There’s so much to cover on the blog, I’m only catching up and there has been already an announcement of a new Paris Popfest! After seeing the lineup, I must say I’m very interested in attending. If only I could!

The festival will be held at the venue Le Hasard Ludique on September 21st and 22nd. The lineup is pretty impressive for the two nights: Go-Kart Mozart, The Orchids, Cocoanut Groove, Birdie (!), Soft Science, Peaness, Beach Youth and Xavier Boyer (Tahiti 80). Plus the DJs Popnews and Section 26.

Most of these bands I know, but Beach Youth, so I’ll explore. But what about the DJs? Who are they? And how good is this venue? Would be great to know more details about the festival.

Beach Youth: a band from Caen, France. That must be a first on the blog. Their latest release seems to be “Singles” which is a compilation of their debut songs. It was released last September on 10″ vinyl. It sounds quite hip, catchy and fun. There are 5 songs in total in the EP, “Days”, “Memories”, “Young”, “Closer” and “Diary”. The band is formed by Etienne Froidure, Simon Dumottier, Louis-Antonin Lesieur and Gautier Caignaert. I would like a copy too!

And 4 more findings so you have a good middle of the week!

Verbludes: I have recommended in the past this Moscow, Russia, band. Actually, I raved about them. They sound GREAT to me. Well, there is a new EP on their Bandcamp, one called “Supernova” and I’m eager to listen to it. Of course I wonder if it will be released physically, and the answer is that probably not, or maybe just on cassette. Anyways, now I’m listening, and even though I don’t understand anything, I’m hooked. The first song sounds a bit rockier than their previous releases, but it is still very enjoyable! The thing I really like about this Russian band is their girl/boy vocals. They combine perfectly. Which is my favourite song? At first listen I could say: “кошмары”, but in due honesty, I suggest listening to all six songs!

Nos Miran: I have recommended the “Humo” 10″ that Elefant is to release by this superb band. I shared one video too. Now it is time for a second video, one for the song “La Montaña del Amor”. And it sounds great. Should try to get this record soon.

Putochinomaricón: another video from another Elefant Records band. I had recommended the new 10″ mini-album by Chenta Tsai Tseng that is quite a sensation already on social networks. Now a video for the song “Tú No Eres Activista” is available on Youtube to promote the record, and I’m loving it, especially the fun and poignant lyrics.

Pale Blue Morning: had recommended their song “Eleanor” some time ago on the blog. It was their only song available on SoundCloud then. Well, now the Quezon City, Philippines, band have a new song, one called “Haze” and it is terribly good!

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The bee hunters.

What do I know about them? Barely anything. I must say I just discovered their songs on Youtube. The few that are available there. They sound good. They sound jangly. They sound 80s. They are in German. I need to investigate.

Discogs tell me that the band was formed by Jochen Distelmeyer, Mirko Breder and Thomas Wenzel. And worst of all, that they had no releases. Just two compilation appearances. That’s a bummer. I suppose though it it not the worst case scenario, at least two compilations meant that there songs were out there somehow.

These two compilations were cassettes. Both on the German label Fast Weltweit. This label was originally based in Bad Salzuflen and would play an important part of what would later be called the Hamburg School. The label was founded in 1985 by Michael Girke, Andreas Henning, Achim Knorr, Bernd Begemann, Frank Spilker and Frank Werner. A lot of people according to the German Wikipedia. Later it seems Jochen Distelmeyer and Bernadette La Hengst would join to run the label. So the question is then, was Jochen running the label when his songs appeared on the compilation? Or what came first? The chicken or the egg?

The first compilation tape was called “Fast Welweit Präsentiert” and was released in 1988. It included a bunch of important bands from the time like Die Time Twisters, Die Sterne or Jetzt!. The artwork was created by Frank Spilker and Frank Werner and all songs are credited to be recorded by Frank Werner between 1987 and 1988 at Klangforschung Studio. Here Die Bienenjäger appear with two songs: “Große Städte, Flaches Land” and “Das Herz Ist Ein Einsamer Jäger”

The second compilation tape was called “Fast Weltweit Nr. 2” and was released the same year, 1988. We see again the same bands on the compilation. This time around two knew songs are included by Die Bienenjäger, “Was Werden Sie Finden’ and “Tatjana Traurig”. Again, the same people credited for artwork, same people and same studio for the recording.

I wonder if Tatjana Traurig was a real person. The truth is that there is actually a video for this song, “Tatjana Traurig”. That is quite surprising. It looks like a video from that time. Would be interesting to know more about it.

The website Indiepedia.de has a bit more information about the band. It mentions that they recorded between 15 to 20 demos at Frank Werner’s studio. 4 of them we know from the tapes. Where are the rest? Would love to listen. The band split when Jochen moved to Hamburg in 1989 where he founded the band Arm and later Laut. And even later the most famous of his bands, the fantastic Blumfeld.

We also know thanks to this website that the name of the band actually comes from a book of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper.

Then there is a link to the lyrics of the 4 songs that were published! Now you can sing along.

Jochen as I was saying was part of the Hamburg Schule band Blumfeld, they are quite popular and probably you can find a lot of information on the web. He also released some solo records. He was actually not from Hamburg originally but from Bielefeld. On the other hand, Mirko Breder was part of the band Die Sterne and also played in a band called The Discount. Thomas Wenzel played in a lot of bands, Amon Ra, 3 Normal Beatles, Calamity Jane & The Amazing Seven, Cow, Die Goldenen Zitronen, Die Stars, Die Sterne, N.R.F.B. and Naked Navy.

I can’t seem to find any more information about the band. All of the mentions are always the same, that it was the predecessor band to Blumfeld. Nothing of Die Bienenjäger on its own. I understand that Blumfeld was big, but because of that I would have expected someone must have been interested in what happened before. In those 15, 20, demos. Why there were no releases? At least some gigs should be mentioned, right? But there’s not much at all on the web. And I’ve been quite thorough with the German-language websites.

I’m hoping then my German friends will fill in the blanks.

Edit (same day thanks to Frank Werner’s link):

An interview by Christoph Koch on the Headspin zine volume 13 from December 1995. Christoph interviews Jochen about Blumfeld and actually asks him some questions about Die Bienenjäger! Will we find more information about them? Let’s thanks Google Translate here, I hope it is understandable. If you know German it is probably better to click the link!

Headspin: Actually just a little bit, a few individual songs, but maybe you can tell how it all was then, with your old band Bienenjäger, Bad Salzuflen and the ominous Fast Weitwelt  …

Jochen: I believe that Michael Girke and Bernd Begemann founded the label together, whereby Bernd then actually said goodbye again from this context, because he wanted to make music in Hamburg with his band “Die Antwort” at a major label. Otherwise there were from the beginning: Frank Spilker of the Sternen, Achim Knorr as theDer Fremde, Die Time Twisters, I found out about them only two years later through an article in the magazine Spex. They all came from Bad Salzuflen / Herford and I’m from Bielefeld, so I did not have the direct connection to the people and when I read that article, I contacted them because that sounded pretty much like what I was was interested at the time and where relatively little was found in Bielefeld.

Headspin: And you were then at the start under the sonorous name of Die Bienenjäger?

Jochen: At first it was called Die Bienenjäger, then it was called Arm, until we realized – I already lived in Hamburg – that there was already a band in Hamburg with the name, they were so hardcore and in the end we were called, but I know not at all, if under the name what appeared on one of these Fast Weitwelt cassette sampler. Back then, we always did such exceptional sessions and released tape samplers. Michael Girke was at the beginning together with Thomas Schwebel as Jetzt! released a single, the Sternen and Der Fremde and Die Time Twistersthen made even real records, singles and so a sampler.

Headspin: I actually only know two pieces of the bee hunters, but I really like them, on the one hand “Tatjana Traurig”, on the other hand with the “Brief von weit weg” …

Jochen: That with the letter is actually called “Was werden sie finden?” and was just like the other just a demo recording and as far as I know never appeared anywhere. [But it’s on the red or the blue cassette sampler that Achim Knorr kindly sent me a short time later] But actually the cassette samplers were also demo recordings somewhere. I still remember how we went to the Berlin Independence Days and Popkomm and thought we had the hottest stuff ever, the hottest thing so far, just from the lyrics and the attitude behind it. Michael, for example, based on “Cappuccino Kid” (as Paul Weller has always signed the liner notes on his albums) under the name “Nescafé Boy” written on the back of the first sampler, the plate stalls abolished, the plates should be heard and not bought. So for some of the people who were there at that time, there was always, albeit nebulous, a political connotation. For Michael and for me in any case, for Frank Spilker I think so, but for example for Achim, Bernadette and Die Time Twisters barely. When I made music together with Thomas Wenzel, I always said. “You play bass” and he said “I do not feel like playing bass”, so some people used to play bass and drums at concerts. So we always played in cities where we knew someone, then sent a tape to them. Then came ‘ A time when I separated myself from Thomas and did not even bother to play music anymore and at some point I met André, Christof Leich of the Colossal Youth, and we did a jam session together with Thomas Wenzel and Frank Spilker. But that was not the thing, but then André said he knew another bass player and so we called Eike and with that he did a great job. From this jam session but then the new cast of the stars has emerged and after Thomas’ shared apartment Peta lived and I knew Bernadette from before, then resulted from this connection again with the “Die Braut haut ins Auge”

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Listen
Die Bienenjäger – Große Städte Flaches Land

Starting a new week, and April is almost over. Not much news yet on our side, we still wait for the pressing plant with news for our Salt Lake Alley 7″. It seems it is taking longer thanks to Record Store Day. That awful day that happens once a year in April. A day for big labels and for silly collectors. I can’t be bothered. Sure, there are some fine releases available that day, but I don’t like this gimmicky day, so I’ll pass. Won’t support it.

So while I wait, I keep discovering new music. What else can I do? Even though I can’t offer new releases as I have the label release schedule fully booked, I am always in need of new music. So this is what’s new, what I’ve discovered thanks to the Twee Lovers Club group:

Flaaurs: one song available on Bandcamp from their “Holyydays” EP by this lo-fi bedroom pop ensamble. Why just only one song? It is strange. Don’t know much about this band aside that they hail from Indonesia. The EP will be released by Yellowroom Records from Bandung.

Sharesprings: one of my favourite Indonesian bands, all-time, have a new song called “Elza, I’d Write You a Song” and it is a cracker. What else can I say but to go, hurry, listen to it. Rusli Budianto, Ardhi Yudho, Putriani Mulyadi and Yehezkiel Tambun keep creating brilliant short indiepop nuggets!

Cooper: Alex Cooper has been making music since the 80s in Spain. First with the legendary band Los Flechazos and later as Cooper. Always true to mod sounds. And he keeps going and going always on Elefant Records. There’s a new video for a song called “Infinito”that will be part of his new album “Tiempo, Temperatura, Agitación” which will be released on May 18th.

Plastic Girl in Closet: shared one song by this superb shoegaze/dreampop band from Japan a month or so ago. Now there’s a new track on Soundcloud that sounds terribly good called “Like A Strawberry” which I had to recommend! It seems this song is part of “Lesson1” which looks like a CD of re-recordings of their best material from 2010 to 2012. I need to order this record!

Blush Response: this Adelaide, Australia, shoegaze band will be releasing their debut album “Hearts Grow Dull” on June 2018. Well, the vinyl version. The CD version is already available on their Bandcamp. There are 10 dreamy songs that sound superb. The band is formed by Alister, Joseph, Walter and Zach and they must be getting quite a following as I see they are playing in Spain on June 9th! That’s quite big for an Aussie band, it is a long way too!

