As promised this week I’ll check out the San Francisco Popfest bands that are new to me, next week I’ll check Lima Popfest’s. It’s definitely a good thing that these festivals, all of them, including Indietracks, are digging new bands for me to listen. Even though most of the times, honestly, they are not of my liking, far far away from my taste, I never feel disappointed. And that’s because I always think the next band I’ll discover will be amazing. Just like that one time that Glasgow Popfest had booked the then unknown Spook School, who I immediately fell in love with.

San Francisco Popfest is happening in June for three days, on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of that month. That’s Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The venues are Hemlock Tavern, Brick and Mortar and The Knockout. I can’t say if these are good or bad venues, I haven’t been in San Fran since 1994. I was a kid back then.

On Friday I know most of the bands, the one I don’t is The Dyson Spheres. Sadly I couldn’t find a Bandcamp or a Soundcloud for them. Maybe they have something else where I can listen to their songs?

Then on Saturday we have The Shivas, who happen to be from Oregon, Portland. There’s a lot of releases on their Bandcamp and they are thrown into the garage/surf rock genre basket. They have releases on the once upon a time good label K Records. As I’m doing a quick listen, just to get the gist of what sort of music they make, I go straight to their latest release, dating from February 2016 and called “Better Off Dead”. And even though I don’t hate this, I just don’t like it. Kind of folky, and slow tempo. I don’t see the pop in this band, so time to check the next one.

Another band that plays the same show at Brick and Mortar is Emotional. They hail from San Francisco and also have a bunch of releases under their belt. I check out their latest called “Ahh the Name is Emotional” released in March this year. It’s not strictly my style again, but at least this is pop music, and to be fair it doesn’t feel alien in a Popfest. I wonder what makes it pop but not indiepop. My theory more mainstream influences. What’s yours?

The last band on that Saturday show is Smoke Screens. From LA. And to my surprise when I hit on the play button some jangly and chirping guitars start sounding. Oh! This is a discovery. Sounds good!! Proper indiepop that actually reminds me of so many CDR bands from Sweden circa 2003. Lo-fi and charming, Smoke Screens have 3 songs on Bandcamp, “Out of Time”, “Vanity” and “The Bar”. These were released (I assume just digitally) on August 2015. It seems this is just the solo project by  Chris Rosi and recorded with the help of his friends.

I think I might have heard the name Burnt Palms before. But as I live under a rock when it comes to a lot of music, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’m listening to them. I have the idea that they are quite popular. Am I right? I check their latest release, a limited 12″ titled “Back on My Wall”. It actually sounds good. The song “Fold” surprises me as it sounds to a bunch of American indiepop bands from the 90s. And that’s a good thing in my book. The Seaside, California, band make fuzzy pop, straight to the point. And it works.

Horrible/Adorable, is the last band I check out. They are 2 girls from Oakland, California. And Popfest keeps getting better. After two first bands that weren’t that exciting, the last three are strong, including Horrible/Adorable. I check out their bandcamp and their song 37th Street starts playing. It’s sugary and fun. They list a bunch of genres on their bandcamp which is a bit confusing, as I don’t see any noise for example in their sound! On this, their latest release called “Lookin’ Healthy” they have 4 songs, the aforementioned “37th Street”, “DMV Dream”, “You Suck!” and “Hail Sk8tn'”. All of them are really nice, though my favourite is “DMV Dream”, with kinda All Girl Summer Fun Band lyrics.

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The Apache are culturally related Native American tribes from the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. These indigenous peoples of North America speak Southern Athabaskan languages, which are related linguistically to Athabaskan languages in Alaska and western Canada.Apache people traditionally have lived in Eastern Arizona, Northern Mexico (Sonora and Chihuahua), New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern Colorado. Apacheria, their collective homelands, consists of high mountains, sheltered and watered valleys, deep canyons, deserts, and the southern Great Plains. The Apache tribes fought the invading Spanish and Mexican peoples for centuries. The first Apache raids on Sonora appear to have taken place during the late 17th century. In 19th-century confrontations during the American- Indian war of ethnic cleansing, the U.S. Army found the Apache to be fierce warriors and skillful strategists.Apache groups are politically autonomous. The major groups speak several different languages and developed distinct and competitive cultures. The current post-colonial division of Apache groups includes Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Plains Apache (also known as the Kiowa-Apache). Apache groups live in Oklahoma and Texas and on reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. Apache people have moved throughout the United States and elsewhere, including urban centers.

I heard The Ferocious Apaches a long time ago, thanks to a rip from the “Are You Ready?” tape that I probably got from Soulseek. A classic indiepop compilation that included 20 songs from the likes of well known bands like The Pale Saints, The McTells, The Driscolls, The Haywains, Strawberry Story, Big Red Bus, The Mayfields and more. There were a few not very known bands in there, like The Lowthers or The Pilgrims (which have been featured in the blog). It was released in 1987 on Windmill Records with no catalog number. Who ran Windmill Records by the way?

On this tape The Ferocious Apaches appeared with a gem of a song called “Golden”. It was just a few weeks ago that I reconnected with it thanks to Heinz. He had uploaded the song to Youtube and well, I started wondering what about this band, it looks and sounds very obscure.

It turns out there’s actually some information about them online. Strange for a band that didn’t leave much recorded output as far as I know. I honestly have only heard this one song. The thing is that the always amazing Tamworth Music website has a lot of facts about this band and I will try to get you the basics.

The Ferocious Apaches were:
Rob Cross – guitar
John Hodgkiss – lead vocals
Mark Hynds – drums
Bob – bass

No last name for Bob the bassist. And Rob Cross had been in a couple of bands like Herb Garden, Big Muff, Liberty Caps, The Hamilton Hammond and Extension. Actually the Liberty Caps appear also on the “Are You Ready?” tape.

There’s a gig listed from February 1988, at the Sonic Noise Happening show at the Tamworth Arts Centre. They played along Emma Gibbs Loves Badges (another band that I’ve written about and interviewed), Ruby Blaze, The Outside, Flowers in the Attic and The Eppies.

Rob Cross has written some memories of those days, from 86 to 87, about his time in the band. He mentions him and Mark being very influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Pastels, The Shop Assistants and The June Brides. They met John through Mark’s art school connections.

They recorded songs at Expresso Bongo studios. How many? It’s not mentioned. Were these songs released on a tape? I wonder. They had been receiving some sort of patronage from Ian Gibbons who owned the Rathole, a venue were the band was able to book bands, design posters, DJ and use it’s photocopy machine to make their own fanzines. Sounds like they were having a good time.

At the end of the band’s life they seem to have done another recording session but there are no more details.

Checking clippings from the Tamworth Herald, I notice that the band played with The Rosehips, yes the fucking Rosehips!, in 1987. Wonder if Rocker or Pete remember them. Emma Gibbs Loves Badges were also on the bill.  There’s another gig from 87 when they played along The Searching and The Filipinos.

And finally, Ferocious Apaches. The band were absolutely brilliant. For me they can’t do a thing wrong, their music is so full of youth, enthusiasm and arrogance and other important punk ideals, which seem to have been forgotten in a fashionable haze of studded leather and spiky hair. The anarchic aura that shines from them clearly proves that these are people who, even though they were only eight or nine years old at the time, were there in 1977.

So says a clipping from the Tamworth Herald. I wish I had been at one of their gigs. I’m just so very curious how their other songs sounded like. And I’m also wondering why they never released anything! They seem to have been quite popular, at least in their town!

More gigs, now from 1988 we know they played with The Believers, Emma Gibbs again and Psychedelicatessen. What a name of this last band.

The last bit of information I found is a poll from 1987 where the band gets the 10th place on the”What’s Your Favourite Local Band?” question. On the first place is Dance Stance who I don’t knowwho they are. Fetch Eddie (also covered in the blog) appear on 8th place.

