This week has been a  bit harder to find new indiepop on the web. Hopefully these are good enough for your demanding taste!

Herlights: this Russian band have been featured on the blog in the past. Last year. Indeed, it has been about a year since they had released new songs. Their latest is a 4-song EP titled “Sometimes” that brings back their trademark post-punk jangly sound!

Olivia’s World: so happy to hear that Lica from Go Violets and Tempura Nights keeps making top popsongs. Now it is a cassette EP called “Olivia’s World EP” on the fine Lost Sound Tapes from Seattle. The EP comes with four songs, two of them (“Blotter” and “Cereal Boxes”) we can preview on Bandcamp. And yes, we can play them again and again.

Bathe: there is just one song on this Bandcamp set up by Atlanta multi-instrumentalist Baily Crone. It is called “The Silence” and it is really pretty. It is a lush song, dreamy. This song will be released next year on the debut album “Last Looks”. So for now we wait.

The Claim: the mighty classic band is back too with a new EP called “Just Too Far”. This is a short EP, 3 songs. Included are the title song, “Hercules (Bleak Industrialists c. 1987 remix)” and “Mrs Jones (Ono dub)”. I must say that I love the opening track, but not very sure with the remixes. But it is ok, “Just Too Far” is just too good to care if the other songs are not too good?

Typsy Panthre: from Mnneapolis comes this new project by Allison LaBonne and John Crozier. If you know who I am talking about, well, Allison was in the lovely The Owls and John in the legendary The Hang Ups. So there’s quality here. The band is releasing an album called “Hell” on November 11 on CD. The album will include 11 tracks, two of them available to preview now, “The Strange Thing” and “Summers End”. Very very recommendable.

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Maybe not exactly indiepop, but as I have them on a list of bands that were intended to be part of The Leamington Spa series, I thought why not check them out. I know very little and the song, even though it is sort of a jazzy twee thing it is very enjoyable.

The song I’m talking about is the one I’ve been able to listen so far. It is the A side of the sole 7″ they put out in 1981. The song is called “Let the Girl Dance”. The B side is “Arrested”.

The 7″ was originally released in 1981, on Silhouette Records (KUS 100). Discogs has this label based in Cleveland, Ohio. But that’s wrong. It must a label with the same name. Something that caught my attention was the KUS in the catalog number, just like our Augsburg friends, Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten. The record also seems to have been released with no sleeve. That is a shame. We do see though some information on the label. We see that “Let the Girl Dance” was written by R. Helman and K. Yallop. That the engineer was L. Burrage and both Helman and Yallop produced thet rack. The executive producer was Douglas Kean.

The 7″ was re-released the year after on Red Bus Records (RBUS 71). I wonder why. The songs are the same on this version of the 7″.

No other releases by the band though they did appear with the song “Let the Girl Dance” on a 12″ compilation “Heart & Stars” that was released in Portugal by the label Red Bus Records (RBLP 1011). Was Red Bus Records based in Portugal? Or was this a release they did exclusively for this Iberian country? Other bands on this comp are Private Line, English Boys or Imagination… I don’t know them!

I do see that a blog called My Life’s a Jigsaw that covers mostly mod and powerpop dedicated a blog post to The Kustom back in 2012. The author is pretty sure the band hailed from London. To confirm this an anonymous person commented that he shared a house with Keith Yallop (the bassist) in South Ealing, London.

Thanks to this info I found a Soundcloud for a Keith Yallop, but I am not 100% sure that it is the same person. There is nothing in there to confirm it is.

Now what is the first name of R. Helman? Maybe I could have a chance to track them down that way. But I can’t seem to find any other information about The Kustom. Maybe someone remembers them? What happened to them after The Kustom split?!

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Listen
The Kustom – Let the Girl Dance

Here are some good finds from the past weekend. Hope you like some of them!

Pia Fraus: Here is a wonderful digital single for “Sweet Sunday Snow”. It comes with three remixes on Bandcamp, “Picnic Remix”, “Ligthships Remix” and “Astrobal Remix”. The Tallin, Estonia, band sounds gorgeous in this recording. Just makes me wish that I’ll see them live one day.

Blue Tomorrows: this Portland band has graced the blog in the past. Sarah Nienaber’s project sounds ace. And her latest is a 9 song album called “Without Color” that is available in limited quantities on tape. Definitely check the track “Crescent Moon Blues” which is great.

Special Friend: Hidden Bay Records has been releasing good music since they started. The latest is this French-American duo formed by Guillaume Siracusa on guitar and Erica Ashleson on drums. The release is a self-titled EP of 5 songs that will be available on vinyl on September 27.

Alice Hubble: I have known Alice for many years now, and I was a big fan of her older band Arthur & Martha and also of the wonderful Seven Inches from Leeds. Nowadays she’s gone solo and will be releasing the album “Polarlichter” sometime this month (some issues with the pressing plant). It will be available on 12″ vinyl as well as on CD. So that’s good news. Terrific synth-pop.

The Leaf Library: the London ensemble is releasing their new album “The World is a Bell” on October 25th! At the moment we can only preview one out of 10 tracks that will be on the record, “Hissing Waves”, and it leaves me wishing to listen to the rest of songs! The record will be out on vinyl and CD.

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Here is yet another record I am looking to find a copy for my collection. Maybe there will be luck in the next weeks, months, or years. It has happened to me that I’ve been lucky tracking some of these records I want after writing about them. Maybe it will happen again!

Kicking the Image is an obscure band of course. There is very little I know about them. I don’t think there are any blog posts about them on the web. This may be the first one. I will try to find any other mentions or any valuable information. I cross my fingers.