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As I was saying on my previous post, I’m on a 90s run. It is probably the period I know the least when it comes to British indiepop. I think I know more Swedish bands from the 90s than English? Or am I exaggerating? In any case I’m going over some bands from the time now, and as I’ve always liked their song “White Horses and Shooting Stars” a lot, I had to focus my investigate work on Pullover. It had to be done.

Pullover: sweater or hoodie, a piece of clothing “pulled over” the head instead of buttoned or zipped-up

Discogs tries to confuse me right off the bat. They list a self-titled album by Pullover, but it turns out it is from a Brazilian band with the same name. That means, we only know 4 proper releases, all singles, by the band.

Their first 7″ was a fantastic one, “This is The Life”. A great song! On the B side there we find “The Great Pretender”. It was released in 1995 by the label Fierce Panda (NING 09 and it came packaged in a very nice red and white jacket. A collage of all sorts, we see all sort of figures in it. The art is credited to a Mary Walsh.

Fierce Panda was based in London and at this time it is quite a big label for indie standards. I wonder how it was back in the mid nineties when Pullover signed with them. There’s even a Fierce Panda Canada now I believe. The next 7″ by the band came out in the same label then, the same year too, 1995. “White Horses and Shooting Stars” (NING 14) had “Oddball” as its B-side. But stop for a minute and listen the A side. Tell me it is not a wonderful slice of pop? Catchy, dreamy, jangly. Top song!  I even uploaded it to Youtube many years ago. It had to be done. The art again is credited to Mary Walsh, this time a duotone of purple and white with some horses attacking a man on the floor! There is some credits too for engineer and producer, someone called Ott, who according to Discogs, is a UK-based dub and downtempo composer, producer and sound engineer, and label manager of Ottsonic Music.

Their next release on Fierce Panda was the “Holiday” 7″ (NING 20). This two-song record came out in 1996 and included “Holiday” in the A side and a cover of George Michael’s “Last Christmas” on the B side. We see that this song has some credits, engineer James Drew and mixed and produced by Martin Isherwood. Something quite interesting is that a video was made for “Holiday“. British friends, which beach is the one that appears on the video?

Lastly, “Holiday”, was also released as a 7″ and a CD single on the label Starfish Records (STF6). I don’t know why the change of label and why the same song on the A side. Perhaps this was an international release? Discogs does have it as a UK release though. The song on the B side was different mind you: “In Every Season”.  The CD even included one more song, “Over You”. The art now wasn’t by Mary Walsh as the previous three singles, but by Louise Wallace. Also for the first time we see the names of the band members on the sleeve: Carol Isherwood (vocals), Joe Duddell (drums), Lee Damarell (bass) and Michael Malley (guitar).

There are some compilation appearances too. They contributed the songs “Holiday” and “Tiny Tears” to the CD version of the comp “A Gift From Sing Sing” (Poof 9)  and only “Tiny Tears” to the LP version that was released by Popfactory in 1996. This compilation included two other favourite bands of mine like The Shapiros, who had been featured on the blog, and the Heartworms.

On my last post about Disco Pistol I mentioned the 1997 compilation “Snakebite City Six” (BLU009), and I will again mention it. It is because Pullover appears here too with the song “Liar”.

Lastly, Fierece Panda’s 1999 compilation “Nings and Roundabouts” included two of their songs, “White Horses & Shooting Stars” and “Last Christmas”. Something that catches my attention is what appears on the inserts. Here it says that the band signed to Starfish/Big Life and recorded an album that was never released. Then the band split up. What happened!! Where are those songs from the album?

The superb website Manchester Digital Music Archive has a bunch of news clippings about Pullover. This means the band hailed from the Manchester region. There is one scan from “City Live” where they are previewing the Olympian Showcase gig at Night & Day. The problem is it is a bad scan and one can’t really read it. But what it was is a monthly event at the Nigh & Day Cafe and this time around Pullover were celebrating their homecoming on August 2nd in 1996. There are a few more promos in there, but nothing that really adds to their story.

I look for information about the band members. To my surprise I find an article on The Business Desk website. Here the headline is quite impressive, “Britpop singer turned entertainment industry lawyer ideally qualified”. I look more into it. I see Carol is now an Associate at the National Intellectual Property Group and specializes in Creative Industries.  She also is a regular speaker at music industry events. Interesting that she kept involved with music but on a different side of it!

About the other band members, Joe Duddell has his own website and mentions all the different projects he has been invovled with. HE has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra or with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music and more. Sadly in his bio there is no mention of Pullover.

Couldn’t find anything really for Lee Damarell or Michael Malley.

I stumble upon the blog “Too Much Apple Pie” who had written about Pullover back in 2007. It seems there used to be a Pullover Myspace. That doesn’t exist anymore. Here it says that the band recorded two albums. One of which is the one that never saw the light because of label problems. Then, the 2nd album was to be released on their own label, Knitwear Records, and it was going to be called “All You Need is Love”. What happened to it? I need to explore! Some comments on the blog say the beach that appears on the video could be Hastings.

There’s not much more on the web about them. But I’m hoping here can let me know whatever happened to those two albums they recorded. Where are they now. If they continued making music. Or if they had been involved in any other bands back in the day. Any of my Mancunian friends remember them?

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Listen
Pullover – White Horses and Shooting Stars

Not sure if I should continue reviewing bands that played the last Wales Goes Pop. So far I’ve checked 6 bands and none of them were indiepop! What do you think? Or suggest? Is it a good exercise? Or perhaps I’m wasting my time? Maybe it would be better if someone can point me out the bands that are worth checking out? That way I can only focus on new indiepop finds. That makes more sense for the blog. This is an indiepop blog afterall.

So, where do we start?

The Catherines: a few days ago Heiko Schneider from The Catherines shared with me this wonderful track called “Sorry, But Your Suicide Note is Really Funny”. It is gorgeous, even including female backing vocals by Sandra Ost. It sounds like a good indiepop song should sound. Chiming, jangly, catchy and with some terrific lyrics too. I hope there is a proper The Catherines release in the near future, one that is not a tape of course!

Kiwis: what is this treat? Ines Martinez de Albornoz, Marta Millet, Jordi Garrigós and Marc Andreu sing in their native catalan on a self-titled tape that is limited to 101 copies. It is REALLY good. If only it wasn’t a tape. Fun indiepop, filled with hooks, all around the 5 songs from the tape the trustworthy label Snap Clap Club is releasing on May 1st. The songs on the cassette are “I Ets Tu”, “El Camino”, “Mapes Infinits”, “Volcán” and “El Far”. Very recommendable.

Jaromil Sabor: the Paris, France, label Howlin Banana Records are releasing a 12″ vinyl album titled “Second Science” on August 13th. Still a long way. But you can stream all songs on the Bandcamp. They hail from Bordeaux and have had a few releases in the past, so not that new though they are brand new for me. First time I’m listening to them. Sounds good mind you, Jaromil Sabor are totally worth giving a chance!

Miti Miti’s: “Monos en la Costa” is the name of the EP that is available to stream from this lofi twee band from Chile. Don’t know much about it, aside that it is put together by a label called Gemelo Parásito Records. It sounds fragile and fun, like many bedroom bands from the early 2000s. The songs that appear on this digital only release are “Intro”, “M&M’s”, “Bikini Kill”, “Caracoquesos”, “Pizza Pizza” and “Galapaguitos”.

Ping Pong Club: only two songs on their Bandcamp. One being a remix of the other one. Yes. I am left looking for more. This is the first single by this electronic/indiepop band from Bandung, Indonesia. Formed by Muhammad Rizky and Hariz Lasa, they have uploaded “Venetian Blinds” and “Venetian Blinds (The Countless Kisses Remix)” and I’m on repeat. It is very good, dreamy and all. I feel it has been an interesting batch of finds this time around!!

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I’ve been having a bit of a 90s period at home. Listening to UK bands, especially from the second half, of that decade. It is true, that in general, I would say I’m not that as familiar with them as I am with the 80s bands or the ones from the 2000s. It is a time period that hasn’t been documented much as far as I know. Britpop reigned supreme and the rest, the smaller pop bands, were kind of put on a side, and forgotten by now. That’s why I’m writing this post, and preparing a 2nd one, about bands from this era. Maybe I’ll write a third too. Or a fourth. I don’t know, my posts depend a lot on my mood on the particular day that I’m writing them. And today it is kind of festive, for no special reason.

I always think of Disco Pistol as a festive, a good party band. Sure, I won’t be DJing their songs because probably not many are familiar with them and as you know, crowds like tunes they know for them to dance. It might have been different in England in the late 90s. I’ve seen videos of Disco Pistol live and people were dancing and having lots of fun. Time changes. Now which indiepop band would people dance? I mean, which contemporary one? Hard to think of one!

I discovered Disco Pistol more than a decade ago, on Soulseek. As many stories I’ve told on the blog, this one starts also on the Twee Folks room, me downloading from some user whose name was lenganlystance or something like that. I can’t remember exactly. The thing was that he had a lot of obscure 7″s in his folders, but all of them were zipped. You couldn’t see which songs were in them. There was no Discogs, so you didn’t know the tracklist until you have downloaded them. It was always a good surprise! I suppose they were his own rips.

I downloaded Disco Pistol’s “Say Something / Solid Gold Radio” 7″. At first it didn’t sound like the jangly indiepop I was used to. This was a bit punkier, but at the same time catchy and fun. I really enjoyed it. But that was that. Only this year, as I was saying I’m having this 90s period, I have returned to them, especially after buying the CD single “Saturday Everyday” a couple of weeks ago on the web. And thought, who were they? Did they release anything else?

It doesn’t seem so, aside from some compilations. Their first record was the aforementioned 7″, “Say Something”, that was released by Org Records (Organ036). This label catalog is unknown to me, is there any pop band in here? I wonder. It came out in three different versions, clear with glitter, transparent marble blue and regular blue. The A side was “Say Something” and the AA side was “Solid God Radio. The producer for the record was Matt Dietrich and Zeus B. Held. Both Germans who used to work in the UK. Mathias had been in a band called Zeus & the Spiritual Traders and Zeus had been in Birth Control, Dream Control and the Gina X Performance among others.

Their 2nd release was the “Saturday Everyday” CD single released by Zerox Records (ZERO002CD) in 1997. There were three songs included in this CD, “Saturday Everyday”, “Spend, Spend, Spend” and “Supersexy Revolutionary”. I have this CD single. We know that these songs were recorded at Tempo Studios and the art for the CD was created by Peter Theobalds.

The last song from that CD single, “Supersexy Revolutionary”, was to appear on two compilations in 1997. The first was on the “And the Rest is History…” CD and LP comp that was released by Zerox Records (ZERO 001) where some important bands from the period appear like Helen Love or Kenickie. And the second one was on “Snakebite City Six” released by Bluefire Records (BLU09). These “Snakebite City” series of compilations appeared in the nineties, first as LPs and later as CDs. At least there were up to eleven volumes! On the volume Disco Pistol appears we see familiar faces like Girlfrendo or Pullover who I’m looking to write my next post about.

Lastly, in 1999, the band’s song “Solid Gold Radio” appeared on the CD compilation “Organ Radio: 5 Suzie Says: Chew on This”, released by Org Records (ORG051CD). Who do I know on this compilation aside from Disco Pistol? Well the very fine German band Pop Tarts are here too. And Mogul, who released a 7″ on Elefant during those years.

