I’m very pleased to interview The Sainsburys! And also very happy to announce that this June 30th a retrospective CD by them will be out on Cloudberry! It includes all of their recorded songs and it’s just fabulous! Because of that, and because The Sainsburys are such an underrated band, David Wood, from the band, and me, had a nice talk!

++ Hello David! Thanks for being up for the interview. So, we are releasing a 3″ CD including all the Sainsburys songs. All the recorded output! For those who have never listened to the band, who I would suspect are many, can you tell them what to expect from this record?

Hi Roque! Thanks for asking me! Firstly, Ant sends his apologies, he says he can’t join us today as he has to attend to his mum’s garden. The Sainsburys existed for a very short period in the late eighties.

We were, basically, inspired by being aged 17, and by the music of the time. We were also inspired by the fact that if you were into indie music, and you owned a guitar and/or a tambourine, then you could get get yourself a band, and maybe even a gig or two.

Peel, Kershaw and Nightingale were playing The Railway Children, The Wedding Present, The Shop Assistants, The Primitives, Close Lobsters, The Darling Buds, and The Bhundu Boys. We loved all of it, along with a few bands that had been around for a while such as New Order, Echo and The Bunnymen ,The Smiths, The Fall and Husker Du. Local bands were a massive reason why we wanted to be part of the scene. “My mate’s mate is in a band you know, and he is having a record released” was the kind of talk that made us want a piece of that too….The Rosehips were our heroes, in our minds, they’d hit the big time, their first single making it way up into the indie charts.

In short, we were trying to create songs with pace and melody, “Talulah Gosh jamming with The Bhundu Boys” as we were once described.

++ So let’s go back in time to 1987. You started a band then called The DirtTruckers. Was this your first band ever? What did it sound like?

DirtTruckers was my first band. There were four of us, Doulton Redmond (vocals), Neil Harrison (guitar), Mark Hassall (drums) and myself. We played one gig at Bridge Street Arts Centre, with Bubblegum Splash …..I think. As far as I can remember, it was distorted jangly guitars.

++ You said you were inspired to start a band by the other local bands in the indiepop scene in Stoke of Trent. Which were these other bands that you loved? Were you all friends?

There were quite a few bands popping up in Stoke, The Rosehips having the most success. Exit Condition were a brilliant band inspired by the American punk scene. The Flood, The Vicarage Gardens and The Singing Curtains were also knocking about then. The latter we enjoyed friendly rivalry with and we’d take great joy in
heckling at each other’s gigs. (As I remember, Mark used to drum for them too. Mark tended to be in every band in Stoke at that time, but the point of difference for The Sainsburys was that our band was the only band he wrote the music for.) Once, a Singing Curtain phoned me up and offered us a lucrative record deal, pretending to be Martin Whitehead…..I was gutted when I heard at least 2 other Singing Curtains burst
out laughing in the background…

Yes, we were all friends….so much so we freely borrowed each others drummers and guitarists on a frequent basis.

++ And then Paula joined to sing in the band and The Sainsburys were born, right? How was the recruiting process? And yeah, how did all The Sainsburys knew each other?

Mark and I decided that The DirtTruckers should move on and a female vocalist would be required. The recruitment process was very simple. Why should we conform to usual formalities of actually hearing the proposed singer, sing before signing them up… this, after all was rock n roll. Basically, we both thought Paula was cool so we asked her to join.

++ And why the name The Sainsburys? You don’t like Tesco?

To be honest….I haven’t a clue where the name came from…..all the names we could think of were rubbish….The Sainsburys was the least rubbish of all I guess.

++ So tell me about this song Canal John? Who is it based on?

Paula wrote all the lyrics….she never would say who this canal based youth was…we just presumed that it was about the same bloke who had the fetish for cakes in “Cake Shop”. So if you see a man of about 40 eating large quantities of cakes on the towpath of the Trent and Mersey Canal…he’s your man.

++ And the Cake Shop? Do you know there is a very nice venue in New York with the same name? Many great indiepop gigs are held there!

Ace….If that isn’t a good enough reason for The Sainsburys to reform for one last gig…I don’t know what is…although Ant has asked me to add that there is more chance of him being capable of playing for Stoke City FC than being able to keep up with the old Sainsburys Jit.

++ I think, Ate the Most should have been a HUGE hit. It’s even great to dance! How did this song come up? What is it about? And then I’m curious, who wrote the songs in The Sainsburys?

Paula wrote the words, Mark wrote all of the music including the vocal melodies and the lead guitar melodies. Mark came from a choral background. He applied his experience to melodies especially later on when he was a member of The Venus Beads and writing their songs too. At first, we just jammed songs out
in my parents garden shed but gradually Mark took over and we started to play better tunes like “Ate the Most” and “My Favourite Colour”. Before we split up, we were playing some great tunes that seemed to be much more melodic and sophisticated. Songs like “If You Gave Me Your Jacket” and “At the River”, spring to mind and we played these at a few gigs. I’ve got an old, very badly recorded gig somewhere, and you can
tell that the songs were taking on a much better, more thought out form…this was all down to Mark.

I’m afraid I don’t know what the song is about…I presume “Ate the Most” is yet another reference to the fat guy eating cakes by the canal?

++ Was there any interest from labels to release your songs? It’s hard to believe they weren’t released then. They are so good!

I don’t think there was any interest from record companies (although Ant seems to think otherwise)…but then I think that was partly our own problem as I don’t think we marketed or pushed ourselves forward enough. It wasn’t enough to be just doing a few gigs here and there, we should have been making labels listen to our music more, like other bands did…..especially with stuff like “Ate the Most”.

++ I remember reading about The Sainsburys in a couple of fanzines, were you an avid reader of them? How involved were you in the fanzine scene? I was also wondering, these zines usually would give away
tapes, was there any Sainsburys’ songs on them? Yep, I used to enjoy reading them. I did my own once…it was awful.

Glen Rosehip’s “Vandolized Idol” was my favourite, I also liked 2 Pints Take Home.

We were on a couple of tapes, the one I can remember is Shoot The Tulips. I think there were tracks on there by Talulah Gosh, The Groove Farm and one or two others. There was talk of us doing a flexi at one point too but I don’t think that ever happened.

++ You played gigs with the likes of The Darling Buds, The Groove Farm and The Rosehips. Any particular anecdotes you could share? Wish I could have met Andrea then myself!

Anecdotes? There’s been much water, wine, whisky and beer under the bridge since 1987.

I remember that at the time, I couldn’t believe that at the age of 17, I was part of a band supporting all my musical heroes….The Darling Buds, The Groove Farm and all those others. Sometimes, when Ant and Mark were playing gigs as members of The Rosehips, I’d get to tag along and we’d get to meet even more of our heroes….I remember having tomatoes on toast with My Bloody Valentine at Rocker’s flat after a Rosehips gig once….now that’s pure rock and roll.

I was lucky enough to spend a few days down in Caerleon near Newport with Harley, Bloss and Andrea from The Darling Buds just before there first top 40 hit. Many beers were had and at one time I’d be able to tell you a few anecdotes about it…but I can’t remember them.

I loved the gigs that we played at….we just treated them as a night out and had as much fun as we possibly could. Playing gigs on stages in far away places like Bristol on stages where our heroes played was a dream come true for us.

++ What other gigs do you remember?

Remember Fun and The Orchids came down from Scotland once to do a gig in Stoke and my mother made them all sleep in the garden shed. I don’t think it was a comment about their music particularly, she was just mean.

One of the best nights of my life was a New Year’s Eve in Bristol. For one reason or another, my parents had forbidden me to go out that night, so in true, rock n roll style, Ant came and picked me up and I “ran away” to Bristol for the night, specifically to the Flatmates New Years Eve gig/party, at the Tropic Club I think.

Rocker then took us to every New Year’s Eve party in Bristol and we got back
to his flat at about 9.30am.

++ Do you still listen or follow any indiepop bands? How do you remember the scene then? Was it friendly and supportive?

I still listen to loads of music from the late 80’s and early 90’s. I’m sure l listen to George Best at least once a week. I love My Bloody Valentine from that period but rarely do I find an appropriate time to listen to it these days. MBV at it’s best needs to be at number 11 on the volume dia. The kids moan if I go beyond 4. Still listen to Husker Du…and I enjoy trawling through youtube to find vids from those days. If I could only have on cd in my collection it would be George Best.

The only band I keep up with today is Teenage Fanclub….I like loads of new bands though who owe alot to the indiepop of the late eighties…new bands like Stornoway I think are ace.

I remember the scene then very fondly, especially as given the age that I was, I absolutely lapped it up. I used to love getting into Ant’s battered old mini and driving to gigs all over the place. Everyone was very friendly and gave us loads of encouragement, especially The Rosehips and the Buds.

++ So what happened? Why did the band split?

We didn’t really split. Mark started to write some ace songs, ones that were noticably different. Paula announced that she was going off to university and we just carried on with Mark’s songs. The music was becoming more serious, the gain knob was being more and more clockwise every practice session, and Mark and Ant were set on a new direction. We asked Rob to join and that was it…I left and then The Venus Beads had evolved.

++ And were any of you involved with music after? Are you all still in touch?

I’m in touch with Ant regularly. We go to watch Stoke City when they’re at home. Ant has been involved in music ever since, he owns and manages The Sugarmill, an ace music venue in Stoke. I’ve not spoken to Mark for years and haven’t seen Richard or Paula since the day they left The Sainsburys. I’ve tried to find them on Facebook etc but no joy.

++ What does David Wood does nowadays? I’ve heard about a nice fancy wine store, is that so?

Yep…I own a wine and whisky shop, called The Wine Shop..in a very obvious “Cake Shop” kind of way. I also own an independent whisky bottling company.

The shop is ace, quite old fashioned, loads of lovely wines, continental beers, spirits etc… all top notch.

++ What’s your favourite wine then?

Very difficult question! I love really gutsy Sauvignon Blanc, typically from New Zealand, but also a sucker for a really oaky Chardonnay, such as Marmesa Hollister Peak Chardonnay from California….I’m a big fan of whisky too.

++ Thanks again David, anything else you’d like to add?

If anyone knows the whereabouts of Paula, Richard or indeed Canal John, the overweight guy who ate the most cakes…please let me know?

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Listen
The Sainsburys – Ate the Most

Thanks so much to Gilly for this lovely interview. The great Pitkins released three 7″s in the mid nineties and were one of the few bands that carried the classic indiepop sound through those difficult years for our music. Check them out on myspace, they had many top tunes!

++ So alright, let’s go back in time. When did The Pitkins start as a band?

I joined the Pitkins in 1995 but I think they had been playing for a few years before that.
I knew the drummer very well so when their female vocalist left the band he got me an audition. My singing in that audition was awful ! I’m still not sure why they let me join. ( perhaps they felt sorry for me and put it down to nerves! ). About a year after I joined I asked my Friend Lorna to come and Play violin and shortly after that we got a second guitar player.

++ It was a big band! Was it easy to work with so many different personalities and characters? How do you remember the creative process of the band?

Altogether there were seven of us in the band. This proved difficult when we only played on small stages. There was never enough space for us or the equipment.

++ Why the name The Pitkins?

I believe the name was taken from a film character called ‘Mr Pitkin’

++ Who were Jawbone Records? How did you end up signing to them and releasing 3 singles? How was your relationship with them?

After a couple of years doing gigs and not getting anywhere we decided it would be fun to make a single. Our lead vocalist ollie set up the Jawbone label and we recorded it at noisebox studios.
Reece the guitarist did the artwork and we released it. I was amazed to find it was well received. It was played on radio one a couple of times.

