Thanks so much to Pat (JP Bananas) for the interview! Screeming Custard was a late 80s-early 90s band from London that released two records, a 7″ and a 12″ as well as some appearances in compilations. I was always curious about them because they sounded so different to their indiepop counterparts. Even though there’s quite a bunch of information on their website, I always wondered what happened to them. If you also want to know more, sit back, read and enjoy!

++ Hi Pat! Thanks so much for being up for an interview. Tell me are you still making music? And are you in touch with the rest of the band these days?

Hi Roque, good to hear from you and thanks for remembering us!

Although I get the guitar out from time to time I’m not doing anything serious any more. I think Rob (Action Jackson – bass) is still playing and Paul (The Corner / Donkey – guitar) may be as well. Paul went off and did the whole rock star thing with a real band after the Custards, not that any of us are jealous..

Paul, Rob and I got together at Flo’s funeral last year – nice to see them again but obviously not under those circumstances. Our original drummer, Larry, surfaced recently but no-one has seen Abbie for a while.

++ I read on the Screeming Custard page that there is or was the intention to make a retrospective compilation if there was enough interest. How is that going? Might it happen? Also, how feasible will it be for a sort of a reunion gig?

I did get the old tapes re-mastered but they were in a sorry state unfortunately. The engineer (Chris from the excellent Dalek Beach Party) said he’d never used so many Q-tips in one session. The plan was to find the best version of each song and then release a compilation through the website. Unfortunately it never really got further than wondering about names for the album – Never Mind The Dollops? I was wondering about doing something with Spotify but wouldn’t really know where to start.

We briefly discussed a reunion but Paul is living down in Bristol now. I suppose we could do something clever using the internet for rehearsals but for us the rehearsals were almost as good as the gigs. We used to be holed up in a cat-infested room on the Catford one-way system 2 or 3 nights a week and the noise and energy was fantastic. Not sure that’ll be quite as exciting over Skype. I don’t want to rule it out as I always wanted to play an English festival – back when we were knocking around there weren’t any to speak of other than the occasional New Cross and Lewisham Fun Days – but it’s unlikely.

++ When did you get your first guitar? And what made you choose that instrument over the others? Was Screeming Custard your first band?

My first guitar was from the Freemans catalogue – a Kay I think with terrible action. Must have been in the mid 1970s and it took months to pay it off. I wasn’t bothered about any other instrument – it was always the guitar for me. I took classical lessons at school, which almost put me off but then bought a book of chords, so when punk broke I was ready with E, A and D. I was in several bands before the Custards, most of which are not worth mentioning. A couple with Norman Cook (I was going out with his sister at the time) and then when I moved to London I joined The Wait, who were a pretty good Lewisham band. The band before that was called Between Yes and No; we had trumpet, viola, flute and me thrashing away on guitar. Very serious, very early-Eighties.

++ So how did the band start? How did you get to know each other?

We really did do it all through the Melody Maker ad pages. Paul advertised first and I went down and we thought we might have something. He got Rob in on bass (they’d been in a band together before) and Larry helped out on drums. We didn’t think we needed a singer and were just going to do instrumentals… When we realised we did need a singer we advertised again and didn’t get much response. But Abbie came along and although we couldn’t really hear her she just slotted right in, which was fine by the rest of us. When we first heard her voice on tape we thought Oh my God – how didn’t we notice that in the audition?

When Larry had his glider accident we advertised again and Flo was the only drummer who could keep up. He was amazing – easily the best and most innovative drummer I was in a band with. We used to see how many songs we could play in a row before he fell off his stool. We would open the set with five songs in a row but my girlfriend pointed out it was probably a little too intense, and we were also finishing the set too quickly. We all got on really well – lots of banter, lots of abuse, and no fallings out until the very end.

++ I read that it was on your second gig that you played under the name Screeming Custard. So, under what name did you play the first? And how did the name of the band come about?

The first gig was in Bromley and we went under the not very clever name of Bastard. It was the only thing we could agree on for some reason. Before our second gig we decided we needed something else so went for a lunchtime session in the Sun On The Sands pub in Blackheath. We didn’t come up with anything at all but on the way back Paul just said, how about Screeming Custard? We changed the spelling to annoy journalists I think. We knew it was a good idea when our first break was a mention in Sounds’ ‘10 Crap Band Names’ chart. Fantastic.

++ I read you were based in Bromley. How was it back then? Where would you usually hang out? Were there any other good bands in town? And has it changed much from those years?

Paul and Rob were the Bromley boys – I was in Blackheath Standard, Abbie in Eltham (I think) and Flo somewhere in-between. We used to rehearse in Pauls’ Mum’s Front Room until she got fed up and then we moved to Catford. We were part of the Catford Musician’s Collective so spent more time there and did some early gigs they put on at the Black Horse and Lewisham Labour Club. There was a band called Dandelion, who were pretty good. Before I joined the Custards I knocked around with the June Brides a bit, who were probably the best band to come out of the area at the time.

++ I’ve met Ian Watson many times, so I’m pretty curious how did he end up being your manager?

Ah, the mysterious Ian Watson. He was going out with a friend of mine so I asked if he’d be interested in helping out. He did a great job and got us some good gigs we wouldn’t have got otherwise. Not sure what we gave him in return other than headaches and five minutes on-stage at one of the Pauls Mums Front Room Extravaganzas. Before Ian got involved we were facing the problem all bands in London did at the time – you couldn’t play the better clubs unless you had a manager. Our solution was for Rob or I to phone the venue as Mr Potter to book a slot. After we’d played we’d just say that Mr Potter was with one of his other bands that evening and that we’d give him the money later. It always worked. We chose Potter because England had a caretaker manager at the time and Potter was the caretaker in 70’s sitcom Please Sir.

++ You toured in Spain. That wasn’t that common for indiepop bands back in the 80s . How did that come about and what were your highlights of that trip?

Spain was a great laugh and we got paid enough to release the first single. It was done through the Musician’s Collective so we went out and stayed with a band who got us gigs and then we did the same in return for them. So they got us on TV, a slot at a Barcelona festival and a couple of gigs in packed clubs, and in return I’m afraid they played to an empty Hype Club, were interviewed on local radio but did a good show at the Labour Club. We weren’t really similar music – they were quite quirky and rocky. Luckily (for us) the collective in Terasa where we stayed were mainly punks so we had a great time. Paul and I stayed with a performance artist called Kiku Mistu (I think) who once posted himself across Spain in a box. The TV was a definite highlight but the festival was also good. That was the first time we strangled Chic’s Freak Out.

++ And in the UK you played so many gigs! Which would you say were your favourites and why?

Hard to remember them all but playing with Cud was always great. We got in touch with them and said we’d book them a gig in London – they hadn’t played anywhere major at that point. We put them on at Hype and the place was packed. In return they put us up in Leeds and we did a gig with them in a pub – great weekend. David Gedge was apparently in the audience which was a thrill as the Wedding Present were one of the bands we all looked up to. We always loved playing at Hype before Jon Beast went off with Carter. It became a bit of a home venue for us in those rather bleak days before Brit-Pop opened doors to guitar bands again. The Fountain in Deptford was also always a good night. Not sure how they got away with cramming that number of people in the upstairs room.

++ I love your sound, “Tracy”, is one of those great indiepop gems you know. But I wonder what were you listening at this time to make music like this?!

Thanks! It was just one of those happy accidents that that was how we sounded. We were already quite noisy and then with Abbie’s twee vocals on top it seemed to just work. We were likened to The Cranes, who I liked along with bands from the Twee movement, but we mainly listened to the likes of Pixies, Gang of Four, Wire, Wedding Present, Cud, Carter, Family Cat and New Model Army.

++ Your two releases came out on Pauls Mums Front Room Records. What’s the story behind that peculiar name of the label?!

As you’ve probably guessed, that’s where we rehearsed initially and also where we recorded the first single. The engineer set up at the top of the stairs and we used the front room. Abbie was nervous so recorded in the dark apart from a globe that lit up on the mantlepiece. We set up the label because it was hard to get anyone to take a chance on us at the time. I’m pleased we did as it was a good experience running it. The label of the second single shows Paul’s mum on one side and the front room on the other. We signed up with the Cartel and sold a lot of singles in America as we were getting played on college radio out there.

++ Your first release was the “Tracy” 7″. Who was Tracy? And David?

I think David was one of Abbie’s old boyfriends but Tracey was Abbie’s generic term for any girl happy to under achieve in life. John Peel asked us the same question and then told us his daughter is called Tracy. Slightly awkward.

++ For the second release, the “Lurve” 12″ you had to get a big loan. How did that work out? Is it all paid now?

I had to take out a loan to get a roof fixed and used it to pay for the single instead. It took a lot longer to pay off than my first guitar! In fact the second single didn’t sell very well but I had 250 nicked from a lock-up, which turned out to be the label’s best day’s business when the insurance company finally paid up.

++ On the Waaaaah split flexi you were supposed to contribute a New Order cover but in the end you gave Richard the song “Raft”. What happened with New Order?

We were still doing one of the early instrumentals live and Abbie wanted to put some words over it so she wasn’t just standing there. She said she knew John Barnes’s rap from World In Motion and promptly sang it over the instrumental. It fitted okay and so we offered it to Richard at Waaaah. Someone said we should ask New Order in case they had a problem with it and we were amazed that they said they did. In the end we had to give Waaaah an out-take track that we had also offered to another fanzine, which we felt bad about. New Order then got some bad publicity for turning us down and said we could use it after all. Too late by then of course so it’s just become one of those tracks that turns up on download sites from time to time.

++ You had a song on a Big Muff fanzine flexi. I wonder how involved were you in the fanzine scene of the late 80s? It seems like there were so many of them championing indiepop.

Yes, we loved the whole fanzine scene. I’d grown up with the punk fanzines and then through the football fanzine era so the idea of DIY was always something I supported. I’d helped Norman Cook out with his Peroxide fanzine and later a football fanzine, but there wasn’t really time to get too involved once the Custards were up and running. We were good friends with Richard Waaaaah so I still have a soft spot for that publication. The internet has done many good things and keeping the spirit of fanzines alive with blogs like yours is definitely one of them.

++ Tell me a bit about the “several dodgy tapes” you made. And what about the t-shirts and badges? Did you make any other merch? You seem to have been pretty productive!

This was something I got from Norman really. He was great at making badges and tapes of that band so it seemed obvious to do it for the Custards. We had the idea for the logo and Better Badges did some good ones for us. The T-shirts were as rough and ready as everything else. I’d already hand-made one, which I wore at early gigs but we then did two versions – one with yellow custard and then one with pink. I think they sold better than the records. The tapes were just demo tapes that we drew covers for. We’d do special editions that we’d send out to fans that wrote to us. We used to get a lot of mail from fairly troubled young girls. Flo was very good at writing back; he was our agony Aunty hence his band name of Aunty Flo.

++ From all your songs, which one would you say are your favourites, and why?

I did have to go back through them when I was thinking about the compilation and it was interesting hearing them as complete songs rather than just wondering where my guitar had gone to in the mix. I have to say I still like Mouth and a Brain, for the lyrics but also for the way we were able to get the guitars to sound a bit heavier with each verse. I also like the two singles and Le Freak. When you’re playing the songs, your favourites are different because there are some parts you just like doing so as I say it’s odd hearing them again in a more dispassionate way.

++ Something that always caught my attention about Screeming Custard were Abi’s vocals. They are quite unique! How important were they in the vision you all had of the sound Screeming Custard were creating?

Yes, I’d like to say it was all part of a plan but as with most things with the Custards it was just a lucky accident. Abbie really was unique and had done a bit of work with Terry Hall after his Colourfield period, that didn’t go anywhere. We were the next people she tried, luckily for us. She could have been a top gymnast when she was younger but injured her wrist I think. She’d turned to music after that.

++ And when and why did you decide to split?

Well, Abbie was still finding playing live nerve-wracking and in the end decided to leave. That was the end of the band really although we did struggle on with a new singer for a while, who had big plans and took some of the band with her. It was the right time to end as we’d run our course.

++ What did you all do after? Were you involved with other bands?

The others did – I’d always said it would be my last band so I hung up my plectrum after that. Rob gigged around with the Pig-Keepers Daughter, Flo had a band the name of which escapes me but they did a single or two and Paul did very well. He’s a great guitarist so it was no surprise. We called him The Corner because he was good, but not quite as good as The Edge.

++ And these days, what do you all do? Do you have any other hobbies other than music?

I think Abbie was doing some bread-art when I last heard but the others are still into their music I think. Football was my other big interest and I currently run the doingthe92.com website for people trying to visit all 92 football league grounds. There’s about 5,000 people signed up on it and I’ve just done our first piece of merch – a poster showing the location of them all, which is selling well.

++ One last question, looking back in time, what would you say was the best part of being in Screeming Custard?