On Youtube happily there’s a trove of videos of the band playing live. It indeed makes me happy to find them all! And thanks to these videos I notice the band played Reading Festival in 1998. That’s quite big isn’t it? From that festival check out “Tiger “, “Say Something“, “Weekenders” (where they say they are pop! and will be famous and in Top of the Pops), “Naked“,  “TV Show“, “19” and “Saturday Everyday“. This same user has uploaded some songs from another gig, one at King’s Cross’ Water Rats dating from December 4th, 1997. There is “Say Something” and “Solid Gold” from that gig. And that’s not all, from the Monarch in Chalk Farm, April 14th, 1997, there is “New Miss World“, and from Reading’s Alleycats venue, dating April 5th 1997, we see the band putting on a racket with “Supersexy Revolutionary“.

From the Spearmint band’s website I notice they played with Disco Pistol also the previous day of those videos, on December 3rd of 1997.

Two more videos are found on another user. Both from a live gig at The Garage on December 27th, 1997. There’s “Solid Gold Radio” and “Spend, Spend, Spend“.

But what do we know exactly about the band? Wikipedia actually has an entry about them: They were active in the late 90s and they formed in 1996. They consisted of lead vocalist Mira Manga, lead guitarist Kevin Baxter, keyboard player Hyper Helen, bass player Craig Page and drummer Marky Sparky. They were part of the “Glitter Scene” that was kind of put together by Kevin Wilde and Hifi. They both ran the Club Skinny and it is there were Mira Manga was spotted and others replied to ads in the NME. They were notorious in that “Glitter Scene”, they used to arrive to stage adorned in tiaras, fairy wings and swathes of glitter. They didn’t only play Reading Festival in 1998, but also in 1997. At some point the band signed to Mercury Records and they were rebranded and renamed as  the pop group Sweet 3. Under that name they released just one single, “Love Thang“. It didn’t do well. Afterwards Mira Manga played in the bands Rolemodels, The Duloks and briefly, in 2013, as backing vocalist for Menswear. 

I found a Facebook page. I’m surprised to see only 19 people have liked the page. This is really odd. The first post mentions that Mira Manga guests on a compilation LP called “The Self Preservation Society”. Later there is an NME review by Jim Wirth which is quite fun to read:
A solitary panda car packed with merry men in black is parked in the middle of the road observing Disco Pistol as they pose for their photo shoot. If being a young, vibrant five-piece making ulta-melodic pop records were a crime, the filth would have had the cuffs out by now. It isn’t – yet.
Half an hour later, we are encamped in the basement of a certain major fast food restaurant on London’s Oxford Street, being berated by the mighty Pistol. There’s Mira Manga (vocals and mputh almighty), Kevin Baxter (guitar and serious interjections), Craig Page (bass and general buffoonery), and Hyper Helen (keyboards, air of hunted woodland creature) but not drummer Mark Kelly.
“we can’t have him in interviews because he’s a gangster,” explains Craig.
Eh?
“Put it this way,” adds Manga. “We’re never going to tour Australia.”
Australia’s loss is the rest of the worlds gain. Formed last year in Reading and named after a particularly rubbish childrens toy, Disco Pistol’s dash for greatness has so far yielded two singles, the endearing ‘Supersexy Revolutionary’ and current rabble rouser ‘Say Something’.
“We’re sick of all the apathy that’s going on.” says Manga. “That’s what the single’s about. People sitting indoors with a reefer all day…
however awful life is, if you can do anything, you should get up and do it.”
Like what?
“If you work in an office, put tinsel around your computer,” says Manga.
“If you work in an abattoir, put glitter on the end of your stun gun,” adds Craig.
“We’re all so dragged down by miserable music,” continues Manga. “I love The Verve, but you couldn’t play them before a night out. If we wrote songs about ‘My boyfriend’s left me and i’ve got no mates’ it’s more than likely we’d turn it around to ‘Wahey, that means I can go out and shag lesbians!’. We all have bad days, though.”
“I ran over a rabbit last night” demonstrates Hyper Helen.
Bad days perhaps, but nothing short of brilliant nights onstage. Disco Pistol’s Kaleidoscopic pop is best sampled at one of their notoriously short live shows, where their mash of Blondie, Pulp and Dolly Parton reaches escape velocity. And kids, festooned with eyeliner and glitter stars, naturally go mental.
“At no other gigs do you find people dressing up to see a band like they do at ours,” says Kevin. “No one dresses up to see Oasis.”
“Yes they do,” points out Manga. “They put on an Anorak and smell.”
Disco Pistol’s expectations are suitably high for 1998.
“We’ll be on Top of the Pops,” says Manga matter-of-factly. “Then each of us will Top of the Pops seperatley over a month. The Spice Girls are crumbling; Disco Pistol are ready to step into their shoes.”
Mouthy Pistol, Earnest Pistol, Jokey Pistol and Picked-on-Pistol finish their soft drinks on the night they had their first police escort. Probably the first of many. 

Okay, I posted the whole thing. I don’t usually do that. Then I keep digging around in the Facebook page to find out they played many places. For example at the Camden Palace on Tuesday October 21st 1997. Or at The Garage supporting Salad.

There used to be a Myspace, obviously. But there is not much in there now of course.

Also Org Records website has a bit of a rant about them. Of course, they released the 7″ with them, but in 2003, the label complains about them making the choice of signing to a big label: After all the excitement of the 1997 ORG single, things went very quiet. In total there was two singles – their first Super Sexy Revolutionary (on somewone elses label – can’t remember who released it now) was followed by their Pink see-thru glitter vinyl 7″ “Say Something/Solid Gold Radio” (re-issued in ice cool blue vinyl) – in a Melody Maker interview at the time, Manga, Hyper Helen and the boys stated “We want to be in all four corners of the globe making everybody as happy as we are. The Spice Girls are falling apart and we’re waiting in the wings to take over..” The press told us they were “an explosion of tiaras, glitter, radioactive pink dresses and restless egos. Crawling from the wreckage of North London’s fanzine Underworld unscathed and armed with tunes of sizzling brilliance. Disco Pistol are a five-piece of frightening confidence, formidable ambition and incomparable energy, fronted by the freckle-faced Manga. New single Say Something is a brightly animated splash of teenage kicks, an urgent Teen-C declaration of intent – it sounds like a three-minute giggle, all sugary synths and a cortex-spinning chorus sharper than a shark’s fin” Then they signed a major deal with Mercury Records and changed their name to SWEET 3 – Thanks a lot band – that’s typical, their way of thanking labels like ORG for supporting them when no on else wanted to know. Labels like ORG do all the hard ground work thn the clueless majors want to pretend they’ve discovered something new so they order a repackage and mess it up (and couldn’t care less). The major label tried to pass them off as a new band, destroyed all the possitive history and fan base and in doing so killed the band off. Why are major labels all so clueless (UK ones anyway), why do major labels almost always mess it up? Why do bands go along with them?. Last I heard was that Manga was fronting a raw punk/pop band called Role Models and trying to get back to her roots after the mess up of Sweet 3, Role Model sounded pretty good… that was summer 2001…

I keep looking on the web. A blogger called Kieron Gillen also writes about them but it is just his personal opinion on how much he likes the 7″. Then another good find, a fanzine called Repeat, has a mention of Disco Pistol. Here they also kind of explain this Glitter Scene that until know was a mystery to me: ‘The Glitter Scene’ existed almost solely in the badly-photocopied, glitter-sprinkled pages of fanzines like Abuse Yr Friends, R*E*P*E*A*T and Quirk. More girls, more keyboards, more glamour. Its de facto leaders were Disco Pistol – an average band armed with all the bravura of a hurricane. The glitter scene’s godhead were Kenickie, a band who – having already completed their A-levels – were practically geriatric. In the overlap of these three scenes, in 1997, there was a flurry of seven inches and demos from bands that mostly never released anything else: Agebaby, Charlie’s Angels, Cheetara, Disco, Disco Pistol, Gel, Girlfrendo, Helen Love, Mogul, Period Pains, The Pin-Ups, Pink Kross, Velodrome 2000, VyVyan and Xerox Girls – to name just a few. Disco Pistol got signed and disappeared. Disco Pistol starlet Mira Manga recently re-emerged with a new band, The Duloks, and Kieron Gillen’s Phonogram comic is an unashamed loveletter to 1997. But in 2007 incredibly there are almost no girls playing in indie bands.

The post has grown long! And I have more or less understood the Glitter Scene and can also understand Disco Pistol and what happened to them, why they didn’t release an album and why they disappeared into oblivion. A shame really, they had great songs! These days Mira Manga seems to continue being part of music, being label manager for ECC Records and ECC100 and has been appearing on a YouTube soap called Thamesmeerd. She has also published a book called “Danger! Cosmetics to Go“, which chronicles the company that came before Lush. And has released solo songs, for example “Emotional Brilliance”. Even has her own website.

Now, what about the other members of the band? I can’t find any information about them. Did they continue making music? Were more songs other the ones on the 7″ and CD single recorded by the band? From the live videos on Youtube it is clear they had more songs. Where else did they play? When did they become Sweet 3? And what how did they feel about how that developed. 90s popkids, what else do you all remember about them?

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Listen
Disco Pistol – Supersexy Revolutionary

So for the past month Monday, Wednesday and Friday have become the busiest days of the week for me. I’m publishing a blog post on these days, five or so new bands or indiepop news featured plus a whole archaeology work on a band from the past. But also before doing that, early in the morning I’ve been swimming. I’ve taken again swimming after almost 20 years. And I feel knackered!

Now, here a few new finds on the web and continuing the reviews from Wales Goes Pop!

Ta Toy Boy: there’s a very fine album called “This Town” by this Thessaloniki, Greece, band available from the Make Me Happy label. I was shared more than a month ago the tracks and thought it sounded great, but the band didn’t have an online presence so couldn’t really share with all of you! Anyhow, now they have a Bandcamp and you can stream the 9 songs from the CD. The band is formed by George Begas and Elias Smilios. Now, I need to get a copy of this lovely record that takes the best influences from the 80s guitar pop. And you should too!

Golden Teardrops: some very good news by the Mexican label Emma’s House. They will be releasing a new album by the California band Golden Teardrops that is actually Ryan and Leo Marquez! Remember Ryan from Apple Orchard? Yes, yes, the same one! This new album is titled “Promises & Smiles” and it sounds lovely, reminding me a lot of The Charade or The Shermans. It is going to be released on May 23rd and will include 12 songs. At the moment you can only stream two of the songs to be included, “For a Rainy Day” and “You’re Keeping Me Waiting”. I urge you to do so.

Jaggy Nettles: Actually was playing The Felt Tips first album the other day and was wondering what the band members were up to now and suddenly I get a Facebook invite from Andrew to the fanpage of Jaggy Nettles. So it seems this is his new alter ego, his new solo project. And it seems he is planning to record seven fairy tale songs for an upcoming album. The first one is “The Gingerbread Man”, which you can listen if you click on the link!

Soft Science: found a bunch of great sounding recordings by this band on the SoundCloud of their own label, Test Pattern Records. I especially fell under the spell of their cover of Northern Picture Library’s “Paris”. It is gorgeous! It seems this song is part of a single, where “Sooner” is the A side. It is important to notice that this band has members of classic Californian bands like California Oranges or the underrated Holiday Flyer. Really good stuff! I want a copy of it!

—-  Discovering Wales Goes Pop 2018 bands reviews —–

Bad Parents: one from the Wales Goes Pop. Still going through all the bands, and I know there are many many left. Most of them I must say are unknown to me, and so far, sadly, I haven’t found any pop. I’ll do two bands today, maybe there’s some luck with my poppy cravings! Bad Parents are a duo formed by Misty Miller and Tom Shelton. From London. They have recorded a 4-song EP and they have self-titled it. The sons on it are “Room To Grow”, “Sailing”, “You Can’t Date a Model” and “Peckham”. The first one being the poppiest, and my favourite. The EP was released a year ago. Not sure where you can buy it now.

