the Bananas song “Salí del Cuerpo” or the song “Bye Bye.”

The band had set up a Facebook page. But there’s really not much in it. A photo dating from April 2015 says that they were preparing for their first gig.

I look for more info. I see that Julieta made the artwork for the Barcelona band Pacífico’s album “Muévete” in 2016. On this band I know both good friends Toni Amaya and Óscar Huerta played. Maybe they know more about Toilettes? I also believe that Joana made the video for the song “Buen Pastor” by the Barcelona band Miedo.

I find a gig where they played. They played the Ladyfiesta de Invierno on December 18, 2015, alongside Lucius Works Here, Pentina’T Lula! and Les Suques. I think this was in Barcelona.

I keep searching. I see that Julieta is actually from Argentina. She also goes under the name Jay and has been living in Santander prior to the Toilettes. There she was playing guitar with the band Meryl Streep and made cool fanzines like the one for Soma Records. She also Djed at a bunch of places like Metropole, Opium, Gareje Sónico or Zeppelin.

As far as I know the duo was based in Madrid. Julieta must have moved.

I read that a video was made for a song. I am not sure which song. I read the director was filmmaker Marçal Forés. Anyone knows? I can’t seem to find it in Youtube. But I did find another connection between the director and the band. Marçal made a film called “Amor Eterno” in 2014. I haven’t seen it. But it looks like Joanna was part of the actors in the movie.

And that’s what I could find. The two disappeared after Toilettes. A true shame as the tape was wonderful really. A burst of perfect pop. I hope they are involved in a way or another in music, or in the arts. Would be great what happened to them.

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Listen
Toilettes – Observatorio

Panache means a flamboyant, confident style or elegance, but it can also refer to an ornamental plume of feathers.

Who was Panache? It was the alter ego of Kristofer Lecander from the south of Sweden (not sure which town or city, anybody knows?) who released a couple of records in the mid-2000s.

I must say I was not very familiar with his music back then, I remember hearing a song here and there, but didn’t pay attention. I’m just rediscovering the music and listened to the track “The Streets Are Calling Your Name” and thought it was different and nice. So yeah, time to dig and find out more information.

Panache released an album on the Japanese label Rallye Label (RYECD01) in 2005. It was called “Black Letters” and included 11 tracks: “A Mind Forever Voyaging”, “Breeze Whispers”, “Disco in the Sky (I Won’t Go Back)”, “Remington Blues”, “When There’s No Tomorrow”, “Breeze Whistles”, “Counterfeit Astonishment”, “The Ivory Field of Flair”, “Jodorowsky Hijinx”, “The Flourishes of the Quadrille” and “Bombyx Mori”. All songs are credited to Kristofer. Dexter Cliff is credited for additional guitar, bass, brass, scratch and electronics. Both of them are credited as producers. Anna Cooper does guest vocals on “When There’s No Tomorrow” and Odd Lecander played guitars on “Counterfeit Astonishment”. Tracks were recorded at home in Held Bay and at Dexter Cliff’s studio in Ore Island between May 2004 and February 2005.

Four years after the release of the first album, in 2009, Panache releases a 10 song album called “Fractions”. This was released just digitally, as Mp3s. It had 10 songs “This Past Future”, “Every Floor is a Dance Floor”, “The Streets Are Calling Your Name”, “Never Return”, “Heartbreaker” with guest vocals by Hanna Brandén from Name The Pet, “Someday, Someday”, “Swirl”, “Silly Love Song”, “Too Much Time” and “Fractions”. The album was available on the band’s website which doesn’t exist anymore.

I wonder how the Japanese label Rallye found about Panache. Maybe online, songs were available to download around 2004? Or maybe like many Swedish bands of the time released some CDRs?

Aside from the albums we know that the song “Conditional” was part of the 2005 compilation CD “Rallye Cloack 2 “The Swim Sweet Swedish” Compilation” (RYECD012) and the 2008 cassette comp “Vänskap 002” had the track “Solitude in Springtime”.

And that’s really it. Couldn’t find any more info about Panache! Anyone remembers the band? What about Kristofer? Was he involved in other projects?

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Panache – The Streets Are Calling Your Name

Hailing from Birmingham, here are the Surf Drums.

