Okay my friends! Pre-orders are now available on the Cloudberry website for the upcoming Baby Lemonade retrospective that should be out this spring, so in a few months max! I am very excited about this release as I’ve been working on it for a long time! But this is not all, tomorrow on Facebook and Twitter (and Wednesday on the blog) I’ll be announcing the next 7″ to be released by the label! So please keep and eye and support by getting a copy if you can!

Now, here are some finds from the weekend!

The Blue Herons: I really like this project but it feels they don’t release as often as they should! Their previous release on Bandcamp dates from a year ago almost! “Another Chance” is their new song and features Thierry Haliniak from My Raining Stars on vocals…. and it is gorgeous! What a song! I really would like to hear more by them as it is very very good!

Cristina Quesada: our friend from Canarias is releasing an album later this month on the 26th! So it is no surprise that she has made a lovely video for the song “Estar a Tu Lado”! The song I believe was written by another hero of us, La Bien Querida. So everything is great here! Can’t wait to get the album!

Ta To Boy: the Greek band from Thessaloniki has been featured in the past when they released their terrific album “This Town”. Now I need to showcase them again as they have a wonderful new song on their Bandcamp titled “Goodbye”. Go check that out! I hope it appears on a proper release soon!

The Raft: I have also featured this band many times and I have to do it again because finally they are releasing their music in physical format. Out now is “Abloom” the CD album by The Raft on Shore Dive Records from Brighton. Terrific shoegazey indiepop on 10 songs!

Corasandel: from Lincoln in England comes this ambient-shoegaze band who has a few previous releases. This is the first time I’m listening to them, through their 5-track EP “All the Hours are One”. Only the first song of the EP is available to preview on Bandcamp, “Unison Mix”, but if the rest is as good, then this is a very fine record. It is available on CD too.

COCO: time for a Mexican band, from Culiacán! Their latest song, “Anemoia” is a lovely shoegaze/dreampop track which makes me wonder why they call themselves post-rock (I never liked post-rock). I will keep an eye on these “cuates”.

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In 1999 the fine San Francisco label Radio Khartoum released a mini CD by Essiar. “Summer in Minsk”, an evocative name, was the title of this EP with catalog number khz199.

The name Essiar actually comes from the last name of Cyrille Essiar, the main person behind this project. He wrote the songs. And he performed in all of them. 6 songs appear in this EP that mentions Belarus’ capital, “Le Pied Des Arbres”, “Aller Voter”, “Un Cottage Ecossais”, “Romance”, “Madrigal” and “N’en Parlons Plus”.

Something that surprised me from the credits is that Alicia Vanden Heuvel from The Aislers Set (and other bands like Magic Trick, Poundsign, Still Flyin’ and Uni) played on this record. Did she travel to France to record her parts? Also Eugéne Adelle is listed as a performer on this record.

There is not much more information on the sleeve sadly. Not sure what instruments or what each of them played. I do know that the band appeared in a few comps. On the Radio Khartoum mini CD comp “The Flight of Everson K (18fps Vol.1)” (khz198) the band contributed the song “Tempo” as Cyrille Essiar.Then in 1999 on the French label Dif Pif’s tape compilation “Pif Parade” (Dif001) the band contributed “L’amour Est Amer S’il N’est Mûr”, “My Love For You” and “L’Amour”. I believe this last song was a cover of Serge Gainsbourg. Other known bands on this comp are Watoo Watoo and Gypsophile.

Lastly, in 2006, the band contributes the song “Cellui” to the “Not’ CD2″compilation. Sadly Discogs doesn’t have much information about this comp, not even the label that put it out.

According to the Radio Khartoum website the mini CD was quite popular in Sweden as the label received quite a lot of fan mail from that Scandinavian country. Sadly it seems that even for the label Essiar is a big mystery.

It does look as if Cyrille Essiar vanished after this release. I can’t seem to find any other music he might have been involved with afterwards (or before!). But I’m curious. The mini CD is great, suave and haunting. But many questions are unanswered. Did he even play live?

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Listen
Essiar – Romance

This weekend I’ll be adding ordering info on the website for Baby Lemonade’s upcoming retrospective. I’m very excited about this release and can’t wait to announce more new releases in the coming days! I believe next week I’ll be able to announce the next 7″!! These are exciting times for Cloudberry indeed! So please read the blog, check our Facebook page or follow me on Twitter!

I do know you came for some indiepop treats from the web. So here you are:

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: when will Glenn Donaldson release an album?! He has many many songs by now, all of them in demo format. And he just unveiled 5 new songs that form a nice digital EP on Bandcamp. The songs are “Citybuses (demo)”, “Bike Race (demo)”, “Ahead of their Time (demo)”, “New Car” and “Uncommon Weather (mix2)”. Superb stuff.

The Sweetest Touch/The Wellington: two of my favourite indiepop bands from Indonesia have joined forces and have released a digital split EP with Guerrilla Records from Jakarta. Each band contributes 2 songs, The Sweetest Touch has “Answer” and “Bitter” while my friends of The Wellington, who once graced a track of theirs on a Cloudberry compilation, includes that one classic track “Lost in Cairo” and “Floating Flowers”.

Joy Cleaner: this 90s sounding band’s three song record “Easter Tuesday” came out last October but you can still find some copies of this record on their Bandcamp in both 7″ lathe cut and tape formats. It is available through Dromedary Records from New Jersey.

Peter Hall: our friend who used to be in the wonderful Play People has a new album out on his Bandcamp called “The Match Factory”. The 10 songs included are a nice mix of indie folk and indiepop which are thoroughly enjoyable. Happy to hear back from Peter!

The Room in the Wood: this is the latest project by Paul Cavanagh and Dave Jackson who used to be in the classic Liverpool band The Room. The band released a self-titled album that is now available on vinyl and CD through A Turntable Friend Records. All 12 songs are available to preview on Bandcamp!

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Now it is the turn for the letter D and the wonderful Manchester band The Danny Boys.

I know little by them I must say. I have been looking for their record but still haven’t had the luck. I know one day it will be in my collection. What I do know is that there was a connection with the Raintree County a band who I have tried to interview twice now, in 2013 and 2016, sending questions and all but never getting a reply sadly. I guess I would have known more details about The Danny Boys if these had happened.

What I do know is what Twee.net have as a bio:

The Danny Boys were Karen Hall, Craig Ferguson, Mick Burton, John Ray and Vinny Carroll . Formed in the mid 80’s they played a distinct melodic pop reminiscent of the sounds of The Byrds and Postcard acts like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. Based in Manchester they were a staple part of the pre baggy Manchester guitar scene. Toured with The Railway Children and released a single on Ugly Man Records – Days of the Week.

