Sometimes there are news that just get you off guard, they are so unexpected. And that’s what happened when I was to learn that a new Popfest is being organized these days, hoping to make its debut in April 2018. I am already very excited about it even though I don’t know who will play. The fact that the festival is going to happen in Germany is already a big bonus. Yes, I’m talking about Cologne Popfest who the last week unveiled their Facebook page. So far what’s been announced are the dates, the 20th and the 21st of April. It should be ok weather then in Cologne I suppose. I was once in Cologne, many many years ago. I visited the Cathedral of course and went to the Roman museum. I didn’t do much more. I liked what I saw though. It would be great to return. I love pop events in Germany, there’s always such a good energy, and a good vibe too, one of camaraderie. The festival at the moment is doing some promotion at Indietracks it seems, where they have some very nice designed flyers and posters. Hopefully I can get one somehow!

Continuing with unexpected news, there is a new The Siddeleys compilation coming up. Titled “Songs from the Sidings” this is a collection of demos by one of the best bands EVER that date from the period of 1985-1987. The record will be out on August 18th and will be released on vinyl and also on CD. Check out the very cool looking cover where Johnny Johnson just looks like the best indiepopstar EVER at the Firestation Facebook page.

Our friends from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have a new record out on September 1st. It will be titled “The Echo of Pleasure” and because of that they have just debuted a video for the song “When I Dance With You“. The video was shot in London after a breakfast in a Wetherspoons. What can be better than that? Well, the band is touring the US West Coast to keep promoting this new album. For me it has been a while since I saw them live. Next time they play NYC I will make my best to be there.

Also our friends from Murcia, The Yellow Melodies, have a new video out, this time for the song “Life“. The cool thing about this video is that it was all shot at Indietracks. If there was a way to make me feel nostalgic and all melancholic about not going to the festival, even if there were just a handful of good bands, was watching the video. Also don’t forget that the band released a USB digipack (not sure what this is!) titled “In Compilations 1997-2016” not so long ago. This is a compilation of 30 songs that appeared on various compilations, on various labels, between those years.

It seems there are mostly news of friends, Cloudberry-related bands this week, right? Well, here’s one more, this time from Japan.  Our very good friends from Caucus are going to release a new album this autumn. As we have seen in my previous paragraphs, what’s the best way to promote it? A video of course! So yes, Caucus have a new video for the song “Hello“. It is all DIY, we see the band in the recording process and having fun. It feels so long now since we hanged out in NYC when they played Popfest! I hope they come back soon (or I go visit Japan!). At the moment there are no other details about the album, but as soon as I know, I’ll share them with you all.

On the Bandcamp side of things I have noticed that classic band The Groove Farm has uploaded a whole lot of releases there and many of them are rare ones! First off there’s a live tape from “The Western Star Domino Club. February 1987” which was their 6th ever gig. Then we find another live gig, “April 12th 1989, The Garden Of Eden. Windsor“, and another, “Mobstar Pop Frenzy Weekend / Reunion 2001” when they reunited for one rehearsal and one gig. Then three live gigs recorded from the audience with a cassette walkman, “8th August 1987, The Tropic Club, Bristol“, “16th April 1987. Tropic Club, Bristol” and “26th October 1988, The Moon Club, Bristol“. But that’s not all, there is an expanded “Baby Blue Marine” flexi release. Remember that this favourite song appeared on a flexi that came with the Kvatch fanzine? Well, here there are 10 versions of the song, from rare recordings to live versions. And to close with all these rare Groove Farm songs their classic EP, “Sore Heads And Happy Hearts EP” is also streaming with four extra songs from rehearsal tapes and also live from Montpellier Hotel in December 1986. This is really a treasure trove and one can only thank the band for uploading all of this! I feel Bandcamp is the perfect place for these sort of ‘releases’, live and rare, while the proper ones should always be on physical formats.

And that’s it for this post. And you can’t complain, that’s 3 posts this week! I have at least 4 more indiepop news to share as I’m writing these lines, but definitely I’ll cover them on my next post! It is good to have news!! There’s been weeks when it was hard to find stuff to share with you all!

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Here’s a record I don’t own, one that is sadly missing from my collection. I hope to buy it soon, when it is on Discogs or on Ebay at a reasonable price. I’m talking about the sole release by The County Fathers, the 12″ maxi single “Lightheaded”.

From Discogs I learn some facts about this record. I must say I don’t know it that well. I’ve only heard one song, “You Think It’s So Funny”, and I think it is brilliant, it is catchy and the guitars chime and chime. What is there not to like? Even the vocals are great. I wonder if “Lightheaded” and “Deep South” are similar. I hope they are.

“Lightheaded” and “You Think It’s So Funny” appear on the A side, while “Deep South (long version)” is on the B side. The record came out in 1988 on the veritable Ugly Man Records (catalog UGLY 8T). The front sleeve is printed in black and white, the front cover has a photo of a baby who is being poured water on top. The back cover has three photos, small ones, for each member who are also being poured water. We get the band members names from there, Phil Walmsley on bass guitar, Mark Radcliffe on electric guitar, keyboards and drums and John Clayton on electric guitar.

The songs are credited to Mark Radcliffe and they were recorded by Nick Garside (who as of late played on the band The Distractions and who produced a bunch of classic records by The Waltones, The Man From Delmonte, The Singing Ringing Tree and more!) and produced by the band. The photography on the sleeve is credited to J.D. and Kevin Cummins. The design for the sleeve to The Great Big Co.

Of course it is easy to figure out things about Mark Radcliffe. Discogs has a small bio: “BBC Radio presenter. Radio 2 with Stuart Maconie as of 2009. As a musician, he is commonly credited as a drummer or percussionist. He was a member of Skrewdriver briefly before their transformation into a neo-Nazi band. As of 2007 plays in The Family Mahone, the Four Counts and The Big Figures a Doctor Feelgood tribute band.” If you want to read a longer bio, there’s of course Wikipedia. Plenty to know about him, but The County Fathers is not really mentioned. It is always about Skrewdriver (probably because of their later white-power affiliation), and the band Shirehorses, which was a parody band. Other band Mark has been involved is the Dr. Feelgood tribute band Mark Radcliffe & The Big Figures. To be honest, I haven’t heard any of the bands mentioned, but I doubt they are indiepop-sounding as The County Fathers.

From other articles, I found an interview with Phil Walmsley about his time at Skrewdriver. Was it in this band that Mark and Phil met? Not really. I actually find an article from The Lancashire Post where it says that “the pair met at Manchester University in the 1970s. Radcliffe says: “I was from Bolton and he was from Blackpool and we were both very into punk rock.”

Mark also wrote the autobiographical book, “Showbusiness: The Diary of a Rock N’ Roll Nobody”, where he retells his attempts at a career as a musician. I haven’t read the book, but I do wonder if The County Fathers are mentioned in it? He also published two other memoirs, “Thank You For the Days” in 2009 and “Reelin’ in the Years” in 2011. Were The County Fathers mentioned in them?

When it comes to indiepop it is important to mention that he contributed keyboards and produced some tracks for beloved The Desert Wolves.

Luckily to tell some of The County Fathers story there’s the blog “The Chronicle of An Ugly Man“. This blog, whose last update was in 2012, was run by Ugly Man’s founder Guy Lovelady. On it there are many stories involving the bands that were once part of his label. Happily there’s a post about The County Fathers and we get to learn a thing or two:

• John Clayton worked at the time in Manchester’s legendary Piccadilly Radio. He was originally from Lancaster.
• Phil “Whammo” Walmsley was a top architect.
• According to this blog post, Mark Radcliffe’s story and the context of The County Fathers is written in the “Showbusiness: The Diary of a Rock N’ Roll Nobody” book. I will have to get this book then.
• Mark Radcliffe at the time was working also at Piccadilly Radio and even gave The Man from Delmonte a Piccadilly session and booked Black for a pan European Broadcast from The Liverpool Playhouse.

Then Guy mentions that he has a copy of a CD that contains the anthology of The County Fathers recordings plus other quality outtakes from a subsequent pop combo St Cloud that Mark captained. I wonder about these songs. I would really, really, love to hear them. Also, why is this not anthology being released?? Someone know the answer? Anyone heard it?

Guy also shares his personal highlight with The County Fathers he says it “was the Ugly Man Christmas Party in 1988. The joint celebration was held with some local Manchester based fine artists, which sounds quite refined and exclusive but it wasn’t. The evening was opened by Inspiral Carpets, a then up and coming Oldham band, The County Fathers did a set and finally The Man from Delmonte wowed a packed green room. I remember the delight on Mark’s face that night getting to play a full set to a packed and excited audience. It was the stuff of legends.”

A lot of questions about this band definitely. To start why didn’t they release any other record? Why did they call it a day? How many unreleased songs did they record? What songs were on that anthology CD that Guy Lovelady mentions? Were the three of them on St Cloud? I could find some bands Mark and Phil were involved, but what about John Clayton?

Anyone out there remembers them? Maybe you saw them at a gig? Would love to know more. In the meantime, I will try to get myself a copy of the record and the book. I’ll do my homework.

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Listen
The County Fathers – You Think It’s So Funny

Remember I told you there were a lot of news as of late that I needed to share with you all? I think I have found some time to prepare yet another post, with obscure band research and all.

But first I wanted to tell you something that kept annoying me with my last post. Well, not with it exactly, but with the way I share it. I used to post the link on the Cloudberry Facebook page and from there I could edit the accompanying image as well as the headline and the description. That made it cleaner. For example I could just write “Esta Noche Tampoco” and not Cloudberry Cake Proselytism Archive – Esta Noche Tampoco. Longer and not convenient. Well, I can’t do that anymore. I first thought it was a bug but then I found out that Facebook has removed these options. They say it is because they want to stop people editing the news, this way they hope to stop “fake news”. I was shocked when I saw this. Seriously? This is the way to stop them? Anyhow… now I’ll be posting a photo post and will share it with the link to the post. Sadly there won’t be a small description available, so you’ll have to just click and read the whole post.

Now onto the news:

38 songs by The Orchids will appear on a 2CD compilation titled “Who Needs Tomorrow” this August. It will be released by Cherry Red (a label I don’t agree with, but I LOVE The Orchids), and will include liner notes by Orchids’ producer Ian Carmichael. Something that is very exciting about it is that one of the CDs is dedicated to rare and unreleased tracks. The whole thing includes demos, alternative acoustic versions, radio performances, flexi disc singles, a cover version, and an old EP favourite – Underneath The Window, Underneath The Sink – specially re-recorded just for this release. It does sound like something I want!

It seems there are news about Alvvays every week. Maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s their master plan to promote their new album that’s coming out soon. This week they uploaded to Youtube not a video, but the audio for the song “Dreams Tonite” and it sounds great! I hope/wish that in this new record they include the cover they do of “Alimony” by The Hummingbirds when they play live. Last week we saw the sad news that Simon Holmes of The Hummingbirds passed away, and I think, this would be a very nice gesture. I’m forever sad about this news of course, I hoped so much to see The Hummingbirds live, especially as I saw they were playing some gigs the past few years. That won’t happen of course. I love The Hummingbirds, their records, their music, their videos. What a band.

Our friend André Brorsson from Stars in Coma will be releasing a new album on August 25th and it will be titled “Escapist Partisans”. At the moment you can stream the first  and second singles of the album. “Chalet Saudade” is the first single and  André tells a bit of the story of the song, “The track starts out as a modern DIY disco song, with resentful lyrical lines about Trump, endless news flow and modern life. By the time we get to the chorus, the song transforms into a schlager-like anthem with chants about simpler times. As we all know, pure nostalgia offers no solution, prompting the character of the song to ‘drink myself to sleep’. However, by the end of the song, he decides it’s better to stay alive and ‘take it all in,’ even if the time he lives in only provide terror and gloominess.” If you have a listen, you’ll notice that is a very fine song! The second single is titled “Ten Years” and is also very nice, and André tells us about it as well,“A song in the genre I dubbed ’80’s sitcom pop’, mainly due to the heavy use of very direct and uplifting saxophone melodies. Also a homage to Bowie and his weird chord progressions. A song about looking forward and looking back but mostly staying the same personally.” Now, looking forward to listening to the rest of the songs on the album.

I have to say I was doubtful of Patience, the new project by Roxanne from Veronica Falls. It seems the same thing that happened to me with Veronica Falls has happened with Patience, meaning that at first I’m not convinced and then I start liking it very much. This means I already missed her first two singles because of that, and even though I don’t think they are as good as her last, “White of an Eye”, the completist in me will try to track them down. And that is going to be hard. Everything, even the new single which is slated to be released in September is already sold out! Tough luck! Hopefully I will be able to get a copy of “White of an Eye”, I think a store in the UK will be able to help me. The 7″ single is being released by Night School records and has on the B side the song “Blue Sparks” which isn’t available to listen. Right now I think the best place to preview this gem of a single is on Youtube as there’s a very cool video to promoting this brilliant 3rd single.

Some time ago I sent interview questions to Raintree County. They said they wanted to wait until some news were announced before sending me the answers. I don’t think it has been announced widely, but I saw on their Facebook page that a 3CD box set will be released soon by their old label, Native Records!

