Day 548

Crabber: the German band is back and will be releasing a new album, their second, on November 5th on Jisgaw Records. To give us a little tasted of what’s coming up they’ve unveiled the song “Katherine / Waves”, a fine slice of classic indiepop!

Tears to Go: our friend Elena from Vigo, the ex-When Nalda Became Punk, has a wonderful new project called Tears to Go. On October 15 she will be releasing her debut album “Patronizing Self-Help” ! The album is coming out on vinyl and will include 10 songs. Right now we can preview two of the songs, both really really good! Check them out, “Electronics” and “Patronizing Self-Help”.

The Big However: now we head to Bristol to check out the album “Las Vegas Amusements” by this collective of indie art folk garage etc. The album is being released on CD on September 23 and three of their songs are up for preview, “I’m Yuri Gagarin”, “Brand New Kind of Fool” and “I Cannot Carry Your Watermelon Home”. The album will include 12 songs total and I got hooked immediately by the melodies of “I’m Yuri Gagarin”. So yeah, I had to recommend it.

The Hepburns feat. Estella Rosa: a release I am very excited about is this collaboration between one of my favourite bands, The Hepburns, and Estella Rosa from Nah..! How cool! The band has just released a single online, on Elefant Records, with the songs “The Other Side of Grey” and “Midnight Guy”. This is just a little preview to be honest. Later on they will be releasing “Architecture of the Ages”, but more on that next post.

Snag Breac: and we end up this week with a band from India! Oh that’s not common! Their “Notes EP” is a lovely jangly 4-song digital release on Bandcamp. I am not sure if it is a full band or a single person project. We see in the credits that all music and lyrics are by Rina Khawlhring. Maybe it is just himself! In any case, it sounds good!

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Just stumbled upon The Way from Mexborough in the UK. I’ve never heard of Mexborough. I like the name. Sort of like Mexico? But yeah nothing to do with the North American country….

Mexborough is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. Situated between Manvers and Denaby Main, it lies on the River Don close to where it joins the River Dearne, and the A6023 road runs through the town. The name Mexborough combines the Old English suffix burh, meaning a fortified place, with an Old English or Old Norse personal name, which may be Meke, Muik, Meoc or Mjukr.

The band has a Soundcloud where 3 years ago they uploaded a bunch of songs. That’s how I found them. There is also a bio that is worth reading.

‘The Way’ came into existence as a garage band in 1983, had a year long stint as a Mod-Revival band in 1985, but then went on to become one of the major Left-Wing political bands of the 1980s, featuring Tracie Young (formerly of The Jam and The Style Council), often assisted by ‘The Brasstards’. The definitive line-up of Tel Sutton, Jonathan White and Ian Deakin would later go on to play with bands such as Groove Armada, Faithless, The Special Guest Stars and The On. Their first ‘manager’ was the legendary Peter Jenner and during this period they would go on to support classic British artists such as Joe Strummer, New Model Army and John Cooper Clarke, gaining a reputation as one of the best live bands in the UK. Although they were offered record deals by labels such as EMI, they never took the bait, and the only recording that now exist are a handful of demos and live recordings, as well as three television appearances. They disbanded in January 1990 and never looked back.

So no recordings. A connection with The Jam. EMI was interested in them, but no releases. Complicated. This is not ideal. But we have the songs on Soundcloud, and I am listening one by one. We find “Train of Revolution”, “I Just Don’t Know”, “Religion”, “Homelands”, “Upper Class England”, “It’s Up to You!” and a 1988 version of “Train of Revolution”.

It is not very clear from which demo tapes each song comes from. We do know that there were three demo EPs. These were “Strike to Win” from 1986, “Official Dispute” form 1987 and “All Thy Might” from 1988.

As mentioned the band appeared on TV playing the song “Inspiration”. I wonder if it is the song I found on this footage from a documentary called “A Vote of No Confidence“. This documentary focused on Sheffield band Diz Giz Drill’s Ogy McGrath but towards the end of it the band The Way makes their appearance.

On the description it mentions the venue Take Two in Aftercliffe. It seems the band didn’t get a chance to play in other classic Sheffield venues like The Leadmill, Limit or Uni according to this. These venues were for within the cliques it says! At Take Two the band played six times, including a gig with The Stone Roses.