The second single wasn’t very good and didn’t get much attention. I have to confess I hated it ! . Our third single was my favourite but sadly it didn’t sell well or get any radio play either.
Despite poor sales we were getting a good name for ourselves and had a good following. Trouble starting brewing soon after that. A relationship had begun between two of the band members and this caused a bit of a divide in the group. However we carried on and secured a promising gig in London.

++ Were the 3 singles all of your recorded output?

If you are looking for other material there is a song called distraught on a compilation record that was given away free with a local fanzine called ‘totally wired.’ I think (but I am not sure) that it was on the Noisebox label. You might be able to hunt down a copy on Ebay.

++ Oh yeah, was The Pitkins your first band?

The Pitkins was the first proper band I was in . ( I sang in a band a few years previous to that but we split up before we had even played a gig!)

++ I just put “Johnny Gets the Girl” on my turntable. Great tune! Who is this Johnny guy? Is it based on a real person? Also I’m wondering what does “BST”, the second song from your 2nd single, stands for?

By the way BST stands for British Summer Time . I’ve no idea who Johnny was based on. You would have to ask Ollie about that one as he wrote the songs.

++ So when and why did you call it a day?

The final blow came when the drummer suddenly announced he was going to quit. His wife hated the band and didn’t want him to go to London or spend any more time with us. That was the end of the Pitkins. I was gutted but good drummers are hard to find so we just called it a day. (The drummers marriage didn’t last long after that!)

++ What did you do after? Did you continue making music?

I really missed being in a band so many years later I joined up with Massey singer Ian and his friends and we formed ‘The Foster kids.’ We have made a fantastic Album which I am so happy to be a part of . Now we are all getting so old we only play the odd gig . I still enjoy it though.

++ Any nice plans for this upcoming summer?

Today I spend my days looking after my three year old son and obsessive gardening (sounds so dull doesn’t it!). My plan for the summer is to win the local gardening competition.

++ One last question! Tell me a secret skill Gill has that not many know?

I don’t really have any secret skills but I am hoping to train as an Opera singer soon. I am keeping that quiet because I fear I may be rubbish!

++ Thanks again so much! Anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you so much for your interest in the band. I thought it was long forgotten and unloved. It is nice to know that somebody appreciated what we did.

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Listen
The Pitkins – Over and Out

Thanks so much to Ian Alexander for this great interview! The Spinning Jennys released only one 7″ back in the day on the well-known Tea Time label, and also a split flexi with the Fat Tulips. And that was it. They had some great tunes, so it was great to learn more about this obscure Norfolk band!

+ Hi Ian! How are you doing? Thanks for doing this interview. I know you are still doing music with a band called The Foster Kids. Do you have anything in store with them for the future?

Hello Roque,The Foster Kids are having a bit of a sabbatical at the moment, well subject to big money offers. There are only so many seeds we can cast on stony ground.

++ So let’s go back to the late 80s, early 90s, right? Who were the Spinning Jennys? How did you all meet?

Well, when Rock historians look back at the Spinning Jennys, with no disrespect to subsequent members, the classic line-up would have to be me (Ian) singing and playing guitar, Matthew playing guitar, Steven hitting drums, Matthew playing bass and Matthew dancing (yes they were all different Matthews). With the exception of the final Matthew (our Bez for lack of a better comparison) we met at Diss High School, in Norfolk, England. Steven and the first Matthew lived across the street from each other from a very early age.

++ Was this your first band? Or have you been involved with other bands before?

Any previous bands were of little consequence, even less consequence than the Jennys as our hardcore fans would call us.

++ So where does the name Spinning Jennys comes from?

The Spinning Jenny, as you may or may not know, was invented by James Hargreaves in 1764. We learnt about it in the History class that three of us were in. Also Matthew the bass player had a habit of getting off with girls called Jenny round about this time (not 1764, when we were in the History class together). That was more or less where the name came from.

++ You signed into the reputable Teatime Records, who put many favourite singles of mine, like the fab Candy Darlings one! How did you end up on this label and what was the deal between you and them?

As far as I can remember there was no deal, they were idealistic times. I think they just gave us a certain amount of singles in return for the “privilige” of having the Jennys on the label. It all came about because we won a local band competition with a prize of time in a flashy recording studio. We had absolutely no idea what to do with the finished article, I guess the standard procedure would have been to send tapes to labels such as Sarah and hope for the best. So a tape was sent to Teatime and they agreed to put out the 7″. The guy from Teatime, who we never even met in the flesh, told us that people had complained to him that the single was too “baggy” but it was too late for us we had already had our heads turned by prevailing musical trends and it was just the beginning of the Spinning Jennys decline into shameless bandwagon jumping.

++ Your only proper release was the “It’s It It It” 7″. Why didn’t you get to release more records?

Somehow the immense talent of the Spinning Jennys just passed the world by. I guess it was a mixture of not being that good and not being particularly fortunate. I’m gonna hold back the stories of the drunken punch-ups for the book.

++ Well, there is that split flexi with the Fat Tulips, but you included the third song from the 7″ there. But I’m still curious, how tight was your relationship with the fatties? Any anecdote about that crazy bunch?

I wish that I had stories about late night jams with the Fat Tulips, the Pooh Sticks and Amelia and all that but it never happened for us. Norfolk is pretty remote, I have the feeling I might have met some of the Tulips but that could be a lie. The Foster Kids did get a nice message from them on Myspace once, completely coincidentally. With regard to the flexi, it wasn’t the song from the 7″ but a song called “Splendid”. I even checked on I Wish I Was A Flexidisc just to see if I had gone loco.

++ On Twee.net it lists that you appeared in a couple of compilations as well, on “Positively Teenage”, on “Just Another… Compilation”, and “Shiver Me Timbers”. Are we missing any other collaboration?

I have no idea, in those days it seemed that songs just ended up on tapes willy-nilly.

++ Also I found on a blog someone mentioning a tape called “Spinning Too”. What’s that about?

Once again I have to plead ignorance. One problem with being in a band called the Spinning Jennys is there are always other bands called the Spinning Jennys (I just checked on myspace and there are 5 Spinning Jennys on there at the moment). It might have been related to our extended family, there’s no way of telling until I clear out that old tape box.

++ The four songs I’ve heard from you are very different, “It’s It It It”, “Supermarine”, “I’d Laugh If Your Head Exploded” and “Gardeners Weakly”. By any chance they were written by different people? How was the creative process of the band?

I wrote pretty much everything.

++ I think my favourite track is Supermarine. It’s a fantastic pop tune! It is upbeat but I also feel some sort of melancholy behind the song. Care to tell me about this particular song?

It was named after the manufacturer of the Spitfire but it sounds like quite an Indie word. It was the one song that got played on John Peel. I had just got home after a night out with a young lady (they threw themselves at the Jennys) and I switched the radio on and there we were, I though I’d pressed the play button by mistake. For me this was one of the highlights of my time as a Spinning Jenny. On the record the only two of us who played on Supermarine were Steven and I, I waited for some Monkees style “They don’t even all play on their records” style backlash but it never happened.

++ What do you remember from the recording sessions for this great single?

I can remember Matthew the bass player holding a white Rickenbacker up against a speaker to make feedback, it was his entire contribution to the recording session. Also the song It’s it it it (or It’s better now than what it was when it weren’t as good as what it is now part VII to give it it’s full title) has backwards voices on it, which were us making fun of people we didn’t like very much, we were young.

++ What about gigs? Did you gig a lot? Any particular shows you remember?

We had a lot of fun and the audiences did too, there was absolutely no pretension involved. I can’t even begin to describe some of our gigs without them sounding awful. Our first ever proper show was with the Field Mice, that should get us some indiepop cred, we also played with the Groove Farm, Bob, Heavenly amongst others but only when they came to Norwich. We played a few shows with the New Fast Automatic Daffodils (I had completely forgotten about them until this interview) we were bowled over by their funky antics and we tried to follow them down that avenue. We played with them in Oxford and Amelia Fletcher was dancing in the audience, can you even imagine?

++ Were you friends with any of the bands in the scene? How do you remember the scene in Norfolk back then? In which venues would you see the Spinning Jennys hanging out?

We were young, still teenagers and we really thought we were the bee’s knees and would not have considered being friends with any other Norwich bands (apart from the Potting Sheds we were friends with the Poting Sheds). The main place to hang out, as it still is, is Norwich Arts Centre, although Norwich does have a tendency to be a bit anti-pop and wilfully obscure.

++ So why call it a day? What did you all do after?

The Spinning Jennys limped on a long time after the single, we done Teenage Fanclub impressions for a while, bought effect pedals and made stupid noises for 6 or 7 minutes at a time and as I said before jumped on any bandwagon that was passing by. You will probably hear this answer a lot but it kinda fizzled out. Apologies to any former Jennys but I haven’t really kept up with them very well.

++ I heard you’d be around Indietracks this year? Have you been to prior editions of the festival? Who are you looking forward to see this time?

The Foster Kids played there a couple of years ago and I went for a day last year, I’m a bit disappointed they aren’t celebrating elefant’s 21st birthday this year. Please don’t think any the less of me but the main attraction for me will be the Pooh Sticks. I know it’s bad what with all the great new bands but I never saw them the first time around and I thought they were great, even my Dad liked them and could probably still sing “I know someone…”

++ You said to me that you only operate on the fringes of Indiepop nowadays. How was back then? Were you really involved? Maybe even involved with zines? Tell me what did you do?

I’ll try not to be all sentimental and nostalgic but music will never mean as much to me as it did when I was a teenager. The guitarist from the Jennys and I wrote a fanzine called “What we did in our Summer Holidays” it almost got to a second issue, we bought all the records religiously.

++ How do you feel about the international indiepop community, do you think we have something special in our hands?

That’s a tough one, I honestly can’t understand why indiepop isn’t massive and why it needs a community at all. It should be burning up the charts all over the world. With regards to a scene, you know the bit in High Fidelity where the guy gets tricked into liking someone with Phil Collins in their record collection, or something similar, obviously just because somebody likes indiepop they aren’t automatically “cool”. I can still remember a bit in one fanzine about a guy who loved punk when he was by himself in his small town with the records swirling round his head and was let down when he met other people into the same stuff. Saying that I recently went to Spain and met somebody who used to like Talulah Gosh and I was immediately on this guy’s side, it’s silly.
Sorry I’m tired and this answer is rubbish maybe I should have just said yes.

++ Oh, we should stop now! It’s getting late :p Thanks so much Ian! Anything else you’d like to add?

The Foster Kids, big money offers, that is all

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Listen
The Spinning Jennys – Supermarine

Thanks a thousand to Huw Bucknell for this fun interview! It is true, last weekend I listened to his album “A Brave New Girl” (from Firestation Records, I think it’s still available) a lot, and a friend pointed me out where to find Huw. And rapidly we got the interview going and done. You can check on Last.fm for many, MANY, of his songs here. There tons of free downloads, lots of great jangle pop songs to spend a whole day dreaming.

++ Thanks Huw for being up for this interview! How are you doing? When was the last time you picked up your guitar?

Thanks for interviewing me… and I’m not doing too badly, thanks for asking. Now then… the last time I picked up my guitar..? That was this morning, actually. I tend to reach for it during those 20-minute ‘null’ periods while my girlfriend, Jo, gets ready to go out… usually starting off with an extended free-form improvisation based on ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ and gently morphing into ‘Lost Highway’ by Hank Williams. It’s almost impossible to over-state quite how much this irritates her… particularly if it gets to the point where I start adding ‘wolf’ effects to my Hank impression. She’s quite a sensitive lass.

