Thanks so much to Katie Bergström for the interview. These days Katie has been releasing records under her latest band Katie Goes to Tokyo but before that, earlier this century, she had a band called The Wilson Hospital that I really like! And even before that she was involved with Backfish who released in the great Swedish label West Side Fabrication. But this time we talk about The Wilson Hospital who only released one album, but what an album that was!

++ Hi Katie, thanks so much for the interview. I hear you are in Toronto these days? What are you up there?

Hi Roque, nice to be interviewed by you! I was staying in Toronto for a couple of months to write songs for my new album. Now I am in LA, doing the same thing.

++ Hopefully we can do a second part interview for Katie Goes to Tokyo, but this time let’s go back in time, The Wilson Hospital wasn’t your first band, right? It was Backfish who released an album on West Side Fabrication. Who were Backfish? What do you remember from those days?

Backfish was my first band and it will always have a special place in my heart. Backfish (German word for a young girl that moves to a new town) was put together by some friends of mine, and I was hired as their keyboard player at first, but then I advanced to be the singer/songwriter of the band. Our first record was produced by Ken Stringfellow (the Posies). I have so many good memories from my time with Backfish and I was so sad when we finally decided to split.

++ How cool was it to release a record on a quite important independent label of Sweden like West Side Fabrication, home of so many fantastic bands?

I don’t know, pretty cool I guess 🙂 Backfish actually got an offer from another record label as well called NONS, but West Side was located in our hometown and all our music friends were tied to that label one way or the other. I guess we just wanted to be a part of “the big family”. I think we were shocked to get a record contract so soon. I can see now that West side has made a huge impact as a indie label- they’re a hardworking company and great at finding new great bands.

++ And then what happened? When did you start The Wilson Hospital? Was immediately after the demise of Backfish? How did you know Mårten?

I actually met Mårten before we quit Backfish. He played drums in a band that supported Backfish in Linköping. After the gig Mårten asked me if I wanted to sing on some of his songs. I thought he was just flirting with me at first, but then we got together and he played me his demos. His songs were amazing! I always wanted to do the 60’es pop thing but couldn’t really get Backfish to go in that direction. So Mårten and I started writing some songs together. At the same time Backfish started to fall apart. It wasn’t because of my new band. It started long before that and I think we just finally realized that it was time to let go.

++ Who came up with the name The Wilson Hospital? And what’s the story behind it?

The Wilson Hospital was actually the name of my fathers old rock-band from the 60’es. Mårten heard the name and loved it (he is a big fan of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys). The “Hospital”-part you will understand if you know your Brian Wilson.

++ Did you play many gigs? If so, any anecdotes you could share?

We played a couple of gigs. Something that hit me pretty early on was that every time we were about to play somewhere, someone in the band got sick. We always had 3 or 4 musicians with us and it was always the same thing. It was almost like a curse. And after a while there was so much pressure building up to a gig that I stared to get stage fright, because I just knew that something would go wrong. I remember one time, we were playing at a festival that was a 6 hour drive away. I was so nervous and anxious that I couldn’t eat anything the whole day. I was hungry, but the second I smelled food I just couldn’t eat. It was just a very weird situation. I had never felt that way before. Immediately after the gig I felt normal again. Then it took me a couple of gigs to get over the stage fright.

++ What would you say were the main musical influences of The Wilson Hospital?  Were there any Swedish bands from the time that you really liked?

I guess we mainly listened to American and British bands at the time. Mårten listened to the Beach Boys and I listened to the Beatles.

++ Tell me about Morphine Lane Records. Who were they? And how did you end up signing with them?

Morphine lane records was funded by the drummer in This Perfect Day- Johan Nilsson – and the keyboardist in Atomic Swing- Micke Lohse. Backfish had toured with This Perfect Day so I knew Johan from before. We heard Johan and Micke were starting a record label together and so we gave them our demo. They loved our music and we loved them for that and that’s how we all got to work together.

++ With them you released your only release, the fantastic album “Medication for a Lost Generation”. What’s the meaning of the title? And which is your favourite song of the record and why?

Haha thank you! It was Mårten that came up with the title. He pictured that our music would be like medication for tired and clueless souls out there, the lost generation, our generation. “The lost generation” is a phrase from Hemingway’s “The sun also rises”.

“Call Me A.S.A.P” is Mårtens favorite song. I love that one too. But I guess “Don’t be late” is my favorite song to play live.

++ Mine might be “Call Me A.S.A.P.” though my choice changes all the time. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to know the story behind this song!

Mårten got the idea to call me A.S.A.P when he was in the subway, waiting for the train. I think for the part “I need to see you baby” he was thinking of me :). Call me A.S.A.P was actually aired a lot on Swedish radio, and we go a lot of attention because of it.

++ And how did the creative process work for you being a duo? Was it much different compared to Backfish?

The creative process was very different from Backfish. With Backfish I wrote most of the songs, so naturally I always got it my way. But when I started working with Mårten, he wrote at least as many songs as I did, maybe more, and on top of that he wanted to change my songs so that they had less chords! It was a struggle. Suddenly I had to compromise and it was just a horrible experience for me. What I learned from that is that I really hate compromising. But we finally made it through I guess.

++ The artwork of the CD is really lovely, all in sepia, like reminding us of a bygone era. Who came up with that idea and why?

Mårten gave me a book with photos from the 30’es – 60’es for my birthday. I love photography and was doing a bit of that myself for a while. There were a lot of pictures of different airplanes in the book and that’s where I got the idea to use the wooden-planes you can see on the cover. I also wanted to have that old photo look to our pictures so that’s why we chose sepia. We had the chance to work with a very talented photographer – Carina Gran.

++ I read you were already recording or were preparing to record a second album, what happened?