I wonder what happened to the members of the band after the demise of The Ferocious Apaches. It seems they played shows together with Herb Garden, Rob Cross’ other band, by they end of their time as a band. But were they involved with other bands after? What are they doing now? There are so many questions left to be answered. Do any of you remember them?

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Listen
The Ferocious Apaches – Golden

It’s becoming a busy week this one. I didn’t actually have a weekend either, so I’m bit swamped with things to do for work, for home, for the label, and so on. So this may be a small post, a bit shorter than usual. Let’s see how it goes.

The best part of last week was definitely seeing the BMX Bandits after 10 years. They played at Sidewalk Cafe, a very odd and random place where they don’t charge you cover, but they pass a basket, just like in church, to give your donations. Duglas and Chloe were joined by three New Yorkers and, even though the drumkit didnt have a hi-hat, the show was fun and lovely. Duglas is such a showman. Lots of laughs and a good time. They played many of the classics and I even took a photo with Duglas at the end. Such a fan. He even remembered that I went to the show ten years ago with another Peruvian friend. That was really awesome. He then played the next day at Cake Shop and I believe he plays today at Shea Stadium. Sadly I didn’t attend the Cake Shop gig and won’t be able to make it today. But if you can, do it. Worth it!!

The most important announcement is that I’m already working on a new 7″ by Swedish band Stephen’s Shore. They are jangly and brilliant. I fell in love immediately with the sound of their guitars, chiming and chiming. I thought no one was making this music anymore, but was very lucky to find them thanks to my friend Henrik who pointed them to me. Right now the idea is to include four songs on the 7″, on the A side we will have “Ocean Blue” and “If You” and on the B side, “Turn Your Head” and “Let’s Go Home”. The artwork is being created at the moment by Fabio Consoli, all the way from Sicily, Italy. Very very excited about this!! Hopefully there will be more news about the release date and on the website as soon as the artwork is done. Songs are ready!

Now as promised a small review of all the “new” bands for me that are playing Indietracks, always in the hope of finding some hidden treasures. As I listen to the bands I write the post, so it’s all first impressions here.

Nervous Twitch: a four piece from Yorkshire that have released two albums on Odd Box Records as well as some 7″ singles. On the biography I read they are likened to The Ramones, Au Pairs, Talulah Gosh, Blondie and Thee Headchoats. Right now I listen to the first thing that shows up on Bandcamp and that’s a limited edition cassette called “Don’t Take My TV”. Not really indiepop, as it seems to become a trend with all the bands I already reviewed last week, and more of a garage band. Rock and roll, some punk thrown in there, and some hooks here and there. It’s not bad, I enjoy some songs, but definitely not the kind of band that would make me want to go to a pop festival.

Lorna: a dream pop from Nottingham. And it seems they have released 5 albums already. Maybe they are well known but it’s really the first time I hear them. On bandcamp they have the Snowlights EP. The first two songs are quite nice but the third one is really not my style, a bit too slow. I’m not crazy for slow tempo bands at festivals, it gets a bit tedious because you are watching a band after another for so many hours, so you want some energy coming from the songs you know. Perhaps they have energetic songs on their other releases, that I don’t know. In that case it would be a good idea to check this band at the festival, it could be a nice surprise. For sure much better than many of the “new” bands I’ve been discovering.

Charla Fantasma: I think they have a very good name so I had big expectations. The songs are just straight garage. No frills. It’s what it is. But where’s the indiepop among all the screams and shouts? One wonders.

Chrissy Barnacle:  A singer songwriter from Glasgow. I usually shiver when I read the title “singer-songwriter” but as she comes from Glasgow, land of so many indiepop heroes, well, who wouldn’t give a chance? I listen to the one song on Bandcamp called “Witches” and I find out this is too folky for me. I try other releases on her site but it’s all the same, sometimes more upbeat and it gets a bit better, but still. I assume she’ll play at the church, but then again, where’s the indiepop?

Boys Forever: This is a project by Patrick Doyle from Veronica Falls. I check their one single they have streaming on Bandcamp. It’s called “Poisonous”. The B side is a cover of Kirsty MacColl’s “They Don’t Know”. So far these are the best songs I hear on this recap. Their big merit for me is to be indiepop among the no pop bands that seem to abound. That is already saying a lot.

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I decided to check again the compilation “Disparate Cogscienti”. I talked about this compilation a long time ago when I introduced you to the band The Lowthers. But let’s remember some facts about this compilation first. It came out in 1987 and was released by the Cog Sinister label. Mark E. Smith from The Fall ran this label.

From that old post of mine I wrote this:
The first appearance of the Cog Sinister label was in 1987 when The Fall used it as the imprint for their self-released anthology album “Palace Of Swords Reversed”. The imprint returned in 1990 when the band signed to Fontana and used Cog Sinister as a vanity label for their releases. When they moved from Fontana to Permanent Records, they continued to use the Cog Sinister brand on their releases. Since leaving Permanent in 1995, The Fall no longer used Cog Sinister on their new material. However, since 1997, the imprint has become part of the Voiceprint label group, and is being used for reissues of the group’s back-catalogue.

“The Disparate Cogscienti” was the second release on the label and it includes another gem, Beatrice’s “A Girl Like Me”. So I do recommend getting it, as I listened Jessel’s recommendation once, that time he took me to a – secret, secret – to find so many great records in what may be the best record shopping experience I’ve ever had. That day I picked up this fabulous black, white and yellow sleeve from one of the racks, after my good friend asked me if I knew about it. Of course I didn’t. He said it was worth it for the Beatrice song. Though he did mention that The Lowther’s song was quite good. And good it is. And the compilation is worth getting for The Lowthers song too I say. On Discogs at the moment there’s a copy for 4.99 euros if you are interested. I say get it.

Well, today I see a copy for around $7 dollars. Still a good price. Today though I want to talk about that song I mentioned back then. That song by Beatrice titled “A Girl Like Me”.

About this song and about this band there’s really nothing online. I have googled in so many ways and combinations, name of the band, name of the song, band members and all. But I couldn’t find anything.

I do know the band members as they are listed on the back cover:
Lisa Feder – guitar
Gina Harrel – vocals
Genji & Alec – drums

It’s stated that the song was recorded in 1986 and there’s a cool motto next to the band lineup that says: “Flying the flag for free and fanciful females”.

An all-girl band then? I would guess so. On the front cover of the compilation, where there are photos by each band in black and white, for Beatrice we see two girls. To my surprise the band name on the photo is just not Beatrice but it says Beatrice NYC. Does this mean that they hailed from here, from right here? I would guess that’s the case. This definitely adds more to the mystery.

Was there an indiepop band in NYC at that time, even better, an all girl feminist indiepop band in NYC in 1986, recording such gems as “A Girl Like Me”. It’s just amazing. I wonder what happened to them, if they recorded more songs, how their song ended up in a compilation in England, were they involved in other bands? So many questions, and so little answers on the web. Hopefully someone could help!

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Listen
Beatrice – A Girl Like Me

April at last. It’s been around a year since I did for the first time the Cloudberry podcast and I’m actually thinking about doing it again. See how it goes. While in France my friends insisted that I should record the podcast again. It definitely is a good idea. But then at the end it all depends on whoever helps me put all the tracks together. Thomas from Pale Spectres has offered. As soon as there are more news I’ll let you know.

Next week I will announce our next 7″. And I’m very excited about it. It’s a band you’ve probably never heard before, but it’s jangle heaven hailing from Sweden. It will include four songs. That’s all I can give you at the moment!

I did promise last week that I was going to check many of the bands that I haven’t heard ever from the lineup of Indietracks. So I’ll do that. But before it’s important to know that this year San Francisco Popfest returns. It’s happening on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of June. You can check the event here. Many bands I’ve never heard are playing so I’ll do a review sometime soon. We do have some time! Also Lima Popfest is around the corner (April 30th), and I’ll do a review of their bands next week. It looks like a fine year for indiepop so far with all these festivals!

