I’m still unpacking boxes and records and reordering everything of course. I’m almost done though. As I say these things I’m also discussing with two bands for new 7″s and little by little reaching the 50th Cloudberry 7″ is becoming no more of a dream but a reality. And that is quite exciting!

I haven’t written down many news during the last 4 days. Since my last post. Actually only one, that Gingerlys have a 2nd song from their album now available to stream. It is called “See You Cry” and it is superb of course. I reviewed already the first single, “Turtledoves”, off their self titled album just a week ago I think, and now there is this lovely, sweet, new song. It looks like their album is going to be a winner. I hope though that I get to listen their whole album soon instead of recommending a song every week!

OK! There was one more but no music to listen. That is that Firestation Records will be releasing a new record by the Love Parade!! It is titled “Out to Sea” and it is a 6 song EP recorded in 1991. It will be available in CD and vinyl.

Well, now it is time to dig the internet, let’s see what we find on Bandcamp and SoundCloud. Thanks to my friend David from Madrid I found out a band from Gainesville, Florida, called UV-TV. He posted the song “Glass” on his Facebook and thought that it was some great shambolic pop. Then I noticed that it wasn’t their latest effort. Their last release is an EP titled “Go Away” that was released by the very fine Emotional Response label that is ran by Stewart from Boyracer. Shame I hear them this late as last week I placed not one, but two orders from them. It will have to wait a few weeks then, but there are some terrific songs here, check them out!

Grrrl Gang hail from Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Earlier this year they released two songs on the Indonesian label Kolibri Records. The songs being “Bathroom” and “Thrills” Just a digital single I believe. The songs are sweet and on the lo-fi side of indiepop. There is an official music video for Bathroom and Thrills which seems to have been recorded in France and is very cool! The band is formed by Angeeta Santana on vocals and guitar, Edo Alventa on guitar and Akbar Rumandung on bass.

The Japanese label Galaxy Train keeps releasing new music and their latest offering is a tape, limited to 48 copies, of the Japanese band Dronjo Kept By 4. There are 6 songs, mostly lo-fi, that ate quite nice. The tape includes a booklet and some stickers. It is titled “Lost in Perspective EP” and the songs included are “Three Chord City”, “Kitty Roly”, “Rain Kids”, “Tobin Sprout on the Moon River”, “Dry Gin” and “Toddle”.

Howlin Banana Records is a DIY record label based in Paris and they have just released a digital single by the band The Soap Opera. The band is formed by Bloody Bulga on guitars and vocals, Professeur Zorrino on guitars nad vocals and Holden Brahms on drums. They seem to be French too. The two songs are straight up indiepop and they are titled “Eggs to Hatch and Cats to Kill” and “No Name No Pack Drill”.  They are quite good and I especially like the opening song which there is a promo video on Youtube!! That was exciting. And then I find out that there will be an album to be released in November by the same label that put the digital release and also Ample Play from the UK. Looking forward to it!

And lastly, our friend Brian Castriota, who released a 7″ with us under the name Earth First, has a new album out with his new band, Fimbria. The album is titled “Eternal Return” and is available on a limited edition CD and a limited edition cassette. He told me to check out the last song of the album, “Passage”, he told me there’s some jangle in it. I check it out and it is such a beauty of a song, such fragility. Then I play the whole album, now in order. Yes, it is not exactly indiepop, but it is a really pretty electronic album, with pop sensibility, and a lot of elegance.

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Super: very good or pleasant; excellent.

It is time to return to Europe. Still many important countries missing in this world tour. Today we need to stop in Finland, a country I visited this year and every time I think about it, I feel nostalgia for its cleanliness, for its lakes, the bright green of the trees and the good times I had in the many cities I visited. I hope to visit again in the future!

My only complain would be that there was absolutely no indiepop around. Ok, I didn’t travel for it, but would have been nice to see some bands live. As I’ve mentioned before, it took me a couple of record stores until I found the Burning Hearts LP that had just been released. It wasn’t easy. I looked through the bins and the racks at these record stores in Helsinki and I couldn’t find anything worthy! That was a shame. But it didn’t matter in the end, look, I saw Olavinlinna castle and drove through that beautiful landscape that is Punkaharju and that paid my trip. And crossed the Arctic Circle too!

Generally speaking Finland hasn’t produced huge amounts of indiepop, but when there has been indiepop it has been great, fantastic even. Think of Le Futur Pompiste, Cats on Fire, Burning Hearts or even back in the day with the likes of Cessna. It is time then to focus on Finland and one of their finest bands, Super.

On Discogs the band is considered a lounge-pop group. A lot of late 90s bands were described like that. But I’ll start reviewing their discography with the record I discovered them, a compilation titled “Seven Summers International Pop Volume 2” that was released by my good friend Peter Hahndorf on his own TweeNet Communications (TweeNetTwo) and Kindercore Records (KC023) in 1998. It was actually in Bremen, when I visited him, that he gave me a copy of the CD, a compilation that may well be some sort of indiepop world tour of the time with bands spanning all over the world. On it I was going to listen Super for the first time, and their song “All-American Cheesecake” was soon going to become a true favourite of mine!

It is true that I don’t own their whole discography, I will probably go slowly until at some point I get all their albums, singles and EPs. It is hard to complete discographies. But I do own a few of their releases and I know they are pretty good and I will be happy to recommend them to you. The band’s first record was an EP titled “Spark” that was released in 1995 by Tangerine Records (TANG 007). It included three songs “Spark”, “People’s Democratic Movement” and “Trouble With Sex”.

The year after the band was to release another CD EP, “Tempted”. The band had changed labels now and were on Odor (ODOR 0,2). Three songs were included, “I Didn’t Expect to Be This Tempted”, “Historical Sights, Out of the Blue”, “Spare Us From This Infinite Moment”. Here on Discogs I do find credits, Teemu Soininen on bass, Arto Ellonen on Congas, Ville Hietala on drums, tambourine, melodica, keyboards, backing vocals, Jukka Tiirikainen on flugelhorn, Jussi Pietilä on guitar, Okke Komulainen on organ, electric piano, keyboards, samplers and loops, Teho Majamäki on vibraphone, and Minna Joenniemi and her sweet vocals. The record was mixed by Janne Haavisto and recorded by Tuomo Puranen. The interesting thing about this EP is that it was going to be reissued by Odor the year after as Odor 0,3 with four songs. The first song was going to get the name shortened to “Tempted”, and then there was “Misty Hours”, “Bingo Hostess Goes Berserk (Skillsters Remix)” and “A Day With the Crimplene Kids”. Why the reissue and why so soon? And why change the tracklist?

They were going to catch the attention of the Japenese label Escalator Records, and in 1997 they were to release the “Tickets” EP in both CD (ESC012) and 7″ vinyl format (ESINGLE3). On the CD version there were 5 songs, “All-American Cheesecake”, “Last Flight to Sardinia”, “Roadblock”, “Bilbo Baggins” and “Frostbite”. A song about Bilbo Baggins from Lord of The Rings? Yes, that’s true, and it goes like this, “Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, only three feet tall, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the bravest little Hobbit of them all”. Amazing. The 7″ version only included three songs and in a different order. On the A side there was “Last Flight to Sardinia” while on the B side we find “Frostbite” and “All-American Cheesecake”. By now we know that the bands lyricists were Minna and Ville.

That same year, 1997, would see the light their first album, “Rendezvous with Super” released in Finland by Odor (Odor 1,0) and in Japan by Quattro (QTCY 2097). The album had twelve songs, “Caruamba Wax”, “Girls Go Bravo!”, “Bingo Hostess Goes Berserk!”, “People’s Democratic Movement”, “Proposal”, “Misty Hours”, “Tempted”, “True Gentleman”, “Travelogue”, “Historical Sights”, “Wicky-Wacko Rodeo” and “Coup de Soleil”. It was recorded at Hitsville IV Studio and Finnvox. Hitsville IV being a studio based in Helsinki run by Janne Haavisto and Tom Nyman while Finnvox is run by Risto Hemmi these days in Helsinki. Here we can already define the band members, we know that the core of the band were Minna Joenniemi, Ville Hietala, Okke Komulainen and Teemu Soininen.

As expected the Japanese version of the album on Quattro came with three bonus tracks, “A Day Out with the Crimplene Kids”, “Infinite Moment” and “Spark”. It also had different cover art, front and back. Also it is important to mention that there was a CD Promo for the album with just the song “Girls Go Bravo!”.

The same Japanese label, Quattro was to release a 7″ in 1999 (Quattro Disc 003) with the song “The Broken Girls” on the A side and a remix of it on the B side, “The Broken Girls (Super Splendid Strings Escape Mix, Remixed by Escalator Team)”.

That year, 1999, was to see the release of the band’s second album, “Tipsy” on Odor (Odor 3,0). The album had 10 songs this time, “Welcome to Our Soundscape”, “The Broken Girls”, “Don’t Tell Me You Jog”, “Love Was a Bomb”, “Departures”, “Disco Solitaire”, “Golden Boy”, “Country Star”, “We Hate Muscle Men!” and “Ice Cubes”. Aside from the core of the band here we see the band got help from Juha Kulmala on drums, percussion and handclaps, Tintti Simola on flugelhorn and trumpet, Serafiina Kämi on flute, Arimo Komulainen on trombone, Teho Majamäki on vibraphone, and Andrei Sytchak, Elina Huusko, Emma Toppinen, Tanja Jukarainen and Tuula Nurmo added strings. The record was mastered by Mika Jussila and was mixed by Ian Cat (yes, that Ian Catt) except the second track, “The Broken Girls”, which was mixed by Risto Hemmi.

And of course the Japanese were going to release the album. In 2001 the label Quattro put out “Tipsy” (QTCY-73006) and instead of adding bonus tracks they included an extra 3″ CD with four songs: “The Broken Girls (Super Splendid Strings Escape Mix)”, “Persian Risk”, “Calypso at the Office” and “Scary Waltz”.

Now onto the compilations! If we go chronologically we know that “Tempted” was included in the CD compilation “Tähti CD 6/96” released by Enormi-Opus Oy (TÄHTI CD 6) and also in 1997s “Bonus CD 6: Finnish Dance & Pop” that was released by Äänitealan Yhteismarkkinointi (BONUS CD 6). “Tempted” was going to be included in more compilations. On the “Reindeer Rock ’97” CD by CD-Linja OY (Poropromo 97), on “Europodium – Exitos Europeos – Top of the European Pops – Top Europeu 01/98” (98MEU01) that was released by RFI Musique in France in 1998 and where they appear alongside The Corrs (!) and also on the “Odor Sampler ’98” released by Odor (ODOR1998) where not only “Tempted” was included but “Girls Go Bravo!” too.

The song “The Broken Girls” was to appear on two compilations, on the “Popkomm Licensing Guide” released by Fono Magazine (Popkommcd 01) in 1999 and on the “Levottomat Soundtrack” released by BMG Finland in 2002. Levottomat being a movie which I have not seen, but I guess I’m curious now.

The song “Line Dance” appeared on the “Epe’s Star 2000” CD promo compilation released by Poko Records in 1998. And then the song “Disco Solitaire” on the “Reindeer Rock ’99” comp that came out on CD-Linja OY (Poropromo 99). “Love Was a Bomb” came out on another Odor sampler, “The Finland Odor Sampler” (ODOR P 99) in 1999 obviously.

Lastly the song “Car & Chauffeur” appeared on two CD compilations, on “Reindeer Rock 2000” released by Suomalaisen Musiikin Tiedotuskeskus (Poropromo 2000) and on the 4CD Boxset “Sivulliset – Valikoima Suomalaista Viahtoehtorockia Vuosilta 1985-2000” released by Poko Records (Valosa 1) in 2005. This last one looks like a cool compilation with Finish bands from those years, I may want to get this! Maybe discover a tune or two!

Now time to look if the band members were involved in any other projects. When I look at Minna, it doesn’t look like it. Okke Komulainen does seem to have been in a few bands: Bomfunk MC’s, Liekki, Skillsters, Skillsters Plus One, Sleepy Sleepers and as himself, as Okke, on a compilation titled “Pyssy 5”.

Then I noticed that Ville Hietala’s real name was Ville Särmä and that the has also been in bands like Kevin, Tanssiva Karhu and Them Bird Things.

I do find a Wikipedia page for Minna. It seems she is now a cultural publisher and has been involved in many different cultural programs in Finland. I also see that her father was the Peace and Political Scientist Pertti Joenniemi.

I then find an article on the website Elävä Arkisto where they are called the Finnish Cardigans and how they became a hit in Japan. I also find out  that they weren’t from Helsinki but from Tampere it seems. On that same article do check the short clip were we see Minna having lots of fun dancing!

Now I wonder, are there no promo videos for the band? There must be! But I can’t find any. I did find Minna having a speech at the Interesting Helsinki conference.

An interesting blog post not exactly about Super is the one on PhinnWeb where the author discusses Tampere Pop. It is good to read it to have some background and also because there’s a cool photo of Iisa Pajula from the band Regina and Minna that was taken from the morning paper Aamulehti.

But definitely the coolest thing I found was that on the TweeNet website there is a page with info about the bands on Seven Summers. There is an address for Minna Joenniemi and what was really amazing is that when I stayed in Helsinki in May I stayed in the same street, Uudenmaankatu. I stayed at number 13 and it seems she lived on 33. Wow!