Lastly I want to recommend the new 4-song EP by Lima, Peru, band Submarino. “Transatlántico” is their newest release and I feel it is their best to date. The four songs, “Bicentenario”, “Política de Tierra Quemada”, “¿Qué Voy a Hacer Si Todo Arde?” and “Dominique Crenn”, are proper guitar pop songs, clearly influenced by Spanish pop bands like Los Planetas or even Los Punsetes. The band, which I think I haven’t recommended before, is Esteban Bertarelli’s vehicle to create popsongs with the help of many friends. I remember meeting Esteban more than a decade ago on Soulseek, when he was very young and making music in the vein of La Casa Azul in his native Piura, in the north of Peru. It is very interesting for me to see how his music and skills have evolved in this time, and I feel this is a very worthy release!

It seems more news were left out again! Well, well, they will need to wait until next week!

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Gijón, Asturias. Probably the first time I will dig deep into the history of a band from that city in the north of Spain. I have mentioned Los Bonsáis in the blog many times, but even they are from Asturias, they are from Llanes, a smaller town. Gijón is the big city in Asturias, the main cultural hub of the region. But it is not a contemporary story this one, it is one that has to go back to the 80s.

I discovered Esta Noche Tampoco not so long ago. I thought I knew all the worthy guitar pop bands from Spain by now. Seems I don’t. I actually discovered another one this week thanks to my friend Joel. This is exciting for sure, there is more and more music to discover. I feel that I saw someone post the song “Ingemar” on Facebook. I can’t recall who. Might have been Joel as well? Maybe. But it could have been any of my Spanish friends. I would love to give credit, but there’s a blank in my memory.

Esta Noche Tampoco, which roughly translates to Neither this Night, formed in 1985. The band lineup then was Eduardo Lamela on vocals and guitars, Ana Lamela, his sister, on vocals and keyboards, Quique on bass and Antonio “Toño” Peña on drums. Other musicians that were part of the band in these early years were the bassists Tino Acebal, José Andreu and Ruben Figaredo, the guitarists Jon Egurrola and Paco Martínez and the keyboardist Mento Hevia.

Much of the biographical information I’m going to share with you come from two sources. The first is the blog “80 Nuevaola” and the second is Wikipedia. On the blog it says that the band was born from the ashes of the band Kurins, a hard-rock band, that saw the light in 1985 when they discovered The Smiths. Because of this new style, Quique was to leave the band.

In May 1988 two songs (which songs??) were included in a tape compilation titled “¿Qué Hago Yo Aquí?” that was released by Fusión de Producciones. That same year the band release the tape “Saben como a Sal” also on the same label. This tape had Mento Hevia as the producer and José Andreu, who was now playing with the band Amateurs, as bassist. I couldn’t find a tracklist for this tape on the web.

The next year, 1989, the band was to release their first vinyl record, “Las Manos en el Agua” with Fusión de Producciones. I do wonder though about this, as on Discogs another label is listed, Mocambo (catalog 4M-009). Actually for all their releases appearing on Discogs it is Mocambo. On these biographical sites it is Fusión de Producciones. Was it a co-release? Was it the same label? I don’t know. I actually just ordered this 12″ and hopefully when the record arrives I could solve a mystery or two. Always tough to order records from Spain, shipping costs are very unfriendly, same as the ones we have here in the US I guess.

On the record three songs appear on the A side, “Ingemar”, “Nosotros y los Charcos” and “Ese Extraño Pez”. On the B side just two, “La Piel Igual de Canela” and “Un Gélido Juego”. To promote this 12″ the band released a 7″ (which is not listed on Discogs) that had “Ingemar” and on the flipside a cover of the House of Love’s “Hope”. That same year the band played in Niort, France, at the “L’Europe d’Art” festival, they were representing Gijón.

In 1990 the band released their first LP, “Bésame Mucho” (Mocambo 2M-015). The album has a bunch of very “indiepop-looking” photos that were taken by Ruben Figaredo (previously bassist of Raíl Real). The tracks on the album were, on the A side, “Baltasar”, “Deshazme”, “Algodones”, “Dos Secretos” and “Flores Rojas”, whereas on the B side we have “Carmen Esmeralda”, “Ese Extraño Pez”, “La Mentira y su Eco”, “You Were My Skin” and “Johny, Mi Rey”.

To promote the album the band releases “Johny, Mi Rey” as a single (Mocambo 3M-014). On the B side we find a cover of “Leaves Me Cold” by Lush.

The next year, 1991, they were to perform at the legendary TV show “El Salero”. There is actually footage of them playing the song “Algodones” on the TV show on Youtube. The Youtube user victorblancoarcas mentions that in 1988 he played a show with his band, opening for Esta Noche Tampoco, at the venue “Casa de los Patos” in Oviedo.

Thanks to all this the band wins the best demo category prize on the El Kastillo de las Lágrimas radio show from Madrid in 1992.

On Rateyourmusic I find a self-titled demo tape from 1992. There were 6 songs included, “Esos Ojos”, “Labios Son Labios”, “Como Decir Que No”, “Escuchandote”, “Enseñame un Juego” and “Clarisse”.

Their last release was to appear in 1993, “Ya No Eres Mágica” EP. This time the record came out on Noche Records (also unlisted on Discogs). It seems it didn’t do well and the band decided to split because of that.

In 2003 a double CD-R compilation was released by Sausalito. It was an anthology of the band’s music and it was titled “Nosotros y los Charcos 1989-1992”. I haven’t seen this record ever. I wish I could find myself a copy!

On Wikipedia it mentions that after the demise of the band they started a new one called “Corazón Loco” were the band fused latin and British sounds but they didn’t get much of a following.

Ana Lamela these days is actually a well-regarded writer of erotic poetry and young adult fiction.

So time to keep digging. I then find an article dating from not so long ago, May 10th of 2017 on the La Nueva España newspaper. The article is about Eduardo Lamela. He was going to play some shows in the venues Trisquel and Savoy and so there was some promotion here. On the article I learn that his sister and himself weren’t born in Asturias, but in Lugo, in Galicia. Also that he has played in the US, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, Chile and Germany. That he has lived in Cuba and Barcelona.

About Ana I also found that she has a cultural project called Musa Cafeína. It is a multidisciplinary project where they promote music, reading, performance and more.

What else can we find? Well there’s Soundcloud, and Eduardo has an account there. Uploaded are “Esos Ojos” and “Labios son Labios“. Eduardo says these songs are from their last release, I suppose the “Ya No Eres Mágica” EP. An interesting fact is that Eduardo lists this record as grunge, and that it was recorded at Paco Loco’s studios. There are also a bunch of songs by a band called Versus, I suppose another project of his.

There are also 7 songs to stream from their sole album. But more surprisingly I find on another Souncloud account a song from their 1992 demo that won them the prize at El Kastillo de las Lágrimas, “Más Que el Futuro“. It sounds great!!

I’m sure my Spanish friends might remember them, or might know what happened to the members afterwards. It seems Ana is the one that you might know best, but I wonder what happened to Antonio Peña? I couldn’t find any information about him. And what about that double CDR? I would love to find a copy as it includes a bunch of then-unreleased tracks. Whereabouts in Spain did they gig? Why aren’t they as famous as say Aventuras de Kirlian or other bands from the time? Why didn’t they release records in bigger labels? So many questions. The fact is that they left some fantastic songs, you might just fall in love immediately with the brilliant “Ingemar” now, just as I did some months ago. And yeah? Who is this “Ingemar”? Maybe Ingemar Johansson the Swedish boxer?

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Listen
Esta Noche Tampoco – Ingemar

There was a truckload of indiepop news the last week. Or maybe I was paying more attention to updates on Facebook? It is the only way to be on top of everything happening in indiepop world. Writing down every single piece of news because then I forget. In the past there was never anything centralized for getting our news, but at least there were a few blogs.  Today I feel we are really lost at sea.

I have enough for two blog posts. If I can’t do another one this week, then I’ll save some news for next week. So let’s start:

Some weeks ago I championed the first two demos that were uploaded to Brighton’s Jetstream Pony Soundcloud page. Last week they uploaded a third one titled “Self-Destruct Reality” and like the previous songs, it is brilliant. This song won’t appear on their forthcoming 7″, so I wonder where will these songs be released? They are wonderful. Perhaps they are preparing an album? Or maybe they need another label to offer another 7″?!

Another band I recommended not so long ago are Finland’s The New Tigers. I’m only discovering their music lately, I need to try to track down their releases. In the meantime though I’m delighted with their new video for the song “Chewing Gum” that was released last week. I’m sure you’ll all like it.

San Francisco band Scrabbel, featuring Dan Lee from The Aislers Set, released a very limited, 100 copies, 7″ on John Jervis label Wiaiwya not too long ago. On the record there are two songs, “All Night” and “Summer’s End”. The first one is much more upbeat, with shimmering guitars, while the latter is more of an introspective, elegant song. You can stream both songs and order the record from the label’s Bandcamp.

Kim Weldin, from South Carolina, has been releasing great records with her band Tape Waves (where she is a duo with Jared Weldin). I even met her briefly at a NYC Popfest, when they played. I wasn’t aware that she had a solo project called Shiny Times. It seems I found about it a bit late as on the Shiny Times Bandcamp there is even a release dating from 2014. The past week she uploaded a bunch of recordings, 11 in total, as a digital and CD release titled “Secret Memos.” From the Bandcamp you can stream these lo-fi bedroom pop recordings and also buy the limited CD.

Baby Arms, who I discovered through the wonderful CD16 on Impermeable Records, have just released a new song titled “Eviscerator” on Bandcamp. To celebrate the occasion J. Doveton (who also is part of Colour Me Wednesday), has put together a digital and CD release including this song plus all other released songs by Baby Arms. And that’s not all, on top of that, 7 more demos have been included. So in total you get 13 songs. Lo-fi pop, reminiscent of Rose Melberg, I may just need to order this CD pretty soon.

And what about the classic Irish band The Would Be’s? They are still going. The band who wrote the brilliant “Funny Ha Ha” or the classic “I’m Hardly Ever Wrong” has a new single out titled “Tempt Fate” and it is available as a video and also as a paid-download from Bandcamp.

Last tip for this week comes all the way from Melbourne, Australia. The fantastic band Milk Teddy, who I was introduced many years ago by Scott B. from the Summer Cats, have a new single and video out. They are at the moment promoting their new album, “Time Catches Up With Milk Teddy”, that is slated for August. So don’t wait longer and check out the fun video for “Sweets Bells Jangled“.

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The Relations – indie band from Perth. Perth in Scotland, not the one in Australia.

Perth is a city in central Scotland, located on the banks of the River Tay. It is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county of Perthshire. According to the preliminary 2011 census results Perth, including its immediate suburbs, has a population of 50,000. Perth has been known as The Fair City since the publication of the story Fair Maid of Perth by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott in 1828. During the later medieval period the city was also called St John’s Toun or Saint Johnstoun by its inhabitants in reference to the main church dedicated to St John the Baptist. This name is preserved by the city’s football team, St Johnstone F.C.

Wait, I had interviewed a Perth band back in the day, didn’t I? Yes, Sandy Fyfe’s band Greenheart. And actually on this interview he mentions The Relations. What did he say?

When I ask him about what other Perth bands of the late 80s did he like he says: “The Relations had gone baggy and were in the lower reaches of the UK singles chart”, and when I ask him about Greenheart’s reputation as enfants terribles he says: “I remember playing a gig supporting The Relations, who had been on television that week playing their baggy stuff. They were in the crowd as we played. I was introducing the fact that they would be playing after us, someone in the audience shouted something not too complimentary about them, and I retorted ‘clearly someone has seen them before’ and we launched into our next song. There was a wee bit of hassle after that between us, and recently I was discussing the Go-Betweens with Gerry, singer of The Relations, and he said to me, ‘it’s a shame we have spent 20 years disliking eachother as we actually love the same music’ We are now good buddies. That’s what is great about music – the friends you make.”

My introduction to the band was through their first single, “Big Mans Shoes”, that was released in 1986. Of course, I didn’t buy it then. I was way too young. I must have got it maybe 5 or 6 years ago. How did I find out about them? That I can’t remember really. The good thing, because I bough the record blindly, was that I really liked it!

The 7″ was released on Hush Records (catalog HUSH001) and I’m guessing it was a self-release, that the band was running Hush. To give support to this theory, the B side was titled “Hush Hush”.  The record was produced at Wilfs Planet, same place that The Wake’s “Harmony” was produced. The producer was C. Medley, the art for the single is credited to Kelly and the photos to L. McNamara.

That same year the band was to release their second single, “Brainwashed and Blowdried” / “Come Home (Tell Us Everything)”. This was HUSH 002. This single is not in my collection yet. On Discogs though there is a small scan of the back cover, and squinting my eyes I can figure out that The Relations were Gerry on vocals, Nelly on drums, Kelly on guitar and Vinnie on bass and that they were managed by Dave Winton.

But that wasn’t the end of the band. They were to release an album, titled “Patrick”, in 1989. This was released on Stairwell Recordings (WELLP 001) and again I would guess this was self-financed, but I don’t know as they already had set up Hush before, why create Stairwall, right? Maybe this time it was different people running the label? Or who knows?

The album included 10 songs, 5 on each side. None of the songs from the singles were to appear. The tracklist is as follows: “Right On Mother”, “If…”, “Who Do You Think You Thought You Were”, “I’m Killing You”, “Some Say Sorry”, “Dark Night Bright”, “Don’t Let Me Break Your Heart Again”, “The Girl Who Cried Forever”, “Holy Water”, “God Loves God”. I’m also still missing this album, but luckily on Discogs there is quite some information on it.