Yes, we started recording some new songs, and at first we were really excited to make another record. One of the major labels in Sweden were interested in working with us and to be able to do that they had to buy us from Morphine lane. However Morphine Lane wanted a much higher price to let us go than they were willing to pay, so in the end nothing came out of that. We were really disappointed and didn’t really feel that we could find the energy to start over. It just felt like we were fighting with everybody and when that happens it’s just no fun to write music anymore. So we decided that we would take a break and do other things for a while.

++ And when and why did you split?

Did we split? I think we’re just on a break…still working together in other projects though.

++ What would you say was the biggest highlight for The Wilson Hospital?

I think it was when we released our album and Call me a.s.a.p was all over Swedish radio. We released the album in Japan as well, but we never got to go there.

++ You were based in Stockholm at that time, right? I’m actually traveling there in less than a month. I’m wondering if you could give me some tips of your favourite bars and restaurants? Perhaps even record stores? 🙂

Oh, cool! Well, Stockholm is a really nice and beautiful town. There are not so many record stores left but I would check out Pet Sounds. It’s on Södermalm. There are a few stores and bars on the same street – Bondegatan (Petsounds record store and Pet Sounds bar and some other nice bars). I would also check if there are any concerts at Debaser (Slussen) or Debaser Medis (Medborgarplatsen). You could also go to hotel Rival at Mariatorget – Benny Anderson from ABBA owns the place and I think he plays in the hotel bar with his jazz-band sometimes. Where to eat….hard to say. My favorite places to eat used to be Jimmy’s steakhouse and Tezukuri Sushi in Hammarby Sjöstad) but I’m a vegetarian now…. I haven’t been in Stockholm for almost 1 year, but I imagine everything’s the same as when I left 🙂

++ What about Skellefteå? That’s where you are originally from, right? Do you miss the city at all? I’ve never been there, but I’m wondering, if I ever go, what are the sights that I shouldn’t miss?

When I think about “home” it’s always Skellefteå that comes to mind, not Stockholm though I’ve lived there for a long time. My parents and my little sister still live in Skellefteå. I love the bright summer nights because the sun barely goes down at night and I miss the winters because they are dark and cold and you get the time to just crawl up in the couch and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and watch a good movie. Any good sights not to miss…well if you go in the summer I would recommend a boat trip on Skellefteälven, and then go and see the Dragrace in Fällfors outside of Skellefteå. My sisters husband builds drag racing cars and hot rods, maybe he could take you for a ride :=) Let me know if you’re going, I might be home! I could show you around.

++ And as you are Swedish, forgive me if this is silly, but, do you like Abba? And if so, which are your favourite songs?

Haha, yes I love ABBA! My favorite song is Bang-A-Boomerang. I listened to them so much when I grew up so I got a bit too ABBA’d for a while.

++ One last question, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have? What do you like to do in your spare time?

I found a new passion – yoga – a couple of months ago. I love going to class everyday and just take a break from the outside world for a while. It makes me feel really good inside. I think it’s really important to have something in your life that is not connected to performance anxiety, self criticism, being judged by others and everything else that comes with being in the music industry. But apart from all that, writing music is my greatest love.

++ Thanks a lot Katie, can I count you in for a second interview, this time for Katie Goes to Tokyo?

Yes, absolutely. I’ll be here 😉 Thanks Roque!

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

It’s settled now – I AM going to Korea and Japan in May-June!!!!

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Listen
The Wilson Hospital – Call Me A.S.A.P.

All ready. All set. I got my stupid tourist visa. Ready to spend vacation time next month in Europe. The lineup of Madrid Popfest has been confirmed and all I can say it is that I’m looking forward to it a lot, especially to see bands I’ve never seen before like The Haywains, Northern Portrait and Alpaca Sports. This time though, I’m traveling by myself so I’m much more open to meeting up with friends and exploring the city, something I didn’t do much last time. Last time I dedicated my days to day travels to different cities around Madrid like Segovia, Toledo, Avila among others. It was fantastic, though being by myself, I don’t see much of a point, who will take photos of me posing as a good tourist for example? Record shopping will be a must, and so, if anyone wants to join, let’s do that. I’m also very excited for the Madrid restaurants with their 10 euro menus, which was something I really enjoyed the first time around.

But the best news of this week has to do with the release of the Flowers 7″. The official release date is the 15th. One day after Valentines Day. Do you celebrate that? I wonder. I’ve never read or heard any indiepop kid celebrating it. But then, it’s perhaps something very private or probably indiepopkids hate capitalist inventions like that. What do I know. Anyhow, the record is ready and it’s shipping to all over the world. It’s perhaps the records with most pre-orders that Cloudberry has released. Very anticipated debut by the London trio!

I’ve only seen them once. Last November, when I decided to travel to England even though I wasn’t going to meet the girl anymore. It was a difficult decision because it was going to bring memories and perhaps I wasn’t going to like my holidays as much as I would want to. But at the same time, life goes on, and because of something circumstantial like that, I couldn’t just trash my plans I thought. I had already told many of my British friends during Indietracks that I was returning to London later that year, that we’d find a place for her to leave her cat safe and sound and all, and that we’d enjoy at least a weekend together there. In the end, it was just me. I expanded the weekend to a whole week. Went all the way to Scotland and back, back even to the southern tip of Great Britain, to Portsmouth and all. And as always I saw castles.

It was that day that I went to Arundel with Paloma, who happily joined me at last minute, who was strangely and randomly enough staying just a tube station away from where I was staying at Chez Navarro’s. After sightseeing around Arundel and having still a couple of hours to burn, we looked at a map and decided to keep exploring. For 10 more pounds we could go to Portsmouth and back. I didn’t know much about Portsmouth, aside from the football team, but sounded like a good plan. We had already circled Arundel and there was not much more to see. Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t fantastic. I truly recommend people visiting it. The castle is beautiful.

We both wanted to go to the Flowers gig that night. Happily Rachel had been nice enough to put me plus guests on the guestlist. So that wasn’t something to worry. But just the timing. We had to take all these trains back to London and we had to do transfers. A mistake in trains could make us miss the gig. We were thorough and asking the officers and such we finally succeeded and returned to London just in time. We had some so-so food at a Weatherspoons around Buffalo Bar and got just in time for the first band.