So I start in no particular order:

Two White Cranes: I like Joanna Gruesome quite a bit even though some friends of mine can’t stand them. Too nineties they tell me. I find them fresh and exciting. Two White Cranes is the project of Roxy Brennan from Joanna Gruesome. She is also part of Grubs (whose flexi was amazing). On Bandcamp there’s a CD for sale called “Radisson Blue”. I’m skimming through the songs. Definitely not Grubs or Joanna Gruesome. This is a solo project. Guitar,vocals, some drums. Very personal songs, and for sure there’s a good vibe in the songs, but I don’t fall head over heels for them. I miss the jangle and the pop hooks.

Songs For Walter: From Manchester and with an album already in their pockets. The same name album includes a bunch of songs and it’s been released on vinyl and CD and you can buy it from their Bandcamp. This is folk-pop. As you may know from the blog, I’m usually not a fan of folk-pop as it tends to be awfully boring. Songs for Walter is a bit better than that to my surprise. Laurie Hulme, the guy behind this project, crafts nice and melodious tunes, making sweet music. I couldn’t listen 5 of their songs in a row as it gets a bit too sugary, but if you were to find one of their songs on a compilation, I think it would be a delight, an actual highlight.

Seazoo: I’m listening to their newest single, “Telephone Jones”. There’s even a video for it. They’ve been showcased in a bunch of radio shows throughout the UK. They come from Wales and have released the “Ken” and “Car Deborah” EPs. It’s pop with indierock leanings, with solid songs but nothing new to say “wow”. It’s good though and enjoyable.

Prizefighter: Band from Derby, very close to Indietracks grounds. There are two songs on their bandcamp.
“There is a Light” and “Ghosts”. They date from 2014. Not sure if they have anything else new. Shambolic indierock would be my first thought. Not crazy for their songs, the A side being much much better than the B side that has this drone sound on the background that is really hard on my ears.

Maggie8: I’m very confused by this band. For sure this is not indiepop and doubt anyone would say I’m wrong by saying that. There’s a very eclectic mix of influences here. I read someone comment saying that it’s a mix of indiepop and South Asian music. I don’t see the indiepop part though. The strange thing is that this actually works. It sounds interesting and all. I’m not disliking it, and I would even argue that if they tried they could become a bona fide hipster band, and play often in Williamsburg. It has that appeal. This Leeds band formed by Mark Wright and Nivedita Pisharoty is not an anomaly at Indietracks (there’s been odd bands playing there before), but is perhaps the riskier sounding band I’ve seen them book.

So there are 5 or 6 more bands I’m not familiar with, but I’ll save them for another post. But how do you like these first bunch of bands? Anyone you don’t want to miss? Are they making you book a ticket to the UK? I won’t be going this year, but as always will miss seeing friends, which I think, is the beauty of Indietracks.

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The Ryecatchers. I believe they hailed from somewhere in London. There’s not much written online sadly and it’s a bit hard to get any information from this band that was around in the late 80s, possibly between 86 to 89.

They released just one demo tape, recorded for Capitol Records. Then I find 4 songs on Youtube. “Apron Strings“, “Frozen White Rain“, “Where I’ve Already Waded” and “Flowers“. I can confirm that at least “Apron Strings” and “Flowers” appeared on that demo tape. I remember them from the time of Myspace. That’s when I first heard about them. Their cool haircuts and their obscurity were something I never forgot. I actually even thought I had already covered them on the blog, but it seems not! Well it’s never too late.

Going back to their Myspace I check that they have many more songs. But as it’s Myspace maybe half of them only play. The songs on Myspace are: “Frozen White Rain (4-track home demo)”, “Release Me (4-track home demo)”, “Don’t Even Try”, “Killing Horses”, “Butterfly Riot (4-track home demo)”, “The Worm and the Bird”, “Frozen White Rain”, “Mystery Prize”, “Where I’ve Already Waded”, “Flowers”, “Your Screaming”, “Apron Strings”, “Deeper”, “Butterfly Riot”, “I Get Confused”. The quality of the songs seem to vary. “Your Screaming” is definitely a favorite, check it out.

On one of the Youtube videos we find the lineup of the band:
Nick Evans – vocals and guitar
Jason Poland – vocals and guitar
Jim Allison – bass
Richard Deacon – drums

I actually end up finding Jason Poland’s Youtube account and there’s a solo performance, him and his guitar, possibly recorded at home in 2009, of the song “Frozen White Rain“.

The video for “Frozen White Rain” actually includes a lot of photos and press clippings. There’s a clipping written by Simon Williams were he says that “The frets clamber over each other, two guitars grating and mating like hedgehogs in Ecstasy”. What a description! He likens them to The Jesus and Mary Chain, though I think The Ryecatchers are less noisy, more jangly. He also describes them as “prime candidates for fanzine activity, all polka dots and polo necks”.

On a clipping found on their Myspace Nicholas says that he doesn’t understand the comparisons to the Jesus and Mary Chain. We also learn from that clipping that their demo included 6 tracks and was recirded un Brixton. Here Capitol Records is written Kapitol Records. We learn that at least they played twice at Portsmouth Poly, once as a support slot to Spaceman 3. That they also played at The Rock Garden in Covent Garden, The Sir George Roby and at Hype at the iconic The Bull and Gate in Kentish Town.

Of course that’s all I could find online. There’s very little. It seems they had a bit of a hype when they were around but sadly that didn’t translate into a proper record. I wonder which were the songs included in that demo. What happened to them afterwards, and if they actually released anything, perhaps on a compilation. Does anyone out there remember them?

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Listen
The Ryecatchers – Apron Strings

Back now from France, from vacations, from castles and bakeries, from boulevards and gorgeous cathedrals, from museums filled by impressionists and  supermarkets with quality wine. Back to the Big Apple then since yesterday night. With jet lag. Tired. Exhausted but having having had such a good experience in France that I can’t wait to return.

I didn’t get around to see any indiepop bands. I did see many of my good friends living there, the Pale Spectres, Alpaca Sports, Cristina Quesada, Carlos from Eva & John, Yves from Hands and Arms, Jennifer and Miguel who came from England, and Joanny from Another Sunny Night. I bought two 7″s by Les Autres almost before leaving. I got the new CD from Pale Spectres that they have made for their tour around Paris, Nantes and Rennes this week. But that was it. I only visited one record store and it was just a chance encounter. I didn’t even plan to go record shopping. Quite terrible from an indiepop lover, but I was already so thrilled by all the castles, the châteaus, I saw.

Now it’s time then to start working on the label again, on the new releases. I’m still hopeful that any day now I’ll receive the Pale Spectres masters from Spain. There is also a 7″ by a Swedish band that I will announce very soon. We are just trying to figure out the artwork and then we are go. It should be a 4 song EP of pure jangle bliss.

I should start working on the new fanzine. I know, I’ve been saying that for some time. But I should do now. There’s many things I want to do and so little time! But at least I try to blog once a week. I actually missed blogging last week.

The Twee.net poll seems to be still open. I guess Peter is busy traveling and haven’t had the chance to count the votes.

Some good news I saw today was that My Light Shines For You have published their first video ever. It’s for the song “Why?“. I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s very “Heavenly”.

Also do listen the latest from Lost Tapes. “Girls“, it’s a beautiful slice of indiepop. I have received all their new recordings their other day, for the album they will be putting out on Mushroom Pillow later this year, but I haven’t had the chance yet to listen to it. But if it’s anything like this, then it’s definitely a cracker.

Maybe I’m missing some other news! Did I mention that Sunny Summer Day from Indonesia, our Cloudberry friends, will be playing NYC Popfest this year too? Maybe I did! I feel like being away two weeks I have lost track of most of the news! But next week I think I’ll be up to date with everything that’s going on. Hopefully do a review too of all the new unknown bands I’ve seen on the Indietracks lineup. Maybe there’s a surprise there!