The album was recorded at Pier House Studios, a place The Shop Assistants and The Pastels used. We get the full names of the band members now too, Vincent Stewart on bass, Neil McCormick on drums, Kelly McCormick on guitar and vocals and Gerry Harper on vocals. For this record the design of the jacket is credited to Chromatone Design and the photos to Luke Hayes (from Revolving Pint Dream), people who were involved in some Creation releases like “Ivy Ivy Ivy” by Primal Scream or “She’s So Out of Touch” by Slaughter Joe.

What else do we know about them? Well something very important. The band recorded a Peel Session on April 15th 1986. I could find the four songs of the session on Youtube. Check them out, “Mr. Wonderful“, “Come Home“, “Holy Water” and “You Can Call Me Anything“. I notice a comment where it says that the band played many times in London.

These songs were uploaded to what seems is Vincent Stewart, the bassist, Youtube channel. No surprise then that there are more songs, mostly from the album, but also the singles. Perhaps the best discovery here is the track “You’re The Next Best Thing” which is an early track, dating from 1984, that was included in the compilation “Deadbeat 3”. This compilation doesn’t appear on Discogs.

I wonder then if they were on more compilations? What happened to them afterwards? From the Youtube account I would guess members went to be in bands like The Curtains, Clearwater Rhythm & Blues Band, Turkey Bones & The Wild Dogs or Rabid Punk Guitars.

Were they also involved in other jangly bands? Are there more early recordings? Are there more unreleased stuff? I would like to know more. Maybe some of you remember them? I couldn’t find much about their gigs either! And also, how come after recording a Peel Session they didn’t enjoy any success?!

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Listen
The Relations – Big Mans Shoes

New week and now my 2nd week at my new job. I keep readjusting, and it is clear I need to learn some new things. To start, I need to learn how to do D3. I’ve never really got into it, I kept creating visuals and interactives without it, but now I see I must learn it. Need to be on the same page with my peers. When I started at my previous job I had to learn some Underscore just when I started and a charting library called Amcharts. I think I was really scared then, my background was never of a programmer, it was of a designer. But I manage to learn enough to get away with it and had a fine time, even winning some awards. Now I feel I’m at a similar crossroads, today confronting a new library and having to deal with that uncomfortable thing that is the Terminal. I hope I manage, I hope I like it. It is going to be interesting the next few months. To start I’ve bought some books, see if I can be disciplined enough again, at 33, to learn new things and not just be comfortable and lazy.

The good thing is that I’m working at my own pace while the department is being built. I’m the first hire. That gives me some time to work on my own stuff, meaning Cloudberry mostly. I’m writing these lines on a Sunday night while I wait for the footie highlights show, but I’m pretty sure much of this post will be written tomorrow, on Monday. This weekend was mostly about house chores, but I put together a new offer on the Cloudberry website that might interesting for many of you. As part of the 10th anniversary I’ve been trying to get some more affordable prices for you all. I do lose a bit of money on it, but I want to find a good home for these records and at the same time make some space at my place (which will start looking like a hoarder’s apartment!) for the new releases. This time around it is a Sweden only pack. That means there are 5 records by 5 bands from Sweden available to you all just for a month, until August 15th. This pack’s price is $25 for US orders and $50 for international orders. Both prices include shipping and handling. The pack includes the Fibi Frap CD, Hari and Aino, Bonne Idée, A Smile and a Ribbon and Youngfuck 7″s. Hope you take advantage of it!

What is new in the indiepop world now? Not sure if I’ve done well my homework this week but I did write down some cool stuff.

Let’s start by what most people are aware now, what most people raved about. That is that Alvvays have released the video for the brilliant “Undertow“, the song that is the first single of their “Antisocialites” album out on September 8th. I’ve already recommended this song when it was just an audio-only video on Youtube. Now there’s a video and it is very cool too. When I think of Alvvays I have to go back many years, when RJ from Lost Tapes came to New York telling me he had a crush, that there was this amazing band he had just seen. There was no online presence of them online. There was just some live video on Youtube. That was it. Months after the band was signing with a sort of big indie label and becoming darlings of the hipster-crowd. They were destined to this probably. I still haven’t seen them live, and I will try to fix that later this year, if their NYC shows don’t sell out.

Another band I’ve recommended on the blog is Houston’s Astragal. I checked them out after they appeared on the CD16 album that Impermeable Records put out. Now I noticed on their Bandcamp that they have 3 songs on a split tape on Miss Champagne Records. The band they share the split is also from Houston and are called Donna Heyward. I listened to them but it wasn’t my stuff. I’ll stick to Astragal’s side, and even though I’m not into tapes I (and you) can stream their 3 songs on Bandcamp. “Brightfellow”, “Miles” and “Crescent” are pretty dreampoppish jangly pieces. I especially like the last song the best, “Crescent”.

Ali, Chris and Brian from Richmond, Virginia, are Big Baby. I notice on their Facebook page that I already have friends following them. Well, I only just discovered them on Bandcamp. They sound classic, like they would fit in the Pop American Style compilation, no problem. They have a new tape coming out soon (oh dear, what’s with this tape fad? bring back CDRs! It is a pain for me to play tapes!), I suppose self-released. At the moment you can stream on Bandcamp all the songs that will be included in this EP titled “Sour Patch” which are 5: “Not That”, “Lemons”, Everybody”, “Rubber Tree” and “Often”. Again for some reason, I like their last song, “Often”, the best.

Months ago, or was it longer than that?, I was championing the return of Galaxy Train Records from Japan. Their latest offering is a 3 song tape (okay, I’m going to go out to protest on the streets!) by Japanese band Smokebees. The “Sunstroke EP” is a sweet lo-fi bedroom recording. The songs are “Begin Again”, “Lights of Home” (this one being my favourite) and a cover of Gavin Bryars’ (I don’t know who he is) “Jesus Blood Has Never Failed Me Yet”. You can stream it at the label’s Bandcamp.

One record that kind of slipped from my was the pretty pretty 5-song EP CD by Cattle on Jigsaw Records. I’m only listening to it now on the Seattle’s label Bandcamp and I’m kind of annoyed with myself for not having heard it before. Cattle is a Tokyo band who released their first EP also with Jigsaw some years ago. That means, I need to catch up, TWICE. On this new offering there’s even a cover of Ride’s “Twisterella”. What else could you ask? You get here honey sweet vocals, poppy melodies and electric guitars. This EP is titled “Slow Sailor” and even has a very cute illustration of a sailor on the artwork. “Sherbet”, “Dear Heart” (my favourite one), “Twisterella”, “Within Your Reach” and “Slow Sailor” are the tracks on this very good second release.

There’s even more new music on Bandcamp worth mentioning. Remember a long time ago I wrote and then interviewed a C86 sounding short-lived band from New Zealand called The Perfect Garden? Now they’ve set up a Bandcamp though at the moment there are only previews, short snippets, of their songs. In any case this is not to be missed by any indiepop lover, especially when the full songs are available as these are quality songs, and you’ll be wondering why the hell they were never properly released.

A few days ago I got a message from Phil Wilson. No, not the June Brides’ Phil Wilson, but Phil from The Raft, a band from Neston in the UK. So I duly checked his Bandcamp where his latest EP is available for streaming. Titled “Coming Up For Air“, the EP has four guitar-driven songs, “Glad I Don’t Know”, “Coming Up for Air”, “Anarchy on Our Guitars” and “Regrets”. It is a dreamy EP, with lovely guitar work, especially on the first song, “Glad I Don’t Know”, which is my favourite. Surprised I never heard about The Raft, they seem to have releases dating all the way back to 2003. I think I will have to explore their digital discography then.

And lastly, come on, this week has had a lot of recommendations, is Peru’s Almirante Ackbar who are releasing their first album on Faro Discos. You can order the CD album (which I already did) and stream it on their Bandcamp. Titled “Sonidos Ultrasónicos y Audibles Para Callar al Perro del Vecino”, which roughly translates as ultrasonic and audible sounds to shut up your neighbor’s dog, has 13 fun songs. A few weeks back I recommended their new videos for the songs “Alquimia Espiritual” and “Fiebre de la Amplitud”. Now they release an album. It seems the Lima guys are working hard, and that can only be a good thing. The album is thoroughly enjoyable!

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Remember last week? I was writing about The Friendly Fires, a Crawley band, and mentioned that I should actually dedicate a post to another Crawley band: Bobby Scarlet. I though why not do it this week? Why wait? I already owned their 7″ and was missing their 12″, so I also ordered it today. Let’s see what there’s to find about them on the web.

As it is becoming usual my first stop is Discogs. There I find just one line on the bio field: “1980s indie rock band from Crawley, West Sussex, England. The core of the band became Spitfire.” It also lists one member, Chris Window.

I actually discovered this band through the 1991 compilation “La-Di-Da… So Far…”  (La-Di-Da 018). On it the band appeared contributing the song “White Pearl” and I was immediately hooked!

I then decided to check out their back catalogue. I think I didn’t buy their 12″ because of expensive postage prices but I did get their first release, their “Mosquito” 7″.

This record was released on the same label, Deadbug Records, I was talking about last week when I wrote about The Friendly Fires. I feel, I’m guessing too, that there was a healthy scene in Crawley, were all the bands helped each other and even shared members. “Mosquito”, with “Peach” on the B side, came out in 1986 and got the Deadbug 003 catalog number. On the cover we see a black and white photo of a kid, probably at the beach, might it be one of the band members? On the back cover there’s a smaller photo of some sand castles. First thing I start wondering is why the name Bobby Scarlet? Was there a real Bobby Scarlet? On the back I notice that the band thanks Brian and The F.Fs. Pretty sure that The F.Fs are The Friendly Fires. Brian? Could it be Brian Hope, the vocalist and keyboardist of The Friendly Fires? The last bit of information comes from the labels. Two last names appear, Pritcher and Smith.

Their next and last release was to be out in 1988. It was the “White Pearl” 12″ on La-Di-Da Records out of Brighton. This is a label I’ve mentioned so many times as they released a bunch of fantastic records. I’ve been in touch with Grant Lyons who ran it, but sadly never got to get his interview answers. In any case many times he has been helpful giving me some information about many bands on the blog. This 12″ had 4 songs, on the A side there was “White Pearl” and “Mosquito” (a new version?) while on the B side there was “Jessica Jayne” and “I’ve Been Insulted By More Texans Than Anyone Else In The World”. This was actually the second release on La-Di-Da getting the catalog number La-Di-Da 002.

As I said I just ordered this record. It says it comes with a photo insert. Sadly I can’t find online any scan or photo of the back cover. Don’t know what sort of information is available there. As soon as I receive my copy I will update this post unless the band gets in touch with me before that. Yes, I’m hoping that.

Bobby Scarlet appeared at least on two other compilations. In 1988 they appeared on the legendary “Hoopla” tape contributing the song “260p”. This is a brilliant compilation that if you haven’t checked out try finding it as you will be on a treat. Interesting enough, the band wasn’t to appear on the Hoopla reissue on Accident Records, I suppose because the masters for this song were lost.

The next year, in 1989, they contributed the song “Steppenwolf” to another classic compilation, “Something’s Burning in Paradise Again”. This compilation was celebrated by the Something’s Burning in Paradise fanzine as the “greatest compilation tape you’re EVER likely to hear”. On the fanzine there was information about each of the bands, and in the case of Bobby Scarlet it says that by that time they had already changed names to Spitfire. There is only one name mentioned, Joseph. Now we need to find his last name.

Last week I linked to the Crawley Observer as there were mentions of The Friendly Fires when they were going to play a reunion to raise money for St. Catherine’s Hospice in 2012. Bobby Scarlet (and Spitfire) also played this gig. On the article there’s more mentions to Spitfire than Bobby Scarlet but as they are both related bands I think it could be interesting to you all:

This was soon followed by another Deadbug double-A side 7-inch release, Mosquito/Peach, by new to the scene, ‘60’s influenced five-piece Bobby Scarlet in early ‘87. Subsequently, both bands released a 12-inch single – The Friendly Fires’ I Said To Him and Bobby Scarlet’s White Pearl. Friendly Fires and Bobby Scarlet found themselves supporting many established independent bands of the day at venues around the south east, but, unfortunately by 1988 both groups had spilt. The Eighties story ends with garage rockers Spitfire, formed from the ashes of Bobby Scarlet in late 1989. Spitfire, all ex-Thomas Bennett pupils, soon found themselves signed to a London-based independent record company. Within six months they had acquired an NME single of the week. A national tour with a fresh from Top of the Pops Blur and John Peel sessions followed. 1992 saw a Reading Festival appearance and a number one independent single with the EP Wild Sunshine, Spitfire can also count Pulp and The Verve amongst an illustrious line-up of bands that supported them. Spitfire called it a day in early 1994 after releasing two albums and seven Eps

I found a website now where I could see the band members in Spitfire. Here I see that it was formed by Jeff Pritcher, his brother Nick, Steve White, Scott Kenny and Matt Wise. Okay, so the Pritcher on the Mosquito labels must have been Jeff or Nick. But that’s not all, luckily there are more mentions about Bobby Scarlet on here:
…Bobby Scarlet, which featured Jeff and Nick, as well as Steve Walker and Darren on guitars, and Chris Window(s) formerly of Creation hopefuls Blow uUp on drums. Bobby Scarlet released 2 singles, first Peaches / Mosquito on the Crawley label Deadbug run by another Crawley band, Friendly Fires and a 4 track 12” released on the Brighton label La-Di-Da Jeff, Nick and Steve Walker were definitely around for the first 2 singles, and Scott Kenny was definitely on the second.

So we got the band members now! Even that Chris Window used to be in Blow Up.