For me it was the rehearsals in the early days when the songs started to come together and we thought we were going to be as big as Bros. If you’re reading this and you’ve ever wondered about being in a band just find a couple of mates and do it – there’s nothing quite like it. I was never a good guitarist but a bit of fuzz and the right attitude can cover up a lot!

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Listen
Screeming Custard – Love

We wake up like every morning to the sound of Sarah Records. Wait no. That’s not right. But we woke up at around 11am and after getting ready and packing we headed to King’s Cross once again. Our train to Derby was leaving at 1:20pm. We were at St. Pancras at around one and after topping up my phone, getting a lot of cash from the atm, and buying a tuna salad and a diet coke, we headed to our train. At the entrance gate for the train we met Dennis from Candy Twist fanzine, he had been waiting for a while there as his train was at 1:45. We suggested for him to ask if he could board our train, but no luck. A shame. I’ve had luck in UK many times asking if I can take earlier trains, I’ve always had positive replies from the train workers.

I was supposed to be on carriage B but as it usually happens in the UK they had trouble with reservations so everyone could sit wherever they wanted. So I joined Jennifer and Miguel at a very packed carriage A and sat next to a lady that had around six or seven bags with her and an iphone with a shattered screen. Messy people abound everywhere.

We arrived to Derby and we see a bunch of the poser-not-so-indiepop sitting on the sidewalk waiting for god knows what or probably just being cool. That’s a crowd I don’t want to be in, the one that celebrate the most boring bands, that brown-nose each other, and that in a way make Indietracks cater some boring music and discos for them. Because they are many, and they grow in numbers. On top of it all they don’t like me. I’m an uncomfortable person for them.

A 30 pound cab ride takes us all the way to our hotel in South Normanton, the Mansfield Premier Inn. A long ride, of about 30 minutes as we get caught in traffic on the motorway. Upon arriving our hotel is terribly quiet. I don’t see any familiar faces. It feels empty. I know Jennifer and Miguel want to nap. So I head to have lunch at the pub. To keep it very British, and to have some protein that I won’t probably have at Indietracks I get sausage and mash. With gravy. And a pint of lager.

After finishing my late lunch I start meeting familiar faces. A big taxi van brings Cris and Madidi from Little Treasure and Elena and Antonio from When Nalda Became Punk. Suddenly more people start appearing at the lobby. Carlos, Maria, Irene and Yago from Madrid Popfest, Olaf from Firestation Records, and Andreas, Amanda and Carl from Alpaca Sports. We ask the front desk clerk to call for us some taxis. And after a bit of figuring out how to fit everyone in three cabs, Irene, Yago, Olaf and me take the first cab to arrive. And all the way to the Golden Valley campsite. We don’t want to wait for any steam trains. We want our Indietracks adventure to start right away!

Who receives us by the entrance?! None other than Mr. Colm. He gives us all our bright red Indietracks bracelets and show us a little box with Helen Love and Trembling Blue Stars EPs that you can take for free. I take both. Of course. And then suddenly we are in wonderland. The grass looks greener than last year. The weather is warmer than last year. And I feel as excited too! And this is when things start getting blurry. Straight to the almost empty indoor stage to get our first warm beers of the festival.

I must have started saying hello to everyone by this point. I spent the whole evening talking and meeting up with friends. With all of them. I did stop at some point to have some curry. I didn’t see any of the bands. I wasn’t in the mood. I was in the mood to chat. To talk with friends. I believe the first friend I saw at Indietracks must have been Kajsa. She was all over the festival this year but I didn’t see her at any gigs (aside from the Helen Love one).  Then I met the big German contingent, Pamela and Paloma, and the new friends they introduced me to.

I met with the lovely people of Flowers. More Spanish friends, the biggest Go-Betweens fan Javi and the indiepop know-a-lot Manolo, this year for the first time without any injuries. The party animal Sergio was there too. Who can party like him?! So much fun to hang out. And then the Frenchies came too, everyone from the Pale Spectres gang plus the Another Sunny Night clan. All the familiar faces you want to see in one place. I also meet Astrid and Amanda. And then a bit later John. Them three will be the best companions on the dancefloor at the discos. Did I dance on Friday though? I must have at least for a bit.

Nana and Andreas show up. All tanned! What a surprise. We get some beers. And Andreas has his purple Coke. We catch up. It’s been a year since I saw them. And suddenly Victor and Naemi also arrive! And then more swedes, Rasmus and Arnar. All big Secret History fans. I get to see Vanessa too, classy girl with tall socks. She gets me up to date with Thee Ahs stories. I see Elin again, this time with her friend Lindnsey. Elin tells me the hotel looks like a hospital. That she should have stayed somewhere else. Also, that it is too far. But I tell her that it was the only one with rooms available at that time and it was the cheapest too. You don’t want to camp! Though, I would love to go to the camp discos.

More familiar faces, Toni from Jessica and the Fletchers is around too, making the Spanish Armada bigger and bigger. Because you have Rafa around, and some of the Vacaciones people too! Jennifer and Miguel arrive to Indietracks grounds. Alpaca Sports also. I meet Emma, Andreas’ girlfriend. She speaks perfect Spanish, with a nice Argentinean accent. She tells me about her time visiting Peru. And then I see Neil from The Felt Tips. And Lynsey from Scotland who I have a very nice talk after some events that happened in this blog many years ago. This is why I love coming to Indietracks. Seeing friends, making friends.

Marianthi making me happy with hugs. I see Alex too. Though there’s no Christos this time, there’s the one Greek missing. There is no Remi or Delphine either. People who are missed indeed. Matthew Big Pink Cake is around, but I see him little, unlike last year, when we hanged out at the merch tent. In general, I see people little. I didn’t have very long conversations with anyone this year. I got to see more bands, and I hanged out here and there. I didn’t even step in the stationary train. It was all about catching up after a year that I had kind of lost touch with so many friends. And as Nana said, everyone seemed a bit older this year, more grown up, more centered. I thought that was a good thing.

I lost the last train to the station. I was hanging out with Elin and Lindsay. But they have a friend, Jonathan, who is driving. He is staying with Jerv. The great John Jervis, merch table extraordinaire, record boss, gig organizer, and overall nice guy. All of us in the car, while Elin tells us about her favourite grass or something like that. Grass that grows nicer in Norway.

Already at the hotel we try to find some beer for an afterparty. But everything around is closed. But the girls are way more resourceful than me, and end up finding someone that has a bunch of alcohol… and the night continued for a couple more hours at the big pub table outside the hotel.

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pa·ri·ah

1. An outcast.
2. A member of an indigenous people of southern India originally functioning as ceremonial drummers but later having a low caste or no caste.

Do you know the Pariahs? Olaf from Firestation Records, based in Berlin, tells me they weren’t great live but their album is perfection. Uwe also from Firestation says it’s his favourite German indiepop album. I don’t know much about them. I left a note on their soundcloud trying to get in touch but no luck. Twee.net though has a small biography for the band:

The Pariahs played britpop long before Oasis did. Raised in 1989 they released their debut-CD TIGHTROPE WALK in 1992 and received quite positive reviews in Newspapers like ‘Tagesspiegel’ and ‘taz’ – the critics compared the songs with the work of Lennon-McCartney, Elvis Costello and other famous british songwriters. Unfortunately they’ve already split when guitar-based popmusic striked back. The tried to save pop for the 90s – but Grunge was stronger…

Thanks to the internet you have the chance to enjoy some of their golden oldies – and some new songs! – just enter here… http://www.reverbnation.com/pariahs

The Pariahs are: Ralph (Git-Vox), Michael (Bas-Vox), Ralf (Dru-Vox), Thomas (Git-Vox), Silke (Flute-Vox)

So let’s head to ReverbNation and see what we can find. There’s not much there. Just a lot of songs that appear also on the CD album. An album I found on eBay more than a year ago for no more than 1 dollar. If you look in the right places you can find it for cheap. And I totally recommend it.

On SoundClick there are more songs. This time there are some demos. This is quite a find I tell myself. I feel at some point, some years ago they must have tried to have a comeback or were feeling nostalgic. There’s even a Myspace, that could prove this point.

From the album we get some little information. We know that the record was produced and engineered by Thommy Hein and was recorded at the Thomas Hein Tonstudio in Berlin during December 1991. We also get to know who were responsible for the photography and artwork in the album. But that’s it. Oh! And the label was Civic Dust. Catalog number 01. It must have been a self-release, right?

But still the information is very little about the band. You don’t get to learn anything else about them. You wonder why there weren’t more releases. Why did they went straight for an album, why didn’t they put out any singles. And what happened to them? It can’t be like they stopped making music. And maybe if they were they involved with bands before the Pariahs. I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Pariahs might be one of Germany best kept secrets, but I feel you all should listen to this one great album they released. Let’s not keep them a secret no more. If you like jangly pop, classic indiepop, this might be up your street.

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Listen
Pariahs – Going Down Niagara Falls

Just a couple of weeks ago I was lucky to see The Brilliant Corners perform at Indietracks. It was the gig of the year for me. It was just amazing!!! I thought it was a good idea to see what The Brilliant Corners are up to these days and Davey was kind enough to answer a bunch of my questions. But first and foremost I will point you to Wearitwell Records were you can buy a CD of a live performance of The Brilliant Corners called “From Bristol to Berlin” and also the latest of Davey’s other band (who are still going by the way!), that is the Experimental Pop Band’s latest album “Vertigo”.

Very jealous of those who will see them at Berlin Popfest soon, but I’m here crossing fingers I’m lucky enough to see them play next year, somewhere close or far away from me. Catch them if you can!

++ Hi Davey! It was so great to meet you at Indietracks. And very happy that you are up for an interview. I have thousands of questions but I’ll try to make it not too long. But first things first, how was your experience at Indietracks? What was the best thing about it? And how come you didn’t prepare an encore?! 🙂

I liked the intimacy of the event, there was a feeling that a lot of people were meeting old/new friends. People playing acoustic in the merch tent was cool, doing something like that is a bit scary but also a really exciting thing to do. I would be happy to do it next year!

The best thing has to be the wonderful reception the band got. Yes I should have kept a number back for an encore, think I was too excited and just played all the songs on the set list with out thinking ahead!

++ You are playing Berlin Popfest very soon too. With what kind of expectations are you traveling to Germany? And I wonder if you are planning to keep playing with The Brilliant Corners some more gigs after this gig?

Well I don’t think the BCs have been to Germany since 1989! I have toured Germany with The Experimental Pop Band quite a few times over the years as we were on City Slang Records ( Berlin label) for a few years. Used to get a lot of people coming to gigs saying they were fans of the BCs and did I remember the Fanzine interview I did with them. Most times I did remember. I think there is a real possibility that we might play a few more dates In Germany in 2014. I have a friend in Hannover, Jens, who really wants to put us on and record a session for his radio show. Our only other date this year is in our hometown Bristol on The 2nd November. We will continue to do reunion dates until June 2014 then our year of fun and joy is over.

++ Was it thanks to the Scared to Get Happy shows in London that you decided to reform? Or have this been in the pipeline for some time? How was that gig? Were you a fan of the other bands that played back in the 80s? I read Amelia Fletcher joined you on stage! Would have loved to see that!

No STGH had nothing to do with it. Bob ( our drummer) has periodically asked me to think about doing a one off gig for old times. I always said no as I don’t really like the idea of bands reforming as they usually sound crap! I am so pleased we don’t sound crap! Last xmas Bob and Steve ( road manager) got me drunk and pestered me for a whole night to do a gig. I told them about the BCs album Cherry Red were putting out. John Reid who put the project together and Richard who had a lot of the live recordings were also asking if there was any chance that the band could play live. I had already told them no. However during the course of listening to the songs for the ‘Hearts on your Sleeve’ album and really enjoying those songs and knowing that I had no commitments with The Experimental Pop band ( we had an album out in 2012) for the first time in decades I pondered the possibility. I was also quite drunk. Between Jan and March this year me Bob and bass player Boo met up and I have to say it was a joyful experience working out those old songs and even with just the three of us playing I knew it could be good. It was a kind of now or never moment.

STGH was great , on so many levels it was great. There was no warm up gig prior to it but we played and all the old magic was in the air, the audience were wonderful. I had not seen Amelia for a long time but got in touch with her and she was really up for doing the gig, she like me was uncertain how it would go but we really enjoyed it. Amelia played a lot of gigs with us in the 80s. I remember buying the Wolfhounds debut album, great album, so it was wonderful to see them live for the first time!

++ In the last couple of years there has been a bunch of Brilliant Corners CD reissues by Cherry Red Records. How did this partnership start? And are there any more releases coming up?

Think Cherry Red asked me for the rights to the back catalogue some 5 years ago or more. I agreed as I was often being told that people could not get hold of the old stuff and I also saw that some people were paying crazy prices for vinyl on ebay. I also thought a new generation of kids might be into what we were doing so it should be available to them and I did not have the time to do it myself.