I couldn’t find much more. I guess if I knew Finnish I would have better luck at choosing my search terms on Google. I wonder if they had been in bands before Super. If they recorded any videos. If they still have unreleased songs? Why did they split? What did they do after? What made them make pop in a country were metal is more popular? I don’t know, I have many questions, that I hope get answered some day, in the meantime I’ll keep enjoying their music.

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Listen
Super –
All-American Cheesecake

Thanks so much to Michel and Marjolijn for the interview! I wrote about Formica some weeks ago when I thought it was a good time to feature a Dutch band on the blog and was lucky to get in touch with both of them and even better, they were up to answer my questions! They also clear some doubts I had, made some corrections of my previous post and tell the whole picture of Formica! The band released just 2 singles and they were truly great, if you haven’t heard them yet, this is a good time to discover them! Oh! And they shared with me this exclusive cool photo of the band which was taken by Kathalijne van Zutphen.

++ Hi Michel and Marjolijn! Thanks so much for being up for this interview. How are you doing? Are you still making music?

Michel: I’m well, thanks. Not doing much music anymore, although I have an ‘internet band’ called Transatlantic Bunnies. So far I’ve put out one 7” on the Australian Insipid Vinyl label. The A-side (“Formula One Generation”, a song written by Steve Gregory for the Pooh Sticks) was sung by Lauren Rocket from L.A. band Rocket and the B-side (“Girl’s Going Crazy For The La La La”, written by Steve and me for International Language) has Sara Johnston from Canadian band Bran Van 3000 singing. I still haven’t met Lauren, but I did meet Sara in 2015, not long after the single was released. She was on tour with Evan Dando and they played a gig in Utrecht, so we finally met and did that song as part of her set, which was a like a dream come true for me.

Marjolijn: I’m not making any music anymore, just listening to music.

++ And are you still based in Utrecht? How was Utrecht back in the mid 90s? What were your usual hangouts? The venues you used to go to?

Michel: I’m still living in Utrecht, Marjolijn is living close to Utrecht and Noortje moved to Amsterdam.

Marjolijn: We used to go to places like Tivoli (Utrecht) and the Melkweg (Amsterdam), to see bands…

Michel: …like Blur, Pulp, Oasis and even Kula Shaker.

++ As I was saying on my blog post there is very little information about your band on the web so this is for sure a great opportunity to learn more about you. Also I must say when it comes to indiepop, not much is known about The Netherlands either. So maybe you can recommend some bands?

Michel: As far as we know, there weren’t many indiepop bands in the Netherlands. If there were any, we didn’t know them.

++ Going back, when you were kids, what sort of music did you grow up listening to? What was your first instrument? and how did you get it?

Michel: 70’s rock: the Stones, Alice Cooper, the Sweet, Slade, Status Quo… And then punk happened. I could never choose between guitar and drums, but my parents gave me an acoustic guitar when I was 11, or so. Years later, when I joined a band as a drummer, I bought a drumkit.

Marjolijn: Noortje and I were listening most of the time to Britpop, Elastica, Blur and also bands like the Ramones and the Kinks. I started playing clarinet and after that I started playing guitar.

++ Let’s talk about Formica, or was it Formica 2000 (!?)? What’s the story of the name of the band?

Michel: A friend of ours came up with the name Formica, because it sounded a bit like Elastica! We thought that was funny.

Marjolijn: We have no idea why we added 2000.

++ Had you been involved in any other bands? I know Michel was in a few, what about the girls?

Marjolijn: Just Formica. Noortje too.

++ How did Formica start as a band? How did you all know each other? How did you meet?

Marjolijn: Noortje, Edske and I knew each other from school. We started playing music together. We met Michel at DaCapo. And he became the drummer.

++ What would you say influenced the sound of Formica?

Michel: Britpop, punk rock and Phil Spector.

++ Marjolijn, you took the photos for the sleeve art. Nowadays you are a photographer. Were you a photographer already then?

Marjolijn: It was just a hobby at the time. I studied architecture. But two years ago I started taking photography more seriously, and I just finished my study photography.

++ How did the relationship with Steve Gregory from Fierce Recordings and The Pooh Sticks start? And how come he was not part of the band, only credited for the lyrics?

Michel: This is a long story. The Pooh Sticks “Alan McGee” CD boxset came with a little booklet in which it read: “Are you in a band? Everybody should be in a band. Let us know about it.” Or something like that. Just for fun I sent a cassette with recordings of some of my bands. One of them was Beatle Hans. I then got a letter from Steve/Fierce asking if anyone was releasing the Beatle Hans stuff. If not, Fierce Recordings was up for it. And by the way, would the band (minus singer Hans) be interested in recording the next Pooh Sticks album, which became “Great White Wonder”. Me and bass player Hard Cor (Cor van Ingen) played on two more Pooh Sticks albums: “Millionseller” and “Optimistic Fool”. After that Steve and I released a 7” and a CD on Sympathy For The Record Industry as International Language. (By the way: “Rodney’s English Disco” by Helen Love is not the International Language tune.) We enjoyed writing songs together, so we also wrote a couple for Formica. But Formica was always just the girls and me. Oh, and the 3 Formica girls’ first recording experience was doing some backing vocals on the International Language tune “Christmas Will Be Magic Again”, which first appeared on a christmas CD on Sympathy For The Record Industry.

++ And who was the bassist for Formica? I see on the first record Edske is credited, while on the second it has Hard Cor, Ron and Hanneke. Why was there never a proper bassist in the band?

Michel: Edske left the band after the first 7”. On the “Gameboy” EP we had Cor on two songs, my brother Ron on one, and Marjolijn’s younger sister Hanneke on the fourth song. For the gigs we had Ron on bass.

++ How did the creative process work for the band?

Marjolijn: Michel and Steve wrote the songs. We rehearsed at home. Instead of rehearsing we sometimes played our Gameboys. That’s why we wrote the Gameboy song.

Michel: I asked the girls to write lyrics for a song called “Look At Your Game, Boy”, which has nothing to do with “Look At Your Game, Girl” by Charles Manson. Marjolijn’s sister Hanneke added some lines too, so that’s why two Hoelens are credited on the label.

++ Your first 7″  was released on Spirit of ’86 who were also connected to The Pooh Sticks. On this single the brilliant “Johnny & Anita” was included. I must ask, who were Johnny and Anita? What’s the story behind this song?

Michel: Johnny’s and Anita’s were annoying (Dutch) youths on scooters who liked house music and had crappy haircuts.

++ Your second 7″ came out on the fab Damaged Good label How did you end up releasing with them? And I must ask, how come two English labels for your releases, and no Dutch ones? Why was that?

Michel: In 1995 Hue Pooh Stick had his Spirit Of ’86 label. I told him I wanted to join the girls’ band and he said that if I did he would release whatever we’d record. I’d already offered my services as a drummer, but the girls told me I was too old. Fair enough. I was twice their age. But when I told them they could make a record if they had me on drums they agreed to give it a try. Spirit Of ’86 was distributed through Damaged Goods/Shellshock, so after that first single Ian from Damaged Goods asked if we could do one for his label too.

++ You worked on the recordings with Hans Blieb twice, what did he add to the band in the recording studio?

Michel: Nothing really. He owned an affordable studio and was the engineer. I did production and mixing.

++ Then there were no more releases by the band, why? No compilation appearances? Are there any unreleased songs by the band?

Michel: There is one song we wrote but never recorded properly. For the gigs we chose a couple of covers by bands we liked, like “Time Bomb” by the Ramones and Josie Cotton’s “Johnny Are You Queer”.

++ And from all of the Formica songs, which one is your favourite and why?

Michel: I like “Wire” and “Cross My Mind”, ‘cause they’re slightly Spector-esque.

Marjolijn: “Johnny and Anita”.

++ Did you play many gigs? Maybe any in the UK? Are there any in particular that you remember? What were your best ones?

Michel: We only did two gigs, both of them in Utrecht in 1998. But we almost played our debut gig in London as part of some MTV thing. Unfortunately the Fierce Panda label, like Damaged Goods also related to Shellshock distribution, had one of their acts play there instead. I think our first gig was the best one, opening for the Donnas. A great night.

++ And were there any bad ones?

Marjolijn: The second one was not as good as the first one. Haha!

++ Did you get much attention by the music press? What about radio?

Michel: I don’t think I ever saw a review and I definitely never heard us on the radio.

++ When and why did you split? What did you all do afterwards? Did you continue making music?

Michel: Like Abba, we never really split up.

Marjolijn: Noortje moved to England to study. It became too much hassle at the time. We just kept in touch but didn’t make any music anymore. Nowadays Michel and I meet up in town to take pictures sometimes. Our new hobby.

++ I must ask, where do you think you had more support, in the UK or in The Netherlands?

Michel: We did an interview with a local music magazine. I don’t think anybody outside Utrecht knew about us, except some friends and a couple of girls from Rotterdam who had a Britpop fanzine.

++ Michel, I must ask even though it is not strictly Formica related, but the single “Go Eliza” by The Nightblooms is truly brilliant, and you produced it! How was that experience?

Michel: I didn’t really produce “Go Eliza”, but I was there during the recordings (and played a twangy guitar part in the choruses). Studio engineer Ward, who would also work on the first two Pooh Sticks albums that we recorded in Utrecht, asked me to come to the studio for the first Nightblooms session there, ‘cause he thought I would understand their kind of music better than he did at the time. That was about a year before “Go Eliza”. That first session remains unreleased, although I have a cassette of it somewhere. The Nightblooms are nice people and we got along really well, so I was there again for the “Go Eliza” session. I don’t think I was present for any Nightblooms sessions after that, although I went to England with them in 1990, as a guitar roadie and to play some guitar on their John Peel session. I also played guitar on one song on their first album and I was their manager for a while.

++ And today, what do you do? Any hobbies that you have aside from music?

Michel: I like analogue photography, shooting portraits mainly.

Marjolijn: Photography

++ There was a comment on my blog post saying that one of you guys worked at Da Capo Records. Is that right? How is Da Capo Records? I’ve been told many times that it is a fantastic record shop!

Michel: I worked at Da Capo for 22 years. That’s where I met the Formica girls. I stopped working there in 2008. Three years later the owner died and on December 31st 2011 the shop closed. A sad day. It was a vinyl collector’s shop and probably the best one in Holland.

++ One last question, I’ve never been to Utrecht so I’m quite curious, what would you recommend not missing out? Sights? Traditional food? Bands?

Marjolijn: We recommend going up the Dom tower. Beautiful view.

Michel: Food! Broodje Mario and Vocking worst.

++ Thanks again! Anything else you’d like to add?

Marjolijn: In your article you mentioned a Noortje in Switzerland. That’s another Noortje. Noortje from Formica is a fashion accessories designer and she lives in Amsterdam.

Michel: We appreciate your research and love for the music.

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Listen
Formica – Johnny & Anita

Now the My Light Shines for You! 7″ is being pressed and it is time to look into what will bring next year for Cloudberry. We want to do another release in our Cloudberry Cake Kitchen series as soon as possible and even though I’ve been talking and discussing with several bands I would love to have your input, maybe you have some great ideas that I could explore!

This week I continued gathering indiepop from all over the place so let’s do a roundup of all those songs and bands!

Firstly I must say I’m very happy that Boring Productions from China will be releasing the Sound and Fury album in the near future. In my previous post I championed the Chengdu band and little did I know they had already been in touch with the Shenzhen label. So that’s good news and we better keep our eyes peeled for the release date which seems to be next month!

Madrid’s Puzzles y Dragones has been a favourite band of mine for a long time. They’ve also been silent for a long time. But suddenly the label Discos de Kirlian has a new song streaming by this lovely band formed by Miguel López, Mark Williams, Begoña Casado, Sergio Alarcón, Alberto Robla and our friend Dani de la Mancha. The lovely “Fuerzas Absurdas” is the new digital single the label and the band are using to promote the album “Vuelven Puzzles y Dragones” that is set to be released this November. So far this is the only song available to listen from the album but in any case, I can’t wait for this record to be released!

Stockholm one-girl band Boys has a new song as well and it is called “Rabbits”. I’ve been following Nora Karlsson’s band for years now and for some reason or another I don’t own any physical copies of her music. Aside from digital EPs I believe the only real record is a cassette titled “Love on Tour” released last year. And you know my not so good relationship with tapes. Well, it seems this will be the first time I actually get my hands on something by Boys because the label PNKSLM is releasing a split 7″ with “Rabbits” and Magic Potion’s “Rest Yr Skull” on October 20th. Sadly I don’t like Magic Potion’s song so in the end the 7″ ends up being a bit pricey for me as $16.00 dollars including shipping for one song is steep these days… but maybe some of you do appreciate Magic Potion? Anyhow, the Boys track is superb as her previous efforts so hopefully soon there is a 7″ or anything just by herself. if PNKSLM can’t offer that, hey, this humble label is happy to offer that.

Then of course the news of The Spook School‘s new video for “Still Alive” might be old news for many of you faithful followers of the Edinburgh four-piece band. What is interesting is that this new video is a promo piece for their new album “Could it be Different?” that is coming out on January 26 on Alcopop Records in the UK and Slumberland in the US. It was a big question to know which European label was going to become home of The Spook School after the demise of Fortuna Pop, and now that has been answered. I don’t know much about Alcopop, don’t know the people behind it. My only experience with them is that they released the last Helen Love CD, and I was very grateful about it even though the pressing had some issues. Anyways, enjoy the new track and let’s wait for their new album!