I can’t believe I haven’t dedicated a post to this classic mid-80s band yet. I honestly thought I had! But it is never late, right?

The band’s first release came in 1985 on a label from their hometown called Swordfish Records that had released all sorts of music, not necessarily indiepop. On this label the band released “Take It With Me This Seven Years” 12″ EP (SWF 003). It included four songs, “Take it With Me” and “Stone and Silver” on the A side and “This Seven Years” and “Everything” on the B side.

On the album we see David Kehoe singing and playing acoustic guitars (he also wrote the songs), Richard Left on lead guitar and backing vocals, Ann-Marie Taylor on keys and backing vocals, Michael Laffoley on drums and Colin Packwood on drums. The songs were produced by Bob Lamb. Record sleeve was designed by D.T. and the band’s photo was taken by Gareth Owen.

2 years later we see the band releasing “Walkaway” perhaps their most known release. This one came out on 7″ and 12″ and was released by Kaleidoscope Sound (KS-703). This label was founded in 1986 by Joe Foster, who you must know from Creation Records, Rev-Ola… and also for playing as Slaughter Joe and producing so many bands. The 7″ version had “Walkaway” on the A side and “She’s Not Giving” on the B side. The 12″ included “Tell the World” as a second track on the B side. The record was produced by Joe Foster and the sleeve was designed by Rob Boyle.

That same year the band releases “Black Tambourine” again on Kaleidoscope Sound (KS705). This one again is released as a 7″ and 12″. The 7″ had the title track on the A side and “All There Is” on the B side. On the 12″ the song “On My Way” is included on the B side. The songs were produced again by Joe and recorded at Loco Studios Llanhenrock in Wales and Rich Bitch Studios Selly Oak.

Listening to the songs, you notice a clear change of direction of the band sound from their first release compared to their “Walkaway” single. Their first release is rockier.

Looking for info I learn that the band used to play “You Got My Number” by The Undertones at their gigs. I also learn that Michael Laffoley left the band in 1987 to be replaced by Paul Tibetts. A year after Paul and Anne Marie left the band to the Korova Milkbar who released some records on the Subway Organization.

Kehoe and Left carried on and recruited Pete Tweedle, the former drummer of The Primitives. They split from Joe Foster and tried to negotiate with Wayne Morries, The Primitives manager, for a management deal. This never happened though it seems a tour was planned with The Primitives, Birdland, The Impossibles and themselves. This last lineup of the band may have recorded a demo but it is not clear.

What is clear is that Richard Left would end up playing in the final Felt record, “Me and a Monkey on the Moon” and then joining his former bandmates on the Korova Milkbar. Another interesting bit of information I see is that Ann-Marie Taylor married Richard March from Pop Will Eat Itself.

There was a Facebook page for the band to my surprise. It says the band was resurrected? I wonder if they played a reunion gig or something. There are some cool flyers of gigs, see that they played with Mighty Mighty, Bounty Hunters and Filipinos. Also at Dingwalls where they supported Felt, The Jasmine Minks and Bradford. There’s another gig at the Barrel Organ, with just themselves. Then on the Saint Etienne website, we see that Bob Stanley reviewed a couple of their gigs, one from August 15, 1987 at Burberries and another on November 21 of that same year where they played alongside I, Ludicrous at the Sir George Robey in London. Another one dates from May 3, 1987, when they played with The Gun Club and The Highliners at the Astoria in London.

Pete Paphides also mentions them on a post just a few weeks ago.

I keep looking and see that David Kehoe now goes under the name David Keogh. Under this name he has published a book called “The Accidental Gangster: Part 3: Volume 3” that came out in 2016.

It seems they had a good following in Birmingham. So yeah, I am quite curious to know what our friends from Brum remember about them. I am especially curious to know if more songs were recorded, especially with that last lineup, how did they sound like?

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Surf Drums – Walkaway

The Salty Pirates from Halmstad, Sweden. Also active during those early 2000s. Good band. Whatever happened to them?

It was the days of CDRs and so they released their music that way.