Big Bus Records released their record in 7″ and 12″ formats in 1990. The 12″ had a cool sleeve whereas the 7″ didn’t come with one. Both have the catalog number IMAGE 002. I don’t know what was IMAGE 001. Discogs doesn’t list any other records for this label. May as well have been a one off, a sole release by the label? Perhaps it was even the band’s own label?

The 7″ had two songs, “When the Loving Comes” on the A side and “The Truth” on the B side. The 12″ added another song to the A side, “So Long”.  “When the Loving Comes” and “The Truth” were recorded at Coach House Recording Studios in Bristol, England. They were engineered by Allan Keen. “So Long” on the other hand was recorded at Chariot 16 Track Studios in Cardiff, Wales. This song was engineered by Alex Silva. All songs were produced by Danny Chang.

We also know that additional vocals are credited to Samantha Howard and the band thanks Cranes Musical Instruments for loaning them the equipment for the recording. The photo of the sleeve was taken by Andrew ‘Syb’ Newman.

Most importantly we know the band members:
Steve Williams – vocals/guitar
Mike Thomas – bass/vocals
Dan Jones – guitar/vocals
Linus – drums/percussion

I also notice an address on the sleeve…. Penarth, in Glamorgan. So the band was Welsh? Or the label?

I notice that Steve Williams still performs. He does mostly covers it seems. Something interesting I find out is that Kicking the Image played the West Wales Blues festival, closing the festival in front of 9000 people. Then I find out that he was originally from Cardiff. Safe to assume now that Kicking the Image hailed from Wales’ most important city?

I can’t seem to find any other information about the rest of the band members. But at least I feel I’ve gone further than I expected. I am sure there are people reading me that know even more details. Why not share them with everyone on the comment section?

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Listen
Kicking the Image – When the Loving Comes

Friday again! So that’s exciting!

Dear Boy: this Los Angeles band sounds really good! My introduction to the band is their latest digital single, “Heaven Moves”, which sounds gorgeous, very much influenced by classic British guitar pop. What’s even cooler is that they are touring (sadly no New York), but my Mexican friends can catch them on November 16th in Mexico City. How cool is that!

A Certain Smile: the Portland, Oregon, band is back with a new EP called “Bae”. It will include 3 songs, “Cherry Bomb”, “Honey Do” and “Original Replacement” and it is going to be released on the fine Jigsaw Records. Very exciting indeed! And it will be on 7″ vinyl to boot! You can preview the opening track, “Cherry Bomb” on Bandcamp now.

Champion of Youth: another superb release on Jigsaw Records is the self-titled mini-album by this Manchester band! Champion of Youth is actually  a band formed by ex-members of the formidable Amida, so you can expect jangly and ramshackle guitars which is something I love!

New Wave of Hype: this the name of the latest compilation released by the great Jakarta label Dismantled Records! It includes 5 songs, all of them covers of songs by The Wake! So we find Turks & Caicos playing “Provincial Disco”, Ultraviolence plays “Solo Project”, Les Mains Immaculees “Carbrain” and Sharesprings “Talk About the Past”.

Puzzles y Dragones/Alborotador Gomasio: the two Madrid bands, two of my favourite Madrid bands, are releasing a split 7″ on Discos Garibaldi! Each one of them contribute one song, Puzzles y Dragones has “Formas de Mirar” while Alborotador has “Los Bosques”. This is a great sort of reunion, as members of each of the bands were once part of the Aplasta tus Gafas de Pasta DIY collective!

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Kelvin Davis on lead vocals and guitar, Tony Vessey on bass guitar and backing vocals, Steve Bessemer on drums and percussion and Doug McNair on keyboards and backing vocals were the mid-80s mod band The B-Team. They were to release just the one single, but what a great single that is!

The wonderful “All I Ever Wanted” on the A side, penned by Kelvin Davis, is a burst of joy. And then on the B side, a joint effort by all 4 members, we find “Bad Day”, another fine track! The songs were recorded at Empire Studio’s in Manor Park, in London. If you want to hear both of them, they are available on Soundcloud. This account is by Jon Vessey, maybe a brother of Tony?

The record was released in 1985 by Diamond Record Corporation (DIA 008), a small UK label that was active in the mid 80s. The art for the sleeve is credited to Artschool while the photography of the band to Deborah Laight and Jo Baker. There is a credit to Brenden Wilson for processing. Not sure what it means though. It also seems that the letter B is printed on both labels, as if there was no A side. The thing is that the matrices do show which one was the A side.

Many years later, in 1996, the band would see their two songs included in a 22-track compilation called “This is Mod Volume 3 – A Diamond Collection”. On this one they appear alongside many bands that were on their old label Diamond Record Corporation like The Moment or The Scene. This comp was released by Anagram Records (CDMGRAM 106).

Then in 2018 the Japanese label DDA Confidential would release “Ita Cemetry Gates Volume 3” (DDAMDC 016) and would include “All I Ever Wanted” on it. This is an interesting compilation as it includes bands like Dolly Mixture and then you see Big Star or Elvis Costello.

I check on Discogs if any of the members were involved in any other bands but it doesn’t look like it.

On a forum I see a mention of a live tape, probably from a gig at the Wood Green in London 1986. This same forum mentions that Tony Vessey left the band in the early days of 1986 to start his own band Amo Amas and was replaced by Paul Rosendale. It also mentions a second single with the song “And All Because” on ASM Records. Never heard about this! Then that they split up in 1987. At the time of the forum post, 2007, it says that Kelvin was playing in a band called Blow Up, Steve was playing in a Jam tribute band while Paul Rosendale was living in Spain and he did a solo rock n’ roll/mod/new wave show there.

I would really like to find out more about this 2nd record!

So at the end of my little research I am left with more doubts and questions than I had at the beginning. I hope someone can fill in the blanks, paint me a better picture of this superb mod-revival band and about that second single!