A Spanish band I discovered recently is Autoescuela. The band is formed by just two guys, David and Santí, and they hail from Asturias, in the north of Spain. They have just put out a tape titled “Recopa” which is a collection of 25 short bedroom pop songs. On top of it, the tape comes with a 32 page fanzine. This whole package has been released by the Barcelona label Snap! Clap! Club and there are only 100 copies so run and get it if you are into fun upbeat lo-fi songs!

And lastly I want to recommend a superb track by Seazoo titled “Shoreline”. The vocals are fantastic here! I have recommended them long time ago, maybe more than a year ago when they uploaded their song “Telephone Jones” which I really liked. But this new one I think I’m enjoying even more! Why is there no album yet by this Welsh band?! It seems I missed their Jumbo EP CD and Im very sad about that… and was there a 7″ for “Teeth / Skulls”? I missed that too. I shouldn’t miss their next one! At this pace I’m going to be broke!

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Pillbox: Pill organizer or pillbox or pill box, a special container for storing scheduled doses of one’s medications.
Pillbox, a flat, cylindrical shaped figure, such as:
Gaussian pillbox, used in calculations for vector fields
Pillbox cavity, a cylindrical microwave cavity
Pillbox hat, a small woman’s hat with a flat crown and straight, upright sides, and no brim

Our indiepop “world tour” continues in October and after featuring a Belgian band it is time to go back to Asia. In this occasion why not go all the way to Taiwan and discover the little known band Dolly’s Pillbox that was around in the mid noughties? It will also be the first time I feature a Taiwanese band on the blog and that is for sure a cool thing!

I don’t know much about Taiwan to be honest. Never been there, though I would love to in the future. I did go once to eat Taiwanese food in Flushing, NY. I remember having at the Gu-Shine Restaurant some unknown dishes to me like jellyfish in scallion sauce or baby fish with hot peppers and aside there been a Taiwanese girl in my school class for a year who I didn’t interact much sadly (the poor girl didn’t know a thing of Spanish or English so she had such a hard time and didn’t come back to school the next year), those were the moments I’ve been closer to Taiwan.

But around 2005 or 2006, when everyone of us were learning the ropes of social networks on Myspace, I found out about Taipei’s Dolly’s Pillbox there. I am pretty sure I exchanged messages with their vocalist, Cathy Tang, but can’t recall what about. I recall having either her or the band on my Myspace “top ten” (remember that?) for some time. I liked the songs and their uber-twee look and style. It is true, those were my twee-est years, when I was so much into cutesy bands like The Maybellines or All Girl Summer Fun Band.

In 2006 the band was to release their one and only record, a CD EP titled “How are You Today?” on the label Silent Agreement (catalog SAIP014). Back then it was quite impossible to find their record. You had to buy it directly from the band and Paypal wasn’t available all over the world. I never got around to get it. Only today while writing these lines I found a copy on Discogs and ordered it. Hopefully it arrives safe and sound. I didn’t even know the label Silent Agreement then but now I see they put out a My Little Airport single in 2015 too.

The EP has seven songs: “Sugar Boy”, “In Our Stillness”, “Blah Blah Blah”, “Road Movie”, “Rainy Day Playground”, “Summer Blows the Breeze Warm” and “Bedtime Plus”. All of them are sweet tunes. The band was formed by Cathy Tang on harmonica and vocals, Jubow Kao on bass, Bambi Jiang on guitar and Meimei Ju on drums and percussion. Cathy also wrote all the lyrics. The record was mixed and recorded by Luxia Wu and mastered by Rick Hu.

I found a small review of the EP on the website Pacifiction Records who used to sell the record int he US it seems: “Sometimes fun and bouncy, sometimes sad and rainy, but always cute, Dolly’s Pillbox rented a studio to take rockstar pictures… but ended up forming a band and recording this delightful EP of fun songs. Despite hand claps and upbeat bass lines, their songs are bittersweet moments as seen in “Blah, Blah, Blah,” which tells a story about a girl who is getting over someone who “is not so precious anymore.” If you’ve had a bad day, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind having Dolly’s Pillbox handy to make things a little better.”

The band also seems to have appeared on at least one compilation. They contributed the song “Light Blue Car” to the CD compilation “All the Girls I’ve Ever Loved (Now Love Other Boys)” that was released by the Pop Song Romance fanzine in 2009. I kind of remember this compilation in my blurry memory, I believe the person responsible of the zine and this compilation was a Californian called Claude Cardenas who used to post on the indiepop-list. Now that I see the tracklist I kind of feel ashamed of missing it, it is a pretty strong album with Cloudberry related bands like Very Truly Yours, Komon, Bonnie & Clyde or The Jealous Sea among others!

Looking if they appeared on any other compilations I find that they contributed the song “Bedtime Plus” to the double CD compilation “Lobo III” released by White Wabit Records in 2003 (catalog TW026). They also had “Sugar Boy” on the CD compilation “Grass Festival 2006” released by White Wabit in 2003 (catalog TW033).

I keep looking for more information about them, especially would like to know what did they do after Dolly’s Pillbox was no more. I find the blog Jenny is in a Bad Mood and there it is, a Youtube video where the band covers Japanese band Advantage Lucy’s “杏花的季節“.

I keep searching and find a quote taken from the website they used to have, this corroborates the story from Pacifiction Records: “In Starbucks, while eating breakfast, Cathy and Jubow were joking around about renting a practice band room where they could take pictures of cool, fake rockers together for fun. but unaccountably, the rumor of forming the band was let out and Jubow and Cathy earnestly started looking for band members….” So with this we know that in the beginning there were only two members. I also notice that Cathy is (or was then) a graphic artist and she did all the art for the band. Thanks to that I check on Google Images some graphics she did for each of the band members, kind of like a small little bio. For Cathy it says she is a Sagittarius, a model daughter, a little animal’s savior, everlasting busy & sleepy, a child at heart and single. For Jubow, she is a Taurus, a CD Shop bride, that she has cute dimples and rosy cheeks, that she measures 1.64 m, and that she is single no more. For Bambi, he is a Virgo, a history major, a Fender Telecaster lover, mommy’s boy, and single. Lastly, Meimei is a Pisces (like me!), a CD Shop darling, a petite pocket girl, sweet, smart and fun fun!, and single.

Why not check their old Myspace, maybe there is some info there. I giddily see the fantastic Chicago band Fireflies in their top 8. Then I notice a song that wasn’t listed in their CD, “Bambi Rocks”. I could find a live performance of this song and it sounds GREAT! Check it out on Youtube. I would love to listen the studio version sometime.

Another blog that featured them was the fantastic Japan Live blog. I’ve discovered a few bands thanks to it, and here Ken M tells the story when he saw Dolly’s Pillbox at the Formoz Festival when he visited Taipei in 2006. Another place that has some information is Last.fm, there it mentions that Bambi joined the band in the summer of 2004 and Meimei in the autumn of 2005.

But then I reach a wall. I don’t know what happened to the band members. Perhaps Cathy continued her career as a graphic designer and Bambi now teaches history at university. Who knows really. Would be nice to know they continued making music. For me they were the first band I ever listened from Taiwan making proper indiepop, with the right influences and all. I wonder if anyone else remembers them? Maybe you saw them play at a gig? Maybe you saw them at a festival? Did they have any more songs? Would be nice to know what are they up to now, maybe do an interview too.

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Listen
Dolly’s Pillbox – Sugar Boy

Thanks so much to Paschalis Plissis for the interview!! I wrote a few weeks back about The Jaywalkers on the blog and thanks to Ian Skiadas I was able to get in touch with Paschalis, founding members of one of the most legendary bands from Greece!! There has always been little information about the band, and their one and only record is very rare (I’m still looking for a copy!), so there was no better chance to learn the story behind this classic band! Hope you enjoy it!

++ Thanks so much Paschalis for getting in touch! Very happy to know the story of The Jaywalkers. But how are you today? Are you still involved in music?
The Jaywalkers today are George Mouchtaridis who is the manager of radio ”Pepper”96.6 a.k.a.”sergeant Pepper” having a morning show Greek time 10-12 you can listen on line, has already curated 4 ”The bright side of the road” compilations and is preparing another one. So he is very much immersed in music.

Yiannis Divolis works and works some more but still has occasional gigs as a folk-”laikos dimotikos” musician playing and also singing and used to manage night clubs with Greek folk music.
His younger brother Vassilis has a permanent job as a percussionist in the Athens municipal band the ”Filarmoniki” and has collaborated over the years with various artists i.e.Kristi Stasinopoulou, Avaton et al.
As for myself I’ve been a professional oboe player for nearly 30 years playing in various orchestras and I now hold the first chair in the Greek national radiotelevision’s Contemporary orchestra.

Unfortunately the youngest member of The Jaywalkers Giorgos Manos is sadly gone many years ago and is always fondly remembered through his bass playing. A great talent.

++ Whereabouts in Greece did you grow up? Did you have any bands prior to The Jaywalkers? I know you were in Migraine, right?

We all grew up in the greater Athens area. Gio Mou and I were friends from school and the same neighborhood and I went to Athens conservatory with Yiannis Divolis who introduced us to his brother and Giorgos Manos so The Jaywalkers were formed from the ashes of our first group Migraine.

++ What sort of music were you into while growing up?  What was your first guitar do you remember? How did you get it?

As we grew up we listened to various types of music. Gio’s older brother Paschalis (same name!) was our musical mentor making us tapes of artists like Van Morrison, Bowie, Springsteen, Peter Hammil, and of course we listened to all the sixties big names.In 1977 I went to England and returned with a bi-polar musical taste for classical and punk-new wave which I sort of inflicted to the gang through parties and communal vinyl auditions.Great days indeed!

First guitar I still have was a Yamaha G55 classical which my late father bought me cause my grades were good I guess. I used to throw a mic in her belly and feedback for hours till I got my first electric a secondhand hardtail 74 Fender Strat for which I worked for 2 months to be able to afford. It was and still is The Jaywalkers guitar.

++ And how did your music evolve from a punk band like Migraine to a jingle jangly guitar pop band like The Jaywalkers?

The evolution of our style from Migraine to Jaywalkers wasn’t all that big, considering we always aimed to be eclectic in both our use of influences and choice of musical directions.Those years in the first half of the eighties were one of the most exciting in music and we felt a part of it all with overflowing creativity and joy of life in all aspects.Of course one can argue that this is often the case with what one does in the younger years but in retrospect it was objectively a great era. Migraine was named after a Gang of Four lyric(this heaven gives me migraine off Natural’sNot In It from Entertainment LP.So Migraine was not a punk band per se more of New Wave and when we introduced a sax in the rock format we got to sounding like James Chance and the Contortions, while we even covered songs by the Zounds or The Sound.We sort of carried all the spectrum to The Jaywalkers with the addition of our new found kinship with the paisley underground and of course with the gigantic R.E.M.We got to play live with a host of bands that we liked and they liked us right back! What glorious moments!Dream Syndicate,Green on Red, Fleshtones, The Chills from NZ,The Triffids from Australia and Watermelon Men from Sweden.So a whole tapestry of great groups popped(sic) up in our sound which of course was firmly based on the Beatles legacy.Hence the name Jaywalkers as we felt we were Jaywalking in music’s avenues jumping from lane to lane of sonic variety.

++ How were those early days of the band? Where did you practice? Where in Athens did you usually hang out? Were there any good bands at the time that you followed?

Early to last days of both Migraine and The Jaywalkers were happening rehearsal like in a derelict two-room pre world war  2 house in Byron municipal district of Athens. We shared this dumb with two great bands of the times Yell-o-Yell and the Headleaders. Our greatest fear was not to have our equipment stolen an unfortunate event that thankfully didn’t happen.Creativity and rock n’roll spirit was dripping all over the walls as the place’s sole window never opened not once in the near six years we spent there.To be young and sweaty…and breathless!
Well the Greek scene of the early eighties was full of interesting groups with most of them we have played together and were friends. Cpt. Nefos and their follow up Low noise ,Villa21,Yell-o-Yell South of no North, the punk veterans MagicDeSpell, the garage kings Last Drive the passionate Anti Troppau Council the northern psychedelics The Mushrooms, the greek singing top group  from Thessaloniki Treepes (holes),Blue Light, and more.We used to move around the live night spots of Athens either performing or jamming or supporting one another.Quite wonderful times!

++ And how did the creative process work for the band? Who wrote the songs?

The songs were written by George Mou and myself in the very loud solitude of our rooms as far as the music was concerned and just about anywhere as far as lyrics would go.We would introduce the new babies to the rest of the band and either be ridiculed on the spot or proceed to birth and grooming to be introduced to the live set or potential material for recording in the future as not every song was deemed ”live”material.Everyone had a lot of input and ideas flew all over the room as it was obvious that we were all very opinionated music-wise due to conservatorial backgrounds and strong personalities.The end result was to everybody’s satisfaction though.

++ Did you ever consider writing songs in Greek?

Writing songs in Greek always seemed awkward as it seemed anytime a greek lyric would turn up something very un rock ‘n roll melodically would surface basically diametrically opposite from our core repertoire! So we carried on with international intentions! Ha ha ha!

++ How did you end up signing to a big label, to Virgin?

We knew the guys from Virgin Hellas which by that time was run by the guru Yiannis Petridis and we had them listen to our demo tape.They found it quite good and the rest is history.

++ The songs were recorded at Recording Studios by Manolis Vlachos. How was that experience? Was it your first time at a proper studio?

Working with Manolis Vlachos was for us a once in a lifetime experience.He was extremely kind with us greenies was enthusiastic with our songs, softspoken good-humored and he used to work in the U.S. which guaranteed another level of production.We seldom had a chance to record in a proper professional studio so it was not a surprise when some of us declared they wanted to move there!

