Finally, having a look at the Indietracks announcements. A bit late, almost a month late. It was on March 1st that the organizers let the first batch of bands out. At the time I was in Madrid, attending Popfest, so didn’t give it an in-depth look but I got the impression that it was kind of the same old. Now, with fresh eyes I will try to see if that first impression was right, or not.

You know I’ve been critical of the festival for the past few years. They haven’t topped earlier lineups were it was indeed Indiepop paradise. The last few years we see repeated bands again and again and bands that are not indiepop at all. To give the festival some credits they did change their motto quietly from an “indiepop festival” to a “DIY festival”. So sure, now they can do whatever they want and that’s fair. But as I come from the old school, the people that attended the “indiepop years”, I will look at the lineup under that light.

British Sea Power, Honeyblood, The Lovely Eggs, Dream Wife, Girl Ray and Sacred Paws are among 35 artists confirmed today for this year’s Indietracks festival.

So, let’s start. These are the headliners. British Sea Power is a big band, don’t need any introduction and of course we know they are not indiepop, so I will skip. The Lovely Eggs, well, they are a repeat, so I’m sure you all are familiar with them. The only band of the three that I’ve never heard before is Honeyblood.

Honeyblood:  I look for them on the web, and found a Bandcamp of Brighton-based label Fatcat Records, where the self-titled album is available for streaming. There are 12 songs penned by the duo formed by two Scottish girls, singer/guitarist Stina Tweeddale and drummer Shona McVicar. The first album seems was released back in 2014, so not new at all, maybe they have something else out? I should check. They do sound all right, a bit like hipster indiepop, in the vein of Dum Dum Girls. Noisy, with girl vocals, having the dream of becoming mainstream perhaps. Then I find their second album, “Babes Never Die”, on the same Bandcamp and it is similar to the first album. But it seems after that release their sound has changed a bit, their latest single seems to be “Walking at Midnight” and it has a video on Youtube. And this might be my least favourite song of the few I’ve heard by them.

Dream Wife: another band from that first sentence by Indietracks that I don’t know. I find their songs and press play. And I hear shouts. I’m not a fan of shouty music aside from a few exceptions. It gets a bit on my nerve. I think to myself that maybe it is only the first song, “Let’s Make Out”, that is shouty. So I give it another shot, now I play the second song “Somebody” from their self-titled album. To be honest this is much much better! I have some hope maybe. But then I continue playing the album and it continues, all the shouting, ending up on “F.U.U.” which is a scream-fest. Not for me.

Sacred Paws: I found a Bandcamp with two lo-fi recordings. They don’t sound very good. I do notice that the two members used to be in the very fine band Golden Grrrls. So there must be something good about them, it can’t just be these two demos. On Youtube I find the video for “Everyday“, and I do enjoy the guitars! And yes, this is a great song with handclaps and a bit of a party/beach vibe. There’s another video available, for “Strike a Match“, this will give me confirmation that I like the band or not. Again the cool fun guitars. Okay, I can like this one. First point for team Indietracks. Good choice.

Girl Ray: many friends are fans of this band, so I am quite curious to see what I think of their music. Well, it sounds nice. Perhaps I was hoping for something else, don’t know why, but I thought they were going to be more upbeat and packed with hooks, maybe because of the name? Instead they have a 60s vibe, they are mellow, and sweet. Poppy, Sophie and Iris comprise this North London trio that have released a few records in their short lifetime. Could work well at the church I think.

The above artists are joined by Darren Hayman (playing ‘Breaking God’s Heart’), Even As We Speak, Haiku Salut, Onsind, The Smittens, Anna Burch, Boyracer, Night Flowers and Eureka California.

Those are the next bands announced, the “big names” after the headliners. Darren Hayman seems to play every single Indietracks that is already getting boring. Onsind I don’t like at all and they are a repeat. The Smittens, another repeat. Night Flowers, I think are ace, but another repeat. Eureka California, yet another repeat. Did they run out of ideas? Haiku Salut  another repeat. This is no fun.

Of course the two bands that thrill everyone are Even as We Speak and Boyracer. Two brilliant bands from the indiepop heyday are playing the festival. I would go and see them. Totally. EAWS I saw at NYC Popfest and were the best that year. Boyracer I’ve never seen, but I wish I could. But then, these two bands need no introduction, they were part of Sarah Records and are in the “legendary” status of indiepop bands. Classics. So I have to move on. What about then Anna Burch? Never heard her music.

Anna Burch: “Tea-Soaked Letter” is the first song I play, there’s a promo video for this song, and I’m immediately hooked. It is good! What do I learn from Anna on the web? She is based in Detroit, so no, not British, so definitely a good expense by the festival. She releases records through Polyvinyl Records, just like everyone darlings Alvvays. Her last effort, the album “Quit the Curse”, was released last month and it is already sold out in its vinyl version. It is available still on CD and tape. On her Bandcamp you can order the record and also stream it all. And after listening to it on a whole, I must say that the first song I ever heard by her, “Tea-Soaked Letter”, is the best. Well, it is the jangliest and indiepoppiest. What can I say.

There are more bands announced by Indietracks (Happy Accidents, Let’s Whisper, Wolf Girl, Just Blankets, Dream Nails, Mikey Collins, Sink Ya Teeth, Tugboat Captain, The Baby Seals, Life Model, Cat Apostrophe, Strange New Places, Melenas, Panic Pocket, French Boutik, Ghum, Rebecka Reinhard, Tekla, Whitelands and The Sunset Beach Hut) but as I like to keep at 5 reviews a post, they’ll need to wait until next posts.

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I ordered the only 7″ I know by Daisy Age just a few days ago. Then I thought that it could be a good obscure French band to feature here after quite a long brainstorming. Yes, I’m trying to be more international on the blog, not just cover bands from the UK.

I must say that I know very little about this band so this is a good exercise, an opportunity, to find out more. So where to start? Maybe the name? Does it have any connection with De La Soul? Their first album by Long Island hip hop band “3 Feet High and Rising” introduced the concept of the “D.A.I.S.Y. Age” (an acronym standing for “da inner sound, y’all”). As a result, audiences were quick to peg the members of De La Soul as hippies. Could that be it? Or is there another reason for the name? Or it is just a nod to the hippies in general?

We do know that the band released one 7″ in 1994 on the label Disco 2000 (catalog Disco 2002). This was a label based in Toulouse which was run by someone called Stéphane. The 7″ had two songs on each side. The A side had “L’Imprévu” and “Hier” and the B side had “Ce N’Est Pas Si Facile” and “Wee Pee”. All four songs were recorded on an 8-track and mixed the same day. The credits for the photos on the sleeve are Fabien Rames and Laurent Lafon.

There’s no other information about the band on the sleeve. Nor on the insert that comes with the record where the label tells more or less what to expect on the 7″ and also the announcement of a tape compilation to be released next.

On Discogs the band appears on there compilations. The first one dates from 1993 on the Lo Label’s compilation tape “Summer 93 Hits”. It seems this tape came with a 32 page mini-booklet, perhaps with information about each band. Maybe there are the details I want to know. Maybe someone who has it can help? On this tape, the band appears with the song “Hier” and we see that they are in good company, mostly French bands like Les Poissons Solubles, Amanda By Night or Chelsea, but also we see the Acid House Kings.

Another compilation tape that had them participating was “A Tribute to the Jamc Vol.2”. Here they cover the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Between Planets”. This tape was released by Candy Chérie in 1995 (Candy Chérie 002).

Lastly they contribute the song “Dieu Seul Sait” to the tape compilation that was announced on the 7″. “Etreinte & Tempo” was released by Disco 2000 and JMS Records probably around 1995. I must say that I don’t know many of the bands that appear on this tape, only a few! They were mostly from the Toulouse region and would love to hear them someday, especially those ones with poppy names like Crystal Fields, Scoubidou or Edgar Trampoline. No clue who they are. This tape also came with a booklet, a 50-page one, this time.

I look on the web and see that on March 18th 1994 there was a gig by the Daisy Age and Lucie Vacarme at Le Bikini. And that’s about it. I can’t seem to find any band member name, though from photos it seems it was just two guys. The label does have a working website but there is no information about the band whatsoever though it seems you can order a copy of the 7″ from there.

Hopefully my French friends will let me know any details they remember about them. It’s been a while since I interviewed a French band on the blog, I believe only Les Freluquets and Fear Performance have answered my questions, so yeah, I definitely would love to know more about them and try to understand a bit better that exciting French scene of the early 90s, and that of Toulouse as well!

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Listen
Daisy Age – Hier

Well, this will be the last “new findings” for a couple of posts now as I want to concentrate and discover the Indietracks bands that were announced and that I don’t know. So, that on the next post. On this one, 5 new findings!

Stephen’s Shore: the most exciting news in a while is that of our friend’s debut album “September Love” on Meritorio Records from Spain. 10 jingle jangly songs, wonderful songs, that I can’t stop playing on their Bandcamp while I wait for my copy of the record to arrive home. Actually I should be having some extra copies if anyone in the US is interested in buying one, probably cheaper from me. I will add the record to the distribution section of the Cloudberry site when that happens. In the meantime I ask you, I demand you, to have a listen of this beauty. I know it is early to say, but this might be the record of the indiepop record of the year. What a lovely effort of chiming guitars. So happy and proud to have worked with them in the past!

The Catherines: I’ve recommended the Hamburg based band a couple of times if my memory serves me right. It has always been in the way of digital releases, songs on Bandcamp. Finally I see the band is putting something out in a physical format thanks to the Alicante, Spain, label Mondo Canapé. It is a tape with 8 songs and limited to just 50 copies. The solo-project by Heiko Schneider plays indiepop, straight up indiepop, jangly, tweeish sometimes. It is impossible not to like it. If you want just a teaser you can start with “Good Golly Goo“, which they have put together a promo video.

Battery Point: I’ve been a fan of the Chula Vista, California, band for a while now. Recommending every single song they put out on their Bandcamp. So far I don’t have any of their releases as they are mostly being released digitally. I need a CD, a 7″, something like that. I’m old school I suppose. This time around the band have unveiled their latest, a 3 song EP titled “A Memory For Today”. It has three songs, “Another Year”, “Time” and “You Should All Be Murdered”. The last one of course is a cover of Another Sunny Day’s classic song. Great stuff.

Nah…: the new project of Sebastian Voss from The Grindcore Poppies is this oddly named band. For this project he joins forces with Estella and with her, and the help of Kenji from The Fairways and many other bands, he has recorded 4 songs that are available on a CD titled “Summer’s Failing EP” which you can pre-order now. The songs on the CD are “Summer’s Failing”, “This Light Will Always Shine”, “Annie” and “Linus”. Right now we can only stream one of the songs, the first one, and I am loving it. It does take us back to the indiepop halcyon days, to Sarah Records and bedroom bands. Really lovely song, so I can’t wait to hear to the rest of them!

Tiny Fireflies: happy, very happy, to be listening their new gorgeous record on Bandcamp. But not as happy as I could be if I had the 7″ at home. Yup, I need to order it ASAP, so that’s what I’m doing now. The 7″ for “Nothing” and “2040” was released on March 13th and it is only limited to 250 copies. As you know Tiny Fireflies is formed by Kristine Capua and Lisle Mitnik from Chicago. This record had the help from more friends, I see Hampus recorded drums for Nothing and Cris mastered the songs. I’m always very happy to know that I have very talented friends!! Get it, because it is really something!