++ Who are the Spanish Amanda? From what I gather it’s mostly you Huw, but on the CD booklet it seems to be a full band. Care to tell me how did the band start and how was the recruiting process?

The Spanish Amanda was mostly me and my then-flatmates. We’d all done Theatre Studies at Lancaster University in the early 1990’s and ended up living in a flat in Golders Green, north London. Jacky Wood and Elliot Falk were both musical types (as well as being fine actors… if you type ‘Bel Amour’ into YouTube, you can see Jacky as the girl with the blow-up boyfriend… which is extraordinarily cheering…), and Maria Trewin was another university friend who lived nearby. Lots of kind-hearted souls dropped in and helped out on various tracks.

++ Where does the name The Spanish Amanda come from?

My recollection – and it’s a very vague one – is that it was chosen in about 1997 by my then-girlfriend. I’d been calling myself London Fields for a while (after the Martin Amis novel… I thought it sounded thrillingly cool and aloof…), but she decided I needed a change. We came up with a list of names, and she liked the Spanish Amanda (which I hated). She liked puns… but was less keen on me, as it turned out… which I guess is why she left shortly afterwards. Hey-ho.

++ Did you gig a lot? Which particular gigs do you remember the most?

As the Spanish Amanda… no. In other bands… occasionally. To be honest, I’ve always been pretty dreadful at playing the guitar and singing at the same time, and I’m not fantastically pretty to look at, either. The most fun I’ve recently had playing the guitar was at my friends’ Bob and Scott’s wedding… a Shirley Bassey number… but you’ve got a captive audience at weddings, haven’t you..? No crowd-surfing, perhaps… but definitely captive.

++ Your only release was the “Brave New Girl” album on Firestation Records. How did you get signed to the fantastic Berlin label?

More or less by accident. In the late 1990’s, we’d been sending off cassettes and home-made EP’s to dozens of labels around the world, and were set to have an album released on Sandcastle in the US. We’d sorted out which songs were going to be ‘Sandcastle’ tracks, and they’d done a tiny cassette-only release of early demos… at which point Firestation (who we’d approached around the same time) got in touch and also offered to put out an album. The tracks that ended up on ‘Brave New Girl’, though, were mostly the oddments that Sandcastle didn’t want… some songs I really loved, certainly, but frankly a bit of a hotch-potch. And then the chap who ran Sandcastle – a very affable bloke called Brian – decided to fold the label. So our ‘main’ repertoire of songs was never formally released… which is why I’ve put a lot of them on Last.Fm, free to download for anyone who wants them. Firestation were always extremely friendly, though.

++ I was also wondering, why didn’t you get to release anything else? Do you have many unreleased tunes lying around your place?

Dozens! However, at the time when things were really starting to happen (people phoning up and asking us to play festivals in Europe, and so on…), I started training to be a teacher. And when I finally found some time on my hands, I’d somehow lost the urge to write or sing the kind of angst-y, soul-baring stuff I’d done in my 20’s. Partly, I think it was because I was much, much happier… and also because I’d started living with Jo, my girlfriend… and nothing scuppers the angst-y, soul-baring songwriting than happiness and cohabiting.

++ Your songs were recorded in between 1998 and 2000 and across different places, Wales, England, even France. Do you feel these different periods and geographical locations had a strong influence on the album? Why so much traveling?

Wales and France were because I spent a lot of time looking after my dad when my mum died, and those were the places he was to be found (’Getting Naked With Anais Nin’ was about my dad… he was in a fairly bad way at the time). Generally not very cheerful travels… but (as is often the way…) quite productive on the writing front.

++ You do dedicate a song to Aberystwyth. How important is this town for you?

It’s where my mum’s family were from… but with regard to the song, it’s also where two fairly seismic personal events happened… one early in 1996, one early in 1998, at the start and end of an almost implausibly troubled relationship. I always liked Aber, though… there was a fantastic amusement arcade there, back in the early 1980’s, called the King’s Hall… a vast cavern of adolescent debauchery… I used to save up for months so I could fritter away my pennies on Pacman, the dodgem cars and hot dogs… Mmm…

++ I was reading the thank you lines on the CD, and you thanked Richard from Waaaaaah for his wise and kind words. I was wondering then, were you involved in the scene in the early nineties? Did you have a band prior to the Spanish Amanda?

The Richard from Waaaaaah thank-you was because he very kindly pointed me in the direction of people like Didier Becu (thoroughly decent chap behind the Original Sin zine, who really championed the early Spanish Amanda) when, frankly, we simply didn’t know that any other like-minded people were out there. Anywhere. Most of the early nineties, however, found me alone in my bedsit pouring my heart into a 4-track, pale-skinned and bug-eyed, like a malnourished indie Gollum. There *were* drifting coalitions of chums that you *could* call bands, I suppose… Babyblind, London Fields… but nothing very formal or lasting.

++ Another thing that comes to mind, is your admiration to The Go-Betweens, having a song named after them, and also your contact address on the sleeve. What do the Go-Betweens mean to you? And what will be your top five songs by them?

I was very, very fond of the G-B’s… although I came to them rather late, in the mid-90’s, well after their split. Seeing them at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 2000 when they reformed was one of the handful of gigs that’ll really, really stick with me. As for top tunes… well, I’d probably go for…

i) Apology Accepted
ii) Part Company
iii) Dive For Your Memory
iv) When People Are Dead
v) Darlinghurst Nights

They’re all lovely really, though, aren’t they?

++ One last question about songs, who is Mister Banks? Did you work for him?

Not only did I work for him, I surreptitiously wrote a number of songs in his basement and stole a harmonica from him before I quit. Banks was (and is…) a music shop in York, and I worked there for a year after university. It was an absurdly Dickensian place back then, and they treated the younger staff members like a series of disposable Bob Cratchits. The whole ‘working for Mr Banks’ situation seemed to represent the brick wall my life had hit (birth, school, university… working for Mr Banks). My friend Antonia and I would head round the corner to the Lendal Cellars bar every night and drink ourselves into stupors… so I’d be perpetually hungover at work. No-one seemed to notice. The other young ‘uns were cool, though… Paul, Catherine, John who worked upstairs in the Brass Band department. Saints, all of them.

++ Which other bands did you follow?

Back then… anything with a jangly guitar and a grudge. Bands like the Wedding Present would’ve been favourites… likewise Microdisney… and anything even faintly Smiths-y. My all-time favourites would have to be the Mekons, though. For the last 20 years, my sole ambition has been To Become A Mekon. Or a member of The Three Johns. But then they’d have to be called The Three Johns And A Huw, wouldn’t they..? Hm. Lots of people said that the Spanish Amanda sounded similar to C86-y/Sarah-y bands like the Field Mice, but I’d never heard of Sarah Records at the time… a whole load of fantastic stuff had just drifted under my radar somehow. My iTunes ‘Most Played’ list informs me that I’ve been listening to an unhealthy quantity of Robyn Hitchcock, Momus and Something Beginning With L recently…

++ It’s been ten years now since the release of the album, what have you been doing since then? Can we expect any release of yours in the future?

Teaching, mostly! I’ve also written a couple of novels (faintly Nick Hornby-ish ones about disaffected, lovelorn 20-somethings…), and done odd bits of artwork for music-y friends. As for musical releases… well, perhaps. I wrote a few new songs for a gig that was supposed to have happened a couple of years ago (and then fell through), a bit more lyrically abstract than my old stuff. Apart from that, I find myself strangely drawn towards recording a dub reggae concept album loosely based on the Lord Of The Rings trilogy…

++ How do you feel about the album after this time? How do you think it has aged?

I think it’s very, very patchy. Am listening to it now, actually… despite my serious misgivings about my own voice… Hm. I think ‘Go-Betweens’ and ‘Aberystwyth’ still work, don’t they..? I reckon the stuff on the unreleased Sandcastle album (’Rallye Sport’) has held up far better, though… ‘1600 Mexico’ and ‘Jackson Road’ are favourites. That’s where I’d direct anyone who was Amanda-curious, really… the ‘Rallye Sport’ stuff on Last FM.

++ And when you are not making music, what other stuff do you like doing?

Lots of photography… the stuff with film and darkrooms and so on. I have an unhealthy fondness for the chemicals. I used to do a bit of film-making, too – 16mm and Super 8 – but it’s mostly writing that takes up my creative energies these days.

++ Thanks again for the interview Huw, any exciting plans for this summer?

Well, the Mekons are playing a couple of London dates in July…

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Just my thanks for seeking me out – it’s been fun – and best wishes with everything Cloudberry-related. I shall be keeping my beady eye on you from sunny Brentford…

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Listen
The Spanish Amanda – Go-Betweens

I missed Copenhagen Popfest in April. No, the volcano wasn’t in my way. I just couldn’t go. The line-up looked fantastic and I really wanted to go. Many close friends were going and I felt very jealous that whole weekend. I know some bands from UK couldn’t go and play there because of the volcano ash, but still, judging from the photos and videos it seemed like a fab time. But to confirm me how good it was, I asked Danielle, one of the organizers, to tell me a bit more about it. Thanks again Danielle!

++ Hi there! How are you doing? Any special plans for this summer?

Hi Roque, I’m great thanks! Well, were all seriously considering coming to Indietracks again this year, I just have to get used to the idea of sleeping in a tent again.. Brr..

++ Let’s talk about the festival, who are the people behind the Copenhagen Popfest? And how did you know each other?

The people behind the Copenhagen Popfest this year was basically Michelle (who’s been one of my best friends for 10 years now), Stefan (of Northern Portrait, my husband) and myself. From now on we’ll have some extra help from our good friend Morten and maybe a couple of others, after realizing how much hard work this Popfest-business is!

++ How did you all get excited and decided to organize Copenhagen Popfest? Was there something in particular that inspired you?

Well, it all started as a suggestion from Stefan. We’d been to the Hamburg Pop Weekender, San Francisco Popfest, Indietracks and numerous other indiepop events in 2009 – because Stefan was playing. Everytime we got home, we’d both have new favorite bands and bought so many new records – we were generally just really blown away by how many great bands there are out there! So Stefan and i started talking about doing some sort of event here in Copenhagen, and Michelle who had just finished her bachelor in Performance Design was instantly up for the idea.

++ Was there any special reason to do the festival in April?

Theres several reasons.. For one, Copenhagen is really nice in spring. Then we also heard from our friend in Hamburg that they weren’t gonna do a Hamburg Pop Weekender this year (which was the best weekend ever) and we thought that it would be a good idea to do it before the whole festival-season started.

++ How is Copenhagen indiepop-wise? Are there many fans? Or bands? From the distance it seems there is only a handful… do you think the scene in your town is growing?

No, there aren’t too many bands.. Or fans. At least not many who share the same idea of what “indiepop” is. But we’d done this club night The Banana Hold-Up also to see if anyone would show up, and the place was always packed with people dancing, and had a loong queue outside.

But personally, i think Copenhageners are just extremely picky and spoiled, even the people i know who might be interested in indiepop don’t regularly show up at these events. Sometimes it seems like the danes is just not that interested in discovering new music.. I could go on about this.. The bottom line is, haven’t lost my faith in them yet!

++ And what about you? How did you start to like indiepop? What is THAT band you call your favourite? Is there any great pop bands you like from Denmark? Myself, I love Gangway!

For me, it all started when I was a young teen and everyone at school where either into Blur or Oasis, and I was offcourse really into Blur – but also The Spice Girls! I had no idea what was cool or not, I just really liked popmusic! So when I was 15 or so, I’d sneak along to this club night in Aarhus, called Club Drive and dance along to stuff like Belle and Sebastian, Razorcuts and Another Sunny Day.