Two folk bands and two indiepop bands was the premise for that night. Don’t hate me if I don’t remember the name of the folk bands. But the indiepop class was represented by Cosines and Flowers. Flowers were headlining. Cosines had among their ranks many people I know like Alice, Dan and Johnny. Also my dear Kajsa was playing with them. It was a pleasure to see her playing keyboards again, smiling, dressed in a cute pink dress. She has one of my favourite smiles. A smile that I first met in Stockholm so many years ago and that I seem to see at least once a year since then. Can’t really complain, with the distance and all, must be one of my international friends I see the most. But anyways, I had been to the Buffalo Bar to see Flowers. And so after buying and buying San Miguel beers, because Rory wouldn’t give me a free one (!), it was about time for Flowers to get on the stage.

You’ll think I’m biased, but the thing is, that Flowers were amazing. They were a new band, but they sounded like soldiers of many battles, tight, and very confident. They knew what they were doing. Rachel with her one-string bass, Jordan with his noisy guitar and Sam banging the drums with a true C86 beat. I knew they were fantastic, I knew that since I found them on bandcamp ages ago and bought their 2 demo CDRs. But seeing them live, and making all the crow to be awe-struck, confirmed it to me. They were special. Wait, they ARE special.

The 7″ took a bit of time to be made. Issues with computers, with artwork, and stuff. But it was all worth it. It sounds great, it looks great, and it feels great. Four short songs of noisy pop, with vocals that remind you of a bygone era, like when people listened to The Parachute Men or The Nightblooms. But updated. Updated to sound like a band from today. Not surprisingly another Cloudberry graduates, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart invited them to tour around Europe with them. And it’s also not surprising that they have already signed a deal with Fortuna Pop to release an album later this year (also The Spook School joined them at this, could it be that Fortuna Pop trusts Cloudberry’s taste?).

If you haven’t already, please do check “When You Lie” on the Cloudberry website. It’s just a teaser, but it’s a fantastic song. If you like it, do order it. Or if you are in London pick up a copy at the next London Popfest where they will probably amaze everyone!

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But let’s move to the obscure band of the week: Boxing Clever.

I remember looking for them many years ago, with no success. I remember finding one of the members on Myspace, I think he was involved with some sort of punk band. Sadly I never heard back from him. I wanted to interview him about the band for the blog of course.

The only piece of information comes from the Falkirk Music Scene page. It says:

BIOGRAPHY:
Falkirk / Edinburgh pop / rock act formed in 1988 by ex-Breakfast Boyz member Justin Skelton (vocals / guitar). He added local drummer Ian Wallace (ex-Nirvana, no not that one!) and Edinburgh musicians Gus Carmichael (keyboards), George Christie (guitar) & Eddie McGlone (bass). The band released one single in 1989, “Toy Soldiers”, on the BMG label before splitting. Skelton later ran a rehearsal room, whilst Wallace joined The Cotton Train.

RELEASES:
“Toy Soldiers” (12 inch single, BMG, 1989)

None of those bands named in that little biography had any releases sadly. So it’s hard to track them through them.

The Urban Dictionary says that Boxing Clever means: to use inventive thinking above all other attributes in order to achieve an end goal.

Is that why they named the band like that? One can only wonder. The truth is that the only other bit of information I could gather was from the back cover of their 12″ release. A 12″ I haven’t had any luck in having or finding.

We know that all songs were written by Justin Skelton and then arranged by the rest of the band. The songs that were included in this release were “Toy Soldiers”, “I Just Do”, “Nobody Else I Know” and “William”. There’s a little information about each one of them:

Toy Soldiers – Recorded at Palladium Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever and Chris Harley. Engineered by Keith Mitchell.

I Just Do – Recorded at H.M. Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever. Engineered by Alan Cuthberson.

Nobody Else I Know – Recorded at H.M. Studios. Produced by Boxing Clever. Engineered by Alan Cuthberson.

William – Recorded at The Howf. Produced and engineered by Justin Skelton.

Keyboards and accordian were provided by Gus Carmichael and John Sweeney respectively.

All tracks published BMG (a major! horror!) Music Publishing LTD. But it was released by Beaver Records.

The sleeve design was thanks to Rose O’ Connor. And the record came out in 1989.

And that’s all there is. I could tell you  a bit about Falkirk as it has some interesting history, if you like though? Well, so…

An Eaglais Bhreac is a derivative formed from the Scottish Gaelic cognate of the first recorded name Ecclesbrith from the Brittonic for “speckled church”, presumably referring to a church building built of many-coloured stones. The Scottish Gaelic name was translated into Scots as Fawkirk then later amended to the modern English name of Falkirk. The Latin name Varia Capella also has the same meaning. Falkirk Old Parish Church stands on the site of the medieval church, which may have been founded as early as the 7th century.

 The Antonine Wall, which stretches across the centre of Scotland, passed through the town and remnants of it can be seen at Callendar Park. Similar to Hadrian’s Wall but built of turf rather than stone so less of it has survived, it marked the northern frontier of the Roman Empire between the Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde during the AD 140s. Much of the best evidence of Roman occupation in Scotland has been found in Falkirk, including a large hoard of Roman coins and a cloth of tartan, thought to be the oldest ever recorded.

And that’s all I can tell you about Boxing Clever and Falkirk, and Scotland this week. Though probably after listening to the song, you’d wonder why there’s no more information about them. I ask myself the same. Wish I knew if they had more recordings. If they appeared on compilations. Whatever happened to them? Where are they now? So many mysteries. Maybe some of you remember them? Maybe some can fill in the blanks!

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Listen
Boxing Clever – Nobody Else I Know

Thanks so much to Gary Marshall for the interview. A Game of Soldiers hailed from Liverpool and released only one 7″ though many recordings were made. Many of these, plus new recordings by Gary can be heard on his soundcloud page. There was so little information about them online, so I’m very happy to hear from Gary the whole story of A Game of Soldiers in this interview. And also be their fan on Facebook! Enjoy!