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The Honeymoons from Sweden. As of the last few months I managed to get their 4 albums in my collection and I must say I have really enjoyed them listening one after the other. It took me years to do this as I had their first release, the “She’s My Heroine” 7″ since at least 2008 or 2010 as it was on a trip to Berlin, to Uwe Firestation’s house that I bought this record.

It too me years to do this, but by no means I have their whole discography now. There are many other singles and EPs that I’m missing. Most of them were released by the legendary Swedish label North of No South. The only release that wasn’t was the 7″, which actually happens to be their only vinyl release. All their other output came out on CDs. It was the mid-nineties.

The 7″, “She’s My Heroine”, was released by the label Jakaranda Records (JAR 914) in 1991. This was a label from the city of Umeå. The record had two songs, “She’s My Heroine” on the A side and “Five Fifteen” on the B side. The artwork, created by Christofer Fredriksson, with the dolphins jumping, does remind one of Orange Juice. There’s not much more information on the sleeve. Here we see that Per Rosenberg is credited of writing the songs, and I would find that he was the vocalist and also played guitar in the band.

Two years will pass until we heard again from the band. Now signed to the exciting North of No South, the band would grace the 6th release on the CD catalog of the label (NONSCD06) with their self-titled “Honeymoons” mini-album. There were 6 songs included in this fine 1993 effort by the band: “She’s Gone Too Far”, “Colourblind”, “We Could Just”, “058”, “Pale Sun” and “Hey Hey”. We could hear the jangly guitars, the love for a good melody, not too far from the Cod Lovers who I interviewed recently. It was indeed the time of the first golden era for Swedish indiepop. Again the art is credited to Christofer Fredriksson and we see that the producer was Per Helin wh had been involved in Puffin and Ray Wonder, other good bands from the period. The engineer was Pelle Henricsson (who owned Tonteknik Recording studios in Umeå) with assistant engineer Eskil Lövström, also from Puffin. Something that does catches one attention is that several drummers are listed. David Nestander for tracks 1,2,5 and 6, Joakim Ahlstrand for track 3 and the aforementioned Pelle Henricsson on track 4.

Again a gap of two years. Finally the first full-album by the band. It was titled “Domestic” and was released on November of 1995 on North of No South (NONSCD23). Eleven songs that continue what they started in the mini-album: “My Honey You”, “Travel”, “A Day Like Today”, “Entertainer”, “Some Days”, “Know You Do”, “Another Dream For Sale”, “Over and Over”, “Me and the Ghosts”, “Flowergirl” and “All Those Feathers”. Art again by Christofer Fredriksson. Once again the songs were recorded at Tonteknik by Eskil Lövström and Pelle Henricsson with Per Helin as the producer (Per also played percussion on tracks 5, 9, 10, by the way). Other credits on the record include Eskil Lövström helping with trombone, Pelle Henricsson with tambourine and our friend from The Seashells, Erik Domellöf on guitar on tracks 2 and 3. We also know that Lars Oskarsson played backing vocals and bass guitar; Magnus Öberg, drums and guitar; Jörgen Gustavsson the organ.

Just before this album, that same year, was released North of No South had released the CD single “Travel” (NONSCD22). Just two songs were included here, “Travel” and “My Innocent Friend (Demo Version)”. Here we see exactly the same credits as for the album.

The band also released that year another CD, the mini-album “Louder” (NONSCD12). 6 songs and the same credits but the art, now they had Magnus Åström taking care of the graphic design, the look, of their record. The songs on this CD were “Difference”, “Monday Bin”, “How to Change the World”, “I Can Do”, “Here Comes the Fall” and “Fifteen Seconds”. Even with the change of artist, the coherent use of fonts, color and negative space continued. I wonder if, as they were always using the same people to record, and the look of the artwork was always in the same line, how disciplined where they to stick to what worked for them. It seems they had found a comfort zone and they loved it and knew how to work within.

1996 was going to be a bit busy, with two CDs being released. The first, “A Day Like Today”, was a CD single (NONSCD28) that included “A Day Like Today” and “A Day Like Today (remix)”. I suppose they continued promoting the “Domestic” album with it. And then I suppose the band wanted to get away of that comfort zone and released a 4 song CD EP of remixes by Histrionic titled, “The Histrionic Remixes”. As I’ve said many times, I’m not much of a fan of remixes in general but well, it was the 90s I suppose. The songs that got the remix treatment were “Travel”, “We Could Just”, “Flowergirl” and “Difference”.

1997 was to see the light their final album, “The Coherent Excitation”. For this record the band had a new drummer, Markus Backstrom and  had gotten percussion help from Mikael Emsing on tracks (1, 3, 5, 7, 6, 9, 10). The album actually had 11 songs, “Never Forget” (that had backing vocals by Ludvig Boss from Ray Wonder), “Flourescein”, “Evil”, “Fabrications”, “Dreamtime”, “Would You Believe”, “Let them Strive”, “Breathe On”, “Colder”, “Turn Aside” and “As We Are”.

As it was the rule, North of No South released a CD single to promote this album. The “Fabrications” CD single (NONSCD53) included the title song and also “My Innocent Friend”.

There are 7 compilation appearances listed on Discogs. Let’s go chronologically through them. The first one is actually on the first ever North of No South CD, on the “North of No South – Compilation CD” where the band appears with the songs “You Never Say” and “Tell Me Why”. Thanks to the credits of this record I notice that North of No South started as a sub-label of Jakaranda. Interesting. Also here the Honeymoons are listed with a different drummer, Jocke Ahlstrand. And to complete the band we see of course Jörgen Gustafsson, Lars Oscarsson and Peter Rosenberg. It does seem that during the years the drumming position was the problem. Now something interesting is that even though the band was Umeå based, they went further north, to Luleå, to record these two songs with Stefan Larsson at Gateway studios.

I’ve mentioned about the great Gothenburg based Pet Sound fanzine, that introduced so many great Swedish bands to the indiepop crowd. On the 5th and last tape they put together, “Pet Sounds Vol. 5”, and in a very limited pressing of around 100 copies, the Honeymoons appear with the song “Flowergirl (Demo)” alongside fantastic bands like The Cardigans, Eggstone or Easy.

“Flower Girl” ended up being a popular song and it was included on Rainbow Music sampler “Life’s A Joke” in 1993. This CD was compiled by Nicke Boström who is better know as the guy behind the superb record store Delicious Goldfish.

“Big Smile From Big Snowflakes City” was a CD compilation released in Japan in 1995 as a sort of a sampler, an introduction, of the bands to this new public. Here the Honeymoons appear with the great “She’s Gone Too Far”.

“My Honey You” and “We Could Just” were to appear on 1996’s “A Veritable Smorgasbord of Music” CD compilation that was put out by North of No South (NONSCD50), and that same year their songs “Travel” and “15 Seconds” appeared on “NONS Vol.2” that was released on the same label (NONSCD25).

Lastly, in 1998, probably when the band was already no more, they had the songs “Fabrications” and “Evil” on the “Aaaaaah… NONSCD75” CD compilation.

I look online and my first hit is that of a blog called “Tidskriften Pop Revisited” were there are several posts about the band. There is a mention here where it says that the band had put together a tape, of not the best quality it seems, that had no cover, no information, nothing. The writer complains about it. It seems it was a demo the writer received. But there is no year, so can’t say when did this happen. On another post the writer again complains about another demo, that instead of information the band sent a naive drawing of a sailboat. He does compare the band to the Razorcuts in this occasion.

Then Musikon, the guide for Swedish music. Here I was to find out that in 1987, Per Rosenberg and Lars Oskarsson had been involved with a punk band called The Join who had released a 7″ EP titled “Total Tystnad”. On the other hand, Jörgen Gustafsson had been involve back in 1985 on a band called Ego Boys who released an LP titled “Bevara Kättjan”. Magnus Öberg, the drummer for a time in the band, had been involved in many more bands, like Ramm, Shredhead, Kevlar and Starmarket.

But probably the best ever find I could hope was an old, very old, Honeymoons website that I found through the Scandinavian Indie mailing list. Here we find the last ever lineup for the band:
Markus Bäckström – Drums
Jörgen Gustafsson – Organ and Sounds
Lars Oskarsson – Bass
Peter Rosenberg – Vocals and Guitar
Petter Sandström – Guitar and Vocals

I notice of course that there’s a new member, Petter, since 1997. Other good info found is that the band formed in spring 1990 at a garden party. Their first ever gig was at a party held by psychology students. Then we know that there was a video for the song “Travel”. Don’t think this video is on Youtube sadly.

In 1997 we have some gigs listed: Festival Lycksele on May 24th, Provinssirock Seinäjoki Finland on June 15th, O-ringen in Umeå on July 23rd and 24th and Nolia in Umeå on August 9th.

Other news are that their records were to be licensed for the Philippines that year.

On the Scandinavian Indie mailing list there’s also a mentions saying: Honeymoons – release their long sought after second “real” album called “This Coherent Excitation” on April 21st. A single from the album called “Fabrications” is released on April 1st. The band spent last weekend in Stockholm in order to record a video and do a photo shoot with Urban Ström and Johan Markusson. So I wonder, where’s that video? I would like to see it! And lastly I do find a review of the “Fabrications” CD single on the list by Erik Söderström. Something I took from there is that the band played in Linköping at J’s Place sometime between 1993 and 1994.

And that’s where I stop. The band, even though having released a bunch of records, disappear into thin air. It doesn’t seem the band members continued making music afterwards aside from the drummer, Öberg. That’s strange. I wonder if they ever go to Japan, where their records found their way. What about the promo videos they made? How many were they and how come they are not on the web yet? If they have more unreleased material? There are many questions, and little answers this time. Do you remember them?

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Listen
Honeymoons – Pale Sun

Wednesday! It’s just been about a week since I received The County Fathers CDs and I’m trying to think what would be the best retrospective to release next. Any suggestions, any ideas are welcome. In the meantime, I have been preparing several posts and I’ve noticed how far behind I am on recommendations. Especially as I have to cover Indietracks too. Maybe I’ll have to resort to three posts a week to be able to have everything fully reviewed. So let’s go straight to the point:

I Saw You Yesterday: found this cool video by this Japanese guitarpop band. It seems that the crop of Japanese bands into shoegaze, dreampop, is neverending at this point. I wonder why. In any case this is pretty good. The band fromed by Hidemasa Shimoda, Kai Murakami, Kasushige Suzuki and Reiji Shibata will be participating in the new Ano(t)racks compilation that is being put together by that label.

Pale Blue Morning: I learned about this band and their first ever song “Eleanor” through the indiepop-list. Sadly no one has given feedback to the poster. The indiepop-list is quite dead to be honest. I was always a lurker but those who were very active have been quiet for years. Anyhow, this is a very nice lo-fi bedroom pop song! I don’t know much about the band aside that they are from Quezon City in the Philippines, but I will keep an eye if they post anything new in the future!

Nos Miran: I recommended a video by this band some weeks ago. Now their label, Elefant, has uploaded all the songs that will be on their 10″ mini-LP to Bandcamp and I’m really enjoying them! There are 6 songs in total, “Amor Y”, “Humo”, “Dinero Para Nada (Feat. Capitán Sunrise)”, “La Montaña del Amor”, “No Te Veo Enamorado (¿Por Qué Será?)” and “No Puedo Ser Hipster”. The band is actually a duo and it is formed by Sergio Rodríguez and Marta Quintana after they met at a La Bien Querida concert.