Think Pretty: this Cardiff band terrorized me. Honestly. Screaming, and way too much distortion. So far, 5 bands. And not seeing yet where Wales went pop! Will the next bands I listen change my idea of the festival? Sure, there were Colour Me Wednesday and Shonen Knife in that same lineup for the Sunday gig, but two out 9 seems too little for me! Or maybe the Saturday gig was the poppiest one? Maybe those who attended can tell me which were your favourite bands?

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I finally finished my collection of 7″s by The Imaginary Friend a week ago. I was missing their first ever 7″, the 1996 “Leaves” 7″ that was released by Bad Jazz (BEBOP 6) and thought, these were very fine songs, how come not many remember them today? Also, how come I know nothing really about the people involved in this band? It was time to do some detective work. See what I can find about them on the web.

As mentioned, “Leaves” was their first 7″. I notice that the band 7″ single titles aren’t the same as the songs included in them. For example, in this 7″, the A side was “On Satsuma Road (A Song For Dan)” and on the B side there is a beautiful cover of Rodney Allen’s “Glastonbury”. Speaking of Rodney Allen, how come there hasn’t been a compilation of all of his recorded output yet? That is truly a mystery to me!

This record on the back sleeve has “nineteen ninety-nine” written. Now I start to be confused. Discogs lists the 7″ as a 1996 release. But it would make more sense if this was released in 1999. Which is correct? It makes more sense to me as this is an English label, and the band was American. The other two releases by the band were in an American label. Logically it would have been first an American label and then an English one. Right?

All the songs on this 7″ were recorded on a four-track at their home. There is not much more information on this record sadly.

The band was mostly associated with the Grand Rapids, Michigan, label Drive-In Records. On Mike Babb’s label they put out two 7″s in the 90s. The first one was the 1997 “Letters Home” (Drive 17) that had a very nice blue, white and yellow artwork. There were two songs on this record, on the A side the beautiful “Brighton Beach Postcard” and a cover version of Lucinda Williams’ “Side of the Road”. These songs were also recorded and mixed at their home on a four track.

Lastly their 7″ “Whimsy” (Drive 06) was also released in 1997 and had two songs, on the A side we find “Marigold” and on the B side a superb cover of The Magick Heads’ “Hear From You”. Gosh, how underrated are The Magick Heads! Robert Scott, why not a reunion tour for that band?

Here on the credits it is mentioned that the songs were recorded during the spring of 1996 at The Institute Benjamentos which I feel might as well be their home and named after the “Institute Benjamenta” 1996 movie by the Brothers Quay which was based on the novel “Jakob Von Gunten” by Robert Walser. The artwork textures are credited to John Conley while the photography to Pat Phipps.

I feel I went through the records in reverse order. My bad. The two compilation appearances listed won’t have any problems as both are from 1998.

On the Cowly Owl compilation “Pop Machine” which was featured on the blog some months ago thanks that it was uploaded to Bandcamp. On this tape comp released by this Paris/Sacramento label the band contributed “Brighton Beach Postcard”. And then their song “Don’t Shout at Me” appears on another compilation I was talking about just some days ago, “The Family Twee”, which was a double CD comp that was made by participating members of the indiepop-list.

I don’t know much more. Yet.

I am going to be terribly lucky when I hit on Buddha on the Moon’s Bandcamp the upload of “Letters Home (Plus)”. Here there are the two songs from the “Letters Home” 7″ plus two more: “Brighton Beach Postcard (Sonar Ping Mix)” and “I Was Born on Christmas Day”. The first was actually the mix that was released on the “Pop Machine” compilation. The second is a cover of the Saint Etienne original which the band sent to their friends as part of a Seasons Greetings card. It had a cheery intro and outro included in that Greetings cassette where their friend Pat impersonated an MTV VJ. Thanks to this Bandcamp link I find out that the band was formed by Nan & HK. Who were Nan and HK? Well, HK seems to be an obvious answer, it was HK Kahng from the band Buddha on the Moon. What about Nan? Could it be Nancy Novotny who used to appear on Buddha on the Moon recordings doing additional vocals?

On this same Bandcamp I find a “Plus” version too for the “Leaves” 7″. Aside from the two songs from the 7″, there is “Glastonbury (Alternate Mix)” and “Theme from Boxville”. The first song of the 7″, “On Satsuma Road (A Song for Dan)”, is said to have been through multiple mixes. The Dan the song is about is said to be the fellow who brought HK and Nan together and who also runs a record store. The alternate mix of “Glastonbury” is one with much more guitar, ping pong delay and reverb. Then the “Theme from Boxville” is a cover of The Sugargliders.

Sadly there is no “Whimsy (Plus)” version.

Something interesting here is that I see that these releases on Bandcamp are tagged as if the band hailed from Portland. As far as I know the band used to be from Houston even though I’ve seen them listed on blogs as Australian or even British.

Then another interesting find is that of the band Spectral Lines. Here we see HK and Nan together making music, and there is just one song called “Tempus Venit Placide” available to stream.

It seems they were more of a bedroom project. I wonder if the band played live at all. What about other compilation appearances? It seems they had more recordings other than the ones that appear on 7″s. Why weren’t there more releases? And what happened in between The Imaginary Friend and Spectral Lines? Would be good to know more about them!

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Listen
The Imaginary Friend – Brighton Beach Postcard

My friend Eric from Belgium pointed me out to a new batch of Peruvian bands I had no clue they existed. They are to be playing a sort of festival called Transmisión Emocional on Saturday April 21st in Lima. In total there are 8 bands playing, two of them, Animal Desenfocado and Levi Japhet, don’t have a website, but the other 6 does.

Two of those 6 I have already featured on the blog, Niños Vudú and Blackthony Startano. But what about the other 4? They are a mystery to me. I should have a listen!

Aeropod: dreampop band from Lima formed in 2017. That’s how they present themselves. They are formed by Alexander Correa, Gian Franco Perez, Luis Reginaldo, Alberto de la Fuente and Luis Arévalo. There are two releases on their Bandcamp, “Los Jardines/Vuelas” and “Obsequio”. I’ll have a listen then. Wow, the guitars chime beautifully! Who are these people? I think if there is a new Lima Popfest they should be invited. Pretty good stuff. Definitely check them out. I’ve made myself already a fan on Facebook.

Dormir en Luces: 4 demo songs, lofi style, also from Lima. These are not as good as the previous band, definitely not. I can’t say I hate them, but can’t say I love them. I just wish they are better recorded and I’ll try to judge then.

Adrían Vacío: What is this? Their best song, “Juntos”, sounds kind a bit like Dar Ful Ful or Family, in a lofi way, or something like that. Very interesting. Who is it? Is it really just one person behind it called Adrían? There are two releases on Bandcamp, “Sin Título” which is just one song and “Naufragio Inconcluso” EP with four songs of lo-fi indiepop, “Juntos”, “Mutatio”, “Días Tristes” and “Ego Te Requiret”.

Rü: this must be the most eclectic band of the lot. I’m listening to their album “Terodesu” that was uploaded to Bandcamp on January. It starts a bit blah for me, but then track number three, “Ruido”, picks up with some superb guitarwork. Then again, slows down and becomes a bit boring. It is actually a mix of genres and styles this album. You could find some good guitar pop songs but you need to skip a bunch of songs. Would be nicer to just make an EP proper with the better songs and scrap the rest.

So that’s 4 bands, and I like featuring at least 5 on every post. Let’s check out some more of the Wales Goes Pop that we are missing then?

—-  Discovering Wales Goes Pop 2018 bands reviews —–

Perfect Body: found two songs by this Cardiff band on SoundCloud: “Round the Bend” and “Getting Cold”. They are more indierock than indiepop I believe. They are not bad by any means. But I start to wonder, after three bands reviewed where is the pop from Wales Goes Pop? I hope I find it on the next band I check out! There are many many more!! Wonder if I’ll ever be able to feature them all!

Goat Girl: they have a SoundCloud but you can barely hear any songs if you don’t pay for a pro subscription. No fun. Well, the band does have some videos on Youtube. It seems they are signed to Rough Trade, so that might be a big deal for many. Anyways, I’m linking to a video for a song called “The Man”. It is ok I suppose. But not for me. Rock-ish, and I don’t see anything special in them. Sure the lyrics might be interesting, singing about these topics, but the music sound like any other band out there.

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Been a while since I did some archaeology work on a Spanish band. It may be a surprise to you, but for me Spanish bands were my entry to the world of indiepop back in the early 2000s. I have a good memory of many small bands from that time period, bands that only released demos, CD-Rs in very limited quantities. Many of these bands’ recordings I have lost. Some others I never managed to get their proper releases. It was a time when there was no Discogs, and eBay for these sort of bands wasn’t common. I suppose you had to go to the gigs to buy the records or a record store in Spain. Then, I wasn’t in Spain. My first time in Spain was more than a decade later, in 2012.

Galáctica was one of these bands from the early 2000s that made an impact on me. I loved their style then, a mix of classic indiepop and electronic arrangements. Kind of looking to have a “futuristic” kind of sound. Makes sense then why they named the band Galáctica. During the years I have been able to find records by some of the bands from that period, it hasn’t been easy mind you. But one of the bands I still don’t own any of their recordings happens to be Galáctica. So their story to me is kind of untold. You know, when you own the record you kind of understand the band better. Right? Without it is hard even though back in the day I remember playing time and time again their album, mini-album and CD single that I burned altogether on a CDR and had it on my discman. Those were the days!

Galáctica was originally formed in the city of León, in the northwest of Spain. I have the feeling that before releasing their first mini-album “Lujo Estelar”, they had already recorded some demos that used to be available on Soulseek. Or maybe not. Someone remembers that? Anyhow, “Lujo Estelar” came out in 2001 on the then small label Mushroom Pillow (MP005). Now this label is quite big in Spain, but back then it was just starting and wasn’t making much of a noise. The songs on this mini-album were “Lujo en la Riviera”, “Vida en un Cometa”, “Chica Invisible”, “Anticanción de Verano”, “Ya Sales en Rockdelux” and “Gracita en el Espacio”. The sound of the band at this time was more guitar based and reminds me quite a bit to Juniper Moon with its punky attitude.

The year after the band released their debut album, “El Fotógrafo del Más Allá”, on Mushroom Pillow (MP017) again. The sound now had added an electronic flavour. There were 12 songs all recorded at Estudios Feedback: “Vampiras”, “Electrónica”, “Superdisco”, “Pasados Encuentros”, “#5”, “Mejor Berlín”, “Sin Estrellas”, “Dinastía”, “Bela Lugosi Affaire”, “Novela Rosa”, “Fiesta Contra Ti” and “Suspiria”. On Discogs the band is listed finally:
Roberto Castán – guitars
Sergio Calvo – bass
Amado Pellitero – drums
Eva López – keyboards
Lucía Pérez – vocals

Lastly, to promote the album there was a CD single in 2002. The chosen song was the most electronic one of all, the aptly named “Electrónica”. The accompanying songs on the single were “Mi Verdad” and “Electrónica (… En Una Tarde Otoñal)”. This was released by Mushroom Pillow (MP013) again and El Diablo! Important to mention that there was a promo video made for this song which you can watch on Youtube.

Thanks to that Youtube link I learn that this was actually the 2nd video by the band. Which one was the first? It was actually Superdisco, which I was able to find also on Youtube. Both videos were directed by Juan Marigorta.