++ Hi Gary! Thanks so much for the interview. Hope all is well. I saw you are still making music these days. Care to tell me a bit about your new adventures? Is it just you or you have a band? And how different it is to the sound of A Game of Soldiers? Do you have any releases?

I still have that burning urge to create and make music after so many years of being in a band.These days it’s just for pleasure and indeed good therapy! I have, what I call a ‘desk top’ studio at home, it’s great to go to when the ideas spring to mind or I hear something on the radio & think ‘I can do that better’! It’s really about putting stuff down for keeps sake, at the moment, kind of a diary or some small legacy to leave for my kids…better out than in…I say! Future releases? maybe? I’d like to compile a cd of new material some day. The main difference from ‘A Game of Soldiers’, I guess is the guitar work, my stuff is very keyboard based.

++ So let’s rewind, let’s go back to 1980. That’s when A Game of Soldiers started as a band, right? How did you get together? How did you know each other?

I actually joined the band as a keyboard player, they were already formed, but placed an advert in the world famous ‘Hessy’s’ store (Frank Hessy’s Liverpool. The Beatles guitar shop). I auditioned & found the band where only two streets away from my home!

++ How many lineup changes happened in the band? I see plenty of people listed on the Facebook page!

Too many to remember! but, yes many came and went.

++ During those early 80s there were plenty of fantastic bands coming out of Liverpool. Which were your favourite bands there and did you feel part of a scene?

Liverpool was so vibrant & exciting in the 80’s. We rehearsed in a place called the ‘ministry’ in the city center. The heart of all the excitement. We had Echo and the Bunnymen, A Flock of Seagulls, Julian Cope/Teardrop Explodes & many others practicing in the same building.I remember sneaking to the rooms for a listen & a chance to meet my our idols.

++ And who or what would you say inspired you to make music?

Living in Liverpool surrounded by such a musical legacy, the beatles etc was really enough to inspire you to play music, or indeed the other option would be to play football.
We as a group,had different tastes in music, from Pink Floyd, Ultravox, Simple Minds, U2, Bowie etc

++ It wasn’t going to be until 1988 when you would release your first record. The fantastic “Big Bad Money World”. What’s the story behind this song? And who released this single?

The song actually was inspired by my fiance! We, like many couples, struggled to pay bills in our new home.My fiance made the statement ‘it’s a big bad money world’!, meaning everything is about money.
That was it. I thought,say that again…wow that’s a great title for a song. We released the single ourselves, and actually gave away many during gigs and to radio stations. It was really about getting our name out there & our music played.

++ Why do you think it took that long to release the record?

During that period we became increasingly frustrated, searching for a manager & trying to get that break we needed. It almost became a case of there being too many unsigned liverpool bands circulating at that time. I guess we were just unlucky. So we decided to fund the single our selves and get it played.

++ I was looking at the video for “Rainforest” on the Facebook page, and I notice there’s some footage of you guys. Did you ever made a video or something?

Yeh,we had a video made our selves. A friend of mine filmed us. He normally did weddings! God, i wish we had facebook & soundcloud back then!. Lots of bands nowadays promote themselves & release stuff online. I guess in a small way, we were already doing it.

++ And was there any interest from the big labels?

We only approached the smaller independant labels.

++ Tell me about the band’s name, A Game of Soldiers, where does it come from?

It’s London Cockney in origin, a variation of ‘Sod this for a lark’. It’s a term of exasperation, meaning that something is not worth the effort or the trouble.I like to say ‘ fck this for a game of soldiers’!

++ Would you consider yourselves a political band?

We we’re certainly no U2. Tho our lyrics did reflect attitude towards the government of the day. We played a gig in support of starvation in africa, around the time of ‘liveaid’. I remember we were confronted at the end of one gig by the manager criticising our anti government comments made inbetween songs! So maybe we were a little political.

++ From all your songs, which would you say was your favourite and why?

That’s a difficult one, I think when your in a band or indeed a songwriter, the last song you did is a favourite for a while, until the next idea comes along. ‘Stop the Dragon’ an anti drug song is certainly one favourite.

++ What about gigging? You seem to have gigged quite a lot, which were the best gigs you reckon? Any anecdotes you could share?

Yeh, we loved gigging & played every week for a while. We played mountford hall, here in Liverpool with the band ‘Toy Dolls’, they had a UK hit with ‘Nelly the Elephant’, bloody awful kids song!
We tried to play all the ‘hip’ places of the day. So there were lots of dark night clubs in basements, some of our audience would be rats! yes, the rodent kind!… running around the place! We played a place called ‘the Venue’, i remember Will Seargant of Echo and the Bunnymen telling us we were ‘cosmic’, i quite liked that label sounded cool. I remember we played on a roof, in the style of The Beatles, Abbey Road gig. It was a great gig, we could see for miles!

++ Aside from the two songs on the 7″ single, are there any more recordings by A Game of Soldiers? Did you release any demo tapes?

We made several demo cassette tapes,remember cassettes? ha, we gave them to local radio stations and had some air play from them. We would send them off to A&R men at indie labels.

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

Actually, I don’t specifically remember that we did split?, you know, we kinda got frustrated and disillusioned.It seemed every band around us at the time were getting record deals. We never felt like we got the break we deserved. So really, we just dessolved.

++ What did you guys did after? Were you still involved with bands?

You know, I think its quite telling that none of us joined or formed another band. Some of the guys dont even play to this day. I think we all put our heart & soul into the band,made sacrifices, and did all that we could to drive forward,then having not achieved our goal, really lost the faith.In truth we resigned ourselves to the fact, it just was’nt ment to be.

++ What about today. What do you do? What other hobbies do you have?

I still make music,and write the odd song,but not everyday as back then. Its more of a therapy these days and of course fun too. I wish we had todays synths and software, back then. It’s much quicker and easier to record stuff these days.