Then I find a comment on Facebook by Tel Sutton, the lead person of The Way. Here he remembers another venue, The Leadmill! This is what he says: “Okay, so I’m 18 (1987) and I’ve managed to blag my way (as frontman with ‘The Way’ – my first ever Leadmill gig was seeing Tracie Young, who would go on to join us in 88!) into the dressing rooms at Big Audio Dynamite’s show, supported by The Chiefs of Relief. I’m sat on the floor, very drunk, in the support band’s room, talking to Tim Roth about ‘King of the Ghetto’ when Matthew Ashman – in the presence of Paul Cook – asks me, ‘Who was better, The Pistols or The Clash?’ Knowing it’s BAD’s gig, and Tim is with them, I say ‘Well, for me, it’s got to be The Clash’, at which point they start lobbing every pint pot they can get their hands on at me. Roth quickly steps in and calms them down, and I scurry off covered in lager and tab ends to talk to Don Letts – and have my first ever spliff. I have another fifty stories like that, and I’m glad to say I got to play there three times. Happy 40th Birthday Leadmill..!”

And lastly another good find, an old interview with Tel Sutton. Here wee learn that he was in bands like Electrascope or The Special Guest Stars, Flash, Scope and Stars.

And that’s it! I think it was a good find. Who remembers them?!

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Listen
The Way – Homelands

Day 546

The Stars on Fire 7″s are finally home! They arrived yesterday. Now just waiting for the inserts. As soon as they arrive I’ll start mailing the pre-orders. Remember that the official release date is Sept. 24, but I’m taking pre-orders both on www.cloudberryrecords.com and on cloudberryrecords.bandcamp.com. Thanks again for your support!

The Proctors: “Silhouttes” is the new 7″ single by the great West Midlands band! Wow! Two songs aree included in this pink vinyl record, the title song and “You and Me and the Sea”. The songs are ace, as usual, and it is only limited to 300 copies. Seems like a record no one would like to miss out!

Tapioca Tundra / Sounds Incarcerated: Tapioca Tundra is the collaboration between Mary Wyer and Julian Knowles from Even as We Speak and Beth Arzy from Jetstream Pony, Aberdeen and The Luxembourg Signal. The English label Spinout Nuggets is releasing a split 7″ with them and Sounds Incarcerated, which is the band formed by Viv Bonsels and Allan Crockford. Each of them contribute a song and yeah, it is really good!

The Happy Somethings: now a Derbyhire/Nottinghamshire band. A trio. Two guys, one girl. “Lollipop Licks EP” is the latest by them. Four pop songs, “Forward Now”, “Ignore You”, “Doctor Lollipop” and “Pretty Pants”, which are available to download for free on Bandcamp.

Chime School: Andy Pastalaniec (Seablite) from San Francisco is the person behind this new band that is releasing a self-titled album on Slumberland Records on November 5. The album will be out on vinyl and CD and will include 10 songs. Right now we can preview one of the songs, “Taking Time To Tell You” which sounds really nice!

Splashing Rainbows: Giorgos Kyriazis from the legendary band One Night Suzan has a new project, Splashing Rainbows. The fine Greek label Make Me Happy will be releasing a 12″ EP titled “Numbers” with 6 songs. So far I’ve been able to listen to one of the songs, “One (is Fine)”, which is a goodie.

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I return to an old post of mine. I’ve been doing a bit of revisionism. Azure Days from Ireland. Remember that post? Here I mention that Azure Days’ drummer Robbie Robinson was in a band called The Practical Householders. So, yeah, I wanted to find out more about this obscure Irish band!

The superb blog The Fanning Sessions Archive wrote about the band back in 2009. On this post it doesn’t mention Robbie Robinson as a member of the band. So that is a bit confusing. Here we see that the band was formed by Trisha Smyth on vocals, Jackie Kelly on backing vocals, Mick O’Rourke on guitar, Colm Walsh on accordion, Pat Casey on bass and Dave Ward on drums. Later on Paul Donahue replaced Pat and Dave Mulhall replaced Dave Ward. So when was Robbie part of the band? Or maybe that was an error I made when I wrote about Azure Days?

What wee know about the band is very little. The band appeared on Comet Records compilation LP “Comet LP Two” (COME 2 TP) in 1987 with the song “Your Love is Just a Four Letter Word”.  On this sampler compilation they appeared alongside the aforementioned Azure Days and the amazing Cypress, Mine! The song was recorded at The Studios in Clonegal, produced by the band and engineered by Seamus Cullinane.

There is yet another compilation where they appeared. It was a tape comp called “Long Road to Travel” (ATHY 001) that was part of The Council Collection. This was the first volume of such tapes. The band contributed “4 Letter Word”. Is it the same song?