Discogs has listed one release, “We Thank the Lord Each Day for the Apocalypse”, which was self-released with 6 songs, “Did You Ever Feel Like Fucking Up?”, “The Alien Invasion”, “Black Minds, White Lies”, “My Academic Beard”, “I Lost My Virginity to the Sound of Per Gessle” and “Skogspromenad”. The only detail about this release is that it came out in 2004, on an Imation CDR (remember those?). On the back of the sleeve we see a website for the band which these days doesnt exist anymore, today it is actually own by a company in Florida that does Painting and Renovations and also called Salty Pirates.

Then I track down another release, this time from 2003, called “Make Bombs Not Popsongs”. This one had four songs, “You Got Your Seatbelt and Cars are so Safe”, “Somethings Beautiful are Ugly”, “Fire Deathstar, Fire” and “All That Glitters Can Be Gold”. This EP was produced by Mathias Söderlund and mastered by Klas Holm during the summer of 2003. You could download the EP from their website back then.

I also learn that the band’s original name was Happy Tom. Then they changed to Salty Pirates. They would eventually change their name again, in 2008 they became The Weather in Sweden.

I keep searching.

On Youtube I find a track called “Common Sense” that my friend David has uploaded. It seems to come from a release called “Back with a Vengeance”, it has a date of 2007.

I see a post by Jerry Boman dating from 2005, where he reviews a gig of them at a club called “Thursday I’m in Love” at the Respekt club in Göteborg (I think).

I also think they played Emmaboda at some point. What else? They seem to be a five-piece band.

Other than that not much info. Anyone remembers them

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Salty Pirates – You Got Your Seatbelt and Cars Are So Safe

Everyday Sensations! Remember them? You might, they were on the fantastic label My Secret Garden Recordings. And what’s more they had a reissue of their 2005 “Forget Those Teardrops” EP a few years back, in 2022.

The EP as mentioned was released back in 2005 as a CDR with catalog number GARDEN015. IT included four top songs, “Call it What You Want”, “Things We Never Had”, “Sheets and Blankets” and “Helen Love”. Who can not a like a band that dedicates a song to Helen Love? Yeah, I wonder that too. I do have to say though that my favourite track is the second one, “Things We Never Had”.

The EP was re-released many years later, 17 years, in a very limited CDR run of 100 copies. With different artwork but the same tracklist.

Because of this and the label’s effort to make available their catalog the EP is on Bandcamp. We learn that the new artwork was made by Martin Sernestrand, the label boss, using imagery from Charlotte Wahlström. We also learn that the songs were produced by Markus Bergström Björn who is also the person behind the songs, lyrics and music.

There are some unreleased tracks. I see our friend David Chalé has uploaded to Youtube the track “When Summer Falls We’ll Forget It“. What is even cooler is that I see a line in the description of the video that I had written back in 2005!! Wow, I had no clue, didn’t even remember I had reviewed the band. I mention that Markus was a boy in love with pop music that with a computer, an old keyboard, a second-hand guitar and a microphone has figured out how to create pretty and catchy songs. And that is not the only song David has shared with us, he also has “Action Action Go!” this time from an EP titled “Boxing Days” which I am not aware of. Seems it was released in 2006. I’ll have to find out more!

From what I see the EP had five tracks, including a cover version of “Holiday Road” by Lindsey Buckingham.

Another interesting detail I’ve found is that the Swedish band Twinkling Streams covered “Things We Never Had”.

What else? I see that Markus djed at Club King Kong in Stockholm back in 2010.

Rateyourmusic has other releases. And also lists another name as part of the band, Nicholas. One is the 2007 EP “ES Crew” that had the songs “No Applause (Feat. Jonathan HHH)”, “You Won’t See Me Hide, You Won’t See Me Run”, “Puerto Plata” and “Listening to the Fall (Feat. Kim & Kris)”.  The other release is a digital single with 3 songs released in 2009 that had “1 Step 2 Steps”, “Who Put the Heart in You” and “Helen Love”.

I wonder about these releases. I totally missed them at the time. Would love to listen to these tracks.

Keep looking for information. I find that Markus was in a band called Sthlmians with Jonathan Johansson around 2018 and released a track called “Jacqueline”. So perhaps he is still involved with music these days.

And that’s it! That’s what I could find about this great project. So glad I ended up writing about Everyday Sensations today, took me through memory lane, such nostalgia for those music days of the 2000s.