In 1988 they disbanded with Mick Burton becoming a restaurateur of Greens in Didsbury, Karen Hall becoming a big shot in Manchester advertising, Craig and Vinny went on to form Raintree County a similarly melodic and charming group. John Ray went into broadcast journalism where he currently works as the ITV News at Ten’s man in Beijing

Their record. Yes, that’s what’s important here. It was a 12″ released on the wonderful Ugly Man Records (UGLY 2T) in 1987. Three songs appear on this fine indiepop slice of vinyl: “Days of the Week” on the A side and “Roger Whittaker” and “Typical!” on the B side. Craig Ferguson wrote the first and last track while the middle one was penned by Michael Burton.

Right. More details. What did each of them play? We know John Ray was the bassist, Vincent Carroll the drummer, Michael Burton the lead guitarist, Craig Ferguson sang and played guitar and Karen Hall also sang.

The songs were produced by Ged Yeates who also worked with a few other good bands from the time like The Waltones or The Railway Children.

Only one compilation is listed and that one is a recent one, dating from 2017. The song “Days of the Week” appears on the Cherry Red box set “Manchester North of England”.

I keep looking for information. I find that in the book “The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop” they are mentioned as they supported the Stone Roses at the Mardi Gras in Liverpool at the tail end of August 1989.

I believe too that the first ever gig of The Danny Boys was at the Cyprus Tavern in Manchester as I find a mention to it on Twitter.

Another gig was the one at The Boardwalk on August 3rd 1986 supporting the band Brigade. Or the one they supported The Three Johns at the same venue also in 1986.

Can’t find out much more about them. I am mostly curious if there were more songs other than the three on the record. I really liked what I hear and I want more! From comments on the Manchester Digital Music Archive it looks as if people barely remember them, even being doubtful if they were locals. I do hope though to find out more information about them, more details.

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Listen
The Danny Boys – Days of the Week

I want to start this blog post sharing a track from the next retrospective on the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen! Yesterday on social media I announced a Baby Lemonade compilation to be released this spring and as you can expect I am very very excited! And yeah, I said this spring, so it should be very soon! So follow this link on Soundcloud to check out “All Down to You”! The album will come in the usual lovely custom digipak of the series and will include 16 songs by the Glasgow band! Pre-order and more info coming to the website soon! I’ll let you know when that’s available!

Now the turn for letter C! But before that some good finds from the world wide web!

The Pesos: Lolipop Records hails from Los Angeles. This label has just released a digital album on Bandcamp by the band called The Pesos. The album is titled “Laissez Faire” and has 10 songs in total. There is not much more information about it so let the music speak.

Gentle Ivanhoe Death Skulls: the Swedish band is back with a 10 song tape album for the Toulouse based label Hidden Bay Records! The album is titled “Beaches” and it is straight up wonderful indiepop. Some of these songs had been previously released online but a bunch of them are just exclusive to this release.

Doble Pletina: the wonderful Barcelona quintet is back with a 7″ EP titled “Algo Estacional EP” on Jabalina! Great news! There are 3 new songs, “Volver a Caer”, “Pesca Salada” and “El Silencio en la Música”, that all pop lovers will enjoy.

The Catenary Wires: it seems the band led by Amelia Fletcher will be now on the German Tapete Records. The label has announced the release of their album “‘Til the Morning” for June 14th. It even includes quite a big tour! To promote the album the band has just unveiled a video for the song “Dream Town”!

The Hit Parade: and one of my favourite bands will be releasing a 7″ for Record Store Day this Saturday. You can hear one of the songs that will be in it that is called “Joey’s Girl”. I wonder, if I’ll be able to get myself a copy…. you know I’m no fan of this Record Store Day thing!

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Candlestick Park was an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium on the West Coast of the United States, located in San Francisco, in the Bayview Heights area. The stadium was originally the home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, who played there from 1960 until moving into Pacific Bell Park (since renamed Oracle Park) in 2000. It was also the home field of the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League from 1971 through 2013. The 49ers moved to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the 2014 season. The last event held at Candlestick was a concert by Paul McCartney in August 2014, and the demolition of the stadium was completed in September 2015. The Beatles gave their final full concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. Songs performed at the show were “Rock and Roll Music”, “She’s a Woman”, “If I Needed Someone”, “Day Tripper”, “Baby’s in Black”, “I Feel Fine”, “Yesterday”, “I Wanna Be Your Man”, “Nowhere Man”, “Paperback Writer”, and “Long Tall Sally”. A rough recording of most of the concert was left unreleased, although the audio has leaked on to the internet. The recording cuts off during the last minute of the concert, interrupting “Long Tall Sally”. The Beatles had not announced that this was to be their last concert, and if the foursome themselves knew, it was a closely guarded secret.

That’s quite a long way to introduce what Candlestick Park was. That’s where the band, formed by ex-Waltones, got their inspiration to name themselves. Guy Lovelady, from the magnificent Ugly Man label, actually wrote a small bio about the band for Twee.net. I won’t copy/paste that, but I will try to pick the important details from it to paint a picture who were Candlestick Park, the Manchester early 90s band.

Three of the Candlestick Park members had been in The Waltones, the great Medium Cool band (that I think deserve an interview in the blog too, right?): Manny Lee, Mark Collins and James Knox. Alex Fyans, the drummer from The Waltones was replaced for a drummer called Adrian Donahue in Candlestick Park. According to Guy the band recorded an LP for Midnight Music, for some reason this LP remains unreleased. The only thing the band actually put out was a single which I will talk about of course. After the band broke up Manny became a teacher, James went to work in the UK industrial relations field and Mark joined The Charlatans.

The single was released in both 7″ and 12″ versions. The 7″ had just a regular and simple Midnight Music sleeve while the 12″ did get a proper sleeve and artwork. As expected the 12″ included more songs. The “All the Time in the World” (DONG 67) 12″ included the title song on the A side while it had “Promised Land” and “Safe (Instrumental)” on the B side. The A side was going to be included in the LP that the label and the band were working on before the label went bankrupt. The album was to be called “Re-Invent the Wheel”.

The 7″ on the other hand only had an A side and it was “All the Time in the World”.

The Manchester Music Archive website mentions the story of the album in a different way. Here it says that the album “Re-Invent the Wheel” was actually recorded by The Waltones and that it was co-produced by Kevin Harris. It is when the album was finished that Fyans leaves the group and Adrian joins. They rebrand themselvess as Candlestick Park. Which version of the story is right? And why hasn’t this album being released as of today? I would release it if no one wants it!