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I arrived around 9pm yesterday at home. From Charles de Gaulle airport, a stop in Keflavik airport. Then the line of immigration, the airtrain, and then the subway on the E, to the street and then to the N. Waiting for me at my mailbox at home was a record I’ve been hunting for a long time. And when I finally saw it at a decent price on eBay, I bidded right away. I never thought though that I was going to be lucky enough that I ended up being the only bidder!

Released on their own Sticky Label (Sticky 001), Fetch Eddie’s one and only 7” included two songs: on the A side we had “He’ll Love You Till You’re Pregnant” and on the B side “Too Much to Ask For”. It was 1987 and indiepop was in perhaps it’s best moment ever.

From the back sleeve we know that Fetch Eddie was Pod on vocals, Aaron James on lead guitar and vocals, Lucy Lloyd on bass, guitar and vocals and Johnny Rimshot on drums.

The 7″ was produced at TVM by Mike and the band. The design and the cool drawings on the artwork were done by mini cine. That’s what we find on the back sleeve, but on the labels the production credits are for Good Fortune. From the labels we find out that Pod  was actually a P. O’Donnell. Not sure what his first name is.

This is definitely a great single if you can find it. Upbeat, a bit punky even, but all so catchy! If you ever see it, get it. I see there’s a copy available now on Discogs (though a bit pricey!).

I keep digging and I end up in a website I’ve visited many times before: Tamworth Bands.

It was on that page that I found out about so many bands like Bash Out the Odd, Space Seeds, Great Express or Emma Gibbs Loves Badges. What I find though there is that the band, after releasing this single changed their name to Fetch Eddie The Baby’s Gone Blue. Or was this their real long name since the start?

The photo on the Tamworth band would suggest they changed their name as I can’t see a girl, a Lucy in it. Also only two band members seem to be listed. Pod and Aaron. But then, a clip from the Tamworth Herald says:
Plumbing Eddie’s Depths
A NEW BAND, sporting the name ‘Fetch Eddie The Baby’s Gone Blue’ made their first demo on Saturday and we hope to look at them in more detail shortly. Among their tasteful numbers is one called “He’ll Love You ‘Til You’re Pregnant”. Lovely.

So I am almost 100% sure the long name was their original name now.

There’s a gig list too, and it seems they played many many times with Emma Gibbs Loves Badges. The only other band I know they played with were The Wonderstuff.

Other songs listed from Tamworth clippings are “Memories”, “Disguises”, “Mean Tin O Beans”, “Keep on Running”, “No Good For Love”, “It’s Your Turn”, “Teachers Lemonette” and “Steamroller”.

We also learn that they worked on a demo for CBS. Don’t know what happened with it. I believe it’s the one called “Mean Tin O’ Beans” and there’s a review from Tamworth Herald:
It’s took a very long time for this new demo to finally surface but all the wait seems worthwhile. This new four tracker will further convince those of us that are committed to the band and should hopefully win over many that are not. Best of the four are the two tracks in the middle – ‘Teachers Lemonette’ and ‘I Think That I Love You’. The former is an unexpected joy, a bubbling 50s rockabilly jaunt with some stylish rhythm work, the usual amazing vocal and a surprise burst of harmonica at the end, ‘I think That I love You’ is let down slightly by a lack-lustre muffled production but still retains its basic high-energy, high-jinks sound and remains to my ears the nearest thing any local band has come to a piece of pure pop. The tape is completed by the punchy title track and a splendid acoustic version of ‘Mar. Sharp’. All in all a perfect introduction into the multi-faceted talent of a multi-faceted band. The business.

Then in August of 1990 it seems Aaron left the band and with that the band split. It was said that they were going to carry on, but it seems that didn’t happen.

I don’t have much more information, but definitely check out the Tamworth bands page were there’s a lot of information from the Tamworth Herald.

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Listen
Fetch Eddie – He’ll Love You Till You’re Pregnant

Tomorrow vacations! I will be away, so no blog posts, until the first week of April. I won’t be able to post any orders either. All orders for Cloudberry Records will be posted upon my return on the 28th.

A bit of a shame that I will be in Europe a couple of days after Madrid Popfest. I missed it by some days. It happened just this weekend, but when it was announced I already had my plane tickets for France and all sort of plans put together. Not an indiepop trip, as there are no gigs while I’ll be there (I will miss Pale Spectres and De Montevert just by a few days, shame!), but will hang out with friends and do a lot of tourism.

Speaking of Madrid Popfest there were a couple of bands in the lineup that were totally new to me, and now while I’m at work, swamped with so many things to do, I started catching up with them. The first band that I had never heard about was Sierra. They had a sold out 10″ on the venerable Gramaciones Grabofónicas label that was released in December of 2014. This solo project (expanded live with Clara, Arturo and Antonio) is driven by Hugo Sierra who had been in bands like Prisma en Llamas or Margarita. I saw Prisma en Llamas in 2013, at the Madrid Popfest and it wasn’t my sort of thing. Strangely (and happily), Sierra is much more up my street. Very influenced by la Movida, as well as contemporary Spanish pop, there are some really good lyrics and catchy melodies. See if I can get lucky and find a copy of his sole record.

The other band that was totally new to me was Rubella. They hail from Manchester and are formed by Carmen Rus, Simon Gilbert, Adam Marsden and John Wilkes. I believe they’ve released nothing so far but they have a bunch of songs on their soundcloud. The Madrid Popfest website describes them like a mix of Marine Girls and Le Mans and I think they are dead on with that. I really like their song “Overcoat” were they also reminded me of Po! and that is always a great thing.

I wonder how was this edition of Madrid Popfest, would love to hear from fans. I saw some photos and I think everyone had a great time. Wish I had been there!

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Here’s another band I’m looking for their sole 7″, Kiss Me Twice!

I know about this band only recently, thanks to Joel from Portugal who shared with me their 2 songs from their 7″. I don’t know when it was released, though I would guess sometime in the late 80s. It was released in a label called KMT and the catalog number was KMT-701.

The songs on the record are “Suzanne” on the A side and “Real Love” on the B side. Kevin Anthony is credited as a composer for both songs, and Marc Anthony as a co-author for the B side. And no, it’s not Jennifer Lopez’s Marc Anthony. I’m actually thinking these two names might be pseudonyms, as they really don’t sound like German names.

The other thing that seems pretty obvious is that this was a self-release. The label name, KMT, can definitely translate to Kiss Me Twice. The 701 part is a mystery though.

The black and white cover, mostly gray, has a photo that I believe is of Alain Delon, though I can’t pinpoint from which movie. But maybe I’m wrong.

The only other information I could find online was that they hailed from Reinfeld.

Reinfeld is a town in the district of Stormarn, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated near the river Trave, approx. 8 km east of Bad Oldesloe, and 14 km west of Lübeck. It belongs to the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. The Danes ruled in Reinfeld from 1762 until 1864. After a short period under Austrian rule as a result of the Second War of Schleswig, Holstein became a province of Prussia in 1866. Reinfeld became officially a town in 1926.

I’ve been close, I’ve been in several towns in Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck for example, but never there.

If anyone know anything about them, their members, any other releases, what years were they active, what happened to them, etc, etc, please get in touch! Would love to know more about this band!

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Listen
Kiss Me Twice – Suzanne

Next week vacations!! And this week we are celebrating with the release of The Suncharms!! I’m really happy with the support that we’ve received, especially now since the postage prices went up. On top of it all, Japanese fans, will get a special edition of our CD with an Obi strip plus liner notes translated to Japanese. Very happy about this, it means a lot!

Aside from this very exciting news, things are a bit quiet at Cloudberry but as soon as we return from vacations we will be announcing some news. That means future releases. We do have the Pale Spectres 7″ waiting for a long time, and it will come out, but we have some exciting news coming from Sweden this time. Hopefully I’ll be able to announce the next Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release as well.