The Fanning Sessions blog mentions that the band recorded a 3 song demo that was produced by Stano. The blog promised doing a post when they got a copy of such demo. But it seems it never happened. I’d love to listen to it!

My best find online is an interview with Colm Walsh on the Leinster Leader newspaper. The interview is sort of recent, December 2019. Here we find that Colm was manager of the Sultans of Ping and was behind the wonderful Made of Athy Project.

Indeed, I didn’t mention it earlier, the band hailed from Athy in County Kildare.

Athy is a market town at the meeting of the River Barrow and the Grand Canal in south-west County Kildare, Ireland, 72 kilometres southwest of Dublin. Athy or Baile Átha Í is named after a 2nd century Celtic chieftain, Ae, who is said to have been killed on the river crossing, thus giving the town its name “the town of Ae’s ford”.

Another thing I find out is that the band is name-checked in the 2020 book “Made in Ireland – Studies in Popular Music” that was edited by Áine Mangaoang, John O’Flynn and Lonán Ó Briain. The book seems to be available for academic purposes, and is not on Amazon. Would be nice to get a copy of it.

Not much more info about them on the web. Hopefully we’ll find out more, and maybe we’ll hear that 3 song demo!

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Listen
The Practical Householders – Your Love is Just a Four Letter Word

Day 544

The Vegetablets: nice! Koichi and Miki from Nagoya, our friends that run Tulip House Records and have been in different sweet and lovely bands including Chain Letter, are releasing a new 9 song album titled “The Vegetablets 4”. This is proper DIY bedroom pop, with terrific songs like “SKKY” or “A Waste of Time”.

David Lance Callahan: the leader of The Wolfhounds and Moonshake is back with a solo record titled “English Primitive”. It will be available on October 29 on vinyl and CD but pre-orders are available on his Bandcamp. It is a short record, 7 songs, but they are very good songs! Some of them not strictily indiepop, but I think they are totally enjoyable.

Miracle Legion: the legendary New Haven band has just put together “GLADDER” on Bandcamp. These recordings, 10 songs, come from a gig at The Ritz Ballroom in New York City, November 7, 1987. Four of these songs had been released previously in an EP titled “GLAD” but the band thinks, and I agree with them, why not release all the songs from that gig! That is exactly what “GLADDER” is.

Lavender Blush: the dreampop band from San Francisco will be back with “You are My Moonlight” on January 27. This new album will be released on vinyl by Blue Aurora Audio and on tape by Shelflife Records. The album will include 8 songs and we can preview one of them so far, “You are My Moonlight”, and it is pretty good!

Maida Rose: a few Dutch dreampop bands have been in my radar as of late. Maida Rose from The Hague is one of them. “Within” is the band’s new digital single and it is quite lovely. The band says this is the only song they’ve written about love. Previously the band had released two digital singles, “Where do We Go” and “Harmony of Heartache”, all in 2021.

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I urge everyone to get the Sound as Ever compilations. They cover the Australian indie between 1990 and 1999 and it includes many indiepop gems. There is some indierock too, which surely it’s not my favourite, but I totally understand the approach of the compilations. And yes, I have discovered some great bands that I had no clue about. Raw Nerves is one of them, and I want to share with you my excitement.

Raw Nerves appear on the second volume of these compilations which is titled “Stuck in the 90s” (SAE:02). This comp came out late 2020 and was compiled by Scott Thurling of the fine Popboomerang Records. Yeah, it is him who is behind these compilations. Makes sense!

On this second volume the band appear alongside some bands that probably you know like Blindside, Autohaze or The Glory Box. And there are others worth discovering. Raw Nerves contributes the song “Dead Sinister”.

On the liner notes there is actually some info about this song:
Dead Sinister was an early composition recorded in May 1990 as part of the sessions for Raw Nerves’ sole release, the double A-side single, Life On The Run/Rosebud. While it was built around a 2-string guitar riff, Jean Claude’s bass provides much of the colour and shape. As with many other Raw Nerves songs, the lyrics are driven by contemporary demons and dramas. The recording was completed at Studio 52 in Collingwood and was self-produced.

The song was produced and performed by the band. The band being Jean-Claude Le Bret on bass, Matt Palmer on guitar, Brian Retallick on guitar, Phil Turnour on vocals and Ian Williams on drums.

As mentioned the band put out a 7″ single. That happened in 1990 on Roar Records (52715). This 7″ had a simple sleeve, a die-cut sleeve with the band’s name logo on the top left corner. Two songs were on this record, “Life on the Run” on the A side and “Rosebud” on the B side.