++ Who is the boy on the cover photo of the record?

Our sadly deceased friend Sotiris Terzidis was working as a teacher in the esteemed Panagiotopoulos school.He used to take photos of the kids during the intervals while they were playing and mocking about .We happened to look at some of these photos at his place and were immediately smitten with the particular one that became the cover of our mini-l.p.Turns out it was the son of the Mikis Theodorakis’ famous singer Petros Pandis called, as I found years later, Dimitris.

++ I’ve played and danced many times to “(You Can’t Be) Happy all the Time”. I have to ask, how did this song come to be? What’s the story behind such a hit?

“You can’t be…” What a song. Always makes me feel goosebumps yet i’m quite conscious of having written it and proud of the result of the band’s collaboration and all out enthusiastic disposition which carried this song so well through all these years.The story goes like this;Our friends started a promotion company and we all participated one way or other and the first group to be invited for a concert was the Watermelon Men from Sweden.We hang out with them, became good friends appreciated their songs and bittersweet approach to life showed them around even played beach soccer with them.There was definite feedback and the result I suppose was this also bittersweet song that talks about lost friends lost innocence and has a quirkiness about it that belies the world weariness of the lyrics. And to conclude I confess I was trying to sing in the style of Eric Illes their singer a Swedish brother to me. To the day I remember singing the song with my acoustic guitar on my then country house-now permanent residence-balcony to a group of friends and I’d like to believe that their enthusiastic first listen to ”You can’t be (Happy all the time) led to their helping us in financing the recording of our demo tape that led to the making of our mini L.P.

++ On the 12″ there’s a cover of The Beatles. Who made that choice? Were they a big influence on you? Is “Tomorrow Never Knows” your favourite song by theirs?

All of us absolutely adore the Beatles.We’ve played some of their songs in various concert situations but for  an official recording it had to be something special.In my opinion A Day In The Life and Tomorrow Never Knows are the most ambitious songs they ever recorded and present a real challenge for anyone to try and cover them.So we figured lets take our chance since we aimed for a result representing our possibilities as a group away from the typical rock format employing as it were the Divolis’ bros  experience with Greek folk music.Hopefully we managed to re-invent a masterpiece while staying true to its spirit.Really proud of the result actually!

++ Which other bands would you say were big influences to The Jaywalkers? Any Greek bands?

Influences?Too many actually.As stated before that era was boiling with great music freshly made to top an already huge heritage of the past three decades. Gio Mou and I were at the time working as journalists and record critics in prestigious magazines therefore being exposed to the best new music that was released at the time, discovering kindred artists from the U.S. and U.K. that were off the radar for the general public.Boy we were lucky!But I won’t shy away from naming some; Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, always obvious suspects,also Beach Boys Byrds and of course Dylan.Forward to The Jam,The Clash, The CureThe Ramones Talking Heads also The Smiths ,R.E.M.,Dream Syndicate Long Ryders Green on Red and less obvious choices like Gun Club,Robyn Hitchcock, Elvis Costello  Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.The Greek bands of the time were friends and colleagues more than influences but of course there was feedback and healthy antagonism with the likes of The Last Drive, Anti Troppau Council The Mushrooms,Blue Light or Low Noise.

++ And if you were to record another cover, what would be your top choices?

To record another cover it would have to be something special again as we aim to add some of our own views on the matter.I maintain that a cover should be a tip of the hat to the original and also to shed a new light on a song we obviously love and got inspiration from.Having said that there just so many choices to pick from and pointless to name some but in the course of our live shows we covered songs by Elvis,R.E.M.,The Sound,The Beatles The Box Tops or Bobby Darin so the diversity shows  what we might choose.

++ I read that The Jaywalkers 12″ was a commercial failure. Is that story true? What happened?

Commercial failure could take  its toll on the very existence of groups ,but it is a reality one must face at some point as an unfortunate but unavoidable possibility.Well the”market” for groups and english singing at that-in Greece is very limited and that’s understating it.Virgin Greece went out on a limp releasing the record so the  commercial failure didn’t sit comfortably with any future plans to make a follow up so no follow up was produced.

++ The only compilation appearance I know that The Jaywalkers had was on the tape “Straight to Hellas” where you contributed the song “Pale Blue Eyes”. It sounds much different to the 12″. Was this an earlier song perhaps? How did you end up in this compilation?

The inclusion of Pale blue eyes in that compilation was our last-and not that good I must admit-hurrah.We sort of faded after that amidst obligations with the army, families formatting, and job obligations.We remained close but not so much in the music playing way.Life happens and in George’s Manos case an untimely death happened most unfortunately.

++ Are there any other compilation appearances from back in the day?

To my knowledge we had no other compilation appearances apart from possible live bootlegs but I think it’s most unlikely.

++ Are there any other recordings, unreleased songs, by the band?

Songs over the live years and after have accumulated waiting for their hopeful outing and some of them are recorded not in a fully professional manner mind but as a future plan they could turn up.

++ And from the whole Jaywalkers repertoire, what would you say was your favourite song and why?

Favourite songs vary depending on mood  snd season but the ones included in the mini-l.p. are always topping.Having said that there are also other favourites like the obvious live stalwarts River and The sun’s not gonna wake me tomorrow.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? What were the good venues back then? And are there any particular gigs you remember fondly?

There were some clubs that every group gigged in as the were part of the scene.In the Migraine days there was the legendary ”Pegasus” home of the new wave, Kyttaro club, Hima (were even Nick Cave &the Bad Seeds performed, the former Mad club renamed Cat’s Meow and the largest of all the Club 22 where acts like Green on Red,Nick Cave, The Wipers or Nico appeared alongside supports from local groups like The Jaywalkers.The most legendary and successful club of course was ”Rodon live ”where every artist of note performed and I’m proud to say that The Jaywalkers were the first group to perform there as a support to the Triffids, a fact unfortunately not stated in the book about ”Rodon” that was published after the club’s termination and eventual change into a-alas-super market.
We remember fondly the gigs we played support to great artists like Green on Red in club 22 ,the aforementioned Rodon gig with the Triffids and a summer festival in Veakeion theater in Peiraius where the headliners were The Dream Syndicate. Having said that gigs were scarce therefore every time we got the chance to play live we relished the moment as you can understand!

++ Aside from Athens, did you play any other cities?

We played in a club in Patras and that final gig in a summer festival in Preveza where ”Pale Blue Eyes” was recorded for that compilation, and that was about it.It was just unfortunate that we didn’t play in Thessaloniki-a rock city with a big music scene.

++ Did you get much attention from the music press or radio?
The radio at the time was not that friendly for english speaking Greek groups although we got played by certain indie shows  that aired in those early days of non-state radio.
As for the press there existed an awkward situation as I mention earlier G. Mouctarides and I were journalist for the esteemed ”Sound and hi-fi” magazine therefore we were considered to be ”parts of the system”.That led to negative reviews or lack of reviews altogether ignoring good moments of the band, maybe it was jealousy or some kind of complex ,but it sure held the progress of the group media-wise.Years after it was confessed that the true value of The Jaywalkers was unjustly overlooked but of course as the saying goes the damage was done. Oh well water under the bridge…

++ And was there an important fanzine culture in Greece at the time? Did you get featured in them?

The fanzine culture of the times consisted mainly of one-off editions which sometimes were the vehicle for releasing some tapes of live shows.The notable exception was the ”Rollin Under” fanzine.To be honest I am not aware of any feature of The Jaywalkers but that could have eluded us as the circulation of these fanzines was very limited.

++ Then what happened to the band? When and why did you split? Did you continue making music afterwards?

he festival in Preveza in the summer 1988 was as I mentioned earlier the last live moment of the group. After that there were a few rehearsals but no more gigs due to army obligations and new families changing the whole picture. After that we certainly never gave up on music both as a job or a hobby. You might want to check out a group myself and some local friends set up called The Mercy Run.Had some gigs but no proper releases  exist only some studio recordings of songs I wrote with our singer Bob Crossley.

++ I think a lot of people, me included, were introduced to your music thanks to the compilation “Try a Little Sunshine”. This compilation became very important as it gave a new light to Greek guitar pop. What would you say are your favourite Greek indiepop bands?

There was a lot of potential in the early 80’s greek indie rock scene and talents sprung out all over.Some of our favourite bands were Cpt Nefos, Blue Light, The Mushrooms, Yell-oYell, Femmes Fatales, Anti-Troppau Council and Last Drive.

++ Also in the last decade or so you have played some reunion gigs. Is there any more gigs planned for the near future? And is there a chance for new Jaywalkers songs some day?

These last years in Greece haven’t being particularly good for indie groups due to the financial crisis.Although clubs like s.i.x. d.o.g.g.s. and fuzz are making a name for the ”underground” scene in Athens it is quite difficult for groups to be consistent in their live performances.As for reunion gigs we really enjoyed the ones we had and we certainly keep our hopes up for new material to be recorded and released but the difficulties seem at times unbeatable.Songs do exist though and they will eventually surface!

++ This year I see you will also participate in a new compilation named “A Sparkle From the Past” that will be released by Make Me Happy. Care telling me a bit about this new record?

This latest compilation will apparently include various Greek groups of the 80’s and early 90’s which didn’t quite fall in the general public’s radar and The Jaywalkers will participate with the -in my opinion-superb demo version of ”Good Day Sunshine”. From what I know this compilation is being released by a group of that era’s fans very keen on making a party of it all as it involves a live event for this release.

++ And today, what are you up to? Do you still make songs? Any other hobbies that you have?

As for songwriting it happens sparingly but with the aid of the current technology it is easier to record and keep in the archives for future use. As you’ve already seen I try to find some creative comfort in sketching and drawing and even-ambitiously enough-plan to participate in the Inktober challenge! Wish me luck.My true hobbies though is driving my two adolescent daughters around to various lessons and activities.Interestingly enough Gio Mou invited me to play guitar for his younger daughter’s recording of her song “Thieving Star” which will appear in the next ”Bright Side Of The Road” compilation, so you could say there is a continuation of the group through our children!

++ One last question, if one was to visit Athens, where should one go check out bands? And aside from the Acropolis what should one visit?

Well it’s been a marathon nine days Interview but a lot of fun nonetheless as it was a big trip down memory lane and a huge privilege to be able to share all these moments and thoughts with people across the globe! I’ll be very happy to show you around Athens sights and spots and invite you to taste some of the wonderful dishes my wife Dinah cooks. So till we meet in person it’s been an honour answering your questions  and thank you Roque for everything!

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Listen
The Jaywalkers – (You Can’t Be) Happy all the Time

Moved. Settles. But not unpacked. Little by little I’ll have to organize my record collection and the Cloudberry stock. But now things are a bit more organized and I can send to press the My Light Shines for You 7″ at last! Damn! It got delayed and delayed, but now finally, after I finish writing this post, I’ll fill the paperwork for the pressing plant.

And then focus on the next Cloudberry releases of course. That is a good plan I think. But now it is time to review some new indiepop I’ve found on the web!

Definitely one of the most exciting discoveries as of late is Okama Flannel Boy from Mexico City. What a sound!! If you like Orange Juice you are going to cry of happiness, because this is very good. Fernando Torres is behind this one-man band who have two songs on their Bandcamp, the fantastic “Carolina St.” and a cover of Biff Rose’s “Fill Your Heart”. Jangly, chiming, upbeat, catchy, what is not to like about these songs? Top stuff!!

We have already recommended Glass Arcades on the blog but it is no crime to do it again. The Cardiff band has three new songs available to stream on their Bandcamp, “Nothingism”, “Lune” and “Second Violins” and they have the trademark sound of Anton Salmine who has been creating dreamy pop for some time now!

Our friends from Boring Productions, the fantastic Chinese indiepop label based in Shenzhen, have a new release out by Butterbeer. It is an album and it is coming in tape, CD and vinyl LP format! The album is available to order now and it is titled “Obliviate”. It has 8 songs and I’ve seen already many friends on Facebook sharing the song “Listening to Another Sunny Day Makes Me Forget You”. Butterbeer is an indiepop duo formed by Jovi (from Atta Girl) and Rye (from Chestnut Bakery) and this album was actually recorded two years ago and only now it is being released. Well, I need to get in touch with Jovi and see if I can get the new record!!

It came to my attention that one of my favourite bands to ever come from the US, I mean the band Holiday, has uploaded a gig to Matt Snow’s SoundCloud account. This is an important gig, from when they played live at The Fez in New York City on January 17, 1997. This was Holiday’s final show and it was part of the New York City Popfest, 1997 edition. I wish I had been there! Also if you check Calvin Chin’s SoundCloud account there are live recordings from an unknown Chicago gig.

Another fantastic find is that of Jakarta’s Secret Meadow. They have just uploaded a new song called “I Am You” and I’m liking it a lot. I don’t think I was aware of this band prior though I notice they have a few more songs on their Bandcamp. See, it is not true as many of you say that I’m on top of things. That’s impossible. Secreat Meadow formed in early 2016 and is formed by Ricardo Taufano on guitars, vocals and synth, Jaro Petang on guitar and synth, Arief Wijaya on bass and Mulyana Viqry on drums.

And my last recommendation for this week is not a new one, it dates from May 2016, but I discovered the band Sound and Fury from Chengdu, China, only this week. There is no Facebook or any link on their Bandcamp so I don’t know much about their background but from the photo that is uploaded I assume it is a four-piece with a girl vocalist. There are 6 superb sweet dreampop/shoegaze sounding songs on their page and I’m really impressed by them! First time I hear and like a band from Chengdu!

