Okay! this weekend I added pre-order button on the Cloudberry website for the next 7″ in our catalog, “Sweet Georgia Gazes” by Dayflower. I also have added it to the label’s Bandcamp! I will be sending the masters to the pressing plant this week so hopefully within the next 3 months I should have the records at home. I am hoping for an early October release. Very excited, and I hope you are too!

Dottie: the Austin, Texas, shoegaze band will be releasing on August 9th a mini-album with 7 songs called “Part”. At the moment we can preview only one of the songs, “Sill”, which is dreamy and sweet. Hopefully we’ll get to listen to the rest of tracks in the near future.

The Royal Landscaping Society: “Clean” is the song Matinée Recordings has picked to promote the upcoming compilation by the Seville based band called “Means of Production”. This song is fantastic of course, as everything they do, and it should be included in this 16-track comp that should be out soon and then it will be followed by a 7″ with brand new songs. Can’t wait!

Mirrorlakes: there is a new release on Dismantled Records from Jakarta and that’s always good news. It is a two song digital single by Mirrorlakes, “Three Songs” and “Kosong”. There is even a video for the first track which I suggest checking out! Good stuff.

The Lousy Pop Group: the German label Entes Anomicos will be releasing a 7″ single by the Indonesian band soon! We can preview one of the tracks that will be included, “When I’m With You” which sounds great! I definitely would want of copy of this jangly gem!

The Fisherman and his Soul: our friend Sebastian Voss is back with a new song called “Let Everything You Do Be Done in Love (Song for Johan)” which sounds really nice. The song will be part of the upcoming EP titled “Disco//Voss” which will be out on August 1st!

—————————————————————–

Time to go to the US! Who knows any details about a band called The Love In?

I do know that the band released one 12″ back in 1987. I don’t have a copy of it though I’ve been able to hear a few of their songs on the web and they are lovely jingle jangly tracks. It came out on Out There Records (OUT THERE 011) and Love Chain Records. And the first questions arise. Who were behind these labels? Where were they based?

The 12″ was a nice mini album with 6 songs, 3 on each side. The A side had “Late as Usual”, “Young Mr. Jones” and “On the Reds” while the B side had “Freedom Now”, “Dad’s So Jealous of Youth” and “Home for the Holidays”. The songs were remixed and mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering. This is a mastering studios in Hollywood, California. It was founded in 1984. We know the band is credited to the band, the songs were recorded by Adamo and remixed and mastered by Chris Bellman. The photography on the sleeve is credited to Jeffrey Bender.

The band was formed by Tom Sheppard on guitar and vocals, Scott Kellems on drums and Kurt Stake on bass and vocals. The songwriters for the songs were Stake and Sheppard and the record even comes with a lyric sheet. The sleeve also confirms that the band was based in Hollywood, California.

Discogs also lists a demo tape that had four songs: “Home for the Holidays”, “The Beet Club”, “Jamie & I Were in the Bathroom” and “Freedom Now”. It has no release date though.

I know the great blog Wilfully Obscure posted about them back in 2013. I am late to the party as always but it doesn’t matter. Let’s say this is a “refresh” sort of post. Bring back this band to memory. From that post I see that Tom Sheppard has worked making songs and writing for TV shows. He worked on Pinky and the Brain for example! And also on Annoying Orange which was on Cartoon Network. He performed too the song “Go to the Light” which he wrote for the Showtime movie “The Medicine Show”.

Another interesting tidbit is that on the 12″, him and Kurt Stake would switch vocals all the time. Also that they played gigs with many bands from the Los Angeles and Ocean Country scene like No Doubt, Let’s Go Bowling, Donkey Show, Gherkin Raucous, Pat Smear and many more.

Then I find a 1987 article on the LA Times! Wow really! Here I learn that the band originally hailed from Costa Mesa, California. Here it mentions too that Sheppard graduated with a bachelor’s degree in film from the University of Southern California.

Then another blog, from France, called Disques Obscurs also wrote about them. Here it mentions that Kurt Stake had been in a punk/mod/Paisley Underground band called The Jetz that was formed in 1979. Scott Kellems had played drums in the first EP the band put out and eventually joined them. You can actually listen to some songs of The Jetz here. Scott has been involvede too with other bands like Shattered Faith and Dischords.

Not much more information on the web though there is a Facebook page, last updated in 2014 where you can be a fan.

That’s quite some information, right? But I would love to hear that demo tape. Was it the only demo tape they recorded? Are there more unreleased songs?! And did they continue making music after the band split? Why did they split? Many questions which I hope get answered sometime!

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

Listen
The Love In – Late As Usual