I’ve found both songs online. They are ok. Not as good as “Dead Sinister”. Not indiepop like that one! Of the two I prefer “Life on the Run” which is poppier of course. I wonder why the change of styles? I guess it was the 90s?

Maybe I’m not being fair. But I got hooked to “Dead Sinister”. I think it is a terrific pop song. I wonder if there are more songs recorded at that same recording session. Would be amazing, no? Maybe they are as good as this one!

Thanks to Discogs I find that Brian Retallick played on a band called Global Mantra afterwards. Ian Williams was in Rail and Sleeper as well as in The Wick Effect. Sadly Ian died in 1999.

The Melbourne band seems to have been around until 1993. A short-lived band.

I keep looking for info and find that Phil Turnour was making music under the name FILL. Not sure what years this project was active, I can say sometime around 2011 according to a page on Triple J Unearthed.

And then a Youtube channel by Phil Turnour too. Here there are some more songs by the band. And he writes about each song!

“Memorise” (1989 rehearsal boombox recording) – This recording is from very early in the band’s history. I’d probably been with it for a couple of months (In was the last to join). I was probably reciting lyrics from the tons of notes and poems I’d take to rehearsal – we’d work up riffs etc then I’d extemporize until I hit something I liked and take that away for further writing at home. I suspect we’d already played this a couple of times and we were getting closer. I’m not sure this song survived all the way through our time together but I think we enjoyed playing it. The reference to “a walk in the Black Forest” was, I suspect, derived from a re-run of the Goodies episode where they ran a pirate radio station that had only one record – A Walk in the Black Forest by the Bert Kampfert Orchestra(?). I’d try to write profound lyrics exploring the outer reaches of language but I’d chuck in cheap and absurd pop culture references. 1989 was a very bad time for popular culture but it was the darkness before the light of a number of revolutions that seemed to come after the Soviet Bloc revolutions (Nirvana; The Simpsons; Seinfeld; Goodfellas etc) that continue to influence and keep us sane today. My lyrics were my reaction to that darkness. The organ’s a Farfisa – one of those red desk-looking types from the 60s. Brian had cool gear (Rickenbacker 360; Vox AC30).

“Clear Confusion” (1989 rehearsal boombox recording) – A very early rehearsal. This song was written before I joined the band although I think I re-wrote a couple of lines of lyrics. It’s faster than I remember but we were young!

“Red Death” (1989 rehearsal boombox recording) – This is one I wrote before I joined the band. We did it for a while but it was clear we were writing good stuff together so we gradually replaced songs like this with group efforts. I changed some the lyrics in later years and it’s now one of my favourite old songs of mine. I wrote it in about 1987 after a night amongst the skinheads at the Prince of Wales in StKilda. Our guitar player Brian is singing the bridge and I think I’m playing the harmonica – neither of us are enhancing the song at that point!

“Sky Sweats” (excerpt – rehearsal boombox recording) – I wrote this prior to joining the band. We stopped doing it once we had enough material we’d written together. What amazes me about this and Red Death is that the band had become proficient at playing them so quickly – this would be within about 1 or 2 months of me joining the band. I wrote this on a bus from Melbourne to Shep when I was about 21. It was about 40 degrees and the bus air con wasn’t working. Can’t remember why I was on a bus and not a train.

I think the last three are good. Especially “Clear Confusion”. I think these early recordings are indiepop enough for me. And I enjoy them! Good find. Now, are there more? Would be great to find out!

Who remembers the Raw Nerves from Melbourne? Especially their early days?! :O

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Listen
Raw Nerves – Dead Sinister

Day 541

Today is a great day! But yesterday was better! If you missed it, yesterday I announced the newest release on Cloudberry Records, a 7″ by the Seoul by way of California based band Stars on Fire! Cristoph Mark’s project have been recommended a few times on the blog, he is a great craftsman when it comes to indiepop. When he presented me early this year a bunch of songs that were just a perfect fit for Cloudberry, things started moving fast. In the end I had to pick two songs, “Ready, Steady, Go!” that would end up as the A side and “Angel in White”, the B side. After many delays on thee pressing plant side, the record will be out on September 24. It also features lovely original art for the record sleeve art by Polish illustrator Jola Bankowska. So yeah, don’t miss it! We are taking pre-orders on our website as well as on Bandcamp!