I find an interview with the band on the website Indyrock.es dating from November 2002. From it I learn that Alex Díez from Los Flechazos and Cooper collaborated with them on the song “Pasados Encuentros” Then that “Mi Verdad” from the CD single is actually a cover of the Spanish band Luna from the 80s. And that live they used to do covers of Los Flechazos, Magnapop, Le Mans and The Ramones. They hoped to release something new by 2003 and they were part of a festival called Purple Weekend in 2002. Originally the band was formed by Lucía, Eva and Roberto and later Chinea and Amado joined them. I suppose Chinea is Sergio?

El Diario de León has an article about the Purple Weekend but the one from 2003. It mentions that the band was to headline a bunch of bands at the disco Oh! León, were the gig was to be held. Later Eva Galáctica was to DJ too.

Calzada News also mentions them. We learn that Roberto had a label called Miss Lucifer Records. With this label it seems that Galáctica released probably in 2004 a remixes CD. The band also played Madrid on July 3rd, 2004, at the legendary Siroco venue.

Murcia Rock also has an interview with the band, where they say Galactica is B-52s meets the Revillos. Could be? Also we learn that the band used to do a fanzine called Galaxina. I would love to see that! Maybe it should be released as a book as they did with the Stamp! or Tremolina fanzines? It is not a bad idea I would say. This interview was mostly done to promote a gig in that city, Murcia, on April 5th, 2002, where they had the support of Vacaciones at the Garaje Tía María venue.

Another gig I found by the band was one that happened on March 25th, 2003, in the Centro Cultural Provincial of the city of Málaga. Also they played in León’s Layla club on November 9th, 2002.

Then I come to notice that Roberto and Eva organized a festival called Otros Mundos Pop for many years in León. This festival was born thanks to a radio show both of them had in León’s 40 Principales station. They were indeed very involved with the music scene!

My last find dates from 2008 on the 20Minutos.es website. Here they talk about a reunion gig. It also mentions “RMX”, which was the remixes CD. For the reunion, only the three core members were part of it. They played on February 28th of that year at La Pequeña Betty in Madrid and it was said that the band was working on a new EP that was supposed to be released on vinyl that year. I don’t think that ever happened.

I don’t know much about what the band members are doing now, but it seems that if you were in León on April 5th you could have seen Eva Galáctica perform, supporting Taiacore. It doesn’t say much about her on the Facebook event page. But at least it is nice to know she is still making music.

I don’t know in which other bands they were involved with, if there were many or not at all. I do know that at least Roberto Castán was part of a band called Lofi that released an album on Elefant called “Low Fidelity Sound Systems”. Another band he was part of was called Trigger.

Then of course there is a Facebook page, that was last updated in 2013 (!). A quick look tells me the band was active in 2009, playing at a venue called La Pequeña Betty on February of that year. That’s not all, also they played Madrid at the Suite Festival in May of that same year. Here we know that the band continued playing live in 2010, in their hometown at Sala Studio 54 in January or at the Costello in June for example. Again a new mention of new songs. Now for an EP to be recorded in 2010.  It was to have 3 songs. Whatever happened to them? Not released, were they? We see many DJ gigs by the girls as well. Keep scrolling. I find some photos of them recording in 2013. More songs? Where are these songs? I would love to listen to them. And lastly a link of Lucía’s other passion, art. She showcases some of her pieces in the Kapu gallery in Linz, Austria.

At the time they were said to be one of the important bands of the new pop scene in Spain. I wonder what happened with them. Why they never got to release a second album. Or whatever happened to those songs they were working on in 2008-2009. If the girls end up playing in any other bands afterwards? It is for me very strange how this band kind of fizzled down. I really enjoyed their music, and now many years after not listening it, playing it again, I’m enjoying it once again.

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Listen
Galáctica – Mejor Berlín

Last post this week and I believe I can’t go back to two posts a week after covering all Indietracks this week. It was quite a lot of bands to review, most of them new ones for me. Now it is possible for me to concentrate on news, but also on other festivals that had many new names in their lineup. Like Wales Goes Pop and Cologne Popfest. From now on there will be a mix, new and some from these “pop” festivals. So let me start!

Axolotes Mexicanos: a favourite band of ours has a new album coming out on May 11th in 2018. It will be called “Salu2”. To promote that album the band has put together a video for the song “Doble Check”. I am not sure though how to react to the song, I like it but I’m not sure if I like it. It is a departure of the classic sound of the band. The label says this is pop of the twenty first century. Maybe. It does sound much more produced, much more ambitious, but also a bit plastic if you know what I mean. Maybe I just need to educate my ears to love this. Or maybe not.

Azure Blue: I think an Azure Blue song was recommended on the blog just a week ago. Well, this week the band and Matinée Recordings announced a new CDEP called “Whatever ’18”. There are 6 songs on this CD which are “Whatever ’18”, “Every Ending Story”, “Reflections of Light”, “Tragedy and Changes”, “Justice” and “747”. The opening song will actually be part of the forthcoming new album “Fast Falls the Eventide” which is due in June. On the link you can check out “Whatever ’18” and “Reflections of Light”. As always this is fantastic electronic indie pop!

Río Arga: Met Caballito Records’ founder Santi at Madrid Popfest and told me about this upcoming release. I was very excited already as I had recommended this band a couple of times on the blog as I thought they were brilliant. Sadly when I recommended them there was only a tape, and I’m no fan of tapes. This time around there will be a 10″ with 6 songs! That is definitely very very exciting! The songs on the record are “No Te Puedo Aguantar”, “Desde Que Tú Ya No Estás”, “Clip Con Forma de Corazón”, “Vente Conmigo”, “El Gigante” and “Tienes Tanto Por Hacer”. One of them, “Clip Con Forma de Corazón”, is an adaptation of “Plastic Bird” by Galaxie 500. I was quite surprised earlier today when I saw a photo of the band and noticed one of the members was actually the drummer of the fantastic Melenas. It is indeed a small family that of the Pamplona scene. And it makes sense!

—-  Discovering Wales Goes Pop 2018 bands reviews —–

Adwaith: I said that I was going to look at some of the bands I didn’t know that played Wales Goes Pop some weeks ago. This is the first one, and every time I mention one of them, I’ll make sure I also mention Wales Goes Pop! So you know it is not really a piece of news, but more of me discovering new bands thanks to festivals. Anyways. This is some folksy pop, right? Made in Carmarthen, Wales, by two girls and a boy, Heledd Owen, Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony. There are three songs on their SoundCloud and I would say skip the first two, they are a bit too slow for my taste, but their last one “Osian”, is quite enjoyable though not particularly indiepop.

El Goodo: another band from the Wales Goes Pop festival. This time the band hails from Resolven in Wales. The band’s name gives me a bit of annoyance I must say, don’t like much when Spanish is made fun. Might be because of me living in the US (?). Aside from that, the music is very 60s influenced. Garagey sometimes, Beatles-esque some other times. I’m not really interested in this sort of music I have to admit. Hopefully the next batch of Wales Goes Pop bands that I’ll check out will be more of my taste.

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I only became aware of the “From Quebec to Oswego” 7″ by The Autumn Teen Sound a few weeks ago. The name of the band sounded familiar to me, but couldn’t pinpoint where and when I’ve heard them. Or if I actually had heard them before. I thought perhaps I had listened to them on a compilation and then perhaps I had forgotten them.

Well, I just ordered a copy of this record and thought, it is time to investigate. My first question is where is Oswego. I know where Quebec is. I was in Montreal and Quebec City, both located in that Canadian province. But Oswego?

Oswego is a city in Oswego County, New York, United States. The population was 18,142 at the 2010 census. Oswego is located on Lake Ontario in north-central New York and promotes itself as “The Port City of Central New York”. It is the county seat of Oswego County. The city of Oswego is bordered by the towns of Oswego, Minetto, and Scriba to the west, south, and east, respectively, and by Lake Ontario to the north. Oswego Speedway is a nationally known automobile racing facility. The State University of New York at Oswego is located just outside the city on the lake. Oswego is the namesake for communities in Montana, Oregon, Illinois, and Kansas.

I see. It is here in New York state. But I must be honest and say I have never heard about it. Maybe one day I’ll visit? Who knows. The 7″ was released by the very fine label Paris Caramel (Pariscaramel 005) back in 1999. It is important to mention that this label had released the first album by The Fairways. A very important album indeed.

The songs on the record were “Say Something” on the A side and “Talk Dirty to Me” on the B side. The B side is actually a cover of the band Poison. Yes. Really. And it actually is a very good cover. And even though this is not exactly a jangle pop band, it is indiepop thru and thru. It is electropop of course, a style not many are doing these days but by the end of the 90s and the early 2000s there were many bands playing this sort of catchy pop.

Discogs has a bunch of compilation appearances listed. And I see where I must have heard them for the first time, on the “Seven Summers International Pop Volume 2” CD compilation that Tweenet and Kindercore (Tweenettwo & KC023) released in 1998. In that classic comp the band appears with the song “Number One”. ‘

But their first compilation appearances date from 1997. Remember the legendary comp “Pop American Style”? Well, I didn’t know, but it seems there was a Japanese version with extra songs that was released by Flavour of Sound. On it, and not in the American version, the band appears with the song “Sagittarius”. Oddly enough on the notes section on Discogs it says that: Track 23 is listed on the sleeves as “Orange Cake Mix / Feel Your Love”, but it was changed to “The Autumn Teen Sound / Sagittarius” in the final stage of manufacturing.

The other compilation from 1997 was the “Christmas in Stereo” comp that was released by Kindercore in the US and Philter Records (PRPH-2012) in Japan (this one in 1999). It is The Autumn Teen Sound who open the CD with the song “Christmas Wish”.

1998 will see them appear with the song “What Can I Do?” on the CD compilation “Dreams Are Free (With Purchase) (Sympathy for Count Pococurante, Vol. 3)” released by Dark Beloved Cloud (DBC 214). Also they would show up on “The Family Twee” double CD compilation. This compilation was actually not for sale. It was a compilation made by participating members of the indiepop-list. So you can see bands like for example Zapato who was Mario from Shoestrings or Laura Watling, among others. Those were the times when the indiepop-list was really relevant.

In 2000 the band was to appear on 3 compilations. The first was on “Millefeuille” that was released by the Japanese Beikoku-Ongaku (BDBO-E0014). The song they contributed for this one was “Submarine”. Also on another Japanese label, Motorway, the band appears with the song “My Computer Dream”. That on the 7″ compilation “Thru Spray Colored Glasses”(MOTOR-046)  that was part of the “Carafate Roads” series. This was volume 8. Lastly they had the song “Winter” on the “Paris Caramel 2000” CD maxi .

Lastly, in 2001, on Shelflife Records compilation of OMD covers called “Pretending to See the Future: A Tribute to OMD” (LIFE 030), the band did a fine cover of “Telegraph”.

So who were The Autumn Teen Sound? Twee.net immediately clears the mystery. It was Skippy McFadden, just him. Who was he? Maybe the name sounds familiar. He ran the label March Records. Thanks to that I start finding some more information about the band on the web.

First an interview with him in an unknown site. Here when asked about the band name he says: It didn’t occur rather it allured. It was taken from a collection of psych pop records in the 60’s. Apparently, there was a ‘scene’ and a ‘sound’ called the autumn teen sound. If I ever figure out what it is, I’ll let you know. I like autumn. I like sounds. I guess I don’t care much for teens. (ed. HEY!) At least that’s what I’m told to say here. I’m a big fan of really long band names as opposed to monosyllabic ones.

Then when asked when he sees the band in 5 years time: The Autumn Teen Sound will be franchised out and there will be a 4 piece (2 boys & 2 girls or maybe a boy, a girl, and 2 robots) synthesizer only group in every major U.S. town playing Silicon Teens inspired pop songs, for your enjoyment. The ‘sound’ will sweep the nation and there will be a dance called the Autumn Teen Dance. Of course, all the fans will be drinking March brand red wine.