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Continuing with this revision of indiepop bands from the most prominent countries around the world it is time to feature a Belgian band. It is definitely it won’t be the first time a band from Belgium will be showcased, I remember having at least written about Peter and the Lions before, but it is going to be interesting as I have to be honest, I couldn’t remember Mosaic Eyes were Belgian. For some reason I always thought they hailed from the UK!

In genetics, a mosaic (or mosaicism) means the presence of two different genotypes in an individual which developed from a single fertilized egg. As a result, the individual has two or more genetically different cell lines derived from a single zygote. This is easiest to see with eye colours. When eye colours vary between the two eyes, or within one or both eyes, the condition is called heterochromia iridis (= ‘different coloured iris’). It can have many different causes, both genetic and accidental. For example, David Bowie had the appearance of different eye colours due to an injury that caused one pupil to be permanently dilated.

I’m assuming then that their name comes from this sort of mosaic and not from the art/images creating by assembling small pieces of glass, stones or whatever. I do know I own one of their records, their 7″ that was released in 1992 on Sunday Records titled “Europe Not So Far… EP”. But did they release anything else? I don’t know. But it is time to do our investigation, find out any details about the band.

On Discogs I see 3 releases, including the 7″ I own. I do notice that the band hailed from Nivelles in Belgium.
Nivelles is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the old communes of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monstreux. The Nivelles district includes all the municipalities in Walloon Brabant. The Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude has been classified as a heritage site of Wallonia.

So I check out the “Europe Not So Far… EP”. It was released in 1992 on the US label Sunday Records (catalog Sunday 019). A very fine label if you ask me. There were three songs in it, “There is No End To This” and “Vicious Games” on the A side and “Moody Morning” on the B side.

The other release listed dating from 1992 was a CD EP titled “A Sunday Dress Till Monday” that came out on the Distorsion label (catalog DISTO 001). Distorsion was a French label that I’m not familiar with, other bands they released were Prohibition and Colm. On the CD there were four songs, “Let’s Party”, “Moody Morning”, “Mother” and “Sweet Cuddle”. All songs were recorded at Flight Case Studio, which happened to be in Brussels. Here I find that the band was formed by Ener on vocals, David and Miguel on guitar, Laurant on bass and Valentine on drums. The design for the artwork is credited to Laurent, Sophie and Debil’mac.

The other release that is listed is a cassette. It has no date so I couldn’t say when it was released. It is titled “There Is No End To This” and included six songs. On the A side there’s “Mother”, “Happy World” and “Vicious Games”, while on the B side there’s “There is No End to This”, “Klaus’ Eyes” and “Exctasy”. Here we see that Ener is the vocalist, Valentine is drumming and David playing guitar. The bass though has a different name, Arthur. The art for the tape was created by someone named Véronique.

There are many compilation appearances too. In 1992 they were to appear on a label across the southern border. On the tape compilation “Garden Party” on the French label Aliénor Records they had the song “Klaus’ Eyes”. This seems to have been a very fine compilation with bands like The Bedflowers, Bulldozer Crash and The Spinning Wheels among others. This was the first release on the label, and has the catalog ALIEN α [Alpha].

In 1993 they had the song “Exactas” on the cassette compilation “Polythene Star” released by Flaming Katy (FK001). We’ve mentioned this label before in this indiepop tour when we featured the Welsh band Southville.

“Klaus’ Eyes” was to appear on another compilation. This time it was on the “Try Another Flavour” CD released by the German label Heaven Sent Records (catalog HS004). This compilation also had a bunch of fantastic bands like The Suncharms, 14 Iced Bears and Jane Pow to name a few!

It seems 1993 was the band’s year, they had “Vicious Games” on the CD compilation “The Noise and The Melodies – The Pearl Compilation” (PERLE 1) that came along the Pearl Fanzine. This was a Germany fanzine and the compilation had a bunch of classic bands like Acid House Kings, Eva Luna or Red Letter Day. The compilation included a booklet. Did it had any details about Mosaic Eyes?

The song “There is No End to This” was to appear in that same year, 1993, on the tape comp “Astral Plane” that was released by Glidge Records (Glidge 002). This was a UK label that released a couple of indiepop cassette compilations. On this, their second comp, there were bands from many countries. I could see La Sintesis from Spain, All About Chad from the US, The Cat’s Miaow from Australia, clearly the compiler knew already in 1993 how international indiepop is!

The Belgian label Contrast was to include them on a compilation 7″ that included three bands in 1993 as well. It was part of their Split Single Club and this was their first release (CT 001). The other bands that shared the 7″ were Antiseptic Beauty and Les Autres. Mosaic Eyes contributed the song “Silver Flower”

In 1996 the band was to appear on the revisionist compilation that Sunday Records put out tracking their history as a label. The songs “Vicious Game” and “There’s No End to This” appeared on the classic “Songs About Our Past (Part 1) ‘The Other Side of Sunday'” (catalog SUNDAY 800).

There is another compilation appearance listed but has no date. The song “Klaus’ Eyes” appeared on yet another Pearl fanzine compilation: “Nachtsonne – The Noise and the Melodies”. A bunch of fantastic bands appear on this compilation too like The Cudgels, The Ammonites, The Waiting List and more.

Time to explore the seas of Google, see what there’s to find about Mosaic Eyes. My first stop is a post from 2014 on the PyrolyseBred blog. Here he mentions the story about Nivelles that appears on the liner notes of the classic Sarah compilation”There and Back Again Lane”. The story is about a poorly organized Heavenly gig in this town: “December 28th 1991. We’re in Brussels, or what we were promised would be Brussels but is actually this nameless and drab little dormitory town a few miles outside the ring-road and of course no-one’s done any publicity. We’re given meals in the pizza restaurant a few doors down the road, Heavenly at one table, the TVPs  at the next… we eat, drink, play to an empty room and then spend the night on a cold hard floor fifteen miles south in Nivelles (…)”

I find on ISSUU the whole issue number 7 of the French fanzine Hyacinth. This fanzine was around from 1989 to 1994 and was based in Paris. I believe it might be scanned because there’s an exclusive Nirvana interview. But there is a mention of Mosaic Eyes. There’s a review of a gig they played alongside Purple Hands, Earwig, Sunflowers and Gallon Drunk at the V.K. in Brussells on September 20th, 1991. They are compared to Spacemen 3.

On a Geocities page I found that Mosaic Eyes supported My Bloody Valentine on April 30th, 1992, at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels.

I could find that David, one of the guitarists, was involved in a band called The Album around 2008-2010. As far as I know there was an EP released. I could find an old Myspace with the songs, “Go Ahead Cry”, “Vicious Eyes”, “Surrender”, “Wash My Hands” and “Never Felt So Good”.

There’s not much more on the web about them. Can’t find if the band members were involved in any other bands and I still need to get their CD EP. I wonder what happened to them. Why didn’t they get to release an album? If they left unreleased songs? Why did they split? What other gigs did they play and which other indiepop bands did they support? Many questions, little answers, but some very good songs they left behind.

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Listen
Mosaic Eyes – Sweetless Cuddle

Well, tomorrow I move to a new apartment. Had to take the day off from work. Also the “moving sale” offers on the website are no more. Thanks to everyone that helped me move less boxes. Hopefully you liked the records. With the move I’ll be able to buy records again. I’ve been missing that the past month. There have been a bunch of new releases I’ve wanted. Even better, now I can finally send to press My Light Shines For You 7″, which I feel terribly guilty for making them wait until I figured out where I would live. I needed an address to ship the records anyhow, so couldn’t do much. So yes, they’ll be a bit delayed, but next week they go to press for sure. I’ll keep you updated!

It was just last week that I interviewed Patrick O’Sullivan from So She Said and now he has shared with me his new SoundCloud page where he has uploaded songs from different periods of his music journey. Definitely worth checking them out, there are a few unreleased treats in there, like “Kids Can Crawl” and “At Home in June”, as well as the classic So She Said’s “So Happy”, and more!

Through the Facebook page Latin American Twee I discovered a few new bands. The first one was Contenti from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The page has shared the promo video for the song “Largos Caminos” and I really enjoyed it. So I went to look for more on Bandcamp and found out that the band has a 5 song EP available so far only to stream. The songs are “Largos Caminos”, “Algo Está Llegando”, “Sustancias”, “Las Cosas en Cualquier Lugar” and “Adentro & Afuera”. There is not much information about the band but it seems that it is actually a one man band driven by a young guy called Lucas. This is very very nice.

The other band I discovered was Rubor Cassata and their song “Marbella Club Festiva”. So I went looking for more and I couldn’t find a Bandcamp. There was a Soundcloud with just one demo song. But then I did find on Youtube a 2017 “complete album” uploaded by the band. There are 6 songs that one has to listen like a cassette, song after song, no skipping. The songs are “Manda Fruta”, “Marbella Club Festiva”, “Noba Sintua”, “Divagando”, “Rubor” and “Alexis”. The band hails from Santiago, Chile, and from I’ve gathered it has Claudio Zaguán on vocals and guitars, who has been part of another band we’ve raved here, Patio Solar. The rest of the band is composed by Pablo on bass, Almendra on vocals and Simón on drums.

Our Madrid friends from Alborotador Gomasio are releasing a new album in November. It will be published by the label Limbo Starr and has been titled “Luz y Resistencia”. To promote it the band has just unveiled a promo video for the song “La Reacción Impotente” and it is what you’d expect from this pop band with a punk attitude, an upbeat corker with catchy lyrics. Long are the days of the band being a ramshackle delight, when they were running fanzines and spearheading a DIY scene in Spain, now they are way tighter, a more serious band bus still, very much enjoyable.

I had no clue there was such a beautiful band in Houston, Texas, called Rose Ette. I only found them on Bandcamp and I see that they have had two tapes released in the past few years. The latest one is from February 2017 and is a cassingle, a cassette single, with 2 songs: “Skin” and “Predator”. The previous one is a 6 song EP and is now sold out and was titled “Jungle” and dates from 2015. The band is formed by Teresa Vicinanza on vocals and guitar, Daniela Hernandez on vocals and lead guitar, Jessica Baldauf on bass and John Baldwin on drums. The band is delightfully indiepop, sweet, sugary with an edge, and the guitars chime as I like them to chime. Will have to keep an eye on them!

Well, I also found a jangly guitar pop band from Japan called The Clovers. This thanks to the great David from Spain who is always posting new discoveries on Facebook. I heard a beauty of a song on Youtube called “ララバイ” I think, which is available in some format on the band’s website. I don’t know if it is CD or 7″, but I think it is a CD! I’ve written to the band on Facebook and hopefully will get to know more about them because their sound is superb!

And that wraps it for this week!!

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Time to finally visit Indonesia in this indiepop world tour and it is a well deserved visit. It must be true that Indonesia is the Asian country, after Japan, that has been more involved in indiepop. There are many, many, bands that we all love, that we follow and that are already indiepop classics like Astrolab, Sunny Summer Day, Sharesprings, and more. On Cloudberry we even did a series of three 3″ CDs that were called The Sound of Young Java were we showcased what was happening in the South East Asia country in the mid, late 2000s. Lately the scene seems to be growing and we discover new bands every week as you might have noticed on the blog when now and then I’m recommending new music from that country. So definitely it was time to check out perhaps one of the bands that spearheaded the movement, a band that I believe is well known in Indonesia, but didn’t get the attention of the rest of popkids in the world: Blossom Diary.

It seems pretty obvious that the band took their name from Blossom Dearie, an American jazz singer and pianist. She had a recognizably light[vague] and girlish[weasel words] voice.One of the last supper club/cabaret performers, she performed regular engagements in London and New York City over many years. She collaborated with many musicians, including Johnny Mercer, Miles Davis, Jack Segal, Johnny Mandel, Duncan Lamont, and Dave Frishberg, among others.

I first heard about them when Joz from Maritime Records sent me a couple of Mp3s for me to listen. I had no clue who were they, I hadn’t even seen them on Myspace. I was already head over hills with Indonesian bands like the aforementioned Astrolab or Sunny Summer Day and other up and coming bands like Funny Little Dream, Arch of Cinema or Leach Me Lemonade among others, who were already appearing on Cloudberry releases. So at the time I heard the beautiful jangle sounds of Blossom Diary I knew this was an important band. The problem was, with many Indonesian bands from that time, there was going to be impossible to find their releases.

And then, of course, did I know they had any releases? There was no Discogs then. And so how would I find that information? Maybe that’s why I kind of forgot about them through the years. It is only now that I’m doing this recap of indiepop bands from all around the world that their name popped up again on my mind and decided it was time to find out any details about them, maybe their whole story if possible. I was going to find almost immediately two important details, where they come from and who formed the band. The band was from Bandung Pop City and they formed in the year 2000 with Dias on vocals and guitars, Angga on guitar, Donny on drums and Denny and bass.

I look for them on Discogs and to my surprise there is one release listed and it seems as it is a compilation of all of their songs! Wow, that’s fantastic news. I need to order this. Definitely next week when I’m already in my new apartment. So please, leave me a copy available. The CD album titled “…Is Dead” was released last year, 2016, on the label Anoa Records (catalog ANOA-009) and includes 17 songs! They are: “About the Poor Boy”, “Four of Us”, “The Rain Always Had an Answer”, “Cool Friend”, “9 O’clock at the Train Station”, “Something Like Your Smile”, “Perfect Dream There”, “Sweetest Smile”, “You Never Want Me”, “Something Should I Regret”, “She Never Come Home”, “Candy Kiss” “Highway Cross Your Mind”, “Redam”, “I’ve Taste the Sky”, “Ambrose (Demo)”, “Something Should I Regret (Ripple Magazine #7 Bonus Cassette)”.