Sadly not much more information is available on the web about them. It is a true mystery. Did they even play live? I actually remember writing about the band and their long-lost album on my previous blog. It has been years since I’ve wanted to know more about them. Hopefully this time I’ll get some answers. Who remembers them?

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Listen
Candlestick Park – All the Time in the World

Well so continuing with the “alphabet” of obscure indiepop bands, today is the turn for B!

But first let’s check out 5 new finds from the web from over the weekend!

Nah…: the wonderful band formed by Sebastian Voss and Estella Rosa have a new single out! It has two songs, “Apple Blossoms” and “Primavera” and they do sound just like the perfect music for spring with the lovely boy/girl vocals! The single is available now on CD! So run and get a copy before it sells out!

Ignacio Aguiló: it has been a long time since I checked the new songs my friend Joel has shared in his facebook page Latin American Twee. The first song I stumble upon is called “Días”, a digital single by Ignacio who used to be in the Argentinean band Hacia Dos Veranos. The song is released by the Spanish label Discos de la Bahía.

Bubblegum Lemonade: the great Glasgow band fronted by Laz has a new release out, a 3 song EP that I think is unmissable! “Our Mother’s House” EP was released on March 15th and includes the title track, “Barely Regal” and “When Life Gives You Lemons”. Top stuff!

Terry vs. Tori: the Seville, Spain, band are working on an album called “Heathers”. This album will include the song “Braille” which is the one I’m sharing now. It is dreamy and elegant, so one wonders when will this debut album will be released!

Johan Hedberg: the Swede is back with a new single called “Tobias och jag”! And it sounds grrrrreat! I don’t think it is available in a physical format as far as I know, but just on streaming services. In any case the title-song is available on Soundcloud and as I said, it is a good one! —————————————————————–

I really like both Barry Gemso Experience CDs. I must say I got them in the first place just because they were on the Siesta label out of Madrid. I liked this label’s aesthetics and the music they put out. I didn’t have a clue who were in this band. Or even if it was a band. I listened to them and then I stored them. I did upload to Youtube a song, this one I’m sharing here to introduce them to you if you’ve never heard them before. But in the end I don’t know absolutely nothing about them. Now that I’m going through the alphabet, I thought the letter B, the second entry in this new challenge I have, would be perfect to explore and find out more about them.

So two CDs on Siesta. Well, more like two albums. There were LP versions too. The first one dates from 1999 and was called “Ski Lodge Serenade” (SIESTA 102). It is interesting that this was an albums band, no singles or EPs were released. This album was available on CD and LP. The songs on them were “Girl on a Snowmobile”, “Hangliding”, “The Box”, “St. Tropez”, “I’ll Never Need Another Friend”, “Groovin’ Happening”, “Me & Penelope”, “Venus & Mars”, “Buttercup Business”, “Cinema Daze”, “Nous Verrons Bien” and “Theme from Mandrake S.I. (Skis of Fury, Skis of Fire)”.  Two names pop up on this album, Orson Presence and Toby Robinson. The tracks were written and produced by both and recorded by Toby Robinson. Who were they? I’ll try to get back to that later.

First I want to check out their 2nd album which was called “La Vie Vie”. This one came out again on Siesta (SIESTA 172) in 2003. No vinyl version this time. There were 11 songs: “Dial S for Siren”,  “Sandman”, “Mr. Wonderful”, “Every Single Day”, “Wood and Magic”, “Hitching a Ride”, “The Tyranny of Dreams”, “Future Imperfect”, “Fuzz”, “Chiffon Samba” and “The Mysteries of Life”. Now on the credits we only see one name, Toby Hrycek-Robinson. He added one last name?

The band also appeared on a few compilations. In 1999 they contributed “Groovin’ Happenin'” to “Sombrero” a superb compilation on Siesta (SIESTA 80) that was available on vinyl and CD. Then in the year 2000 they had “Dial S for Siren” on the Italian label S.H.A.D.O.’s compilation “Harpsichord 2000″ (SUBO11) that was available on CD and double 10” vinyl.

On the Japanese label Rambling Records they had “St Tropez” in their “Blanco y Negro Music for Siesta” (RBCS-2024) in 2002 and later on, in 2005 they had 3 songs on the compilation”El Cielo Azul” (RBCS-2116) on the same label, “Girl on a Snowmobile”, “Hangliding” and “I’ll Never Need Another Friend”.

Lastly in 2004, on “Derby. Once Temporadas de Siesta” (SIESTA 180) they had the song “Every Single Day”.

Orson Presence then. Also known as Dippie or Pres-Ence, among other names. He has been part of The Monochrome Set and Scarlet’s Well. But I don’t know his real name.

Toby Hrycek-Robinson in the other hand has a bio on Discogs. He is a producer, composer and recording engineer. He is based in London but he is originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He owns Moat Studio since 1990. He has been in many krautrock bands during the 70s and has composed music for several TV channels in the UK. He has been part too of Fuerrote and Scarlet’s Well. Oh! and he goes under the names of F.B. Nosnibor, Genius P.Orridge and The Mad Twiddler as well.

I am very curious though about the name Barry Gemso. Where did that name come from? What’s the story? Siesta Records doesn’t have much more information on him.

Well, at least we have one name. It is much more than from where we started. But still there are many questions I have. One of them is not if the band played live. I’m pretty sure they never did. Anyone knows any other details about The Barry Gemso Experience?

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Listen
The Barry Gemso Experience – Groovin’ Happennin’

First offering of the my new blog challenge today. Covering all letters of the alphabet. Today we’ll start with the letter A and then for the next 25 posts I’ll feature the rest of the letters, in order.

But let’s start with some nice finds for the weekend.

The Hannah Barberas: I like this band a lot. I’ve featured them quite a few times. Today many of the songs I’ve recommended are finally available in physical format, on a CD release by the Subjangle label. The compilation album is called “The Hannah Barberas Get Physical”, an aptly name for it. There are 11 songs in it and will be available on May 3rd.

Space Daze: Danny Rowland used to be in that wonderful band that Seapony was. These days he has a bedroom pop project called Space Daze which I have featured in the past too. The good news this time is that he released a tape album of 9 songs on the Seattle based label Lost Sound Tapes last February titled “Too Mystical”. All songs are available to stream on Bandcamp.

Flying Fish Cove: another release to keep an eye on Lost Sound Tapes is the tape album by this Seattle band whose music is inspired by Heavenly and The Pastels. Three of the songs are available to stream on Bandcamp, “Johnny Paper”, “Sleight of Hand” and “Blow a Candle” and I must say they sound superb!