Now it’s mostly time for me to think about France and all these places I will visit. And all the friends I will see! In the meantime though, let’s review the few American bands that  are playing Popfest and that I didn’t get the chance to review last time.

1 – Bent Shapes – I heard about them not too long ago as I saw that they were releasing an LP for Slumberland. From what I see on their bandcamp they hail from Boston and this LP on Slumberland called “Wolves of Want” is their 2nd album after “Feels Weird”. I haven’t listened to the whole discography, this is just a quick look, a hasty listen to get an idea, but from the two only songs I could stream from their last album I’m not sold. I don’t dislike it, but I don’t love it. A bit generic for my taste I’d say, and much more influenced by American pop than UK pop (the one I’m a sucker for, so that’s why perhaps I’m not hooked). For those of you who love this sort of sound they are also playing on the 12th here in NYC at Union Pool. And for Popfest they will be playing the free Saturday show at Baby’s All Right! at 3:45pm.

2 – Catholic Easter Colors – they come from the unlikely Alabama. I have heard about them first through the indiepop mailing list and today I’m finally listening to their songs on Bandcamp. I expected slow songs, because of their name taken from a song by Northern Picture Library (though they spell it ‘colours’), and they deliver that. The sort of music for rainy days, gray skies, and all the sort of melancholia you can imagine. Don’t know how it will translate to being played live, but it will definitely be a challenge for the band. Some good ideas here definitely though the songs on bandcamp sound and feel very demo-ish I think. They are playing early, opening the Sunday gig, at 3:45pm at Littlefield.

3 – Lake Ruth – More 60s than 80s. Even though they are from NYC this is the first time I hear about them. There are only 2 songs on Bandcamp, the second song “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” is really nice! It’s not something that fits in the Cloudberry sound, I know that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy this beautiful piece of pop. The opening track is good too, I especially like the title of it, “The Inconsolable Jean-Claude”. Though you know if they had changed that choppy guitar for a jangly guitar, I would have loved it more, but who am I to say! This is a good discovery and definitely want to check them at 4:30pm on Sunday at Littlefield.

4 – Eureka California – Never heard about them so I got surprised to see that they have many releases on their bandcamp. They are also playing this March 9th there in NYC, at Palisades in Brooklyn. The thing is that they are more of a garage band than an indiepop band. So not sure why they play Popfest. I guess to have some variety? Anyhow, they play Sunday, at 6:00pm at Littlefield. Wish they played later so I could escape to get some dinner.

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The kidneys are bean-shaped organs that serve several essential regulatory roles in vertebrates. They remove excess organic molecules from the blood, and it is by this action that their best-known function is performed: the removal of waste products of metabolism. Kidneys are essential to the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and regulation of blood pressure (via maintaining the salt and water balance). They serve the body as a natural filter of the blood, and remove water-soluble wastes which are diverted to the bladder. In producing urine, the kidneys excrete nitrogenous wastes such as urea and ammonium. They are also responsible for the reabsorption of water, glucose, and amino acids. The kidneys also produce hormones including calcitriol and erythropoietin. An important enzyme renin is also produced in the kidneys which acts in negative feedback.

I leave my record boxes to a side this week. I will pick an obscure band from a bunch of songs my friend Joel from Portugal has sent me during the past weeks. This time around I chose an obscure band from the north, from Finland. They were called The Kidneys and they only released one 7″.

Two songs appeared on this 7″ on Strawberry Records (SBS 007). The songs were “Alphabet People” and “Smile” and both are nice jangly popsongs, very much in the style of the early nineties, like Mrs. Kipling or Sundress for example. It’s no surprise then that this record came out in 1991.

The sleeve of the record seems nothing special, plain white, and a sticker with the name of the band on the front. Don’t know what’s on the back sleeve as I don’t own this record. We do know that the lyrics are credited to Jukka Hiltunen. Who is Jukka Hiltunen? There is a Finnish actor of the same name, born in 1965 and that has appeared in Hollywood movies like The Beach or 28 Days Later. Is this the same Jukka? Age wise it could be, in 1991 he would have been 26 years old.

I inspect the Strawberry Records discography. The only band I really know from it is “Bird in The Bush”. Other bands that are totally new to me are The Undertakers, Terrortones, The Innerspacemen among others. Doubt that with those names they are very poppy. But who knows.

I’ve never know much about the Finnish scene. There are and have been amazing bands, but never in big quantities. Definitely The Kidneys is a good surprise. Even a bigger surprise was finding a promo video for this song on Youtube. It is said that this video was directed by Jimi Tenor.

That’s all I could find about them. Does anyone know more about them? Did they record any more songs? Any other releases? Maybe compilation appearances? Would be nice to hear more from then!

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Listen
The Kidneys – Alphabet People

Today the NYC Popfest passes sold out. In just a week all the available passes for the whole festival vanished into thin air even though this year they were much more pricier than previous years, $110. There are still individual tickets for each night but these are definitely not very convenient as they charge a service fee and definitely no one wants to pay those. It’s always been a mystery to me what sort of service these fees are for.

All bands for the festival were announced as well, plus the venues and schedules. This is how it’s looking this year:

THURSDAY MAY 19th
VENUE: LE POISSON ROUGE | 18+
TICKETS – $24 ADV | $26 DOS

6:30pm DOORS

07:00pm BIG QUIET (NYC)
07:45pm FREE CAKE FOR EVERY CREATURE (PA)
08:30pm THE HERMIT CRABS (UK)
09:15pm YOUNG ROMANCE (UK)
10:00pm TRASHCAN SINATRAS (UK)

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FRIDAY MAY 20th – AFTERNOON SHOW
VENUE: CAKE SHOP | ALL AGES
TICKETS – FREE!

3:00pm DOORS

03:30pm AVALEYA & THE GLITTERHAWKS (OR)
04:15pm HALFSOUR (MA)
05:00pm THE HAIRS (NYC)
05:45pm JE SUIS ANIMAL (NORWAY)

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FRIDAY MAY 20th
VENUE: BABY’S ALL RIGHT | 18+
TICKETS – $20 ADV | $22 DOS

8:00pm DOORS

08:45pm SIMON LOVE (UK)
09:30pm CHORUSGIRL (UK)
10:15pm THE SPOOK SCHOOL (UK)
11:00pm ALLO DARLIN’ (UK)

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SATURDAY MAY 21st – AFTERNOON SHOW
VENUE: BABY’S ALL RIGHT |
FREE SHOW

1pm DOORS

1:30pm DESIGN (UK)
2:15pm SOFT SCIENCE (CA)
3:00pm LOS BONSÁIS (SPAIN)
3:45pm BENT SHAPES (MA)
4:30pm SNOW FAIRIES (PA)

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SATURDAY MAY 21st – EVENING SHOW
VENUE: KNITTING FACTORY | ALL AGES
TICKETS – $25 ADV | $28 DOS

6:30pm DOORS

07:00pm CRISTINA QUESADA (SPAIN)
07:45pm TINY FIREFLIES (IL)
08:30pm ALPACA SPORTS (SWEDEN)
09:15pm MERCURY GIRLS (PA)
10:00pm THE CHESTERFIELDS (UK)
11:00pm THE PRIMITIVES (UK)

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SUNDAY MAY 22nd
VENUE: LITTLEFIELD | 18+
TICKETS – $30 ADV | $35 DOS

3:00pm DOORS

03:45pm CATHOLIC EASTER COLORS (AL)
04:30pm LAKE RUTH (NYC)
05:15pm WITCHING WAVES (UK)
06:00pm EUREKA CALIFORNIA (GA)
06:45pm SECRET SHINE (UK)
07:45pm EVEN AS WE SPEAK (AUSTRALIA)
08:45pm THE RAILWAY CHILDREN (UK)
10:00pm THE CHILLS (NEW ZEALAND)

That was an easy copy/paste. Not yet announced are the DJs, but I hope they will be announced soon. That would be the last item for Popfest, then everything will be ready for the festival in May. But these are not the only announcements we are getting in indiepopworld! Tomorrow we’ll also learn the first batch of bands for Indietracks. Both festivals are celebrating their 10th anniversary and we all have high hopes for what will happen at them!