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Listen
The B-Team – All I Ever Wanted

More pop today!

Bland: this Sydney four-piece doesn’t seem to be bland, their latest track “The Common Ground” is a very fine jangly track. This song will be included in their upcoming EP titled “Life After Love”.

Midnight Clay: Indonesia keeps providing us with top quality indiepop. This new band from Bandung is no exception. They are planning to put out a 6-song mini-album on October 6th called “Shall We Dance or Lean to Each Other?” and we can preview one of the tracks to be included, the superb “Rising Tide”. Can’t wait to hear the rest of tracks!

Cotton Range: Sango Records from Wuhan, China, is releasing a very fine band from South China called Cotton Range and I am very excited. I just wish there was a physical version for this mini-album titled “Galaxie Bus”. There doesn’t seem to be one, just digital. But maybe someone will pick it up? I hope so, the 7 tracks included here are very sweet.

Spunsugar: a shoegaze band from Malmö that sounds terrific. Nothing new there I guess. I just discovered Spunsugar through their latest track, “Native Tongue”, and I am hooked. The song is a digital single for now, and on Bandcamp the lyrics are available just in case you want to sing along.

David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights: the legendary ex-The Clean member is back with a new album called “Bobbie’s a Girl” on September 20th. The album will be available on CD and LP and will include 10 brand new songs which is very exciting news for any fans of the Dunedin-sound and Flying Nun Records! At the moment three songs are available to preview, “Smoke You Right Out of Here”, “Coming From Nowhere Now” and “Looks Like I’m Running Out”.

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I am on a Japanese indiepop journey, discovering lots of great music from the early 90s that has been unknown to me. I am so very happy to find out about these sounds now, and I feel there’s even lots more waiting for me!

Today I found this sweet sounding band called The Spotnick Candy. I am curious about their name first of all. Is it a play on words of Sputnik? Or what? Or maybe it was a real candy in Japan? Who knows. The thing is that the band would only release a 7″ and two compilation appearances between 1992 and 1993. Later on the band members would rename their band to Snapshot, and under that name the band would put out many releases on Escalator Records.

The Spotnick Candy was formed by Yugo Katayama and Yukari Takasaki. As I mentioned earlier they released an EP, the 1992 “Love! Love! Courtney Love!” 7″ (BOMB-08). It came out on Time Bomb Records, which was a label that mainly released bands from the Kansai underground, operating from a record shop in downtown Osaka. I suppose the band hailed from that area then?

The A side had three songs, “Love! Love! Courtney Love!”, “Actizol Gumball 3” and “Count the Numbers”. The B side just two, “Yeah!” and “Hosedog 11 (is a Football Club)”. Yukari Takasaki wrote the A2, A3 and B2. Yugo Katayama wrote the other two. It is also interesting to mention that they both switched instruments all the time. I see Yukari and Yugo playing guitar and drums on different songs.

The band appeared on the 1992 compilation “Television Personalities From Japan, Too” (TT006) that was released by the very fine A Trumpet Trumpet Records on CD. At first I thought it was a EP of cover versions of the TVPs but it seems the 4 songs, by 4 different bands, that appear on the comp are original tracks. The Spotnick Candy opens the CD with the track “Seurat 1859-1891)”. The other bands on it are Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Candy Eyes and Sweet Petticoat. I suppose the band were big fans of the great Georges Seurat. They even had his birth year and the year he died at 31 on the song title.

Georges-Pierre Seurat (French: 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He is best known for devising the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism. While less famous than his paintings, his conté crayon drawings have also garnered a great deal of critical appreciation. Seurat’s artistic personality was compounded of qualities which are usually supposed to be opposed and incompatible: on the one hand, his extreme and delicate sensibility; on the other, a passion for logical abstraction and an almost mathematical precision of mind. His large-scale work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886), altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.

The other band’s appearance was in 1993, on a Japanese cassette called “Let’s Muc Out On Sound” that was released by Loose Sound (LSCT-001). I believe this tape was only limited to 100 copies. On this cassette the band appears twice. On the third track of the A side with the song “Cast a Shadow” while on the second track of the B side they have “AM7/8M7”. On this tape the band Tricycle Popstar also appears, a band that I’ve been lucky to have interviewed in the past.

As I mentioned the members went to become Snapshot afterwards. Yukari Katayama would gain success later on as Yukari Fresh. He was also involved in another project called Yukari Rotten while Yugo Katayama released records under the name Miniflex and was the producer of Yukari Fresh. So they kept working together.

It is really cool how they evolved and became successful musicians. But I am curious about this early period of theirs. I love the freshness of The Spotnick Candy and I definitely want to know more about them. Did they have more songs? Did they play live a lot? Were they from Osaka? Who remembers them?

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Listen
The Spotnick Candy – Seurat 1859-1891

A quiet weekend, but this week I should be seeing the Swedish band Hater here in NYC, so that’s pretty cool. Are there any shows you are excited about? I don’t get to go to many indiepop shows here, so you are welcome to make me jealous!

New indiepop finds this weekend? Sure thing.

Lost Ships: the amazing band from Portsmouth, who once was known as The Kites, returns with a 4 track digipak CDR on the fine Subjangle Records. This new EP is titled “All of the Pieces” and is a true gem of superb jangle pop! Pop brilliance indeed through the title song “All of the Pieces” as well as in the rest of songs “Drug Store”, “How Can I Face the World” and “Sheila Believe Me”.

Die Katapult: Ian Catt has produced this fine digital single by the Spanish-Swedish duo who are signed to Elefant Records. Elena Comas and Anna Fredriksson has released “Bäckerei Digital” and they have made Japanese and Italian versions of this catchy synth pop song. Nice!