The Memory Fades: Stephen Maughan from Kosmonaut, Denver and Bulldozer Crash has asked many friends to contribute in  this new project that has a new CDEP titled “She Loves the Birds” that has just been released by Sunday Records. On these four songs he has the help of Marc Elston from Bulldozer Crash, Chris Morgan from the Deddingtons, Graeme Elston of Love Parade and Jyoti Mishra from White Town!

Almost Charlotte & Bluff: many years ago I interviewed the fab Almost Charlotte. At that time I got a CDR copy of all of the recordings by the band. Now all of these songs are available to stream on Bandcamp including the band that came after Almost Charlotte, Bluff. A terrific retrospective compilation album that includes 15 songs recorded in Brighton between 1988 and 1992.

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So, repeating myself now. Just like last year I challenged to cover bands from as many countries possible, now I want to try going through all the letters of the alphabet. It sounds like an easier task, but bear in mind that I’m not repeating any bands that I have featured in the past. So maybe some letters will prove harder than others! We’ll see. So today for A I want to find out more information about The Almanacs, a band that left us one 7″ single, a split tape and many compilation appearances through the 90s. Oh! And a video for their song “Living on Another World” too.

The band hailed from Derby and they paid homage to their hometown by appearing on “The Derby Tape” a 1992 split cassette with the band Iris that came along the Greek fanzine “The World of Suzie Wong”. How did this connection with Greece happen? That’s a good question. Why release in Greece and not in the UK first? I am guessing here that the band had demo tapes already and that these songs on “The Derby Tape” are actually songs from these demos. Which songs were they? Well, the A side was for The Almanacs, on it they included “Peeg Sex”, “No Difference”, “I Might Miss It”, “I Sure Do” and “Got to Wait”.

That same year they appeared on three compilation tapes. The first is the classic and legendary “C92” that was put out by Rainbow. They had the song “Yours Hopefully” in it. Then that same song was included in the Elefant Records tape “Around the World Again” (ER-020). Lastly on Anorak Records’ “Teeny Poppers” (SHOUBIDOUWA 01) tape they had the song “No Difference”. This last release would be important as they were to release their one and only 7″ later on Anorak.

1993 was a pretty busy year for the band it seems. Four songs, “I Like the Water”, “Morbid Interest”, “I’d Think I Was Dreaming” and “A Job Worth Doing”, were included in the LP + 7″ “From the Derwent to the Garonne, a Derbian Compilation” (Alien ζ), that Aliénor Records from France put out that year where they appear alongside other Derby bands like Antiseptic Beauty, White Town and Iris.

Their song “Taken Too Long” appears that same year on the tape “Astral Plane” that was released by Glidge Records (Glidge 002) in the UK. That same song was to appear on “Polythene Star” yet another UK tape this time released by Flaming Katy (fk001). On “Green Oranges” (BLISS 001) released by Bliss Aquamarine they had two songs “I Might Miss It” and “Got to Wait”. Lastly, for 1993, on the German compilation “Frischer Morgentau” (Stein 1) released by Steinpilz Tonträger (a compilation I’ve mentioned many times on the blog), they had the song “Sunburnt Skin”.

1994 would see the release of their 7″, the “Another World EP”. It was the first vinyl release of the French label Anorak Records (ANORAK 001) which I have interviewed in the past. Four songs were included, “Living on Another World” and “Taken Too Long” on the A side and “I Might Miss It” and “I Sure Do!” on the B side. Rob Fleay played bass, vocals and guitar, Ian Turner guitar and vocals and Paul Stewart wrote the songs, sang and played guitar. All four songs were recorded by Jyoti Mishra of White Town.

That same year, 1994, they had the song “Louise” on a compilation called “Quality Sweet” released by the French “Pâte A Modeler”. Later on, in 1995, their song “I Sure Do”, appears on the tape “Death of an Anorak” released by Doest This Work (DTW 02).

Discogs lists 4 more compilations but doesn’t have the release date which is of course inconvenient. One of these was actually on Anorak. The tape compilation called “Anorak Demos” had 5 songs by them, “I Might Miss it”, “Taken Too Long”, “I Can Live With That”, “I Sure Do!” and “Confession Time”.

Then the tape “A Taste of Tea” released by Tea Tapes & Records (TEA08) has their song “Makes No Difference”. “When Things Get Wet” appears on the superb Rutland Records tape “Shiver Me Timbers Two” (RUTT32), and on “Deep in Space” released by Meg Records (MEG 002) they had the songs “I Sure Do”, “When Things Get too Much” and “Confession Time”.

So quite a lot. Let’s count how many songs they had then? I do know at least another song, one called “To the Garonne” that Sumire put on a tape compilation called “Germs of Youth (Mix by Sumire)” that was released under her own Violet and Claire (V&C-010) label in Japan in 2012. Including that one it would be, 16 songs! So, why no album? Why no retrospective compilation? Well, I’ve only heard the songs on the 7″… the rest of their songs must be as good, right?

On Discogs I look at the band members and notice that Rob Fleay has been involved with many bands, White Town, Airport Girl, The Blue Smarties, The Chemistry Experiment, Plans & Apologies, Johny Domino and more. Now, Paul Stewart, it is the same Paul Stewart as in Blueboy, Feverfew, Arabesque, Beaumont? Is that right?

Ed from Shelflife dedicated a post to them when he was running his blog. On it he mentions that the band started as a duo with Ian and Paul and calling themselves The Hairgods. Are there recordings by them? Then he says,T he Almanacs called it quits in the mid-90s as members left to go to different universities. Other projects emerged in the late 90s (mainly from Ian and Rob) such as Motorcade, Evil Jukebox, SBD Project, Frankie Machine (brilliant!), and Everyone. Ian Turner is now doing some solo stuff and film soundtracks (as of 2007).

There is another song I found on Youtube called “I’m Not Violent“. It seems it was taken from a Myspace account the band used to have.

Well, and that’s all I could find online. Quite a bit of info, right? I mostly want to listen to all of the songs that weren’t on the 7”. I’m curious. Who remembers then?

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Listen
The Almanacs – Living on Another World

So the next post will start the new challenge and I’m already thinking of future ideas to have some fun while documenting the music we all love, indiepop.

Now let’s just find out some new music on the web!

Kung Fu Girl: “Anorak” is the preview single for the debut self-titled album by this Japanese girl-fronted band that will be released on May 15th on Testcard Records. This song is also the opening track. There are 11 songs on it and it seems they are packed with top fun punky indiepop!

Tullycraft: I got my CD of “The Railway Prince Hotel”, the newest album by the Seattle band, last week. It is great obviously. But I was curious if Tullycraft had some fight or something with The Cat’s Miaow. You see there is a song on the album called “The Cats Miaow in a Spacesuit”. But then a new video was posted on Youtube and someone asked the same question, and Tullycraft confirmed that there was no issue at all with the Aussie band!