Funny. I keep looking and find a review of the 7″ on the website Furia. It is a good review, saying “A far more ambitious cover, however, is the b-side of this single by March Records operator Skippy McFadden’s own recording project The Autumn Teen Sound (which I will insist on believing is named after the Slingbacks’ song), who turn Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” into spiky synth-pop on the order of “Electric Avenue” performed by the Dead Milkmen. After playing it twice I feel like I’ve extracted all the humor I’m going to, but the a-side is proving more durable, a self-effacing synth-collector’s soliloquy called “Say Something” that’s about equidistant from Barcelona and Wolfie.”

And that’s about it about the band. Not much more. I have only heard a few of the songs the band released. I am mostly missing the ones on different compilations. I know the band played in an Athens Summer Music Extravaganza festival back in 1998 alongside The Push Kings, Bunnygrunt, Tullycraft and more. But then, I can’t seem to find much more about them even though the band was around during internet times. What do you remember about The Autumn Teen Sound?

Edit: the 7″ arrived home and noticed that Skippy credits himself on the 7″ as Lord Butterscotch. He played vocals, green farfisa compact combo, behemoth farfisa professional 88, roland jx3p +pg200, elka rhapsody 490, roland tr505, dr. sample sp202, korg delta, siel or400, casiotone 310, the egg, sequential circuits tom, wurlitzer student piano, alesis sr16 and casio sk5.
Other people credited are:
Queen Josephine – backing vocals, yamaha portasound, synsonic drums, tambourine
Leo Con Brio – yamaha cs-5, korg poly 800, speak & spell, casio pt30, magnus chord organ
DJ French Toast – loops, samples & beats, iMac bondi blue
The songs were recorded at The Tiger Trap on the DMT8 unit.

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Listen
The Autumn Teen Sound – Say Something

Well here are the few more Indietracks announcements that needed a review!

Navina: I grin when I see some musician called singer-songwriter. I kind of know what to expect. The folksy, smartsy lyrics, and sometimes cutesy, sort of music. Will Navina change my stereotype? No. Sadly, no. The Cambridge based artist is not for me. It is not bad music by any means, but not the kind I’m interested in at all. Doesn’t say anything to me about my life.

Rafa Skam: not sure what to link for Rafa. I decided linking him to The Yellow Melodies BandCamp as he leads the Murcia band. Rafa has been around in the indiepop scene for many years, and we all remember his band Vacaciones with lots of nostalgia. This time around for Indietracks he will be playing solo. He has in the past done impromptu gigs at the merch stall of Indietracks, but can’t remember if I was around when that happened. I suppose though that he will be playing songs from his bands, or does he have his own songs for when he plays solo? I don’t know. Not sure really what to expect!

All Ashore!: definitely one of the few bands playing Indietracks that I’m interesting in checking out. First because they have some very fine and fun songs. Second because members of the band had been in top bands, favourite bands of mine, like The Parallelograms, Bouquet or Velodrome 2000. Do I need to say more? I’m happy that they are playing. And if it was me, I would put them in bigger letters on the bill, make them headline instead of British Sea Power or Dream Wife for example?

Now the DJs.

Asking for a Friend DJs: these are Tim Hall from Belfast and Trev from Oddbox Records. Both regulars at Indietracks for years. I’m happy Tim gets a chance to DJ, in general I like what he likes and that would probably make him my favourite DJ for this year.

Bum Notes Karaoke with Ruby Waters: no clue what this is. But from what I’m reading Ruby Waters hosts this Bum Notes at the Flying Duck in Glasgow. I was at that venue once. It was a great night I must say and loved hanging with a few of The Orchids that time. Those were the days. From the Indietracks bio it says there will be karaoke but no prizes, that it is not a drag show but there will be queens. It seems a bit all over the place, but I do like the idea of karaoke at Indietracks. Not sure though if this looks like an indiepop karaoke at all?

Des Was a Bowie Fan DJs: doesn’t say much about this DJ other than it is a London clubnight that plays indiepop, post-punk, new wave, northern soul and rock’n’roll. Meaning? they play the same as many other clubs in London. Hoping then, they do it better?

Passionate Necking: another club from London that happened for three years at The Montague Arms. It looks a bit mainstream from the bio as they mention they play Cher or Grimes. Well, doesn’t sound like the disco I want to dance to.

Recordsville Social DJs: this is Kev and Linda who I’ve met many times at Indietracks. Lovely couple. I remember them DJing before mostly girl groups but now they are going to be playing Pop, Punk, PostPunk, etc, etc. I do trust them to play good music. They always have photos with the good bands, like Saint Etienne, or The Primitives. So I believe this is a good option for dancing. Don’t you agree?

Time Machine Disco DJs: Katy from The Just Joans. No more information. I’m no fan of Just Joans, but I do believe the people behind the band had good taste in music. Could be good?

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Here’s a band that had enough songs for an album on different compilations throughout the nineties. Why they never released an album is a mystery to me.

I never knew much about them. The first time I heard Nothing Else’s music was on a compilation called “25 – A Silver Jubilee” (MEL 25) released by Meller Welle Produkte in 1999. Only now, after seeing that my friend Heinz has uploaded a couple of their tracks on Youtube that I decided to pay closer attention to their music, see what I can find about them. Maybe there’s some luck in my investigation.

I do own that CD compilation I mentioned, “25 – A Silver Jubilee”, after I traded some records with the German label. Thanks to that trade I discovered lots of music I must say. I really enjoy trading records. On this simply designed CD compilation Nothing Else appears with two songs, “Beast Inside” and “On The Way”. Here I find the first details about the band. There is an address. It happens the band hailed from France, from a town called Les Mureaux.

Les Mureaux is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the north-western suburbs of Paris, 35.9 km (22.3 mi) from the centre of Paris.

A suburb of Paris then. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?

That wasn’t their first compilation appearance. Actually the first one listed on Discogs dates from 1993. On the tape “Cerulean Sky!” that was released by Grapefruit (GRAPEFRUIT 7) and Bliss Aquamarine (BLISS 005) the band has one song, “Kiss Me After the Rain”. I must say I’m not familiar with this compilation, but I do see many familiar names in it like The Pristines, Die Busfahrer or Doloras Haze among others. I want to add that I really like the art for this tape.

The second compilation where they are listed on is the one called “Cherries and Sunny Days” released by the Italian label Shiny Sunset (Sunset 11). I was briefly in touch with the person who ran this label on Facebook and sent him questions for an interview. Sadly never heard back. Would have been nice to know more about it. But well, at least we have some tracklists and I can come up with some facts. In this case, Nothing Else contributes “To Play it Fair”, and other superb bands that appear are The Shining Hour, Pencil Tin or Watoo Watoo.

On the 1997 German compilation “Hopping Hobgoblin”, also a cassette, the band appears with two songs, “Beast Inside” and “Norma Jean Died Tonight”. This tape was released in 1997 by the Refuse Collection label (hobo 2). I have no clue about this tape. most of the bands on it, aside The Celestial Daffodils, Blochin 81 and They Go Boom!!, are unknown to me!

Two more songs were to be included on yet another tape in 1999: “On The Way” and “Flat Days”. This time on a French tape called “Love Song” that was released by the A Secret Song (019) label. It is the first time I hear of this label and of this tape. Again many bands on it are unknown to me. There is a scan of the insert on Discogs but it is very hard to read, but it does seem like some band members are listed for each of the bands. Maybe someone who owns this tape could help find out who were behind Nothing Else!

2001 would see them appear on yet another tape, “Suspend Your Disbelief”, released by the underrated Best Kept Secret (LIE 030) label from Italy. Just one song by them was included in this comp, “Beautiful and Lost”.

There are two more tape compilations were they appear though they are undated on Discogs. The first is on the Nessie label from France. This a very very fine label that released the amazing Evergreen 7″. The tape “Superqualifragilistic” (NESS587) included their song “The Darkside of the World”. Again, many obscure bands were included though I’m familiar with a few like Caramel, Poissons Solubles or Newell.

Lastly, again on Meller Welle Produkte, on a tape called “Fairy Tales” (MEL 23), they had 2 songs, “Lightness” and “Blackberry and Apple”.

Then I find that on Shiny Sunset they were involved in a split tape with the Japanese band Sunshower. I did write about Sunshower before. That’s interesting. This tape called “Pop Hits – Sunshower & Nothing Else” (Sunset 12) had 8 songs on the A side by the Japanese band and 7 songs by Nothing Else on the B side. The songs by Nothing else were “Flat Days”, “To Play it Fair”, “Passerby”, “House of Madness”, “The Dark Side of the World”, “Kiss Me After the Rain” and “Tuesday Afternoon”. This was the closest to a proper release by the band.

So making a count, there were in total how many original songs? “Kiss Me After the Rain”, “To Play it Fair”, “Norma Jean Died Tonight”, “Beast Inside”, “On the Way”, “Flat Days”, “Beautiful and Lost”, “The Darkside of the World”, “Passerby”, “House of Madness”, “Tuesday Afternoon” “Lightness” and “Blackberry Apple”. That’s 13 songs. And there are no proper releases by the band. Just these compilations. Why?

Anyone have a clue who Nothing Else were? What other bands were they involved with? And if there were any other songs by them? It just looks like a big mystery to me! Their jangly indiepop is a treat to me, so I would love to know more!

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Listen
Nothing Else – To Play It Fair

It is a new week, but need to keep these reviews coming. So continuing with the Indietracks latest batch of announcements….

Mighty Kids: I read on the Indietracks page that this was a band that played electro-pop. I couldn’t find much about this band though it seems it is led by a girl named Shelley Jane. Indietracks says there’s a Bandcamp with the EP “Won’t You Reconsider”, but couldn’t find it. I did find this Soundcloud by the Derby band and found a mix of ukulele songs, which weren’t really exciting, and some electropop like “Dust”, which are much more enjoyable. Not sure what they do more, the ukulele or the bedroom electropop. I do hope it is the latter.

Happy Spendy: a Glasgow band. That sounds promising already. Also there is a very good photo of the band on their SoundCloud page. Let’s see, let’s try the first song “I Was Just Trying To Have a Good Time”. A bit too slow for me. But not bad. Next seems to be a 3 song EP titled “You Look Lovely” that was released in 2017. “Candy” is the first song. It is nice lo-fi casiotone pop with female vocals. Yeah, the photo looked like they were going to be a very jangly band, especially as one had a very cool bowl haircut. But no, a good electropop lo-fi band.

Worst Place: yeah lots of electropop it seems, not what I love the most, but much better than all the folksy and screamy stuff Indietracks was getting us used to. But now a true discovery by team Indietracks, a very very good one I think. Because I listen to the song “The Sun Changed Everything” and it is a jangly explosion! Just what I needed!! And great female vocals, and good melodies. Nothing I can complain! I really like this! A quartet from London, who doesn’t seem to have any releases so far, just a few songs online. And the last one, the one I mentioned, is the best. One of the bands one shouldn’t miss at Indietracks I believe.

Marlaena Moore: it doesn’t start good when I read her bio on Bandcamp. It tells me she is a rare talent. Don’t know how to take that. Well, I’ll let the music speak I suppose. The Edmonton, Canada, artist’s last album “Gaze” is what I start playing. Hmm. Just not for me I suppose, middle of the road indie. Doesn’t tell me much. I wonder, where’s the p!o!p!?

