15
Nov

Day 614. Out of town but trying to keep this up with a baby and all! If I miss some days with posts don’t be surprised…

The Pleasures Pale: it seems this is a must have record! 4 songs from 1987 are being released now! 25 copies only! It is being released on 12″ vinyl and this EP of unreleased songs is titled “Twitch”. Two songs are available to preview, “Only the Rich” and “Most Precious  Things” and they are great, especially the 2nd one. I may have to miss this as I will be out of town… but hopefully you don’t.

Miracle Legion: a live recording by the New Haven band has just been uploaded to Bandcamp. “We’ve Played this Measly Town Many Times” is the name of this release recorded on July 14, 2016, at the Linda in Albany, NY. The whole gig is 18 songs and you can listen all of it now!

The Ashenden Papers: two new songs by the Concord, California, project of Jason Dezember. This new single is planned to be included in the band’s upcoming album. “Little Jumpy T” and “Your Starlit Eyes” are the names of these songs that feature Rose Melberg on backing vocals.

Dayflower: 3 new songs by our Leicester friends! It is the “Sonic” single with two more tracks, “Dream of Shore” and “Too Far Gone”. As usual the songs are fantastic. This time around they are fuzzier, where reverb reigns and pop melodies abound. Really nice.

Artsick: Slumberland Records is releasing a bunch of goodies lately, I should get around to review and listen all of them. I’ll start with Artsick who are releasing a very Shoppies record called “Fingers Crossed”. Formed in 2018 by Christina Riley of Burnt Palms, Mario Hernandez of Kids on a Crime Spree and Donna McKean of Lunchbox, this is the band’s first album. Check out the preview song, “Despise” which is ace!

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As I’ve been going through a bunch of Sunday Records releases that had the great Mark Randall from the Fat Tulips in them, now is the turn of Confetti. I guess the one left is Oscar? And well, the Fat Tulips! But I am right now looking into the more obscure bands, so yeah, the ones that released less records and are less known, let’s start there.

Confetti was another cool collaboration. It was a duo formed by Mark Randall who went by the name of “David” in the records and Julie Robinson, who used the name “Virginia Aeroplane”. Julie was in the superb band The Artisans who released the “Jazz Serenade” 7″ and who did a lovely 3″ CD retrospective with us, Cloudberry! And of course on The Sunbathers who released a split 3″ with me and who I’ve seen play live at Indietracks. Oh! Why didn’t I think of interviewing her before writing this piece? I should try, right? But it doesn’t hurt to write about Confetti. Their songs are ace. All of them!

The band released four singles and later on the “Retrospective EP” which collected all their fifteen recordings. All of these songs were recorded at Sideways Sound in Attenborough, England, and were engineered by Martin Cooper.

The band’s first release was a split-flexi with the Fat Tulips. This was the “Heaven Flexi”. This one had two songs by each band. Confetti had “Diet (Remix)” and “Brige 61”. Some of these flexis came with an extra flexi that was mispressed. The catalog number for this record was SUNDAY 010, yup it was released by Sunday in 1991. “Diet (Remix)” is a cover of the Au Pairs.

“Haberdasher” was their second EP. This one came out also in 1991 on the Fat Tulips’ label Heaven Records (HV 06). The record came with a small Confetti logo card and a photo postcard. That’s not all. Copies of the fanzine Heaven Sent issue 4 came with this record too. And yes, there were two versions of this record. There were 100 numbered copies with a hand-made sleeve and others with a purple sleeve with two girls sitting down looking attentively at something. The songs on this record were “Who’s Big and Clever Now?” on the A side and “It’s Kinda Funny” and “Yes Please!” on the B side. “It’s Kinda Funny” is of course a cover of the Josef K classic.

Sunday Records would release their third record, “Sea Anemon EP”, in 1992. This was SUNDAY 012. From what I understand there are blue and yellow print sleeves for this record. I have the blue. The songs here were “Whatever Became of Alice and Jane” on the A side and “Here Again” and “River Island: on the B side.

The band’s last release came on Marineville Records (MARINE 4) in 1992. This was the “Presentl EP”. I don’t know why it has an L after Present. But that’s how it is. The songs on this record were covers of The Wedding Present! So we find “Corduroy” on the A side and “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” and “Once More” on the flipside.