Big Quiet: the New York band that some years ago surprised me with a lovely single will be back on May 3rd with their debut album “Interesting Times”. The record will be released by Unbliking Ear Records on vinyl and will include 10 songs. There of them, “Interesting Times”, “Birdwatching” and “Fields” are available to preview. Good stuff!

Бадди Психолли: I love Russian pop. The latest by this band is a tape album consisting of 8 songs called “Нойз-поп для начинающих “. It is out now on the Pow! Pop Kids label and it includes two cover versions translated to Russian of The Surfaris and The Ramones.

Aeropod: the Lima, Peru, based band has 3 new songs that were released on a CDR by the label La Flor Records. The songs are “Los Jardines”, “Vuelas” and “Obsequio” which sound lovely. Not sure where to get a copy of the CDR but you can stream the 3 songs on Bandcamp.

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After interviewing Tim Alborn from Harriet Records I ended up more curious about some of the bands he put out in the 90s. I should actually go over many of them this year, but thought to start with Shy Camp.

When I asked Tim about the band he told me:
“And Shy Camp was Dave Rapp, who did record quite a lot besides the five songs on Harriet (I have the tape to prove it) but moved on in life before he found anyone to release them (Harriet had ceased to exist by then, or I would have). His main claim to fame is that his father was the main songwriter for the 60s band Pearls Before Swine; Shy Camp contributed a song to a PBS tribute album called “For The Dead in Space.”

Interesting, right? It is true that only 3 songs were properly released by Harriet. They were on a 7″ single that came out in 1997 with the catalog number Harriet 044. The songs on it were, “Call in Sick” and “Flowers Every Hour” on the A side and “Best Friend” on the B side.

Actually there were two songs on the “For the Dead in Space” compilation that Tim mentioned. Shy Camp contributed “Love/Sex” and “Another Time” to that 1997 compilation that Magic Eye Singles released on CD and LP (MES 012). Other known bands on this comp are the Kitchen Cynics and Flying Saucer Attack.

This same label would release a tape compilation that same year called “Magazines Sell Sex” (MES 007) were the band contributed the song “Lesson”. This tape came along the debut issue of the “Sex Sells Magazines” magazine and it was a label sampler for Magic Eye Singles.

Their last appearance dates from 1998 on the Harriet CD comp “Friendly Society” (SPY 10) were they put out the songs “Spinster” and “Alison Song #4”.

David Rapp has also contributed his guitar playing to tracks credited to his father Tom Rapp on compilations like “This Note’s For You Too! A Tribute to Neil Young” or albums like “A Journal of the Plague Year”.

Last.fm has an interesting biography of Shy Camp with many details. For example thanks to it we know that Shy Camp was active between 1996 and 2000. That it was a solo project but there was an EP  worth of tracks (“History’s On Your Side”, “The Biggest Secret in the World”, “You’ll Never Be a Star” and “A Happy Life”) featured guitarist Nate Shumaker (Everdown, On Fire)  and guitarist/drummer Joel Thibodeau (Death Vessel, String Builder). Also Myke Weiskopf (Science Park) contributed accordion, keyboards and engineering expertise. Also it mentions that the song “The Biggest Secret in the World” appeared on the “Starring Nao” compilation released by Rover Records in 2000. I didn’t know about this one!

I find an article about the Magic Eye Party that happened at the Luna Kafé in New York City on September 3rd 1997. This evening was a shindig in honor of Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine. Dave Rapp performed with Shy Camp that evening. The writer compares them to Velocity Girl.

Sadly last year, in February, Dave’s dad passed away. The Washington Post has an article about this sad event. On it it mentions that Tom Rapp played with his son on Shy Camp at the Terrastock music festival in Providence, Rhode Island. in 1997. That must have been pretty cool to see.

Not much more about Shy Camp on the web sadly. But many of the songs are available in Youtube. I would definitely like to find out what happened to all of the songs they recorded. Would love to listen to them. Why no one released them then. If they played many gigs and who were part of the live lineup. Who remembers them

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Listen
Shy Camp – Call in Sick

New week. New month. April. Three posts this week as usual. And I feel I will start a new challenge pretty soon. Last year I challenged to write about bands that hailed from as many different countries as possible. I will challenge myself to an easier challenge though, bands that start with each letter of the alphabet. On Friday I’ll post letter A. If you think of any good interesting challenges let me know too. It gives me some sort of direction when researching bands. Anyways, what’s new?

Kammahav: many years ago I interviewed the great Swedish band Victorian Tin. Just a few days Christian wrote me telling me he had joined forces with Tony Jenkins from Everlasting Records and Plum to write a 4-song EP! The 4 songs are available to stream on Youtube and other platforms and they are brilliant. All of them, “Everlasting”, “A Magical Place”, “Repeat” and “The Moment”. Hope this gets properly released soon!

The Sensitive: “Forever Twee” is the name of this wonderful song by this band from Indonesia I think. It seems this song is part of a split release with the band Hong on the Heaven Punk Records label. Previously the band had released a couple of 3″ CDRs that seem to be out of print.

Agent Blå: the Gothenburg band will be back with a new album called “Morning Thoughts” that will be available in vinyl and CD. It is coming out on May 10th and it will bring to us 9 new top songs. So far we can only preview one of them, “Child’s Play”, which sounds pretty good. Can’t wait to hear the rest.

Blue Orchids: the legendary Manchester band continues making music and what music! The band is releasing a new album on June 9th titled “The Magical  Record of Blue Orchids” and we can preview one of the songs even though I wish I could listen to them all right now! That is because “Love is a Wave” sounds terrific and I can’t have enough. The album will be available on vinyl and CD.

Laveda: from Albany, NY, comes a duo that I know nothing about. They have one song on their Bandcamp called “Dream. Sleep.” that sounds brilliant. It is dreamy, it is fuzzy, it is poppy. I look forward to more songs by them in the near future. I hope that happens. One is way too little.

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And I was thinking that Alpaca Sports was the only “Alpaca” band I was ever going to meet. Well, many many years ago, in the 80s, in New Zealand, there were the Alpaca Brothers. And they were on Flying Nun Records of all places. How am I only hearing of them now?

Now I’m searching for a copy of their one release: a 12″ 5-track EP that was titled “Legless”. From what I understand, down there, in the antipodes, “legless” is a slang for drunkenness. The black jacket of the record gives a mysterious feel to what one will find in it. There are 5 songs as I said. Two are on the A side, “Hey Man” and “It’s No Joke”. The B side has three, “The Lie”, “Zither” and “Wilderness”. All of them recorded at 5 Liverpool Street during three consecutive ‘screaming skull nights’. Then it was produced by the band and Terry Moore at Progressive Studios in Auckland. Worth mentioning too is that the record came with 4 cartoon postcards. The photos on the back sleeve were created by Steve Cournane and Tony Goomes.