Liam the Younger: I am not familiar with Liam Betson’s music. I just stumbled upon a video for his track Charcoal Gray and thought it was a good and very catchy pop song. This track will be also part of a cassette album called “Up to Something” which should be released on October 18th.

Sugar World: from San Diego, California. They have just one song, “Sad in Heaven”, which sounds gorgeous! Proper indiepop in my book. There is no information about them. So I can’t tell you much about them aside from do listen to this song!

Slowcoaching: this one comes from Melbourne, Australia. It is the solo project of Dean Valentino and he has already a few releases, the first one from 2015. The latest one though is a very fine song called “Between the Walls” that was released back in July. It seems that it is just a digital single, but hopefully it will be released later on in an EP or an album!

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“Stopping to Speak” on the A side and “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” on the B side, was a 7″ release by Kick Reaction in 1986. This 7″ wasn’t properly released. There were promo copies and also DJ copies. I wonder why. It had no sleeve. Maybe they were just trying to make themselves a name at that point?

The Precious Organisation released this 7″ (Jewel 1). But this 7″ did have a proper release in the way of a 12″ EP with a different running order. The B side was now the A side and vice versa. Meaning, the A side had “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” and “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Dance Stance)” and the B side had “Stopping to Speak” and “Friday Away from High Street”. Something curious too is that both sides are actually labeled as A sides. The first side being the “Club Side” while the ‘second A side’ being “Radio Side”.

All songs are credited to P. Lyon. That is Peter Lyon, guitarist and vocalist of the band. The other members were Stuart Thorn on bass and Steven Barker on drums. All songs were produced by the band and were engineered by Wilf Smarties.

Other interesting detail from the back of the sleeve is that the songs were recorded in Scotland on November 1985.

The only other song the band released was called “Your Favourite Song” which was penned by Peter and Stuart. This song appeared on a cassette compilation called “Honey at the Core” (Honey 1). There are a few interesting bands in there like The Bluebells, The Big Dish or The Painted Word. This tape came out in 1985. It is said that came with a 32 page booklet, I wonder if in there there was a bio of the band. That could be helpful. Funny thing, this compilation has a Wikipedia page. On it I learn that all bands featured were Scottish, so this confirms my suspicion about the origin of Kick Reaction. The person who compiled the tape was John Williamson who would later be well known as a Glasgow Herald journalist.

I do find something cool on Youtube. I find live footage of the band playing “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow“. The sound is quite terrible. It is a shame. But it is something even though it is very short. A comment there makes it even more interesting this investigation. It says that before this band was called Kick Reaction they were called Moroccan Coco. Wow. I’ve actually been trying to find more information about Moroccan Coco but always ending up with nothing. Someone says that Peter Lyon became a postman afterwards in the city of Hamilton.

Then I go deep into the forum Hidden Glasgow. There I find that the band played on November 30th of 1985 alongside The Robert Cray Band. Then something curious, that many bands used to record demos in the front room of the flat The Precious Organisation label had. Among them Kick Reaction of course but also Primal Scream!

Another person in the forum mentions another song by the band called “Spraypainters in Australia”. He says he sang as a backing singer on it. I dont think this song was released, was it? It seems it was recorded in a studio in Motherwell that was also used as rehearsal space by the likes of BMX Bandits or Teenage Fanclub.

Lastly another user says that he played with Stuart Macarthur before Peter Lyon joined. I am guessing he means Stuart Thorn? Them two tried to get Peter Lyons to sing in their band but it seems he refused as he was trying to get his band called The Usherettes off the ground. Then nothing happened for a while until this guy left to study in Motherwell and Peter and Stuart joined forces forming Moroccan Coco with Jim Mitchell as their manager. Moroccan Coco would only release the one single, “One Day/Steam Radio”. Then they changed names to Kick Reaction.

Aside from a mention on a 1986 SPIN magazine issue about up and coming Scottish bands, and a quote of Stuart Thorn celebrating Postcard Records, not much more I can find online about Kick Reaction. I suppose it hasnt been that bad. Ive found quite a lot of interesting facts. Now, I would love to hear all the demos they are said to have recorded. Maybe someone can help me with that?

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Listen
Kick Reaction – Stopping to Speak

As I mentioned last Wednesday, Baby Lemonade retrospective is at the pressing plant. That’s the big news for me! I can’t wait for it to arrive at home. I hope you all love it and pre-order it :p

Here are some great tunes for the weekend!

Able: my friends from Uppsala have a new single out! This is the second one from their upcoming album “Holding On/Letting Go” to be released in the near future. This new digital single has two tracks, “We’ll Figure Out” and “Screaming Heart” and as usual is pure class. Quite impressive to see a band going this strong for decades now!

Night Flowers: the London band will be releasing a new album soon, so to promote it they have come up with a cool idea, a 360 degrees interactive video for their song “Fortune Teller”. Might this be the first indiepop video made this way? I would say yes, but anyone could tell me if there is another like this? In any case, it is not a gimmick, the song is really good!

The Plastic Shoelaces: they say their music is “jankle pop”, what does that mean?! I could make a guess, it is fun, upbeat, ramshackling pop? Their latest is a digital single with two songs, “Hip Happiness” and “Bigger Heads”. On Bandcamp there’s a photo that looks as if there was a physical release, but it doesn’t seem there’s a way to buy it. Anyways, do check this Sacramento band!

They Go Boom!: a true favourite band of mine. They are getting their album “Atlantic” reissued by Sunday Records on CD with a bonus disc, one that includes many favourite TGB! tracks, hand picked by Albert from Sunday Records. Do help me and tell me if any of the songs on the extra CD are unreleased ones or are all previously released?

Say Sue Me: the Busan, SK, band is back with a new 7″ with two tracks, “George & Janice” and “Don’t Follow Our Van”. I am pretty sure you know them already, how they sound, how they play live and all. They have made such an important splash around the world though I still haven’t seen them around in New York! Anyhow, do get this record!