Putochinomaricón: when Chenta Tsai Tseng’s song started to appear on Youtube we all loved them. The freshness, the quirkiness and the smart lyrics were easy to like. Maybe we all thought it was a bit of a joke, but we never imagined that Elefant, or anyone in the indiepop world, would pay attention and offer a release to him. Not because it wasn’t good. They are great pop songs. But one imagined Putochinomaricón to sign with a bigger label if he ever signed with a label! In any case Elefant will be releasing a 10″ mini-LP titled “Corazón de Cerdo Con Ginseng al Vapor” on April 20th, and I suppose this will sell out pretty quick. Right now you can stream one of the songs, “Gente de Mierda”, on Bandcamp.

Vamping: the Thessaloniki, Greece, label always delivers the goods. This time they introduce us the band Vamping who are releasing an album with 13 songs titled “Desert Plants”. At the moment there are two songs available to stream on Bandcamp as teasers, “Starling” and “Desert Plants”. The latter is especially really nice, jangly as we all like our songs. Vamping is the solo project of a certain Broderick Adams who records them near the Franklin Mountains in Texas. The album will be released in very limited quantities, 50 tapes and there are two different variations for them!

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I remember when I saw their only release for the first time. It was at Pete Hahndorf’s place, he had a few copies and well, he gave me a copy! My friend Nana also got a copy because he was a fan. And that wasn’t all on my visit to Bremen. Peter gave me a copy of the compilation “Ein Spätsommercocktail” where die Moosblüten appears with the song “Klee Ist Fern”. That was my first encounter with their music and well, here you have me writing about them many years after. 10 years I think!

Kalle Luft, Paule Pop and Ulli “Joe” Frisch were die Moosblüten or, in English, the moss blossoms. As I said they released just one proper release, the first one on Peter Hahndorf’s label, Steinpilz Tonträger (Pilz 1). “Aprilfrische” was the name of this for 4 song EP. All of them recorded at Paul’s living room during the time the band members were taking their secondary school final examinations on April 1991. The record came out that same year.

On the A side of this 7″ that had a colorful mushroom on its cover we find two songs, “Wandertag” and “Strandparty”. On the B side there’s “Huberts Grüne Küche” and “Lückenfüller”. The record comes with an insert of what looks the dictionary definition of Moosblüten and other words that start with “moos”.

That same year, 1991, the band appeared on the pre-Firestation Records label Smuf’s cassette compilation called “It’s All About Love” (SMUF 003). On this compilation die Moosblüten contributed the song “Herbstromantik”. This is a very cool compilation by the way with top tracks from bands like The Aurbisons, the Panda Pops or The Sugargliders.

The next year they were going to appear on another tape compilation, “Wegweiser Durch’s Eiswürfelland”, that was released by Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1). It was the golden days of tape compilations in Germany it seems. This label as far as I remember was ran by the people behind Die Busfahrer who I interviewed years ago. Anyhow, on this very fine compilation that had classic German bands like Die Blinzelbeeren or Friends Ahoi, die Moosblüten appears with the song “Lustige Schlittenfahrt”.

The band that hailed from Bremen didn’t stop there. In 1993 they were to work again with Steinpilz Tonträger on a compilation called “Frischer Morgentau” (Stein 1). I remember Pete Hahndorf having copies of it, but me, dumb as I am, didn’t get one while my friend Nana did. I was never into tapes. That is a true thing. But now I regret not having this great document of the time! Their song “Klee Ist Nah” appears on this tape and again they are in very good company, you can see amazing bands like Acid House Kings, Red Sleeping Beauty or Die Fünf Freunde.

1994 will see the last two compilation appearances for the band. First on Eiswürfel Tonträger’s CD compilation “Die Schönste Platte Der Welt” (EIS 7). Again among fantastic bands die Moosblüten appears on the 8th track with “Allein Zu Haus, So Ist Das Leben”. And lastly on a 7″ compilation, which I got from Peter too in Bremen, called “Ein Spätsommercocktail”. The band appears on the B side, as the last track with “Klee Ist Fern”. This 7″ included a copied cocktail recipe and a band sticker, “Mossblüten – Umwelt schützen – Rad benützen”. On the record we also find great bands like Friends Ahoi, Space Kelly and Die Wurzelsepps.

I look for more information on the web. I find an old Myspace page where you can’t stream the songs. I do have a slight hunch, and that is that Ulli from the band is Ulli Hahndorf, Peter’s brother and also the one behind the label Steinpilz Tonträger. That would make sense. But I need confirmation. And I do find it on an interview I did with Peter many years ago on the blog. He says: I am five years older than my brother and I guess you can say I had a strong influence on his musical taste. He was in “Die Moosblüten” and released a few singles and a tape on his label “Steinpilz Tonträger”. 

But what happened then to the band? Why no more releases? When did they split? Do they have more unreleased tracks? Did they continue making music with other bands afterwards? Or what about before die Moosblüten? Did they play many gigs? All around Germany? There is not much information on the web sadly, they seem to be forgotten! Do any of you German popkids remember them?

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Listen
Moosblüten – Allein zuhaus, so ist das Leben

Sadly The Sorayas news wasn’t the only bad news in recent weeks. We all know that Patrick Doyle from Veronica Falls passed away. I wasn’t too familiar with his other projects I must say, as they were not that close to the indiepop spectrum, but I really loved his work on Veronica Falls and Sexy Kids. I didn’t interact much with him, but I have a good memory of him when he signed me a Veronica Falls poster I took from a wall from the Williamsburg Music Hall back in 2012 I think. It is indeed an odd time for guitar pop fans.

Last week was my birthday and that same day I released The County Fathers album. I was extremely happy to have now 10 releases on the Cake Kitchen. Now is time to start working on the 11th one! Need to find a good band that would fit nicely for a project like this, one that has the songs, the photos and the memorabilia ready to put this together!!

Now, I know you’ve been expecting some contemporary, some new, indiepop recommendations. Let’s see what I can find for you:

Plastic Girl in Closet: I found out about this Japanese band on the Twee Lovers Club facebook page. There are always some good recommendations in there. The song that was shared was their latest, “Junior”, that is a very nice dreamy and noisy song. I don’t know much about this band, it doesn’t seem to be much information about them in English but on their site I found that they have already released a few cassette EPs, a DVD and two CDs, one album even. I want to get them! How to? That’s the question!

Boys: this Swedish band, a favourite of mine, fronted by Nora Karlsson, is now releasing their debut album. I’ve recommended previous smaller releases by this very fine band and now I’m happy to see that finally a full length album will be out. The album, as her previous efforts, is being released by the Swedish label Pnkslm and will include 8 songs. One of the songs, “End of Time”, is now available to stream from the label’s Soundcloud and it is ace!

Red Sleeping Beauty: our friends from Stockholm have put out a new song on Soundcloud and as usual it is a winner. “Top Love” should be included in the band’s fourth album which they are working on at the moment. It seems too that in preparation for this album the legendary Swedish band formed by Niklas Angergård, Kristina Borg and Mikael Matsson, have many surprises in store. I’ll try to keep on top of any news I hear!

Bounce the Mouse: interviewed them not so long ago on the blog as they were reuniting for a very special week. Now the band has just shared with me some videos of that gig I wish I had attended! Please check out part 1, part 2, and part 3!

Desperate Journalist: one of my favourite bands, and you might already know that from the several recommendations on the blog, have a new video out for the song “It Gets Better”. It is great of course and we will have to wait until March 30th for Fierce Panda to release the EP “You Get Used to It” where the song will be included!

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The Midwich Cuckoos is a science fiction novel written by English author John Wyndham, published in 1957. It has been filmed twice as Village of the Damned, with releases during 1960 and 1995.

Another record I don’t own, another band I know little about. How many great guitar pop bands have existed? Thousands for sure. I don’t even have the count of how many have been featured on the blog having a post on its own. I can’t even imagine then how many more have had a mention on the blog. Way more.

At one point Twee.net served me as a good and comprehensive list of “all” guitar pop band. These days I know it doesn’t even cover half of them. This is by no means a criticism, I think Twee.net served me brilliantly in discovering many bands. The truth is, who in their sane mind could compile all the bands? I don’t know, but I do hope it happens in a way or another (though my favourite way would be on an illustrated book, with photos and small bios if possible!).

I think I found The Midwich Cuckoos through Youtube. One of their songs, “Show Me”, has been uploaded and I thought it sounded great. I must admit too that their name really caught my attention and made me very curious. Now, after many months of discovering them and not being able to secure a copy of their one and only release because of steep postage prices from the UK (even though they are way cheaper than the American prices), I decide to investigate.

The song uploaded in 2011 to Youtube has a bunch of comments. One of them mentions that the band hailed from the area of Stockport, in the UK. As you know, Stockport is a town that is part of the Greater Manchester. So they must have been friends with so many great bands, opened or headlined fantastic gigs, visited legendary venues and so on. Well, I suppose.

Another comment mentions that the band played at the Witchwood in Ashton, also another town of the Greater Manchester. Yet other gig mentioned is that one of the band playing at The Green Room along Anne Marie Finnegan. Where was The Green Room? I wonder. Then I learn that the original singer of the band, Craig Wright, lives in Auckland, NZ. And last but not least, there’s a comment by a Steve Toon, The Midwich Cuckoos manager, saying that the band is alive and well, that they have morphed into a new band called Hit the North.

It seems Hit the North comprise the original members of The Midwich Cuckoos, John Mangan on guitar, Mark Woolfenden on bass, Dave Curley on guitar and keyboards, plus the new members Sean Canning on vocals and Martin O’Brien on drums.  This band supported Toploader at The Headlander Festival in Stockport in 2014 and at the time of the comment they were going to the studio to record an album and a single. Previously the had released a single “Rollercoaster” that was the them music for the comedian John Bishop’s last arena tour.

But let’s explore what we can find about them on the web. The Midwich Cuckoos 12″ maxi-single came out in 1990 on Big Noise Records (BIG1). It seems there are many labels listed with the same name, so I’m going to assume this was a self-release. The record had three songs, on the A side there was “Show Me”, while on the B side we find two, “Baby You’re A Rich Man” and “Drag (Demo Version)”. There is no scan of the back cover of the record so not sure if there’s any extra information. On the front we see the name of the band in that quirky handwriting and a caricature of a chicken on the lower right corner. A cuckoo.

My first doubt happens when Discogs lists them on a 1983 tape compilation called “The Great British Beat Vol. 1” alongside the Page Boys or The Mixers. But I’m sure that must be another band with the same name. The year difference between this compilation and their sole release, doesn’t make sense.

There used to be a Myspace page for the band and as you can expect none of the songs can be streamed now. But at least we get to know a few more song names: “Princes Road”, “New State”, “Police On My Back” and “Did I Believe”. When were these recorded? And were they part of any release or perhaps a demo tape?

But I was going to struck gold when I found a Facebook page for the band! And it seems there used to be a website but that is no more. It looks like as if the band was still going under the name as there is a new lineup listed and also a list of former Midwich Cuckoos members:
Brent Woodall – Vocals
John Mangan – Guitars
Mark Woolfenden – Bass
Chris Toole – Keyboards, Programming
Steven Spencer – Drums, Percussion
Steve Toon – Percussion, Production

Former Midwich Cuckoos Members
Craig Wright – Vocal
Sean Canning – Vocal
Garry Crane – Guitars
Dave Curley – Guitars, Keyboards
Gary Wyatt – Guitars
Vulture – Guitars
Stuart Burnett – Drums
Mick Brophy – Harmonica,Production
Lucy Wyatt – Backing Vocals
Mike Comer – Percussion
Adam Margetson – Keyboards

Most importantly there’s a bio of the band which is exactly what I was looking for. First of all the band was formed in 1990, now clearing all doubts about that compilation appearance. Originally the band was formed by Craig, Mark, John and Steve Toon, and later Steve Spencer, Garry and Dave joined. The band lasted three more years and during that time the band got some great reviews thanks to their gigs and their single “Show Me”, which here says it was released in 1991.