The last release is the one I am missing. It is the “Retrospectivel EP”. Again that L in the name of the record. This one had 1`5 songs. They were released on CD by Vinyl Japan in 1994. Catalog was ASKCD39. The songs were: “Who’s Big and Clever Now”, “It’s Kinda Funny”, “Yes Please!”, “Tomorrow Knows”, “Warm”, “Jenny”, “Bridge 61”, “Diet (Remix)”, “Whatever Became of Alice and Jane”, “Here Again”, “River Island”, “Nothing II”, “Corduroy”, “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” and “Once More”.

The other songs that were not in the 7″s and are in this compilation appeared on various compilations. Let’s do it chronologically.

The first ones date from 1991. On the classic “The Waaaaah! CD” released by Bring on Bull (BULL 3-0) the band contributed the songs “Jenny” and “Warm”.  That same year their song “Nothing II” appeared on the tape compilation “123456 Road Runner” released by Glidge Records (GLIDGE 001).

In 1992 just one appearance, it was going to be in the French label Anorak Records. The tape was “Teeny Poppers” (SHOUBIDOWA 01) and the song they contributed was a live version of “Who’s Big and Clever Now?”. I think this track is exclusive to this releease.

In 1993 they appeared on Sunday Records’ “Sunny Sunday Smile” (SUNDAY 640) CD. Here they have two songs, “Nothing II” and “Tomorrow Who Knows”.

Then it is 1998 and their Wedding Present covers, two of them, “Corduroy” and “Once More”, end up on the tribute album “Once More – A Tribute to the Wedding Present” released by Orange Slices (Citrus 1).

In the year 2000 the band gets a bit more attention. “River Island” appears on “Our Floating Images of Youth” compilation on Vinyl Japan (ASKLP/CD 100) that was released as a 3 LP compilation or a double CD. That same year Sunday Records includes “Here Again” and “River Island” together as a single track on “Rolling Meadows Songs About Our Past Vol. 2” (SUNDAY 850). Lastly there’s another tribute to the Wedding Present on Orange Slices. The song “Anyone Can Make a Mistake” gets included in “Dare – A Tribute to the Wedding Present Volume 2” (Citrus 2).

Their last appearance was on “A Sunday Records Compilation” double CDR released in 2019 by Sunday (SUNDAY 1004). The songs they included were “Tomorrow Who Knows” and “Nothing II”.

What else can we find online? Maybe some odd bits of information.

The band only played five gigs. Four out of these gigs were supporting the Fat Tulips.

Then my friend Manolo wrote about them back in 2006 in his blog 360 de Separación. Not much information there but reading his post takes me back to days that so many people were blogging about indiepop. Sad that that’s not the case now.

Not much more info about them. Would be nice to know where were their 5 gigs. And who did they play with the time they didn’t play with the Fat Tulips. Why did this collaboration start? Why did it last so little? Did they write more songs that didn’t end up recorded? Maybe one day we’ll get answers!

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Listen
Confetti – Whatever Became of Alice and Jane

4 Responses to “:: Confetti”

The singer is in A new band now and released an album a few years ago the band is called the sunbathers and it’s also top class. Nice article

Tomas
November 15th, 2021

If you’re puzzled by why it’s “Presentl” and “Retrospectivel” then you’re missing the puns! Say them out loud, including the “EP” part… they have “Haberdashery.P”, “Sea Anemone.P”, “Presently.P” and “Retrospectively.P”. I don’t think there’s any particular reason for “Haberdashery”, but “Sea Anemone” is a set of songs about the seaside and the others should be obvious!

Alex
November 16th, 2021

I remember being at a record fair back in the 90’s, and stumbling across a guy who had lots of cool indie/twee stuff.
I picked up a copy of the Retrospective CD and was saying to a mate, “you gotta get a copy of this, they’re a really cool band”, and the vendor kind of laughed.
When I looked up, I realized that it was Mark. We had a chat, and he was really nice, if a little shy of me ramblin’ on about Confetti.

Bruce Rhodes
November 23rd, 2021

Their debut gig was at The Fountain in Deptford, April 1991 supporting Amelia Fletcher, Another Sunny Day and the Fat Tulips. What a line-up! I’m sure there is a full video of the entire evening but it hasn’t been mastered yet, at least that’s what I’m being told. They also certainly played in Brighton but not sure of the date.

Dave Fennessy
December 5th, 2021