++ And looking back in time, what would you say was the biggest highlight of the band?

For me, the biggest highlight, was putting a song I wrote, in about 10 minutes, on a scrap of paper, onto a 7 inch plastic record! I was so proud to hold it in my hands. Even if we had split there and then,I still would of felt we had achieved something special.

++ Alright, let’s wrap it here, but thanks again so much. Anything else you’d like to add?

thank you Roque, its been great to reflect back to those days, so many great memories. thank you.

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Listen
A Game of Soldiers – Big Bad Money World

Thanks so much to Nick Langley for the interview. The Penny Candles were a fantastic indiepop band from Hull that left us only one 12″ record and a handful of compilation appearances. They also put out three tapes during the late 80s. Their songs were brilliant, the kind of indiepop I love. Very honoured to learn more about them!

++ First question is what everyone is wondering, will there be a retrospective CD with all of The Penny Candles recordings? Please say yes!

To be honest, it’s not something I’ve ever thought about. Everything that we professionally recorded was released in some form of another. We released a cassette called “Sunny Enough For Cats” initially followed by “Sunny Enough For Cats Too” which was an updated version of the first and then “Wossname”. After that came the single. I don’t think that there’s anything else left to release. I still have some of the master recordings so could potentially release them as MP3s but I’d have to think about that one!

++ Who were The Penny Candles and how did you know each other? What made you all start a band?

The band was originally started by myself and Alison Hughes. Back in the mid-80s, Hull had one music venue, The New Adelphi Club. It was the only venue in the city hat catered for bands playing their own material. Within months of it opening it became the home of all the local musicians – we virtually lived there! Not surprisingly, the hard core of about 40 people became quite good friends. Alison had come to Hull to read Law at the university and formed a band called The Mockingbirds in her final year of study. I saw them play a couple of times at The Adelphi. In 1988, having played drums and sung backing vocals in numerous local bands, I’d decided that, having taken up the bass guitar, I wanted to start my own band. One day I went down to the University Student’s Union to put up adverts saying, “Bassist/Singer/Songwriter looking for Guitarist/Singer/Songwriter to form band” and I bumped in to Alison. We spent the next couple of hours talking about music and bands. She had just graduated with a Law degree and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next so we decided there and then to form a band. Steve Parry was our original guitarist and was someone that Alison knew. I can’t remember the circumstances around him joining the band – one day it was the two of us, the next Steve was there! We were offered some free studio time from friends of ours who had a record deal with Virgin and had built their own studio but for that we needed a drummer. Hugh Whitaker was a friend from the Adelphi so one day I popped round to his house and asked him if he’d do the recordings for us and he ended up staying in the band for the next 18 months.

++ Where does the name The Penny Candles come from?

Like most bands, we spent HOURS trying to think of a name. Eventually Alison turned up with “The Penny Candles”. It was the least rubbish of all the other names we’d thought of so we opted for that. It comes from the title of a book that Alison was reading at the time called “To Light a Penny Candle” by the Irish author, Maeve Binchy. A penny candle is a candle lit in churches when prayer requests are made. You’re supposed to put a penny in a box to pay for the candle (I think!).

++ Only one release, the Taj Mahal 12″! How many copies were pressed? it seems to difficult to find a copy these days. What do you remember from recording these fantastic four songs!

The main reason for the 12″ was to raise the band’s profile – an attempt to get the record labels to pay more attention to us. We only pressed 1,000. I think I’ve got the last 30 sitting in my studio at home. I remember having a great time during the recording. We loved being in the band. There’s a special camaraderie shared by a small group of people who spend 18 hours a day in each other’s company, sharing new experiences. You become incredibly tight knit and close. We recorded the tracks at the same studio we used for “Sunny Enough For Cats” and I think we did it over a long, 4 day weekend. We were a pretty tight band by that point as we’d gigged a lot up and down the country so it was a fairly quick process. Steve Parry had left the band by that point so the lead guitar parts are played by Mark Eddie Whatmough who spend about 8 months with us. I can honestly say that his guitar solo in “Swings and Roundabouts” is still one of my all time favourites of ANY guitar solos I’ve heard. All the more remarkable because he was only 17 at the time. A lovely bloke. I remember Alison having a moan on the Sunday and refusing to come back to the studio after lunch, as a result all the guitars on “Making The Most (Of It All)” are me – including that terrible solo – and for some reason we had to some pick-ups on “Taj Mahal” which Eddie couldn’t do, so the outro electric guitar is me too. Hugh is great in the studio. Apart from being a rock solid drummer he’s also a rock solid bloke. Alison and I were a bit more, what’s the word? – childish! We’d argue about the tiniest detail and we’re both really stubborn. Hugh was the voice of reason. Also, neither Alison nor I liked the other one criticising each other’s singing. If one of us was singing a line flat we’d get very defensive. However, we’d listen to Hughie. He’s got a great ear for vocals. We used to call him “the referee” partly because he’s step in and resolve arguments and partly because – and here comes the football joke – he’d inspect the pitch!

++ Why weren’t there more releases? I also know of the existence of a tape called “Sunny Enough For Cats Too!”, care to tell us a bit about this cassette?

“Sunny Enough For Cats” was recorded as our first demo tape which we used to secure gigs. If memory serves me right, the only difference between “Sunny Enough For Cats” and “Sunny Enough For Cats Too” is that we re-recorded the lead vocals for a couple of the tracks but I can’t remember which ones. I think that the track listing is the same but I’m not sure. I’ve got a copy of “Sunny Enough For Cats Too” in front of me and the track list in this is as follows: SIDE 1 “Nicely”, “No Doubt”, “Sometimes”. SIDE 2 “Memorybox”, “Just a Word”, “Turn it Off”.

++ And what about the other two tapes released, “Sunny Enough For Cats Too” and “Wossname”? Do you remember the tracklist for all these three tapes? I can’t seem to find that information!