Here comes the interesting part. There was a second single, “Better and Better”, that never got released due to distribution problems. Though that didn’t impede the band to make a promo video with director Pau Kucharski who had just made videos for The Stone Roses, The Mock Turtles and The Charlatans. I’ve looked for this video but I haven’t been able to find it.

It also mentions that the band was wooed by a number of major record companies in the early nineties but were caught up in the Madchester backlash and the interest dried overnight. Their last gig was on Friday 10th of December 1993 at The Cathedral Arches in Manchester.

Looking at the Facebook page it seems it was set up in 2016 as they played a reunion gig for Steve Toon’s 60th birthday at The Ruby Lounge alongside The Cheaters on November 26th of that year. I keep looking for any interesting content and I find a few flyers from back in the day. On one I see that The Midwich Cuckoos played at the Manchester International 1 with support by Mutley and the great Machine Gun Feedback on July 6th of 1991. On another flyer, The Midwich Cuckoos were the support band for the Milltown Brothers at The Hacienda on February 11th 1991.

That’s more or less the story of the band. Of course there are blanks that need to be filled. Like the video for “Better and Better”. Where is it? I want to see it. And what about the other songs I found on Myspace? Would love to listen to them. The only good news right now is that I found a copy of the record for ten dollars including shipping on eBay. That makes me happy.

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Listen
The Midwich Cuckoos – Show Me

I’m terribly sad to write this post. I wish I had in a different circumstance to be honest. I always have the idea that with contemporary bands or not too old ones, it is better to do an interview rather than my sort of indiepop archaeology. If I have the chance to hear the story straight from the band, it is always better than finding small details on the web.

For the crop of fantastic Swedish bands that appeared in the early noughties and all the way to 2007 or so, I would have wanted to feature them on a series of compilations I titled “The Sound of Starke Adolf”. I only ended up releasing the first volume. That was one of my biggest disappointments. I couldn’t get the Swedish bands that I wanted to feature to hand me their songs, bios, or photos, for the 2nd volume. I asked time and time again but got I didn’t get the collaboration I wanted. After that had happened I thought that in a few years I would try to interview them at least. Tell the story of a period that was very important to me, a time where I discovered an exciting scene and where bands were popping up in Sweden out of nowhere.

It was the time of CDRs, Soulseek, clubs like Starke Adolf in Gothenburg, fanzines like Twisterella and cool festivals like Mitt Sista Liv. It was a second golden era for Swedish pop after the 90s. Though this time around it was much more underground, where smaller labels were the norm.  An era I hope gets documented in a way or another in the near future.

One of the bands from that period I hold dear was the energetic all-girl trio The Sorayas. A band that released a few records in the noughties and who I shortly was in touch in 2006. A band I really liked, playing their CDEP time and time again years ago. Today, after hearing about the sad loss of Annika Forsberg, their vocalist, their leader, I’m listening on repeat their whole discography and thought to write a small little tribute hoping for many that weren’t familiar with their output, to discover a great band.

The Sorayas were indeed Annika Forsberg on guitar and vocals, Hanna Maurin on bass and Soraya Mirgalou on drums. And from a small bio on Last.fm I could say that it all started in April of 2000 when Annika Forsberg was searching for band members by putting up notes in local record stores: that’s how she met Soraya and Hanna. They quickly connected by a common bond in music and lifestyle, and after spending the evenings listening to songs they decided to name the band after the Persian princess Soraya and – of course – their own drummer.

The first time we all heard of them was in 2001. Until recently I thought their first songs were the ones on the “Drag Me Under” 7″, but my friend David shared with me a 4 song demo from that same year that I assumed were first. But actually I found on Popfakta that there was a 2000 demo CD that was self-titled and included three songs, “Bothered”, “All Night” and “Yezzebelle”.

The year after, they released the demo David shared with me. It was titled “All Night”, had 4 songs, “Drag Me Under”, “All Night”, “Bothered” and “Yezzebelle”. I’m not sure how these four songs were released, if it was a CDR or a tape. The band at this point sound a bit harder than in their later stuff when they were much punk-poppier I suppose. In any case, it seems this demo caught the ear of the Dolores Recordings label from Gothenburg and offered the girls a 7″. Take in consideration that this was a very important label in Sweden. It had released during its years big bands like The Sooundtrack of Our Lives or Håkan Hellström.

The “Drag Me Under” 7″ (DOL096) had on the B side another song from the demo, “Bothered” and the record came in the classic Dolores Recordings sleeve. The vinyl was pressed in pink. The record itself doesn’t have much information.

In 2003 they put out another demo which on Discogs is just listed as “Demo 2003”. This was released as a CDR and was recorded at Music A Matic Studios in Gothenburg, their hometown, in 2003. The CDR contained 6 tracks but only 4 were listed, “Perfekt Endings”, “Easy Tune”, “Tomorrow” and “You Decide”. Henryk Lipp, the founder of the aforementioned studios, produced all the songs.

2oo4 was another year for another demo CD. This one I found about too on Popfakta. There were three songs on the “How It Begins” demo. They were “How It Begins”, “Don’t Want To Be Like You” and “Tomorrow”.

Then in 2005 they will release two records and it is must have been the year I discovered them. I believe the cassette album released by the Italian label Best Kept Secret came first. Self-titled, the tape had 9 songs: “How It Begins”, “Don’t Want To Be Like You”, “Tomorrow”, “Perfect Endings”, “You Decide”, “Easy Tune”, “Drag Me Under”, “All Night” and “Bothered”. It was kind of a collection of all their previously released songs plus a few new ones, including the classic “Easy Tune” that was going to have a promo video. It is strange now that I think of it. Today tape labels seem to be thriving. But back then, 10 years or so ago, I don’t think that was the case. People preferred CDR over tapes.

Later that year, in October, a new label that was making some noise in Sweden called But is it Art? was to offer them a CDEP release. I was much of a fan of this label when it appeared. They had released albums by Fosca and also by the fab Friday Bridge. Their output in the few years they were around is very very good. And thus is no coincidence that The Sorayas best work, their 4 song CDEP was released by them.

“Hours to Days” was released with four songs on it, “Hours to Days”, “Easy Tune”, “Tomorrow” and “How It Begins”. All great songs. I remember that at that time Youtube was kind of a new thing. Videos were mostly shared through websites, sometimes they were embedded or some other times you would just download the 50, or 60megs, and play it on your computer. I had downloaded the video for “Easy Tune” of course and played it so many times. But I did end up uploading it to Youtube and it is one of the few cases when a video I uploaded hasn’t been duplicated later by another upload by a band, a label, or another fan. Everytime I watched it I thought how cool they all looked, with their colorful clothes, Hanna’s green jacket,  Annika’s red jacket and white chucks and Soraya’s turquoise pants, on what looks like a derelict warehouse. The powerful guitars, and catchy chorus, resonate till these days, having had already almost 8000 views on Youtube.

Aside from those releases The Sorayas appeared on a few compilations:

• 2001 – Their song “Drag Me Under” appears on the “Populärmusik Från Göteborg” CD that was released by Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan.
• 2002 – This is quite the myster, a song called “-” appears on the CD comp “Demoscenen Hultsfred 2002”. I’ve never listened to this song.
• 2003 – Again they appear on a compilation by Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan called “Rokkulär – Fet Musik Från SV GBG 2003”. It was a double CD compilation and the song they contributed was “Boring Me Out”.
• 2004 – They will have their song “Easy Tune” on one of the beloved CDR labels of the era, Popkonst Recordings. It was going to happen on the label’s second release, “This is Popkonst and We Love You”. That same year a bigger label was going to notice them, Labrador included two of their songs, “Perfect Ending” and “Easy Tune”, on “The Sound of Young Sweden Volume 4”.
• 2005 – Discogs lists this compilation as their last contribution, and it was the one on “Bang Crash Boom!!! – A Popclub Compendium” that was released by the German label Little Teddy Recordings. On this CD compilation the band appears with “Hours to Days”.

But I do know of another compilation they were part of. I’ll come back to that later as it involves me. But now, I’m going through old information about them on the web, and I stumbled upon the press release for their CDEP. Here I read that the band played important festivals, like Hultsfred’s Demoscen or Ladyfest in Stockholm and Gothenburg. In their hometown they were locals at Pustervik and Liseberg and in Stockholm they played the classic Debaser.

I look on Google for more information about them. I don’t want to miss anything really. I do know that Annika had, a few years ago, put some songs up on Bandcamp as a solo artist. It was a 4 song EP titled “Slutet På Romanen” and had four songs produced by Stefan Larsson, “Slungas Ut I Rymden”, “Slutet På Romanen”, “En Dröm” and “Vita Nätter”. It is not The Sorayas, the sound has changed, but it is lovely anyways. The teenage angst is no more, but the energy is still in there, in a different way, in a more introspective manner. Before that, since the day she got her first electric guitar at age 16 and learned all the Hole songs, she had been in of course The Sorayas after she found an ad seeking for musicians at the music store Bengan’s, in This is Love and Vega.

I get very excited when I find a photo I’ve never seen of the band on an article dating from 2005 on the Gothenburg newspaper. Here they talk about why they haven’t put out an album. They say they couldn’t work under pressure. At the time of the article learn that Annika was working in Borås on a democracy project. Another newspaper mention dates from the same year but this time on the bigger newspaper, on Aftonbladet. Here the band mentions their rehearsal space which happened to be on a room upstairs a car garage in Fjällbo, 10 minutes away on bus from Gothenburg. At that moment of the article, the band was sure they were going to be offered a contract. It is not a surprise then that later that same year they were releasing something with But is it Art? and having a release party in November alongside the band Tokyo Eye at Uppåt Framåt.

There is a Q&A with Annika on the daily Metro newspaper for April 12, 2006. I’m using Google translate, so perhaps it is not the best translation though I can tell the topic for the questions is Easter.
1. It has got its own television program. It reaches success in the Melodifestivalen. Is the hair dryer back to stay?
The hair dryer has become increasingly popular, but the question is if it has not always been? When you thought it was gone, it was just lying out of the bush.
2. Easter is here. Hardcooked or toddy – How do you put your eggs in the feast?
Eggs do not feel so fresh, I’m jumping over them.
3. Mads Mikkelsen will be new Bond enemy on the white tablecloth. Which of your opponents to date do you like best? and why?
Jaws, he with the toothbrush. He likes me, we can become friends.
4. Where do you prefer to easter at Easter?
I’ll take care to relax now when I’m free, maybe go to some soft place with soft sofas and drink wine.

Another find is a PDF copy of the seventh issue of the Groove magazine. If you understand Swedish it is an interesting read from the time of their Dolores 7″ in 2001 on page 6.

Afterwards an entry on Lito Music. Gosh, do you remember that blog? I used to be in touch with the author, but can’t remember his name or anything now. I knew he was from Spain, but that’s about it. On his post he mentions a song that wasn’t  part of any releases like “Another Day Honey”.

