Ending this week with the good news that the Okama Flannel Boy 7″s have arrived home. It will be released on August 10th and as you know you can already pre-order copies. I’m just waiting for the inserts to arrive and as soon as they do I will start shipping to everyone that has placed an order.

Speaking of Okama Flannel Boy I should tell you that I got the chance to see them live in Mexico City at the “Cloudberry Night” that happened just about a week ago. It was really great. I was amazed by how good they were. They played a short set, with three original songs and three covers. Then they played once again “Carolina St.” as an encore. It was their 3rd gig and they were in top form. I really wish everyone can catch them live because they are superb!

That was my indiepop highlight in the trip. But it wasn’t all. The party had a great selection of music played by DJ Salvapop, who brought his records and made us enjoy songs by bands like The Desert Wolves, Bob and more. Classic c86! And meeting so many great people was also fantastic, making new friends, and even getting a CD by an obscure Mexican early 2000s band called Los Padrinos that sounded really good. Oh! Also got the new Auuuu! fanzine. So yeah, quite good for indiepop, it wasn’t just touristy stuff this time.

And here of course are my new discoveries:

Jetstream Pony: what a lovely video for the terrific song “Self-Destruct reality” that is included in the 12″ released (and now sold out I think) by Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten. I can’t wait to get my copy on the mail!

Gingerlys: one of the best indiepop bands in New York is releasing a split tape with Nausea from Indonesia. One of the songs that will be included in this tape released by Shiny Happy Records will be “Corduroy Star” which you can listen and fall for it as I just did!

Nausea: and here is a song by the other band on this split tape. Nausea doesn’t have the best of names I must say but their song “Sun For You” is tops. It is a terrific jangly track with female vocals. Don’t know much about the band, but they hail from Indonesia, just like their label Shiny Happy Records.

Gentle Ivanhoe Death Skulls: there is more songs I haven’t heard on the Shiny Happy Records Soundcloud, so I thought it was a good idea to share them with you as maybe you also missed them? This one is called “Break the Spell, Easy as Hell”. It is a song that will be part of the album “Weightless Knight”. I wish there was a bit more of a description on the page, some details about the band perhaps?:

Alpaca Sports: here is another teaser by our Gothenburg friends. This one is called “Feel Like Going Home” and what can I tell you aside that it is lovely as always. The album “From Paris With Love” is going to be released on September 7th. But it feels so far away, especially as we see the artwork and the record itself in the teaser video. Why does Elefant do this? If it is ready, why not just let me get a copy?

—————————————————————–

I am very excited about the German guitar pop compilation Firestation is preparing for next year. When they announced this news on Facebook many fans recommended some bands from the period that should be included like The Sheets, The Jesterbells and more. Familiar names to me. But there were a few that I have never heard before so I decided to do some investigation. The first one was The Hyde Parkas, which was recommended by Ronny from the superb Augsburg label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten.

So I’m checking them out on Discogs. It seems they only released 1 record while they were around. A 7″ with two songs and a few compilation tracks. It is no surprise though that Ronny recommended them, they also hailed from Augsburg and are categorized as a 1960s/Mod revival band. They later became The Parish Garden.

Their 7″ with the songs “I Confess” on the A side and “Going to Sydney” on the B side was released on AuBuMu Records (L 1/85) in 1985. This was a label based in that same city and who were active in the 80s and who have released a few records in the last decade. The record was mixed by Achim Zscheillea nd produced by B.B. Stonestein. The songs are credited to Dieter Geier and Harald Sianos.

The band had appeared the previous year, 1984, on the compilation “2000 Töne” that was also released by AuBuMu (NR 3). That is the first recording we know of the band. The song they contributed was called “Anyway”. I must say I don’t know any of the other bands on the record.

In 1985 the band contributed a couple of songs to the compilation “Two By Art – Special Introductory Issue”. On this tape compilation compiled by Thomas Wieland the band had “Seventeen” and “My Baby is Like Dynamite”. Two years later, and on the same label, the band had two songs, “Sometimes” and “On the Merseyside”, on the tape called “Two By Art 2” which I have actually mentioned on the blog in the past when I wrote about the Austrian band Fallout.

So I count now 7 released tracks. Did they record anything else?

The Augsburg Wiki might help answer that. The first interesting detail it mentions is that the band was formed by Walter Sianos on vocals, Harald “Harry” Sianos on guitar, Dieter “The Beater” Geier on guitar, Martin Stefaniak on bass, Andreas “Fant” Kroul on drums and Oliver Wolf on keyboards. It also mentions Martin “Matti” Glass as an ex-drummer. All of these members but Andreas Kroul were in a band called Kiesgroup and the Coconut Sprinter before being in The Hyde Parkas. I believe that first band was actually based in another town, in Thierhaupten. What an interesting name too, right? Under that name they played between 1982 and 1983.

It says that in 1985 the band was voted as the most popular Augsburg band according to the Neue Szene magazine. They played about 35 gigs and even traveled to Austria and Wales. It seems there were a lot of disputes about the sound and direction of the band and in the end Dieter Geier was to leave the band to start the Beatless. The rest of the band members continued playing together but they were to change their name to The Parish Garden. With the Parish Garden the band was to release a mini-album and an album and also a self-titled tape according to Discogs. I heard some of the songs on Youtube for The Parish Garden and they are not as poppy as The Hyde Parkas, so you know which ones I like the best, the poppy ones of course.

Then I was to stumble upon a Facebook page for the band! They are still going! It seems they continue playing different venues in Augsburg like Soho Stage, Kantine or Ballon Fabrik. I found two videos of them performing at Kantine from May 8th 2016, for the songs “Anyway” and “My Dog“.

It is also obvious, even though I am only mentioning at this point, that they took their name after Hyde Park, in London. That is the largest of four Royal Parks that form a chain from the entrance of Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green Park past the main entrance to Buckingham Palace. The park is divided by the Serpentine and the Long Water. The park was established by Henry VIII in 1536 when he took the land from Westminster Abbey and used it as a hunting ground. It opened to the public in 1637 and quickly became popular, particularly for May Day parades. Major improvements occurred in the early 18th century under the direction of Queen Caroline. Several duels took place in Hyde Park during this time, often involving members of the nobility. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the park, for which The Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton, was erected. And they changed of course Park for Parkas, a parka being a type of coat with a hood, often lined with fur or faux fur. The Caribou Inuit invented this kind of garment, originally made from caribou or seal skin, for hunting and kayaking in the frigid Arctic. Some Inuit anoraks require regular coating with fish oil to retain their water resistance. The words anorak and parka have been used interchangeably, but they are somewhat different garments. Strictly speaking, an anorak is a waterproof, hooded, pull-over jacket without a front opening, and sometimes drawstrings at the waist and cuffs, and a parka is a hip-length cold-weather coat, typically stuffed with down or very warm synthetic fiber, and with a fur-lined hood.

I keep Googling, see if there are any other interesting bits about them. Sadly I can’t seem to find much about them, though it seems Hyde Park in Lithuanian is Hyde Parka. So I get a lot of results for Lithuanian travel sites for London.

At least we know they are still going, which means it should be easy for Firestation to get in touch and ask them to be part of their compilation, if they want. I would still love to find out more about the band, how were those gigs in Austria or Wales, if they had more recordings, and why the first drummer left, among other questions. Of course finding a copy of the 7″ would be brilliant too. So yes, my German friends, do you remember them?

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

Listen
The Hyde Parkas – I Confess