Unfortunately I can’t find a copy of “Wossname”. I’ve a feeling that I still own one but I’ve no idea where it is. Sorry!

++ You were in a couple of compilations as well like Turquoise Days, Borobudur, Positively Teenage!, You Can’t Be Loved Forever Vol. 2 and Vol.3, and Hell & Happiness. Am I missing any? How did you end up on this, I mean , what was the process?

Truth be told, with the exception of Borubudur, they just lifted recordings from demo tapes and included them on their albums. No one ever sought our permission and, if any money was ever made, we never saw any of it. To be honest though, we always saw things like this as free publicity – all recordings were a way of increasing the band’s profile they were never intended to make any money.

++ The 12″ was released by your own Red Eye Records. How was the experience of running a label?

In those days it was the only sensible way of doing it. Unlike some bands however, we did it properly. We secured a distribution deal with a company called SRS. They made sure that it went in to the shops. A lot of bands started there own labels and ended up with boxes and boxes of unsold records in the basement. Running the label didn’t involve much until the tax man came looking for me! I then had to demonstrate that I hadn’t made a fortune, which, obviously, I hadn’t!! It can’t have put me off that much because I’ve just started a new label a few months ago called Scratch 23 with plans to release stuff this year from a couple of local artists as well as some of my own stuff.

++ What was the creative process for your songs? What inspired you guys?

Unrequited love. What can I say. Just about everything I wrote was about broken hearts. The process is much the same now as it was then: pick up an instrument, fish around until you hear something you like, hum a tune and you’re off. I gave up music in 1993 and didn’t touch and instrument for the next 12 or 13 years. I began writing songs again about 3 years ago and I find it easier now than I did, but it’s the same old process – strum and hum!

++ And what bands would you say influenced your music?

The Beatles were a big influence on me. I’m of an age (just) where they were still together and actively recording. My mum’s from Liverpool and once played at The Cavern so we always felt that they were in some ways “ours”. Apart from them there were loads of contemporary bands, Prefab Sprout, Everything but The Girl … the list would be endless if I thought about it for long enough!

++ Is it true that Taj Mahal was named after a reverb setting? Were other songs named after other uncommon conventions? 🙂

How the hell did you know that??? It was indeed named after a reverb patch in an Alesis Quadraverb. It’s the patch used on the arpeggio guitar at the beginning of the song. I used to quite like giving songs obscure titles but I prefer single word names now as it’s easier to remember them. I can’t really think. There’s a song called “Dial M”. The chorus says, “the morning after can be murder”. Alfred Hitchcock made a film called “Dial M for Murder” so I decided to call it “Dial M”. A bit childish really!

++ How was the scene in Hull during those late eighties? Do you still live there? If so, do you find it has changed much? If I was in the city, doing a “Penny Candles” tour, which place or sight will you show me that was really important for the band?

The music scene in Hull back in those days was amazing. As I said earlier, Paul Jackson bought an old working men’s club called the New Adelphi Club and turned it in to a music venue. From that point on we had a home. We were all on unemployment benefits just dossing around making music and enjoying life. It was fantastic! I still live in Hull in the same area I’ve been in for the last 27 years, with my wife and 4 kids. The city has changed a lot but for the better. Hull was founded on fish, we used to have a massive fishing fleet – 200 trawlers a day used to land fish in Hull – there are about 12 a week now. By the late 1970s the fishing industry was dead and the city went in to a catastrophic decline. Over the last 20 years however, things have picked up and we’re now at the forefront of green, renewable energies so it’s a fairly prosperous city. I run a small project recording studio for teenagers and am fortunate enough to have a recording studio at home. Paul Jackson still owns the Adelphi club, although there are other venues competing with him now, so that’s still the spiritual home of music in Hull. If you ever make it this far north, you MUST go to the Adelphi clucb – it’s legendary. Everyone’s played there at some point, The La’s, Primal Scream, The Happy Mondays, Radiohead, Oasis, the list just goes on and on and on …

++ Did The Penny Candles gig a lot? Any particular gigs you remember as the best time ever? What about the Reading Festival gig?

We’d do a gig just about anywhere. I figured out early on that you make your own luck in the Music Business. We have a saying in this country – a bi fish in a little pond. It’s easy being a big fish in a little pond. A lot of bands are happy playing in their local venue once a month. All their friends come down, get drunk and jump around making them feel like rock stars. Anyone can do that. It’s a different game when you travel 100 mile to a city where no-one’s heard of you. You have to work 10 times harder to make an impression. We accepted every gig we were offered. We’d travel 400 miles there and back for £15 just to have an audience to play in front of. Other local bands would refuse gigs like that. They’d say “I’m not going all that way for that money, we’re worth more than that”. But it’s just an excuse. They’re terrified of taking the risk and getting booed off stage. Alison and I formed the band in June 1988. We did our first gig in September 1988 and our first short tour in January 1989. Other bands were jealous but we got off our arses, worked hard and took risks. We weren’t happy being a big fish in a little pond, we wanted to be a big fish in a BIG pond. To achieve that you have to get out there and work hard, which we did. I loved touring: a different town each night, a different audience, a different vibe, it was a dream come true. We got the Reading Festival gig because of that attitude. The festival is booked by a company called The Mean Fiddler. They own about 8 venues in London. We sent a demo tape in and nagged them for a gig at one of their venues. In those days support bands used to have to pay the venue to play! However, a bloke called Neil O’Brien who worked there, quite liked us. All he could offer was a slot in their acoustic venue which we gladly accepted. We weren’t allowed to use a drum kit so we worked out a special 40 minute set just for that one gig in the middle of a tour. It was nerve racking but a great little gig. Because of our willingness and professionalism he offered us a slot a Reading, which was just amazing. We took about 12 friends with us and more met us there and we had a fantastic weekend AND we were getting paid to do it. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Around May 1990 we were on tour, playing a venue somewhere. We were in the middle of a song and my mind started drifting. Two things struck me: 1) all the songs sounded the same to me, which is NOT a good thing, and 2) my mind shouldn’t be drifting off. I should be wrapped up in the show, but I wasn’t. It was then that I realised that I wanted to leave the band. I felt we’d taken the band as far as we could. It was decided that I’d fulfil all the band’s commitments which were the rest of the tour and then the gigs leading up to Reading, so Reading Festival was my last gig with the band. Alison kept the band going, replacing me with a bass player and adding a keys player. They did one gig at the Adelphi in early 1991 and then she decided to call it quits. I went on to for a band called The Juniper Chute. I wanted to write some songs with a bit more balls to them so for the first time I wrote them all on an electric guitar. I then asked Hugh Whitaker, Eddie and a friend called Matty to form a band an we did a handful of gigs. The sad thing is that it was only intended as an experiment. I was sick of being in a band. I’d spent 2 years of my life trying to get the Penny Candles signed and got nowhere. Neil O’Brien offered us a gig at one of their venues. It was only our second show. In the next few months, after that show, I got rung up by every major record label in the country chasing me up. I was so disillusioned that I never returned the calls. The band members all had other commitments so it was never intended to be a permanent thing, so they drifted off and that was that. I then spent the next couple of years writing songs for a band called Scarlet who were originally from Hull bought who had moved to London. They had a publishing deal with Chrysalis Music and eventually signed a record deal with Warner Chappell. They went on to have a one hit wonder called “Independent Love Song” (sadly, not one of mine) and I had a couple of songs on the album. by that point (1993), I’d had enough. I sold most of my stuff and enrolled at a local university to do a degree.