The idea was that Cherry Red would put out stuff chronologically. It was not until the recent release that I got really involved mainly due to John and Richards enthusiasm for the project. They still have ‘Hooked’ ( not our best LP but some good songs on it) and History of White Trash ( our final album and a bit of an overlooked gem, lots of good pop songs on it.) Not heard if they intend to release these. You can get a limited Live CD of a gig the BCs did in Berlin on my label Wearitwell records.

++ Let’s go back in time. Were you involved in any other bands prior of The Brilliant Corners?

Prior to the Corner’s me and Chris were in a band called The Hybrids we started out sounding like The Jam and Kinks and ended up sounding like Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division!

++ What are your first musical memories you have as a kid? When and how did you get your first guitar?

I got my first guitar pretty late in life. I was 16 and it was right in the middle of the whole new wave, punk scene and that inspired me to write songs. My mothers side of the family were very musical, mainly country music and 50s and 60s pop , so I grew up with uncles and cousins who were in bands. I don’t know why I did not take guitar up at an earlier age, I was buying records with what little money I had so I was already hooked. My earliest musical memory is having my plastic Beatles guitar flung on the fire ( 1964), mum got mad with me for making a racket so she threw it on the fire, I think Paul McCartney’s face melted last. Ah so I was traumatised by this experience and that’s why I got a guitar so late in life!

++ How did The Brilliant Corners start? What was the recruiting process? And was it an easy choice to name the band with the Thelonious Monk album name?

Me and Chris met Dan ( trumpet) and we would go to his house and jam and sometimes I would bring songs I had written. I met Bob when I was working as a lab technician and he was the test tube washer. He looked like a punk and said he played drums. So we now had a drummer. Bob had a friend called Winston who would turn up and bang on stuff. They both had a friend called Steve who would show up and say we were great and we should play in a pub. So we did and that was out first live experience. Dan owned the Monk album can’t remember if it was me Chris or Dan who took the song title as the bands name.
Later Winston bought a guitar. Dan left to go to university and we put our first singles out. Dan came back from university, rejoined the band, we then became quite well known. Winston broke his arm prior to a German tour and Phil had a week to learn all his parts! Phil then left the band when Winston came back in but rejoined us when I broke my arm and he learned all my parts! When Winston and Dan left. Phil joined the band for a while. Phil then Joined Cowboy and Spingirl and Paul Sandrone played guitar in the final line up.

++ That you named your band after that always made me wonder. You must have such a wide and broad specter of influences. But I wonder if there are any indiepop bands that you would think influenced your band?

I have really diverse tastes and that shows from the BCs development through to everything I have done since. Also not many people realise that me and Dan played in an avant guard Jazz band called Spaceways in the late 8o’s when he had left the band and I was still in the band. So my ears were really open to stuff. I don’t think indiepop bands did influence what we did but bands of that time that did were certainly Orange Juice, Josef K and the The Go Betweens. Infact a song on Hooked ‘Hemingways Back’ could be the Go Betweens!

++ Trumpets. I love that you have trumpets. How did trumpets become a big part of The Brilliant Corners sound?

Dan played trumpet! Bearing in mind I have already said that my first band metamorphosed into Echo and the Bunnymen meets Joy Division, only a nutcase would add trumpet to that! but we did. It has to be said that a lot of our first gigs were primal , noisy Jams, the songs came later. I also think those 60s records I was exposed to with lush orchestral backing was knocking around in my mind..

++ On the liner notes of the last Cherry Red cd I love that you mention how important were haircuts and how to dress back in the 80s. Though I’m sure you were the coolest kids in Bristol, I wonder how was your town back then? Has it changed a lot? What were your favourite places to hang out? And which other bands did you like hanging out with?

Gosh, Bristol was a really difficult place to grow up in the 70s and 80s, if you were a bit of an outsider/ oddball like me, one was always getting beaten up or picked on. Later after punk had happened I noticed that there were more oddballs around and I could hang out with a few people. These people seemed to go to the gigs I went to. Getting involved in music made me feel special and not too much of a freak.

In the early 80s there was only the Dugout Club which we could go to. You could hear all kinds of music there. Revolver Records and Tony’s was the place to get vinyl. The Student Union bar had local art school type bands on. You could hear 60s R &B at The Western Star Domino Club. We played some gigs there too. By the mid 80s there was more of an alternative scene. I was living in a part of Bristol Called Stokes Croft, ( The area is now considered very Bohemian) it was very low life but the pubs were good, the Tropic Club was around the corner from where I lived and every indie band worth mentioning played there. By now Sarah Records and Subway were happening. Bands I hung out with? We did lots of gigs with The Chesterfields, Mark Barber from the band is still a good friend and The Flatmates, in fact I grew up a few streets away from Deb Haynes, we just thought it was a fucking joke the two of us in an indie band! No one from where we grew would have a clue about being in a band! I’ve run into Rocker quite a lot recently he’s a good guy. (If you want more details about stuff like this I have written Blogs about it that you can access via wearitwell records) I remember some mad nights in Belgium with The Dentists- great band.

++ Another thing that I often think about is although you have a vast discography, I’m sure there are still many unreleased recordings by The Brilliant Corners. Am I wrong? And if not, any chance they will ever get released?

There are many unreleased songs, I used some on the recent album and some were used on the Berlin live CD too. You never know some of this stuff might see the light of day but I would have to think carefully about this. The live CD works really well as it is a whole gig in its entirety with the mistakes, out of tunesss and me yapping in between. All this captures the mood of that time. Cherry Red have an option to put the bands last 2 albums out.

++ To what extent would you say your songs are autobiographical? I ask because there’s many many times where I’ve felt these songs very dear to me, experiences that anyone could have been through, especially songs like “Oh!”, “Teenage”, and the like. You know, those of boy meet girl.

Well I think there is always going to be elements of autobiography in some songs. Part of the charm of song writng for me is that sometimes it comes from the heart and at other times I don’t know where the hell the words have come from but they come and it happens and rather magically it means something to me and hopefully can mean something to others. I think you can say an awful lot of things in boy meets girl songs, a lot people underestimate this. Its a genre that I continue to enjoy using. The songs you mention are mainly autobiographical.

++ And if I would make you choose the one song that you like the most of your repertoire, the one that has to be played at every gig, which one would you choose and why?

Strangely that is not too difficult a question. I would always want to play ‘Meet Me on Tuesdays’ and ‘Growing up Absurd’ I don’t really know why though!

++ Tell me a bit about the video of “Why Do You Have to Go Out With Him?”. How did it come about? Any funny anecdotes while filming it?

I don’t really remember too much about making that video. Think at the time we had got into a habit of choosing a song for a single and then begging someone to film us in return for beer money or sex , which to our surprise seemed to work. Seem to recollect that it was made after we had done a UK and German tour so we were buzzing and tired at the same time.

++ During the 80s you mostly do everything by yourselves. You released your own records, did your own videos, probably even found your own gigs. It seems you had this energy most bands during those years lacked, that after the one record they would split up. I wonder what it was that kept you going? It mustn’t have been that easy right?

ou are absolutely right that we did most of these things ourselves but we also ran into a few people who would also find us witty and charming and would do a few things for us. One example being a guy Called Andy Franks, at the time he was Depeche Modes tour Manager. He had remembred us from the early days in Bristol when he sometimes did the door at The Western Star Domino Club. Andy came to one of our our London gigs and we got drunk and had a laugh and before you knew it he got us a tour set up in Germany. So it was not entirely down to all our own endevours. Chris delt with most of that side of things, the money and planning and he was very good at it. We both spent a lot of attention to the look of the sleeves. I really liked that creative side of it, how things looked, our haircuts were very important too!

The longer we were together it actually got more difficult to do as the indie bands who were considered our contempoararies did become more professional and were on big labels that we would never be able to compete with. Also for whatever reasons we did not conform to what the ‘indie scene’ became so in an odd way we were outsiders again as we had not released one classic disc and dissapeared! Back then we could continue to put out stuff becuase we were so fucking obsessed by it. We just about earned enough money to keep doing it and most important of all we had time to do it as we had avoided getting anyone pregnant!

++ Many questions already. Perhaps we should do a second part if you are up for it! I still have so many questions! But before we stop, why did The Brilliant Corners split? And what would you consider was the biggest highlight of the band?

It’s hard to specify a single reason or incident that lead to the band folding but in many ways it was due to some of the above. The more the buisiness side of things had to be thought about the less one could play a gig with an open heart. I think with in the band there was a creeping sensation that we had to ‘have made it’ and what ever made it was, we had not made it. I remember on our last tour getting the feeling that the band was going through the motions a bit and that was a horrible feeling to have. I don’t think one can underestimate the power of the written word too. The BCS had always polarised opinions but some of the press and comments we were getting was pretty vicious. I remember Dan reading a live review we had and him almost in tears, not long after he left saying he could not play live anymore.

Biggest highlight was hearing the band on John Peels show but in a strange way here and now, playing these reunion dates is, because I know we are doing the songs justice, I know we are playing with joy and verve and I never thought that would have been possible. To have this short opportunity to do this again, is perhaps the best highlight.

++ Thanks again Davey!

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Listen
The Brilliant Corners – Meet Me on Tuesdays

Thanks so much to Steve Jenkins for the interview! Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Chalk Garden and Steve was kind enough to get in touch and be up for the interview. It’s so great to read and know the story of this obscure band from London. I recommend everyone also to head to Steve’s soundcloud where you can stream more Chalk Garden songs as well as songs by his other projects Bel-Air-Lip-Bombs and Spinning Belinda. So discover one of the best kept secrets of the UK’s late 80s!

++ Hi Steve! Thanks so much for getting in touch! Are you still  living in Lewisham? Do you feel your town has changed for better or worse since the heyday of the Chalk Garden?

Actually I do still live in Lewisham but the CG’s were never really a Lewisham band, that was another of my bad jokes. The main 4 band members were from all over the UK, Tim (singer) grew up in Chichester on the South coast of England, Carlo (bass) grew up in the Midlands, Ken (drums) is from, Leicester and I grew up in the West Country, a village just outside the trashy seaside resort, Weston-Super-Mare. When the band first got together most of them lived in West London; later Tim & I got a flat together in Lewisham, because it was cheap and Carl ended up living there too. For a while we were practically the Monkees (minus the television programme, recording contract and Californian sunshine).

++ There’s very little information online about the band, but there’s the mention that you were the fifth best band in Lewisham. You say that’s a joke, but I wonder if there were any other good bands in Lewisham that you enjoyed?

As mentioned above we weren’t really from Lewisham, we just live(d) here. If there was a Lewisham scene then we knew very little about it. By the time we moved here we were gigging all over London and the bands that we knew were one’s that we ran into at the various venues or at the rehearsal studios. If pressed I would have to say that the other great Lewisham bands were Spinning Belinda & the Bel-Air Lip-Bombs but, since these were my other bands I may not be the best judge. One other band of note was Yellow Bird. They were the band of another room mate, Tim Groves and mainly consisted of Tim & his crazy talented girlfriend. I played bass for them for about a month and Tim played drums in the CG’s for a similarly short period. I don’t think Yellow Bird played more than 2 or 3 gigs before Suzie (the singer) went off to art school and was never seen again. Tim has posted some songs on SoundCloud which are definitely worth a listen. On the wider London scene we rubbed shoulders with a lot of bands who were up & coming. We played gigs with Suede, Senseless Things The Blue Aeroplanes, Jesus Jones and an early version of Elastica amongst others. None of them really impressed although I later became a big fan of Elastica. In all the time gigging around London only 2 bands really stood out for me, a Bristol band called Nautical William who were excellent live but disappointing on vinyl, except for their debut single ‘Love House’ which is great and can be found on YouTube. The other band that I loved were the Murrumbidgee Whalers; we shared the same rehearsal space, bonded during drink breaks and played a number of gigs together. It was a great arrangement, we all got on well and even shared some fans, unfortunately we had to stop playing with them because they were so good they made Carl feel insecure; he even left the band for a while claiming that we were wasting our time because we’d never be as good as the Whalers. Just one example of the bizarre self-harming which marked our career and pretty much guaranteed that we would never get a record deal.

++ What about in the rest of London? Did you follow any bands in the late 80s? And where did the Chalk Garden band liked hanging out? What were your favourite venues?

I think I would be right in saying that the main thing that drew us together and held us together was our similar musical tastes mainly Echo & The Bunnymen, early REM, Sonic Youth, the usual indie fair but we were also big fans of the late 70’s British punk scene – for me it was all about the Ruts & Crass, for everybody else The Jam and Wire. By the late eighties, predictably enough we were all carried away first by the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses and later by Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, anything loud & brash. My own favourite record from that time was an album called ‘Boing’ by a British band called Airhead. I thought I may have been about the only person to buy it but my wife was as big a fan as me and it was re-released on i-tunes just last year so must have been more popular than I imagined. Our favourite place for hanging out in the late 80’s / early 90’s was a large venue & club in nearby New Cross called ‘The Venue’. Every Friday & Saturday night they would have live music followed by a huge retro nightclub and a separate sweaty room where there was an indie-disco. It was located next to Goldsmiths College so was always filled with bright young things and was a 10 minute walk home even when drunk. Every time I hear Ride’s ‘Like A Daydream’ I am transported back there. As for performing, the best venues were the Bull & Gate, Kentish Town (for hard-core indie credibility), The Powerhaus, Islington (great stage & proper sound system), The Amersham Arms, New Cross (for being close to home so some of us could actually drink) and The Marquee (for all round rock credibility).