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The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the early 20th century that is best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.
The best known artists working in this style included Robert Henri (1865–1929), George Luks (1867–1933), William Glackens (1870–1938), John Sloan (1871–1951), and Everett Shinn (1876–1953). Some of them met studying together under the renowned realist Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, others met in the newspaper offices of Philadelphia where they worked as illustrators. Theresa Bernstein, who studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, was also a part of the Ash Can School. She was friends with many of its better-known members, including Sloan with whom she co-founded the Society of Independent Artists.
The movement, which took some inspiration from Walt Whitman’s epic poem Leaves of Grass, has been seen as emblematic of the spirit of political rebellion of the period.

The wonderful Ash Can School. Years have gone by since I first heard them and I am still not able to have a copy of their one and only record in my collection. Maybe one day!

I know very little about them. I heard the B side of their 7″, “A Day out of Paris” and I thought it was superb. The A side, I still haven’t heard, it is called “She’s Only Sleeping”. Maybe someone can help me with that?

This 7″ was released in 1986, year 0 when it comes to indiepop for many. It was released by Unit Two Records (TWO 001). Who were behind this label?

Happily the band left some information on the back of the sleeve. That helps. Usually bands this obscure have sleeves with barely any information. For example we get to know that the band was actually a duo formed by Steven Wallace and Keith Unwin, That they played and programmed all instruments. The songs were recorded in Manchester, England. Does this main they hailed from that city?

Funny credits appear too. For example Peter Hayes is credited for hair and makeup. I suppose for the photos on the sleeve. The design and photography is credited to Chris Doyle.

This was the only release that I know. There are not even compilation appearances. But I am pretty sure that there must be more recordings. Can’t just be two songs. There has to be more!

I was going to stumble upon a website for Steve Fairclough. From what I understand Steven Wallace is Steve Fairclough. And here he tells a bit of the story of the band! What a find indeed!

The band started when he was around 19/20. It was a three-piece then, himself, Keith Unwin and Mark Burke. At some point Mark Burke left the band to study classical guitar at the Royal College in London. When that happened Steven’s brother, Neil, joined on bass and Andy Woods joined on keyboards.

Then no more info. But he does share a Bandcamp with his current recordings. It sounds pretty good! I should get in touch! There are some pics though from the time as well as some flyers. Thanks to them I know the band played alongside All Fall Down and Turn To Flowers at the Carlton Club in Salford with Steve Coogan as compere. Another gig they played was at The Boardwalk alongside Mirrors of Kiev and The Mock Turtles. Cool!

Aside from Ash Can School Steve became a demonstrator for Takamine and Parker Guitars in Europe and the US as well as European Ambassador for Fishman who he has with his own range of Fairclough guitars. That’s pretty cool too!

So, my questions are still there. I want to know why only one record? Why only two songs released? What happened with Keith Unwin? Were any of them in any other bands? Who remembers the Ash Can School?!

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Listen
Ash Can School – A Day Out of Paris

I have some news finally about Baby Lemonade. The CD is being pressed at the moment and should be out late October. So sorry for the delay but I hope the wait was worth it! Pre-order button and tracklist information are available on the website. This is the 11th retrospective release on the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen series, and it is also the first Scottish band to get this treatment, so you can imagine how excited I am!

Here are some new finds for this Wednesday!

Comet Gain: the great UK band is back with a new album called “Fireraisers Forever!” which will be released on October 11 on the German label Tapete who seem to be snatching all the cult-ish indie bands! The band has just shared one of the tracks that will be on the record, “Mid 8Ts” which sounds really lovely.

Linda Guilala: my Vigo friends are also back with a new 7″ on the German label Dreams Never End. It comes with just two songs, “Agosto” and “Salga Bien”, but what songs they are! The band keeps showing that they are in full form! You can preview the songs now on Elefant Records which seems to be dealing with the digital part of the single.

The Last Detail: Erin Moran from A Girl Called Eddy and Mehdi Zannad from Fugu formed this band some time ago. They have released some records now on Elefant but they have a new 7″ coming out on September 6th. 3 of the songs included, “Places”, “Killing Time” and “Fairweather Friend” are available to check out on Bandcamp now.

Pigments: José Pantoja, Maddie Razook, Lacey Elaine Dillard and Atlee Hickerson form the Oklahoma City band Pigments. Their latest is a 4 song EP they have on Bandcamp called “Nothing at All”. The songs soar, with Maddie’s luminous vocals. It is a very nice surprise to me! I can’t remember of any Oklahoma band I’ve liked in the past!

Wojtek the Bear: out now on the Glasgow label Scottish Fiction there’s this new 12″ vinyl record called “Old Names for New Shapes”. Two songs are available to stream (does the record only include 2 songs?) on Bandcamp, “Tonic Youth” and “A Long Wait for Bad News”, both sounding excellent. The record is to be released on November 8th. Not to miss this one.

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The third Japanese shoegaze band from the early 90s that I will feature in less than a month is Paint in Watercolour, which also a new one for me. First time I’m listening to them, just discovering their lovely music.

The band hailed from Niigata and were formed originally by Masato Nunokawa (vocals, guitar), Kenichi Sekiguchi (guitars), Manabu Shimizu (bass) and Shigemi Sakyo (drums). The band were to release two albums and a couple of singles and EPs as well as appearing in many compilations.

I discovered them through the compilation that I’ve been talking in the last few posts, “Brand New Skip Decoration” (QTCA-1003) that was released by Quattro in 1992. This compilation as I mentioned featured White Come Come and Loco-Holidays, the two bands I showcased earlier this week. Now is the turn for Paint in Watercolour who appear on this CD with two songs, “Guess” and “It Will Fall”. Other bands in it are the more known Venus Peter and Secret Goldfish, but still to be discovered a few names like Plagues, Brick Flower or Love Gloom Cash Love. Maybe if I like them they will show up in the blog later on. Why not?