++ Are you still in touch with the other Penny Candles? What do you all do nowadays?

I still see Hughie and Eddie occasionally. Hugh’s still very eccentric and keeps himself busy playing in a couple of local bands. Eddie still plays in pubs and clubs. Alison became a Producer for the BBC and is based in London these days and has been so for 20 years now. As far as the future is concerned, I’m in the process of writing and recording an album which will hopefully be released later this year.

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Listen
The Penny Candles – Swings and Roundabouts

So that petition I urged everyone to sign at the White House page has expired because it failed to reach the amount of signers required. It’s probably how things will be then for at least a year, high postage to send records abroad. I don’t want to cause panic, but it’s pretty obvious we won’t thrive though some geniuses at Darla are boasting that they are having amazing sales and all other record labels are whiners. Good for them. It shows how “indie” they are, giving a f@ck about the rest.

Doing some research around, looking for reasons for this collapse of our beloved USPS, explanations on what had happened I found two very interesting posts on the eBay Forums:

Globally, Some countries have been in the middle of an economic downturn. Since the USPS International rates are standardized across most countries- changes for the majority effect even the minority. Plus it makes things less complicated. Many countries want MORE money, and by definition share of the money spent on postage, to process international mail that comes into their country. Very Cheap International Postage made the amount of money, when split between both the USPS and the receiving country kinda small. So they have corrected it so that both the USPS is happy with the money they make and that the receiving country is happy too.Since the UPU the body that help sets the rates only formally meets every four years we get sticker shock.

As far as UK buyers are concerned, there will be huge ramifications of this USPS price hike. This is because there is a paltry £15 limit (which was REDUCED from £18 recently) on the value of any incoming parcels, and this INCLUDES the postage cost. Anything over that gets slapped with a 20% customs charge and – wait for it –  a flat £8 “administration” fee. So even a small hike in postage will mean that buyers, even of small light and inexpensive items (like myself), will be deterred from continuing to buy, since the new prices will most likely push the value over the UK tax threshold. Ironically, it will really only be worth buying expensive items on eBay, as the taxes and charges won’t dwarf the cost of the actual item!

We haven’t really thought about these ramifications that these new prices will have. But there will be a domino effect, no doubt. It wouldn’t surprise me that other countries start raising their prices. The only ones that might be celebrating with this situation is the Canadian post. You ask why? It is very common in that Canadians living next to the border, would just cross it to post their things, even when they wanted to send their envelopes and parcels within Canada as it was always cheaper. Will they cross the border now? Perhaps not, as the prices will be around the same.

So for now, we can only sit and wait, see what all this USPS mess will bring us all. I had to raise all Cloudberry prices at the moment, and I’m happy to say that there is still support from fans. I hope it continues this way. It all depends on you all who support bands and labels that we continue our indiepop dream.

Yes. There are Cloudberry news. So let’s move to that. Happier topic.

Three days to go for the release of the Alpaca Sports 7″! As you all know, as you all have heard, it’s a cracker. And they’ve worked hard on it, recording videos for each of the three songs of the vinyl. Head to the website and listen/watch and order. They will be promoting the record very soon too in Madrid Popfest. And in Stockholm too, at the So Unbelievable club, where I will be celebrating my birthday. Oh good times ahead. Two days ago, Andreas gave a solo Alpaca Sports show in Lima, Peru, too. From what I hear it was an amazing success. I still haven’t seen them live. And I can wait for next month. No surprise they were voted best new band of 2012. And I hear they will be in the US this year too!

Then in less than two weeks the Flowers 7″ will be out. Will write more about this release next week. You don’t want to miss this one. Pre-orders have been pouring. And I’ve read some reviews saying they might be the next big thing? I wouldn’t be surprised. They are special.

But I wanted to tell you about the new fanzine I’ve been working on, and this time I’ll be super thorough not to make pagination mistakes. Promise! The CD is almost ready, and I will be announcing the tracklist soon. Right now you can preview one of the tracks on our soundcloud. It’s called “If It’s True” and it’s the fab Tiny Fireflies behind it. And about the paper zine, I’m just missing a couple of pieces. Hopefully I can finish writing it this week if I have enough time.

Also there are new bands that will be working with us on new 7″ releases. Can’t say the names yet, but, I’m already very excited. One is from Japan, the other based in Scotland. That’s enough hints I can give you all!

And now, let’s finish this week’s post with a very obscure band, The Fontaines.