My next finding was an article dating from March of 2017 on the Jakarta Post. Here I find many more important details about the band. Firstly here it says the band was formed in 1999 and not in 2000. So which date is correct? Then I find that the band split in 2005. The article is actually a review of the anthology CD we found on Discogs, but here we find information about an album the band released in 2003, a self-titled debut album on Marmalade Records. We’ll have to investigate.

The first hit when looking for Blossom Diary and Marmalade Records is actually a CD compilation titled “Pop Shower: Marmalade Records Compilation” that was released by the Japanese label Quince Records (catalog QRCP 14) in 2003. It is a sampler of what was happening in Indonesia at the time and Blossom Diary appears with “Something Should I Regret” and “You Never Want Me”. Other bands on the compilation were Sweaters, Showbiz, Santa Monica and Montecarlo.

I keep looking and I find an Indonesian blog called Wasted Records. I could understand that the band actually had a couple more releaseses. There was of course their appearance on the Ripple Magazine #7 tape in 2001 with “Something I Should Regret” (that song is in the compilation album), an appearance on the compilation “Delicatessen” on Poptastic Records from 2002, a CD single for “About the Poor Boy” in 2004 and another compilation appearance on the “Do Re Mi” comp by Paviliun Records in 2006.

Then to Youtube, here I find a promo video for their song “She’ll Never Come Home” and what of course, this is jangly brilliance!

I continue the search and stop at RateYourMusic. Here I find more band members. Hmm. Maybe there were lineup changes during their time? Ardiyasa “Dias” S. (vocals, guitar), Angga A. (guitar, vocals), Donny (drums), Denny (bass), Andi S. (guitar, vocals), Iyus (bass), Ade K. (drums). And then on Twee.net they have an entry where their 2003 is listed. It seems then that it was released as a cassette and included the songs: “The Rain Always Had an Answer”, “9 O’Clock at the Train Station”, “Candy Kiss”, “Cool Friend”, “Perfect Dream There”, “She Will Never Come Home”, “Something Like Your Smile”, “Something I Should Regret”, “Sweetest Smile” and “You Never Want Me”.

Their influences are also listed, Ride, Mojave 3, Orange Juice, Field Mice, Blueboy, Belle and Sebastian, The Smiths, Sarah Records and more.

I try to translate with Google Translate a 2015 interview on the Indonesian blog How Does it Feel to Feel. Here the blogger interviews Angga Adiyatama from the band. Here I learn that Dias and Angga were both from Jakarta and moved to Bandung for college and there it is when the band formed. It also seems the band split because they returned to Jakarta, leaving Bandung.

There is not much more information about the band, like what other bands were they were involved with (I did find that the drummer Ade K. was playing in a band called NICK) or whereabouts did they play gigs. Maybe in some Indonesian blogs there is that information but it is very hard to come by for me. Definitely Indonesian is not an easy language aside from some words I could guess. I do find that their legacy is very much alive, like for example the band Piccadilly has a video on Youtube covering the song “About the Poor Boy“.

I know my Indonesian friends will fill in the blanks and let me know what happened to this fantastic Bandung band. How important were they for the scene that was starting to make some noise after their demise, and what are the Blossom Diary boys up to now. Would also love to know which songs did they contribute to the Popstatic compilation and to the Paviliun one. I couldn’t find that information. And also, I need to order their anthology CD, which I hope, as the band deserves, comes with proper liner notes and a story, a story that I’m missing.

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Listen
Blossom Diary – Perfect Dream There

How to start this new week? Perhaps it is a good idea to do so by the Kickstarter campaign Julia Parnell has created so she can make a project everyone will love, “The Chills Film – A Theatrical Documentary“. Wow! A documentary about one of the best bands ever. Of course this has to happen. All the information about this project, as well as a video teaser, are on the Kickstarter page. I hope this gets done and they raise the money. And hopefully too I get to see The Chills live once more. I can only boast saying I’ve seeing them twice, plus another time when Martin played solo at Rough Trade.

Gingerlys, the top New York band, for sure one of my favourites of this city, will be releasing finally their first album this November 17 on Babe City and Topshelf Records. It will be self-titled and will be released on 12″ vinyl limited to 300 copies, cassette and CD. So all formats covered. One can’t complain. The album comes with some beautiful artwork it seems if the art that appears on the Bandcamp is the album cover. To promote their upcoming release they have unveiled a song from it and what a gem of a song it is. The song is called “Turtledoves” and contains all the ingredients the Gingerlys have made us used to. If the rest of the songs are as good as this one, this is definitely one record no one can miss!

Anida, Peter, Suki and Ages form the Jakarta, Indonesia, band Sugarsting. They started as a band in May 2006 and they have just published their first song on SoundCloud. It is a demo for the song “Chasing Pony” and I’m loving it. I especially love Anida’s vocals, she has a tone I’m not that used to I guess, but that sounds really cool here. This is superb jangly and upbeat pop. I hope to hear more from them soon!!

Bodega Sisters are from Stockholm but they seem to really like NYC. First because of the name of the band, second because the only song they have on SoundCloud is titled “Btwn. 1st & A”, and you know those are two avenues in Manhattan. Thirdly the lyrics are all about New York, from Tompkins Park to Duane Reade pharmacies and nods to the popular Bedford stop for the L train, and more. I don’t know much more about this band, but definitely this song has left me with a big big smile on the face. I guess familiar names, familiar places, will do that to you, especially if the music is also fab!

The Osaka band Ether Feels has a new song on their SoundCloud and it is pretty good! The band, if you are not familiar with them, is a shoegaze project by Tomo, Yoko, Yoshino, Kita and Takuya, and were formed in 2015. I don’t know if this song will be released in any other way, there is no information about that, but you should check “Moonshine” for sure. You will enjoy it!

Lastly the Brooklyn duo called No Kill have a very sweet new song streaming on their Bandcamp called “Eddie Vedder”, but that’s not all, they have actually made a a video for it. It is the first time I hear from this band even though we are in the same city. I wonder if they play live or are they a studio project. The band is formed by Jamie Cougar on guitar, drums and vocals, and Andrew Trouwborst on guitar and vocals. They have even more songs on their Bandcamp, so check them out.

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Before there was Pia Fraus and its label, Seksound, in the indie scene, Estonia wasn’t a country anyone associated to indiepop music. That is very true. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t pop bands before even if there were just a few.

I think the first band that I heard from Estonia was Bizarre. But I wanted to dig more, I wanted to find more bands. What I had heard wasn’t enough. I was sure there had to be more songs I liked from Estonia. And happily I was going to stumble, thanks to a recommendation on the indiepop-list, with a tape compilation called “Sue Darling is Back to Meet Forwards”.

I believe it was Alexander Bailey from the label Radio Khartoum one of the first to champion Eestipop, pop from Estonia. In fact, I’m sure I discovered Bizarre thanks to his recommendations. On the indiepop-list he was to recommend this tape compilation saying: “not as consistent as the Bizarre album, but there are a few tracks here which shouldn’t be missed, and as I expect that the prices for both are quite low by Western standards, it’s probably a good risk.”  And when he describes Isadore Flore’s song on the compilation, “Make Up & Martini”, he says it is a ” lovely pop song, not quite cocktail, but classy all the same.”

I had to listen to this song. I was beyond curious. It was going to take many years for me to finally find the song, and it was going to happen through Kohviradio.com. Kohvi Radio, if you must know, is an online internet radio and mixtape download site based in Tallinn, Estonia. They have a big back catalogue of Estonian indie music and more, so it is definitely a good tool for exploring sounds from that country.

So I heard the song, and I loved it. It was sort of a Siesta Records, él Records, kind of sound. Classy. So now I wanted to know more about them. Who were they? I checked out the tape compilation on Discogs. I notice it was released in 1997 by Sally Cinnamon Music (catalog SAL006M.C.). Interesting, a label named after a Stone Roses song. The label was based in Tartu, Estonia, and was founded by Lauri Liivak. Laurii seems to have been a winner of 19 Estonian Music Awards. The label would later be renamed to Forwards. I check their catalog, I’m familiar with Bizarre, but there are other bands like Pedigree or Nyrok City. Will I like them? I also notice that there was a 1993 cassette compilation called “Sue Darling”. So this was the first volume, and “Sue Darling is Back to Meet Forwards” was the second?

On Discogs a note kind of answers that last question: “A logical follow-up to the “Sue Darling” (released in 1993). At that time another bunch of Estonian unsigned bands were recorded for the “Sue Darling 2”, but due to the financial problems Sally Cinnamon Music couldn’t release it. “Sue Darling is back to meet Forwards” includes eight bands recorded in 1993 (Sue’s Side) as well as eight bands recorded in 1996/97 in Forwards Studio (Forwards Side).”

Isadora Flore’s song appear in the Forwards part. Might this “Forwards” also have helped the label to be renamed to that name? Possibly.

Then I head to Rateyourmusic where the tape is listed. Here I notice that they have two band members listed for the band, Lauri Tikerpe on vocals and Marek Talts on guitar. Lauri Tikerpe had done vocals for “Fantawine” a song of Bizarre’s “Café de Flor” album. Also I could see listed some guest vocals on a single by Rainer Jancis in 2008 and lyrics credits for a Metro Luminal song. But no other band of his own it seems.

When it comes to Marek Talts there seems to be much more music involvement. He had been part of the band Ro:Toro which was a folk band that released an album in 2006 called “Estonian Bagpipe” . I see also credits for guitar playing inSitimaan, Tiit Born, InBoiler, Rull’s Royce Orchestra, Hedvig Hanson, Liisi Koikson, Ootus and more. Very busy.

But still no information about Isadora Flore. Why? Perhaps because they didn’t release anything. But this song, “Make-Up and Martini”, where did it come from? Didn’t they record a demo perhaps? There have to be more songs from the same recording session or not?

I was to find some more details on Facebook, and again thanks to Khovi Radio. They had a small post where they were publicizing the Isadora Flore song, that they have streaming for free. What does it say? “To begin with, we dust off the track Make up and Martini (1997) by the 1990s indie-band Isadora Flore from Tartu. The song, created in the spirit of the ROMO movement started by the Melody Maker magazine, features vocals by Lauri Tikerpe who is currently known as the nightingale of the band Väljasõit Rohelisse. The band featured Karl “Monodire” Kermes on drums, Indrek Sooniste on bass and Marek Talts on guitars. The latter is also the author of the song. The track was recorded at the Tartu Päikeseraadio (Tartu Sun Radio) for the indietape Sue Darling. “

Finally, the whole band lineup. And we know now they were from Tartu.

Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia, after Estonia’s political and financial capital Tallinn. Tartu is often considered the intellectual centre of the country, especially since it is home to the nation’s oldest and most renowned university, the University of Tartu. The city also houses the Supreme Court of Estonia, the Ministry of Education and Research and the new impressive building of the Estonian National Museum opened to public on October 2016. It is also the birthplace of Estonian Song Festivals. Situated 186 kilometres southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres northeast of Riga, Tartu lies on the Emajõgi (“Mother river”), which connects the two largest lakes of Estonia.

The only Estonian city I’ve visited is Tallinn, and I thought it was beautiful. Been twice there. Not Tartu, not yet. Would love to visit.

I couldn’t find any information for the two other members, Karl and Indrek, on Discogs. I did find that Väljasõit Rohelisse, Lauri’s band, released a 10″ in 2012. Probably not indiepop.

Not much more information on Isadora Flore. I keep asking myself about the band name. Who is Isadora? And why are there no other known songs by the band? Or no releases at all? A true mystery of Eestipop in the 90s.

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Listen
Isadora Flore – Make-up and Martini

I’m exhausted to say the least, the past days I’ve been waking up at 6:30am every day to get to work and cover for my boss as he is on vacations. I’m not a morning person at all, so this is really hard. I can’t fall asleep early and a couple of hours after I finally do, I have to wake up to catch a subway to the city. For me this is as tough as it gets. I don’t mind working, but having to wake up at these uncivilized hours is a torment to me.

While I work I listen to music and try to find new sounds, new music that might be worth recommending or who knows, maybe good for the label. Especially at this new schedule where my football radio shows don’t start until later during the day. So the mornings end up being a good time to discover bands and hopefully they keep myself awake.

So what have I found the past few days?

There’s the band Beautyness from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who have two songs on their Bandcamp. The songs “Cynics Bliss” and “Spell” are free to stream and also free to download. They are both upbeat indiepop songs and I’m left curious to hear what the band has in store for the future. The guitars on the songs are really nice I think. The band is formed by David Martini, Scott Martini and Matt R.

Peruvian band Dan Dan Dero have already enjoyed good reviews on the blog, but as it is the case with this blog every time a current band has some important news, worthy of talking about them again, I will recommend again. On Monday the band released the first video for the first single from their upcoming album. There are no details about this album, aside that it will be released in October. The band is right now touring abroad for the first time, in Colombia, and so this news come in a great moment for the band. Check out the video for “Detonador” and try not to get a seizure.

Cat in the Case is a Taiwanese band who released three songs on Bandcamp last June. The songs being: “Summer”, “Bog Down” and “Something New”. They are surprisingly really good. Girl vocals over distorted guitars and superb pop melodies. Of course I check out their Facebook to look for more information and aside the numbers, they formed in 2015, I can’t understand Mandarin, so yeah, not friendly for the rest of the world sadly! But that doesn’t matter if the songs are this good, right?! Speaking of which, I do have to feature a Taiwanese band on the blog sometime soon, right?