Falconet: what a superb discovery! Sally Jati from the wonderful Starry Eyed Cadet sings and plays guitar and Ken Aki also sings, plays guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, in this wonderful project. “Magic Potion” is their debut album that has 8 songs that are all so good! September starts with this treasure. Now I hope it gets released properly. This deserves to be a CD, a vinyl, and even a tape (even if I don’t like tapes much!)

The Skating Party: Melotron Recordings from Thessaloniki, Greece, is a label that always delivers the good stuff. The Skating Party’s “Night Ruins” EP is the latest release. This 4 song CD that is limited to 30 copies will be out on September 10. Right now we can preview the opening track, “Seventeen Cages”, and yes it is good!

April Blue: a new song by this Tokyo five-piece is out now on Bandcamp! The song is titled “Pink Paper Planes” and it is a fine slice of jangly pop with female vocals. There’s not much info about this release but we can enjoy it. Lots of great Japanese bands these days making a similar sound. I still wonder why there was never a Tokyo Popfest or similar!

Kammahav: Cloudberry blog favourites Kammahav are back with “Fly the Flag”. The project formed by Christian Gustafsson and Tony Jenkins have penned another fine pop song with their traditional style. It’s always good to know that this long-distance project keeps going on.

Poster Paints: I recommended Poster Paints back in May as they were a lovely surprise. Their music was precious and well-crafted, and today I have to do it again. I have to tell you to go listen “Never Saw it Coming”, their latest song. Simon Liddell and Carla J Easton from Glasgow know what they are doing. Really good.

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As you know the great blog Fanning Sessions is probably the best resource for Irish bands. But this time around I discovered first the band on Soundcloud and then I ended up on the blog. Usually it is the other way. But this is cool nonetheless!

Wheels on Fire hailed from Lahinch, County Clare, Ireland. They were around the late 80s and early 90s. Though I’ve seen some recordings from 2018 on Soundcloud!

The band was formed by Jennie McGrath (vocals), Anne Parker (vocals), Paul O’Brien (guitar), Anthony Edwards (guitar), Maureen Comber (bass) and Teresa O’Brien (drums).

On Soundcloud we mostly find live recordings and recordings from their practice studio. But there are two demo songs that sound ace, “Beach Walking” and “Growing in the Dark”. These two songs come from a 1987 demo tape that had a green sleeve and printed in black ink, a photo of the band. The song “Beach Walking” was played in 1990 by Dave Fanning on his influential radio show.

We know that at least a year ago Paul and Anthony were playing in a band called Kohima.

What else do we know? The band participated at the Hot Press Band of 1988 competition  that happened in Sir Henrys in Cork.

Now what songs do we find in their repertoire?

“Empty Bottle of Beer” is from a 1987 practice session. “Can You Hear Me”, “Waiting for a Sign”, “The Bank”, “Broken Hearted” and “Last Night as I Lay Dreaming” from a 1988 practice session. “Had a Dream”, “Black” and “Who’s Hungry” is from a 1989 session.

“Oochie Coochie” and “Honey & Locusts” is from a gig at Nagles Ennistymon on June 23rd, 1988. “Heaven Was Looking”, “Broken Down”, “Happy Ever After” and “You Should Know” comes from a gig at Lifford Arms in Ennis on December 4th 1988. “Groovy Party”, “Middle of Night”, “She’s Crazy”, “Strangers”, “The Highwayman”, “Into the Street”, “The Last War”, “Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, “Acting & I’m Evil”, “Gold” and “Ennistymon Rock On” from a gig at Spellmans in Gort in March 11, 1989.

Some of these songs were played by other bands. I am guessing by bands that featured some of the band members. Like “Helpless” and “Honey and Locusts” were played in 1990 by Rowagaga & the Wellers. And “Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” was played in 1992 by The Foonspeeders”.

And then there are unplugged, two acoustic guitars, versions of “Broken Down” and “Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” from 2018!

Lots of songs, a trove. But no information about the band. No releases I believe. Would be good to find more details about them. Anyone remember Wheels on Fire? Their two demo songs are really good!

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Listen
Wheels on Fire – Beach Walking

Day 539

Smudge: the classic Sydney band is on Bandcamp. They have just uploaded a full live set of 9 songs when they played in Adelaide on February 1993. This is good! Included is their classic “Don’t Want to be Grant McLennan”, it is the first time I hear this track live! I wish I could interview them, I reached them many times in the past on Facebook with no luck… but who knows!

3 A.M. Again: it is great news to hear new songs by this project from Gloucester, Massachusetts. They always treat us with sweetness for our ears. Their latest release is the “How the Leaves Lie EP”, a 6 song EP that is quite precious! Very recommended.