The band had been active already. In 1990 the band released their first EP, “In These Things” on 12″ vinyl. The record included three songs, “In These Things” on the A side and “Make Up My Mind” and “I Can’t Stand” on the B side. All three songs were recorded at Sound Garage studio and this 12″ was released by CLIMB Records (CR-001S). It feels like it was a self-release, no other releases listed by this label.

A year after the band would release a 6 song CD EP titled “Flow” on Aja Records (AJA 1002). This label was actually a subsidiary of the bigger label Victor. The songs were recorded at Studio Moo by Takaaki Enomoto who also mixed the songs. Hiroshi Kawasaki mastered them. I also see credits for direction by Akira Sekiguchi, Keiichi Hoshi and Tasuo Ohba. What did they direct? It is a strange credit. Also executive producers, Hiroyuki Takahashi and Kenji Kakuta. What does an executive producer does on a CD? I wonder. The songs names were “Heaven”, “Hype”, “Velveteen”, “It Will Fall”, “Knives” and “Tower”.

That same year, 1991, the band contributed a track to “Dance 2 Noise 001” a compilation released by Invitation Records (VICL-229) as part of their Dance 2 Noise series. The band they contributed was “Heaven”.

1992 would see the band become more active. First releasing on Invitation Records the “Glare” CD single on Invitation Records (VICL-12007) which had three songs, “Cradle”, “Glare” and “Tower”. I believe Invitation was also another subsidiary of Victor Musical Industries. Two of these songs would be also part of the “Unknown” (VICL-312) album released by Invitation that year. This album had 10 songs, “The Sweetest Sugar”, “You Are Here”, “Glare”, “Melt”, “I’ll Be Your Eyes”, “Creeper”, “Hypocrite”, “Guess”, “I Wish to Die” and “Cradle (version)”. This time the songs were recorded by Masayuki Nakahara while they were mastered by Yasutaka Arikado. The band also got help from a friend on percussion, Yoshikazu Ishikawa.

XEO Invitation would include them in two CD promo compilations that year. Both times would be their remixed song “Melt (Hell River Reverb Mix)”. The first on the “Futurama of Rock Special Re-Mix Sampler” (CDES-67) while the second time would be the same song but on the compilation called “XEO Invitation sampler” (CDS-172).

In 1993 their second album, “Velocity”, would be released. I read that Manabu Shimizu, the bassist, was replaced for this album by Masayuki Maruyama. This album is also interesting as it will see the band playing songs with Japanese lyrics. The songs on the CD album were “Heal All”, “Crafty”, “Mare”, “Gang Up On”, “Popularity”, “Floor”, “Gullible”, “Blame”, “Distinction” and “Naked”. 10 songs released by XEO Invitation (VICL389).

XEO Invitation would include them again in two compilations that year. On the “Dance 2 Noise 004” (VICL-374) they would have their song “Unknown” while on “Dance 2 Noise 005” (VICL-463) the song “See My Friends”.

And then the band went silent.

I do believe that in the year 2000 Manabu Shimizu released a solo record called ” サンキューニッポン” that included three songs on the Factory Orumok label. I couldn’t find any other musical involvements for the other members.

I keep looking but I only find more silence. No hits. Really. Whatever happened to them? I read that their second album was a failure when it came to sales. Did they split because of that reason? And they must have done more music afterwards, right? Where are they now? Who remembers them?

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Listen
Paint in Watercolour – Cradle

It is a holiday today, Labor Day, so I am taking it easy. I’ll write more on Wednesday, but here is your fare of new indiepop finds from around the web!

The Bats: I found this very nice little doco about my favourite New Zealand band ever. It lasts around 10 minutes, it is a bit short, but it is lovely. It was made by Betsy Payne who I believe might be a student at the New Zealand Broadcasting School. Listening to anecdotes by the band members about their records, the recording sessions, and more was really inspiring.

Atta Girl: I need to catch up with the wonderful Chinese label Boring Productions. The latest 7″ by Atta Girl is truly wonderful! It comes with two superb jangly tracks “September” and “Regret” which would make any indiepop fan happy!

Acoustic Radiation Force: another release on Boring Productions is this one by the GREAT John Wood (ex-East Village), who I interviewed some time ago. This acoustic album, titled “Become the Sea…”, is being released on 12″ and includes 10 tracks of classic (and classy) songwriting. It is so great to see him back and in good form! I need to talk to Jovi to get these two releases, they are not to be missed!

Corpse Factory: from West Viriginia, this band has uploaded a new song (maybe his first song?) to Bandcamp under the name Corpse Factory. The song is called “Party Girl” and it is a lovely lo-fi popsong that is fuzzy and catchy at the same time. I’d love to hear more from him in the near future.

Distant Creatures: now let’s jump across the state border to Virginia and check out the song “Absolved” by this 5-piece! This track is set to be released on September 6th, not sure how or where, though it is available to stream on Bandcamp and it sounds great. Dreamy but upbeat, with female vocals, it is a fine song. Seems there are a few fine bands in the region now that I think of it. Maybe they should organize themselves and do a D.C. Popfest or something like that. Would be fun!

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I feel this might be a very short post sadly. I don’t think there’s much on the web about this wonderful band called Capital Hill. The little I know I’ll share with you of course.

I found out about them through the superb compilation “This is Manchester (14 Songs from the North West)” (ESS 133) that Essential and Castle Communications released in 1990. I actually bought this CD around the same time I was interviewing the wonderful Sandalwoods as they appear on this compilation. Another band I’ve interviewed, The Paperboys appear as well. So it looked like a good compilation to get my hands on. It is also not hard to come by and not expensive either. So if you see a copy grab it. There’s a bunch of terrific songs on it.