Fourth entry for this post comes from Manchester. The Breaks only have one song uploaded (and with lyrics!) on Bandcamp and it is a fine slice of noisy shoegaze/pop. There is no other information about the band or the song, or anything, we only know the song title, “Honey”. EDIT – Actually there are four songs. I don’t know how I missed that. There is “Honey” of course but also there is “I Need”, “Biscuit Factory” and “Misery”. Also I was pointed to a promo video for “Honey” on Youtube! And even found out they hail from Burnley. 

And lastly, I have just discovered the Glaswegian band Life Model who released a tape last July with 4 really good songs. The “Lucky EP” came out on Frux Tapes Records from Durham, UK, and it seems that there are only 6 copies available of the limited edition of 50. If it wasn’t a tape I would hurry and buy this, but you know how much I dislike tapes. So yes, I’m streaming the four songs, “Skin and Bones”, “Lucky”, “4ever” and “Together” on repeat now. I would like to know more about them though and I see on their Bandcamp that they have songs dating from 2012! The band is formed by Sophie Evans, Chris Smith, Joanne McCafferty and Michael McDonald. How come they haven’t played Indietracks yet? An unsolved mystery indeed.

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I visited France for the first time last year. I had such a good time and hope to go back as soon as I can. There are still many castles and cathedrals to visit, and more. I didn’t get around to have much indiepop in my trip but to me, France, has a long tradition of great indiepop bands that even though is not huge in numbers, there’s always been quality.

This weekend there’s Paris Popfest, it will be its first edition. I’m going to miss it but there are many friends going. I’m sure it will be a lot of fun and there is of course that Field Mice sort of band with Michael Hiscock that I think will be a treat for everyone.

So yes, France is important for indiepop. There are many fans and there’s even a great record store, Hands and Arms, that carries indiepop from all over. The last release on Cloudberry was a 7″ by a French band, Pale Spectres. So really, it makes sense to stop in France for our next featured band in this indiepop world tour.

I own the two proper releases of Les Poissons Solubles but in due honesty I don’t know much about this band. I thought then, while thinking of many French bands that I like, that it would be interesting to find out any details that could paint a better picture of the band.

Then what about the soluble fish? That’s what their name means, right? Fish that can be dissolved in water.  Let’s see what there is to be found.

As it is become a norm in these investigations, my first stop to find any hints and details is Discogs. Here to my surprise I see a demo tape listed, this one I don’t own. It has no catalogue number nor artwork. It only says that this demo was on a Sony C60 cassette and dates of 1993 or 1994. On it there are 8 songs, “Here Comes the Summer”, “Can’t We Start Again”, “Ne Passe Plus #1”, “My Small Red Sun”, “1 2 3”, “Perfect Day”, “Le Canal du Midi” and “Ne Passe Plus #2”.

Their first proper release was a split 7″ that came out on the great Waaaah! label. The band contributed two songs, “Can’t We Start Again” and “My Small Red Sun” to this 7″ that was shared with the Snowbirds in 1994 (catalog BULL 27-0). The Snowbirds had “Love Will Come My Way” and “Impossible Dream”. I can see that the two songs were included in the demo.

Then it seems there was a long period where there was no releases by the band. It was going to be 5 years later, in 1999, that the band was to release its first 7″ on their own, the “Here Comes the Summer” 7″ on the very fine label Plastic Pancake (catalog 008). “Here Comes the Summer” was indeed in the 1994 demo and also the closing song, “1 2 3”. The only “new” song would be “Mathilda Jane” that opened the B side.

There are also a few compilation appearances listed. The song “Can’t We Start Again” was included in the “Summer 93 Hits” tape in that same year. That means the band and this song was already around 1993, prior to the demo. This tape compilation came with a 32 mini-booklet, I wonder if in there there’s any information about the band.

They were to appear too on the tape “Etreinte & Tempo” released by Disco 2000 (discompil 01) and JMS Records in France. The song they had on it was “Perfect Day” and it says on a note that the majority of the bands on this tape were from the Toulouse area. Were Les Poissons Solubles from there? Quite close, they were from Montauban as the Anorak City blog confirms.

Montauban is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies 50 kilometres north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, and the sixth most populated of Occitanie behind Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes, Perpignan and Béziers. In 2013, there were 57,921 inhabitants, called “Montalbanais”. The town has been classified “Ville d’art et d’histoire” (City of art and history) since 2015. The town, built mainly of a reddish brick, stands on the right bank of the Tarn River at its confluence with the Tescou.

Lastly, they had the song “My Small Red Sun” on the tape compilation “Superqualifragilistic” released by Nessie Records (NESS587).

Now, have you heard their songs? The girl/boy vocals that I die for? On Last.fm they are likened to the Fat Tulips, Heavenly and Ruth Miller. I also see that there is a hello to a Nathalie. Was Nathalie the vocalist?

Of course my friend Alex from 7iete Pulgadas wrote about the band when he featured the split flexi with the Snowbirds. Sadly he doesn’t know any other details. I can see some people commenting how good the song “Can’t We Start Again” is, and I can only agree! What a gem of a song!

I can’t find any more information about the band. No band members, no other releases, no other compilation appearances or gigs played. This is a question to my French friends, who were Les Poissons Solubles, and what are they doing now?

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Listen
Les Poissons Solubles – Can’t We Start Again

Three posts in a row, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Two interviews and now featuring new indiepop bands and an old forgotten one. At this pace the Cloudberry Cake book is going to consist of 30 volumes!

Where to start this week? Bandcamp perhaps? Let’s do it. Why not start with the explosive Sharesprings from Indonesia? Wow! They have two new songs on Bandcamp, “Trush!” and “Ivory Tower” and I’m hooked immediately! Wow, how can they make such a racket with their anorak-style pop! Ardhi, Putriani, Rusli and Yehezkiel are on it again. Totally recommendable this digital single. Hope to see this on a physical release and not on a tape!

Swimming Tapes hail from London and they have a new EP out on B3 Records. It is a 12″ titled “Soft Sea Blue” with four songs, “When We Can Hide”, “Alison”, “What’s On Your Mind” and “Queen’s Parade”. I don’t know much about the band so I had to check their previous releases which include a digital EP, “Souvenirs EP”, and a sold out 7″, “Set the Fire/Souvenirs”. The band seems to be playing a bunch of gigs in the coming months at top places like The Lexington and Rough Trade East. What else I know about them? A quick look and I see that they are formed by Robbie Reid, Jason Hawthorne, Louis Price, Paddy Conn and Andrew Evans and they have management.

Speaking of management, I contacted a band last week because I really like their music and of course they directed me to their manager. Maybe in that sense I’m too DIY, I can’t work/deal with management. They have such high expectations, and I feel their priorities are wrong (or at least they don’t coincide with mine). I understand they want to make the band big, huge, but I feel many times they just create obstacles in the way. I don’t know, what is your take on them? For me, in my experience, “trying” to work with someone in the middle, between label and band has always been a hustle. It is like I give a message, then it goes through the manager filter and ends up in the band many times with the message distorted. And it is the same way back. In the years running my label I must admit I have avoided bands with management 100% of the times.

That said, I still love the the music and the bands. Moving on, I continue digging for new sounds and find out about a Phoenix, Arizona, dreampop band called Citrus Clouds. Their last release, “Ultra Sound”, has 7 songs and seems to be only available for streaming. Actually, only two songs you can play, “Ocean Eyes” and the worthy “Life Happens”. The band has been around for some years now, they started in 2014 and they are formed by Erick Pineda, Stacie Huttleston and Angelica Pedrego. Ah! Always nice to see Spanish last names playing indiepop, makes me terribly happy. Oh! and all their previous releases are all streamable.

Unhappybirthday from Germany do sound good. I only discovered them and I see a bunch of my friends are already fans on Facebook. Always late, always late. I’m now listening to their album “Kraken” and it is quite a surprise. There are 7 songs but originally it was released as a 5-track EP on Night-People Records in 2013. This 7 song release is actually out on vinyl, on a 12″ by Wave Tension Records. Now, will there be copies still when I can order it when I move? I feel I’m going to be so poor when I’m at my new place with the many records I need to buy!! I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Maybe I shouldn’t recommend any music so no one of you buys the records before I do?!

Justine Never Knew the Rules is a new band for me as well. They are from Sao Paulo in Brazil and they play some noisy pop. Their latest song is titled “Polar Bear (Hibernation Song)” and is actually great. They seem to have been around for some time, their first release uploaded to Bandcamp is a demo dating from 2013. I should explore the rest of their discography when I have some time, definitely. The band seems to be formed by four friends, Marcel Marques, Maurício Barros, Bruno Fontes and Gabriel Wittemburg. And they are signed to the most important Brazilian label probably? Midsummer Madness.

Even as We Speak, please please don’t sell out your record until I move in two weeks so I can order it. They are promoting the “Black Forest” EP now with a video for the song “Clouds” and it feels timeless. Like if the band never stopped playing. And that’s not all, the band is playing gigs and all. Will they come back to New York? Last year was magic. I hope they do. This record is not to be missed by anyone, me says.

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So we take a plane now from Changi Airport in Singapore and land at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to continue our indiepop world tour.

It must have been around 2005 or 2006 that I heard of Lu for the first time on Myspace. Those were really good years for indiepop, Myspace became one a great tool for finding and connecting with bands (and then releasing them too!).

At that time I was still running Mira el Péndulo, an indiepop blog written in Spanish. We covered bands from all over the world but I always tried to find good indiepop from Latin America and Spain. That was the audience, and also I thought if we introduced these bands to them maybe, just maybe, they will get influenced, inspired, and start their own indiepop bands. I hoped for that.

I can’t recall exactly how I discovered Lu. By chance probably. A lot of times you’d just check out the friends of bands you liked and that way you’d find similar bands. I think it must have been that way. I stumbled on Lu’s Myspace and found two songs that were part of their demo: “Los Poderes de Sandra” and “Los Pulmones de las Nubes”.

I remember loving “Los Poderes de Sandra” very much at that time, and I didn’t waste any time to write about them on my blog. I had no clue who was behind these songs, or if there were any more songs. It was a mystery. Today I can’t recall clearly how “Los Pulmones de las Nubes” sounded like. I think it was an instrumental but I’m not sure. As usual the song doesn’t play on the old, forgotten, Myspace. Actually none of the two songs stream there.

I think that it was thanks to the blog that I got in touch with the person behind the band, Ignacio Aguiló. I believe this was a solo project, kind of a side project to his band Hacia Dos Veranos. This was a proper band, with releases and all. They were an instrumental band but you could see on their jangly tracks many nods to indiepop. They even covered an instrumental of Brittle Stars. But as you know, when it comes to me, I can enjoy a bit some instrumentals, but generally speaking it doesn’t connect with me. I need lyrics. So I was never into them. But it wasn’t a surprise that both bands had Ignacio, you could tell he had a good music palette.

When in touch I think I remember him telling me he had many more Lu songs, that he was going to send them to me for a possible release at Plastilina. That would have been nice. We wanted to support indiepop in Latin America and here was a brilliant sounding band. I never received those tracks and with time we lost touch. I believe Ignacio is now living in the UK and I’m not sure if he is involved with any bands there. He should.

I believe the only proper appearance of Lu was on a CDR titled “Granada 2”. This was a compilation released by Molecula Records in Mexico in the mid 2000s (I couldn’t find the year). On this compilation the band appears with “Los Poderes de Sandra”. I see some other good bands in this compilation like the Spanish Linda Guilala or Nobel.

The band didn’t make a splash and was quickly forgotten. I couldn’t find any information on the web if they ever played live in Buenos Aires. I lost touch with Ignacio long time ago, he was one of the people who say that Facebook is for close friends only, and so I don’t know more about his music. A shame really as I really loved what he was doing with Lu and I always hoped to hear more songs, at least an EP worth of songs. There had been indiepop bands in Argentina but it is hard to find one with the sort of preciousness and fragility that Lu had. In any case, I leave this post for posterity, to make sure people know this beauty of a song existed.

What other Argentinean indiepop bands do you like?

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Listen
Lu – Los Poderes de Sandra

Thanks a thousand to Patrick O’Sullivan for the interview! I wrote about the Irish band So She Said knowing very little a few weeks ago. Somehow Patrick got in touch with me through Twitter and the rest is history. Now at last I learn a bit of the story of the Dublin band that even though didn’t release a proper record released a few songs on compilations. And how good those songs are! If you haven’t heard them before, it is now a good time to discover them!

++ Thanks so much Patrick for the interview! How are you doing? How was the summer? When was the last time you picked up your guitar?

Hello Roque

I’m fine, thank you. The summer was a bit weird – personal stuff – but life is good and I’m enjoying it!

I last picked up my guitar yesterday. I’m writing a song at the moment and I love to pick up the guitar and see how the song has progressed since I last played it. It’s coming along grand.

++ Let’s start from the beginning, what are your first musical memories? What sort of music was heard at home while growing up? What was your first instrument?