++ Tell me about the early days. Were any of you involved with other bands prior to the Chalk Garden?

I only bought my first guitar about 6 months before joining the band so had no previous history, Tim had been playing a lot longer but it was his first band too. Carl had played in bands at school and had some idea what he was doing, which was useful at the start. Ken, the drummer was the best musician by far. While playing in the Chalk Garden he also drummed for a band called The Keetons who were talented and wrote some great stuff but were difficult to like personally. Ken later played in Spinning Belinda & Bel-Air Lip-Bombs and was last seen playing in an excellent band called The Free French who contained other members of The Keetons.

++ How was the recruiting process? How did you all knew each other? And what was the lineup of the band?

Tim & I answered the same ad in NME (New Musical Express). In truth neither of us knew what we were doing but they took us on because we looked the part, liked the right music and were, to some extent, able to compensate for our respective lack of ability. Carl had left the band, which was originally a collection of West London friends who met once a week and did only cover versions, the week before and was persuaded to return on the mis-guided notion that we had some ability. Over the next year the original singer, drummer and saxophone player dropped out, Ken was found through NME and Tim was promoted to lead singer. The line-up stayed like that, apart from a brief experiment with Tim’s brother on keyboards (didn’t work he couldn’t compete with my thrashing) and a short period when Ken left and then came back until its final demise in 1992.

++ Where does the name of the band come from?

It was stolen from the title of a 1964 British black & white film. For a short time we were called Wasp Factory (from the book) but ditched that name when we discovered that we were not the only ones to have that idea.

++ And who would you say were the main influences of the band? Were you into the C86 bands at all?

We were certainly into the C86 bands, we actually first met in 1986 so that was the main thing going on at the time. I particularly liked the Mighty Lemon Drops, The Bodines and, rather obviously, Primal Scream (I was also really into the early Jesus & Mary Chain stuff but I thought they became too boring, I know it’s probably considered sacrilegious to say this, but they started to sound too much like the Ramones who I have always considered to be massively over-rated). BMX bandits had a brilliant name which was not matched by their songs.

++ From what I gather there were no proper releases but that appearance on a compilation 7″. Do you remember how you ended up on the House of Dolls 7″?

I sent them a tape and the magazine editor quite liked it. It was as simple as that. If only record companies had been that easy to convince!

++ That song included, “Drunk Among the Trees”, is really great! Care telling me the story behind it?

I don’t think there are any stories behind the writing of the song. Like most CG’s songs, it originated from Tim and just emerged after couple of months of thrashing around in rehearsals. The version on the single was savagely edited by Tim & the studio engineer and has always sounded mutilated to me. I recently searched for a copy of the original full-length version and came up blank. Around the time that we wrote this my younger brother went touring round Europe with a friend. They had both bought guitars and intended to learn to play them and busk their way from city to city. I showed them how to play DATT and they claim that it fed them for at least 2 months until they managed to learn something else to play. He (my brother) is now a superb blues guitarist, far better than me, and claims that he once came second to Chris Martin (Coldplay) in a pub talent contest.

++ On Youtube there’s a promo video for “Flags”. How did this video come about?

A friend of mine worked for a broadcast hire company and arranged for us to ‘borrow’ a load of equipment for a weekend to film it. One of his colleagues had studied film and was keen to direct, seeing it as a good portfolio opportunity. The Flags recording session was the first one that we had ever felt good about and we really wanted to capitalise on it and make a big push with all the record companies that had been showing some interest. It did generate a lot of interest but the regular A&R mantra of, “I like it but I think you need another six months to mature” continued un-abated. Somehow the video got a few plays on a programme hosted by Boy George on an obscure satellite TV channel but failed to provide us with the platform we were hoping for – it was fun to make though.

++ On the Soundcloud page there are many more Chalk Garden recordings. Why didn’t you get to release any proper records? Was there any label interest?

It was a different world back then. Recording demos was expensive and we were always broke. The Whalers funded their own single which was not uncommon but, aside from the cost we always thought that a record just wouldn’t be authentic unless we could actually convince an real record label to put it out. I gather we got pretty close. A couple of old friends from my home town were in a band called Claytown Troupe who got a deal and put out an album on Island Records in 1989. Some years later they told me that Chalk Garden demo tapes were on practically every record company desk that they saw and they had been convinced at the time that we would be signed soon. We were blissfully unaware, had we known I guess we may have done a bit more to try to get noticed!

++ How many songs did you end up recording? Did you use to sell them as demo tapes?

We recorded quite a lot of demos over the years but were nearly always tremendously disappointed with the results. Some are practically un-listenable. There was a predictable pattern, we’d go into the studio thinking we’d got some great songs, spend one or two days locked in the studio thinking that it all sounded awesome and the minute we left the studio and stuck the tape into the car stereo all the awesomeness would evaporate into thin air. Apparently it is incredibly difficult for a low paid engineer in a cheap studio to transfer a half-decent guitar sound onto tape. In many ways the best recordings I have are a live session recorded in our rehearsal studio. I found it recently and, whilst the sound quality is a bit rough, it is very tight and all the energy that is absent from most of the demos is there in spades.

++ And which song of your repertoire is your favourite? And why?!

As a narcissistic musician, I find it hard to listen to any of my music without obsessing over my own parts so inevitably have a tendency to judge the songs on whether I think I did a good or bad job. ‘Slow’ was always my favourite CG’s song, it’s probably about the only song where the guitars sound almost exactly as intended and my backing vocals are more or less in tune. I also rather like ‘Back To Words’ (the first time my guitar playing actually sounded competent) ‘Complete’ & ‘How To Get There’ (from the last recording session, by that time I was confident and not half bad, though the 3rd song from that session was not a great success).

++ Tell me about gigs. I hear you played a lot in many of the classic London venues. Which were the best Chalk Garden gigs? Any anecdotes you could share?

We really played just about everywhere that an un-signed band could play in London, frequently to extremely small audiences. The best gigs were always the ones where there was a decent sized crowd, the venue doesn’t count for shit if no one turns up. The high points were playing with the Senseless Things at the Marquee, head-lining at the Limelight club in front of at least 1,000 people, and playing at a huge bank holiday indie festival at Dingwalls in Camden Town. Better than all that though was the first Bel-Air Lip-Bombs gig. I had been working in my bedroom writing music and preparing tapes full of sampled & sequenced backing tracks which would be supplemented with live drums, bass & guitar when playing live. I had no idea whether it would work and feared that it might end in immense embarrassment. As it turned out it was amazing, we got a better crowd reaction than I had ever experienced before with the CG’s. The second BALB gig resulted in a call from EMI records, apparently we made an immediate impact. Unfortunately, as always, the recording sessions were unsuccessful, too dense and devoid of any of that live energy. When the singer that I was working with got fed up that instant acclaim was not forthcoming it fizzelled out quickly. My worst experience at a gig was watching the CG’s play without me after I got knocked of my bike and broke my left hand & right wrist (about the worst possible combination for a right-handed guitarist). The second worst experience was my ‘comeback’ gig. Tim managed to break strings on his guitar, his backup and my backup and I then had to give him my guitar so that the set could be completed with me watching, again, from the audience.

++ And then what happened? When and why did you split?

We split in 1992. Everybody else thought it was time to pack it in and had given up hope of ever being ‘discovered’. At the time we had Food records (Blur, Jesus Jones) showing some interest and asking for more material, we were tight, well rehearsed and, at last, confident but without the belief there was nowhere to go. By that time I was so heavily involved with my BALB project that I didn’t shed a tear, even though I thought it was a terrible time to quit. Now I’m frustrated that I could not persuade the rest to invest in one last demo – there were some great songs that never got recorded and may have made the difference – ‘Milk Tooth’, ‘Headstands In The Sand’, Don’t Change’, ‘I Know’, ‘Here We Go Again’…

++ Thanks to Soundcloud I notice that you had many other band projects after. Can you tell me a bit about each of these projects?

I auditioned as a drummer for Spinning Belinda. I wanted to learn to play the drums mainly to make me a better drum programmer, but also because I thought it would be cool to have played guitar, bass and drums in different bands. At the audition I was blown away by the quality of the songs, suggested that they deserved a better drummer than me and asked if they would allow me to audition as a guitarist. I got the gig and roped Ken in to play drums and later persuaded Tim, the other old CG’s drummer to take over from Ken. At the time I thought the songs were great but the sound was a bit staid and boring and would struggle to get noticed. I started writing my own songs with Ali, the singer and formed Bel-Air Lip-Bombs out of that. Initially Paul, the song writer behind Spinning Belinda was persuaded to throw his lot in with us and we performed a mixture of my songs and his songs which I re-arranged and tried to make a bit more interesting musically. Nobody understood what I was trying to do, including me, but it worked well live in spite of this and we did a number of really successful gigs. Unfortunately we struggled to make things work in the studio and by 1993 Paul had decided to return to Ireland and Ali became disillusioned and quit. I briefly had a 2-piece band called Palm. Initially I intended to carry on with the BALB material and let things evolve naturally but the singer, another Architect, insisted on replacing Ali’s lyrics with her own which I hated the idea of so I wrote half a dozen new pieces of music in the space of about 2 months so that Claire could do her own thing. We performed one gig which went down very well, even receiving rare praise from Ken. A few weeks later we recorded a demo. It was the first time that I was actually able to hear what Claire was doing with some clarity and I absolutely hated it. We never performed again.

++ What happened to the other members of the band? What did they do after? Are you all still in touch?

Tim & Carl both live about 5 miles from me and we still see each other on a regular basis. Tim teaches and now occasionally plays in a staff band. After the CG’s Carl formed a mod band with his brother called The Direction. They got some instant success riding a mod revival wave and released a couple of singles. He sold all of his guitars and moved to Italy for a few years but is now back in South London. He is currently recovering from a, thankfully, mild form of Leukaemia. Ken is elusive, we haven’t seen him for at least 5 years and I’m not really sure what he is doing now. I am an Architect and now run my own small design practice.

++ Tell me, when was the last time you picked up an instrument? And how many guitars do you actually own?!

After a long gap I have just put a band together to play at a party in September. Our set list will include at least one Chalk Garden song, ‘Headstands In The Sand’ but is otherwise a crowd-pleasing rock selection from T-Rex, The Cure, Blink 182, The Fratellis and a few others. I still have the same Fender Stratocaster and Fender Lead 2 guitars that I used all those years ago along with a couple of acoustic guitars and a cheap Japanese semi-acoustic with a snapped neck. I also still have every other bit of equipment that I have ever bought, amps (one Fender, one Peavey), sampler, sequencers, drum machines, keyboards, synth modules, I am apparently, incapable of ever getting rid of anything!

++ Aside from music, do you have any other hobbies that you enjoy on the day to day?

My work is pretty all-consuming and fortunately I am lucky enough to do something I largely enjoy. I have been taking piano lessons which has been hard work yet rewarding but the most important thing is my 8 year old daughter; whatever she wants to do is what I want to do.

++ Let’s wrap it here! Thanks a lot. I’m really enjoying everything I’ve heard by your bands. I wonder how they’ve been so under the radar. Anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks Roque I really appreciate your interest. It was all a long time ago now but every single bit of music that I contributed to means an enormous amount to me, even the ones that are patently a bit crap, and you probably can’t imagine how pleased I am that you like some of it. I am planning to go into a studio soon to complete the recording of a few BALB songs that I think deserve completing. If you are interested, and if they are worthy, I will send you copies for review.

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Listen
Chalk Garden – Drunk Among the Trees

Two weeks ago I was arriving at Heathrow airport. After watching a couple of Bruce Willis movies on the plane and complaining with the United Airlines hostess about them charging for beers on the flight, 6:30 hours of sitting down at the uncomfortable economy class, my excitement was beginning to show. Though I hid it well to go through customs with a serious face. 6 days. Vacations. Thank You. And then, to pick up my bag full of records and other goodies.

Last time I was in London was for Chickfactor, in November. I was a bit down and lonely. It was no surprise then that I still had money on my Oyster card (10 pounds!) and money on my O2 phone card (4 pounds!). So no need to stop and top up these. Let’s go straight to the underground, catch that Piccadilly line towards Jennifer’s!

Buying the usual shampoo, soap, razors, you know. I travel light. Shower. Choosing a Betty and the Werevolves t-shirt. Because they were Londoners. Having lunch at the pub. Fish and Chips. Let’s keep it classic. Take the train from West London all the way to King’s Cross. Go to Jennifer’s office and pick up the merch and pedals of The Secret History. Now let’s head to The Miller, where the gig is going to take place.