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Everyday Sensations – Things We Never Had

As mentioned, I’m going through a Swedish indiepop phase. Remembering the days when I fell in love with that country, the bands, the music, the people. Good times.

Maybe many remember We Are Soldiers We Have Guns, Malin Dahlberg’s alter-ego. It was a good band who released a bunch of records. The music of the band could be indiepop but other times was a bit more experimental, more sparse.

We are Soldiers We Have Guns started in 2004 with a self-titled CDR EP on Yellow Mica Recordings (YMR 006), the label of our friends Martin Cannert and Christoffer Lärkner. That EP with that iconic drawing of a girl bleeding from a gun wound on the back had four songs, “Damn Those TV-Shows Damn Them Straight To Hell”, “My Hero”, “Jodi’s Noise” and “Psalm 190”.

The next year, 2005, there was a CDR that I believe was self-released. It was titled “Soldaterna #2” and had the tracks “Tourists in Our Hometown” and “The Ego is a Tricky Business”.

After that the band signs to Stereo Test Kit Records in the UK that was releasing some of Labrador Records music there like Club 8 or Laurel Music. With them Malin releases the band’s first min-album, also self-titled (STK CD008). The songs on this record are “Tourist in Our Hometown”, “Redefine”, “Damn Those TV Shows; Damn Them Straight to Hell”, “On Hold” and “Jodi’s Noise”. These were new recordings done at Min Vilja Är Folkets Studio in Mellanbygden, Västerbotten, and mastered by Mats Hammarström (from Isolation Years, do you remember them?) at Second Home Studio in Umeå.

On this record Malin who sang, played guitar, piano and organ, got some more people to help. Lovisa Nyström (from Two White Horses) played cello and Robert Tenevall (from Horseface, Knugen Faller, Royal Downfall and Totalt Jävla Mörker) played guitar. Jon Brännström, previously of the band Purusam and owner of the recording studio, was the producer and also played accordion.

2006 sees the band release “To Meet is Murder” on Stereo Test Kit (STK CD012). Again a mini-album or EP of 5 songs. These were “In the Morning We’re OK”, “The Line is a Dot to You” (which has a great video, check it out), “The Trick is to Love”, “Konservatism” and “Songs that No One Will Hear”. This time the record was mastered at Studio Folkhemmet by Petter Ericsson. The artwork was done by Emma Mierse and other than Malin Dahlberg, we see music playing credits for Jocke Rosén.

In 2007 We Are Soldiers We Have Guns releases their only vinyl release, a 7″ single on our friend Andreas from Celestial label Lavender Recordings (LAV7001). This beautiful single had two covers, “Wild World” by Cat Stevens on the A side and “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” by Marvin Gaye on the B side.

Then we jump to 2008. This is the proper We are Soldiers We Have Guns album. It was called “Get Up, Get Out” and is actually on Bandcamp so you can listen to it in its entirety. It came out on CD on Stereo Test Kit Records (STK CD019) and had the tracks “Better Days/More Alive”, “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”, “Rain, Heart, Scars”, “The Great Depression” (which has a top video made by Andreas Andersson and shot on 8mm in Gothenburg), “November”, “Create Your Own Psychosis!”, “Nina”, “Speak Up, Speak Out”, “Power” and “What Your Sister Said”.

The album was recorded at Folkhemmet and we see some more musicians involved in the album this time. Ramo Spatalovic (from Douglas Heart, Franke, Shipyard, The Greencoats and Melody Fields) played bass on “Power”, drums on “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”, “November” and “Create Your Own Psychosis!” and guitar on “The Great Depression”.

Susanna Brandin (from Winter Took His Life, Hunt, Rome is not a Town and Unikorus) played bass too on “The Great Depression”, “Nina” and “Speak Up, Speak Out”. Max Sjöholm (from Douglas Heart and Sambassadeur) played drums on “The Great Depression, “Nina” and “Speak Out, Speak Up”. Ulf Wederbrandt (from The Jam of the Year) played drums on “Rain, Heart, Scars” and piano on “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”. Ulf was also the producer of the record.

The artwork is credited to Valero Doval, a Spanish designer.

And of course you noticed all the Douglas Heart’s connections, and it is true, Malin was also in Douglas Heart (and I wrote about them many years ago), as well as in Shipyard and Laurel Music.