Then something unrelated to Annika, but still related to the band. I found that in 2006 an International Cultural Exchange grant was awarded to Hanna. It says that the grant includes a tour of Great Britain for the band. Did this ever happen?

Another Annika mention is that of a March 2007 article on GP. Here it mentions Annika and Hanna were part of the Gothenburg Academy for the Popkollo, a summer camp for young music girls. Malin Dahlgren from Douglas Heart and Cecilia Nordlund were also part of it.

I find a Myspace for Annika’s band This is Love. Sadly I can’t stream any of the songs. How did they sound like? I’m curious. Anyone can point me out where there’s anything to listen to? And for Vega I could find just a small clip of the song “Sex Mayhem” and “Månen” on CDBaby. As I said previously, Vega was her last band and it was formed by her, Jonas Begtsson, Marcus Bergman, Malin Dahlberg, Torbjörn Johansson and Ramo Spatalovic.

That is about all the information I could find scattered on the web. But as I mentioned earlier there was another compilation where The Sorayas were part of.

Back in 2006, at the tail end of the year when I was still running the blog Mira el Péndulo, I had the “brilliant” idea to make a C-06 tape celebrating 20 years since the release of the NME’s C86. I remember the blog Indie-MP3 had done some sort of C06 compilation on their blog, but it was quite irregular for me, not the best of selections of the current bands. Also it was only a download compilation. I wanted to make a physical record, thus a tape, to have the same format as the original. Then 22 songs, 11 on each side. Same as the original. It was a tribute indeed but I wasn’t going to have the noisy and rockish stuff from the original. I was going to have only the indiepop sounding bands. And you guessed it. I asked The Sorayas for a track.

This tape run was very small. I made I believe 100 copies. 75 to sell, and 25 that went to the bands. I only have one single copy now. And I’ve thought about making these songs available on this blog for some time. If I find the original artwork it could be a good idea. I assume the reason that there is barely any information about this tape on the web, aside some few Spanish blog post, is that of the little amount of copies I made. Though I must say I’ve seen smaller releases on Discogs. But sure, there was no label behind the tape or anything. Today I wonder who still owns a copy of it?

This was the one time I was in touch with The Sorayas. I wrote to them on Myspace I believe. Or maybe it was through email. The band used to have a website I remember. I asked if I could include in my tape the song “Hours to Days” and explained them what the tape was about and all. It was all very straight forward I remember. Annika who answered my email was keen on it and gave me the green light. “Hours to Days” was included on the B side of the tape, the sixth song, in between Strawberry Whiplash and Foxglove. And I’m not going to lie now, it was one of my favourite songs on the tape.

I do know I mailed a copy of the tape to the band. I wonder if they still have a copy. Or maybe they made copies of it for all three. I wonder. It was a small enterprise, if not I would have mailed many copies. I hope they were happy about it and that they liked the selection. I never talked with Annika again. I wasn’t in touch with the band again. I thought the band was no more by the end of 2006, so I didn’t ask for a 3″CD on Cloudberry when I started the label. They would have fit nicely. Then I lost track of them.

Sadly I get to be aware of The Sorayas again with this terrible news. It wasn’t that long ago that I played one more time their CDEP at home, I think just before my trip to Spain. I don’t know what pushed me to play it. I don’t play many of my old records. I’m always playing new purchases. But I got back to this one. The energy of those 4 songs always bring a smile to my face. That must be the reason.

I don’t know when exactly the band stopped, and when did they start new music projects. I feel from the many articles on Swedish newspapers that the band wasn’t that obscure, that they earned a well deserved recognition.

I’m sad about this news. As I see some bands reunite these days, I think why not, I would have loved to see The Sorayas play live once. I never did in the past. Or what about them releasing a retrospective album with all their recordings. The truth is, I will forever be grateful for the songs they wrote, for the chance I had to DJ once “Hours to Days” in Hamburg many years ago, for the many years of me playing these brilliant songs. Thanks to The Sorayas. And many many thanks to Annika.

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Listen
The Sorayas – Hours to Days

With this post I’ll end my review of Madrid Popfest. Pending is the Indietracks lineup announcement review and also a tribute to a band I hold dear whose vocalist suddenly passed away a few weeks ago. It is busy times here and I’m trying to organize myself. On top of that our new release, The County Fathers, has now arrived at home, tomorrow is the release date, and all pre-orders have started shipping. Have you ordered your copy yet?

Madrid Popfest. What am I missing? Well, of course, the bands. But also the friends. I must say I met many, if not most, of my good Spanish pop friends. There was of course Carlos and Maria who hosted me for a few days. Alex who drove me and Carlos all the way to the castle of Manzanares el Real and also took us both to see a game at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium where we saw Antoine Griezmann score 4 goals against Leganés. Then at the festival of course I met with the legendary Miguel Stamp who kept offering Cloudberry releases to every single band at the festival. Miguel Stamp’s lovely wife, whose name I must say I have forgotten, she was really nice though! Manolo who was totally thrilled after the BMX Bandits gig. Maria del Mar and Oscar from Zipper who I was happy, very happy, to see after many years. Jorge, Javi and Rafa who were part of the organization. Sergio as always dancing and as always terribly happy. Ana, who last time I saw in New York, and who had the same tote bag as mine. I saw Toni and Chity. And of course the fantastic duo of the two Davids who have the best taste in music in my opinion. Irene all the way from Stockholm now and her husband Jonathan. Rafa Skam and his classic photographs with everyone. Also met Agustín from Contempopranea festival and that was cool. Miguel Pacific too of course! Marco and Dani from Aplasta tus Gafas de Pasta, whose band’s new albums I certainly bought. Then I met new friends too, like Gregorio from Annika who saved me a Semester 7″, Antonio from Kocliko who traded a bunch of records with me, same as Álvaro from Meritorio Records who is now releasing the Stephen’s Shore album. Andrés from Alicante and Santi from somewhere close to Gibraltar too. And there was the international gang, from dear Thomas and Amelie who were exploring gourmet restaurants in Madrid, to Joanny and his cat cafes visits. Stefano from Italy, Heinz from Hamburg. Fabio and Alessandro who came alongside Ragnhild to play with Soda Fountain Rag.  Josh and Fred from The Bv’s and of course Ronny all the way from Augsburg! And the Peruvian committee with Jose, Rafa and Jalito at the helm. I wonder who am I missing? I did meet three of the Melenas band who had saved a copy of their album for me, and kept calling me Rocker or Rocket, but don’t know their names. But they were very kind and was great to meet! Oh dear, it was a whirlwind, but I’m happy to have seen all of you and even if we didn’t chat for long, hope to see you again!

Okay now onto the bands, right? I’ll start in order.

Giorgio Basmatti & Aeromozas. Well, it wasn’t my thing. Didn’t pay much attention to the band I must admit. I arrived just in time when they were starting and my first mission was to get rid of all the records I brought that many Spanish friends have ordered to save shipping costs. So I did that, looking for every single person I owed records. Of course one of them was Miguel Stamp so just caught up talking and talking!

For the Bv’s I stopped talking to everyone and tried to get as much close to the stage as I could. But it was impossible. There were way too many people. So I stayed halfway through. Also I was carrying a backpack as I had been to Aranjuez that day, so it wasn’t comfy. I feel there were more people on Friday. Or am I crazy? Anyhow their gig was among the best, if not the best. Lovely jangle, chiming guitars, great melodies. Everything one looks for a Popfest band was happening on stage. It definitely was the highlight for the day.

Cosmen Adelaida I skipped. I went to have a sandwich around the corner. I met with many Popfest goers at the small restaurant. I think most people skipped this band for food. Then there was St. Christopher who put a good gig. It was a bit rough but at the same time exciting. Glenn’s voice is unique and their songs are classics. People did complain that the band didn’t play classic songs like “All of a Tremble”, and even though I would have loved them to play that song for example, was very happy to hear “Say Yes to Everything”, one of their hymns.

Lastly there was The Tuts who are a fun band but I’m not very familiar with. They put a fun show and ended their set with a cover of The Spice Girls’ “Wannabe”. Some people approved, others were not happy with that. Then the vocalist crowd surfed for a bit. It was fun, nothing more. But at this point something got me thinking, how come The Tuts or Melenas were headlining over classic bands like St Christopher or BMX Bandits? I thought it was odd, though in a way it was cool to see all-girl bands headlining the festival.

The next day was the turn for Terry vs Tori. I admit I had some trouble with the way the vocalist dressed, like a Bushwick hipster. Oh no. I did buy both CDs that had available at  the merch stall as I really enjoyed what I heard on Bandcamp. Sadly live the sound wasn’t that exciting. A bit monotonous. Same was the case with the next band, Fever Dream, who I had seen at Indietracks couple of years ago and really liked them then. This time I wasn’t impressed. I do know they have great songs but somehow it didn’t translate well on stage for me.

Eggstone on the other hand, even though the vocalist seems to have been ill, played a very fine set. When you have timeless songs I guess you can pull it off even when you are sick. No one will complain if you just leave the stage for minutes and then come back and play as if nothing had happened. That means a lot to a band I’m sure. And for the fans, listening to many of their classic songs for the first time live, well, it was very important. I said that one of the main reasons for me to go to Madrid Popfest was Eggstone, that’s what sold me. And I’m very happy to have seen them. They were spot on.

BMX Bandits played next and for many this was the best gig of the festival. It may as well been. For me it is always hard to make up my mind and say who was best and who second best. Or third. But definitely after seeing the BMX Bandits again and again, this must have been one of the best performances I’ve seen of them. They played all the classics, or most of them. They put on a great show. Got the excitement of the crowd to a new high and well, it was what POP is about. Then the band tried to go dancing but before they got to the dancefloor everyone wanted a photo! So I don’t think they ended up dancing!! Oh, the Spanish fans!

Lastly the biggest surprise for many of the festival attendees: Melenas. For me it wasn’t. I was already loving their album on Bandcamp for months now. I thought it was amazing and couldn’t wait to see them live. And they didn’t disappoint. They put a fun show, and I can see them becoming bigger in the short term. I already noticed they are playing SXSW and later Indietracks. How cool! The four girls from Pamplona were fantastic and the crowd let them know by dancing and singing along their songs. At the end I managed to salvage the drummer’s setlist while the rest of the crowd looked me meanly! I think everyone wanted it. The few copies of their record that they brought sold out fast. I remember there were posters but I forgot about them after the gig, so I missed them. Bad luck. Anyhow, I got a setlist and a copy of their LP which I believe is going to be repressed. A brilliant gig and I want to know how come so many great bands hail from Pamplona? It is a mystery to me!

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Before going on vacations I was makings lists of Australian 80s guitar pop bands. I wanted to know how many CD compilations could one do if all of the bands would say YES to being part of them. Hypothetically of course. I don’t have any future plans to put together these compilations, though at some point it would be nice to do them. So I started to write down names of bands. Some I knew, some I had contact with before, and some unknown to me. Unknown in the way that I knew a song or two but never really looking into their story. One of them was the Vicious Kites.

Though strictly speaking the band may not be indiepop, more of a post-punk band, there are some fantastic guitar pop songs in their repertoire starting with the A side of their first single “Speaking Minds”.

I have to admit I don’t own their records yet. I will try in the next few months or years. As you know I’m a bit slow collecting records these days. I need a fair price. And that will be the case with their “Speaking Minds” 7″, I think I want to start my Vicious Kites collection with this record as I really enjoy both songs on it, “Speaking Minds” and “Here With You”.