Bad coincidence. I get a text message from my friend Albie. She won’t be able to make it because she has to organize something for the party. I don’t know what party she is talking about. I then realize it’s her birthday. What a moron I am. All these traveling have made me lose the sense of time. So I don’t get to see her, nor greet her. Just a stupid text message saying happy birthday. It’s hard to make it up for everyone when you are abroad and for so little time. Though you might think this is a terrible excuse.

Anyhow. At the Miller. Only the Great Ghostby and Laura are around. The rest of The Secret History are on their way. I notice that downstairs all the Pale Spectres are already having some beers. But I dont get to meet them. Not yet. Soundcheck. The Secret History gang has finally arrived. A tattooed guy talks to me in Spanish. It’s Rafael, the drummer of Pale Spectres. With his Mexican accent he asks me for a copy of the Flowers 7″. It’s all yours I tell him. It’s great to finally meet him! My new metalhead-pop friend. I didn’t expect him to be that punk!

I glue some posters on the walls of the pub. Posters for the gig. On the posters it says it’s sold out. It is. There’s only space for 100 people, and I believe 105 or something are going to be attending. Jennifer sets up a Colour Me Pop thingie, for people to leave their emails, so they can join her mailing list for future shows. I write my email first. Before anyone else. And I use my personal one. I never do that. Definitely this is going to be an special evening.

I run downstairs to tell David Feck from Comet Gain it’s their time for soundcheck. They are all having some beers of course. They come and they sound amazing. Then it’s Pale Spectres turn. Now I meet the whole gang, Thomas, Stephane, Jeff and of course, Rafael el Duracell. The cool thing is that they bring their own French crowd, friends that I see at every Indietracks I go, Clemence, Emilie and Joanny. Them three who run the Another Sunny Night club in Paris. Them three who are a lovely bunch! And joining them I meet Amanda, a Swedish girl who dresses in one piece outfits, has short hair and speaks perfect French. Later I would know she is a fantastic dancer too!

Then of course the three bands play. And they are all amazing in their own rights. I DJ too a bunch of songs. Well known and not so well known. If you google alright you can find which songs I played that night. If you are curious. I’m not very curious about it. Ok, maybe a couple of them, because I would love to know what happened to those bands. But I’ll blog about them some other time.

My highlights of the night start showing up. Seeing Christos and Matthew. Christos who wouldn’t come to Indietracks at all. My dearest friend who was very much missed. How much I’d love to hang out there like previous years. At least I got to see him on Thursday. Matthew of course I would see later playing with The Fireworks at the Church.

I meet Martin who used to play in the Meta Band, in Sweden. He is on vacations in London and he is a big fan of The Secret History. Or well, of My Favorite. It seems their shows at Goteborg and especially the Hultsfred festival are nothing short to epic. I wish I had been around then and there. They have a big Swedish following with that handful of gigs! Impressive, but well deserved if you have ever seen them play!

Of course I get to see Miguel! With who Im staying too. And with who I would get a late night kebab after running to catch the last train all the way to Ealing. Because we stayed until the last possible minute that Thursday talking with the French crowd and drinking beer. Expensive beer!

And meeting Elin! Elin from Je Suis Animal, asking her which songs to play, which Dolly Mixture song would be good. Dear Elin who blamed me for staying at a hospital-kind of hotel at Indietracks instead of camping. Elin who helped me in my stay in Tallinn. Elin who makes the most beautiful music. At last I got to properly talk to her in person!  What a star she is!

And last but not least I saw my dearest Kajsis. Another year of visiting London and hanging out. Another Indietracks of joking and telling each other all the gossip, catching up. Like we’ve always done. Buying beer, having a good laugh. It’s always lovely to hang out with her, though Kajsa, I thought I was getting a free Cosines 7″! WHAT!?

What about the gigs you say. Of course, a review of the gigs. That’s what people care. Afterall it’s about the music right. Couple of things first, the event was thoroughly organized by Colour Me Pop (aka. Jennifer). I think she found a great venue (it’s been the cleanest pub I’ve been to a gig in London), and everything went really smooth. Even the sound guy was really friendly!  So many thanks to her for letting me be part of it and DJ. Now, team Indietracks, invite me to DJ. I want to be part of Indietracks.

Pale Spectres. Very excited to see them of course. I had put a song on a compilation CD and loved their 3″ CDR on Little Treasure. On top of that I’ve been chatting now and then with Thomas and I believe we are very similar in our opinions about indiepop. I like that. I don’t have to explain, and we agree more or less on our tastes. Especially when it comes to the mafiosi. Also, those who read the Cloudberry fanzine know that we are doing a 7″ on Cloudberry pretty soon. As you can tell, it was a big deal this concert for me. And well, seeing Stephane jumping here and there like a kangaroo, Jeff being a summer-like Johnny Marr with his shorts and his arpeggios, Rafael drumming and singing giving away all of his lungs, and Thomas being the classy and shy vocalist all indiepop bands want, made a fabulous impression to the crowd. Everyone was static. The jingle jangle. The great melodies. The classic indiepop of Brighter, Brian, Blueboy and all bands that start with B, was there. And they were only going to confirm it days later at Indietracks (more on that next week perhaps).

Comet Gain. What can I say about Comet Gain? Many people say they are hit and miss. That it depends on their mood. That day they were pretty good. Way better than the time I saw them in NY. Not as good as the time I saw them at The Lexington some years back when Pete Astor opened for them. I’m a big fan of Comet Gain, there are few bands that have such a discography, and so many great songs. But whatever I say, you already know. They are already part of the indiepop pantheon.

The Secret History. First show for Mickey Grace’s new band in the UK, or in Europe even. And they did what they do every time they play in NYC. Lots of attitude, lots of energy, lots of passion, and lots of enthusiasm. Four ingredients that American bands usually lack, The Secret History have so much of it that they could give it away every single night they perform. Playing a couple of My Favorite classics, and then a repertoire that included mostly songs from the new album released on Cloudberry, the band put a killer performance, accordingly to their headliner status. It was indeed also a preamble for their epic gig at indietracks. Who would have thought. Months before when we were discussing the album, at The Sparrow in Astoria, when we were telling each other that Indietracks had to happen, that London had to happen. Sometimes wishes come true. I released the album. I saw them in the UK twice. And The Secret History are one of the best bands of these times. And they proved it. To a foreign, to a new, crowd.

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I just found out that a listing for their record went unnoticed and finished on July 7th. How terrible. Really. I just wrote the seller if the record is still available. But with my luck, probably not. It was on Buy Now and at a very accessible price. The record I’m talking about is very obscure, and a lot of it has to probably do with the band name, The Sometimes. Not an easy one to google.

The Sometimes were from somewhere in Australia. And as far as I know released just one 7″. On the A side the song “People Go Home” and on the B side “Let Your Guard Down”. So far I’ve only been lucky to hear the B side thanks to Peter Twee.net’s “The Sound of Glen Waverley” CDR compilation.

The only other thing I was able to find about them was that they included the A side on a tape compilation called “Screaming at the Mirror” that was released in 1988 by Ticklish Tapes (catalog number TT 007). On this tape the only other band included that I’ve heard before is Scarecrow Tiggy. Are the rest of the bands jangly pop as well?

This appearance only confirms my suspicion that The Sometimes were around in the late 80s. They don’t have anything else listed on Discogs (not even the 7″), or anywhere else. If I could only get the 7″, maybe see who the band members were. Their label. Anything.

No more clues. Just a fantastic song for you to hear. If you have any information, or happen to have a spare copy (unless the eBay seller is kind enough to sell me the expired listing), I’d be very happy! Hopefully we’ll find out soon more about them, and perhaps, there are a bunch of their songs somewhere waiting to be unearthed.

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Listen
The Sometimes – Let Your Guard Down

Was this the most successful Indietracks ever? I wish the organizers would answer. I saw big crowds. I saw a new renovated spirit in people. And most importantly, I saw passion. It’s true though that it can become repetitive for those who come every year. You get excited for the same things and you complain about the same things. It’s like that. We all know we hate the warm beer. We still add some ice to it even though that’s a sacrilege to beer lovers. But there’s no fridge. Unless there’s a fridge donation, we’ll have to stick to it year after year. That if Indietracks continues to happen every summer.

Every year there’s rumours that it will be the last Indietracks. Knowing that I “might” miss the last one, makes me cross the pond. This year even. A year where I have exclusively traveled for the festival, no traveling here or there before or after. It was a Derbyshire vacation as bleak as that sounds. But it wasn’t. Because I was in indiepop paradise, meeting friends and enjoying a handful of bands.

Because I don’t enjoy them all. I can’t. Who can? What Indietracks used to do amazingly well their first years, booking the great up and coming small bands, is not their forte anymore. Booking the bigger bands is their new forte. The headliners are picked up with intelligence and good taste. For me, it was all about The Brilliant Corners and Helen Love this year. The first playing Saturday before Camera Obscura, the second on Sunday before Still Corners.

Sure, you ask how come Still Corners headlined the closing show. You are not alone. I wonder the same thing. I like Still Corners, but their music is not the kind you want for closing a festival. Maybe they should have headlined on Friday. The opening night, when things are still calm, and we are totally fine to be dreamy and wishful. Not on Sunday. On Sunday I want to party. Party until the sun rises (though this is impossible in English culture it seems, everything should be over by midnight). But still. The energy is there. Everyone has it. And I think, Helen Love would have a better closing band. But these are just details really.

This year it felt very short. Time passed very fast. I barely had any conversations. I don’t think it’s the year I’ve seen the most bands mind you. But time flew. I even woke up early every day and enjoyed my free breakfast at the hotel. I was always before 1pm at the festival grounds. How did I didn’t have time to have long conversations with friends? How didn’t I step a foot in the stationary train? I don’t know. I don’t understand it. Simply there was no time. I remember going from here to there, to the bar, to the other stage, to grab something to eat. Talking about eating, was it me, or were things more expensive this year? That’s ok. Inflation, right? Though there was inflation at the merch stall. I bought a CD-R by Finnmark for 5 pounds. I think it was a rip off. But well, that’s me, supporting indiepop. But 5 pounds a CDR? I think there’s something wrong there.

If previous years I had the vegetarian curry many times, this year I only had it on Friday. I think it was tasty, though I prefer the previous curries they had. And also I think the portions were much smaller this year. Maybe it’s just me that loves big American portions. I don’t want to bash the food carts, but I think it really could be better. Why there’s no schwarma or kebab cart? I see these stores all over UK, why not have that here? I think it would be such a success. I saw there was a new Paella stall. But it was always empty. I think no one had it. Shame. The burritos well, that’s what I ate the most. They never had the pulled pork though. I sticked to the chicken then. They gave you 5 or 6 pieces of chicken. Like 15 beans. A spoonful of rice. And then they ran out of guacamole. They didnt know how to fold the burrito either. Ok. I’m spoiled with Mexican food in NY. But for 6.50 pounds a piece. I expect a bit more!

Prices might be the only thing that was a bit off at Indietracks. But that’s not a big deal when you are there. You just enjoy your time. Think about the bank and your accounts later.  There weren’t that many crazy characters this year but we had owls. I didn’t ask. But there were owls at the bar. I petted one of them with care. I didn’t want to be pecked or lose a finger. They  were beautiful.

The disco on Sunday was quite epic. With the train dancing and the cheesiest hits of the last couple of decades. Killing my idols, boy band Magneto, who I thought their song “Vuela Vuela” was an original. It wasn’t. I learned it was “Voyage Voyage” by Desireless. My Mexican peers never told me so. Still I believe Magneto’s best song, “40 Grados”, is an original. Unless you can prove me wrong.

Do you remember Madidi looking exactly the same as Roxanne from Veronica Falls? Do you remember the rainy Saturday jumping puddles and Camera Obscura being forced to play indoors? The sweaty train when we saw Northern Spies? Or that illustrious record boss dressed ridiculously as Scarface? Do you remember The Secret History and the US flag? The Brilliant Corners repeating “Meet Me On Tuesdays” as an encore because they didn’t practice more songs? Or when we all got on the stage with Helen Love to dance like possessed?

What a beautiful weekend it was.

Now with the Post-Indietracks blues, back in New York, working and all, I’ll see if next week I can go over the gigs, the friends, the special moments in detail. I remember I did that a couple of years ago. It’s hard, but it means a lot. The kind of energy, excitement, PASSION and LOVE you get from Indietracks is unique. I’ve been saying I won’t go next year but I really want to go once again. Please team Indietracks, make it happen again! (and maybe invite me to DJ!)

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It’s Saturday, but this song is about Sundays. It’s about Big Outdoor Type. Just like the people I met at Indietracks. All outdoors. Mostly though. When it rains, we go indoors of course. And when we need to refresh ourselves with warm beer. THOUGH. There was a point when I got a very cold and chilled Stella Artois. I think it was from a secret stash from some of the Spanish crowd. Can anyone confirm/remember this?