Next and last stop then will be the Bobby Scarlet Youtube account that I explored last week for The Friendly Fires rare tracks.

The first rare recording I find is “Kiss Me” at the 1987 Turn Me Up Christmas Party. At this gig the band played with The Grooveyard and The Wedding Present at The Pavilion in Brighton.

Then there’s the 1988 demos “Feverish” and “Strawhead” where the band sounds a bit rougher. And lastly a “260p” demo from 1988 if you can’t find a Hoopla copy (or Mp3s).

The last thing I could find was a flyer for a gig that was happening on March 3rd 1988 at the LCF Auditorium. Wonder where that is/was?

And that’s about all I could find for Bobby Scarlet. There’s definitely much more about Spitfire, but I wanted to concentrate on Bobby Scarlet, as it was a proper indiepop band during the best years of indiepop. I wonder if they recorded any more songs, if they left many unreleased tracks. Whereabouts did they gig? Anyone out there remembers them?

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Listen
Bobby Scarlet – White Pearl

I have been out of the loop for the past few days. I haven’t had the time to find out new music, and even less time to listen to the records that I’ve bought and keep piling by my computer. Now I go to work earlier, around 3 hours earlier. The mornings are not to my disposal anymore and so I need to readapt, reorganize myself. And I think that takes time. I need to find time a comfortable time to play music at time, I can’t do it too early or too late. I could try to play CDs while I work, that’s an idea. Sadly the computers at work don’t have a CD drive. I may need to bring a USB one and install Last.fm, as I like keeping track of what I’ve listened. Many new things, routines that are no more and routines that will be created in the next few months.

I guess the only piece of news that caught my attention was the announcement the Chickfactor fanzine made on their website and social networks. Chickfactor is celebrating their 25th anniversary with events in Portland (sometime in late October), in New York (sometime in early November) and in London (the only one confirmed, for the 11th and the 12th of November at The Lexington).

The party starts early, there’s an all-ages shindig at 12:30 pm on Saturday 11th at The Lexington. This seems to be co-organized with the always classy Hangover Lounge. There are two bands playing this smaller event: Wait What and The Numberz. On the website it says more young bands will be added and also some special guests. On the WeGotTickets website, where you can buy tickets for the event another band is listed, Ivy & Friends.  I couldn’t find a Bandcamp or Soundcloud for either The Numberz or Ivy & Friends. I remember that The Numberz played Indietracks some years ago when both of the members were 10 years each! So young! For Wait What I couldn’t find any of those music sites but there is a video for their song “Tune Me Up” on Youtube. On that same account they have more lo-fi videos. It is nice acoustic pop and they are really young as well!

Later that day, doors opening at 7:30, there are 4 bands to play the same venue. There’s The Pastels, Lois, Kicking Giant and Kites at Night. I’m not familiar with the last two, so I did a little investigation. So Kicking Giant are Tae Won Yu & Rachel Carns from New York. I’ve never seen them before. I don’t think I was ever aware of this band in NY. Maybe they don’t play live much? This Chickfactor show will be their first in the UK and this year they will get a reissue LP for their early work. This LP is coming out on Drawing Room Records and it is titled “Ballad of Kicking Giant, Halo: NYC/Olympia 1989-1993”. So I check their Bandcamp and I notice they used to be on K Records. The first song that plays is “Alien I.D.” and I’m not a fan because it is noisy and shouty, so I decide to play the next song, and it is in the same vein. OK, perhaps this band is not for me.

Kites at Night are Rose Melberg and Jon Manning. For this show Jen Sbragia (the other half of The Softies) will join them on bass. Rose and Jon had been involved with another band called Imaginary Pants. I actually have their 2013 self-titled 7″ that has a cool bear illustration on the cover. It is a very good record I think. On this same Bandcamp account they have the Kites at Night sole release to date, a cassette with 5 songs. The first edition sold out, nowadays the band is selling a second edition clear red cassette tape with hand stamped labels. This EP was actually released in 2014! Where was I then? Why is it now the first time I hear these beautiful songs. Shame it is only available on tape, I’m not a fan as you know.  But this Lost Sound Tapes release sounds fantastic to my ears.

The next day, November 12th, with the same schedule, doors at 7:30 and show at 8:00pm, 4 more bands will play The Lexington: The Softies, Stevie Jackson, The Would-Be-Goods and The Catenary Wires. Here there are no surprises, I’m familiar with all the acts. In this case I must say I’m jealous of all of you attending and seeing The Would-Be-Goods. They are among my favourite bands. To this day I’ve only seen them once, at the previous Chickfactor show in London. Yeah, I’m not going to be able to attend this. I’ve already asked for vacations for Thanksgiving week, at the end of November, so I can go to Portugal. So no indiepop festivals for me this year. Hopefully the next? I wonder if Chickfactor had announced earlier these shows I could have attended. I plan everything way in advance!

Both nights at The Lexington will feature MC Gaylord Fields (from WFMU). I remember him at the New York shows some years ago introducing the bands with fun anecdotes. I liked that. There will be Hangover Lounge DJs on the first floor of the venue. I wonder though if there will be any afterparties? Any dancing? That’d be nice. At least on Saturday. Hope something like that is announced. The ticket prices seem reasonable, 18 pounds for each night or 32 pounds for the two nights.

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Crawley is a town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles (45 km) south of Charing Cross (London), 18 miles (29 km) north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles (51 km) north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles (44.96 km2) and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census. Gatwick Airport, nowadays one of Britain’s busiest international airports, opened on the edge of the town in the 1940s, encouraging commercial and industrial growth.

An all-time favourite 7″ of mine is the “Arkansas” 7″ by The Friendly Fires that was released in 1986. I pulled it out the other day and got me thinking, why weren’t they more famous? Their songs are fantastic. How come a band with the same name became mainstream, famous and all? Were they aware of the “real Friendly Fires? Were they aware that their music wasn’t as good as the Crawley band from the 80s? Probably not. But then I didn’t know much about The Friendly Fires. So it was time to do some research.

Discogs immediately answers a few of my questions. There’s a small bio there that reads:
1980s indie band from Crawley, West Sussex, England. They ran their own label Deadbug Records releasing their own material as well as other local bands including Bobby Scarlet. The band consisted of Kieron Huston (guitar), Brian Hope (keyboards and vocal) and Paul Sloots (bass).

Indeed the two releases The Friendly Fires put together came out on Deabug Records. The first one, which is “Arkansas” for me, but a self-titled 7″ for Discogs, was catalogued as Deadbug Records 002. Discogs doesn’t list the 001 of the label’s catalog. I wonder what it is? The 7″ was recorded in August of 1986 and included three songs. “Arkansas” was the sole one on the A side while the B side had “Everything” and “Looks like Rain”.

Their second release was a 12″. This was Deadbug 005. A curious cat black and white photograph was on the cover. 5 songs came on this record, on the A said there’s “I Said to Him” and “Tide Temper” while on the B side there was “Happier Than Thou”, “All Too Soon” and “Come Alive”.

No other releases nor compilation appearances are listed on Discogs.

My next stop is an article on the Crawley Observer. On it they talk a lot about Robert Smith and The Cure but there are mentions to The Friendly Fires. But my first question comes immediately, is David Hope from the band Ever related to Brian Hope from The Friendly Fires? I feel it might be the same person? Well, on the Crawley article it says: “In 1986, Charles Cold changed their name to The Friendly Fires and released their first three-track 7-inch single, Arkansas, on singer Brian Hope’s Deadbug label. “

But then it is confusing, on another paragraph when they talk about Ever it says: “Ever, led by ex-Thomas Bennett kids David Hope, Peter Whittick and Colin Ray, were for a while THE band to make it, closely followed by The Milk Sisters, Charles Cold, All The Daughters and Swing the Heartache.”

So was there a David and a Brian Hope then?

Okay then, let’s follow the clues we have so far, before The Friendly Fires there was Charles Cold. It seems Charles Cold only put together demos, no proper releases.

Then another Friendly Fires mention on the article: “Friendly Fires and Bobby Scarlet found themselves supporting many established independent bands of the day at venues around the south east, but, unfortunately by 1988 both groups had spilt.” 

It is worth mentioning that this article was written in 2012 and it was for a good cause. Many of the 80s bands that were around in Crawley then were going to make an appearance and there was going to be even an 80s Jiveball disco. The bands that were going to play were Spitfire, All the Daughters, The Milk Sisters, Bobby Scarlet, Orange and of course The Friendly Fires. I wonder how that gig go. It must have been great to attend their reunion.

But there is another good resource for The Friendly Fires, one I have been using a lot every time I wanted to hear their fab songs, and that is Youtube. On the BobbyScarlet account (I know, probably this band also deserves a post on the blog) there is a plethora of songs by Crawley bands, probably all related to The Friendly Fires.

Aside from the recordings from the released records by The Friendly Fires, there are Charles Cold versions, meaning earlier versions, of the songs the band was to release. For example there is a very early “Arkansas” demo tape, dating from 1985. There are also demos of “Looks Like Rain Again“, “All Too Soon“, “Everything” and “I Said To Him” from 1986. But the BIGGEST discovery is another Friendly Fires release, another song. The Friendly Fires released a flexi with just the one song, “Neville“, in 1986. It was Deadbug Records 004. Sadly I couldn’t find any more information about it. But I know I want it, it sounds classic!

I keep investigating but I can’t find much more about The Friendly Fires. Most of the times I get information on the XXL band. I notice that Ed from Shelflife recommended them when he used to write his blog. I do find that Paul Sloots, their bassist, now plays in a band called Strange Tales. But that’s about it. I wonder what Brian Hope and Kieron Huston are up to now.

A bunch of questions remain unanswered. Definitely the flexi release is on top of my list. Was it released properly? Maybe it came along a fanzine? What about unreleased songs? What happened to the members after The Friendly Fires. I notice a lot of indiepop fans love their songs, but there is very little presence of the band on the web. I wonder if any of you remember them? Maybe they played a gig in your town?

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Listen
The Friendly Fires – Arkansas

Today is my last day at work. On Monday I start a new job at 30 Rock, Rockefeller Center. I’m a bit anxious, but I think the change will do me good. I wonder if it will affect in any way the label. I suppose not. The blog? Maybe. But I hope not. Let’s see how it works out. That’s why I prepared 3 blog posts for this week as I don’t know when will I have the time to research and write about bands. So you have a lot to read now. And definitely if it is not during the week, I’ll make my best to publish on the weekend.

Now onto more indiepop news that you can’t miss!

“Home Electronics” is the name of the singles compilation by the fantastic, legendary, They Go Boom!! As I see this release I can’t help myself thinking why I didn’t think of putting this myself! I would have loved that. What matters in the end is that this is finally released. And that’s something to celebrate! The album pulls together all five They Go Boom!! singles & EPs onto a CD. The liner notes have been written by Stephen Davies. Right now you can pre-order the album and wait until August 11th when it will be officially released. This one is NOT to be missed. Brilliant news!

The BMX Bandits keep promoting their new album “BMX Bandits Forever”. Because of that they have now released a new promo video for the song “It’s In Her Eyes (With Dr Cosmo’s Tape Lab)“. I still have to get the album, I’m a bit behind with a bunch of new releases, it seems this summer is very productive for many labels. Listening to this song, classic classic BMX Bandits sound, I feel I shouldn’t wait much longer in ordering that CD digipak from Elefant.

Another Elefant band that I’m a big fan is La Bien Querida. But this time around I’m having a similar feeling I got with the latest Club 8 song. I’m listening (and watching) the video for “7 Días Juntos“, the chosen single to promote her new album “Dinamita” out on June 27th and I’m a bit cold. I understand bands want to experiment and evolve and all that (though in this case it seems like a shot for mainstream acceptance to be honest), but, come on, try not to lose your indiepop sensibilities. I need to listen to the rest of the album to give a better opinion, but I’m not 100% sold with this song.

One of the best news in the last couple of weeks was the announcement that Cloudberry favourites Los Lagos de Hinault are releasing a new album. “Escenas de Caza” has already been released by the Fikasound label and what a treat it is. The 3rd album by the Madrid band has 12 songs. The clever lyrics of Carlos Ynduráin are present again, the boy-girl vocals too. The melodies combine perfectly for a singing along all the way through. You can actually stream the whole album on the band’s Bandcamp and I’ve been doing so for the last couple of weeks. I will probably make a better review of this piece of art after I get a physical copy on my hands. You can buy the album from the Fikasound Bandcamp. On top of it all, it was released on both CD and vinyl format and has a beautiful art. What else can you ask for?

My friend Vernon from Singapore recommended me a Russian band the other day. These are his own words: “I know almost nothing about Verbludes, an indiepop band from Russia. There is hardly any online info about them in English although they have just set up a Facebook page. I like what I have heard so far – shades of Heavenly, Loveninjas and Throw That Beat In The Garbage Can.” The song he recommended had a video. It is titled “Depts” and I’m loving it! Who the hell are these Verbludes? I don’t understand a thing, but the music is thrilling, exciting. Upbeat, with boy/girl vocals. I wonder if there are physical releases? I need to find a way to get their music. It is quite a discovery!! No one is making this sort of music anywhere else at the moment, a big suprise to see this sort of sounds coming from Russia! Oh! I did find a Bandcamp too.