When it comes to compilations the band appeared on a few. In 2005 the song “The Ego is a Tricky Business” was on Cosy Recordings CDR comp “Cosy Den Goes Lägenhet Ett År” (Cosy 001). Tht same year we see “Tourists in Our Hometown” on “Records Make Great Pets Vol. 1/Sweden” released by Stereo Kit Records (STK CD005) and the song “Anchorless” on Yellow Mica’s CDR compilation “Our Hearts Beat Out of Tune” (YMR021). Then in 2008 the song “Olis” was included in “Björn Kleinhenz – Quietly Happy and Deep Inside ‘Covers and Remixes'” released digitally as an MP3 compilation by IAT.Mp3.

Then there is another release on Discogs which I am not sure what it is. It says “The Fool on the Hill” which is a Beatles’ song and it seems We Are Soldiers We Have Guns covered it, I think just as an MP3.

Another interesting bit to share is that there is a live session on a tram, dating from 2009. We see the snowy city through the windows and we notice too that Malin is joined by two friends, not sure who they are though. It looks like these tram sessions were organized and recorded by Tom Jerry Boman at the time.

I find an interview with Malin dating from 2009 on a blog called The Ampeater Review. It is mentioned that there are 3 videos. So far I’ve only found 2 on Youtube. Which one was the third? Malin also talks about her influences including Delta 5, The Au-Pairs and The Go-Go’s.

Another interesting bit is that it seems she was recording something in Brooklyn at the time. I wonder what. Anyone knows?

And then what happened to Malin? What is she doing these days? Still involved with music? Was she ever in other bands after We Are Soldiers We Have Guns? Did she play live much? I couldn’t find much info on that field.

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We Have Soldiers We Have Guns – Electricity

I’m listening again Swedish bands from my youth. There are quite a few that haven’t made the blog and are still fresh in my memory. Stockholm’s Unarmed Enemies is one of them.

I remembered they had a video for their song “Show Me Your Plans“. I was surprised to see that 19 years ago, it was Starsgoneout who had uploaded it to Youtube. She was my colleague (and friend) who helped me write on my blog Mira el Péndulo. Time flies indeed.

Unarmed Enemies was a duo formed by Azi Ashourvan and Jordi Bergstam. They used to have a website but of course it doesn’t exist anymore. They released two records, both on the label Songs I Wish I Had Written. The Malmö label was quite fashionable at the time as they released Le Sport.

The band’s first release was a self-titled “Unarmed Enemies” EP (SIWIHW005) released in 2005. It had five songs, “Missing Out”, “Hustlers Recharged (Wheelcher)”, “Show Me Your Plans” and “Hustlers Recharged (Mr. Suitcase’s Armed Friends-Mix)”. The songs were mastered by Frederik Hellström.

The next year, 2006, saw the release of the CDR single “Show Me Your Plans” (SIWIHW008). The single had 2 tracks, “Show Me Your Plans (Radio Edit)” and “Show Me Your Plans (Le Sport Remix)”. From what I read, due to the video the band had to cut the original version of the song from 5 minutes to 3. That is the radio edit. Then the video, we learn, was recorded partly in Paris. Good life!

Discogs also lists “On Track” as a digital release from 2008 on a label called Kitty Litter MP3 (KLMP302). This one has the title track and a remix of it called “On Track (Mr. Suitcase Derailed Edit)”.

Other than these releases the electropop band had a few songs on compilations. “Missing Out” was included in “Songs I Wish I Had Written” released by that same name label as a promo CDR. Then they had a song called “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in a 2005 digital compilation called “Euro X-Mas EP”. Lastly their song “Show Me Your Plans” was on the CD comp “Pophopp 2006” released by Dagens Nyheter (DN006). This last one is quite interesting as this was a release by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter and included some great bands like Loveninjas, I’m From Barcelona, Sarto and more.

Now, interestingly enough on Youtube there are more songs by the band. My friend David from Spain has uploaded a cover of The Go-Betweens’ “Going Blind“, “Consume” and “Binging“. I believe these three tracks are unreleased still.

I look for more info about the band members. I find a Soundcloud for Jordi. It hasn’t been updated for a while.He called himself Jordisaurus. I also believe he is a psychologist these days.