The record’s sleeve is really cool looking. A brown and yellow jacket with black and white clip outs  of a kid and an angry face, all cut and paste, very DIY!, on the front. While on the back a band photo by Dean Ervik and some info. The design is also credited to him while the layout is credited to Matt Mawson. The labels where designed by Howard Stringer. It was released on Offbeat Records (OB-R001) in 1985. It seems it was a self-release as no other records are listed on this label. In any case, we do know a few details about this record, for example that it was recorded at Downunder Studios in Brisbane and had Anthony Lloyd as engineer and Graham Battis as producer. At this same studio, the Up and Downs recorded their classic “The Perfect Crime” 7″.

We also get to know the band members from the sleeve:
Luke Jacobs on bass and vocals
Nick Patterson on drums and percussion
Gerard Lacheca on vocals and guitar
Nick Volk on guitar

Their next release came out the year after, 1986, on Revolution Records (REV 001). It was another 7″ with two songs, “Taking Care of You” and “Another Man’s Poison”. These were recorded at Trafalgar Studios, in Sydney. At this studio so many classic bands recorded, from The Hoodoo Gurus to INXS. Imagine that. The sound for these songs changed a bit. A saxophone was added thanks to Brendan Smyly, and also backing vocals by John Mitting. The engineer for these recordings was Alan Thorne who also was the producer. The photography for the record was done by Ann Duffield, while the art is credited to Peter & Chris. I was to find a promo video for “Taking Care of You” on Youtube and from a comment there, I start to think the band may be from Sydney.  But that’s not all about this single. There is also a video for the B side, “Another Man’s Poison” available too!

Lastly in 1988 the band was to release “Sold”, a 12″ mini-album. It was released by Faith & Hope records (VK501) and it included 6 songs, 3 on each side. On the A side there was “Diamond”, “Kiss” and “Marcella”. The B side had “Channel Thoughts”, “Big World” and “Infection, Affection”. At this point it seems the drummer, Nick Patterson, left and was replaced by Darren Lallich. Also this time around there’s Ian Davies credited for guitar and backing vocals and Ian Hunt for saxophone on three of the tracks. It seems they always had friends helping them out on their songs.

Oddly enough there are no compilation appearances listed for the band, so I will have to continue my search somewhere else!

What about on Youtube? Aside from the two videos I found there is a lo-fi video of the Vicious Kites playing “Kiss” at the Hopetoun Hotel in 1989. But that’s not all, also from the Hopetoun in Sydney there’s a live performance of the song “Deadwood“. Lastly there’s a video dating from 1984 where the band is practicing “Infection/Affection” in a run down warehouse rehearsal studio in Vulture Street The Gabba.

I look on the web and I find that Gerry Lacheca, Nick Patterson and Luke Jacobs last band was called Ne’erdowells and that they were based in Brisbane. Before that Gerry had been in a band called Disaster Dora. Then I find a bio page for himself, where it tells that he was born in Brisbane and his first band was called La Mode which appeared on a CD compilation titled “FM 104” in 1982. Later, in 1984 he formed the band I’m talking about today, Vicious Kites. Here it says it started in Brisbane and in 1986 moved to Sydney. They were Triple J/Beatbox band of the week. After the release of their mini-album Gerry traveled around Europe busking and playing solo shows. When he returned in 1990 to Australia, he played in a joke band called Horrorfice. In 1993 Disaster Dora was formed. The last we know of him is the band I mentioned, Ne’erdowells and his solo music, for which he even set up a Myspace years ago.

I find another mention of the band on the blog That Striped Sunlight Sound, a blog that shares music from Australia. A post from February 2011 talks about the Vicious Kites first single, “Speaking Minds”. It says that thanks to this release the band got good airplay on 4ZzZ and support slots with the likes of The Hoodoo Gurus. Here I learn that Offbeat wasn’t actually their own label, but a mailorder business run by Lindsay who did the New Zealand show on ZzZ.

I found a clipping from The Sydney Morning Herald dating October 7, 1985 where the Vicious Kites first single is badly reviewed: Vicious Kites Speaking Minds (Offbeat Records OB-R001). WELL, three out of four ain’t bad. The Vicious Kites aren’t quite as contrived as their name, but they come close. Musically, the ringing guitars and jungle drums of Speaking Minds are fine, but the chorus is meaningless and ignorable and most of their rhyme is pretty strained. To be fair, the other bands have all had previous recording experience, whereas this is the Kites debut, so they may improve. The kindest thing would be for everyone to forget this effort. 

Also I must add that “Speaking Mind” is part of a digital compilation available on Bandcamp called “Brisbane Bands of the Early 80s” that was put together by Brisbane Music Graveyard. There is a lot of interesting tracks their to discover for those interested. The same Bandcamp has the “Sold” mini-album in its entirety for streaming too.

There’s not much more about them on the web to be honest. But it is quite a good deal of information what I found. I definitely would like to know how La Mode sounded like for example. Or check out the other bands like Disaster Dora. If they made more recordings, especially in the period of the first 7″ as that’s the sound I like the most from them even though it got bad reviews. And of course, finding a spare copy would be fantastic! Do you happen to remember them?

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Listen
Vicious Kites – Speaking Minds

Monday! And where do I start? Well I must say that I heard from the pressing plant and The County Fathers CDs have been shipped and they are on my way. So everything looks good and I will just make the release date for March 15th as that day is my birthday and why not, I would love to celebrate with a new Cloudberry release! I’m very very happy about it, and I look forward to receiving them. And after, I need to start planning on a new collection for the Cake Kitchen releases! I’ve spoken in the past to a few bands but things haven’t progressed in the way I’d like, still waiting for songs, memorabilia, etc etc, so they are just more like “projects” than a serious release at the moment. So need to start planning a new one that I can put out in the next few months!

On my last post I talked about Madrid Popfest and how the organization worked. Now I need to talk about other aspects of it. What about the DJs?

On Friday I believe my favourite DJs were Los del Oso DJs. They opened the DJ sets for the whole festival, just after The Tuts finished their show. Los del Oso were a three popfans, all of them who had been part of the previous Madrid Popfest organization: Alex, Carlos and Maria. And they played indiepop hits one after another. My only complain of course, is that of repeating bands, and they did play God Help the Girl many times! Aside from that their choices were spot on, even playing many Cloudberry bands like Hari and Aino, Afternoon Naps, Flowers and Cassolette. Also they played a request of mine, The Modettes’ “White Mice”. Many classic bands were played too, from The Brilliant Corners to The Siddeleys. All in all a strong playlist that made everyone dance and kept the spirits high!

Later on that day there was Pretty Olivia DJ, that is Javi who rans the label of the same name and I believe an organizer of Madrid Popfest too. I must have been a bit drunk as I can’t remember much of his set! I did ask him later why he didn’t play the Go-Betweens, his favourite band, and he told me he did! So I must have been totally out of it. I believe at this point and while the next DJs played music I was mostly socializing, chit-chatting with friends.

Afterwards DJed Lady Dilema and Blanca DB DJed but by this point I can’t remember much! It must have been late and way too many beers! I did dance though! But can’t recall the songs!

On Saturday afternoon I didn’t really noptice DJ Manazas. Did she DJ between bands? Or after? I didn’t stay for the last gig, that of Fakuta, I left after Soda Fountain Rag. So not sure. I did meet DJ Manazas on Friday night though as Miguel Stamp introduced me telling her I was going to release a record by her band Bla and that I had a fantastic label. Of course, Belén, didn’t had a clue what Cloudberry was at all.

At night, after the great gig of Melenas, it was the turn for HDIF. I have always mixed feelings with HDIF, you know I get bored with the 60s stuff. This time around Ian played normally one classic indiepop song to get the excitement up, and then just after a soul/60s song. There was not really a good flow, I always felt a strong contrast between songs, so it kind of got my excitement down. Also the songs picked were way too obvious crowd pleasers, so I wasn’t really into it I must say. I dunno, I have had good times at his club, but when Ian DJs at festivals I haven’t really felt the same vibe.

I was happily surprised with Bombas para Desayunar. I don’t really know who she is but a friend told me she does fanzines. I would like to read them sometime. What surprised me was her choices, playing classic Spanish pop!! Even though I wasn’t dancing at this point, I was mostly talking to Maria del Mar and Oscar from Zipper, I did enjoy dancing and singing along from the bar area to songs from Los Fresones Rebeldes or TCR.

To finish the festival, there were the Madrid Popfest DJs. At this point I was dancing of course. The problem was that I was probably drunk, and having mixed feelings for leaving Madrid Popfest, because it was over and it felt very short. Also having to say goodbyes to many friends I saw and who I probably won’t see in years! But all in all, I danced quite a bit! And that is what matters! It had been a while since I danced to my favourite music!

On my next post, I should be covering the bands that played Madrid Popfest!

Now a quick roundup of indiepop finds (and pending is a review of the Indietracks lineup of course)!

Emotional Response: some exciting news from Jen and Stew’s label. They are releasing a bunch of Sarah related records to fund the Indietracks trip for Even as We Speak. So, right now you can pre-order, aside from t-shirts and badges, the following:
– Action Painting’s “Trial Cuts” LP – a compilation with Sarah material plus a bunch of unreleased material
– Boyracer’s “Fling Yr Bonnet Over Windmill” LP – a compilation of the three Sarah singles by Boyracer
– Even as We Speak’s “Feral Pop Frenzy” LP – a reissue of the classic album
– Sarah Artists Compilation LP – featuring two new and previously unreleased tracks from Even As We Speak, Action Painting!, Boyracer and Secret Shine

Arlie: I’m checking this song out after the great Michael Mybackpages shared it on a Facebook group. He always, since the Soulseek days when I met him, had good taste. The song is titled “Big Fat Mouth” and the band seems to hail from Nashville though it sounds kinda Swedish to my ears! I like it! But to my bad luck I notice they played on March 7th here in NYC. Too late. I missed them. I look if they have any proper releases but it doesn’t seem so. There is also a video for their song “Didya Think” but I must say I don’t like this song too much.

Tracyanne & Danny: Merge Records announced the return of Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell with a 10 song album release. The mystery to me was who was Danny. It turns out his name is Danny Coughlan and from what I found out he released a 2012 album titled “Crybaby”. He is Bristol based. Now this duo is releasing this new album that will be out on May 25th on CD and LP and right now you can stream and check out the song “Home & Dry”.

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I did miss looking for obscure new bands while I was away on holidays in Spain. I was happy to hear from old and new friends that they really enjoy the blog. That meant a lot. Makes me think I should continue sharing my discoveries with everyone. I mean, this year will be 10 years of writing this blog in October. 10 years!! My previous blog that lasted like 3 years is remembered with nostalgia by many. Just last year I was answering questions about the Mira el Péndulo blog to a Mexican fanzine. People haven’t forgotten about it! What will happen with this one? Will it be remembered as well if it is to stop someday? I want to think it will.

A 7″ that has never been listed or sold on Discogs. That is bad news for me because I’m looking for it. I have no idea how much anyone would pay for it. Or how rare it really is. Who knows. It is a mystery that right now I’ll try to solve. I hope I can at least find some details.

So I heard their song “Marie” thanks to the From a Northern Place blog which sadly hasn’t been updated in a while. I wonder why. I never knew who was behind it. That song was the A side. The B side was a song called “Don’t Try”, which I haven’t had the chance yet to listen.