The new darlings in Australia seem to be School Damage. They have just released a self-titled LP with Chapter Music and it is packed with 13 shambling songs. The band was originally a bedroom project for Carolyn Hawkins and Jake Robertson until they were joined by Jeff Raty and Dani Damage in Geelong/Melbourne. The label compares the band to The Vaselines and the Young Marble Giants and I can see that. This is a very exciting debut indeed, if you like your lo-fi pop shambolic, with a great dose of amateurism, you’ll love School Damage.

And that’s a wrap. More indiepop next week. Keep your eyes peeled.

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My introduction to The Chairs was through the compilation The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 3 released by Firestation Records in 2003. They had contributed the song “Brave Little Soldier” and I was curious about them. Years later I managed to get one of their 7″s, “Honey I Need a Girl of a Different Stripe”, probably through eBay. Now I wonder why I didn’t track their other 3 7″s. It is hard with so many fantastic bands out there, but I should try to now. To make it up, it is time to find out whatever happened to The Chairs. I start then with the record that introduced them to me, the Leamington Spa 3rd volume. There, on the booklet, The Chairs got 2 pages! Usually every band got 1 page. The Chairs got 2. And so there was a lot of information about them:

The Chairs began for me after The Gene Tryp fizzled out in 1986. The Gene Tryp, meant to be the missing link between the JAMC and The Byrds, was a feedback drenched fuzztone psych-pop racket, which grew out of an Essex Mod band called The Accidents. The Accidents were formed in 1978, and released an independent single in 79, Blood Spattered With Guitars on their own label, Hookline and Sinker. I think John Peel played it on his Radio One show. An album, recorded the following summer, Kiss Me On the Apocalypse, remained unreleased until 1995, at which time test pressings were changing hands for £100. The single is a Modpop classic, and is available on several Mod compilations as well as being added to the album CD. After several attempts to get signed, and touring with The Icicle Works and Husker Du among others, Paul Sullivan, Trevor Richardson and Kevin Lagan became tired of winklepickers and feedback, and decided to break away from the group. Manager Jim Wallace stayed with the trio and they became The Chairs, adding organist Dave Read, and releasing four self-financed singles and touring their assess off all over the UK, until The Stone Roses released Fool’s Gold, and student discos were never the same again. The Chairs were intended as a reaction to the sort of rockist posturing that had become the norm by the mid-eighties. As a writer, I was particularly taken by Elvis Costello’s no frills Blood and Chocolate album, and began to write songs for The Chairs in that vein. From now on there would be no solos, no rock star attitude, an no nonsense. The band had a manifesto; the name came from Lennon Remembers, Jann Wenners warts-and-all interview with John Lennon, where he rubbished the rockstar myth, and sang the praises of early rock ‘n’ roll purity. The quote was something about how rock ‘n’ roll should be like a chair, a functional thing, unadorned, simple, practical and honest. Say what you mean and put a backbeat to it. (Well thats how I thought it was, until I remembered seeing an advert in a magazine for a product called The Domesday Chair, a revolting piece of furniture marketed as a souvenir of the Norman Conquest. THe band was actually called The Domesday Chairs for a day or two, before I came to my senses and shortened it.) The template was definitely Costello’s Attractions, with a soupcon of Revolver period Beatles and a large helping of The Smiths, although our individual tastes were, to say the least, varied. There is a tape in existence of our first ever gig, on a foggy night in Southend, at a place called the Blue Boar. Don’t look for it, it might still be there. The band was being handled by Jim Wallace, a man known for his fondness for the banjo and his legendary hollow laugh. Like most managers, Jim took a lot of stick from his ‘boys’, but I personally came to rely on him enormously; without his encouragement and dogged pursuit of the prize there would be nothing to write about here. Not enough can be said about his right hand man David Hubbard, known to the band as Cakey. He drove us the length and breadth of the country, carried our gear, tuned our guitars, for no money and no discernible kudos. A prince among men.
We released four singles, financed by the band, all on our own Pink Halo label:
Likes of You / Something’s Happening
Size 10 Girlfriend / Cut-N-Dried
Honey I Need a Girl of a Different Stripe / Can’t Say I’m Sorry / Cut-N-Dried (12″ only)
Crestfallen / Sometimes It Takes a Hammer
We planned a 12″ of Crestfallen as well, which would have included a song called Days (not the Ray Davies tune) but ran out of money. (Days turned out to be the opening song on The Liberty Takers album The Heyday of Tony Stone, although you only get eight bars of it. That really is another story.) We struggled on into 1990, but once Dave Hubbard had left, like the ravens leaving the Tower of London, the heart went out of it, we had to get jobs, and all indie singles started to sound like someone rattling a collection box. We supported The Charlatans the first time they came to London, and a yawning gap appeared between us and the audience we were trying to attract. No amount of wahwah pedaling and funky drumming could tempt us onto the bandwagon, and we slipped away silently into the night. The following weeks NME featured The Charlatan’s singer Tim Burgess wearing Dave Reads suede jacket, stolen from right under our noses that night.
There was never, ever, a dance element to our music.
Paul Sullivan, West Sussex, March 2002

I read this years ago. What a good refresher. I think the next step then is to explore their discography. So time to check Discogs. The first 7″ was indeed “The Likes Of You”, with “Something’s Happening” on the B side. This was the first release by Pink Halo (catalog PHO1) and it came out in 1988. The producer was G. Chambers who has a long resumé, even working with the likes of Robbie Williams. The artwork for the picture sleeve is uncredited. It is a black and white illustration, a drawing, of some guy’s eyes and nose. Pink Halo Records was based in Offord Road in London, very close to the Highbury & Islington tube station. From this day you could already see the design of the labels that would become very characteristic of the next Pink Halo/The Chairs releases.

Their second release was the song I’m sharing with you today, “Size 10 Girlfriend”. The B side was “Cut-N-Dried”. This one sadly didn’t come with a picture sleeve. I wonder why. Maybe no money? It could be, as you see in a single year they were to release 3 records on their own. The record came out again on Pink Halo (catalog PHO2) and both songs are credited to Sullivan. The producer this time around was Howard Turner. Turner has more of an indie cred, he worked with 14 Iced Bears and The Nivens for example.

Their next release was the one I own. Released in 1988 by Pink Halo (catalog PHO3), this one too came on a picture sleeve. Now a striped shirt photo was the artwork. It made sense, the A side was “Honey I Need a Girl of a Different Stripe”. The B side was “I Can’t Say I’m Sorry”. Both songs credited to Paul Sullivan. The producer was once again Howard Turner. The songs were recorded at Resort Studios in Norwich. There was also a 12″ version of this record that included a third song “Cut and Dried (Short Back-N-Sides Mix)”.

Lastly, in 1990, Pink Halo was to release “Crestfallen” with “Sometimes It Take a Hammer” on the B side. The catalog this time was PHO4. Sadly this record didn’t come with a picture sleeve. So not much information to find out about it. The only thing we know is that both songs are again credited to Sullivan and the producer was Lance Phillips.

Happily I don’t seem to be the only one that had the idea to write about The Chairs. Leigh Haggerty of the blog “Leigh’s Mad World of Guitars” and also guitarist for bands like Ruts D.C., T.V. Smith, The Price, The Upper Cut and Big Al Reed, wrote a piece about them in 2010. There are a bunch of cool details that are worth sharing:
– The band played at least once at the Fulham Greyhound in 1988
– They were trying hard to get a record contract
– Paul Sullivan was also involved in the band The Crowd Scene
– There are many unreleased songs like “Boys From Slumberland” and “All I Need to Know”, this last one inspired by Albert Goodman’s book “The Lives of Young Lennon”

There are also links to an old Myspace of The Liberty Takers, Paul Sullivan’s band after The Chairs. Surprisingly I could stream the songs “English Skin”, “High Dive” and “My Waterloo”. I found out in Youtube that The Liberty Takers played in April a 20 year reunion gig at The Alley Cat Club in Denmark Street. There are a bunch of recordings at Graham Mansfield Youtube account.

I also learned that Sullivan was also in a band called The New Amusements. I found an interview with him on the blog Crayola Lectern dating from 2005. He actually talks about The Chairs on it:

You started as a drummer in The Accidents; how long did that last and what made you decide on the guitar and forming/fronting The Chairs?
I was writing songs from the word go, and I only took up the drums so I could get into the band. It was 1977 and it seemed unthinkable to be a ‘punk’ and not be in a band. The guitar and singing thing was going on at the same time, but it took me a few years to pluck up the courage to stand up there and face the music.
Drums are great though, don’t get me wrong. The Chairs were an interesting development in that we had a very definite ethos which informed everything we did, from haircuts to chord changes. We were political in that we disapproved of a great number of things for example guitar solos, dry ice, breast beating, men wearing make up etc.

Is it true that you played gigs with Hüsker Dü and The Charlatans? Good memories?
Hüsker Dü were really nice to us. I was in a band called Gene Tryp at the time and it was their first UK gig, at the old Marquee in Wardour Street. Greg Norton was particularly supportive and we got invited to a couple of their other shows. And Christ were they LOUD. The Charlatans gig happened in 1989, again their debut gig in London at the Powerhaus where they bussed in thirty or forty fans from Northwich. They were on different medication to us, and communication was stilted. However, the whole show was joyful and exciting. Their late organist, Rob, was a nice guy. Tim Burgess was off his nut and stole our keyboard player’s suede coat and had the cheek to wear it on the cover of the NME the following week.

The folklore surrounding The Chairs throws up a number of unlikely stories: did you race Stiff Little Fingers up the M1 once?
We overtook Jake Burns and SLF on the M6 while we were en route to Manchester and they were going to Liverpool. Jake Burns had been working as a producer for Radio One and we had been trying to get our latest single played to no avail. We wound down the window (at 80mph) and passed Jake a polite note that said “Why haven’t you played our single you Irish cunt?” He replied with a note that read “Because I don’t work for the BBC any more you English wankers”. Still to prove there were no hard feelings, he gave us a bottle of beer (still doing 80) which he had thoughtfully shaken vigorously before handing it over.

So when did you go the USA? What happened?
I went to Boston in 1990 for a holiday after The Chairs split, and met a huge number of lovely people, most of whom were in bands like Big Dipper, Gigolo Aunts, Christmas and The Lemonheads. The whole experience was invigorating for me, and I got to do a live show at The Middle East and a radio interview at WMBR. Everyone was so nice I went back the next year and the year after that.

What was it like playing in London in the eighties? Was there a scene as such which you fitted into or did you avoid all that?
Indie has now become a recognised musical genre, like nu metal and trip hop, but the eighties was a tricky time for bands that didn’t have a box to put their music into. We were an independent band in that we produced and financed our music outside of the music business, and it was an uphill struggle. We didn’t feel part of a scene so much as outsiders. We rarely made friends with other bands. It was too competitive, too many bands competing for too few gigs. We would have liked nothing better than to have been signed by a major label, but the truth was they just didn’t want us. We kind of peaked around the time of the Madchester thing, and we were determined not to jump on the bandwagon like The Soup Dragons for example. So it was a moral victory if not a financial one.

How come The Chairs split?
Too many arses not enough stuffing.

My next stop is a blog post on the Terence Ruffle blog, dating from 2009. My intention here is getting a bit of background of The Gene Tryp, the band Sullivan had been involved prior to The Chairs. There are also recordings by this punk band on Youtube. The account “little wing” has recordings of the songs “Set My Ship on Fire“, “ETA“, “I Still Feel Fine” and more. He even has recordings by the band Sullivan was involved even before The Gene Tryp, The Accidents. You can check for example “Looking Forward to The Accidents” or “Peking“.

I continue my investigation. Seems there’s a lot of stuff related to The Chairs. It is not common for me to find all these details. I now even find a press review by Sarah Champion and Steve Lamacq. On it we see that Elvis Costello praised the band describing them as “real rather than fake excitement”.

My last stop is a Facebook page set up by The Chairs. It seems it was set up for a reunion gig that never happened. There are some details there worth mentioning:
– The band’s last gig was in 1989.
– They did a Radio One session for Simon Mayo (anyone has these recordings????)

That’s more or less what I could gather about The Chairs. Much more than what I usually find about other bands but still many questions seem unanswered. Starting by the Simon Mayo session, their hopes of signing with a label, why they didn’t release an album, if they left any unreleased recordings, and so on. Maybe some of you Londoners remember them? Now I need to catch up and get the singles I’m missing.

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Listen
The Chairs – Size 10 Girlfriend

As promised on Monday’s post here is the 2nd part of indiepop news for this week. There might be a 3rd part if I have the time on Friday. Monday I will probably be very busy on my first day at my new job so I don’t know when exactly next week’s post will appear on the blog, but please keep checking for updates. As soon as I’m more used to my new routine I’ll see if I can continue posting on Mondays but if not I’ll find a different day that is more convenient for me.

I wrote about Battery Point months ago. I raved about them. Their first songs on Bandcamp were wonderful. Well, just a few days ago they uploaded 3 more songs on their Bandcamp. The songs “Wish”, “Clear” and “Wonder” make the “Star EP“. So far it seems it is only available digitally. I wonder if they have any intention in releasing their songs in physical formats. According to my friend Cris, these songs sound like My Favorite. I still don’t see it completely (I do I see it on “Clear”), but that they are good, they are good! The band is formed by Jessica Severns on vocals, Sergio Esparza on vocals and bass, Ray Hamilton on guitar and Alex Meza on drums. They are based in Chula Vista, California. I hope to hear more songs from them, and hopefully a proper release in the near future.