One of the guys from Gangway used to host a TV show here in Denmark in the 90’s, sometimes he’d just sit there with a big glass of red wine, wearing a suit and trash all the terrible 90’s music. Great show. There is a couple of really good indiepop bands here in Denmark (I’m a big fan of Ampel, they are fantastic live) most of them played the Popfest this year – but oh, do we still have some aces up our sleeves for next year..

++ You were so unlucky, that same weekend, you had that stupid volcano ash all over the place, making the airports close. So many bands couldn’t come, many attendees couldn’t come either. Honestly, what crossed your mind at that moment? Did you ever thought about postponing the festival? Was it an easy decision to continue?

It was a complete nightmare! But we didn’t know if they would open up the airspace in 2 hours, or 2 days – thats basically why we didn’t cancel it all. Anything could happen. But along the way, as we realized that neither our longdistance friends, or the British bands we’d booked (and so looked forward too) where coming, we just had this feeling of “the show must go on”. It also made us really apprecciate every single person who showed up!

++ You said that there might be a second part of the festival this year for those who couldn’t attend. Any news on that?

No, not yet. We are trying to figure out if we’ll do it at the same venue, or maybe try something different. All we know is that it will probably be in fall/winter sometime.

++ The posters, the flyers, are all very pretty giving the festival a different look and feel to other festivals. Who designed them? And was there some sort of concept behind this branding of Copenhagen Popfest?

I just recently started studying media graphics here in Copenhagen, and was really fascinated by these vintage vacation posters. They have such a fun and happy feeling about them, so i just thought I’d draw something like that for the festival.

++ What was the best moment for you of Popfest 2010? Do you think you’ll do it again next year?

The best moment? Oh that’s hard to say, all the bands where really great, and I was just really happy when people showed up! But sure, we’ll probably do it again next year.. If no one else will

++ I heard, and correct me if I’m wrong, that some DJs started playing britpop and mainstream indie! What was that all about?

Oh, please don’t remind me.. It was just a bad call of judgement on my part. The DJ’s in mention had turned up ten minutes before they were on, so they really had no clue what was going on, they had written down a non-discussable playlist that made everyone leave the dancefloor in protest. And I mean, everyone. It was very awkward for both the DJ’s, the audience and us the organizers. But as soon as it was time for the next DJ, the dancefloor got filled again. So it was all ok.

++ I also heard the venue was pretty nice and central, that it was a great choice. Care to tell me a bit about it? You also have a club, right? The Banana Hold-Up, do you host it in this same place?

The venue is right next to the Central Station, and is called Råhuset – which means something like “Rawhouse”. Its basically a big empty house. Normally they host alot of “underground” stuff – Death Metal, African music and also Northern Soul. By the way – they loved us and all our indiepop kids, and they really want us to come back.

The Banana Hold-Up is usually held at Jolene – where the Popfest afterparty was held. It’s a great little venue in the meatpacking district.. Not too far from Raahuset.

++ I think what you are doing is really fantastic for the scene. Do you feel any sort of bond or relationship with any of the other Pop festivals around the world? Have you been in touch with their organizers perhaps?

Yeah, in the beginning we had a really hard time finding a good name for the festival, so we asked one of the organizers of the London Popfest what we needed to do to call it a Popfest, he just told us to go right ahead. So we did.

Since it was our first time organizing anything like this, we have in general had great use of our network in the indiepop circles, asking people all kinds of stupid questions.

++ I had many friends going from Sweden and Germany to Copenhagen Popfest. But one of my bestest friends was crazy enough to cross the Atlantic and take buses and rent cars, to eventually reach Copenhagen as airports were closed. Well, that’s love and dedication for indiepop, for sure. It must have been something special to see Jennifer coming into the venue. Were you expecting that? How did that feel? You must have been proud that someone did all that to be part of the Popfest!

That must have been my favorite moment! Nothern Portrait were playing a fantastic set, when i looked over the audience and spotted the beautiful Jennifer there in the middle. I teared up, and had to really pull myself together! That was when all the hours and stress thats gone into this event, really made sense.

++ Tell me about Denmark. I know you are famous because of your pastries, but I’m not a sweets guy. What is a typical dish in Denmark? I’m planning to go in September (crossing fingers!) and I’d love to try something ace!

Oh, you should definitely try the Danish smørrebrød, it’s like an open faced sandwich on rye bread. Almost every Danish restaurant serves them, but the best place in town is “Café Fremtiden” – give us a call when you’re here, and we’ll take you there!

++ Anyways, let’s wrap it here. What are you listening right now? Recommendations?

Right now I’m listening to the new Cats On Fire – Dealing In Antiques. And always, always The Siddeleys.

++ Thanks so much, anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you!

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Listen
Northern Portrait – A Quiet Night in Copenhagen

Thanks to Werner for this interview. If you’ve never heard about him, he is one of the most important activists of the indiepop scene at this moment by running his record labels Vollwert Records and Edition 59 as well as distributing many indiepop records from around the world on his store of the same name.

++ Hi Werner! I can’t say long time as we are in touch quite often as you are a big supporter of my label, and I can’t stop thanking you for that. How do you feel about this indiepop community that you help so much distributing records in Germany? What do you think makes it so special?

It is actually a great feeling to philosophize with nice people about the music you like. And often friendships develop on the basis of the predilection for a certain kind of music.

++ I know there is no money to be made by doing what you do, so what is the main reason to do what you do, Werner?

There are so many idealistic people in the indiepop community and I like to support them by providing interesting artists an opportunity to release their music and by giving the customers a bit of guidance in the world of indie music.

++ When and how did you get into indiepop? What was that first record that blew up your mind?

Since the mid-sixties, I have been into many kinds of music such as Beat, Glam-Rock, Punk, Wave, Post-Punk and particularly Britpop. Like probably for many of us, it was the SMITHS who got me enthusiastic about Indiepop and especially the C-86 sampler of NME.

++ What about German indiepop? Do you have any favourites?

Germany is more a rock and electronic than an Indiepop country. Much of what is called here Indiepop appears me somewhat petty. One of the great exceptions is Andre Daners. He has great ideas and is absolutely authentic in what he does. His project MY LAUNDRY LIFE is terrific!

++ Your first indiepop “project” was the Indieopa mailorder many years ago, care to tell me a bit about it? When did you start? when did you close the store? what were the best sellers? where in the world did you send more records?

It was about 2002 that I started Indieopa as a sales platform on eBay. But I realized soon, that it was only the mainstream Indie stuff that sold well, especially when it was new and cheap. And I found it more and more boring that my main task should be to satisfy those annoying Depeche Mode buyers. I definitely wanted more than that. Moreover, Indieopa first and foremost aimed at the German market which turned out to be too limited for the Indiepop community.

++ After that you started a new mailorder, Vollwert Records. How come after closing one mailorder you decided to start a new one? What made you excited about pop music again?

I wanted to be be more than a specialized local seller for mainstream Indiepop and thus decided to distribute interesting music on an new label that I called “Vollwert”. Due to the internet and the enormous progress it made at the time, I came more in touch with Indie music worldwide and it was – and still is – exciting to see what splendid music is being made for instance in Indonesia, Mexico or South America.

++ And you didn’t just stop there, you started a record label alongside the mailorder. It started with a compilation that had the Fernsehturm on the cover photo, which makes me wonder what are your other favourite landmarks in Berlin?

For me, like for many Berlin people, the Fernsehturm, the television tower, is more than just a landmark. Built by the eastern German government in the early seventies, it became a symbol of the division of Germany as well as of its unification in 1989. Its equivalent in West Berlin is the so-called Funkturm (radio tower) near where I live. As the Berlin wall was still existent, it was the first thing you saw when reaching Berlin from the free west. So for me, it is connected with many personal memories.

++ Continuing with Berlin, and as I will visit in September it seems, I wonder which restaurants would you recommend me?

Hard to say. Each quarter has its own excellent restaurants, many of them remarkably inexpensive. So there is no risk trying it on your own as long as you avoid the touristic quarters alongside the Kurfürstendamm in the City West and the Hackesche Markt in the center. I personally like to go to “Honigmond” in Borsigstraße in the center (”Mitte”) and to Romagna, a good cheap pizzaria in Stresemannstraße in Kreuzberg, not far from Potsdamer Platz.

++ Let’s get back on track. You then started a new label, Edition 59 which releases 3″ CDs in a limited edition of 59 copies. Why this odd number? Is there some meaning to it? Also what about the format of 3″ CD, why did you choose it? I also release in that format, but I’d love to know what do you think are it’s pros and cons.

I love that number. It came into my mind when I was on an escalator in a department store in Berlin. As to the format of 3“: I like it because it is quite uncommon and you don’t need many resources to produce it. It thus allows you to be very flexible with your releases. In my view, these advantages far overweight the disadvantage of having too little space for printing information on the booklet.

++ So far you’ve put out more than 60 releases, is there some point, like reaching #100, where you will stop or will you just continue until you run out of energy? What is there in store for the future of both Vollwert Records and Edition59? I read there might be 7″ releases?

I will continue as long as people like to buy new releases. There is no 7“ release project fixed yet.

++ How do you usually discover bands?

Some bands get in touch with me spontaneously. Additionally, I search networks as Myspace for interesting bands and then address them myself.

++ You’ve been doing a lot of Creation Records reissues now, how come? Is Creation Records your favourite label ever? What will you be your top five releases in Alan McGee’s label?

I loved the energy of the first Creation releases. The music of Creation records was a part of my youth and thrilled me. Hard to say what the Top 5 singles are, maybe these:
The Loft – Why does the rain
Jesus and Mary Chain – Upside down
Meat Whiplash – Don’t slip up
Bodines – Heard it all
Weather Prophets- Naked as the day you were born

The Top 5 albums:
Biff Bang Pow – Girl who runs the beat hotel
Bill Drummond – The Man
House of Love – s/t
Jamine Minks – 1,2.3,4,5,6,7
VA – Wow wild summer

++ By the way, for those of us who don’t know German, what does Vollwert mean?

It has a double meaning: literally it means „full worth“, but it also denotes wholefood.

++ Would you recommend to start a label these days where mp3 blogs offering free mp3s are the norm?

In my opinion, free mp3s can provide additional promotion for your label. So there is no real competition.

++ What has been the best thing of running a mailorder and a record label? And I’m wondering, how much time a day do you invest in them?

The best thing is that I can connect young gifted artists with an interested audience. That takes me some hours every day. And it is worth while.

++ In Germany, when you talked indiepop you would always think of Hamburg, never Berlin. Do you think that can change? Why do you think Hamburg had a bigger indiepop scene even though it’s a smaller city?

Berlin is rather a rough ROCK city. But Berlin is sophomoric, too. So it boasts about his electronic and indiepop scene. The Hamburg scene, however, is cooler and more grounded, not running after every superficial trend.

++ I do have a tricky question, what do you prefer in a German pop band, to sing in German or to sing in English, or it doesn’t matter?

There are only a few German bands that are able to convince in English . Therefore I mostly prefer them singing German.

++ One last question, roughly, how many records do you have in your collection?

At the beginning of the nineties, I had some thousand 7“, some hundred albums and a few dozens CDs. But as music at the time began to bore me, I sold nearly all of them. I kept a fine collection of about fifty singles and a couple of dozen CDs and LPs that I really appreciate.

Long time ago I wrote about She Splinters Mortar, trying to get in touch with the members. I was lucky enough that Harald found the blog somehow and got in touch. Then I got in touch with their label Die Schwarze 7 and even with fellow labelmates Shampoo Tears. It was a matter of time to get an interview with She Splinters Mortar, one of the first German bands that embraced C86. Thanks so much Harald!