One of those terrific songs was the one by Capital Hill. It is called “Deep Down”.

I wonder why Capital Hill. Of course the famous one is Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. (though the original is of course the one in Rome) but there are a few places called Capital Hill, for example in Australia, in Northern Mariana islands, in Malawi and there’s even a Capital Hill Residence designed by Zaha Hadid. Oh! And there’s a 1990 album by jazz saxophonist Buck Hill with that name. I doubt any of these inspired the band.

As it is obvious, the compilation featured only Manchester bands. So yes, Capital Hill must have been from Manchester. Then we know a few other things from this compilation, like the design is credited to Quick on the Draw and the painting to Fiona Hawthorn. As I mentioned on The Sandalwoods post, the original concept for this compilation came from Pete Mitchel at Piccadilly Key 103 FM and Tony Davidson of T.J.M. Records. Tony passed the tapes of The Obimen, the band he was working on, to Pete and that was the seed that started it all.

Other than that there was a photo of the band on the compilation where we can see it was formed by 4 guys. There is sadly no information about band members or who wrote the song. No information whatsoever.

And then I start digging on Google, see if there’s any luck, but as you expect, there’s nothing. No one has written about them either. It feels as if they never existed. And I am sure there must be more songs! And I would love to listen to them. Do you remember them?

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Listen
Capital Hill – Deep Down

A long weekend here as it is Labor Day this coming Monday. I will have a post still and I am really hoping to have Cloudberry news this upcoming week! Keep in touch!

Sister Ectoplasma: just found out about this fine Mexican band the other day through this video for their song “With Every Bullet, So Far”. It seems this  video was just released but the song has been around for a bit. It was included in a 2018 EP called “Hopefully, Wiser”, that is available on the band’s Bandcamp. Very nice.

The Memory Fades: there’s a new EP by Stephen Maughan’s band! It is called “Space Pilot” and it sounds great! It is available on CD so there is no reason to miss it. There are four songs in total, and there’s even one sort of a tribute to the JAMC, “Listening to the Marychain” which has vocals by Estella from Nah… And that’s not all, our friend Pete-B from Horowitz plays bass on the 3rd track, “Run Away”. Cool!

Foliage: this great band from San Bernardino, California, has been a blog-favourite for some time now. It is great news that the band is releasing an album called “Take” on September 20th. It will include 12 tracks and will be available on tape. At the moment we can preview 5 tracks and I am hoping it gets a CD release, or vinyl could work ok too! You know me and tapes, not the best of friends. I just want to listen to the rest of tracks, I really like everything they’ve recorded so far.

For Tracy Hyde: I still haven’t got the new album by this amazing Japanese band. I think it will be out on September 4th. I should order it. It is called “New Young City” and is being released by P-Vine Records and they’ve been promoting it with a few promo vids that I have been sharing on the blog. Now there’s a new one, for the song “Can Little Birds Remember?”, and I might say this may be my favourite song so far that I have heard from the album. Really loving the boy/girl parts!

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: how prolific is Glenn Donaldson! He just released an album on Pretty Olivia, but he has also released two new songs on Bandcamp! They are “A Kick in the Face (That’s Life)” and “They Only Wanted Your Soul”, and strangely enough he hasn’t added the word demo in parenthesis as usual!

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The Headmen is a group of fictional supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are a group who believe that they should rule the world by virtue of the intellect. Dr. Arthur Nagan wanted society to operate like a precision instrument, Dr. Jerry Morgan wanted a society where his genius was recognized, Chondu the Mystic wanted personal wealth and Ruby Thursday wanted to replace the head of every human with a plastic head of her own design. They fought the Defenders, She-Hulk, and Spider-Man on different occasions. 

The Headmen. 2 releases and goodbye. That’s what looks like. Where were they from? Who were they? Did they start as a band in the 80s? Or in the 90? What are they up to these days? Many questions, let’s see how many answers I can find.

Both records the band released, a 7″ and a 12″, came out on Positive Records. I must say that I am very unfamiliar with this label who mostly put out records by H.D.Q. and Instigators which I think are not indiepop bands. There is a compilation though called “Step Up” with lots of bands I have never heard before which I am hoping are indiepop? Who would know?

The first release by The Headmen came out in 1990, and it was a 7″ (POS 016) that included two songs. The A side had “Kissed to Pieces” while the B side had “Roundabout”. The songs were produced by the band and Bliss and the engineer for the recordings was Steve Whitfield. They were recorded and mixed on September 1990 at Beaumont Street Studios in Huddersfield. Did the band hail from there too?

The sleeve also gives us some details about the band. We know they were formed by Simon Eskriett on vocals and guitar, Nick Keene on guitar, Matthew Slater on drums and vocals and David Pattern on bass. Eskriett was the main songwriter, both songs are credited to him, though “Roundabout” also credits Keene.

The next year they would put out a 12″ (POS 017) with 4 songs, a proper EP. The A side had the lovely “Reach the Sky” and “You Make Me Smile” while the B side featured “Yesterday, Today and Everyday” and “Shortsong”. Again the songs were recorded in January 1991 at Beaumont Street Studios. It is interesting that this studio opened in 1985 and closed in December 2009. Steve Whitfield was now the producer with the band. Some other credits on the record include Matthew Riley who did the artwork and Porl Medlock who took the photos for the sleeve.

There are two tapes called “Hong Kong Hi-Fi” and “A Tender Tension”, one from 1985 and the other undated. They seem like tapes that showcased electronic, ambient music. I really doubt it is the same band as the one that released on Positive. So I will skip for now. If someone confirms me is the same band then I’ll add the information about these releases.

