A good weekend working on the fanzine and the MacGuffins compilation! Exciting times indeed! And that’s not all, there’s some great music discoveries and news too!
The Church Grims: what a song is “Plaster Saint”. The Church Grims were fantastic. And Firestation Records will be releasing on CD and vinyl “Yankee Mags” a new compilation of all their tracks. This is great news as the Egg Records release is quite hard to find these days! I’ve tried to interview them in the past, and I really hope it happens soon!
Rorschach: and this band I have interviewed in the past! Firestation will be releasing on CD the compilation album “Beautiful Ignorance”. On Soundcloud they are sharing one of the tracks that will be included, “Gabriel”, which you’ll see is terrific. This one can’t be missed. It will be out on March 27!
The Orchids: Firestation seems to be on a roll! The Berlin label will be re-releasing the album “The Lost Star” by the amazing Glasgow band The Orchids. What a band! This album came some years ago on Pebble Records. Actually 10 years ago! Time flies. I remember this as if it was yesterday. Firestation’s release will be on vinyl only.
Even as We Speak: Shelflife is another label that is back with great stuff. The news this time is that they will be releasing the legendary Australian’s this June. It will be an album and it will be called “Adelphi”. It will be a co-release with the Spanish label Discos de Kirlian. If you want to have a taster they have shared the song “Forgiving”.
Lake Ruth: this New York band sounds amazing. For a reason or another I still haven’t seen them live. You can only blame me. But there is good news, the Augsburg label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten, who as you know has great taste, released a few days ago a 10″ vinyl EP called “Crying Everyone Else’s Tears”. It is one not to be missed!
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When you think of records produced by John Rivers, you probably think of The Pastels, Close Lobsters, The Brilliant Corners, and more. Great C86 bands. I was checking other records John produced and found one by a band called Tell Tale Hearts that came out in 1986. I had no clue about it. But the year and the producer was indicating me that I should investigate. So, I did.
Then I find out that the three songs on the 12″ record were recorded at Woodbine Studios in Leamington Spa. That must be a good thing, right? Mighty Mighty recorded there, the Jazz Butcher too. And Leamington Spa, well, we all know these compilations called “The Sound of Leamington Spa”. I must be in the right track. I am going to like their music.
The three songs on the 12″ single were “The Eight Till Late” on the A side and “Falling Down” and “Jingly Jangly Sperm” on the B side. So far I’ve only found the last track, “Jingly Jangly Sperm”, which does sound very good! I need to order a copy of the record. Are the other two songs as good?
The record was released by Edens Doorbell (EDD1), which seems to have been the band’s own label. There are no other releases listed.
Discogs lists them on a tape compilation called “The Perfect Squash Vol.2” that Evermore Music (EMC 004), from Northampton, put out. It doesn’t say the year though. The band appears on the B side, the last song, which is “All Men Are B#####s”. The only other band I recognize from this compilation is the Deep Freeze Mice. I believe the band Tall Tale Hearts also hailed from Northampton as there is a contact address on this tape’s sleeve.
I believe too that the band appeared on another tape compilation called “The Holy Bible” that Heartache Records from Rugby released back in the day. On this 1986 tape the band appeared with the song “Jingly Jangly Sperm”. Other bands in it include The Wedding Present, The Jazz Butcher and Spacemen 3.
I mention Spacemen 3 for a reason. You see Tall Tale Hearts was formed by Ade Rhodes on bass and vocals, Mark Refoy and Tim Sansom on guitar and vocals. The connection is of course that Mark Refoy was in Spacemen 3. He was also on Freelovebabies, Slipstream, Spiritualized, Syndromes, The Tempest and This Parade. First he supported many gigs of Spacemen 3 with his own Tell Tale Hearts throughout 1985-1986. Then he would join Spacemen 3 and played his first gig with them on July 20th, 1989 at the Imperial Pub in Rugby. Actually I suggest anyone reading this piece to check out an article about the Rugby scene written by Graham Holliday for Medium. Lots of interesting details of that time in there!
The photo I’m using for the post comes from the fanzine Cradle to the Grave. I wonder if anyone has this zine. If it has any more information about the band.
Something that is pretty obvious too is that they took their name from the famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is relayed by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of the narrator’s sanity while simultaneously describing a murder they committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy “vulture-eye”, as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, attempting the perfect crime, complete with dismembering and hiding the body under the floorboards. Ultimately, the narrator’s feelings of guilt, or a mental disturbance, result in hearing a thumping sound, which the narrator interprets as the dead man’s beating heart.
I believe they had other songs, at least ones called “Avalanche” and “Home and Dry”. There was also at least two demo tapes by the band.
The only other interesting bit I found was that the band disbanded in 1987.
Lots of course written about Spacemen 3. But about Tell Tale Hearts next to nothing. But at least I have some sort of idea now. Now it is just a matter of finding a copy of the record, and hopefully someone can fill in the blanks. I’m sure someone remembers them? Were there more songs? Why just the one record?!
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