Tim the Mute: this is Tim Clapp’s alter ego. Tim runs the label Kingfisher Bluez who collaborated with Cloudberry once releasing the Parcel Post 7″ (I still have a few copies if anyone is interested). I figured I  have never reviewed his music on the blog. So what’s fair is fair. His latest was the album “Take My Life Please!” which you can still find on Bandcamp. It is hard to pinpoint, say what what sort of music this is. There’s a bit of everything, though I’m sure calling it pop is fine. In debt of 80s pop too is a good description as well. But there are all kinds, for example “Draining”, is a terrific song. That could have been recorded by many of our favourite bands. Then there are others not as accessible like “A Girl You Don’t Like”. It is a bit of a rare bird, but when at its best, it is really interesting.

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When did I first listen to The Originals? Was it through Soulseek, downloading MP3s for their “Chocolate Box” 7″ or was it through Javi’s old blog where I remember him writing about them. I can’t seem to remember exactly. I do remember the 3 songs on it, and today I thought looking for a copy of the record on the web. Well, no luck.

At some point I’m sure I’ll find a copy, in the meantime, I want to know more about this band. Who were they? What did they release? What happened to them? They seem to be pretty obscure but it is also true that most obscure indiepop fans know them. So in a way they are among the least obscure of the obscure bands. That does make sense? It does to me.

The first ever release by the band was a shared flexi with Po! that was released on Ruth Po!’s label Rutland Records (RUT 01). It was the first release on the label and it was released on 1988. The Originals opened the single sided flexi with the song “Japan” while Po! appears with “Glass King”. I don’t own this record, so perhaps someone can help, it is said that there is an insert with information about both tracks by Larry Rutland.

The “Chocolate Box” 7″ came out next, again on Rutland Records (RUT 03). This time there were three songs. On the A side there was “Chocolate Box” and “Clarence” and on the B side we find “Steven On the Radio”. This record came out in 1989 and all songs were recorded on 4 track at Solitude Studios in Leicester during the spring of 1989. I am guessing here that the band hailed from that city. Studio and label were based there.  On this record we find out also the names for the band members in the band.
Terri Lowe on bass
Yvonne Blair on drums
Kevin Young on guitar
Gary Blair on vocals

The artwork was done by Yvonne and Kevin. I notice that there are two Blairs in the band. Were they siblings? Probably, right?

In 1989 Rutland Records was going to put out a tape with the titled “They Were The Originals 1984-1989” (RUTT 13). This tape seems to be a retrospective, a compilation, of all recordings, releases and demos, by the band. I would so love to hear this tape in its entirety. There are in total a whopping 19 songs! On the A side we find “Chocolate Box”, “Clarence”, “Steven on the Radio”, “Japan”, “Cuckoo”, “Only 25”, “My Friend”, “On a Western Shore”, “Wish” and “Teddy Bears”. The B side had “Chimera”, “Flame”, “Larry”, “Mr. Jones”, “Little Tears”, “Kevin’s in Green”, “Norman”, “Blue Grass” and “My Friend”.

It does seem that a year later the band recorded a 2 song demo with new songs. This is listed on Dicogs as “2 Track Demo-Tape”. It had the songs “Number Nine” and “Listen to the Cat”. Never heard these two songs either.

There are 3 compilation appearances listed. In 1989 the band appeared with the song “Steven on the Radio” on the tape comp “My Favourite Sunday Vol. 1” released by the Japanese label Boshi (Roddy 004). This is a very cool compilation with great bands that have been featured on the blog like The Ammonites, The Candy Darlins or The Aurbisons among others.

In 1990 the band contributes the song “Mr. Jones” to the tape compilation “And They Call It Pop” that was put out by Fragrant Records. I must say I’m not familiar with this compilation that was put together by Fragrant who seems to have been based in Newton Abbot in Devon. There are many amazing bands here too like They Go Boom!, Feverfew or Strawberry Story among others.

Lastly, on the German tape compilation “Nachtsonne – The Noise and The Melodies” the band appears with the song “My Friend”. I’m curious about this tape as there are some bands I’ve never heard before like Desert Rain, Monday Post or Ostzonensuppenwürfelmachenkrebs.

I decide to check out if the band members are listed in any other bands. Well, Terri Lowe had been involved in Ruth’s Po! other band, Ruth’s Refrigerator. He played bass mostly but sometimes rhythm guitar. Also he worked with Po! playing guitar and producing! The other members don’t appear on Discogs under other bands.

I notice my friend Alex wrote a post about them back in 2007 on his Siete Pulgadas blog. There is sadly no other details aside the ones I’ve found so far. But still it is great to see friends love their music too.

Twee.net has some more tapes listed for the band. There is a “Live” and “Out-Takes” tapes on Rutland Records (RUTT02 & RUTT06). Also there’s also another tape listed that was to be released after the “They Were the Originals”.

Then I find a blog post by Ruth Po! where she mentions The Originals! First she says:
At that time, there were government grants available for people setting up their own small businesses – the Enterprise Allowance scheme. You had to prove you had £1000 in the bank and some kind of plan, and then you qualified for a weekly allowance. I didn’t have £1000, but I did know someone who agreed to transfer the money into my new Rutland Records bank account and then have it paid back again a week later. The name Rutland Records came from ‘Rutland Avenue’ in Leicester, where my friends in The Originals lived, but it also refers to England’s smallest county, which is next to Leicestershire, measuring about 20 miles across and is a symbol of English eccentricity and doing things small-style.

Then she talks about The Originals themselves!
The Originals: Rags, Yvonne, Kevin and Gary were a really well-rehearsed zany band who shared rehearsal premises with PO! This was a basement on the corner of Chatham Street and Stamford Street, underneath a clothing factory. Now, there are student flats there, but you can still see the load out bay we used when doing gigs. The Originals rehearsed every night; their sound was like a more rock version of The Smiths or Talking Heads, with childlike talk-singing from Gary. I admired their work ethic and made Julian and Jan rehearse more than they liked to. At about 10.15pm each night, we would all go into the nearby pub ‘The Black Boy’ for a drink.
The first Rutland Records release was a 1988 shared flexi-disc between PO! and The Originals. The PO! song was ‘Glass King’, recorded at Dave Davis’ home studio (credited as Wolfman De Moog III). Dave was the partner of Teri Wyncoll, from the community arts organisation Multiplex. By the time of recording, Julian and Jan had left PO! and so the musicians from The Originals acted as my backing band.
With home computers and dot matrix printers in an early stage, artwork had to be produced by hand. This involved using Letraset rub down lettering. You bought a sheet of the font that you wanted and rubbed over each letter to transfer it onto the paper. The sheets were quite expensive, and after a couple of years, the plastic letters dried up and cracked, but there was something artisan and time-consuming about Letraset that pleased me.
A recently acquired teddy bear ‘Larry Rutland’ belonging to Rags from the Originals became the boss of Rutland Records; he is pictured on the Originals’ side of the flexi and also wrote the sleeve notes. Most of the Rutland newsletters and information were printed on red paper; even then I had some idea of ‘branding’ within a supposedly amateurish tiny business.

Really interesting indeed! She also shares that inner insert from the flexi, mentioning that the song by The Originals, “Japan”, was recorded at the Bankby Road Studios in Leicester by Wayne George and engineered by Ricky Wilson in 1988.

There is yet another Ruth Miller interview on the web that dates from Fall 1995 on the Monk Mink Pink Punk fanzine. On this one Ruth says:
Terri Lowe — plays lots of guitars all the time, when he’s not doing that he’s out looking for guitars to buy. He used to play the bass with a fab band called The Originals who recorded one single for Rutland. He’s a student studying English and he’s just won a prize for poetry. He was also the bass player in Ruth’s Refrigerator and he wrote some good songs for their albums. He is a hard shell with a soft centre, and his favorite word is “no.”

And as you can imagine that’s all I could find about them. No more information. I find it strange that the band members weren’t involved with other projects. It seems at that time everyone in the Leicester scene was in every band or kind of.  Just Terri Lowe. Also would love to know the tracklist for those tapes that I found on Twee.net. There are many questions left to answer when it comes to The Originals.

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Listen
The Originals – Chocolate Box

More Indietracks announcements. Gosh, it was just a week ago that I had reviewed the first batch of bands. And now there’s more! Also DJs were announced! I will need to figure out who are the people behind these DJs names as well, maybe someone can help me with that. This is what Indietracks posted:

We’re delighted to announce that Amber Arcades, Gwenno, Spinning Coin, Tigercats, Colour Me Wednesday and Tinsel Heart are among 24 artists and DJs added to the Indietracks 2018 line up today. They’ll join artists we’ve already announced for this year’s festival, including British Sea Power, Honeyblood, The Lovely Eggs, Dream Wife, Girl Ray, Sacred Paws, Darren Hayman, Even As We Speak and Anna Burch. Other artists joining the bill today are Linda Guilala, Best Praxis, Ex-Vöid, Sugar Rush!, Mighty Kids, Happy Spendy, Worst Place, Marlaena Moore, Tim the Mute, Navina, Rafa Skam and All Ashore!. Plus we’ll have late night entertainment from Asking For A Friend DJs, Bum Notes karaoke with Ruby Waters, Des Was A Bowie Fan DJs, Passionate Necking DJs, Recordsville Social DJs and Time Machine Disco DJs.

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I just discovered The Electrosonics. Really. I must admit that I have a bunch of 7″s by their label, Drive-In Records, but not any of their CDs. It happens that The Electrosonics only released in CD format on the label during the 90s. So yes, I missed them. Now I should try to catch up, get copies of their 3 releases, sit down, play them, and enjoy.

If you are into shoegazy sounds this might be for you. Dreamy girl vocals and guitar pedals. It is very nice indeed. And I’m even more surprised as I noticed that band members were later on Paper Moon, a band I do own all of their albums!!

And yes, if I said Paper Moon, it means the band hailed from Canada, though not from Winnipeg as Paper Moon but Vancouver. It happens that after The Electrosonics split Heather Campbell moved from Vancouver to Winnipeg. But yes, not here to talk about Paper Moon, which even has a Wikipedia entry, but about The Electrosonics.

I was lucky to find a handful of songs on Youtube and discover their music, though I must say that after hearing “Roo” I wasn’t exactly hooked. But then “Triamene” played and thought, this is brilliant! I want tom hear more. But neither of these two songs appear on their first release, the CDEP “Infra-Yellow” (DRIVE03 & QUID007) that Drive-In Records and its sister label Quiddity Records released in 1996. On a cardboard sleeve, this CD only had 3 songs: “Infra-Yellow”, “Retroflex” and “Star Stream”. All of them recorded at Downtown Sound Studios in December 95 and mastered at Gold Rush Studios in April 96.

The band was formed by Eric White on bass, vocals and guitar; Curtis Hobson on drums; Heather Campbell on guitar, keyboards, backing vocals; and Clare Kenny on guitar and vocals. Heather also took care of the artwork for the CD and the photography was done by Curtis. The engineer and producer for this record was Paul Siczek. A nice feature of the CD was that it included lyrics. It seems CDs these days rarely include the lyrics.

Their next release was the CD EP “Rampion” (DRIVE19) released in 1998 by Drive-In. This one had more songs, 5 in total. They were “Lazy Maisy”, “Triamene”, “Roo”, “Unsung Engine” and “Memory Bar the Door”. This time, August 1997, the band recorded at Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver with Howard Redekopp as the engineer. The songs were mastered by Craig Waddell. The images on the record are credited to Beatrix Potter. Here the band is much more detailed on what instruments they played. For example Curtis played a Moog Rogue, korg bass pedals and Roland beat box. Eric played a Moog Taurus and a lap steel. Heather played farfisa, arp axxe, Moog Opus 3 and Jupiter 8.