Anyways, The Big Outdoor Type. I heard them first time back in 2008 I believe, thanks to the once prolific Shelflife blog (why did you stop Ed?!), and I liked it. It was similar in style to The Friday Club who I’ve covered in the blog already. Or The Watt Government. That sort of classy early 80s, girl-led pop.

There are two songs on this 7″. On the A side there’s “Call You on Sundays” and on the B side “Seventeen”. For sure the A side is the better. And that’s the one I will share. But you can listen to the B side on Youtube here.

The record was released in 1984 by Havasac Records, being the first and only reference in their catalog. What does that mean? Most probably that it was a self-release.

As most of these bands from the first half of the 80s, their information on the web is very scarce. In this case, the information is non-existant.

Though I’m still missing this 7″ in my collection, the blog From A Northern Place shares scans of the sleeve. On the back cover we learn some the band members first names, though we wish there were last names so we could track them down!

It says:
The Big Outdoor Type are: Tracey, Dianne, Neil, Phil, Steve, Tony
and The Brass: Steve, Dave

Some names are thanked too: Pete, Dave, Reg, Simon, Cathy and Hazel.

There are some special thanks to Phil Andrews, Dave Jones and Roy Douglas.

The only other sort of valuable information is on the labels. There are two last names: Davidge and Fuller. To whom they belong? Don’t know. I just know them two wrote both songs.

The plot thickens.

If anyone out there know anything about them, please share! Would love to know! A spare 7″ would be nice too! But now, enjoy the great song that is “Call You on Sundays”.

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Listen
The Big Outdoor Type – Call You on Sundays

Thanks so much to John Hodgson for the interview! The Blofields were a late 80s band from London that released just one 7″ single. A self-released single. I wanted to know a bit more and John was kind enough to reply to many of my answers! You can hear more of their stuff on soundcloud!

++ Hi John! Thanks a lot for being up for the interview. Hope you are well! So tell me, are you all still based in London? Still making music?

Hi Roque, it’s a pleasure. I now live in Hastings – by the sea on the South Coast – it’s a great town full of character – lots of artists and creative people. I do still make music, I’m currently playing bass in my friend Chris’ band – The Ingrid Pitt Orchestra – it’s sort of Eastern European Folk/Punk. I’m really a guitarist and bass is an interesting change.

++ So The Blofelds! I read you took the name from a James Bond enemy? What’s the story behind it? And which is your favourite Bond movie? Do you like Daniel Craig as Bond?

The name is from James Bond. We used to waste far too much rehearsal time trying to come up with a name we all agreed on. I think in the end The Blofelds was the one no one hated, but we grew attached to it.

I guess I preferred the earlier Bond movies. I remember liking On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is the George Lazenby one with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas as Blofeld, but Donald Pleasence was the classic Blofeld for me.

++ How did the band start? When was it? How did you all get to know each other?

I moved to London in 1986 and wanted to start a band, but before I’d really got round to doing much my pal, Tim Briffa who was auditioning people for his band The Atomic Vicars, rang up to recommend a bass player he’d rejected! That was Chris Aitken, we got on straight away, so that was good. Then Tim rang up with a drummer he’d rejected, Jab, who was great so we had him too.

We had more trouble finding a guitarist – Tim already had one so we advertised in all the usual places and auditioned lots of people. We ended up with a fella who was technically very good, but who turned out to be a bit hard work and we sounded too rock’n’roll as he had a traditional rock god style.

Eventually Chris had a huge argument with him and made me kick him out. Thanks Chris. Eventually Nick Connolly turned up at an audition and he was completely unlike anyone else and we grabbed him straight away – that was when we became The Blofelds.

We had the usual drummer issues after Jab moved back to Liverpool – we actually borrowed another couple of Tim’s drummers for various gigs but found Mark Bolland via a friend and he was a great guy so it made life much easier. So the eventual line-up that recorded the single and lasted longest was Chris on bass, Nick on lead guitar, Mark on drums and me, (John Hodgson) singing and rhythm guitar.

++ Were you involved with bands before The Blofelds?

We’d all played in bands before we’d moved to London. My first band was called August The Tenth, we rehearsed a lot, but had no idea what we were supposed to do next. We lived out in the sticks and there wasn’t really anywhere to play.

++ You only released one single, “The Dog is Dead”. Why just only one release?

Recording was much more expensive in those days. We made demos in rehearsal rooms on my Fostex 4-track cassette deck, but to get something that could be played on the radio you really needed a studio.

We recorded “The Dog Is Dead” at a 16 track studio in someones back garden in Camden, but it does sound a bit feeble. We did attempt to record a follow up and did some recording at the original Toe Rag studio in East London with Liam Watson. It was an old analog studio with lots of vintage gear, some from Abbey Road. We were never very happy with the song and though we tried several times we never got it right and gave up on it. I was never very good at song titles and it didn’t have a name when we were recording, it later became ‘Ishtar’ after the disastrous Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman movie that lost $42m at the box office. It was one of those songs that sounded pretty good live but we just couldn’t get it on tape.

In retrospect we probably should have just released it anyway, but as well as paying for rehearsal space and recording time, it was expensive to self fund a single releases – I can’t really remember but we just didn’t have the cash to put stuff out. Nowadays you can do reasonable quality recordings at home, upload it to Soundcloud, tell everyone on Facebook – it’s another world. But I do love having that 7” single!

++ Tell me about the songs on the 7″. What’s the story behind them? What they are about?

“The Dog Is Dead” was about relationships (of all sorts) that break down. How you start out all excited but can grow apart and let each other down. I was actually thinking about the band rather than a boy/girl type thing but it’s all the same really. The song turned out helping the band move on quite well.

The B-Side ‘Felt’ was another song without a name until Chris took the tapes to be mastered and he eventually had to come up with something to put on the label.

++ The single was released by your own label, Throb Records. I assume it was the only release on the label? And how did you enjoy doing the label part? Meaning distribution, promotion, etc…

I think Chris did most of the work concerning the label, getting the 7 inch pressed, getting distribution and promoting it. He was much better than us at that stuff – ringing people up, getting gigs and reviews. I was useless at trying to sell myself, but Chris is shameless about that kind of thing, he would happily tell anyone how great we were – you need someone like that in a band or you’re more or less doomed.

Actually Chris also taught me another valuable lesson when he headbutted a promoter who refused to pay us at a gig. The landlord paid us instead. Occasionally, if very rarely, violence is the only answer.

++ And who was in charge of the sleeve artwork? It’s a cool typography that you used!

I was talking to Chris about this recently, I thought it was his sister Sal, but he claims he did it himself, I guess it was probably a joint effort, they made cool stickers too which we covered the underground with.

++ Who would you say were the main influences of the band? And were there any like-minded bands in London during those days that you really liked and followed?

Realistically our main influences were probably Echo & The Bunnymen, The Waterboys, The Wedding Present, Lloyd Cole, The House of Love and REM although we all into different things. We were never part of any kind of scene. We played a lot with The Atomic Vicars who later became My Drug Hell, more because we were pals rather than being similar sounding.

++ Your first gig was at the Royal College of Art. Were you guys artists? How do you remember that first show?

Jab our drummer at the time was studying at the RCA doing Industrial Design and we played a couple of gigs in the Art Bar there which was fantastic. There was a captive audience as the bar would be full anyway I guess.

Two things I remember about the first gig were firstly I was using a guitar belonging to Steve Hillage who I was working for at the time. He lent me his lovely old Telecaster. The other thing was that Chris had made a big deal about looking good – we shouldn’t look like we’d just turned up from work – I can’t remember exactly what he told us to wear, but it certainly wasn’t the pink mohair jumper and plastic/leather trousers that he turned up in.

++ Did you gig a lot after that first one gig? Which were your favourite gigs and why? Any particular anecdotes you could share?

We played a lot around London from 1986 onwards. They varied hugely. It was so hard to get people to come to gigs – pre-internet, pre-mobile phone – it was endless phone calls and sticking up posters.

Actually making posters before computers was fun but time-consuming – lots of letraset and photocopying.- then going out at night and plastering them about town trying to avoid Police or worse the professional poster people who were not keen on you covering up their stuff.

I think the worst gig we ever played was somewhere over a pub in Balham or Tooting and there was literally no one there – not a soul, but we started, then the headline band (who were our pals The Atomic Vicars) wandered in and watched, then joined in – it was gloomy and hopeless.

We played at The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town endlessly – it always sounded terrible except one time when they lost most of the power and we played by candle light – that was a nice gig.

Most of the places we played have been demolished now – The Clarendon in Hammersmith, New Merlin’s Cave in Kings Cross – maybe it was to stop us coming back.

++ How do you feel about the terms C86 and/or indiepop? Do you think they fit The Blofelds?

I don’t think we felt any connection with the C86 thing – though I had the LP, although looking back we probably should have – we were pretty jangly. It’s hard to judge your own stuff isn’t it? I think we always said we were an indie band.

++ So what happened with The Blofelds? When and why did you split?

We never really split. We had became really good friends and still are. I don’t think we were ever especially ambitious – if we’d really wanted to get anywhere the others should probably have sacked me and got a proper singer and we should certainly have kicked out Chris for his terrible dress sense.

I guess we just got older and I had kids and stuff and we were less interested in playing live. Eventually we all left London – except Mark. I can’t even remember our last gig in London.

Another thing that happened for a while was that I think we became too concerned about trying to please other people, trying to write stuff that we thought people would like and I don’t think many people can do that. I really believe that you have to do what you love and just hope that other people will like it too – otherwise you just become a bad copy of someone else and lose whatever it is that makes you unique or different.

++ Though I’ve seen on Youtube a video of the reformed Blofelds? Will you play more shows or was it only for that special occasion?

You won’t be able to tell from the youtube clips as the sound is horrible, but the gigs we played at Nick’s wedding and then at my 50th birthday were fantastic – really good fun – we’d got past the stage of trying to impress anyone, we were just doing it for ourselves and really enjoying it.

When we played last September we hadn’t even been in the same room together for 10 years – so we hadn’t rehearsed together – Mark had never even played one of the songs – he’d only heard the tape we’d recorded with another drummer.

Naively we thought it would just work. We had an hour to set up the gear and soundcheck and we started and instantly we realised it was a terrible idea, we couldn’t get through a whole song, we were never the type of people who could improvise, we always needed a plan. Finally we managed to get through one song and decided to chance it.

Amazingly something magical happened when we played the actual set, it was great, so we did it again later – it was just fantastic to play these songs with the band again. I think we’d all like to do it again.

++ On your soundcloud there are many Blofelds songs. When were these recorded? Were they released in demo tapes? And how many more recordings are there from The Blofelds?

The stuff on Soundcloud was mainly old demos that we wanted to share between us as we didn’t all have tapes or cassette players anymore. There is some of my own post band stuff – it was really put on there to share with friends or people involved rather than for any promotional purposes – as you’ve probably gathered, that was never our strongest point.

There are loads of live recordings on cassette which are mostly pretty bad quality, but I might put up anything I can find that sounds reasonable, if I digitalize them at some point.

++ Have you ever thought of putting some sort of retrospective album at some point?

I wish we had done an album at the time, but I don’t think there’s much point now, it would only be vanity. I’m happy that there’s stuff online that people can download if they want.

++ And looking back in time, what would you say were the highlights of the band?

Our single was the real highlight – getting the boxes of 45’s, getting played on John Peel – him talking about us, reading out Chris’ ridiculous made-up press release – getting nice reviews for the single in NME and Melody Maker. Some gigs when you are playing and know that it’s working and it really is more than the sum of the parts and that feeling after a really good gig that used to last for days.

++ And do say, aside from music, what other hobbies and activities do you enjoy doing?

I love old cameras and photography. I’ve been making these 35mm film 3d wobblegifs on tumblr – it’s an old fashioned version of the future and mix of old and new technology – a 4 lens Nimslo film camera that takes 4 shots at once which you can then layer and animate in photoshop or display next to each other and get that ‘Magic Eye’ effect by going kind of cross-eyed – it’s really fun to do – http://johnnyhodgson.tumblr.com/

I play 5-a-side football every week – shouting at people and kicking a ball as hard as you can really is the best way to relax and let off steam.

++ One last question, tell me about your London (or if you are in Hastings now like it says in soundcloud?). Which are your favourite places in the city? Your favourite bar? favourite restaurants? or just your favourite place to go for a walk?

I love London, but I’ve lived in Hastings for 12 years and it feels like home. It’s the perfect size town – you see people you know everytime you go out but being by the sea there’s space. The sea looks different every day, I’d find it hard not to live by the sea anymore. I always felt that if you’re going to live on an island, you might as well live by the sea. Unless I had my own wood – that’d be great!

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

The only useful thing that’s ever come to me in a dream. It was when we were still playing. In my dream The Blofelds were appearing on The Ed Sullivan show – just like the Beatles, and Ed introduces us saying, “And now from England, The Blofelds, playing their number one smash hit, ‘Tell ‘em it was me who told ‘em it was you…’”

I woke up, remembering the song title, but nothing else about it and thought, this is it, I just have to write this song “Tell ‘em it was me who told ‘em it was you” and it’ll go to number one and everything will be great!