++ Hi Harald! Thanks so much for doing this interview. How has been 2010 so far?

Hi Roque, it’s a pleasure for me to do this interview and it makes me very happy that you show so much interest in She Splinters Mortar, the bands history and music! 2010 has been quite busy for me so far. As you know I’m working as a photographer and hope the year will go on like it started.

++ So let’s get on the roll. Who were She Splinters Mortar and what sparked you all to start a band?

She Splinters Mortar  was a band founded by Alfred Vorbrodt and me in the mid 80ies in Wiesbaden, which is a town close to Frankfurt.
Alfred and me meet first during a football match where we both played for the same team. This was during a turnament organized by friends, where some bars and clubs in Wiesbaden set up football teams to play on a saturday afternoon against each other. During this tournament we found out, we had the same taste of music, independant music, which was a very special thing in these times. Not like today you had to go to special record shops to get the records of these bands, or even order them in the U.K. or New Zealand. There was one radio emmission a week to listen to new records and article you about new bands and records you could find in self copied fanzines or magazines like Spex.
Alfred was a real enthusiast about indy music and a record collector. So, he bought the records and after he made Cassette Samplers for me. That was the way you did it these days!

My knowledge before I met Alfred about this special kind of music and the bands playing this music, came from a friendship to Stefan Lutterbüse who was also an enthusiast about Indy Music and made Cassette Samplers for me before I first met Alfred. Stefan later founded the label Die Schwarze Sieben with another friend of us Volker Buch. This label first off all was founded to publish the first 7″ from She Splinters Mortar, Straight from her heart.

++ What was the creative process for She Splinters Mortar? How did songs shape up from start to finish for you guys?

After Alfred and I met, we decided to start a band! We didn’t have instruments or excersising room and decided that the most important thing is to have a good name first! The name of the band was found by me in a Oscar Wild poet during an English Class in my school. After that we started looking for an excercising room, which we found over a friend and could share with another band from Wiesbaden. The good thing about it was, that we could use the instruments and amps in the room. So Alfred decided to play drums, and I had to by an Electric Guitar, because I’m lefthanded. After that, we started playing together. The first songs we played sounded very much like Eyeless In Gaza and Young Marble Giants.

After some months playing together, we decided we needed a bass player to make a better sound and a real set up like a band. That was the time Christian Lorenz joined us. Alfred knew him, because he was a record collector also and they met in the certain record stores. Meanwhile Alfred and me had moved to or own excercising room, which was a huge concrete cask where whine was stored years ago. We just had to put an entrance into it and could start playing there.
All songs we played at this time and can be listened to on the Compilation Tasty Tapes and Cassingles where composed by me. At the time I had a half english girlfriend, which helped me with the lyrics. The songs I developedat home on an accustic guitar and introduced them to Alfred and Christian in our excercising room, where Alfred and Christian found there ways to play drums and bass to it and we arranged them together.

One could say it like this: songs written by me and coloured in by the band! It stayed like this with all songs also after Walther Muscholl, the second guitar player joined the band and till we split up in the early 90ies. With Walther we won a lot of music skillness, because he was the only real musican who really had learned to play his instrument. The rest of us where more like enthusiasts giving their best and always excercising, even during gigs on stage!

++ Where does the name come from?

As I said already from an Oscar Wild poet, which I had to reed during my college time in an english class.

++ All of your releases happened in the Die Schwarze Sieben label, how did you know them? What was the relationship between band and label? How did the first deal between you both happen?

The label Die Schwarze Sieben was run by two friends of us Stefan Lutterbüse and Volker Buch. In these times the people who listened to indy music where very few and recognized each other by dressing and knew each other from shopping tours in the same record stores. I knew Stefan long time before Alfred and he introduced me to independant music, by making samplers on cassettes of all the nice bands in the late 70ies and early 80ies like Joy Division, The Fall, The Comsat Angels, Young Marble Giants etc. He actually set the virus for this music in me, positivly ment of course!
Volker was, as far as I know, a school mate of Stefan and so we all got together in the mid 80ies. Funnily over football as I explained. Football always played a big role in the whole thing, because later we played in a team from the label Die Schwarze Sieben on fun tournaments with big success all together, Stefan, Volker, Alfred, me and some others.

++ Though you released a couple of tapes right? A cassingle for “A Pretty Head” and an EP called “Tasty Tape”. Were these self released? And why did you choose the tape format?

The first samplers on tape format were more or less live recordings in the studio on a four track recorder in the excercising room. We recorded them and mixed them by ourself and made copies we sold in a record store in Wiesbaden. The store owner Laiky later organized concerts of bands like 1000 Violins and Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub in Wiesbaden, which we played the support for. One of these gigs with 1000 Violins actually was the first gig for us.
The tape format we chose, because there was no other format to choose. In these times, there was no possibility to record on computers and burn cds like nowadays. It was really independent!

++ Your album Jaguar is FANTASTIC. Where did you record it? Was it an easy thing to do? What do you remember from those recording sessions?

Thanks for this compliment!
We recorded it in studio in Wiesbaden and it took us about two weeks to finish. As the studio was used by us for the first time and more or less never had made records with independant bands we had to almost all sound mixing and arrangments by ourselves. Not easy, if four musicians and the label guys sit behind the sound engineer giving instructions! Poor guy, but in the end we did quite good, I think. For this record we had a change in band line up also. Christian left the band to play in another one and Jörg Heiser, the singer and guitar player from Shampoo Tears, another band from Mainz a town just beside Wiesbaden, joined us as bass player. Shampoo Tears later used the same studio to record their first single for Die Schwarze Sieben.
The recording session was quite easy going, because we excercised a lot in advance and where really prepared, which had to be like that because it was quite expansive also. The costs for the recording where payed by Alfred, who was the only one working in a real job. All the rest of us where students at the time. The two female voices on the record are performed by my sister Nicole and my girlfriend at the time Judith Ochs. They just came to the studio in the very end and had to sing before ever tried before. Poor things…

++ I always wonder and guess, but how does it work writing lyrics in English when it’s not your language? Is it an easy task? Are there any tricks?

As the lyrics are not that complicated and dealing with almost only one issue it was not that difficult to write them. Also I mentioned above that the first lyrics where very much influenced by my girlfriend at the time who was half English. To write English lyrics also is an easy thing to do, if you only listen to English music. But still you’re right and today I would write and sing german texts.

And, if we would have had German lyrics on our records I’m quite sure, that I wouldn’t have to give this interview. It made the records more international!

++ How was Cologne back in those late 80s? What was the scene like? What other bands from town did you like?

I don’t really know how Cologne was these days, because I still lived in Wiesbaden. We only recorded our first 7″ in Cologne and I moved to Cologne in 95, that’s maybe why you think I lived there. Cologne at the time was quite a center of the scene, because the most important german magazine about indie music called Spex was produced in Cologne.

++ I’m wondering what were your influences? You are among the first German bands that seem to have that c86, guitar pop, sound!

I also think so. As you can hear on the compilation I made we were very much influated by bands from the c86. Also from Flying Nun label in New Zealand. C86 was a very good thing for us, because you didn’t have to be a very skilled musician (which we were not!) to play this guitar pop in the way we played it. Maybe you can compare it with house music, idm, electronic today. You also don’t need to be a great musician to produce music like this. You only need ideas!

++ How were the gigs for She Splinters Mortar? Which are the ones you remember the most and why?

As I said our gigs were more or less excercises on stage. You can hear that on the live recordings on the compilation. Some people liked it, some not!

The people who knew what will expect them on our gigs because they also listened to C86 records etc. really enjoyed our gigs. The others couldn’t understand what we were doing and didn’t understand why we got the opportunity to do it in public!

++ So when and why did you decide to call it a day?

The development of the different band members went into different directions, music wise and also job wise. I started a photography design studium and concentraded more on this.

++ Were any of you involved with other music projects after? Are you all still in touch?

As far as I know Jörg Heiser is still making music and has a very new project out right now. Unfortunatly the contact between me and all the other people involved in the She Splinters Mortar history had been cut after I moved to Cologne.
As I found your blog about the band in the internet some months ago, I contacted Volker and Stefan again to get some records of the band and tapes to make a compilation.
I also contacted Christian, who lives in Dublin. The sad thing about it is, that nobody has the address of Alfred. He’s some kind of invisible man nowadays. But maybe he reads this interview some day in the web and feels like getting in touch again also…
Would be a good thing you have brought to roll by your blog! Thanks for that, Roque!

++ You put together, for your friends, a CD with 28 songs on it. Is there any chance this will be released one day? Are there any other tracks that didn’t make it to this CD?

No. I wouldn’t know who wants to make a release out of it… If there are people reading this interview and getting curious about the band and it’s music they can contact me and I will provide them a copy of the compilation for a production price. Guess, it won’t be to many…

On the compilation you have all official releases from She Splinters Mortar and some bootlegs and tape releases. There are some more live recordings and tapes of the band, but the collection on the compilation is fine and enough.

++ So, the question falls by it’s own weight… which was is your favourite She Splinters Mortar track?

My favorite track from She Splinters Mortar is Poor Me, Slave from Jaguar. I like it most, because it’s a nice combination of the bands start with only two guys and the bands development to the end. The bands start is to be heard in the record by Alfred playing of the chimes in the beginnig and the trashy guitar played by me, and the development is to be heard by the very nice lead guitar played by Walther. I like!

++ You are a photographer nowadays, right? What kind of photography do you usually do? And do you see any relation between music and photography?

I’m a car photographer stayed in Cologne. 50% creativity, 50% routine.
To me there’s no relation between photography and music, because one can be a lower form of art with a lot of luck, and the other is the highest form of art, because it opens peoples heart the most easily and is the only kind of art that surrounds us all of our live.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Original photo by: Janna Bissett

One perfect album on Le Grand Magistery and one perfect single on Sunday Records was what Shoestrings left behind. Mario and Rose have been very quiet since the late nineties but they promise to return this year with their new project “Invisible Twin” (check it out! it’s great!). But before going onto the future we decided to do a small interview and review the past: Shoestrings!

++ Hi Mario! Thanks so much, I’m really thrilled. How are things in Michigan? How has 2010 been so far for you?

Hi Roque. So far, not bad. Hopefully there will be some good concerts and more recording for us.

++ Let’s talk music now, on your small bio on Last.fm it says you are a multi-instrumentalist… so, what instruments do you play? And how did you learn to play all of them?! Does your life revolve around music?

Mario: Multi-instrumentalist is a very generous term for me. I am ok on a few instruments, but I don’t consider myself excellent on any of them. I guess the main instruments that I’m ok with would be guitar, bass, drums and computer/sequencer/drum programming. I’m self-taught on everything. I know just enough to get by and make the sounds I want. I learned drums as a kid when I had a toy drum set and I would play along with 80s MTV videos. I learned guitar by getting chord diagrams for Depeche Mode’s “Violator” album in the early 90s. After that I got a couple more books with chord diagrams. I can’t really do solos unless I get lucky. Once I knew what the notes were on a guitar, I just kinda figured out bass guitar. I’ve always had a love of computers and math so sequencing/drum programming, etc. came pretty naturally.

++ Was Shoestrings your first band? How did you and Rose decide to start this project?

Mario: Shoestrings was not the first band. I don’t recall the name of the first band, but it was something shoegazery/depressing sounding like Drown, Down or Dive or something. It was just me and my friend, Mario. It was a little strange having 2 Marios in the same band, but that was the situation. He was the singer/bass player and I was the guitarist, but neither of us could really play our instruments. It was just a mess of guitar effects set to a drum machine with Mario’s vocals. We didn’t even know how to tune our guitars!