As I usually do, I like covering the bands for each of these festivals. I want to start this year with a bunch of the American bands that are playing Popfest as I’ve barely head them or never heard them. I’ll do that just now, a quick listen, not really thorough, so I may be a bit off the mark, but it will be a good way to have an idea to what to expect at Popfest. So let’s discover them together!

1 – Big Quiet – I bought their debut 7″ a couple of months ago, and I think it’s pretty good. It was actually a recommendation from a colleague at work. “Maura & Dana”, the A side, even has a cool promo video that you should watch. Based in Brooklyn, NYC, the band is formed by Marisa Cerio, Chris Matheson and Steve Perry. I haven’t seen them play live yet, and that is something I can be blamed as I’ve seen many times their name on different facebook events. I’ve preferred to be comfortable and not foray to far far away Brooklyn. Lazy me! They play at Le Poisson Rouge at 7pm on Thursday, because of work it seems I’ll be missing them again. Time to make the effort to see them somewhere in Brooklyn before Popfest!

2 – Free Cake For Every Creature – From Philadelphia but by way of upstate NY, this band formed by Katie, Francis, Colin and Ian, remind me of a bygone era of indiepop, that one of around 2003-2005, when a bunch of now long forgotten bands were playing lo-fi indiepop, as twee as possible, in the US. Bands that would release CDRs with cool hand-drawn sleeves and mail their demos accompanied by lollipops and cute notes. This year they will release an LP, which should be ready for Popfest times, and they have 2 of the songs streaming included streaming on their bandcamp. Definitely the better one is “First Summer in the City”, which sounds really nice actually, like the upbeat moments of Dear Nora, whereas totally not convinced by “For You”. They are playing in Brooklyn on the 15th of April, I might just catch them there perhaps and have a better verdict before their gig at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday at 7:45pm. As I get off around 9pm from work, will be missing them too!!

3 – Avaleya and the GlitterHawks – Kelly Slusher is Avaleya. Kelly Slusher released an album back in 2002 in Elefant Records and that was a very fine album. She was part of the reunion band for Rocketship a couple of years ago. Two of the members from Rocketship, Verna Brock and Jim Rivas, join her and form this new band.  Jim had been in the fantastic Holiday Flyer, Verna on the essential Beanpole (who had a retrospective not long ago on Jigsaw Records). A lot of indiepop pedigree here! They are playing at Cake Shop during the free evening show on Friday. They are playing at 3:30pm and I’ll see if I can skip Friday from work.

4 – Halfsour – With an album under their belt, released by the great Jigsaw Records, they’ve been under my radar. Like Chris says on his description of the record, this Boston band sounds more like a harder edged pop band than the more poppier bands I’ve covered before. There are songs I’m not too keen, that are grittier and not that melodic and shoutier, but there are some, mostly and especially when the girl is singing, like “Grump” for example, that I do really enjoy. They play at 4:15pm at the free show at Cake Shop on Friday.

5 – Soft Science – Another band from Sacramento (Avaleya was the first) at Popfest. The band is also comprised by a previous Holiday Flyer, Katie Haley and also the twin brothers Ross and Matt Levine and Mason DeMusey. I used to be a sucker for Katie’s vocals on Holiday Flyer, so big expectations for this band. I’m having now a quick listen to their recordings on Bandcamp, mostly to their 200 limited copies LP called “Detour”. Skipping the slower songs and looking for the more upbeat ones. I see someone compared them to Lush, and I can see a bit of that, definitely. This is really pretty pop music, simple and effective. They will be playing at 2:15pm at Baby’s All Right! on the Saturday free show. Tough schedule as it’s kind of time for lunch. Hopefully can manage to make it!

And that’s five new bands for me. Quickly listened. They are promising, some more than others, but none that I really disliked which is great definitely. Maz always finds these interesting up and coming American bands, I don’t know how he does it, as it’s always easier to find international bands, not American bands for a strange reason.

Next week I’ll cover 5 more bands from Popfest, or perhaps more. Now it’s time to check another obscure band from the past.

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Pedestal: The base or support on which a statue, obelisk, or column is mounted. A position in which someone is greatly or uncritically admired.

Seems there are many 7″s still in this box of records at home. Yet another band that starts with P that I have no clue whatsoever who were they. Pedestal it turns were from NYC, so it’s really convenient as I’ve been talking NYC Popfest all day long.

One 7″ in 1997 on the Twee Kitten label (catalog tk 002). I was surprised when I saw the Twee Kitten website is still up and running after all these years. Seems even that they are still taking orders (you can still order this 7″ and some more). It also feels very nostalgic, as Twee Kitten was an awesome mailorder as many of you in the US should remember.

I believe I actually got this 7″ through a trade with Scott from Twee Kitten many years ago. I remember reading good things from Pedestal, though today searching for them I couldn’t find any reviews at all. Also the band page that is linked at Twee Kitten is not working. So not much to find online once again.

There were 5 songs on the record, on the A side, “Waiting” and “Each Night Alone” and on the B side, “Merry Go Around”, “On the Subway” and “Endlessly”. The record even included a lyric sheet, and yesterday, after not playing it for many years, I found myself happy singing along to “On the Subway”, as it’s a song about the trains I take almost every single day in NYC!

This band was formed by, I’m guessing, husband and wife, Erik Mueller and Rachel Mueller-Lust. Only one review I could find online dating from 1999, from the Furia blog/fanzine:

One of the reasons I love ordering things from Twee Kitten is that they come with these charming clip-art mini-comic-books, which are a bit like Dadaist Tintin stories. The one that I got with this Pedestal EP examines a spurned suitor’s struggle with his aversion to dancing. Pedestal are something like a less-florid Magnetic Fields, Erik Mueller providing keyboard accompaniment to Rachel Mueller-Lust’s uninflected, Susan Anway-ish singing. “On the Subway” is bright and expansive, “Each Night Alone” bursts into loud percussion at odd intervals like furniture being knocked over, and “Endlessly” is sunny and old-fashioned. 33, black.

There seems to be more bands called Pedestal, but about this particular one, I couldn’t find online anything else. Do Erik and Rachel still make music? Are they still based in NYC? Did they participate in compilations? Why didn’t they release more records? It’s always so mysterious when a band only releases the one 7″ and then disappear!

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Listen
Pedestal – On the Subway

The Suncharms CDs arrived!! So exciting! The pressing plant delivered them before I expected. I assumed they were going to arrive by mid March, while I was away on vacations, but they arrived last Friday. So we’ve set an official release date for March 5th but all pre-orders will be shipped this week.

They will also be shipped to your favourite indiepop mailorders this week so if you prefer buying the CDs from them you can do so too, especially now that the postage prices have become even higher in the US.

There’s even other great news today, Monday. The Mai 68s who released one 3″CD long time ago on the label, who we hoped to release a 7″ also just before they broke up are now putting out a compilation with all of their recordings. I think this is amazing news! They have posted this message on Facebook and I think you should all get it!

As many of you on here are probably aware myself, Jeremy Wiltshire, Katie April Perfect and Julie Fairgrieve used to be members of a band called the Mai 68s – Its been nigh on 5 years since we last played and 10 years since we started out on a road to indiepop hell. Now the long talked about comp is happening which will be on 180gm Vinyl with a booklet/fanzine and sleeve notes by none other than Roque Ruiz.

Pre-orders can be made here –

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-mai-68s-compilation-album#/

and the record should be released within the next 3 months (things like RSD permitting).

There is also a slightly cheaper vinyl option which includes UK shipping (the biggest pain we have is the shipping costs) so message me if interested or if you want to pick up the record from me or Jeremy.