The legendary band Aberdeen announce a new release on their Bandcamp. For just $10 you can get a CD copy of “What Do I Wish For Now: Singles Collection 1994-2004“. Over 60 minutes of music that was originally released on Sarah, Sunday, Tremolo Arm Users Club and LTM. It is not exactly a re-release of the record of the same name that LTM released years ago. I notice that this new CD doesn’t have 2 songs, “Marine Parade” and “She Never Understood”. I wonder if that is the only difference and why were these songs not included. Of course the LTM release is long sold out, so for those who missed it the first time around, this is a good opportunity to catch up.

La Última Isla is a noisy pop group from Santiago, Chile. They have just released their second digital EP titled “Mil Planetas”. It reminds me a lot of the noisy and poppy bands from the Spanish scene of the early 00s. The cool thing about this band too is that it shares members with our beloved My Light Shines For You that have a release in the works with us, with Cloudberry. There isn’t much information other than that. I hope these songs get released at least on a CDR. They sound great, and I’m having such a good time listening to them.

Now we cross the Pacific, all the way to Melbourne, Australia, to discover the 2-track CD-single by The Golden Rail. What do you need to know about them? Well that the band members had been involved in many classic bands like The Palisades, The Rainyard, The Summer Suns, DM3 and lately in The Jangle Band. You can’t have more pedigree than that. And thus is it not surprise that the two songs, “Oh My!” and “The Silent Birds”, are classic sounding jangle pop songs. This is the 1st single from the soon to be released album “Electric Trails From Nowhere”. I look forward to that.

I continue in Australia, but I head north, to Brisbane. One of my favourite bands from the past few years, Major Leagues, have released their debut album. “Good Love” is available in both vinyl and CD formats and includes 12 songs. To promote it they made a video for the song “It Was Always You”  which looks and sounds great. Right now I’ve only heard two songs from the album, the one of the video and “Good Love”. They are the only two you can stream from their Bandcamp. I have just ordered the CD album as we speak (thought about the vinyl, but a bit too pricey and CDs are still more convenient for me to store) so I hope I love the rest of the songs. To be honest, I have really loved all of their previous releases, so I have no doubts I will love this. The fact that I could only hear two songs took me back to the days when blogs were actually important, when labels would send full albums MP3s or websites to stream so they could get a review. I wonder if this is still a trend. Sometimes when I was running my previous blog, Mira el Péndulo, I would get free copies to review. That was nice. How times change, no? Or maybe this blog is just terribly unpopular!

The last indiepop news for this week has to do with another beloved band of mine, Club 8. On the Labrador Records Soundcloud page a new Club 8 song was uploaded, “Lost“. Now, for the past few releases Club 8 has been experimenting with different music styles, different influences. And even I saw criticism, I loved those albums, I thought the experimentation was going in the right direction. This time though I feel actually like the song, a bit lost. I don’t know if I like it or dislike it. It is leaving me a bit cold. Of course Kristina’s voice make me swoon, and I love that. The music, well, I’m not sure if I’m loving it. What are your thoughts? I definitely want to listen to the whole album (or EP, or whatever they are preparing) to give a better opinion!

And again I’m left with another handful of indiepop news written on blue post-it notes that I didn’t cover this time around. They will have to wait for the next post. Hopefully before the week ends!

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Gloucester is a city and district in southwest England, the county city of Gloucestershire. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the southwest.Gloucester was founded in AD 97 by the Romans under Emperor Nerva as Colonia Glevum Nervensis, and was granted its first charter in 1155 by King Henry II. Economically, the city is dominated by the service industries, and has a strong financial and business sector, and historically was prominent in the aerospace industry.

Apple Mosaic’s “Honey If” is one of my favourite singles all-time. For some reason I never had the curiosity to dig into their history perhaps because I never got around getting the rest of their discography (only the other day I ordered another 7″ by them). Not that they are rare records, I mean, you can definitely find them on some web stores. So I really don’t know why I haven’t done some detective work but I’ll make amends today, let’s see what we can find related to this Gloucester band from the 80s.

Let’s start with the discography. The first Apple Mosaic release was actually the “Honey If” single I mentioned before. It came out in July 1987 on the MDM label (catalog MDM 10). I’m not familiar with this label, it is not an indiepop label, but I see that Pete Wylie from Wah! released some singles with this label. I have the 7″ version. There was also a 12″ version. On the 7″ the songs were “Honey If” on the A side and “Mary Hell” on the B side. The 12″ included an extended mix of “Honey If” on the A side and “Mary Hell” and “Me Myself I” on the B side.

On the credits we see that “Honey If” was written by Carrington-Wendo and Dench and produced by Ian Ritchie. “Mary Hell” was written by Dench and produced by the band and Steve Hall.

That same year, 1987, the band released another single. “Velvet Avenue”, both on 7″ and 12″, was released on MDM Records (catalog MDM 23) and came with “Velvet Avenue” on the A side and “One More Step to Go” on the B side. The 12″ added one more song on the B side, “Never See His Face”. The A side was produced by Ian Ritchie while the songs on the B side were produced by Steve Hall. Both songs are credited to the writing partnership of Carrington-Windo and Dench.

The next year, 1988, saw the light of their last single. “Under the Spell” came out only as a 7″ but this time on another label, Off the Track Records. Not familiar with this label either, but I see they released The Smiths’ Peel Sessions for example. The songs on the record were “Under the Spell” and “Halfway There”. The interesting thing about this record is that it was licensed to DRO in Spain.

This same label released in 1988 their only album. Titled “Hole” (catalog OTT 370103), the record included 12 songs: “Hole”, “I’ll Be Me”, “Pictures, People & Zoos”, “Don’t Weep At Your Window”, “One Of These Days”, “Under the Spell”, “Hour of Thought”, “Count Me Out”, “The Prisoner’s Free”, “Race”, “Halfway There”, “She Knows Where To Go”. The record was released on CD and LP and also was licensed to Spain, to the label DRO. Did they get much recognition and fans in Spain? Hopefully my Spanish friends can answer that question.

On the credits for the album we learn the names of the band members:
Tim Harvey on bass
Shane Young on drums
Ian Dench on guitar
Laurence Carrington-Windo on vocals

The album was produced by Clive Martin. And actually Clive has a website were he reminisces about this release. He says: I loved making this record. One of my first with a totally live setup outside Trident, in a barn in Gloucestershire.I love the energy on this record. Should have been a big hit in the UK as well as France. Unfortunately the band didn’t last long, but Ian Dench, the guitarist didn’t have to wait long to have his first number one, with his next band EMF.

I see, the EMF. Epsom Mad Funkers. “Unbelievable“, the big hit. I didn’t make the connection. How interesting. From indiepop to the big leagues. I think the first mention about the involvement of Apple Mosaic members in other bands that I find is from the blog “Pop Bothering Me” by Richard Osborne. On it he says: On a personal level, most of the people I know who have succeeded in the music business have been signed and dropped by record labels, and they have been members of several different bands. In fact, it was only through failing at their first attempts that they gained the necessary experience and acumen to negotiate the commodification process. I performed in bands in Gloucestershire in the late 1980s. One of the most popular local groups was Apple Mosaic, who were signed and quickly dropped by Virgin Records. Their guitarist, Ian Dench, went on to form EMF, who recorded for Parlophone and had a number one hit in the US with ‘Unbelievable’. The singer of Apple Mosaic, Laurence Carrington-Windo, was also re-signed. His band Bedazzled released a number of singles on Columbia Records. In his case, however, he came no closer to being a one-in-ten. If at second you don’t succeed . . . 

Bedazzled. Never heard about them. I immediately notice they were on a big label, on Columbia. They released 4 singles and one album. They named the band after the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore film. Laurence Carrington-Windo was the lead vocals. On a big label but no success. I found actually a blog post about Bedazzled on the blog The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt. Not much on Apple Mosaic but a good entry point to the music of Bedazzled. On the other hand Ian Dench achieved success almost immediately with EMF.

When it comes to success stories, then there’s a lot of information on the web. Yeah, you can find a lot about EMF. Sometimes there are mentions of Apple Mosaic in these pages. But of course, not many details. I do find some interesting facts about Ian Dench. Before Apple Mosaic he had been in a punk band called Curse. He had learned guitar thanks to his father, he taught him how to play classical guitar. I do read time and time again that Apple Mosaic were signed to Virgin. May it be that MDM Records belonged to Virgin? In any case you can read a bit more about Ian on the EMF website too.

I found yet another post that mentions Apple Mosaic. Of course the post is about EMF, but on it there are some words by Dench about his previous band: As a teenager, EMF guitarist Ian Dench, “much to my dad’s horror,” he once said, started a punk band called Die Young, Stay Pretty. “After a few more groups, I got more into playing the guitar and began to realise the technical possibilities of the instrument and started listening to The Doors, Cream and Led Zeppelin. Then I formed a psychedelic dance band, Apple Mosaic. We played dance bass lines and put guitar on top. That lasted for seven years, from the time I was 17 until I was 25. We recorded two albums, but never sold any.” It was time to move on. The blog belongs to a Jon Kutner, entertainer, DJ and author.

Of course the discography of Ian Alec Harvey Dench is long, very long. After being in EMF he was involved with the band Whistler with whom he released two albums. On top of that he has being nominated to the Golden Globe or the Grammy Awards. Working with big names like Beyoncé and Shakira. It seems so strange, talking about a jingle jangly band and then with that sort of mainstream music. But quoting Primal Scream, “It Happens”.

The last place I decide to go dig for Apple Mosaic information is Youtube. I knew I was going to find many things here. I’ve been aware of there being videos and songs by the band on this website. I played them now and then. I’ll start by recommending the promo video for “Under the Spell“.

The mystery starts with an account that has a lot of rare early recordings by the band. The owner of the account is Bill Blair who seems to have been part of the band in the early days. The first recordings he have are from a live gig at Oxtalls College Campus in Gloucester on May 28th of 1983!! Luckily he has added a good amount of information on the description area for the video. We know that at this time the band was formed by the previously mentioned Laurence Carrington-Windo, Ian Dench and Shane Young, but now there was Mickey Dixon on bass and Jim Price on keyboards. It also says that this gig was what it started it all. The songs played at this gig were “Met a Minute”, “Halfway There”, “One More Step To Go”, “Mary Hell”, “No Time”, “Purple Haze” and “Don’t Weep At Your Window”.

The next recording Bill Blair has also dates from 1983. By then Bill had replaced Jim as the band’s keyboardist. This demo is titled “The Clock House demo” and was recorded live at the Clock House Studios in Keele on August 28th of 1983. The songs recorded were “Halfway There”, “One More Step to Go”, “Mary Hell”, “Hour of Thought”, “Met a Minute”, “She Knows Where to Go”, “The Funeral” and “Never Sail Again”.

What a trove of treasures this account is! The next recording is a live recording of the song “Don’t Weep At Your Window” from a gig at Birmingham Polythecnic on November 29th of 1983.

It seems things go chronologically on his account, so that’s a good thing for me. A live recording of a gig at the Cambridge Suite in Gloucester from December 19th of 1983 has the songs “The Funeral”, “On Every Street”, “Drum Solo”, “The Prisoner is Free”, “No Time”, “Never Sail Again” and “Hour of Thought”.

It is clear that at this time the band was experimenting. They were very much 60s influenced. No surprise that the next recordings Bill offers have even a psychedelic free-for-all! Two songs are available, “Hour of Thought” and “Lost in the Fog”, from their gig at The Granary in Bristol (March 8th 1984).

The band recorded their next demo in 1984. The “Millstream demo” shows the band getting poppier. Three songs were recorded, “Mary Hell”, “One More Step to Go” and “Hour of Thought”. They were recorded at Millstream Studios in Cheltenham on March 4th 1984. Mick Dolan was the engineer.

In 1985 the band recorded the “Quayside demo“. I’m really enjoying this trip through the band’s evolution. The songs recorded for this tape were “Get Out of My Dream”, “Lost in the Fog”, “Mary Hell”, “Don’t Weep At Your Window”, “Do or Die”, “Hour of Thought”, “Halfway There” and “The Funeral”. There is also a Bill Blair remastered version of this demo available on Youtube.

There is another live gig on Youtube on another account, one from a live show at Gloucester Park. This time there is no track listing. What is interesting are some comments by a MrMarco. He knew the band, he was signed to the same publisher and says that there is a lost Virgin/MDM album that never got released !!!!!! What!?!?! What happened with it? Where are these songs?

And this is when this indiepop archaeology job hits a wall. Still I found a lot of information and was left with even a bigger mystery, the unreleased 2nd album by Apple Mosaic. There’s also the change of lineup, when and why did it happen? If they recorded even more songs? How come they signed to Virgin? How come they didn’t become successful? “Honey If” could have been big on the radio if you ask me. I wonder. I’m sure many of you remember them? Any other details or information about the band would be greatly appreciated!

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Listen
Apple Mosaic – Honey If

Tomorrow is 4th of July and I plan having a good lazy day because this is my last week at my present workplace. I will start a new job starting Monday and I feel a mix of excitement and anxiousness. That’s normal, isn’t it? I’ve been at my current job for 5 and a half years now. A change was needed. What I’m not sure though is how it will affect the blog. I wonder if I’ll have the spare time to write a post once a week. I hope so. If not, I will need to try to find some time, even if it is during the weekends. I feel it is still important to write and document the music we all love.

