During the heyday of DIY indiepop in Sweden there were so many great bands. I have covered many on the blog and the list will probably never end. There’s been effort to compile and document some of this great music. But with the rise of digital music I feel this will never happen. Who will buy compilations after compilations of very obscure music these days? Seems very unlikely for anyone to invest on a project like that. A shame really.

One of the very good bands from that period was Dreams End from Gothenburg. I was reminded of them when I was looking and scrolling at this Johan Jacobsson’s instagram about indie memorabilia. He had posted a photo of the fanzine Wish I was a Josef Storm fanzine. On the front cover of this zine the name of Dreams End is listed along some other names like The Lotus Eaters, Harper Lee or Rocky Dennis among others.

As mentioned they hailed from the west of Sweden. The band was formed by Olof Larsson, Per Beijer, Thomas Thulin and Jonatan Malm. Per was the bassist, Jonatan and Thomas were on guitar, Olof sang. He also is listed as the one who wrote all the songs.

There is a self-released CD-R that probably was released either in 2002 or 2003 with 7 tracks. I think this is the first release of the band. The songs were “She Touched My Hand”, “Showdown”, “Cold Fight”, “Love”, “Death Disco”, “Linda” and “Angel Ride”. Important to note that “She Touched My Hand”, “Linda” and “Death Disco” are early versions of the songs that would later be properly released.

Another CDR from the same period is the “Baby/Laken” one. This one had five tracks, “Baby”, “Showdown”, “Laken”, “Never Never” and “Never Again”. Never had the chance to listen to any of these tracks.

“Death Disco” 7″ came out in 2004. It was on the Smashing Time (SMT-007) label, a label that as you may know would later transform into Luxury Records. On this 7″ the band had three songs, “Death Disco” and “If You Could Only Know” on the A side and “Linda” on the B side.

Lastly they would release a 7″ on Dolores Recordings as part of their singles club. It was a split 7″ with the band Hospitalle who I have written in the past. The catalog number of this record was Dol 164 and it was also number 34 in the singles club.

Dreams End contributed the song “She Touched My Hand” on the A side. Hospitalle had “Let’s Not Tell Our Sad Stories”. 300 copies of this record were made. It is a good one.

The band also appeared on some compilations. All CDR. The first is the 2005 comp “Popkonst, Love & Understanding” (POPK12) with the song “Death Disco”. Then in 2006 that same song appears on “Live På Join Our Club!” which was a celebration of bands that had played this Gothenburg club which includes bands Im familiar with like My Darling YOU!, Strip Squad or Compute. And lastly in 2009 they had the song “Never Shy” on Series Two Records compilation “Series Two Compilation Vol. 17” (ST45).

Looking for more info I find an article on Göteborgs-Posten, a newspaper in their town. The article dates from October 20, 2005. There it is mentioned that the band’s album was to be released around that time but sadly their label (was it Smashing Time?) was struggling with money and couldn’t put it out. It is a shame… would have loved to hear that. I suppose the songs were recorded?

Other than that we learn about his influences, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Broder Daniel and Cyndi Lauper. He also couldn’t remember where the band’s name came from…

If they were on other bands after they spli? I could find that Jonatan would later be on Jesus/Baby. On Discogs the other members don’t have any other bands listed.

And then I lose their trail. I wonder if there’s a chance to listen to all of their unreleased songs. Would be fantastic!

EDIT – Jens Wall, a reader on Facebook, shared with me a Soundcloud link for Olof Larsson! I didn’t know this existed. Very cool. Here there are Dreams Ends demos including “Roses” (from 2002), “Baby” (2002), “Cold Fligh“, “Julian” and “Vingar” which is dated as of January 8th of 2017. This last one must be a reunion recording? Or Olof solo? Also check out some other recordings by him!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Dreams End – She Touched My Hand

Sundsvall, Sweden. The mid 80s. A band called Common Sense plays indiepop and releases in 1986 a very fine single with “Eye to Eye” as the A side.

This record is listed on Discogs. Probably self-released as no label is listed. The B-side is “Sweet Surprise”. We also know that the songs were recorded in the autumn of 1986 at Alpha Recording Sweden.

The band is formed by Carl Sandberg on vocals, Peter Svedin on guitar, Thomas Johansson on bass and Niclas Holmgren on drums. The songs are produced by someone with last name Svensson. This same Scensson arranges and performs strings on the songs.

There are no other releases nor compilation appearances.

There is a photo of the band on the front sleeve of the record. Then there are individual photos of the band members on the back.

There is a venue in their town called Pipeline. They will perform 3 times there. The first time in August 22 of 1986  alongside Blue Parade, Krunch and The Grisblinkers. The second time would be on October 25, 1986 with The Congress. Lastly on December 26 of the same year they play with Brufords, Fyrtiosju, Crompojkarna and Red Marut Blues Band.

The website Blaskoteket has a post about them. It seems to be an interview from February of 1987 with Niclas Holmgren, the drummer. He mentions that their influences are The Smiths, Lloyd Cole and Prefab Sprout. He says too that “Eye to Eye” is a promotional single for the English market. Did that work at all? Did they get any attention? Would be good to find out. According to Niclas they were going to Stockholm for a promotional gig, maybe they were going to check them out there. Then the plan was to go and meet representatives in London.

That’s all there is about them online as far as I know. If anyone has more details about this really good sounding band let me know!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Common Sense – Eye to Eye

My last post was about Chubb, a band from the early 90s that I discovered on Soundcloud that had 3 very nice songs. That same Soundcloud account had a bunch more songs from a previous project called Chic & Vinny.

Chic was the vocalist and guitar played on Chubb, Vinny was the bassist. This was clearly their previous band.

One thing I couldn’t figure out was where they hailed from. I had the idea they were from around Manchester or even as far away as Liverpool. Their recordings were done in Macclesfield.

For Chic & Vinny there are more recordings, we find Braincell Blues which has some cool trumpets by guest player Colin Duff, “Futile” which is a top track that I could imagine in many compilation tapes from the time,

The recordings were made by Hursty at Station House in New Brighton in 1986.

Interesting enough they have rerecorded “Futile” in 2020. It is uploaded in their Soundcloud. They say that they did this as the original version had damage. They also slowed down this new version.

There are two other tracks that was recorded in 2020, while on lockdown. They are “Edelweiss” which is the band’s tribute to a local band with that same name and “Forever“.

Then in 2021 Chic and Vinny continued recording. Each recording at their own home their parts. In 2021 they wrote and recorded “Thought for a Day“. Here I discover thanks to the credits that Chic’s real name is Cliff Williams. Maybe he used Chic to not be confused with Cliff Williams from AC/DC?

And lastly there’s “Walking My Way” that is undated but clearly is from this latter period, not the 80s.

Not much more information if you google about them. So I think we’ll have to wait if by any chance we hear from the people in the band. I look forward to learn more about Chic & Vinny!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Chic & Vinny – Futile