I was friends with Rose and we knew she played piano/keyboards so we asked if she wanted to join us. Then our friend, Brian, got a drum set and became our drummer and we had a full band. We changed our name to Clerestory Window and then later to the Hazle Room. After a while we figured out how to play our instruments a little and we weren’t all that bad. We even added a violin player at one point. We evolved into more of a Red House Painters vs shoegaze vs Bark Psychosis vs Blueboy sound? I think we even sent a demo tape to Sarah records and 4ad thinking we were actually going to be signed! It’s funny thinking about it now, but we were young (18-20 years old) and naive.

Mario was always the band leader during these projects. He had good ideas for the most part, but since I was really getting into Sarah, Factory and indiepop at the time I wanted to try to make different music that wasn’t really right for the Hazle Room. That’s when I started Shoestrings as a side project. I had Rose help me with vocals and some extra keyboards on a couple songs and we worked pretty well together.

++ Was Shoestrings always a duo? Why did you prefer it that way instead of having a full band? How did you both meet by the way?

Mario: Shoestrings started as a duo, but we expanded to a 4 piece for some of our live performances. We were even a 5 piece for 1 show. The reason why it stayed a 2 duo most of the time was that we wanted to keep it as friends playing music together. We were limited on the number of friends who had mutual musical interests and could play instruments. Our friend Brian played drums on 2 songs for our album and played live with us a few times. He got too busy with other things to stay on though. Our other friend, John, who played piano on “Oceans in the Seashells” played bass with us live a few times. Then we met Scott Bridges and he was a music fanatic. It also turned out that he was a really good drummer. Scott joined us as an official 3rd member and we worked with him towards the end of Shoestrings. We only ended up recording a couple songs with him: “Theme from ‘Kiss Me Goodnight’” and “Forever”.

Rose: Mario and I met and became friends in high school. He was a whole grade above me and I always felt like a kid sister back then. We lost touch for a few years but ended up going to the same University, so we happened to run into each other. We restarted our friendship and had a lot of shared interests, one being music. So I think it was just natural for us to start a band.

++ How did you come up with the name Shoestrings for the band?

Mario: I was just brainstorming band names with a friend at a data entry job that I had at the time and I think she suggested Shoestrings at some point. I liked the sound of it for some reason. Not much of a story there. Sorry.

++ I don’t know if it’s too much or too little to say, but among the great releases Le Grand Magistery released, yours is by far my favourite! But your first release was a 7″ on Sunday Records where the brilliant “Some Things Never Change” was included!! Care to tell me a bit about this single? about each song?

Mario: Thank you Roque! These 2 songs were included on the 5 song tape we had sent to Sunday and a bunch of other labels. They were the 2 songs that Albert from Sunday Records liked the most.

“Some Things Never Change” was heavily influenced by an acoustic Everything But The Girl show that Rose and I went to. It was one of my first shots at songwriting/singing and at the time I only knew to write about things happening in my life. It’s pretty much about the tumultuous beginning of the romantic relationship between Rose and I.

“Afterthought” was heavily influenced by the song “Understand” by Brian aka Ken Sweeney. It’s kinda funny because our friend Kat was in contact with Ken in the mid-late 90s and she had sent him our music because she thought he’d like it. Afterwards, Ken wrote to us and we exchanged some really nice emails.

++ How did you end up on Sunday Records? Did you send a demo or something? Why did you decide to move to Le Grand Magistery after?

Mario: We sent demos to a lot of labels including Sarah, Sunday, Elefant, WAAAAAAH!, maybe Slumberland? Richard from WAAAAAAH! sent a nice letter back written in crayon, but I don’t think he was all that interested. Sunday responded and Albert really wanted to work with us. Elefant wanted to release something, but they got to us too late and we already had stuff going on with Sunday.

We finished the album and Sunday was going to release it. The main condition we had was that we wanted to be able to do the artwork for the cd. Our friend, Keith D’Arcy had suggested a friend named Matt Jacobson who was a graphic designer and lived in Michigan. We met with Matt and saw some of his work. We were extremely impressed and we wanted to see what kind of artwork he could come up with for our album. We gave him a tape of the album so he could get a feel for what we sounded like and come up with an appropriate concept. He ended up listening to the album and really liking it. At the same time, he was starting up a record label and offered to release our record. We were torn at first because we had already agreed with Albert to have Sunday release it, but in the end, I think we ended up making the right decision by choosing to go with Le Grand Magistery.

++ “Wishing on Planes” is such an evocative name for an album. And then it’s a beautiful name. But I’m wondering why you name it like that? Are you afraid of planes perhaps?

Rose: Thanks, Roque. That is really kind of you to say! I can’t really recall the true back-story of how we arrived at that name, and I don’t want to romanticize it too much. The actual line comes from the song “Naked”. I think the idea was that this person in the song was so unhappy about not having her feelings reciprocated, that she just wanted to escape any way she could. Preferably by plane since that’s the fastest. Generally, I’m not afraid of planes but turbulence is another thing all together.

++ This record is so beautiful, all of the songs are lush! But I do want your opinion, your biased opinion. What do you think of it? It’s been 10 years now, how do you think it has aged? What are your favourite songs from it?

Mario: I’m still proud of about 1/2 of the album. Some of the songs sound really dated to me, especially the drum machine we used. The songs that I still like are: “Timeline”, “Whipped”, “Smiles & Light”, “Understand Me”, “Yesterday’s Advice”, “Naked”, “1st Grade Love Affair” and “Walking Away” from the Japanese version.

Rose: By nature, I’m my harshest critic, and I tend to cringe whenever I hear my own singing from years back. That being said, and considering what stage of our lives we were at during that time, I am proud the positive responses we received. I felt like our message got to just the right people. Our fans tended to be the kindest, gentlest, most sensitive kids ever. I’m so grateful that the album brought us to Japan where we got to meet a lot of them in person. It was the best time!

++ Are there any more unreleased recordings by Shoestrings? I found some “unreleased” tracks once: “Untitled Demo”, “Song Six”, “The First One” and “Nothing”… can’t remember where I got them from!

Mario: I think I know what song “Untitled demo” is and I thought we released that for a cassette-only release that Cowly Owl in France released. I didn’t even know we recorded “The First One”?!? Is this a live recording or something?

There was a song called “March of ‘79″ that was for another cassette release called McBain. Not sure if you have this.

As far as unreleased songs go, there are 3 songs from our original 5 song demo that were never relased: a demo of “Timeline”, “Nothing” (which you mentioned) and an instrumental called “Skyway Church Road”. There are a couple songs we did for the Le Grand Magistery El Records tribute about 12 years ago that may see the light of day this year. One of them is a cover of Marden Hill’s “Oh Constance”. There are a lot of bits of songs and really rough acoustic demos and stuff, but I don’t think we would ever release those.

++ How about gigs? Did you gig much? Any anecdotes to share?

Mario: We did not play too many gigs. In fact, I could probably name each and every one of them if I wanted to. I estimate we played maybe 20 gigs total.

The most memorable was playing at On Air Nest in Tokyo. The Japanese fans were so wonderful and actually made us feel like real pop stars for a couple days.

We had a few nerve-wracking gigs in New York at Fez including one where the capo fell off of my guitar right in the middle of an acoustic song and I had to start over. Very embarrassing!

++ You were an active supporter of the indiepop scene, I think I’ve even seen photos of you both at the NYC Popfest of 97. How cool is that! I plan going again to NYC Popfest this year, and of course I’m excited, it’s always great there. How do you remember those days? how was that Popfest in 1997?

Mario: You’re lucky to go to the Popfest this year. It should be fun. I think we played at the one in 1997. We also went to the one in 1995. I think it was the first one that was set up by the indiepop list. We met a lot of wonderful people and kept lasting relationships with many of them. I think the 1997 one was where Holiday played their last gig? That was a great night and they put on a remarkable performance.

Rose: That was a great time! It really felt like something special was happening. We were wide-eyed kids back then and there was no shame in liking things that were twee or cute. We’re still in touch with many of the Popfest pioneers and it’s really fascinating to see how everyone has grown into adulthood.

++ So how did you end up doing and liking pop music?

Mario: I grew up on 80s new wave stuff: Flock of Seagulls, Tears For Fears, Thompson Twins, etc. That’s what was on MTV back then when MTV actually showed music videos and I was in love with it. By the time I was 15, I started getting into some industrial/dance music like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Severed Heads, etc. Then I discovered some of the 4AD bands like Clan of Xymox, Dead Can Dance, and Cocteau Twins. I was also listening to some Factory records stuff. The record that changed everything for me was The Wake’s “Here Comes Everybody” LP. That became my favorite record and at 1 point while record shopping, I saw a 7 inch by The Wake and it was “Crush The Flowers”. The guy at the record store assured me it was the same band that was on Factory and so that was my first Sarah records release. At another record store, one of the guys that worked there was playing Shadow Factory. I bought that and my appreciation for Sarah records exploded from there. Then I just started finding all of these 7 inch only labels through the various mailorders that were around at the time: Parasol when Brian Kirk worked there, then Mousetrap Mailorder, Mind the Gap in Germany, etc.

++ This one is for Mario… what was Zapato? Do you speak Spanish like me by any chance?

Mario: Yes I do speak Spanish. I was born in Michigan, but my parents came from Cuba in 1972. I recorded 1 song by myself for a compilation cd made by indiepop list members. The double cd was called The Family Twee. The song was called “Take me with you to Japan”. I needed a name for the band quick, and I didn’t want to use Shoestrings because I recorded it without Rose so I thought “I’m 1/2 of Shoestrings.” I ended up using the Spanish translation of shoe: Zapato.

++ Why did you call it a day as Shoestrings?

Mario: I don’t think it was really a conscious decision. Unfortunately, life just got in the way. Rose and I got married and moved into an apartment. We unpacked our recording equipment after about a year and recorded a song or 2, but then we bought a house and moved again so the same thing happened again. Before we knew it, 3-4 years had passed. We both had started our regular working careers during this time too. Once we finally got to work on music on a regular basis, so much time had passed. The way we write and record the songs has changed drastically and I think the style has changed. We felt we needed a fresh start.

++ You now have a new band called Invisible Twin. Care to tell me a bit more about it? When will there be a new release by you?

Mario: Originally, I was going to have my own project with Rose’s help and then Rose would have hers with my help. It might seem strange, but we had different ideas of what kind of sounds we wanted to explore. So far we’ve only worked on Rose’s project, Invisible Twin. She’s writing the songs and I act more as a producer/session musician.

I don’t know why, but I’ve had writer’s block for quite some time. I guess I haven’t really tried to sit down and write a song in a while. As a result, I may not do my project anymore. I’m pretty happy with what we’re doing now as Invisible Twin.

Rose: I always wanted to do my own music based on what I’m inherently drawn to as a listener. I’ve always loved smart, dance-y, electronic music. That’s the goal. So we’ve been sloooooooooooowwwly working on songs over the past couple of years. I wanted the songs to have a darker, driving feel with really strange/quirky stories about really unusual people, or just people that are in these really compromising situations. For example, one of our more recent songs called “the Art of Forgetting” is about two people who go around stealing from Trust Fund babies (BTW, Mario and I don’t know anyone like this in real life!). I’m the kind of person that doesn’t write draft papers. If it doesn’t feel right from the beginning I abandon it. I guess it’s kind of my downfall, but I have this notion that things just need to naturally come together on their own. Hopefully we’ll get to share Invisible Twin with others soon. Everyone cross their fingers!