The band was formed by Nick Wilkinson on bass and vocals, Steve Cournane on drums and vocals, Bruce Blucher on guitar and vocals, Peter Gutteride on keyboard, Ivan Purvis and Norma O’Malley on vocals.

Aside from this release the band has appeared on 4 compilations. I’ll start by the latest which is the least interesting as it happened 20 years after the release and it is more of a retrospective comp where we won’t learn much about from. Their song “Hey Man” was included in 2006 on the 4CD compilation “Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set” released by Flying Nun of course (FNCD500).

More interestingly in 1984 they contributed the song “Gnarled Tree” to a tape compilation called “Big Southern Hits” that was put out by Every Secret Thing (EST 13) and Art Raith Productions (RAITH 41). On these same labels (EST 26, RAITH 126) they put out another song, “Chippendale House 8.8.85” on the tape comp “Inbetween Music”. Now with that name this was probably not a song but part of a gig at that venue. We’ll have to investigate.

Lastly, in 1996, they had “Hey Man” on the triple CD compilation “But I Can Write Songs Okay” that came out on Yellow Eye Music (EYE 005-007)

Looking on Discogs at other bands the members might have been involved I notice that Steve Cournane was in Buildermash, C.L. Bob, The Verlaines and The Windy City Strugglers. Bruce Blucher was in Brown Velvet Couch, Cyclops, Pointy Little Stick and Trash. Peter Gutteridge, who sadly passed away in 2014, was in Snapper, The Chills, The Clean, The Great Unwashed and The Puddle. Norma O’Malley on Chug, Look Blue Go Purple and The Puddle. Wow.

The blog “thebigcity” has an article about the band with some interesting information. They mention that the band had a wonderful song “The Infinite Trick”. I would love to hear that track. That the band later changed names to Trash Hotel but recorded just as Trash.

When searching for more info I read that at some point the band added Paul Cahill to the line-up. That they were based in Dunedin and played many times in Auckland. That comes from the Audioculture site where they have a feature on Bruce Blucher. The article is mostly about what happened next, after Alpaca Sports. They do share a video of the band playing “The Lie” live at Windsor Castle on May 10th 1985. Then looking in this same account I find that there is also footage of them performing “Hey Man” at the same gig.

There is not much information about the band available on the web. But it is definitely pretty interesting that most of the members went to much more successful bands. More well-known at least. But I’m curious about their Alpaca Brothers period. Why the name of the band? Had they been involved in other bands before? Why only the one release? Who remembers them?

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Listen
Alpaca Brothers – The Lie

Friday! The weekend is here. Not much news this week again, but very soon enough I’ll be announcing a new 7″! Keep your eyes peeled!

What’s new around the world?

Los Bonsáis: this band I love from Asturias, Spain, released a terrific album some weeks ago called “Hinoki” on Elefant Records. They have just released a new promo video, their second, for the song “Septiembre” which I urge you to check out. It is great!

Under Electric Light: it has been a while since I heard from the Quebec, Canada, band. Danny Provencher, the man behind it, has made many many beautiful songs for years that I hope everyone reading this post are already familiar with them. If not, do yourself a favour and check them out. At least start with his latest song, “Drop”, which just appeared out of the blue on Bandcamp. I hope there are more to come.

The Catherines: our friends from Hamburg never stop making songs. They must be among the most prolific bands these days! Their latest is a song called “So Much Time and so Little To Do” which sounds lovely. As it is usual the lyrics are also on Bandcamp if your thing is to sing along and this time around they’ve also added guitar  chords if you want to play the song yourself too!

Fightmilk: the first album by this London band was released last October. I’m checking it out only now as I had never heard about them before. They make jangly punky pop and there are 10 songs included in this debut called “The Attitude” which is available on CD and 12″ vinyl.

Goodnight Moonlight: Coaster Records from Rotterdam in the Netherlands have just released a 6-track mini-album called “Better Person” by this band. The lo-fi bedroom popsongs included are quite lovely, especially the opening track “Summertime pt. 2”. I’m quite curious about the popscene in the Netherlands. Is it a happening one?

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After a long time hoping to have their records, I treated myself for Christmas to the two 12″s Frisco Jenny released. Now I’m missing their 4 7″s, but I’ll try to do that in the coming months. Spanish postage prices are not friendly, just as like the US.

So I’m looking at Discogs, at the Basque band Frisco Jenny, checking what I will have and what I don’t from their discography. I know then that I have ordered their first release, a mini-album called “Rueda Ardiendo” that was released in 1989 by Gasa (3GA-0368). This record, with it’s lovely floral artwork, had three songs on each side, “El Tren de Fez”, “Pájaros en mi Cabeza” and “Envenenados” on the A side, and “Besos en el Huracán”, “¿No Me Dejas?” and “Juegos del Acantilado” on the B side. This record was produced by a household name of Spain music, Mikel Erentxun, now a solo musician but back in the 80s the driving force of Duncan Dhu, a band that started small and became well known, not only in Spain but in Latin America too.

Something that surprises anyone when checking the credits is that you see the name Juan Eguia for accordion, banjo, bass, guitar, harmonica, piano and vocals. He played everything almost! Izaskun Larruskain also sang though!

In 1990 the band released the “El Tren to Fez” 7″ to promote the mini-album. It came out again in Gasa (1GA-0368/1) and included two songs from the mini-album, “El Tren de Fez” on the A side and “Juegos del Acantilado” on the B side. It was again produced by Mikel Erentxun and all songs are credited to Juan Eguia.

Two other songs that were on the mini-album were included in their next single. “Besos en el Huracán” on the A side and “Envenenados” on the flipside, came out on Gasa (1GA-0368/2).

1991 would see the light of their full-length album and two singles to promote it. The album “El Dolor del Escorpión”, like all their records, was released by Gasa (4GA-0428). Mikel Erentxun produced all 10 songs. The A side had “Mensaje en el Contestador”, “Tu me Enseñaste”, “Escarcha”, “Nieve en Méjico”, and “Tras un Viaje”. The B side included “No Tendrás mi Corazón”, “La Balada de Dean Moriarty”, “Vas a Brillar”, “Viejo como Tu” and “Exilio”.

The 7″s to promote it were, “Tu Me Enseñaste” (1G-04282) with the same song on the flipside (was it a remix or something?) and “Mensaje en el Contestador”/”Escarcha” (1G04281).