The band continued releasing with the Grand Rapids, Michigan, label that Mike Babb used to run. So a third CD EP came to life in 1999 and it was titled “Neutron Lullaby” (DRIVE36). This time the CD had one more song than the previous one, 6 then. But the truth is that three of them were remixes of the first 2. So, we find “Neutron Lullaby”, “Back on the Light” and “Prodrome” and also “Neutron Lullaby (Object Remix)”, “Back on the Light (Pre-Ignition Mix)” and “Neutron Lullaby (Dream Sequence Mix)”.  As you know I’m no fan of remixes but it is understandable as it was the late 90s. The Object Remix was taken care by Kevin Bolster, the Pre-Ignition Mix by Andrew Withycombe from The Ampersands, Hydroplane, The Cat’s Miaow and many more, and the Dream Sequence Mix by the band Buddha on the Moon.

The songs on the “Neutron Lullaby” EP were recorded in September 1998 at Lemon Loaf Studios in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Also on this record we see that Michaela Galloway, who would later be in Hinterland, is credited for vocals and flute. Was Michaela Galloway behind the name Clare Kenny? I see her name in different bios but for some reason it only appears on their last EP.

I find an interview to Michaela on the website Step and a Half. Here when asked about the Electrosonics she says:
I used to be in Space Cadet, and in the Electrosonics. I am a much better musician now than I ever have been before. Joining the Electrosonics was very educational. Suddenly I was playing the Starfish Room (a big jump from the Press Club) and recording on something other than a 4-track. The other members of the Electrosonics were older than me, had been on tour and in the studio before. I feel like I really cut my teeth in that band. In the Electrosonics Eric White really had primary creative
control.

There are a few compilation appearances for the band. The first dates of 1996 and was a CD compilation called “Tiddleywinks (Volume One – Fun For Kids of All Ages!)” that was released by Chester’s Funtime Record Collection (CFRC 9503-2). Here the band contributes the song “Star Scream”.

In 1998, on the US CD compilation “Losing Today Volume 1” that came with the Losing Today “The Sky Is Grey” magazine the band appears with “Roo”. And the next year, on another US CD compilation called “Installation:03” that came freely with the third issue of the magazine Masstransfer, the band shows up with “Back in the Light (Pre-Ignition Mix)”.

I check the band members and I feel there are more than one Clare Kenny (unless she played in Orange Juice and The Apartments?) and Eric White (was he in the late 70s in The Kentucky Colonels? Doubt it!). On the other hand Curtis Hobson doesn’t sound like he was in the funk band ADC Band in the late 70s either, right? The only one that seems to have the right listings is Heather Campbell, who played in Paper Moon, Bossa Nova and also lately in The Intelligence Service.

A bit more of searching and I find that actually Clare Kenny was making music in 2014, I found a Bandcamp for a band called “What’s Hot!” where she was involved with. Much, much, punkier than The Electrosonics I must say. Then I stumble upon an old Myspace page where there are plenty of photos of the band.

Another find on the web is a review of a gig where The Electrosonics were support of a band called Perfume Garden on February 5th, 1998. This is what it says:
Clare Kenny is haunted by eyes. It’s fifteen minutes to showtime, and she’s starting to get a little stressed. She tries to find the beer tickets. She tries to find the rest of her band, the Electrosonics. She ponders Perfume Tree’s attempt to ‘choreograph’ the Electrosonics’ performance. And then, in front of the stage, in place of the usual disco ball, she’s confronted by the photo-mobile. It’s a the Electrosonics, gazing at their shoes zoetrope-like contraption which projects old photo portraits onto the walls. Old eyes stare blankly at Clare. In Victorian times, the London police would take pictures of the eyes of Jack the Ripper’s victims in the belief that their killer’s image would be burned into their retinae. Old eyes. Clare’s had enough of this.
Clare’s father (western Canada’s number one Jacques Cousteau lookalike) has driven all the way from Alberta to see her play; apparently he was getting a little bored. But the Electrosonics don’t disappoint. The set is tight, and with a guest appearance from Wendy Young (ex-Kaneva) on backing vocals and flute, the Electrosonics’ sound gets an extra layer of warmth and richness. The sound retains the Sinead O’Connor singing for Slowdive element it always has, but it’s a welcome thing to hear the keyboards becoming better integrated into the overall sound and the songwriting taking on more complex, suite-like arrangements. In other words, the Electrosonics are doing what all good bands should — evolving and improving by challenging their own abilities.

This is the online version of the Drop-D magazine. It actually has two more entries for The Electrosonics, but only an interesting  mention:
Look at the Electrosonics. With an independently-released CD out and a tour under their belt, but without airplay on a station that the general public isn’t afraid to listen to (face it, listening to CiTR is just too “icky” for your average Z95 fan to contemplate), the best they can do is scrape together less than ten friends here to see them. Well, it’s the public’s loss, really. Mildly sloppy though the performance is, there’s enough eau-de-Slowdive hanging in the air around them to make you realize how much you miss shoegazing. Though the pedal steel guitar is sadly absent from their setup, Claire Kenney’s Perfume Tree-style vocals and an occasional keyboard fill that quotes Zbigniew Preisner’s soundtrack work (The Double Life of Veronique, etc.) more than make up for it. The Electrosonics are just keeping the dreampop torch burning, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I can’t find much more about The Electrosonics. I do find more information about other bands that the members were involved with. It must be that The Electrosonics were active in the 90s, when the internet wasn’t yet as popular. What I do find on the web it indeed dates from those dates on websites that look very old, antiques really. I have many questions of course, like if there are more songs recorded by the band, or if they were in any compilations at all. In Twee.net, they are listed as an American band, maybe that is a reason I never looked into them. But now I want to know more about them! Do you remember this brilliant Vancouver band?!

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Listen
The Electrosonics – Triamene

Last post of newish discoveries for now I believe. Next post, Friday hopefully, should be of the new batch of bands that have been announced at Indietracks. On top of that there were bands that played Wales Go Pop! That I’ve never heard plus should look into the bands at Cologne Popfest. There’s much going on, and even with 3 posts a week it seems that it is not enough!

Anyways, let’s start:

Cariño: where did this beauty come from? Am I back to the early 2000s where Spanish bands sounded a bit like this? I don’t know. I’m just happy to hear their song “Momento Inadecuado </3”. From the photo it looks like a trio, and have another song on Bandcamp called “Canción de Pop de Amor”, which is also ace. They hail from Madrid and they self-define themselves as a neighborhood pop band. Whatever that means. In any case this is fab, and I hope someone puts them out soon. Real soon.

Wrstlng: Anders, Patrik, Jon and Oskar are the Gothenburg based band Wrstlng. They are not very new, it seems their last release dates from December 2016 or so. I missed it. I’m only discovering it now but the thing is, that it is really enjoyable and I should share it with you, right? The EP called “Hoarse Bear”, has 7 songs of top guitar pop. I believe it was only released digitally sadly, unless someone knows better?

Boys: definitely not a big fan of linking to music websites, but if that’s the solution for me to listen to the latest song Nora Karlsson has unveiled, I will do. You can check “That Weekend” if you click on the link. This song is to be included in the album “Rest In Peace” that is coming out on May 11th. Yes, I need to pre-order it. Soon.

Tracyanne & Danny: it must be a week or two when I shared with you some of the music that Tracyanne is doing as a duo with Danny. Well, now there is a video for the song “Alabama” and it is great, not that far from Camera Obscura really. I also noticed they are both performing in NYC very soon. Seems, I will have to attend!

Two for Tea with Duglas T: a Youtube show by Duglas from BMX Bandits? Really? Yes! On this first episode we see Duglas T. Stewart sharing a good time with his friend Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub. I would suggest subscribing as each episode will feature Duglas chatting and singing with a guest. A top initiative by the Scottish bandito!

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This is a very obscure song, and at this point it feels more of an anecdote than anything else. You see, I found it on Youtube while looking for other bands. There is a Youtube user called Robertpere2 that has a bunch of goodies, a lot of post-punk but also very good jangle pop. And I sometimes just let all videos play. See if there’s something good for me to discover. And just like that, I found out about The Harlows.

Definitely the image that was uploaded caught my attention. It is very indiepop. The guy and the girl in summer clothes, dancing. It looks like it is an “official” image. Perhaps a scan of the cover of a tape or a CD. Though it does look like a photocopy. Most probably it is a tape then. But who are they? Where they are from? Are there more songs? The only information available on this video is a line that says:  “Produce by Dan Boardman and The Harlows, mixer by Dan Boardman and Randy Duerr”.

At least it is something. A hint. Some info so I can start digging. The song itself is really good! To my ears it sounds like mid-90s American indiepop. According to the video, it was released in 1995. So in that sense I’m in the right track.

What is a Harlow? Well, there is a town in Essex, England, with that name. A town were many great jangle pop bands hail from. Then it is a last name. Some famous Harlows, for example, Jean Harlow, a Hollywood actress or George Henry Harlow, an English artist. From what I understand then, that last name, Harlow, is the transferred use of an English surname with Anglo-Saxon origins derived from a place name. The name comes from the Olde English elements “hoer” meaning a pile of rocks or stones and “hlaw” meaning a hill. So the surname essentially developed to identify a person who dwelled on or around a rocky hill area.

That doesn’t shed any lights about the band. That’s true. Well I do have two names, Dan Boardman and Randy Duerr. Maybe that could point me somewhere. I found something where both names appear together. There is a release by The Spectors called “Cockfights & Cakefights 1992-1996”, on the Get Hip Recordings Bandcamp. The Spectors being a garage rock band from Minneapolis. And here I see that Dan Boardman played guitars, drums and vocals, in this band. And that Randy Duerr helped produce some songs at Wigged Out Studios. That kind of gives away that The Harlows were from the area, from Minneapolis. But what else?

Not much more. Can’t find any other mention of the band anywhere. Who were they? Just the one song that appears on the web, which is great, but nothing else. Who were the band members? Were there any releases? Anyone remembers them?

Edit (same day, 3pm)

Just got a comment by Harley Pageot pointing me that the blog Wilfully Obscure has actually written about the band. Why didn’t it show up on Google I don’t know. But there is much information here to be shared.

Actually there are 2 posts about them. The first, is about a 1995 tape, the one that has the cover I was talking about. I learn that the vocals were taken care by a Charlton Metcalf and that they were indeed from Minneapolis. This first tape, had 9 songs: “Catch a Wave”, “February”, “4 Leaf Clover”, “Cowards Sunday Drive”, “Lookout”, “Deminers”,  “Hemingway”, “For Rent” and “Untitled”.  It is interesting though that it is mentioned that this tape, and the latter one, from 1996, sound like two different bands.

That second post on Wilfully Obscure is indeed about the 1996 tape. Here there is a female vocalist named Rachel and the band is compared to The Spinanes and her vocals to that of Sarah Shannon of Velocity Girl. The songs on this second tape were “Purposeful Heart”, “Tsunami”, “Anyway”, “Jetlag”, “Shiner”, “Lean”, “April Shakes” and “Escar Go Karts”. Something that actually got y attention was that a Michael Alan Perry says that he was in the band. Is this the same Michael Alan Perry that was behind Manic Pop Records perhaps? And that is not all. There is a 1999 article on the page Ink19 that talks about a CD by The Harlows called “Stages I” released by Monkey Poop. It was a double CD, a compilation of their four previous releases. I know of two tapes now. There were two more? Now we have more information but there are still lots of questions to be answered!

Edit: Next day, 11am.

Bernd has pointed out a CDR released by Monkey Poop Records (oo1) dating from 1998 called “The Second Contestant is Number Twenty-Three”. There is not much information about it but we do know it included 5 songs, “Fondue”, “Sass-On”, “Bidet”, “Photon Falls” and “Hombre”.

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Listen
The Harlows – Catch a Wave