++ What do Mario and Rose do when they are not making music

Mario: Nothing too exciting. I work as a software developer. When I’m not working, I listen to music, play Xbox 360, watch tv, etc. Also, Rose and I love to go out and eat at our favorite Indian and Ethiopian restaurants.

Rose: Yes, I’ve turned Mario into a little bit of a Foodie. We love travelling! I wish we could do that for a living. It’s funny because whenever we reminisce about going somewhere, we always have a predominant food memory attached to it. We loved Italy (particularly Rome) for just this reason. I like making funny cards and lists of things that I still want to do in life.

++ Thanks again so much for this interview, anything else you’d like to add?

Mario: Thank you for asking to do the interview. It made us think about some wonderful memories. Also, be on the lookout for new music by Invisible Twin in 2010.

Rose: Thanks, Roque for being so patient waiting for our responses. Hope everyone is as patient waiting for the Invisible Twin album!

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Listen
Shoestrings – Timeline

Thanks so much to Jörg Heiser for this interview. It’s been a pleasure to find about them as I’ve been recommended his band by so many friends, and at last I could get to know more about them! Please check Jörg’s new band, La Stampa here.

++ Hi Jörg! Thanks again for doing this interview. Hope I find you fine. I hear you were just on a small tour with your band La Stampa, how did that go?

It was great fun! 5 silly chaps in a car.

++ So let’s get back in the time machine. When did you form Shampoo Tears? What do you remember from those early days, the first rehearsals?

We formed Shampoo Tears in 1987 I believe. We were three guys from school – me on Keyboards and Guitar, Thorsten Schinke on bass, Christian Krämer on guitar, and Christian’s neighbor and early childhood friend Martin Ignatz on percussion, and later full drums. We rehearsed in Christian’s cellar (when there was still no full drum set). We had no clue how you make a song. The early stuff was more like tracks, we used a cheap Yamaha drum computer. “Pearl in Vinegar” was one of our first “proper” songs.

++ Was this your first musical project? What sparked you to start a guitar pop band? What music were you listening at the time?

Yes this was the first thing. We were inspired to form a band by stuff like New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, and the C86 bands (the NME-Sampler C86 and bands like Wedding Present and Stump). Wimp pop. The old punk idea that anyone could form a band, but with an effeminate wimp twist.

++ Why the name Shampoo Tears?

A track by Scottish pop band Win had that title. We liked the ironic romanticism of it.

++ Your only release was the “Pearls in Vinegar” 7″, care to tell me a bit about the songs on the record?

It’s kind of crazy and absurd, but I still can’t find the single. It must be in one of the boxes I haven’t opened yet after I last moved. So to be honest I only remember the title track, and especially the line “boredom is the death of love”. And Christian’s guitar solo afterwards, which I do think has a very good hook.

We recorded the tracks in a basement studio in Wiesbaden, and the same studio had been used by Thomas Anders, singer of Modern Talking.

++ Tell me about the artwork of the single, who is the guy in the photograph?

Klaus Hartmetz, a friend of the band. He was a fan of both Bruce Springsteen and Einstürzende Neubauten. Got me hooked on the latter.
Photograph by Bernd Bodtländer, who continues to be a great photographer, also of music bands.
Where is Klaus today? I should try to find out.

++ Why weren’t there more Shampoo Tears releases after it? Maybe there were some compilation appearances or demo tapes?

No… We renamed to Svevo when the music became more indie-rockish (we discovered distortion… in the wake of Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr…)

++ How was the process to get signed to the Die Schwarze 7 label?

We played some gigs in Wiesbaden, and I was also a bass player for a while with She Splinters Mortar, another C86-type band from Wiesbaden.
Stefan saw us live and like it, and there weren’t so many bands at all at the time who did that kind of music.

++ How was Mainz back then? What were the best venues to play gigs or hang out? What other good bands were in town?

Mainz – that was not least Brückenkopf, the early days of electronic music in Germany, with people like Ian Pooley etc. We were the only guitar pop band from Mainz really (correct me if I’m wrong), though there were some in Wiesbaden like aforemention She Splinters Mortar.
In Wiesbaden-Schierstein was a great club where I saw stuff like Spacemen 3.. Wartburg had concerts by F.S.K. and Sonic Youth that I remember dearly… And then of course Frankfurt with Batschkapp (a great Felt concert) and Negativ (Nirvana before they were big..)

++ Stefan from Die Schwarze 7 said: “they were a real band, which means that they rehearsed intensely and followed a clear plan: they wanted to play as often as possible”. How often did you play? Did you play all over Germany? What were your favourite gigs you played?

Well, we rehearsed maybe once a week. Not really that nerdy. As Shampoo Tears we did not SOO many gigs, we were essentially still a school band -stuff in the region, like, say, a festival in Oppenheim, or support gigs in KUZ (Mainz Kulturzentrum).

++ When you called it a day with Shampoo Tears, you started Svevo, which I hope we can do an interview about it some other time. What were the differences between these two bands?

As said, these were essentially the same band. The main difference was that we switched to German lyrics – impressed mainly by Kolossale Jugend from Hamburg. We did a tour with Blumfeld in 1994 when our first album was released. That was great, we played in front of audiences of around 800 people and were well received. Still our label was small (Peace 95 from Offenbach, they also released the first Stereo Total) and distribution was poor (Semaphore) so we only sold maybe 800 CDs or so.

++ And what happened after Svevo? What are you doing nowadays?

Well during Svevo I had already started to write mainly as a music journalist, for Spex and tageszeitung etc. Then I gradually became an art critic. Today I’m co-editor of frieze magazine. And I play in La Stampa.

++ As you live in Berlin now, and I will visit your city again in September, I was wondering if you could recommend me a good place to get a beer? And which beer should I get, what’s your fave?

Any Schultheiss in any corner bar. That’s downhome Berlin style. Many people hate that beer, I think because of preservations against its main clientele (lumpenproletarians). A really nice bar is Altberlin on Münzstraße. You can have a nice Kölsch at Bar 3, but beware the moody waiters..

++ And a before a beer perhaps I should get some food, any good restaurant recommendations?

El Reda, the best lebanese food in town, in Huttenstraße (a bit off the way in Moabit, but you can
also look at Peter Behrens’ great AEG industrial building from 1908 nearby). It’s a ten minute taxi ride from Tegel airport though.

++ One last question, how do you see Berlin as a music town? Is there much going on? How would you compare it to Mainz from Shampoo Tears days?

Berlin is extreme when it comes to music: loads and loads of Bands playing in town. But to be honest
there are not so many Berlin-based bands that I’m excited about. I like Jens Friebe and Doctorella,
Christiane Rösinger is great, and there’s good electronic stuff by the likes of Jan Jelinek for example.
But my musical tastes are not based on where a band is from. Gunjasufi is great and he’s from Las Vegas, but that’s not important. It’s just great music. Mainz was a provincial nothing against this. That’s why we wanted to get out.

++ Thanks again Jörg, anything else you’d like to add?

No?
Thanks!

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Listen
Shampoo Tears – Frozen Weekend (thanks so much to Krischan for the mp3)

Thanks so much to Jenny and Leonard for such a lovely interview. So many nice details I’ve learned! Wish I was around DC and Philly during those late 90s! Please enjoy!

++ Hi! Thanks for being up for the interview! How are things going? Any plans for the summer?

Jenny: Things are good, thanks. Our plans for the summer consist of waiting for fall. D.C. summers are hot.

++ Let’s get into business, first came the Moonlings, but that is another story for another day. What I’m wondering is why the name change? What is the difference between both bands?

Jenny: The Moonlings were Mark Powell, Lara Cohen, Leonard, and me. Mark had a few songs that the Moonlings didn’t do, for reasons I no longer remember. Our friend Josh Feldman invited him up to Connecticut to play them at a show with Josh’s band, the Best Wishes, and our friend Ian Schlein’s band, Musical Chairs. Mark was trying to avoid being onstage alone, so he invited us to play with him, even though this meant he’d have to teach me how to play guitar note by note. And so Bella Vista was born.

Leonard: It wasn’t really a name change. Although the Moonlings and Bella Vista shared three members, they were different bands that existed at roughly the same time. The Moonlings began in the summer of 1996 for the purpose of playing Mark and Lara’s songs. Jenny and I didn’t write anything whatsoever in that band. Bella Vista began in the spring of 1997 for the purpose of playing that one show, at a sort of gallery/performance space/bookstore. But it continued because Lara was away at college, Mark had songs that didn’t fit into the Moonlings repertoire, Jenny began to write her own songs, and we were offered a few other opportunities to play out, as well as some to make records. I got to write a bass part or two, even though I didn’t even own a bass.

++ Why the name Bella Vista?

Leonard: Bella Vista is the name of a neighborhood Mark had lived in in Philadelphia, in a group house so punk rock it had a giant painting of Ian Svenonius hanging in the living room. By the time Bella Vista the band was a going concern, Mark had moved into a different group house in the suburb of Bryn Mawr, just a few blocks from where Jenny and I were living. Bella Vista used to practice and sometimes record in Mark’s room or in the attic, although we occasionally took a trip through Bella Vista the neighborhood on our way to Bitar’s Pita Hut, whose sandwiches and Mediterranean pizza were obsessions of ours.

Jenny: I think the name managed to trick people into thinking that we would be much more sophisticated sounding than we actually were. We were much more akin to Bubblegum Splash! than, say, La Buena Vida. Case in point: We spent just as much time tuning our cheap guitars than we did actually playing songs at our live shows.

++ How was Philadelphia during those late 90s, were there any like-minded people? Any pop lovers? Any pop bands? Where would you hang out usually?

Jenny: Leonard and I were just passing through the area for a few years, having moved up there in 1994 from North Carolina for graduate school. The two of us never got too deeply into the Philly scene because we pretty much stayed home in Bryn Mawr. Luckily for us, Mark worked at Repo Records in town, so it was loaded with lots of great indie pop. Just speaking for Leonard and myself, we saw several bands play at Repo, as well as at Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges. We hung out a lot at diners, drinking milkshakes and eating bagels.

Leonard: Philadelphia is a very large city, so there were certainly a few pop lovers and bands in the area, although we didn’t necessarily know many of them. Our friend Ben Kim had a sort of post-Galaxie 500 band called Clock Strikes Thirteen, and Neal Ramirez, whom we knew only through online discussions on the Indiepop List and brief encounters in the grocery store, would go on to be in the Skywriters and the Snow Fairies with Rose Bochansky, one of Mark’s roommates in the Bryn Mawr house. That was after our time, though. Josh Feldman, who was in school in Connecticut but came down to visit a lot, was probably the most like-minded person we hung out with very often. He loved Subway and Slumberland stuff as much as we did, and he was absolutely smitten with Television Personalities and Whaam! Records.

++ Two 7″s and one split 7″ is your whole discography. Was there ever plans to release an album? Are there any more Bella Vista songs lying around on tapes or that was all?

Jenny: I’m not sure there were really ever plans to release any 7″s. Those came about when we had almost ceased to be a band. There are a couple songs we did that never saw the light of day, including a great one of Mark’s about moving to Scotland and hanging out with the Pastels. We have only a live version of that. We also did a number of covers–of My Bloody Valentine, Snowbirds, the Carousel, and, one time, the Orchids. According to the insert that Matinée mastermind James Tassos wrote for the Bella Vista single that he put out, we recorded 13 songs, which is kind of surprising, and we probably had one or two other songs that we didn’t record.