The only compilation appearance listed is a 1997 compilation called “Discos Radioactivos Organziados 15 Años” that came out alongside the Zona de Obras magazine 10th volume. On it the band contributes the song “Tu me Engañaste”. On this compilation we see many important names like Aventuras de Kirlian, Fangoria, Aerolíneas Federales and more.

I looked at any other band connections for Juan Eguia on Discogs. I can only see him working with Mikel Erentxun in several of his solo albums, even writing songs for Mikel.

I find a 1990 article in the Spanish newspaper El País. Dated August 18th of that year, they talk about Mikel Erentxun. It is mentioned that he was helping and supporting Frisco Jenny and also another band Los Ojos de Carmen, which I should check out.

I do find another band that Juan Eguia was involved with. Thanks to the Diario Vasco, a Basque country paper, I find a mention of the band Les Enfants Terribles. Juan sang and played guitars in this band that has played at the Contempopranea and Lemon Pop festivals in the 2000s.

Then a fantastic find, a blog called Andoaingo Jubilatuak has a post of Frisco Jenny! Here there is some pretty good information and details about the band. It seems it all started in the mid 80s when two brothers Juan and Iñigo Eguia formed in Donosty the band La Debacle. Afterwards Juanjo from Tolosa and Kepa from Billabona joined them to form the band El Año Gira. This band recorded a demo.This band didn’t last that long though I would love to hear their recordings. Juan continued making music, now on his own until he meets Izaskun. With her Frisco Jenny was born. On that mini-album they had other musicians helping them like Luis Camino from the band 21 Japonesas and Monica Redondo playing violin, or even Mikel Erentxun doing backing vocals. The album was recorded in 6 days during October of 1989. The technician was an Englishman called Jim Abbis and the recording studio was called Tsunami. The art is credited to Leire Erentxun. It mentions that at that time Juan Eguia was into bands like That Petrol Emotion or The Go-Betweens.
Juan wanted to play live so he recruits Jon Izeta from 23 Ojos de Pez and Alex Zulaika from Sanchis y Jocano for the live band.

It is also worth mentioning that the band took their name from a 1932 movie: Frisco Jenny is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Ruth Chatterton and Louis Calhern, and directed by William A. Wellman.

Not much more written about them. It is sad if you think about it. They produced so many great songs and the band is not a well-known name in Spain. I totally recommend these two albums, full of guitars and lovely melodies. I’m sure, as there are many Spanish readers of the blog, that some of you might remember them?!

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Listen
Frisco Jenny – Pájaros en mi Cabeza

Two Popfests happened last weekend, Madrid and Cologne. Now that I think of it, it is not the best scheduling is it? Or maybe it doesn’t matter. But I’m just thinking, say I would travel to Europe from America. I could, if they were one week apart, be able to attend both Popfests? That could be a cool holiday. Or maybe for a European fan this could also work fine. I wonder… what are your thoughts about that?

Now, let’s see what I’ve found around the web:

She, Sir: the lovely Austin band is back with “Ways A Season”, a 6 song EP that follows their previous releases. That means beautiful dreamy pop. You can stream them all on Bandcamp, “Treasure”, “Torment Operator”, “Fear Pillar”, “What to Do and When to Do It (Endless Crime)”, “Ok Tono Omepo” and “A Ways to Remain” but you can also get  a copy of it on vinyl. It is limited to 300 copies.

Anna Burch/Fred Thomas: there is a new 7″ split by these two janglers from Detroit. Fred Thomas contributes the song “Parkways” while Anna has “St. Adalbert” on the B side. There are 500 copies of this record and at the time of writing this post 9 were left. Maybe there are no more by now….

Marble Arch: the Géographie label from Paris are releasing the album “Children of the Slump” on vinyl and CD by this French project helmed by Yann La Razavet. I believe this is the second album by the band though the artist feels this is the first proper, that the previous one was a collection of demos.

Tugboat Captain: the two songs, “be Strong, Smoke Less” and “Oatmilk!”, by this London band reminded me of God Help the Girl. And that is a good thing of course. I don’t think this latest release is available in physical format though they do have a bunch of merch up for sale.

Wild Firth: “Lawn Memory” is my introduction to this Minneapolis band formed by Will, Fez, Ian and Stacey. The album will be released on April 26th on tape and will include 14 songs. Two of them, “Eyes” and “Girls” are available to preview on Bandcamp and they are pretty nice!

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Not sure why I’ve never heard this story before. The most famous band to do it was The Go-Betweens. But it seems they were not the only ones. Tiny Town also moved from Brisbane to London and released some records.

It is clear to everyone that their music didn’t become that popular or reached cult status. I’ve listened a few songs and they sound great. At least, I think, they deserve a bit more recognition. I know very little about them and sadly I don’t own any of their records (yet). So can’t say much aside from look for their music, it is brilliant.

They weren’t called Tiny Town before moving to London at the end of 1982. They were called Antic Frantic. Antic Frantic released a tape in 1982 in Brisbane. Self-released one and called “Pomes Poneyeach”. I haven’t heard any songs, I wonder if they sounded similar to Tiny Town.

So that same year, Peter Loveday (vocals/guitar), Leigh Bradshaw (vocals/keys) and Geoffrey Titley (drums) packed their bags and moved to London. There they would release a string of singles and an album.

Their first release happened to be a single sided flexi disc with two songs, “Back to the Bow” and “Big Fish”. It was released in 1983 and it has no label listed on Discogs. The flexi, where the label should be, has a cool drawing of a fish, a big fish I suppose?

I’m guessing they put together their own label to self-release themselves. It was called Elastic. All of their releases would be put out under this label. The first one though didn’t have a catalog number. It was a tape that was released in 1983 and was named “Tinytown”. The songs on it were “Back to the Bow”, “And I”, “Lacklustre” and “Big Fish”.

The next year the band was to release their first 7″. Released on Elastic (EM 001) the single had the brilliant “Drop by Drop” on the A side and “Know Better” on the B side.

And then another 7″ in 1984. Again it was released by Elastic (EM 002) and had two songs “Living out of Living” on the A side and “Queue Up” on the B side. Colin Bioxsom produced this record. The songs are credited to Peter Loveday and the band.

Afterwards they put out their album “Little Tin God” on Elastic (EM 004). This record had 9 songs. On the A side we find “Inside Fire”, “Anchor Heart”, “Train Lines” and “So Soon”. The B side has “In a Little While”, “Washing Machine”, “Waiting in the Wings”, “Watershed” and “Candy Hymn”. For this record the band had Cameron Allan (founder of the Australian label Regular Records) playing bass and Caroline Bush playing violin and vocals.