So I tried to write the song, but it wasn’t really happening and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work until I realised I could just make that the name of the last song I wrote – which I happened to really like. It’s still my favourite Blofelds song though sadly it failed to get us on TV (in black and white, in the sixties)

Thanks Roque!

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Listen
The Blofelds – The Dog is Dead

Thanks so much to Lee for the interview! Kind were a great indiepop band from the late 80s that had a bunch of song on many Waaaaah releases, sharing 7″s with the likes of The Dufflecoats, Strawberry Story, The Cudgels and more. I always wondered why there werent more releases, and why were they so obscure, being their songs so good! So here are some answers for that and many other questions!

++ Hi Lee! Thanks a lot for being up for an interview! How are you? When was the last time you made music?

If fine thanks. How are you?

The last time that I made music was last week. A neighbour asked me and my partener to joine her and a couple of friends to come over to her house for a singsong. So I took my guitar and joined the others to play some old classics. ‘Days’ by The Kinks, Head and Heart by John Martyn, Northern Sky by Nick Drake, Coz I Luv U by Slade etc.

++ I’ve only heard 4 songs from your band Kind. All scattered in many of the Waaaaah releases. The question is, why didn’t you get to release a record of your own? Was there any plans?

The short answer is lack of funds.There were plans for a single release of a single called Swelter b/w Whirlpool Kisses but nothing came of it.’

++ In the Waaaaah page it says you only recorded one demo tape. Do you remember which songs were there? And does this means that you don’t have any more songs recorded?

There was the two songs mentioned in the first question plus about another 20 ready for recording. Other songs that I can remember off of the top of my head were, ‘Catherine Will’, ‘She Flies’, ‘Promises Made’, and a cover of Galaxie 500’s ‘Snowstorm’.

++ So let’s go back in time, who were Kind? What instruments did you each play and how did you all know each other?

Kind were Lee (Me) – Rhythm and Lead Guitar , ‘Strobe’ (1988-89) Vocals- Lead and Rhythm Guitar, Michael – Bass, Sharron – Vocals (1990-92), Adrian (1989-90) and Tim (1990 – 92).

The band was formed in early 1988 by myself and ‘Strobe’. We had become friends because we would end up at every indie gig in around London. I remember discussing starting a band when we were at The Camden Falcon after watching The Pastels. We rehearsed at Strobe’s
parents large house in Hayward’s Heath in Sussex. We started off sounding like a strange hybrid of The Stooges, The Pastels, The Velvet Underground and The Seeds.

++ And was this your first adventure in music or you had been in other bands before?

I was in a band in the mid 1980s called President Joe. Were influenced by Nick Cave, Birthday Party, Crime and  The City Solution. Lime Spiders, Bowie, Einstruzende Neubauten, The Triffids, Joy Division etc. We then met up with Robert Hampson and Becky and formed a band called Mary aged 31/2 but nothing came of it. Robert went onto form Loop and the rest is history as they say.

++ Whereabouts in the UK were you based by the way? What were the cool places to hang out or watch bands play in your town?

We were based in Deptford/Bermondsey in S.E. London. There were a couple of places that were O.K. The Deptford Albany put on many gigs. I saw The Fall, Nico, and The Slits amongst many others there. Another venue was called ‘A Million Rubber Bands’. So many great bands played there from the late 80s – early 90s. These included Bongwater, Perfect Disaster, Kitchens of Distinction, Blur, God Bullies, The Chills, etc. Deptford had a reputation for music for years. My grandparents met at the local dancehall where the entertainers of that era (1930s) played. Deptford is probably most famous music-wise for the bands that came through during the punk era. The label, Deptford Fun City, was home to Alternative TV and Squeeze (both local bands). Other bands that came out of Deptford were Dire Straits, The Flying Pickets and The Fabulous Poodles.

++ If it’s not much trouble care to tell me what’s the story behind each of the released songs “Disdain”, “Breathe into Me”, “Emily” and “The House (A Dream)”? It can be short!

I’ll give it a go….
Emily was written about a friends relationship with a rather shallow girlfriend. She would be really nasty to him and when he would challenge her behaviour she would  burst into tears and throw a strop. BTW, Emily wasn’t her real name.

Breathe Into Me is about 6th sense. Having ‘that’ feeling that something is about to happen and what is about to happen isn’t very good.

Disdain is about how quickly life can change and making the most of a good situation.

The House (A Dream) is about a recurring dream that my grandmother, mother and myself had. My version of the dream is quite literally spelled out in the song. I would be on the top of a hill looking down into a valley where a white house was situated. I was then standing by a window that beyond was something that wasn’t pleasant. The song was an exorcism. Since writing it I have never had  the dream…. Psychoanalysts make of that what you will.

++ Who would you say were your influences then? Which bands from that period did you really like? Did you follow any?

The band had common influences in The Pixies, Throwing Muses, Galaxie 500 and The Kitchens of Distinction. I was very influenced by bands on the Flying Nun/Expressway labels. The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, Gordon/Bailter Space, The Bats, Tall Dwarfs, Doublehappys and The Able Tasmans. I also loved (and still do) The Go Betweens. Other bands included Sonic Youth, The House of Love, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Momus, The Pastels, Jesus & Mary Chain etc. I didn’t follow many bands but roadied for The House of Love for a couple of weeks. They were friends and asked if I could help out on a mini tour around England sometime during 1988.

++ Tell me about gigs! Did you play many? Which were your favourite gigs? Why?

We played mainly in and around the London area. We did a couple of gigs in the Midlands. I suppose we must have played getting on for about 100 gigs over the four years that we were together. One of my favourite gigs was at The Camden Falcon supporting Motorcycle Boy (ex Shop Assistants). The place was packed and,although we didn’t play that well, the atmosphere was great. The was a band called Birdland in the audience. who really got off on us and their manager showed some interest in signing us. We also had interest from Cherry Red Records but nothing came of it because ‘Strobe’ left the band a bit later and those labels didn’t like the direction that we subsequently took.

++ So how did you end up being in touch and putting your songs out with Richard from Waaaaah?

We played a few gigs at the Deptford Fountain. Richard put these gigs on and he built up a roster of bands which recorded for Waaaaah / Bring on Bull Records.

++ I told a friend of mine that I was writing some questions for you and her being a big fan of Waaaaah, had so many questions. Hope you don’t mind! First, if you considered yourselves part of a scene at all? Maybe of that ‘cutie’ scene that is mentioned on the Waaaah zines?

We were never part of the ‘cutie’ scene. We were too noisy for that lot. If we were part of a scene it was  the one that was coming out of S.E. London. There were some great little groups around at the time. Bands such as Lavern (sic) and Shirley and Rebecca Fishpond. If we had to align ourselves to a scene it would have been that Sarah Records scene if you like.

++ Secondly, there’s this idea that Waaaaah positioned themselves as antagonists of Sarah Records, crashing even the Sarah Christmas Party in the Waaaah bus. Did you partake of this event? And if so, care to tell the story?!

I don’t know anything about that. I remember Richard booking a couple of Sarah bands to play The Deptford Fountain.We supported St. Christopher and some other bands. The Sarah management were going to come and see us there but I heard that they didn’t make as their car broke down. Perhaps something more sinister happened….

++ And last but not least, were there any girls that inspired you? who did you make fun of? who were you jealous of? did you write many fanmail? was there anyone in the scene who missed the mark? did you ever wish to have been part of another band?

The name of the band was inspired by a mates girlfriend who told us that when she and a friend were little they had an imaginary band called Kind. Miki and Emma from Lush were an inspiration and good drinking buddies for a while. Lesley Langton and Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses and Kristen Hirsh were great influences too.

Never make fun of anyone, you never know the situation that they are in. Never be jealous of anyone. Jealousy is shallow.

There were a few unsigned band that missed the mark. Lavern (sic) and Shirley and Rebecca Fishpond I already mentioned. There were bands that I followed that I thought would go onto do great thing but never did including Perfect Disaster.

When I was in my early teens I wished to be in all of the bands that I loved. But if push comes to shove I would have loved to be in any of Bowie’s bands upto and including Scary Monsters, Super Creeps.

++ Now I wonder, as Waaaaaah would make these ace fanzines that actually looked more like proper magazines, how was your relationship with fanzines? Did you ever do one?

I helped out on a couple. One of which was centered on the New Zealand Scene and The early Seattle scene. The fanzine was called ‘The Hog Butcher’ and it was the brainchild of a friend called Bob Taylor. We interviewed many bands including The Bats, The Chills, Kramer (Bongwater), Steve Albini and Sonic Youth amongst others.

++ And well, in general, looking back to those days, what would you say was the biggest highlight of Kind as a band?

When we were recording Disdain, all the staff of the studio came into the control room to watch. Michael and I were recording the intro to a click track and I looked up too see the engineers and other staff all grooving away. That gave me such a rush that was so enervating that I was walking on air for weeks after.

++ This might be a bit too much of a wishful question, but have the idea of reforming someday crossed your mind?

About a year after we split we were approached by Atlantic records to play the New York New Music Seminar supporting The Lemonheads. Atlantic had heard our songs through the American College Radio Network. We had a couple of ‘hits’ on the network. Emily was No.1 for quite a few weeks and Disdain was a top 3. We had a chat about it but we had moved on didn’t fancy auditioning a new singer (more of which in the next question). Michael and I had formed a new band called Fuzz Aldrin(no recordings exist) and we had taken a different musical path.

++ So when and why did you split then? Are you all still in touch?

Sharron got pregnant and wanted to take time away to bring up her child. The rest of the band carried on without her for a while,  recording new songs for the future but after a while we seemed to run out of steam. It simply came to a natural end.’

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies or interests do you enjoy doing on the day to day?

Now that I have become middle aged the hobbies of middle age have become part of my life. I have inherited the ‘green fingers’ of my father and grandfather and I love gardening. Musically, I have got heavily into modern jazz and 60s-70s soul music. I am an enthusiastic historian especially the history of London.I think that I may have become someone that, If I did make fun of anyone, it would be me

++ Thanks so much for everything Lee! Anything else you’d like to add?!

Thanks for the opportunity,Roque.

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Listen
Kind – Disdain

Very short post this week. Forgive me if you expected to have something long read while taking the train or having breakfast. You see, there’s little time this week as I’m flying tomorrow to the UK for the main indiepop event of the year: Indietracks. On top of it all I haven’t been feeling well these past two days, some sort of cold is trying to get into me, but I’ve been fighting with both Dayquil and Nightquil. It makes me feel very knackered, but I’m feeling less sick. Prices to pay.

Anyways. The good news this week is that at last The Occasional Flickers 7″ masters are on there way to the pressing plant. So hopefully we’ll have it ready for sale late August, early September! Well, actually you can pre-order it now. But it will be available at that time.

Also earlier today I managed to at last add the Interviews and Lost Bands links on the right sidebar of the blog. Those two lists used to be there before the blog was hacked almost a year ago. When I reinstated the blog, I could save all posts and comments but the links were lost. So I have manually added one by one to the list. Many people had been asking me for these, as it’s easier to navigate that way than using the Search tool (I agree with this of course, I’m not dumb), so there it is. For all of you that think of the blog as sort of an archive that needs a table of contents, an index, of some sort.

And so, this is goodbye. Goodbye because I’m heading for summer fields! For a week. I’ll see you readers next week after I return from Indietracks. Those going to Indietracks or to the London Secret History/Comet Gain show, please say hello, buy me a beer, buy me lunch, dinner, or support Cloudberry and buy from me some records, fanzines or t-shirts. It’s going to be fun. I look forward to an indiepop-fun-packed-weekend! As Dan Treacy used to sing, it’s going to be a SMASHING TIME.

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Somerfield (originally Gateway) was a chain of small to medium sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company also previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores. The company was taken over by the Co-operative Group on 2 March 2009 in a £1.57 billion deal, creating the UK’s fifth largest food retailer. The name was phased out and replaced by the Co-operative Food brand in a rolling programme of store conversions ending in summer 2011.

Did the name of the band came from there? Don’t know. There’s really little information online about Gary Aspinall’s band. Yes, that much I know. The one member. And that comes thanks to Harvey Saward who told me about it when I interviewed him many years ago. Thing was Gary was also part of The Odolites as Harvey.

Gary would also play in to The Killjoys, who I tried to interview once, sending questions, but with no success. The Killjoys have a much more bigger presence on the web, even a Facebook page, so if you are curious. I say just google. But the topic today is this mysterious band Somerfields who only released a 12″ EP in 1991.

Discogs doesn’t list the record. I have never seen the sleeve. The only place were it is listed is in Twee.net. No surprise there, it was Peter Hahndorf who introduced me to this band. Actually this MP3 comes from a CD he gave me. I wonder how did he find this rare Tasmanian 12″!