The only compilation appearance I am sure about is on the 6-CD boxset “Bradford’s Noise of the Valleys” where on the 2nd CD the band appears with “Reach the Sky”.

A post on Youtube gives me many more details about the band. It confirms that the band hailed from Huddersfield. It also tells me that they formed in October 1989 and split in the summer of 1994. This might prove my theory that the band is not the same as the one in the compilation tapes. Then something more interesting, the band had recorded before the 7″ a 4-tack demo tape called “The Magic Shoebox” which included the songs “I Can Do Everything”, “You Make Me Smile”, “Fallen Angel” and “Waiting for the Sun”. I learned that the demo should have been named “The Happy Shoebox” rather than “Magic”, as the tape was named after the Happy Shoebox shoe shop in Huddersfield. They also recorded an EP after the 12″ which had the songs “Bridge to the Stars”, “Weird”, “Song 52” and “Wish Time” that still remains unreleased! It seems what happened was that everything was ready, mixed and all, but the master tapes of the recordings were destroyed in a fire that swept through the building the tapes were housed in. Oh! I would have love to hear these songs!

I find then a photo album on Flickr by one of the band members, David Pattern! How cool! There are tons of photos of the band in it. Thanks tot his I know the band played at different venues like the Halifax Return, at the Hipperholme (their first gig ever, in 1990), Queens Hall in Bradford, The Top Spot, Hebden Bridge Trades Club, The Mean Fiddler,

I also learn that the band was to tour the Netherlands following up the release of “Reach the Sky” 12″. It never happened. Also the band recorded a session for Jeremy “Jez” Hibbard for his evening show on BBC Radio Leeds.

Then I stumble upon David Pattern’s blog and wow! Here I find a post about the story of “Bridge to the Stars” and also links to the 4 songs that were to be released on vinyl and never did!

Thanks to his page I know too that the band has a Facebook page with lots of photos and memorabilia. Make yourself a fan of course.

And that’s about it. That’s all I could find online, it is quite a lot I think. I thought I was going to find myself empty-handed. So good that the 4 songs for the unreleased 12″ weren’t lost…. now I just need to listen to the “Magic Shoebox” demo! Who remembers them?! And what did they do musically afterwards?

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Listen
The Headmen – Roundabout

Not much to share today for news, but hey, there’s always new music to share!

Charles y los Amapola: some time ago in Chile there was a band called Los Polares. One of their members has started his own project and called it Charles y los Amapola. He has just released two songs in digital format on the label Preservación Discogs. These jangly tracks are “Junto a Ti” and “Se Acabó el Verano”, both of them sweetly influenced by Donosti-sound bands like La Buena Vida or Le Mans.

Los Lagartos: the Peruvian band from Lima has released a new video for their song “Mosquitos”. I wonder if the song was released in any physical format, there is no info on the Youtube link! Maybe it is just a digital release. In any case I am really liking the video and the song! It is terribly catchy and fun. Hopefully next time I am around Lima, I can catch them live.

Deadbeat Beat: this band hails from Detroit, Michigan, and released an LP album some weeks ago and it seems it is already sould out. The album titled “How Far” includes some fine pop tunes like “You Lift Me Up” or “From What I Can Tell”. The band mentions The Clean as an influence, and that is a good thing in my book. I especially like too when they combine girl/boy vocals. That you know, I am a sucker for.

Jay Som: I think I saw Jay Som on the Wall Street Journal music reviews page not so long ago. So yeah, maybe it is too big for this small blog. She is on Polyvinyl and that is a biggish label. But well, I am listening to the one song “Superbike” which I quite like a lot. I am thinking The Sundays you know. I know the label says that influences are awful bands like Death Cab for Cutie, and that might be true, as the rest of the songs of the album “Anak Ko” are not my cup of tea, they are really blah, whatever, but here there is the one very good dreamy pop song.

Lunar Vacation: this is a band I recommended quite some time ago. The band released a collection of their EPs last June called “The Lunar Vacation EPs”. IT was released on tape by Human Sounds from Atlanta, Georgia. The tape comes with 9 tracks, not all of them being great, but there are some great moments as the opening track, “Blue Honey”, and “Sleepy Couch”, which are blissful, and fantastic.

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Jules is the French form of the Latin “Julius” (e.g. Jules César, the French name for Julius Caesar).

Time to get über obscure…. with Where’s Jules?

There have been quite a few famous Jules of course. I can think of Jules verne and Jules Rimet. I wonder if the band knew a Jules, or why did they call themselves like this?

What I do know is that the band only released one record, a 7″. I believe it was self-released in 1986, with no catalog number, no label name. The cover art and the design in general is really nice. There is a cool illustration of a guitar and the name on the front cover within a rectangular frame. On the back cover the rectangular frame appears empty. All printed in a nice tint of blue over cream white.

Two songs were included in this record, the wonderful “Nothing at All” (A side) and “Wasted” (B side). Both songs are credited to Isaac, Partridge and Isaac. Does this mean that there were two siblings with Isaac as their last name?

The back cover lists the first names of the band members in a particular way:
Andy: voice and feeling
Donna: contralto
Jules: stringed instruments
Paul: to play an instrument of the lower register

Which instruments did they play? It does look too that the band had their own Jules. I believe Jules played guitar? Andy sang? What about the rest? Also Stan is credited for ebony, ivory and larynx while William played drums.

I see a phone number that starts 0752. I wonder if it means that the band hailed from Plymouth? Could it be?

Aside from that there are no other clues or pieces information that I could use to track the band down. As I said, they are very obscure. I do hope I can find out more about them in the future. Finding a copy of their record would be great as well. Maybe some of you remember them and can help?

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Listen
Where’s Jules? – Nothing at All