And that’s it. That’s what’s online about this duo. Do you remember them?

Then a Soundcloud for the band, last updated 6 years ago. There are quite a few unreleased tracks it seems. There is “Disco” and “Boat” which are new to me.There is also “Waiting for the Happy Ending”.

I see some remixes of the band has done too like one for Mr. Suitcase called “Christmas Leftovers (Unarmed Enemies’ Starving Gourmand Remix)” or one for Le Sport called “I Comes Before U (Unarmed Enemies’ G-Mix)”. And there are more too.

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Unarmed Enemies – Show Me Your Plans

D’Estrellitas Power was a short lived band from Zaragoza, Spain, that was active just between 1999 and 2000. It was formed by Raquel Palacio, David Sanz and Luis Javier Velilla and released a superb EP called “En el Año 2000” on Jabalina Música (JAB-016) in, needless to say, the year 2000.

Raquel and David were also members of the band Cassino. Actually it seems D’Estrellitas Power short life has to do with Cassino, as them two wanted to focus more on that band and their releases.

After the demise of the band Luis Javier formed the band Alice. He was also on Solo Va, Jafi Marvel and Winter Note.

In any case, we got more than a handful of songs by D’Estrellitas Power, terrific songs to be honest, punchy and fun. The songs on the record were “Siempre en Jueves”, “Estamos en Verano”, “Empanados Fritos”, “Todo da Vueltas”, “Maquillaje” and En el Año 2000″. It is worth mentioning that “Maquillaje” is a cover of the classic song by Mecano.

The song “En el Año 2000” would also appear on a double CD compilation called “Don Diablo Disco I” that was released by El Diablo! Discos (EDD002) in 2000.

That same year the band had the song “Un Día Más” in a compilation called “El Sol Sale Para Todos” that Jabalina (JAN-2017) put out. This song is perhaps my favourite, so good!

As mentioned the band was short-lived but they did get quite a lot of attention by the Spanish radio and press at the time. I believe they also played the Lemon Pop festival in Murcia.

The only other interesting bit I have found is that there is an extended version of the song “Siempre en Jueves” that is about 8 minutes long. David Sanz has uploaded that track to Youtube.

Very little written about them, just the same bio over and over online. Wonder if they had more songs. And yeah, would love to hear of any memories people may have of them!

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D’Estrellitas Power – Un Día Más

I’m going back to some classics. Classics in my book. Classics that I haven’t got around in the blog. Have to be fair to all that great music I remember from the early 2000s. That’s when I got involved for real with music. And I have a terrible sense of nostalgia of that period especially of the Swedish indiepop scene then.

My Enemy is a band that was formed in 2004 and had 3 releases in 2005. And then disappeared. Their tracks were great, and you wonder what they did after. Maybe I’ll find out.

The band was formed in the great town of Gothenburg, a town I want to go back of course. They line-up of the band featured Helena Jäderberg on vocals and guitar, Samira Englund on bass, keyboard and vocals and Leonel Jäderberg on keyboars, guitars and vocals. Were Leonel and Helena siblings?

The band first release came out on a label called Vapen & Godis. I have forgotten about it! This label released also Tokyo Eye and Otur. The label, whose name translates to “weapon and candies”, released the “Elil EP” as their first ever release, having catalog number V&G001. It had 5 songs, “Can’t Blame You”, “Gullvivas Koloni”, “Don’t Need!”, “Add Some Spiders” and “Grönland”. The artwork was done by Veronica Stenberg and the songs were mastered and mixed by Peter Åhrberg from the bands THe Solar Lodge and Whippet.

Shortly after the band releases the “Roo EP”. This one came out on the fantastic Yellow Mica Recordings of our friend Martin Cannert of The Faintest Ideas. The EP was a CDR and had four songs, “My Time Coming”, “Khreis”, “Catch One Word” and “Bothers Me”.

Then came “Khreis” a new CDR single on Vapen & Godis (V*G003). This one had “Khreis (Original Mix)”, “Khreis (Tommy Eld Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Johan Fotmeijer Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Claudia’s Shoe-gazer Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Mein Feind Remix)” and a cover of Kim Wilde’s “Cambodia”.