Then in 1985 the band released “No Place Like Rome”, a 12″ on another label: Very Mouth (EAT 8). This label released other records too, not just Tiny Town. For example they put out bands like the Stitched-Back Foot Airman or Greeting No. 4.

The four songs that came in this 12″ were recorded at Alvic Studios in West Kensington, London. They were “Found a Cause” and “Six Hundred Candless” on the A side and “Where do they Moor” and “Better Off” on the B side. On this record Allan Rielly played bass and the songs were engineered and mixed by Richard Preston. The photography is credited to Di Van Den Broek.

Peter Loveday has a Wikipedia page where it mentions that he was born in Toowoomba and was also involved in bands like The Supports, The See Bees, Birds of Tin and Mute 44. It looks as if he now resides in Barcelona, Spain, according to his own website where he has released many solo records.

About Geoffrey Titley we know he was involved in The Supports and also on The Reason Why that was the band formed with Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens and fellow Supports Robert Wheeler. There is a story, which you can read on the Go-Betweens biography written by David Nichols, where it mentions about the tour The Go-Betweens did with The Supports were Leigh Bradshaw, then in the Supports, slapped Grant repeatedly!

Not much more information about the band on the web. Which is quite a shame. I see mentions always saying that the band had a “Brisbane sound”, like the Go-Betweens and The Apartments. For some reason they seem much more obscure than these two bands. I would love to know more about them. I have so many questions. I wonder if my Australian and English readers remember them?

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Listen
Tiny Town – Inside Fire

Not much going on today. Quite tired as I have to wake up early to get a new State ID. No fun. Anyhow, I hope to bring some good news later this week. In the meantime here are a few finds from over the weekend!

L I P S: this superb Falmouth, Cornwall, band has find a good home at Sunday Records. With them they are releasing a self-titled EP with four songs. You can preview the opening track, “Apartment”, on the label’s Bandcamp and I feel that should be enough for anyone to like this band!

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: Glenn Donaldson’s band is already a favourite band on the blog, every single demo he releases gets featured here. It must be good, right? Well he has two new ones, “I’m Worried about the New Wave” and a cover of 999, “Boys in the Gang”. These are demos, but they sound great to me.

Lo Siento: I remember featuring this band some time ago as they were great. This girl group from St John’s in Canada sing in Spanish and are great fun. They have just released their debut album “Brujas” on Bandcamp and it is a great ride of poppy tunes. Hope I see them live someday!

The Claim: I knew the legendary The Claim were back playing some gigs and re-releasing their classic album “Boomy Tella”. But are they releasing a new record with brand new songs? It looks like that! The Rochester band will be putting out “The New Industrial Ballads” on May 24th! Fourteen tracks!! One of them you can preview now and I must say it is superb and timeless, “Journey”!

The Room Upstairs: two new songs, “The Reckoning” and “Nothing’s Beautiful” by this UK based band that is inspired by 60s and 70s sounds. Sounds lovely for a rainy Sunday afternoon… staying indoors. Cozy.

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Returning to Norwich, to find out more about another Farmers Boys related band. Why not? If the songs are great, I always want to know more.

I heard the 1986 song “Lies Behind a Smile” on Youtube some time ago. It sounds great, jangly, a proper c86 song in my book. On that Youtube I notice that one of The Nivens was the engineer of the song. He reminisces that he was a few years into his engineering career then when he recorded the song and that those sessions were very special which in turn resulted in many gigs with both The Nivens and The Avons, even switching personnel!

So we know Baz and Mark from the Farmers Boys were involved in The Avons. What else do we know?

Discogs lists two releases by the band. An album and a 12″ EP. Let’s look at them, let’s start by the latter.

The “Four Songs” 12″ was released by Létharge Records (Arge 11) in 1986. The four songs on it were “Seeing Things” and “You Don’t Know Do You” on the A side while the B side had “Trapped” and “What I Want”. They were recorded at Raven Recording Studios, a studio run by Howard Turner, who produced the record, in Horstead, Norwich. The photos on the artwork are credited to Michael McCracken. The record also lists the band members, Mark Kingston on bass, Ed Street on drums, Hal Jordan on guitar and vocals and Barry McGuilty on lead vocals.

On the sleeve I notice that at the time the EP was released the album was already available. Another interesting thing is that the band was managed by John Létharge. He must be the owner of the label if he has the same name, right? We also find out that Barry sings in “Seeing Things” and “What I Want”, songs he co-wrote with Hal Jordan while Hal sings the other two which as it happens were written by himself.

The album “Music from Three Rivers Reach”, also released in 1986 by Létharge (Leth LP 1), had 7 songs total. A mini-album. The A side had “Facial”, “Everythings Going Right” and “Beautiful World, Beautiful People”. The B side had “Is Billy There”, “The Big Maybe”, “Lies Behind the Smile” and “In My Time”. On this record I notice that now the band members were more involved with the songs, for example “Lies Behind the Smile” was written by Mark Kingston and he also sings it.

The record was once again produced by the band and Howard Turner. Mark Kingston did the artwork for the jacket with photography by Michael McCracken.

The Avons contribute a song to the “Weh Aye Cocker No. 3″ released by Weh Aye Cocker (COCK 3) compilation 7”. The song being “Is Billy There?”. On this compilation they appear alongside Cary Grant’s Wedding, The Elephants and The Kaiser’s Advisers.

Much later, in 2014, their song “Everything’s Going Right” in the Cherry Red “C86″ box set.

About other bands the members had been involved, we know that Baz McGuilty was in The Farmer’s Boys of course and also in in The Great Outdoors, Uncle Romeo, Uncle Rodeo, Dissolute Youth, Heigham Sounds, The Ordinaires, Dr. Fondle, The Avons, The Farmers Boys, The Nivens and Blues Machine. Ed had been in Polish Corridor, The Teddybears, Falling Men, The Stumps, 16 Yellow Roses, Dissolute Youth and Job Lot of Parasols. Mark had been in The Farmer’s Boys, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Romeo, Uncle Rodeo, Dissolute Youth, The Ordinaires, Heigham Sounds, Dr Fondle, The Nivens, Ronnie Can You Hear Me, Blues Machine.

Music from the Eastzone, the East Anglian Music Archive, lists another 7” called “Dirty And” but from what it seems, it also has the same catalog as the Four Songs 12″. Maybe it was a 7″ version of that record? Anyone would know about it?

There’s not much information on the web about The Avons. Would be great to find out more about them, as I’ve tried with the previous Norwich bands I’ve featured. In the meantime I’ll try to get a copy of both of the records, as I really enjoy what I’ve heard so far! Who remembers them?

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Listen
The Avons – Lies Behind the Smile