The 7″ was self-released by the band in 1988 and has no label or catalog number on the sleeve. There is just a phone number, actually two numbers, if anyone wants to contact the band. I suppose those numbers don’t work anymore. We do get the first names of the band members on the back of the sleeve:
Rich – vocals
Graham – guitar
Glenn – bass
Paul – drums

Now, the labels say Hole in One! as it was the name of the label. Might it be? It gives that impression to me. But whoever listed the record on Discogs decided there is no label. The only other information on the labels is that both songs play at 45rpm.

Discogs as always wants to be confusing and lists them on compilations that date from 2000 to 2004. The thing is that these are African music compilations. These Villagers are definitely not the indiepop Villagers I’m looking for. That should be fixed on the website, some clueless fan might buy the African Renaissance compilation in hope of hearing a rare The Villagers track.

Now comes the problem. Searching for The Villagers gives me way too many results that it is impossible to find anything related to them. “Marie” or “Don’t Try” are not great search words either. I can’t seem to find anything. If only I had some last names. Or maybe where they were from. My only guess comes from the phone numbers. They start with 0225 and 0793 and I believe these are old codes, so I added a 1 to them, so they would be now 01225 and 01793. In that case the first number would be from the Bath area and the second from Swindon. These two cities are not that far away from each other.

Still having figured out their probable city doesn’t mean a thing. There’s nothing else about them on the web it seems. So I have to ask you indiepop fans from the late 80s. Do you remember them? Did they play any gigs that you remember? If they had any other releases or if they went to play with other bands? Any information will be appreciated!

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Listen
The Villagers – Marie

So where to start now?! My trip to Spain was great, I had such a good time, and I ate a lot, and drank a lot. No wonder I really need get back to exercise soon. Yeah, I think I’ve gained weight. What can one do?! That’s how holidays sometimes end up being!

While I was away I saw some nice reviews of the Salt Lake Alley 7″ on a few blogs, that was really lovely. I hope you all are liking this great record so far, I know it is only one song out of four you can listen so far, but you can tell how good it is! I remind you then that pre-orders are now available on our label website.

But what about Madrid Popfest? I guess that’s the question everyone asks me. What were the best gigs? What were the surprises? Who did I meet? I don’t even know where to start. Maybe by the basics. For example the venue chosen this time was dead on. The Galileo Galilei venue was big and comfy enough for everyone. Everyone had good vision of the stage. And there were different sort of levels, like the bar was higher than the dancefloor and so on. Also there were areas to sit down and relax and within view of the stage. So that was something that was a good thing. Another thing that surprised me throughout the whole festival was that all bathrooms were open for all genres. They were all shared. That was an interesting decision and I didn’t see any problems with it. I think it was a good way to show the politics of the organizers and I salute that. (The organizers have told me that this trend started last year as a recommendation by The Spook School, this idea  also matched the organizers’ politics)

The system for buying beers was quite odd though. You had to buy them “twice”, kind of. So you had to go to this old guy by the entrance door and pay 3.50 euros to get an orange ticket. Then with this ticket you had to go into the venue, to the bar, and exchanged this ticket for a beer or a soda. I don’t understand yet why you couldn’t just buy the beer straight from the bar. That was strange though if that was the reason why the beers were cheaper, then well, that is good. Also the bar had free popcorn and peanuts for those needing a quick snack. (The organizers confirmed me that this system of tickets was indeed for lower beer prices)

The organization was good. Most gigs started on time aside the Saturday afternoon ones at Matadero. Yes, Saturday afternoon was on a different venue and I must say I got lost trying to find it. This Matadero place is huge, enormous. Within this place there are many sort of barns or hangars where different cultural activities take place. The Popfest gig was at Nave de Terneras, but I couldn’t find any obvious signs to point me which one of the many buildings it was. So I had to look and look until I found it.

Merch stalls worked well too. There was a Madrid Popfest merch stall and then we could see several Spanish labels having their own spot. There was Annika, who were announcing a Clay Hips album soon, Meritorio Records and Kocliko Records. There was also a spot for the bands who were playing to sell their stuff. As you can imagine I did some shopping.

The bands? The DJs? Oh let’s leave that for another post! This is getting long already! Though to close this post, I have to say that it looked like the festival was a success and I hope there is Madrid Popfest 2019 next March (or whenever)!.

Now what have I found on the web these past days?

Espanto: I’m very sad I didn’t tell Grego Annika to reserve me a copy of the last Espanto EP. He had copies and I forgot about it until the last day of Popfest. By then all copies were sold out. Damn. And I need a copy!! Why? Just check this video for the song “Esqueletos” which is included in this last record of theirs called “Tres Canciones Nuevas”. Top top stuff by the Logroño based duo!

El Último Vecino: continuing with Spanish bands, one of my favourite of them all, have released a new video for the song “Un Secreto Mal Guardado” and no one should miss it. I was very unlucky in Spain looking for their last album, I couldn’t find a copy anywhere. I’m sad about that. But I’ll keep looking. This song is supposed to be part of their new collection of songs for 2018, whatever that means. If it means a new album, that is great. If not, I’m just happy to hear new music by them any day.

La Plata: I found out about this band as my friend Aitor directed the video “Me Voy”. I don’t know much about them, but Miguel Stamp was raving about them at Popfest. Do they have any records out? I don’t know. I didn’t see any at any Spanish record stores. It is a mystery, and would love to get their songs somehow to be played one after another at home. This Valencia band is formed by Carmona on drums, Salvador on guitars, María on bass, Patricia on synths and Diego on guitar and vocals. Sounds very promising!

Pop City Arizona: remember I interviewed this pre Mary Queen of Scots band some time ago? Now they have uploaded three more songs to their SoundCloud. This early 90s bedroom pop project has now shared “Mercy Seat” (a cover of Ultra Vivid Scene), “You’ve Got It All” and “Love is a Twelve Letter Word”. There is no information of the year these were recorded though.

The Wolfhounds: the classic C86 band announced on their Facebook that they will be releasing late spring/early summer all their Peel Sessions. Wow! That must have cost them a kidney or something! Nonetheless that is great news that these songs will be collected in CD and LP formats! The album will have a European release and perhaps a North American one as well. When there’s more news about it, I’ll let you know!

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Shrinking violet: an exaggeratedly shy person.

When did I hear Shrinking Violet’s “She Said” for the first time? I can’t recall exactly. I know it was many years ago and I have the feeling that it was through some Aussie pop compilations that were put together by John Carbonaro of the indiepop-list. What I can’t recall was if these compilations were shared to me by a member of the list or if they were put together for the whole list. Back in the day, if you remember, there was a cool thing about the mailing list, there were mix tape (or CDs) swap. I swapped mixes with many friends, some who I eventually met. It might be that some of these Australian indiepop compilations were made for these swaps and later shared to me. Either way, I was lucky to discover many bands, among them Shrinking Violets.

Their 7″, “Everything”, might have been one of the first records in my collection. I remember searching for these Australian bands that were unknown to me like The Stolen Picassos or The Palisades, and having no luck on eBay. I was lucky though with the Shrinking Violets, finding their 7″ for probably a good price. At the time I thought it was their only release, their was no Discogs. Today that I look for them once again I notice they actually had also released a mini-album. And I had no idea.

“Everything” was the A side on the 7″, while “She Said” was the B side. The latter was the song that introduced to me to them as I said. The 7″ was released in 1988 on Phantom Records (PH-31). This was the label that was established by Dare Jennings and Jules Normington in Sydney, back in 1980 and that had released The Hummingbirds or Even As We Speak among others! The two songs on the record were recorded at Disappearing Wilderness Studios on January 1988. This studio seems to be closely linked to Even As We Speak as many of their records were recorded here. But that is not the only close link with EAWS. Julian Knowles from EAWS was also part of Shrinking Violets, playing guitar, keyboards and vocals. On top of that, he produced, engineered and mixed the songs. The other band members were Barry “Fuzz” Hayes on bass and vocals, Andrew Clement on drums and vocals and Marcus Clement on vocals and guitar. Were Andrew and Marcus brothers perhaps?

Something curious too on this record is the runout groove on the B side, it says “Shrinking Violence. I had no clue Julian had been involved in this band. I met him only briefly when EAWS played in New York some years ago now. I mostly talked to Mary (whose The Singing Bush band is another EAWS side project I’ve covered on the blog). Maybe if I had known, I could have asked him a question or two about this band.

Now I’m checking their mini album, released as a 12″ on Phantom Records (PHMLP-5) under the title “Mask”. I don’t own this one and so far only heard two songs out of the six included. These songs were “Never Too Late”, “Small Talk” and “Colours of Ecstasy” on the A side and “Roman Hammer”, “Happy?” and “Mask” on the B side. Some of the songs were recorded at the Disappeareing Wilderness Studios and some others at Trackdown Digital Studios. They were mastered at EMI Studios 301. The 7″ was also mastered there, mind you. For this record we notice that a new engineer is credited for most of the tracks but one. A1 to B2 were engineered by Simon Leadley while B3 was engineered by Julian.

Also this record had some backing vocals credited to two girls, Carolyn Polley and Karen Banks. Polley had been part of the band Big Heavy Stuff and had also done  vocals for The Apartments. Banks on the other hand had done some vocals to a band called Crow. The record was individually hand numbered and the first 500 with coloured vinyl came with a poster. I should try to find a good copy of this record. I should travel someday to Australia on a record shopping spree!

There are two compilation appearances by the band. The first is on the 1988 compilation “Assorted Desecrations and Magnificent Mutations” released by Phantom (PHLP-4). On this compilation the contribute two songs, “Take Me Away” and “Love to Rule”. None of these appear on the records. Were these covers by the way? I see that “Love to Rule”‘ is credited to be written by Jeremy Oxley and “Take Me Away” to The Kelpies. My suspicion is true. “Love to Rule” is a Sunnyboys original and “Take Me Away” was a 7″ released by The Kelpies in 1982.

Their other compilation appearance is on the “Young Blood II” compilation that came out on LP, CD and cassette through the RooArt label. On this compilation they contributed just one song, “It’s Never Too Late”. This compilation was intended to be a showcase of the best up and coming bands from Australia.

Time to check out on which other bands the members are listed on Discogs. I see Andrew Clement played drums on Other Voices but not much more. Of course Julian had been involved with EAWS, Ohm and Social Interiors.

According to Wikipedia the band only lasted around 4 years, from 1987 to 1990. There is not much more information on their entry.

Then I find an interview with Julian on the website Cyclic Defrost that dates from 2008 where there are mentions to Shrinking Violets: The first releases with Shrinking Violets started off as demos. We recorded four songs at home on the eight-track. I mixed them and we made some cassettes and we sent them round to the independent record labels. Jules Normington [Phantom Records] contacted us and said, “I want to put it out’. I said, “It’s only a demo’, and he said, “No, no I want to put it out. What is on that tape, we’re going to put it out.’ They put out the demo recordings as a 7-inch record on coloured vinyl, which was very cool. Other bands heard the Shrinking Violets releases, and by the late 1980s were asking Julian to produce their records. This led Julian to working with indie pop band Even As We Speak. Initially, as producer, but in his words, It got so hands on that I just had to join the band.

On Julian’s website there is even a Shrinking Violets section. On there I see a clipping for the Haywire Charts were “Everything” is on the 3rd place, after The Someloves and The Go-Betweens for the Singles on the week of 17/9/1988.

MacQuarie University in Sydney also has a brief mention of the band. That is because this is were Julian Knowles seem to be at the moment, as a Professor in the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies.