Even if you cant contribute then any help in sharing would be amazing

And yes, I did write the liner notes, but trust me, I’m not biased, their songs are amazing and they are one of the few bands I get very sad that I never saw live. (I cross my fingers that with this compilation, MAYBE, they do play some reunion shows to promote it here in the US!).

The last week I tried to catch up with some CDs as well, and have been enjoying these:
– Lothar – Montgolfier (Quince Records 2008)
– Postal Blue – Of Love & Other Affections (Jigsaw 2015)
– Able Tasmans – A Cuppa Tea and a Lie (Flying Nun 2015)
– Postiljonen – Skyer (Hybris 2013)
All very recommendable, so just putting them in your radar…

There’s also a new video by one of my favourite bands, one I would love to have on Cloudberry one day. Major Leagues has just announced they will release a new EP and they are promoting it with the song Better Off which is a corker. Amazing really.

That’s all I have this week about news. But I want to give you the heads up that I will be heading to France on March 15th. If you are in Paris, or somewhere in France, and want some records, let me know. I’m sure we could meet up or I could post you some records and save some postage. Ideally this idea could also work for any European countries too, but I need to see what are the postage costs of the French Postal Service before I offer anything! I’ll let you know more about this next week, when I have a better idea, but I’m going to try to help as much as possible to get our releases to you!

And so let’s move onto an obscure band!

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Again digging and picking records from my own record collection. Many years ago, maybe 2008 or so I was obsessed with The Chefs. I even wanted to put out a compilation by them on the Plastilina label. Damaged Goods would eventually do that compilation right, but it’s totally ok! Someone had to do it! In any case, I remember reading somewhere about Russell Greenwood, The Chefs drummer who sadly died on 25 June 1999, leaving the band to join The Popticians in 1982. I had never ever heard about this band back then, so I decided to explore, and would find that they released 2 records: a 7″ and a 12″. Both of them I happily own.

Their first release was in 1984 on the Off the Kerb Records label (catalog DAD1). This seems to have been the only release on this label. It was a 7″ and included two songs. On the A side the song was “Mobile Home” and on the B side we had “Spare Pear”. The record was produced by Roger Pusey and the band thanks The John Peel Show on the sleeve. The vinyl was a Porky Prime Cut and the label has a London address.

On Discogs both of the records are tagged as Comedy. Yes they have their funny side. But I appreciate them too for the lyrics, for the catchyness, for it’s true pop feeling. They are punk and a lot of fun.

Four years would pass for their next release, a 12″ titled “I Saw My Dinner on TV”. Released on Glass Fish Records (OOZE 2 T) in 1988, it included 3 songs: “I Saw My Dinner on the TV”, “Grandad’s Glasses” and “Amoeba”. This label had released so many records by Robyn Hitchcock, so it’s no surprise that Robyn plays bass and piano on the record as well as producing! On the credits it’s said that Robyn appears courtesy of A&M Records.

On this record the band is not The Popticians anymore but John Hegley and The Popticians. Russ Greenwood is no more in the band either. Now we have:
Morris Windsor on drums and percussion
John Hegley on guitar, mandolin and vocals
Sue Norton on flute, saxophone and vocals
Keith Moore on tuba and saxophone

The engineer was Jessica Corcoran and Pat Collier (a name I see quite a lot, he was once was part of The Vibrators too).

So who is John Hegley? I suppose he is much more known in the UK. He even has a Wikipedia page. We know he was born in London in 1953 and that he is a poet, comedian, musician and songwriter. Here on the Wikipedia page we learn he recorded two Peel Sessions with the Popticians, in 1983 and 1984.

Both Peel Sessions are availabel in Youtube. The 1983 includes the songs “Hello Everybody”, “He’s in Love With a Brown Paper Bag”, “Song About Losing Your Glasses” and “Mobile Home”. The lineup for this session was: John Hegley (guitar, vocals), Russell Greenwood (drums, vocals), Susan Norton (saxophone, vocals) and Keith Moore (clarinet, vocals).  You can listen to it here.

The second Peel Session is from the 4th of November of 1984. The songs included were “Song About the Misery of Human Existence”, “Red Ken”, “The Old Scout Master”, “Somehow You Look Different Tonight” and “Song About My Brother’s Glasses”. You can listen to this one here.

So many songs about glasses!!

It was easy to track John Hegley’s website. It looks a bit dated though, but maybe that’s his style. Looks very early 2000s. He has released a lot of books, wonder if anyone would care recommending their favourite on the comments section?

He has also been on TV, presenting the series Word of Mouth on Border Television. He has appeared on Wogan and Never Mind the Buzzcocks on tv as well. On radio he had the BBC series Hearing with Hegley. So there’s a lot about him. But what about the other members of The Popticians?

I find that Keith Moore has helped with soundtracks for the Vamos Theathre in London. This is a professional full mask theatre company. He also runs the Jelly Rollers, a company that has produces performances and music on wheels (on a bus really).

Couldn’t find anything about Sue Norton sadly.

I found though an interesting interview to the Popticians on the No Class fanzine website. You can read it here. On this interview we learn that Off the Kerb, the label that put out their first record, was actually a package of four performers, Roy Hutchings, John Hegley, Podomofski and The Popticians. It seems it was more of a performance band/group of people than an actual proper indie band. Though I’m not 100% sure. I wonder how their gigs were.

They also mention on this interview that they appeared on TV. Sadly those TV appearances are not yet on the web.

So were there more recordings by this strange and original band? Did any of you attend their gigs? What happened with Sue Norton? What is John Hegley doing these days? Did they have any songs on compilations? Would be interesting to know a bit more about this cool fun band from the 80s.

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Listen
The Popticians – Amoeba

Suddenly this week I have news. A bunch of them. I’ll start with the good ones.

The Suncharms CD should be arriving home on Friday and will start shipping on Monday to all those who pre-ordered. I’m very excited about it and I hope everyone likes the album. I’ll take some photos as soon as it arrives and post them on the Facebook page for all of you to see! This is the 7th release on the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen series and “hopefully” there will be more soon!

The other good news is that Even As We Speak have been invited to play to NYC Popfest. I learned this yesterday through a Facebook post of theirs were they are asking fans to help them fund their trip to America. There’s a cool video on the request page and if you are feeling inclined to help this classic and amazing band please do so! Here’s the link.

Also Popfest has announced the venues for the festival. Cake Shop, Le Poisson Rouge, Knitting Factory, Littlefield and Baby’s All Right! will host the gigs this year. Le Poisson Rouge will be replacing Cameo this year, and if my memory is not playing tricks on me, this is the first time they’ll host Popfest. In the past they have hosted Mondo, the indie dance party that Maz, the organizer of Popfest, used to throw. My guess is that Cake Shop, as always, be on Thursday, Knitting Factory on Friday, Le Poisson Rouge on Saturday (with Baby’s All Right! on Saturday afternoon show too), and Littlefield on Sunday.

The BAD news. The AWFUL news is that I had to raise prices on all records. Since January 17 the United States Postal Service raised their prices, especially hiking them on international orders. On average they raised the first class by 21.6%. So imagine. We in the US becoming less competitive against other countries. It’s very sad as it just doesn’t affect record labels but all small businesses. It also ends up hurting the fans in the world that wants the records and can’t pay almost $14 just for postage when ordering a CD. It’s very tough, and I wonder how much longer we can survive like this.

I painfully had to update all prices on the website today. I waited some days before raising the prices, but I can’t continue with the previous prices as the label was hurting, losing money. At least I try to break even, some old 7″s are very much discounted, so don’t think I’m making this up. You can read more about this terrible issue that is affecting all of us here.

I really hope popkids still continue to support us, it’s because of all of you that we can continue putting out records and, actually, to keep surviving in a world were everyone pushes towards a world were music has no value whatsoever, were streaming will be the norm and records will become an obsolete artifact.