Leonard: We weren’t especially ambitious, so we never planned to make an album. We basically did recordings for our own edification or to give to people who’d expressed some interest in putting out our music. We did contribute to a couple of compilations, a cassette called Suspension Set that came out on Low Voltage and a CD called Just for a Day that was originally supposed to be a cassette, too. Jenny wrote a song about an amusement park that we have only in a skeletal live version. But that’s everything, unless Mark has some dusty old tapes of things I’ve forgotten about.

++ On the 7″ sleeves there is barely any information about the band, was this on purpose? Where were the recordings done? Who did the nice artwork for the singles?

Jenny: Jimmy’s insert has our whole life story as a band on it, including the facts that we had bangs and wore shiny black shoes, in addition to our own insert which has a bunch of info on where things were recorded. What do you want from us, Roque?! Or maybe you’re missing those all important inserts? The Bella Vista 7″s were recorded by Ben Kim in his bedroom. The songs on the split with Best Wishes were recorded by Mark in his bedroom. I picked the cover and insert images and came up with the layouts for the Bella Vista 7″s, but Jimmy and Ara and Leonard made them happen. The image on the sleeve of the Matinée 7″ is an old ad for floor polish from a ’50s home magazine. The original is in beautiful Technicolor-y tones, but Jimmy told us that full-color printing would have broken the budget. The image on the Orange 7″ was discovered in a book on the history of photography. It was black and white from the start, so there were no budget issues.

++ Haha, I got the 7″ on ebay and there were no inserts! Maybe the previous owner kept the inserts for himself! Gah! Oh well, now I’m just listening to “My Boy and his Motorbike”, did any of you had a motorbike? I’ve only been once on it, and I felt like I was going to fall any minute! What are your motorbike experiences?

Jenny: That’s a Carousel song that we did basically because I figured out I could play an approximation of it using the three chords that I knew. Neither Leonard nor I have ever been, or ever desire to be, on a motorbike.

Leonard: The original version of that song, like pretty much everything by the Carousel, has a very folky vibe. I suggested recording it in more of a shoegazer style. Of course, we did this on a four-track in Mark’s bedroom, so it ended up sounding like the dinkiest noise-pop song ever–like Black Tambourine in a tin can. A friend once played it at a DJ night in D.C., which completely cleared the dance floor but also momentarily fooled a former member of that band into thinking he was hearing his own music. So it was both a great failure and a great success.

++ How did you get in touch with Matinee and the Orange Label for them to release you? How did it work during those years? Was it still sending your demos on tape to the labels or was it like now, sending your songs through email?

Jenny: Jimmy attended our second show ever, at the Black Cat in D.C. As I understand it, he was impressed by the fact that we covered the Snowbirds, which I believe was at the time available in the United States only from his mail-order, Roundabout Records, and possibly another place or two. This was before Matinée even existed. Some time later, he got in touch with us and asked whether he could put out a 7″. Ara Hacopian, who did Orange, had seen us play once or twice at Pam Berry’s house, also in D.C., and asked if he could put some songs out.

Leonard: Ara DJ’d at the University of Maryland-College Park’s WMUC and asked us to record a session for the station’s Third Rail Radio program. It was one of our more inspired performances, and I think that some of the recordings we made then are better than the ones on the 7″s. He had little packets of the previous Orange releases that he’d put together for each of us to try to convince us to be on his label, but I don’t think we needed even that enticement.

++ Even though the two singles were released in a span of a year, they sound a bit different. Like the Was the Last 7″ is very much upbeat, with clearer guitars. The Midway 7″ gets much more fuzzed up and the songs are slower. Was there any particular reason for this? Or I’m just imagining things?!

Jenny: I think that was just a first-come, first-served situation. Jimmy asked first, so we pulled together what we thought were our four best songs for that 7″. Then when Ara asked, we basically had a few other songs that we still liked a lot but weren’t maybe quite as energetic as the Matinée songs. Poor Ara. Jimmy had to repress his 7″, but Ara eventually handed over to us a sizable stack of our Orange 7″s that no one wanted. Oy, the guilt.

Leonard: Bella Vista existed for only a few months, so it didn’t really evolve musically beyond Jenny’s getting marginally better at guitar and Mark’s getting better at the drum machine and the four-track. All of those songs were recorded at the same time. Jenny, especially, was a big fan of fuzzed-up pop, so even some of the earliest Bella Vista songs had that “My Boy and His Motorbike” sound.

++ I admit never seeing or listening to the split single with the Best Wishes. Which song was included? And tell me a bit about this label who released you Turn Up the Treble! Records, I’ve never heard about them!

Jenny: Our two songs included one Mark song (”Un Ours Mal Léché”) and one of mine (”I’ve Only Ever Dreamt of You”). Turn Up the Treble! was run by Josh from the Best Wishes (and lately of Cause Co-motion!). He put out the Moonlings 7″ and the split. In exchange, our label, Secret, put out the Best Wishes 7″. Which was fitting, since we seemed to be the only people who wanted to hear each other’s bands.

Leonard: The Bella Vista songs on the split are the first one Jenny wrote for the band and the last one Mark wrote. The Best Wishes cover, “Beautiful Morning,” was also recorded by Bella Vista for a Snowbirds tribute that never got beyond the planning stage. I believe that both bands were supposed to be on it, and that we accidentally picked the same song to play. The Best Wishes also did an original for the split, “I Never Wanted Any of This.” There were only 300 copies made, so it’s not surprising that you’ve never seen one. I believe there were only 300 copies of the Moonlings single made, too.

++ Did you play many gigs? Do you remember any in particular?

Jenny: We didn’t play very often–maybe a half dozen times. We were more of a practice band. (We sounded great in practice!) Again, the first show was supposed to be a one-off. But then Pam and Jeff Gramm asked us to play with their two bands, the Castaway Stones and Aden, at the Black Cat, just because they’re supernice people. After that it’s just a blur of house parties and a couple other shows. The Black Cat was the most memorable for me. Pam had just cut my hair (!), it felt like a real show, and people seemed to like us. I also remember my brother showing up mid-set and waving at me as he walked across the room.

Leonard: I remember the last show the three of us played together, at Ed Mazzucco’s apartment in New York with Coloring Book and, I believe, the Poconos. I’m not sure that many people there liked us, but the sound was really good and it was the only time we ever played “Un Ours Mal Léché” live, as well as the only time we ever got paid for a show–although we managed to spend our entire earnings on tolls before we even made it onto the highway.

++ Why and when did you call it a day?

Jenny: Mark moved to England in the fall of 1997. We did a rush of recording before he left, but we really existed only for about six months.

++ I know after the band split, Mark went to form Pipas, and you two formed Honeymoon Dairy. But what about today, right now, do you ever pick up your instruments to make any music?

Jenny: I haven’t really touched a guitar in 5 years or so. It’s on my to-do list, though.

Leonard: I’m a terrible musician, and I can’t write songs, so I’m almost entirely dependent on Jenny for music-making experiences. It’s probably been even longer since I picked up a bass.

++ Leonard, many don’t know you did two releases on your own label Secret Records. Care to tell a bit about it? Do you recommend to start one?

Leonard: Secret was actually run by all three members of Bella Vista, including Mark after he’d moved to England–he was our European distributor. We started the label to put out a career-spanning CD by the Rosehips, who were a great favorite of ours. I had heard, possibly through the Indiepop List, that the band was interested in doing a reissue of some kind, so we got in touch, signed a licensing agreement, and proceeded to encounter a series of production disasters. The Best Wishes 7″ came together much more easily. In fact, I can’t remember doing much work on it all besides selling every single copy to distributors within a couple of weeks of release. Apparently there was significant demand for the record in Japan, but we never bothered with a repress. None of us is a businessperson at heart, and running even our tiny indie-pop label meant dealing with bookkeeping and invoices and so on. Secret is the third and last label that I’d had some involvement with, going all the way back to a cassette label I ran in high school. My favorite part of doing them by far was getting to hear new music. The rest was much less exciting. As a music fan, I love having someone impassioned and trustworthy to guide me through the vast world of sound. It’s something that I miss since indie label bosses have become eclipsed by bloggers as taste makers. My life wouldn’t be the same without the people at Cherry Red, Creation, él, Esurient, Postcard, Rough Trade, Sarah, Slumberland, Subway, and so forth. But it takes the right temperament to make a label work in the long term.

Jenny: In a strange bit of foreshadowing, the Secret logo is from a little vintage knitting-instruction book I had picked up somewhere for the fab illustrations. More than a decade later, I’m now a mediocre but dedicated knitter. Coincidence?

++ This might be a terribly silly question, but I’ve heard that Peruvian rotisserie chicken restaurants are very very popular in DC. Is this true?

Jenny: Yes. Those places are everywhere. But because we’re vegetarian we’ve never experienced them firsthand. It is fun to say “pollo” aloud as we drive by, though.

++ Okay, so what is your favourite restaurant in DC? If I go there, what should I order? Ah! And what about Jenny’s chocolate poundcake? Is it really true that it is out of this world?

Jenny: Did I mention we’re vegetarian? D.C. doesn’t really like our kind. The one nice vegetarian place just closed (and it wasn’t really all that). How on earth did you hear about the chocolate poundcake?! #Poundsign# was playing on the East Coast, in Philly and at Pam’s in D.C., and I made a chocolate pound(sign) cake in the band’s honor. I’m not sure they noticed, though it was pretty good–there was a ton of butter in that thing.

Leonard: The chocolate pound cake was out of this world, although there used to be some serious cake competition at those house shows. I got a headless-bass cake one birthday, in honor of the endlessly embarrassing instrument that I borrowed from Mark for Bella Vista, and long-time indie-pop/sugar fan Stephen Wood used to whip up some pretty spectacular cakes, too. These days we eat out most frequently at Udupi Palace, a vegetarian Indian place in Langley Park, Maryland. The only way to go is the lunch buffet on a totally empty stomach, preferably when there’s some form of paneer on offer.

++ Time to wrap up our interview if not we’ll all get hungry, any anecdote about the DC indiepop scene you can share with us? you know, any Black Tambourine, Velocity Girl, Saturday People, etc, etc?

Jenny: Unfortunately, we never got to see Black Tambourine play (sigh), although we did see Velocity Girl a couple times in the days before we knew any of the members (once in Hoboken, New Jersey, and once in Chapel Hill, North Carolina) and the Saturday People probably too many times to count. As for D.C. indiepop, Pam was the hub and the scene here pretty much collapsed once she moved to England in 1998. Her house parties are legend–too many great bands to name, tons of great food. I think the Bella Vista show was burrito-themed. I miss those days.

Leonard: Although we’ve both been Slumberland fans almost since the beginning, we’ve experienced most of the D.C. bands on the label from a distance, when we were living in North Carolina or Pennsylvania. I did see a great Ropers/Henry’s Dress/Rocketship show on a boat in New York ages back, and we’ve witnessed two absolutely incredible Lorelei performances over the years, one at the Indie Rock Flea Market in Arlington, Virginia, and one at the recent Slumberland 20th-anniversary show at the Black Cat. I’m convinced that that band’s best work is still ahead of it. At one D.C. indie-pop party, Jenny and I were sitting on the couch when Stephin Merritt, who’d played earlier that night at the Black Cat, suddenly plopped down next to me and said, “I love that sweater. It just screams, ‘Autumn, autumn, autumn!’ Wherever did you get it?” After too long a pause, I went with the most inadequate response possible: “T.J.Maxx.” Naturally, Stephin lost interest immediately, got up, and wandered off.

Jenny: Our life appears to be woefully anecdote-free.

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Listen
Bella Vista – Was the Last