The Day: time to discover this band formeed by Laura Loeters from Antwerp and Gregor Sonnenberg from Hamburg. They have a few songs released on their Bandcamp but I have just discovered them, so I am starting by their latest track, “Empty”. Wow! It is a fine jangly song, catchy and upbeat. Definitely I’ll keep an eye on them.

We the North: this band seems like a mystery to me. It says they are based in Hong Kong. But then the latest song, “Exil”, is sung in perfect Swedish. Could it be a swede living in Hong Kong? I wonder. We the North describes their music as Nordic Noir and that sounds on point!

A Estas Alturas: I had recommended Daniel Vicente’s project some time ago. Back then the Puerto Rican artist, based in Dallas, had loose songs on Bandcamp. It seems that now he has put them together as an EP which is titled “EP I”. This EP consists of 5 songs, of melancholic and sweet pop music in Spanish.

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I think I need to reorder my CD collection. I can’t seem to find Red Money’s “A Kind of Retrospective 1990-1995” (FST 093) that Firestation Records released in 2012.

I know it is somewhere. I haven’t lost it. This compilation CD came  out in 2012 before the German label had included Red Money on “Still Mad at Me? (15 Years Firestation Records 1998-2013)” boxset. But they weren’t included in the seventh volume of The Sound of Leamington Spa series, but on the second CD of the boxset. On this compilation the band appears with “Come On and Find Me” and “Take Care of Me”. Both songs are on the 2nd CD.

“A Kind of Retrospective 1990-1995” came together after Uwe discovered the record at the Utrecht Record fair. Shortly after he was able to track down the band members and well, voila! the compilation was done. It included 14 songs, “My Erstwhile Companion”, “The Crying Shame”, “Blaming Himself”, “Swerve”, “Me and My Big Mouth”, “Thicker than Thieves”, “No Questions”, “Tangled Up in Her”, “Heaven”, “Now (it seems) They’re Here”, “A Kind of Loving”, “Options”, “Swerve (Adventure Club Mix)” and “My Erstwhile Companion (Version with 2nd guitar)”. It was limited to 300 copies.

Let me give some context. The band as the title of the compilation was around the first half of the 90s. In 1990 the band released their one proper release, a 7″ released by P.F. & G. Records (PFG 001). This was probably the band’s own label. Three songs were on the record, “My Erstwhile Companion”, “Tangled Up in Her” and “No Questions”.

While I look for my CD, (I’ve already spent 30 minutes, and losing my patience) I find that the band has a website that is still working.

As usual I am interested in the biography part. What do we learn here?

That the band’s first gig was at the Fulham Greyhound in London in 1990. Originally it was going to be a full line-up, many members, but they dropped out. In the end Richard and Jules decided to go as a duo accompanied this time by Roz Bateman on sax. Roz would also appear on the 7″.

This stripped down lineup worked. People enjoyed it. So the band went to record their 7″ in Croydon and got cut at Abbey Road. Some gigs followed at the Acoustic Room, Mean Fiddler, The Aztec Room, The Moonlight Club, The Fresh Club, The Orange, Café de Piaf and the 100 Club.

In 1991 Roz moved to the north of England and didn’t continue playing sax with Jules and Richard. That didn’t matter for the duo as they went to the studio to record more songs. Pre-production was done with Woodie Taylor (Morrissey, Comet Gain) and Paul Simm engineered the session as well as playing trumpet and piano. The song “Swerve” was to be the next single but was put on hold.

The band continued gigging. Yvonne Wembley would accompany the band on backing vocals and they also got a new saxophone player (they don’t say the name!)

The band continued recording in 1994, this time working with David Levy on bass and Richard Newman on drums. And it was around this time that an indie label approached them to release the debut album. Sadly that never happened.

Jules would later move to Cornwall with his family and that made it impossible for the band to continue.

And one last thing I found. There seems to be a 2015 EP titled “Hard to Believe”. It doesn’t look like it was properly released but seems available on digital platforms. There are four songs in this release, “Hard to Believe”, “I Left a Note”, “I Tried Not to Care (Can’t Settle Now)” and “I Left a Note – Acoustic & Strings”. Would be nice to know more about this release. There is no info whatsoever on the web.

That’s right, I couldn’t find more info about them, but I think this was worthy. I haven’t heard their music in years I feel. It was a good way to remind me of their elegant jangle pop.

Anyone saw them in London when they were around?

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Listen
Red Money – Thicker than Thieves