First memories…my mother had been a professional singer before she got married so there was always music in the house. I was listening to Andy Williams and Johnny Cash as a young child (and I thought it was great that they enjoyed a surge of popularity years later when I was an adult). When I was 8 we lived in Zambia for a while and I had two cassettes with me – Jim Reeves and Johnny Cash. I got to know every moment of those records. Sometimes we would go to a cabaret in the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka and my sisters and I would sing (separately, not together). I remember singing ‘A Boy Named Sue’, ‘Bimbo’ and others. I thought I was very clever for interchanging words from the songs with the local parlance, so “dollars” became “kwacha”, etc.
But my first ‘wow’ moment was probably when I was about 13 and heard The Beatles and it blew my world apart. I knew then I had to be in a band. Shortly afterwards I was playing out on the road and my next-door neighbour was playing The Kinks in his house and I was mesmerised – the guitar sound and beat and voice – it was like stepping into a totally new world where the rules were all different.
My first and only instrument was the guitar. After that Beatles introduction I bought a guitar off some chap from school for something like £4. It was an awful thing. But I started to teach myself and practice with a friend on the road. I got some lessons but I was mainly self-taught.

++ Before So She Said there was The Delegates. Care telling me a bit about this band? Any recordings? What was the lineup? How did you sound?

The Delegates was more an idea than a real band. I had written a couple of songs and was playing guitar with my friend. Then at 17 my father got me a summer job in Vienna and I was away from my friends and my girlfriend. So I wrote lots of letters and set up a fan club for the band that didn’t really exist. We even got written about in some music fanzine! We did have a couple of public performances – at my sister’s wedding and another time in our old school. I got back to Dublin and started writing more and more songs and then I formed So She Said with Anto Healy and Brian King. And now I was in a real band!

++ Aside from So She Said and The Delegates, had you been involved with any other bands?

No. Although I’ve been recording some of my songs in recent times with a variety of musicians and for the moment I am calling that loose collective The Stuts.

++ How was Dublin back then? What were your usual hangouts? Your favourite venues to go see bands? Were there any like-minded bands that you were friends with?

Dublin was home and it was great. But when I look back on it the city was extremely quiet compared to nowadays. I grew up on Cedarwood Road, the same road as Bono, Gavin Friday, and Gugi. Bono obviously was in U2, while Gavin Friday and Guggi were in The Virgin Prunes. Around the corner, Alan Downey was in Aslan. It was amazing really ‘cause this was just one road on Dublin’s northside. There were bands everywhere. There were three or four bands among my friends. I don’t recall too much about Bono but I clearly remember seeing Fionan Hanvey (Gavin Friday) walk up the road in a dress and I was … amazed! And to me Derek Rowan (Guggi) and his brothers were the long-haired lads near the shops with the motorbikes. But they always seemed friendly!
The place I remember most about going to see bands was The Baggot Inn. That was quite a legendary venue on the Dublin circuit. And the band of the moment was The Blades. Watching them live in The Baggot was an experience. But you were brought back to earth by the rush for the last bus from O’Connell Street, which was more than a mile away and left at 11.30pm sharp (the idea of a taxi didn’t even enter our heads).

++ How did the band start? How did you all know each other?

I can’t remember exactly how it started but I know that I was completely intent on starting a band. I met Anto through my girlfriend and we got on well.
About the same time, some mod bloke from the club we used to frequent (Bubbles) decided to try starting a band; the result was a room full of people, mostly standing around looking at us, in a rehearsal studio called Furlongs on Capel Street in Dublin. I can’t remember how I came to be there (‘cause I didn’t know these people) but I was there and so was Anto. He played guitar, but at some point in the session he was messing on the drum kit, playing ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’ by The Jam. I was impressed and asked him to join my non-existent band as drummer, despite the fact that he had no kit and could just about play.
I think I then persuaded one of my school friends, Brian King, to play bass. Anto got us cheap rehearsal space above Walton’s, the famous music shop in Dublin, and we were off.

++ Why the name So She Said? What’s the story behind it?

It was the title of one of our songs. I suggested it to the lads one Saturday afternoon after band practice, in a pub on Parnell Street called The Ivy Rooms.

++ And what would you say were the influences in the band?

Initially Anto and I had similar influences I would say – The Jam, The Beatles, Style Council, The Blades, a lot of 60s RnB. Brian’s taste was probably funkier but he also liked heavy rock and metal. I got more into bands like Prefab Sprout, The Smiths and Elvis Costello as I began to write more.

++ How was the creative process for the band?

I wrote the songs. I brought them into the rehearsal room and played them for the other two. I was probably a bit of a control freak about the arrangements as well.

++ Two songs of yours, “So Happy” and “Let Me Out” appeared on the compilation “Swimming Out of the Pool” on the Danceline label. How did you end up there? Were you familiar the rest of the bands on the compilation?

I think that was organised by two music aficionados who were well known on the Dublin music scene – Pete The Roz and Steady Eddie! They just asked me if we’d like to go on the record. We were gigging around town at the time and had probably been in a newspaper or two.
I think I knew a couple of the bands. I think I knew The Outpatients, just from playing the same venues.

++ And what do you remember from the recording session for those songs?

I remember the excitement of going to the studio on a Sunday morning in March. I remember being very impressed with the fact that the sound engineer had worked on U2’s albums. I remember him getting us to play acoustic guitar under the electric guitar and thinking that was very clever.

++ “At Home in June” was a song that won the Hot Press/Murphy’s song of the month in 1989. What did that mean? What was the prize?

I’m not quire sure of the sequencing but I remember Hot Press beginning to take an interest in what we were doing. Hot Press was the only music magazine in Ireland and was read by every musician and fan so it was great to have them on your side. I remember the general manager of Hot Press, Jackie Hayden, coming to the studio to sit in on the session when we were mixing ‘At Home In June’. I know the prize included some art work by the Hot Press graphics designer for our record/cassette. Arthur Matthews was the designer from Hot Press. He later went on to find fame and fortune as the co-writer of the comedy series Father Ted. We may have been interviewed by the magazine. I really can’t remember what else we got apart from the publicity.

++ Those are the 3 recordings of yours I know. Were there any more? Maybe some demo tapes?

Yeah there were a few more demos but I wasn’t very happy with them. In fact one of them – ‘Lost And Found’ – is one of my favourite songs from the era but I really wasn’t happy with what happened to it in the studio. I think I’ll rerecord it some day.

++ I really like those 3 songs, was wondering if perhaps in a sentence or two, you could tell me what they are about?

‘So Happy’ – being a teenager in Dublin at that time.
‘Let Me Out’ – An early foray into writing a love song.
‘At Home In June’ – this song chronicles a sort of mini break down I had. When I listen to it it’s like watching a movie of my falling into a ditch and then scraping and crawling to get back out. Something strange happened in the writing of that song, something I hadn’t felt up until then. I was losing all control and it terrified me. I was being physically sick – and these words just spewed out of me. The music too…it was different to what I had written before. I’m quite proud of that one!

++ And from your whole repertoire, which would be your favourite song and why?

I think most songwriters will give you a different answer depending on what they most recently worked on. I have a soft spot for ‘So Happy’ and I think my writing went up a notch with ‘At Home In June’. The song I’ve just recorded recently with Anto pleases me a lot – ‘Come And Go’. I wrote a song for my little girl – ‘Carry Me’. There’s another one ‘Eternity’…there are a lot of songs in the repertoire at this stage and thankfully I have a small place in my heart for most of them.

++ Was there any interest from Danceline to release you? What about other labels? I find it strange that you didn’t get to release a proper record!

I don’t know if Danceline were into releasing bands on their own. I think they were just there to give bands some exposure. No, there was no activity from other labels. I think there may have been an enquiry from a publishing company at one stage but nothing that ever went anywhere. I suppose the fact that there were so many bands in Dublin at the time meant it was hard to really stand out. I don’t know. But also, we broke up right after we had made a bit of a breakthrough with Hot Press – song of the month – finalists in the national band of the year, etc. In hindsight that wasn’t a clever move!

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? What were your favourites?

We played a lot of gigs, mostly in Dublin. We seemed to revolve between three venues in particular – The Baggot Inn, The Underground and The Earl Grattan. But we played everywhere we could. I loved the residencies we had in those venues. But there were two gigs that really stand out in my memory – both in Dublin City University (DCU).
The first was RAG week when basically lots of events are planned and all the students party for the week. We were due to play at lunchtime, open air, outside the canteen. We set up and started and all the cool students were standing around and there was a bit of toe tapping going on. And then it started to snow. And my girlfriend and manager (now my wife) and a friend of ours started to dance. And then a few others joined them…and the snow came down heavier. More and more people started dancing and the snow fell down and the buzz grew and eventually they had to stop the gig ’cause it was getting dangerous with the snow and none of the audience, which had grown considerably by now, wanted it to stop.

The second was in a lecture theatre the night DCU was granted university status. We came on and I strummed the first chord and the place erupted. That was a pretty special gig.

++ Were there any bad gigs? Or any fun anecdotes you could share?

Some student threw sandwiches at us in another college one time ‘cause we wouldn’t play Bohemian Rhapsody! Our roadie threw them straight back. It could have got interesting but instead it was very civilised (it was a teacher training college).
There was one 24 hour period that sums up the highs and lows in an interesting way: we played in Sir Henry’s in Cork as part of the Hot Press Band of the Year gig. It was really cool to play in such a well known venue outside of Dublin and we had a ball – partying afterwards, etc. I don’t remember getting to bed or even where we stayed but I do know that very early the next morning I flew back to Dublin and got a taxi directly from the airport to sit my college exams. And when I got there the exam hall was empty – I was in the wrong place! I made it to the exam eventually but don’t think I did terribly well!!

++ Did you get much attention from the music press or the radio?

As I said, Hot Press were on to us and we were interviewed in one of the national Sunday papers and had some other bits and pieces in the press. We were played on national radio a little bit.
Actually, you’ve just reminded me, ‘So Happy’ was played on the radio recently – the national station was having some vinyl slot on one of the talk programmes and my wife was a guest with that Danceline record under her arm! And a local radio station on Dublin’s northside interviewed me a while back – the subject of that conversation was my playwrighting but they also played ‘So Happy’ and two other songs of mine (‘Eternity’ and ‘Kids Can Crawl’).

++ When and why did you split? What did you do afterwards? Did you continue making music?

We split in 1989 I think. I’m not quite sure of the exact date – probably at the end of the summer of 1989. Just after we were beginning to get attention!

I recall this row erupting out of nowhere and suddenly the band was no more. Basically Anto was unhappy. There was a lot going on in his life but at the time I didn’t understand it. To be honest I think I was shocked or traumatised or something. I stopped writing songs for a few years. Well, except for one children’s song I wrote for a pantomime (which starred the girls who went on to form the girl band B*Witched – they were very young at the time but really liked the song and asked me all about it a few times – it was called ‘Two Friends’).

I was having a pint with Anto recently and we got talking about the split and it turns out that there was a lot of stuff going on for him at the time that I wasn’t aware of – personal stuff – and it came to the surface and was the chief cause of the band splitting. But that’s life. Our recent chat was very therapeutic. We’re recording music together again and it’s great.

++ And today, what are you up to? Are you all still in touch? Speaking of which, I found a Soundcloud for Anto Healy’s project Cabin, is that the same Anto?

I am writing songs and am recording with Anto again. He has a recording studio and is an excellent musician. I am also writing plays and had a short play tour nationally last year. I’ve been mentored by Fishamble Theatre Company which is Ireland’s new playwrighting company. Through my playwrighting I have been approached by one or two film directors and am currently writing a feature film with a really talented director/actor TJ O’Grady Peyton. I am also working on a short film adaptation of my play Fairview’s Finest Dancer with director Keith Farrell. Another short screenplay of mine is due to be produced this coming winter in Dublin. So creatively I’m busy and happy.
Yes that Soundcloud Cabin link is indeed by the same Anto Healy!
And yes I still see Brian as well – in fact I was just out with him tonight for a pint. We were trying to get tickets fro the All-Ireland Football Final this Sunday (go on the Dubs!!). Brian got one, I didn’t!

++ Aside from music, any other hobbies you have?

Aside from all the creative stuff I love traveling with my family (back to Vietnam for the sixth or seventh time next summer), I’ve walked across Ireland with my dad and other members of the wider family, and I follow the Dubs (Gaelic football and hurling)!

++ Looking back in time, what would you say was the highlight of being in So She Said?

Filling dancefloors.
Sitting back the first time we recorded in a studio (which happened to be ‘So Happy’) and thinking “Wow”.
Sitting back listening to ‘At Home in June’ and thinking “Wow”.

++ Are you still based in Dublin? Has it changed much since then? What would you recommend doing, seeing, eating, drinking, if one was to visit your city?

Yes I’m still in Dublin. I live in Fairview which is only 2km from the city centre. I love living here. It is unrecognisably more cosmopolitan than when I was growing up on Cedarwood Road. One example that comes to mind when speaking about the band is this: we used to rehearse in Temple Bar Studios and one night I remember going to a quiet little pub around the corner with Anto and Brian after rehearsal to watch a football match. Nowadays Temple Bar Studios is like some sort of music Mecca and the little pub around the corner is the Temple Bar and packed every opening hour with tourists.
But despite that anecdote it is a great place to visit. Things to do: walk the hill of Howth, drink Guinness in a real drinker’s pub (not a tourist trap), sit in the back room of The Palace Bar on Fleet Street, go for a hike in the Dublin Mountains, go for drinks, food, music in the Camden Street area, go to a play in the Gate Theatre. And give me a shout and I’ll guide you though any or all of the above!

++ Thanks again, anything else you’d like to add?

Pleasure talking to you Roque. I will send you a link to ‘Come And Go’ very shortly – we’re just mixing it at the moment. More info can be found at www.mentalmagpie.com and on Twitter @OSuilleabhainP

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Listen
So She Said – So Happy