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Reverend Harry Powell is a fictional character in Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel The Night of the Hunter. He was portrayed by Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton’s 1955 film adaptation, and by Richard Chamberlain in the 1991 made for TV remake. He was voted 29th on the American Film Institute’s top 50 villains of all time list.

One 7″, released in 1987 on The Golden Pathway label (catalog POS1), that’s all Preacher Harry Powell left us. I went through my box of 7″s again. Still picking some from the box with records that their names start with P. This 7″ stood out. The record sleeve is bigger, and it has a beautiful three body gatefold jacket. All in black and white, with vintage photos and cryptic texts.

Discogs points us to a couple of curiosities too:

Reverse of sleeve includes the words ‘Presented by “The Path of Stars”‘; the label bears the catalogue number ‘POS1’ whereas the run-out groove specifies ‘POS001’. Neither have any reference to the Golden Pathway (although this is definitely the label it was released on).

The Golden Pathway label tends to write its catalogue numbers in the format ‘GPVxx’ (Golden Pathway Volume xx) so this release would tend to be seen in discographies as ‘GPV11’ (although it isn’t mentioned in this format at all on this release itself).

Included are 4 songs. One on the A side, “Beauty Grows”, which is my favourite, and three on the B side, “Runaway To Sea”, “Lovers and Loners” and “The White Ink on The Photographs”.

It seems you can get it for good prices on Discogs, which is always a nice thing to know. The EP is not titled by one of the songs, but has the name “Devil in the Priest-Hole”, so you know how to find it.

The only real information we find is from the Golden Pathway site. There’s a small biography there that says:
Preacher Harry Powell was the stagename of Ian Smith, another product of the fruitful music scene happening in Torquay in the late 70’s and early 80’s, which also spawned the Morrisons. Although Preacher Harry performed most commonly as a solo artist, he put this band together to record this single for Golden Pathway in 1986. With Mark Fitzpatrick on bass, Steve Milton on drums (now with Console), and an unknown violinist, “Beauty Grows” provided an ideal vehicle for Ian’s rich and unusual voice. After this single was released, Preacher Harry Powell was a regular on the London acoustic scene for much of the late 80’s and 90’s at clubs like the Troubador and God’s Little Joke. His performances and songs took on an even richer hue after the release of this single, with a dark humour and passion which attracted fans including Momus, The Tigerlillies, and Natalie Merchant. (sample line – “We were rampant – I would ram, and you would pant”) Momus contributed keyboards to some of Ian’s later material, and Ian reciprocated by providing backing vocals on a couple of tracks on the Momus album Hippopotamus. Ian moved to Ireland and laid his guitar to rest in 2000.

But what happened in between? What was Ian Smith doing in the 90s? Did he record more jangly songs? Did he play many gigs? Was he part of other Torquay bands? Anyone remember them?

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Listen
Preacher Harry Powell – Beauty Grows

Been listening a lot to the last The Chills album. Wow. It’s so good. Martin Phillipps songwriting is still so good, hasn’t lost any bit of quality after all these years of silence. If you haven’t bought it yet, I recommend doing so. Soon.

Other CDs that were heavily played this week at home were two releases from Jigsaw Records, Sleuth and Persian Rugs debut albums. I was already very familiar with the songs after listening to them online, but it’s so different to play them on a physical format. I highly recommend both and I’m glad two bands that have appeared on Cloudberry releases have put out two solid albums late last year.

Hopefully this week I keep catching up with a lot of CDs and records that are piling at home. Perhaps some of them end up being good recommendations or discoveries for you. Especially now that indiepop seems very quiet.

Other two good recommendations that I got last week on the blog were two bands from Asia. The band Intenna from Malang, Indonesia and also the band Chestnut Bakery from Shenzhen in China. Two recommendations that came from John Quarmby. I thank him a lot for these! Especially surprised by the new crop of bands appearing in China, in mainland China, not Hong Kong. This was unknown years ago, but seems they are catching up! It will be interesting to see how these bands evolve, or if a scene actually appears. I’m very curious. Who knows, maybe 5 years from now we’ll be attending Shanghai Popfest!?

As the past week was quiet, there were little news to go over. But today I was told that the infamous label that supposedly closed shop did it again their old trickery. Yes, they will continue releasing music. The same old story. Announce you close, get some people to sympathize with you, sell some records perhaps, then come back. It’s really annoying and it gives labels a band name. It’s no surprising a lot of people in the world think labels do no work whatsoever and artists should always be on their own, not dealing with labels as they are the devil or something like that. So be careful on who you support.

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Pitwork: pumping apparatus used in a mine shaft

I picked up another record from my “P” 7″ box. There were many to choose, but I picked up the Pitwork 7″ as I really don’t know anything about it! So this would be a good chance to investigate.

I remember I bought their one and only 7″ some years ago. I was trying to find all releases by their label, Clover Records, but it ended up being kind of an impossible enterprise. The label was Japanese and it seems not that many copies are available in the West. I’m guessing, and I’m hoping, the day I visit Japan I will be able to find more of their catalog.

One of the few records I could find was this four track 7″ on beautiful light blue vinyl. It was actually quite cheap on Discogs. The record was released in 1999 and included the songs “Shine” and “Love Sunday” on the A side, and “Pitwork” and “Cruel to Be Kind” on the B side. The catalog was Clover 712.

It’s important to mention that the closing song was a cover of the Nick Lowe original.

“Cruel to Be Kind” is a 1979 single by Nick Lowe, co-written by Lowe and his former Brinsley Schwarz band-mate Ian Gomm, that peaked at No. 12 in both the UK and U.S. charts that summer. It also peaked at No.12 in both Canada and New Zealand. In the U.S., where it is Lowe’s most well-known work, it remains his only single to hit the top 40, whereas in the UK “I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass” remains his biggest hit after reaching No. 7 a year earlier.

I turn onto the back cover. We find some more information. On this record they are a duo: Aya on vocals and Nagao on the instruments and VS880. They counted with guest musicians Eiji Kanno on drums on the song “Shine”, Michihiro Ito on rhtymbox and programming. Michihiro also programmed and mixing on “Cruel to be Kind”.

The sleeve design was credited to Soyamame and Ayamachi.

Clover was a label based in Tokyo. Were Pitwork also from Tokyo? Clover is a great label if you are not familiar with it. They released records by well known names like 800 Cherries or Orange Cake Mix. Even Blueboy and Trembling Blue Stars had their Japanese versions of their records released by Clover.

There’s a Clover website online and they have a small artist biography for Pitwork. We find there that four people are listed as part of the group and not two anymore. We have again Aya Uchida, Takashi Nagao, Michihiro Ito and a new name, Sneaker, who is listed as a coreographer! If they needed a coreographer, I would have loved to see their gigs!

I use Google Translate to understand the small bio. From it I gather that they started in Tokyo in 1998. That one of their songs appeared in an indie film (I believe the name of the movie was “Joy”, but not 100% sure). And in 2000 they released a cassette on Clover Records called “Sunday Drive”.

I try to find more information about this second release. I learn it has catalog number C-050. And also on an old Myspace page, I find three songs from that EP, “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)”, “Sunday Drive” and “Flowers”. I can’t manage to play them. Myspace is always broken. But I wonder if these three songs were the only ones on the tape or were there more?

I really enjoy the 7″ I have, especially the song “Shine”. It’s always very hard to find out information from Japanese bands, even more son from previous decades. But perhaps some Japanese indiepop fans can help me find out more information about Pitwork. And what happened to Aya and Nagao? Are they making music still?

Edit: Thanks to Stone Records and through Twitter we found through the user cherry335 some information of the tape! Thanks a lot cherry335! He posted for us a photo of the tape and we learn that it had actually 4 songs, on the A side it had “Sunday Drive” and “Someday”, whereas on the B side “Flowers” and “Feelin’ Groovy”. It’s mentioned that the last song is not a Pitwork original. So it is very safe to assume it’s a cover of the Simon and Garfunkel original.

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Listen
Pitwork – Shine