Speaking of music we all love, and if you haven’t paid attention to the Cloudberry Facebook page, then you must know that we announced our next 7″, our 42nd! This time is a 4 song EP by Santiago, Chile, band My Light Shines For You. At this particular moment you can listen to one of the songs, the opening one, “Detective“, on our Soundcloud. You can also pre-order the record which will be released late September/early October this year. We will have an exact date as soon as the pressing plant starts pressing the 7” vinyl. The record also includes three other songs, “Letterzone”, “That Kind of Boy” and “Crystallized”. This is their second release ever after their 2015 “Días de Lluvia” EP. The artwork for the record was created by Valencia, Spain, illustrator Hector Trunnec. So yeah, keep an eye on this exciting release that recalls classic upbeat bands like The Haywains, Tullycraft, Strawberry Story and more.

And of course here I continue looking for exciting bands for our next 7″s (I can say there’s a new Swedish band working on one) and also bands deserving retrospective albums (also in the talks with a couple of bands). So things are still going forward at Cloudberry, and it is all thanks to your support.

Speaking of our retrospectives, it has come to our attention some rare live footage from our friends The Suncharms who graced one of our Cake Kitchen releases. On their Youtube channel you can find videos of them playing at The Palais in Sheffield on the 18th of July of 1991. You can check “Sparkle“, “Verge of Tears“, “She Feels“, “Sort it Out“, “Tranquil Day“, “Reflections“, “Spaceship” and “Wash Away“. They all sound great, and you can feel a special energy in the crowd. How much I would have loved to be there!

Now onto some indiepop news around the world, yes?

The Death of Pop just announced a new CD album release on Barcelona’s Discos de Kirlian label. You can actually stream the 11 songs from the album titled “Fed Up” on the label’s Bandcamp. This record includes all previously released digital singles this year. There are only 150 copies of the record, so it is very possible I won’t get a copy myself which is a shame. I’m not entirely familiar with this London band, but I can see they have a few shows coming up within the UK. It makes me long that country, but then, there’s no place where I could check out all the up and coming indiepop bands at the same time as I used to when Indietracks reigned supreme.

The Sweetest Touch is a recommendation from a dear reader and supporter of the label. The band hails from Depok in Indonesia and have 3 songs streaming on the Bandcamp of the great Dismantled Records from Jakarta. These songs will be released soon as a CDR but as I write these lines you can stream “Runaway”,  “Too Many Dust, Too Many Haze” and “Last Wishes”. The band is a duo formed by Razif Haragi and Muhammad Zul Atsari. The sound is beautiful, very much influenced by Sarah Records.

Other news I’ve been meaning to mention, even though now it feels a bit late, is that the fantastic Annika label from Barcelona, Spain, is back. To those who have no clue, well Annika released a bunch of fab records the past decade including releases of The Pines, Milkyway, Pipas, Mirafiori and Serpentina. Now that the label is back they are doing deluxe re-releases of two of their most beloved bands, Mirafiori and Serpentina. Now both of the bands get the vinyl treatment and it makes sense. Mirafiori’s “La Casa del Coleccionista” includes the songs from the original CD EP released in 2002 by Annika and also songs from demos recorded in 2000 and a couple of compilation tracks. All in all there are 10 songs, and because this is a special occasion the label and Cloudberry friend Toni Poni has put together a beautiful video for the song “Cinco Minutos“. And what about Serpentina? Yes there’s a new video as well, this time for the song “Llámame“. I really like this video by the way, so classy. The thing about the re-release of Serpentina’s classic album “Blancamañana” is that this time it is not just one CD, it is a double LP! This means that there are actually 18 new songs here and plus the 14 from the original release, there are a whopping 32 songs! I have ordered both of this records and I can’t wait for them to arrive. The two original releases have been favourite of mine for a long time, so I can’t wait to hear all those unreleased songs that I hope have the same quality as the rest! You can order these records and more from Annika’s website.

I’ve mentioned before “England is Mine”, the Morrissey biopic. There was not much to see, but it was an interesting thing that it was being filmed. Now finally a trailer has appeared. You can actually watch it now on Youtube. The film was directed by Mark Gill and stars Jack Lowden as Morrissey and has Jessica Brown Findlay as Linder Sterling from Ludus.

This post already got long! And I still have a bunch of news and music for you to hear. But let’s wrap it here. But let’s do a deal, I promise another blog this week!

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Barrow-in-Furness is a town and borough in Cumbria, North West England. Historically part of Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with adjacent districts in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. At the tip of the Furness peninsula, close to the Lake District, it is bordered by Morecambe Bay, the Duddon Estuary and the Irish Sea. In 2011, Barrow’s population was 57,000, the second largest urban area in Cumbria after Carlisle. Natives of Barrow, as well as the local dialect, are known as Barrovian.

My introduction to Barrow-in-Furness band Red Hour came through the superb Wilde Club Records compilation “I Might Walk Home Alone” (catalog WILDE 10). Some of you might remember I bought this compilation because I was curious about the band Storm House that also appeared on the compilation. On top of that 2 bands related to Cloudberry, Shine! and The Suncharms also appear on it. Yes, I’m telling you that if you see it, grab this 1992 CD compilation. It is worth getting. On it, Red Hour appears with the song “Treat” and as I didn’t know much about them I decided that it was time to investigate.

It seems true that indiepop bands in the early nineties are definitely more obscure than the 80s one. You’d think it should be the other way around, as the 80s are older and all, but no, it must be that the heyday, the year 0, was 1986 for many. Red Hour came around in the early 90s and perhaps that’s why I had never heard about them before, why my friends don’t mention them, or I don’t see much on the web about them. They put out two records according to Discogs, but I would love to know if they made more recordings or if they were involved in other bands. Time to dig the world wide web.

Their first release was a 7″ on Cogent Records (catalog RHCOG5). This label had mostly released records by The Tier Garden and also a 7″ by Perfect Circle but for sure it is not a label one associates to indiepop or that many are nostalgic about. In any case, the two songs they included in the 7″ were recorded and mixed at Out of the Blue Studios in Manchester on the 2nd and 13th of August 1990. That same year the 7″ was released and the song titles were “Five Questions” on the A side and “Films About Me” on the B side.

We find some credits here and we find that the band was formed by:
Dave Canavan on vocals
Roger Lindsay on guitars
Chris Hughes on bass
Geoff Cooke on drums
Roger Bibby on guitars and keyboards

The engineer for this record was Adam Lesser.

I like to imagine that this release caught the attention of Barry Newman from the superb Wilde Club Records. A year before the compilation I mentioned earlier was released, in 1991, Red Hour put out a brilliant 12″. It had four songs, “Spin Out” and “Five Questions” on the A side and “Open Eyes” and “Treat” on the B side. I wonder if “Five Questions” is a re-recording of their previous single or it is the same version. I only own this 12″, the 7″ is still on my wantlist.

This record was also recorded at Out of The Blue Studios, this time on the 19th and the 20th of April 1991. It does say that “Five Questions” was recorded and mixed on 4th and 13th of August 1990. It must be the same version then, right?

My next stop in this search for any information on Red Hour takes me to a blog titled The Smell of the Greasepaint and the Sound of the Peel. It is a blog seems to cover a lot of music John Peel played between the years 1991 and 2004. Here I learn that Red Hour had actually recorded a Peel Session on the 8th of March of 1992. The songs they recorded for the session were “All I Need“, “William Jailor“, “Free Fall” and “Almost There“.

Other than that not much information on the blog, though it is a lovely read about what the author remembers about these songs and what he thinks of them. I like these sort of personal music blogs. I haven’t written a piece like that for ages. Seems I’ve been keeping this format of an obscure band investigation and some indiepop news or criticism combo for years now. I once reviewed some albums and reviewed gigs. And I wonder how will the blog evolve in the coming months and weeks as I will be starting a new job and I’m not 100% sure how I will organize my time.

The good thing is that thanks to that blog post, as two Youtube songs were embedded, I could find Richard Attwood’s Youtube. Not sure who he is (I’m guessing he was behind Cogent Records as he has songs by Tier Garden, Red Hour and Perfect Circle on his channel) but he has a trove of Red Hour recordings here!

The first song I find is titled “Isolated” and it predates both of their physical releases. This song was taken from a tape recorded on the 21st of October of 1989 at Out of the Blue. From that same session there’s another song, “Moving Away” that I’m also loving.

The next two songs available,”Days By the Docks (live)” and “Jesus is the Answer (live)”, are live recordings from a gig at The Hospital Club in Barrow on the 13th of May of 1989.

Then another obscure track, “Long Days”, taken from a 5 track demo recorded February 11th of 1989. I wonder what other songs were in this demo.

Then I check out the songs from the Wilde Club Records who Richard has also uploaded. I wonder if he was the one behind Cogent Records why didn’t he upload “Films About Me”. I would like to listen to that song. In any case I go through the comments looking for any other tidbits about the band.

Sadly what I found is not good news. Someone commented that Dave Canavan died 5 years ago.

And that is when I feel I hit a wall. Not much more about Red Hour. Luckily I did a quick search on my blog and found a mention to Red Hour. On an interview with The Peach Thieves when I ask them about the town they were based and if there were any good bands that they got on well they said:
We were and I still am based in Cumbria – a beautiful part of the UK – we’re just outside the Lake District so lots of mountains and lakes but Barrow where we played most is a tough working class town – the bands we got on with were Red Hour and Masai Buckeroo the only other ‘indie’ bands around Red Hour were kind of like the Wedding Present/Television and Masai Buckeroo wanted to be Butthole Surfers – we played our very first gig on the same night in 86 in fact – Best venue by far was The Labour Club – sadly not there anymore but a great left wing bar with an upstairs concert hall – spent many happy hours in there.

Do you remember them? Have you heard any of their other demo recordings? Or live recordings? Were the band members involved in other bands? Maybe some of you saw them playing? Well, if you remember anything about them I would love to know.

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Listen
Red Hour – Five Questions

After the good two weeks of releases, Pale Spectres 7″ and The Potting Sheds CD, there’s a little calm now at Cloudberry. But that doesn’t mean the excitement disappears. There’s a new 7″ ready to go to press and it will be announced later this week through our Facebook page. That’s not all, we are already talking to a band we love for a retrospective CD, to be the 10th Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release. But wait, there’s even more. Just got four songs to be mastered by a new Swedish band. Yes, that will be yet another 7″, as we start getting closer to the 50th 7″ release on the label. Here at Cloudberry we don’t stop loving our indiepop!

This week I have even more indiepop news, some a bit older now, but maybe you’ve missed them. So let’s start!

Teenage Superstars is a new documentary that was just screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film is directed by Grant McPhee, same person behind the Big Gold Dream documentary we all bought DVDs not so long ago! On this documentary Grant covers the time after Big Gold Dream, the time of bands like The Pastels, BMX Bandits, Soup Dragons, The Vaselines and more. I can’t wait for it to be released on DVD or screened somewhere in NYC.  There’s a Facebook page for the film.

Desperate Journalist, a band I’ve raved and championed many times in the blog, have a new video out for the song “Why Are You So Boring?“. This is the 4th single taken from their second album, “Grow Up” and I’m very happy about it as it is one of my favourite songs in there. The video is a collage of the band at different gigs and other snippets of videos, and it includes the lyrics for singing along. Great stuff!

Andreas Dorau is releasing his 10th studio album “Die Liebe und der Ärger der Anderen” on July 7th. To promote the record (which comes in either double CD, double vinyl, as a box set including the album and a flexi disc and tape), Dorau has put together a video for the song “Ossi mit Schwan“. Now, how to get myself a copy on this side of the Atlantic? I’m sure it won’t be easily found here…

Peruvian band Almirante Ackbar also has new videos. They are promoting their new album “Sonidos Ultrasónicos y Audibles Para Callar al Perro del Vecino” which will be out on July 14th. In the past three weeks two videos have appeared on their Facebook. The first one was for the song “Fiebre de la Amplitud“, a song I actually played on my podcast a long time ago. The second song was just published today and it is called “Alquimia Espiritual” and sounds ace. Hope the album gets released in physical format!

Jetstream Pony is the new project of Shaun Charman from The Fireworks (and previously Wedding Present and The Popguns) and Beth Arzy fr0m The Fireworks/Luxembourg Signal/Trembling Blue Stars. They have so far 2 demo songs on their Soundcloud, “Out of Reach” and “Not the One”, and as you can expect by the people involved, they sound brilliant. The Croydon/Brighton band is preparing alongside the fantastic Augsburg label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten a 7″ that will include two other songs, “Like You Less” and “Had Enough”. This is very promising, hopefully the band keeps the songs coming!

Lastly a band I discovered before I traveled to Finland. I was looking for any gigs while I was going to be there and well, couldn’t find any. But I found a poppy band that I thought sounded quite nice, The New Tigers. It seems they’ve been going for some years now and have a couple of releases. Their latest, the “Vindications EP”, dating from 2016. You can check them out on Bandcamp of course. The band hails from Turku, a town I actually visited for a day and really enjoyed the vibe alongside the river, and the castle of course. To my surprise Ville, who I met once upon a time in NYC when he was playing with Cats on Fire, is the drummer of this band! I didn’t know this connection, I really liked all the music he was involved with, and at some point we talked about some project he was making with his then girlfriend. I think some recordings were made, but I never got to listen to them. I’m sure I would have loved them. But it is good to see that he continues making music with the New Tigers but also solo with his new project Verandan. Soliti, their label, has a song available for streaming “Gold in the Hills” and sounds classic. Loving it!

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This week post comes courtesy of the Fanning Sessions blog really. Last week he sent me a message saying that a reader was compiling a radio show and asked him if he wanted to request any songs. He picked “Road of the Lonely” by Bam Bam and the Calling,  and then he shared it with me.