I know Gary is still around, he just produced the new Steinbecks album to be released by Matinée. I still haven’t listened to it, but will order it as soon as I return from Indietracks. Because of this new piece of evidence, I assume he lives in Melbourne, not in Tasmania anymore.

I keep googling. I stumble upon an old Swedish website. It looks like Geocities. Remember those days? In it I see a Killjoys record listed with the musicians credited for their participation in it. A new clue arises. The drummer David Folley is also linked to Somerfields. We got two now.

One last clue. The website for Mark Woods Audio. The record is listed there. Mark Woods has recorded it. The list of bands there baffles me. I see Hellvyvelln, Sea Stories, MacGuffins, Captain Cocoa and more. It’s clear he was the go to guy in Australia if you were doing jangly pop!

And that’s where all the clues stop, leading nowhere else. If anyone else knows anything else about them, please share! Or a spare copy would be nice too! Would love to hear the rest of the songs. I’ll reply next week when I’m back! Enjoy!

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Listen
Somerfields – Over My Head

It’s less than a week now. That is for me to be in my favourite town in the world. London.  And then head to Indietracks for a weekend full of indiepop and friends. That’s pretty soon. Am I ready? Almost. I got everything I’ve been asked to bring. I’m only missing some CDs for the DJing time at The Miller next Thursday when The Secret History, Comet Gain and Pale Spectres may as well play the best Indietracks warm-up gig ever. The issue is my old CDs seem scratched and they skip. I have to look good in London!

My mind the last couple of days has been somewhere else though. Aside from very nice email exchange with some friends that are going to Indietracks, I haven’t been thinking much about the festival. To my surprise I havent listened to the Indietracks mix compilation that is free for download. I wasn’t even aware it existed until today. What’s the matter with me? Have I decided to live under a rock unconsciously?

So where’s my mind?

My mind is in Latin America actually. As odd as it sounds. Three events in the past week have made me watch what’s unfolding there.

1. I receive an email from a well known cultural magazine in Lima, Peru. They have stumbled upon one of my early posts on the blog. In this post I talk about a band from Wales called Peruvian Hipsters who had this one fantastic 7″ (that I still haven’t found!) that includes the song ‘Tony Hadley’. A should-have-been indiepop hit. The music writer asks me if I have any contact with the band, if I could help him as he wants to write an article about them. Of course I know it’s not really an article about the music. What the writer cares is why they are called Peruvian Hipsters. It’s an odd curiosity for anyone Peruvian, to have any sort of recognition aside from Machu Picchu and a couple other things we are very proud of. He writes me in English. He hasn’t even checked I’m his countryman. It sometimes surprises me the lack of use journalists give google. Anyhow. I help him, pointing him where to find the Peruvian Hipsters. On top of that, knowing his lack of musical knowledge and his true intentions I also point them to the now Bristol-based band Peru. I even sell it to him saying they have a song called “Cubillas” in honor of the great soccer player that dazzled the Scottish squad of 78. Yes, that one with Kenny Dalglish. Anyhow, I haven’t heard from him again.

2. A well known Peruvian writer has landed a job at a magazine. A glossy magazine that mostly prints articles and photos of the great social events of the Lima high-class. His job? Write about music. The issue? He doesn’t know anything about music. Fast forward. He reviews my latest release on Plastilina Records, the Eva & John flexi. When he sends the article to my partner telling him that he didn’t like the record, he also adds, “but don’t worry it will make them popular”. Arrogance. I find that attitude insulting. Who does he think he is? The article he writes is a mess. A true example again of the lack of use of google, calling the band a duet when it’s a four-piece. This easily to confirm if you just see a video on Youtube. A lack of music knowledge lets him slip into ignorance claiming a lack of originality when there hasn’t been a single Latin American band that had sounded like this. Surprising enough he even calls the band empty but pretentious and criticizes the cover artwork that is such a beautiful nod to the Wedding Present’s George Best. This time with a Peruvian star, Hugo Sotil, who had a great streak in Barcelona in the 70s. Funny thing is, I know google, and I search for the cover artwork of his acclaimed novels that I havent read yet, and I find incredibly ridiculous that he could actually criticize our artwork. His artwork is the best example of what pretension is. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to write. Nor even have a public opinion. Issue number two. I write about this, I deconstruct his article on the Plastilina facebook page. There’s good support. But sadly my label partner feels that he will have to answer all the dumb Peruvians for my writing. So he decides not to take part of it. I wouldn’t call it cowardice as some people go ahead and say they want to hit us, punch us, kick us, etc. Just for uncovering the ignorance of this writer. Violence. That’s the solution for them. Those who have lost any words to defend themselves. The question is, how could someone who actually admits not knowing anything about music have a space, a column, to write? Thing is, this happens everywhere, not only in Peru. Just check that article about indiepop some years ago on Pitchfork.

3. There’s this great Mexican fanzine called Kill People You Like ran by a lovely couple, Lalo and Liz. So they did interview me for their fanzine, but that you can read if you buy the next number. I actually wrote a piece for the zine. Supposedly it’s coming as an insert, accompanying the orange-ink zine. My topic, how this dream of mine to save the Latin American indiepop scene in 2006 ended up into nothing, but now, thanks to their effort and some other people in countries like Mexico, Brazil and Peru, it’s not just my dream anymore but also the dream of many other people down south. It made me nostalgic of the days I used to discover bands on Myspace that made indiepop in places like Monterrey or Sao Paulo. The days when I made a CD compilation for a Peruvian magazine. When I wrote an article for them too. When I got all the enemies I could by telling a couple of truths to the lazy and self-indulgent music press of my country. When I cut ties with all that because Cloudberry was a much better and rewarding idea. But now I feel I can extend my arm, and feel ties with them again. Because there’s passion, there’s excitement, and I feel there could be an exciting scene brewing if all things go right. Yes. Writing such a piece had made me nostalgic. No surprise I’m flying to Peru this year after 7 years almost.

Anyhow, Indietracks. I will make myself think Indietracks 24/7 from now on. That is my new challenge. It shouldn’t be that difficult, right? As Brilliant Corners are playing!

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The Mandelbrot set is a mathematical set of points whose boundary is a distinctive and easily recognizable two-dimensional fractal shape. The set is closely related to Julia sets (which include similarly complex shapes), and is named after the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who studied and popularized it.

That doesn’t still make much sense for me, but you can continue reading about it here. I used to be good in maths in high school though, but this seems pretty advanced. Were the kids on The Mandelbrot Set into maths? Or why did they named their band like this? I find it very odd. From what I heard when they were in the band they were pretty young, teenagers even.

The band hailed from Adelaide, Australia.
Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely settled British province in Australia. Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide’s founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Light’s design set out Adelaide in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parkland. Early Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties, which led to the moniker “City of Churches”.

They released a CD mini-album called “A Place Called Kansas” in 1992 that I first knew it existed thanks to Peter Hahndorf, Twee.net master. He had included a song by them, Landslide, on this double CD-R album he was hoping to put together of obscure Australian indiepop called “The Sound of Glen Waverley”. A response to the Leamington Spa series. This compilation was never properly released even though I had once attempted to do it but I was going to clash with Egg Records’ Kevin. So I desisted. Thing is, neither him, neither me, ended up releasing an Australian indiepop nuggest compilation. Terrible. Anyhow. This song, Landslide, was SO good. Amazingly good. And then I went on a unfruitful search for this CD. Still today I’m looking for it. Any generous person out there that has two copies, please be kind to me!

The CD was released by Ra Records, who I believe were part of RooArt, if not the same. The catalog is this crazy number 4509905212. It was recorded at Paradise Studios, Sydney, during Autumn 1992 and this was the tracklist:

1 A Place Called Kansas
2  Landslide
3  More Than Happy
4  Massive
5  Julia
6  I Swan
7  Lush

Discogs lists these credits too for the CD:

Bass, Vocals – Adam McBeth
Design – Marcelle Lunam, Simon Alderson
Drums – Michael Bajer
Guitar – Brian Pyper
Producer [Assistant] – Michelle Barry, Tim Northam
Producer, Mixed By – Mandelbrot Set, The, Wayne Connolly
Songwriter – Mandelbrot Set, The
Vocals, Guitar – Christie Scardigno, Tim Mortimer

After this, in 1993 they released another CD. An eponymous CD that included five songs. These were:

1   Automation
2  Nothing You Need
3  Non-Stop Action
4   *****
5   Collider

I’ve never seen this CDs either, and I’ve only listened to Non-Stop Action thanks to a Myspace page, which is still up.  I wonder if this page was ran by members of the band.

The rest of the credits for this CD are:
Artwork By [Cover] – Simon Alderson, Nick Scardino & The Mandelbrot Set
Producer – Daniel Denholm, Mandelbrot Set, The
I know it’s not the same Scardino and Scardigno. But the coincidence is there. Does Christie who sang and Nick who designed this last CD were sister and brother?

A blog by the name “The Lucid Ocean Diaries” writes about a gig when the band The Lucid Ocean and The Mandelbrot Set once shared the bill. There’s a couple of little tidbits that interest us:

“We overkilled on lighting effect. As the Mandelbrots had their customary white backdrop we decided to use slides. We had a slide for every song, mostly marine shots, with one that Andrew and I found in the library of a cyclone.”

“Afterwards I just loaded my gear into the car and left. Some Mandelbrot hanger onner said we were good, and said he liked Circle, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible!”

“I subsequently found out we got ripped off again. Apparently the Mandelbrots were given $200 for both bands. Their manager reckoned we were not entitled to any of it. But Andrew and Wayne pestered him, and we got $60 in the end, with the Mandelbrots claiming they didn’t know what was going on, like they did all the time before the gig when we requested info about it.”

They were getting good money The Mandelbrots! They were headliners. They seem to have been a popular band at least in Adelaide. How the hell are their two CDs this hard to find? That is very odd.

The writer of the article has been kind enough to even scan an article from the local music magazine called “dB” were the gig at the Big Ticket on Thursday January 9th of 199(2-3???) has been reviewed by Fiona Dalton. You can check it here. I’ll transcribe the part were the Mandelbrot Set is mentioned. Bear with me.

“We were rescued however, when the Mandelbrot Set took to the stage. Returning to the world of gigs after a two month hiatus with a set of ten songs and without their usual onslaught of dry ice effects (the management felt that a smoke machine might set off their fire alarm), the Mandelbrots reaffirmed their position as one of Adelaide’s best.

Live, the Mandelbrot Set are always far more intense and complicated than on their recordings to date, a fact exemplified by, the, ahem, pumped up versions of I Swan and Joy in Despair. Four numbers in we were treated to a new song, and just when it was reaching it’s noisiest, semiplosive heights, the whole thing just kind of fell in.

Not quite, but drummer Michael had a broken snare. There followed a bit of a wait while a snare was hastily borrowed from Lucid Ocean, wherein they thanked us several times for coming, reeled off a list of their forthcoming gigs, and Tim held up a small black box and quipped “This is an e-bow. Big Country used a lot of these.” I guess you had to be there.

Back on track they launched into Dream so Hard, Julia, Landslide and Wump. It is interesting to see that in recent gigs they have shed earlier favourites such as More Than Happy in exchange for a more guitar obsessed angle. Luckily this is no bad thing. Indeed the only disappointment of the night was that they didn’t play an encore, which would have been nice.

The only other complaint I heard murmured amongst the punters (and there were a lot ot us) was that someone in A Wealthy Record Company hasn’t yet loosed the purse strings to allow for a purchasable product.

But this has nothing at all to do with the evening, which was most enjoyable with the Mandelbrots, as ever, frothing forth with memorable pop song after memorable pop song.”

Quite interesting right? Wish I had been at one of their gigs! Did they ever reform by the way? Or they just quit in the early 90s?

Another blog, but run by the same person, Ralph Dodger, and called “Sh sh sh shoodabeen HUUUUUUUUUUGE!” wrote a bit more about the band. Thanks to it, I learn that their second CD was mostly influenced by New Order and had an electropop/dance vein to it. And that it is true, that the band just disappeared after releasing the second CD! Shame.

To add to the mystery, I once stumbled on ebay, back in 2011, with a listing for a 12″ test pressing for the “A Fractal” EP. The listing description says: “On Tweenet there is only one entry for THE MANDLEBROT SET as a cd issued in 1992.However this ultra rare 12” issued by Pure records(pressed in France) has 4 slices of classic if not virtually unknown music.Tracks are:’Love You Now’/’The Odyssey’/’Shout About it’/’Look in Your Eye’.Labels are white with a/b written in pen.Some of my friends suggested i put a reserve on this item but instead i will start at a sensible price.Sleeve ex- as there is a slight bump along base but vinyl ex. ”

Was it the same band? I tend to doubt it. But MAYBE?

And that’s about all I could find about them online. Which is not little, but still, there’s still a lot of mysterious veil covering the band. If anyone out there knows anything else at all about them please share!

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Listen
The Mandelbrot Set – Landslide