Sadly I couldn’t find anything else by the band on the web. Nor for the other band members. Like they were only involved with Shrinking Violets and that was it? And what about more recordings? 8 songs and 2 covers seem to be too little for 4 years. I wonder if there were more demos or not. And why did they call it a day? Perhaps EAWS was taking most of Julian’s time in 1990? I need to find out. And in the meantime try to find a copy of “Mask” for myself!

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Listen
Shrinking Violets – She Said

Back now from Spain!! But to be honest I left this post ready before traveling. So won’t be able to tell my experiences here, that will have to wait until my next post. I just arrived last night, Sunday night, and I’m quite knackered. And I’m posting this Monday morning, right? So, no time to get my ideas and memories in order. But before I left to Spain I found some interesting sounds and news that might be a week old now but still worth mentioning!

Paris Popfest: the Paris, France, festival has announced its dates for their 2018 edition. The Paris Popfest 2018 will be happening during two days in September, the 21st and 22nd of that month. No other details have been announced but this is already great news! I’ll keep informing when the venue and the bands are announced.

Lucky Pigeons: I remember being a fan of this Swedish all-girl band back in 2006 or so. I believe I even exchanged some messages on Myspace, or maybe not. But I was never aware of a video for their classic song “Keep On Kingie” until Dennis from the Candy Twist fanzine/label posted it and I was quite surprised! Brought lots of memories and was singing along one more time since those golden days for indiepop!

Seven Tin Stars: the third release on the Mexican label Emma’s House is available once again. Already a classic when it comes to Mexican indiepop, Seven Tin Stars’ “Return to the White Tide” is a beautiful 4-song EP of dreamy indiepop including the songs “Return to the White Tide”, “Your Cigarette Was Glowing”, “Needless in Tour Shoes” and “Dissolve”. This new edition of the EP comes in a CD digipak and has brand new artwork. It is limited to 100 copies so run for your copy. The band is formed by Pablo García and Fernando de la Flor.

The King of Mirrors: the brilliant Swindon, UK, band will be releasing an album later this year. They have shared the first single for this forthcoming album. The new song is called “Fall into Place” and is really nice! The recording was made by Rich May on vocals, guitar and keyboard, Jase Bush on bass and Jamie Deighton on drums. The band is predicting the album to be finished by April, can’t wait!

Football, etc.: Just found out this Houston band formed by Lindsay Minton on guitar and vocals, Mercy Harper on bass and Daniel Hawkins on drums. They had released an album last May, and it was titled “Corner”. That’s what I’m checking out at the moment. There are 10 songs and it seems it got quite some support as it was released by Community Records in the US, Barely Regal in the UK and Stiff Slack in Japan. That is not common these days, to see releases by different labels in different regions. This is by no means their only release, it seems the band has been going since at least 2008 and there are many releases to stream on their Bandcamp. Direct guitar pop, no frills, some of my favourite songs on their last album are “Foul” and “Advantage”, where they sound the poppiest I think!

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An über obscure band and release today on the blog. I find out about this band on the From a Northern Place blog some years ago but only last week I managed to order a copy of Brown’s Gazette’s only known release, the “Jimmy Kept His Head” 7″.

As you might expect I know absolutely nothing about this band. I hope some of you know something about them, that maybe you can help me finding out even some basic details like who was behind the band. The few things that I do know, I will share with you on the blog as it has become the usual.

We know the band released this 7″ single in 1986 on their own label as a self-release probably as the catalog number is BG1, Fair to think that B means Brown’s and G, Gazette, right? This 7″ had two songs, on the A side was “Jimmy Kept His Head” and on the B side, my favourite, the bouncy “Blow Me Down”.

The art for the record is quite mysterious. It looks like ink drawings of a swan on the front and some tree trunks on the back side. There is no information on the sleeve. Just the BG1 on the upper right corner of the back cover. The labels have a print of a brick wall and in front a sign announcing Brown’s Gazette and the song on each side. There seems to be a signature on the drawings but I can’t figure it out, only the number 86. The year this record was released.

Discogs has an enigmatic note: “Apparently an off-shoot of the Crook Cassette label”. This, I thought, might be a good hint to keep on looking for information. I can’t seem to find much, but then on 45cat I see another comment that mentions that on “Sam Mauger’s website uk45.orgfree has this one listed as being a Crook Cassettes label release. There are no clues on the record or cover though. Anybody know the band who could confirm?”

That comment dates from 2016. I have my hopes up and try to find that website. I do and it looks so old. Like a pre-Geocities website if you can imagine that. Just plain HTML. And while I’m impressed by it, I search and I can’t seem to find the catalogue for Crook label. There are other catalogues listed it seems, but this one I can’t seem to find it. And when finally I find it and click the link for it to open. Guess what, it opens a porn page. Bummer. I guess the website was hacked not too long ago if that comment dated from a year and a half ago.

Now my best hint is useless. I do find that back in the days of George Washington subscribed to Brown’s Gazette among others. Who was this Brown? Or maybe it was a place? I also find that there was a famous horse in the UK that had that name but who died in a race in the 80s. Could this be the origin of the name?

I can’t find anything else. Not for the band nor the Crook Cassette label. Who were they? Where were they based? In which other bands were they involved? I’m hoping someone has some answers!

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Listen
Brown’s Gazette – Blow Me Down

I fly tonight to Madrid! Very excited to go back to Spain and being able to attend Madrid Popfest next Friday and Saturday. I think it will be a very good time seeing friends again and checking out bands that are truly brilliant. So no new posts until March 5th I suppose. As I said on previous posts, now is time to catch up with the blog. I know there have been many posts in the last few weeks, but I’ve been more curious than usual about the music I love.

But here is the good news. Last post I announced the Salt Lake Alley 7″ that will be released by Cloudberry this spring. I have shared the SoundCloud for the song “Deals at the Crossroads” that is the opening track. Also the Facebook page for the band. But I must say now that you can pre-order the record on our website, on www.cloudberryrecords.com. So this is the way we are starting this year, with The County Fathers and Salt Lake Alley. Isn’t it a fantastic start? We are very excited. Next month, in March, I hope to announce our next 7″ by a fab new Mexican band. So keep your eyes peeled for that too!

Now a few more cool pop finds for you to enjoy while you wait for the blog’s return!

Birdie: a new Birdie record? Is this for real? Am I dreaming? WIAIWYA is going to be releasing a new 7″ by Debsey Wykes’ band! The songs on the record are “Tomorrow” and “Bowling Green”, and at this time you can stream the latter. I must say I’m not a fan of the artwork, especially compared to the previous art for all Birdie releases, but in this case it doesn’t matter. It is Birdie! And here there will be two new songs for her discography. You can pre-order the record now and it will be released on May 7th.

Famous Problems: thanks to Birdie I am at the WIAIWYA Bandcamp checking the latest of the great label ran by Mr. John Jervis. I don’t know who are Famous Problems I must say. But here there’s a 10″ record that is slated for April 27th. There is barely any information about this band on the Bandcamp, but on Facebook I see it is kind of an all-stars band including Pam Berry and Mark Flunder. We also know there are going to be 7 songs on the record and right now you can stream the song “Every Girl”.

Spearmint: this one is to be released on April 7th. Another 7″ on WIAIWYA that is part of their seven inches club. Two songs, “Senseless (A Stranger)” and “The Music They Love Us to Hate”. Again you can stream the 2nd song, the B side. From what I’m reading I notice that for 2018 all these singles that the label will be releasing, which will be 7 of course, will feature seven artists that have been consistantly wonderful for 20 years or more. And Spearmint definitely fits the bill.

Fantasma: I just found out about this band from Lima, Peru, who only have one song on their Bandcamp. The song is also called “Fantasma” and it is really enjoyable. There is very little information about this band. We know that it was formed by Oswald Zapata and it might just be a one-man band. He mentions that he is influenced by shoegaze and jrock and pop.

Man from Delmonte: this is an oldie, but I’ve only seen this now and thought about sharing it. It is a video of one of my favourite bands ever playing at the TV show Hold Tight ITV in 1987. Filmed at Alton Towers, they do a small interview with Mike West and then the band plays one of their classic songs, “Water in My Eyes”. And I’m like wow! I love this band so much, so I just had to share it!

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innocence: the state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offense. lack of guile or corruption; purity. used euphemistically to refer to a person’s virginity.

It is a bit of an odd name for a guitar pop band, Innocence. But that is the case of this very obscure band that I’ll be focusing today. A band I discovered through the fine blog From a Northern Place some time ago. Yes, I’ve been looking at some of the bands that are on the blog that I haven’t covered on the blog. There are many that are not of my taste, but most usually they are really great choices of obscure guitar pop bands!!

So the aforementioned blog had uploaded the one song by Innocence, “Where I Stand”, and scans of their 7″. Was it their only record released? It seems so according to Discogs. And it doesn’t even have a catalog number, so it must have been a self-release. No label either. Tough luck. We only know that this record had two songs, “Black & White” on the A side and “Where I Stand” on the B side.

Discogs has no scans of the sleeve, but thanks to this blog we do have access to them. We see on the front of the jacket the name of the band and also a black and white photo of the band. 5 members. We do know the names but we don’t know which name corresponds to each other on the photo:
Rich Briggs: vocals
Mark Oldrey: guitar
John Young: keyboards
Paul Bacon: bass
Kevin Stanfield: drums

The songs are credited to be written and produced by the band. They were recorded at Goldust Studios in Bromley, Kent, on February 1989. They were engineered by Mark Dawson. The photo taken on the front was taken by Mark Ingram.

Some lyrics from “Black & White” are printed too, “I will take you there / rivers will run dry / I will follow you / to the black & white”. And then we find an address to contact the band in Hornchurch, Essex.

Hornchurch is a suburban town in the London Borough of Havering, East London, England, 15.2 miles (24.5 km) east-northeast of Charing Cross. Historically an ancient parish in the county of Essex, that became the manor and liberty of Havering, Hornchurch shifted from agriculture to other industries with the growing significance of nearby Romford as a market town and centre of administration. As part of the suburban growth of London in the 20th century, Hornchurch significantly expanded and increased in population, becoming an urban district in 1926, and forming part of Greater London since 1965. It is the location of Queen’s Theatre, Havering Sixth Form College and Havering College of Further and Higher Education.

I’ve actually covered a band from Hornchurch before, right? A quick look on my blog and I found that I wrote about The Irregulars, who also hailed from this place! Maybe they were friends? Maybe they shared gigs?

I try to look for the band members, but it ends up being almost impossible. I do find a Richard Briggs living in New Zealand, a John Young and a Mark Oldrey living in London and all of them seem to be friends on Facebook. Perhaps these are the same ones. Or it may just be a coincidence. I may be in the right track. But they aren’t connected with Paul or Kevin.

A closer look to the Richard Briggs account I notice he has uploaded a photo with the caption “The Innocence Boys”. Bingo! This must be him. He looks like the vocalist indeed. It is combined photo where it shows vocals, roadie, guitar, keys and drums. No bass. Interesting.

But there’s not much more on the web about them. That is quite a shame. Of course I wasn’t expecting a Soundcloud or a Bandcamp, but perhaps a little writeup, some bio information, something else. They must have written and recorded more than 2 songs. In my case, I’ve only heard one of the songs, “Where I Stand”. I don’t own their record yet. I would love a copy of course.

Did they appear on any compilations? Were they involved in any other bands? When and why did they split? Or even when did the band start? Did they play many gigs? How come they self-released their records? Many questions, little answers. This is obscure as it gets.

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Listen
Innocence – Where I Stand