I had no clue who they were. First time I heard their long name. The song sounded good. The quality and the style told me it was from the 80s. They were definitely Irish, Fanning Sessions only deals with the Irish. But what else? My first instinct was to check out Discogs.

There I would find immediately a small biography and thanks to that I was going to get some perspective:

From Derry, Northern Ireland, Bam Bam and The Calling were formed in 1983 by Paul McCartney, ex of late 70s punk band Graffiti, with Tom Doherty. They are best known now for That Petrol Emotion taking their name from the title of one of their songs. The band split sometime towards the end of the 1980s, although they reformed in September 2000 for a one-off charity gig in aid of Derry City Football Club.

Paul P J McCartney: Vocals & Guitar
John McCloskey: Guitar
Joe Brown: Bass
Thomas Doherty: Drums

Three releases being listed. The first one from 1987 is a single that came out on both 7″ and 12″ format. It was released by Great Records (catalog GREAT 01) and included the songs “Scraping Off the Shine” and “Colum McKeever Sings“. The 12” also included on the B side another song, “Presley”. The producer for this record was Sean O’Neil from That Petrol Emotion. David Ros was the engineer. The record was recorded at Greenhouse Studios in London.

In 1988 the band was to release another single, again in both formats. The same label, Great Records (catalog GREAT 02), released it. The songs on the 7″ were “Neck Tattoo” and “Cautious Navigations”. The 12″ added on the B side the song “Glory”.

The other release listed is a split flexi shared with the band Man Ray. The song Bam Bam and the Calling contributed was “New Surroundings”. It seems this flexi came along the Helden Magazine (catalog HL03).

My next stop ends up being the great website Irish Rock. On it there are some cool old photos and flyers. They have an extended biography there, one that says that That Petrol Emotion took their name from a song of Bam Bam and the Calling. There was a link, an early lineup of Bam Bam had Raymond Gorman who was to join That Petrol Emotion. When this happened Bam Bam split for a while. That was around 1983 or 84. Only in 1985 the band reconviened.

The band appeared on “Channel One” on BBC NI in 1986 performing two songs, “New Surroundings” and “Talking Aloud” live at The Venue in Derry.

It seems there was a live tape recorded at the Gweedore Bar in 1986 that was probably sold at gigs or as a bootleg.

The band split just before 1990. Paul McCartney at this time briefly joined Rare, the post That Petrol Emotion band as he is credited in the 1990 single “Set Me On Fire”. Afterwards Paul formed The Deadly Engines and released records with Setanta.

Here also there’s a little more info about their reunion gig in 2000. They opened for The Moondogs and The Undertones. Since then the band has performed occasionally.

Irish Rock also includes some extra discography. For example a dateless demo tape that included the songs “Scraping Off the Shine”, “Secret Meeting”, “Presley”, “Neck Tattoo”, “Talking Aloud” and “Day 15”. Also a Radio Foyle session from February 1986 with the songs “Bad Getting Bigger”, “Give the Wings Back to Bird”, “I Call To You” and “Kitchen Dogs”.

Next up I stumble upon an old Myspace. There are a bunch of songs but the only one I can seem to stream is a demo version of “Talking Aloud”. The only other song I haven’t mentioned before is “Fencewire (live)”.

Then a sort of Wiki. Here I find that Paul had also been involved with a band called The Rural Felini where he was joined by his brothers Gavin and Rio as well as David Doherty. Also that John McCloskey, the guitarist from Bam Bam, was involved in the establishment of The Nerve Centre in Derry and in his guise as writer, director animator was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2008. Wow.

I found out too that Joe Brown is now involved in a band called The Gatefolds.

Well well, Fanning Sessions have a lot of information on Bam Bam and the Calling. The first post they did was in 2009. Then four songs were posted from the demo, “Talking Aloud”, “Scraping Off the Shine” and “Neck Tattoo”. Then there are a bunch of posts promoting gigs for the band, from 2011 and 2012. But the last post on the blog about them is one dating from 2013 and it is a Fanning Session from 1987! The songs here are “Road of The Lonely”, “Only Sing” and “Scraping Off the Shine”.

My last stop is Facebook. Yes, I could find a Facebook page for the band. Perhaps I should have started there, sent them a message, see if they could tell me the story. But maybe this way works too. Maybe they can fill in the blanks left by this post. Not much information or songs on their Facebook, but it does promote their gigs and the band seem to share videos of their influences. From it I stumbled upon a Soundcloud page with recordings of different bands the band members have been involved with.

Which is the song then that That Petrol Emotion took their name from? Were there any recordings from that first lienup of the band? Why didn’t they get to record more songs? Did they play in England perhaps? Many questions still to be asked. Does anyone remember them?

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Listen
Bam Bam and the Calling – Road of the Lonely

Hello! This is a very exciting time for Cloudberry!! Last Friday we released the long-awaited and ultra brilliant 7″ EP by the Pale Spectres from Paris. This Friday too we have yet another release, The Potting Sheds retrospective compilation “Leaving By the Back Door”! Both releases are the perfect soundtrack for this summer. And you can already order them both from our website.

Now onto more indiepop news all around the world. Remember the band Sea Blite whose video for the song “Cerulean” I recommended some weeks ago? Well the band was kind enough to send me a download code for their first EP. The self-titled 4 song EP is released on tape by Death Records but now you can also stream all four songs from the band’s Bandcamp. Now I can be sure to say that the band hails from San Francisco and that it is formed by Lauren Matsui on guitars and vocals, Galine Tumasyan on vocals and bass, Andrew Bush on drums and Jen Mundy on lead guitar. The songs are fantastic, I still like “Cerulean” the best but “Pretend”, “Woolly Sweater” and “Skeleton Couch” are no fillers, but proper good songs in their own right!

Kocliko Records is a new label from Bera, in Spain. Bera seems to be a small town in Navarre. Never heard of it but looks nice on photos. I should go sometime. This new label has made a splash in the indiepop world the last few weeks announcing a couple of releases. The first one is the Tomiji EP and it is a cracker. Who is Tomiji? Well, a good friend of mine, Thomas from Pale Spectres. Yes, Tomiji is his solo project and on this 7″ there are 4 fab pop songs that are not to be missed. The 7″ is not out yet (I’ll let you know when it is), but for now the four songs, “Let’s Flip a Coin”, “Home”, “I’ll Love You Forever” and “After All” are available from streaming on Bandcamp. A great debut that no indiepop lover should miss!

The second release the label has announced is by the band Business of Dreams. On the Bandcamp it doesn’t say much about this release or the band. On Facebook I find some information. The band is the solo project of Corey Cunningham from Los Angeles, CA. There are 10 songs  on the album and they sound pretty good! It is not straight-up indiepop, not the classic sound. But it is dreamy, elegant, classy pop, driven by synths. It sounds very 80s too. I like it. Another good release, so far both choices in Kocliko are pure gold.

Who are Port Sulphur? I don’t really know who are behind this band. I couldn’t find a Facebook page. But I found two songs on Bandcamp, part of a split single on The Creeping Bent Organisation. “Orient Express” is the song I love here, it even features James Kirk (!!) from Orange Juice, who actually co-wrote this song (and it shows!). It is just WOW! The second song is “Hope / Less”and features Alan Vega. This one is not really up my street. But I tell you, “Orient Express”, is there, a contender for my favourite song at least for June.

Last news for this week, and I still have a lot more to share, as I have said before now I’m keeping tabs on everything I see on the web that I feel is worthwhile! The label Discos de Kirlian from Barcelona, Spain, have a new 7″ out now by the Stockholm band We.The Pigs. The band is formed by Veronika and Martin, with Fredrik, Niklas, Johan and  one Cloudberry friend, Charley, who released a 3″ with his older band The Mare almost 10 years ago! Anyhow, this new 7″ EP has four songs, “Start Over”, “Too Young”, “Wake Up” and “Go Away”. And as usual you can stream the four tracks on Bandcamp. The band is actually playing a release show on July 5th at PSB alongside the band Venetian Blinds. Here is more info for the event. Wish I could be there!

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For this week I decided to do the same thing as last week, look into the archives of the fantastic series of the Sound of Leamington Spa. This time I picked up volume 4, and because I’ve been lately on an Irish sort of run on the blog, I decided to see what I could find about Beethoven’s Kiss.

First of all I must say that I don’t own their 7″. I don’t know how many copies were pressed. They only released the one. But from the liner notes included on the booklet I was going to learn a bit more about this band, which I thought was pretty obscure, but it isn’t so:
“The Wonder of You” was the last single release of Belfast band Victim in 1988. The band went under the name Beethoven’s Kiss for the one single because the recording was a departure from their normal punk style. The name was taken from the famous incident in classical music history when the master Beethoven kissed the young Franz Liszt during a performance to confirm his acknowledgement of his brilliance. The band pressed up the record themselves and it was never officially released, with copies going only to radio stations and record companies. The band comprised of Wes Graham on bass/vocals; Joe Moody on guitar/vocals; Kev Williams (formerly with Mick Hucknall’s Frantic Elevators) who joined the band on drums when Mike Joyce left to join The Smiths, and Toni Isaac on keyboards/backing vocals. The B-side of the single, “Don’t Break It” was a song Victim had been playing for years and features on a CD compilation of the band’s material released in March 2003 on Overground Records entitled “Everything”. It features Victim’s three singles and 15 previously unreleased tracks. Victim emerged from the burgeoning Ulster punk scene in 1977 and their first single “Strange Thing By Night” was released on Belfast’s Good Vibrations label. Victim were the first punk band to play the legendary Harp Bar in Belfast and moved to Manchester in 1979. There they signed to TJM Records and released two more singles. They toured the UK extensively and filled a six-week support slot supporting The Damned. Mike Joyce, who plays on several of the tracks on the new CD release, went to gain international fame in The Smiths. The band broke up in late 1988 a few months after recording “The Wonder of You”. Founder members Wes Graham and Joe Moody are currently recording new material for release later this year under the name WEBCORE.”

Ok the record was never officially released. That explains a couple of things. I check on Discogs the information for this release. According to this site it came out in 1989 and not in 1988 as the band says. Who is right? And the only interesting information here is that the songs were recorded at Square Studios in Bury, Lancashire. The record was released by the band’s own Akashic Records (catalog AK0001).

This name, Akashic, made me Google for their meaning and I learned a thing today, in theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred, believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the etheric plane. There are anecdotal accounts but no scientific evidence for existence of the Akashic records. Akasha (ākāśa आकाश) is the Sanskrit word for “aether” or “atmosphere”. Also, in Hindi, Akash (आकाश) means “sky” or “heaven”.

I look now into the Irish Music Database website. Here there are family trees for several bands. There are more connections with other bands. Already mentioned were Victim and The Frantic Elevators, but for example Joe Moody was in The Androids and Wes Graham and Joe Moody were in Emergency.

My next stop is a Victim biography on the Spit Records website. On it there is a whole paragraph dedicated to Beethoven’s Kiss:
In the ensuing months Wes and Joe set about recruiting a permanent replacement for Mike and had to debate whether or not to stick with the name Victim. Mike had been a close friend and his departure hit hard. After toying with the name Victim A.D., they opted to continue as Victim, occasionally going under the name Beethoven’s Kiss when they wanted to try out new material which was a departure from traditional punk. They brought in Kev Williams who had been drummer with The Frantic Elevators before Mick Hucknall split that band to form Simply Red. The recorded four tracks in 1985 for a promotional four-track cassette EP that attracted considerable interest and almost clinched a deal with Chrysalis Records. Next they recorded a single ‘The Strangest Stars’, which sadly was not released. They recruited Toni Isaac on keyboards – she was the girl leaning on the lamppost on Jilted John’s single of the same name! Victim then recorded ‘The Wonder of You’ (not the Elvis song) and ‘Don’t Break It’ in 1988 at Square One Studios in Bury, where Black were mixing ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ the same week. The songs were pressed up as a self-financed single released soon after on the band’s own Akashic Records and went out under the name Beethoven’s Kiss. The label on the sleeve states that the single was released in 1989, but according to the band it was released in 1988! The band were anxious to showcase the new melodic acoustic songs the band was developing, combined with the raunchiness of old Victim songs. The A side was a new song while ‘Don’t Break It’ was an old song Joe had written in Belfast some years earlier. Some months later the band recorded five new songs, which they felt confident would attract record company interest. However it was not to be and in 1990 Wes and Joe shelved the Victim/Beethoven’s Kiss project and brought the curtain down on the life of a band which had been in existence for just over a decade. For the record, a few other musicians who very briefly played in Victim were John Hawthrone, Simmo and Dave Goodlad.

So 4 songs were recorded at this session. Only 2 were released. Where are the other two songs?! I would love so much to hear them!

I looked for Webcore, to see if I could find Joe Moody. But I found no information about this band. Did they record anything? I did find a Youtube channel of his and it seems from it that he is still making music with the band Joe Zero. I just heard the song “Rock n’ Roll Wars” which is a preview of their upcoming album and it is a lot of fun!

Not much more to add about Beethoven’s Kiss. It seems it was just a one-off that left at least one fabulous song (I haven’t had the chance to hear the B-side yet! so I can’t say if I like it or not!). There are 2 more recordings at least but I cross my fingers there are more from this period. Why did Victim change their sound? Why did they decided to change names? Why wasn’t the record officially released? Why no one picked up this record and release it? So many questions, very few answers. Did the band play live as Beethoven’s Kiss at all?  Any of you remember them?

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Listen
Beethoven’s Kiss – The Wonder of You