The band covered “What is Love”, Haddaway’s big hit of the 90s, for a 2006 ompilation called “This is Love” that was released by Dig Your Own Grave (DIG003) that incldued other familiar bands like Komon, The Mexicos or Bare Knees.

Last but not least the band did a video for the song “Khreis” which I uploaded to Youtube 19 years ago. It is still there gladly and sounding brilliant.

I look for other music projects from the band members on Dicogs. I see that Helena had contributed backing vocals to an album by Nicke Lurig. There is a Soundcloud account by someone with her name with some nice music. Could it be her?

Now Leonel looks to have a website. Here he shows his projects as he is a composer, producer and mixer. There is a bit of a history about him here. It mentions that he was originally from Hälsingland in the north of Sweden but moved to Gothenburg in 2000. He was in a band called Den and toured Germany with the band Incognito Pop. Here he confirms Helena was his sister and that he founded the label Vapen & Godis. Then he started recording under the name Tommy Eld. Wow! Great info!

Samira Englund looks like a painter these days. Her art looks amazing I must say. She was from Stockholm and ended in Gothenburg to study at the Gothenburg Art School.

It looks like My Enemy continued being cool after the band split. That’s really brilliant.

I do wonder one thing, I didn’t find much information about the band playing live, did they play much? And of course, as always I am curious if there are still unreleased songs by them out there…

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Listen
My Enemy – Khreis

I miss so much to release records, to do label stuff, be in touch with bands. Sadly this seems like a dream now. Is anyone buying records still? Who is paying $40 for an LP? I feel the good old days are gone. One of my dream projects was to do a compilation of Australian indiepop bands from the late 80s, early 90s and when I discover a band that could have fitted the bill I just have this sense of excitement mixed with impotence that is hard to describe.

Batswing Saloon was a late 80s band from Brisbane, Australia. They released just one record, in 1988, a 7″ single titled “Harold and Maude”.

The record included the title song “Harold and Maude” on the A side and “Split Level World” on the B side. It came out on Cosmic Records (BSW01) which probably was the band’s own label. The band’s logo is on the front sleeve, a logo taken from Batman clearly. On the back of the sleeve a band photo with some information about themselves. This sleeve was designed by Michelle.

So we learn the band was formed by Jenny May on bass, Sue Holman on drums, Leanne Holman and Michelle Bowden on guitar and Liza McDonald on vocals. The band co-produced the record with Ian Wadley who had been in many bands including Dragster or Small World Experience. The single was recorded on a 4-track at the band’s practice room in the old Target building in Fortitude Valley.

One thing that does surprises one is that the band was all female. We know that some of the girls had been involved in bands like Michelle Bowden was afterwards on Chopper Division, Gravelrash, The Worm Turns and Koko Uzi or Sue Holman who also played in Cut.

The Brisbane Music Graveyard Bandcamp account has uploaded the two tracks of the single. Here there is more information about them. We learn that the band was formed in 1986 and it mentions that the single sold well in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Germany and New York. The title song reached number 12 on the 4ZZZ Hot 100 radio programme, and the band was voted the 4th best new independent band in the RAM readers poll in 1988.

It seems that originally the vocalist was Anne Deller but she left in 1987 and that’s when Liza joined.

About gigs we see that the band played especially around Brisbane and South East Queensland where they supported Hunters and Collectors, TISM and the Hoodoo Gurus.

The band would split up in 1990.

Then I find a Soundcloud account for Sue Mikkelsen. Could it be Sue Holman? Maybe married name? Here there is the single too. But there is another little treasure, a beautiful Batswing Saloon song called “Secret Mile”. Wonder where that one came from? A demo? An outtake from the single recordings? Or a future single that never happened?

I continue searching. I find a post on a blog called Striped Sunlight dating from 2011. Here I look at the comments sections. I learn that the band played at the Brisbane Uni Rec Club in 1988. Someone also mentions that he has a live video of the band. I wonder if it made it to Youtube… don’t think so.

The only other thing worth knowing is that their song “Harold and Maude” appeared on the compilation “Behind the Banana Curtain 1975-2000”  that was released as a double CD by Valve Records and East West in 2000. In this comp they appear alongside so many important Aussie bands including the Go-Betweens, The Apartments and more.

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Listen
Batswing Saloon – Secret Mile