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Fontaine is a French word meaning fountain or natural spring. 

Fountain – is the title of a famous sculpture by Marcel Duchamp.

So where do you think the band got their name from?

The Fontaines only left us one 7″ record. Two songs that were recorded in 1987. Upon listening to them, you’d understand why they are not enough. They are too good, especially the fabulous B side, that one can only crave for more.

The label was 51st Parallel. Probably their own label. A self-release. The catalog number is FONT1.

There are two 51st parallels:

51st Parallel North: At this latitude the sun is visible for 16 hours, 33 minutes during the summer solstice and 7 hours, 55 minutes during the winter solstice.  The catchment area of London can be broadly defined by the 51st and 52nd parallels.

51st Parallel South: The 51st parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 51 degrees south of the Earth’s equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and South America.

Most probably named because of the northern parallel.

The A side was “I Want Everything”. The B side was the amazing “Bernadette”.

I first heard about this band thanks to the list on Twee.net of future bands to be showcased on the Leamington Spa series. Then later I remember “Bernadette” being uploaded to Youtube though it’s not there anymore. And lastly on the amazing compilation CD Rupert from Turntable revolution shared with me. Actually, Rupert, on his blog, had found some interesting facts back in 2009 (!) and I hope it’s ok to refresh them here in my blog:

Recorded in three days in August 1987 this superior independent release vaulted into the pop world to a clamour of indifference. Unfair treatment indeed. With lyrics redolent of Morrissey after an all night kitchen sink drama video session they may well have been ready to perch on the throne of misery the Smiths were about to vacate. Nothing more was forthcoming though and this slice of pulchritudinous pop was consigned to the carrier bag of discarded dreams.

The band consisted of Brian Green on vocals, Duane Fontaine on guitar, Louis Jones on guitar, Andy Reynolds on bass and Ed Grimshaw on drums. I had an email from Dr. Andy Reynolds who tells me that Louis Jones and Ed Grimshaw went on to form the Warm Jets and Brian Green went on to record an LP with Hugh Cornwell, then went to Nashville and now teaches song-writing MA in Bath. Apparently there exist videos of the band performing other songs which may one day appear on Youtube. Dr.Reynolds is now a reader in medieval archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in London. Perhaps five hundred years from now someone will dig up an old Fontaines record and marvel at this gleaming example of mid eighties pop.

I haven’t had the chance yet to find myself a copy of the record, but some kind person has uploaded the back sleeve of the 7″ and there are some more clues about this amazing release. For example there are credits for Matthew Reynolds who played harmonica and trumpet. That it was recorded at Sam Studios on the 28, 29 and 30th of August 1987. There are thanks to Bryan & Alex Deacon, the Locks, Nick Adams, Terry Medford, the JimBeamGang, Derek Batey, Julian & Florien for their help + advice. Farewell to Eamonn.

There are a couple of cryptic images and words. “Hines for President!”. “Love in Batch”. A map showing Finchely Road. And write to them at a PO Box in Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Let’s keep on digging. So Andy (Andrew) Reynolds actually has a Wikipedia page as he has become a successful archaeologist publishing several books.

And the band Warm Jets, that had Louis Jones and Ed Grimshaw, also has one. Grimshaw had been part of another band, even prior to The Fontaines. They were called Ophiuchus and you can read their whole story here as well.

That’s all there was left from The Fontaines. One fantastic 7″. One very hard to find too. Perhaps not many copies were pressed. But as always I do end up wondering if they left any other recordings. Perhaps some demo tapes. If only those videos Rupert talks about would show up on Youtube one day. To unveil a mystery. To know more about this fantastic band that history decided to keep them in obscurity. Unfair. Songs like “Bernadette” should have been a huge hit.

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Listen
The Fontaines – Bernadette

Paul Hopkins, who played with Life Studies (read about them here) just before they broke up, has kindly shared with me some songs from a practice session.

I joined the band for one gig after they’d released the single. Martyn the bass player had gone to Israel and Phil and Graham needed a bass player. I bumped into Phil on a Gloucester -bound coach at Heathrow airport and he asked me if I wanted to play – hence the practice session recording at Spadger – just myself, Phil and Graham. They formed the Trout Faced Few not long after  with some people from the Erratic Strides.

The songs were recorded on a cassette recorder as part of a practice session in preparation for a gig at the Flying Machine, Brockworth between the release of the 45  ‘Girl on Fire’ and the demise of the band.

This is Leave Me Alone, a New Order cover.

This is Inside Out.

This is 1000 Closing Doors.

Back L-R are Frank Sweeney, Jenny Benwell, Chris Blawat, and front are Nick Sweeney on the left, and Dirk Higgins.

Thanks a lot to Nick Sweeney for the interview. The Ringing were an obscure band that released the one and only 7″ back in the day on the now legendary Pink Label, home of The June Brides, The Wolfhounds and my favourites McCarthy. This 7″ is truly great, especially the A-side, “Caprice”. If you’ve never heard them before, now it’s the time for you to discover.

++ Hi Nick! Thanks a lot for being up for this interview. First things first, why do you think The Ringing are this obscure? I mean, Pink released The June Brides and McCarthy, it’s strange no one knows much about you. Were you very obscure too back in the day?

Unhelpfully, I don’t know. Maybe the line up of guitar, bass, drums, viola and violin didn’t appeal to the people we were playing to. At the time, though, Dexy’s Midnight Runners had become big with their Come On Eileen phase, and the Pogues were on the rise, so it wasn’t like the strings were unfamiliar. We weren’t folky, exactly. Reviews said we were too eclectic, as we had a broad musical range, with songs that I jokingly called ‘Country and Eastern’, influenced by things like David Bowie’s Velvet Goldmine and Boney M’s Rasputin rather than anything more authentic – pop oompah.

More honestly, we probably didn’t try hard enough. We sent tapes to the usual people, but weren’t good at following them up. We also probably thought that being on a record label would sort out all ‘that kind of thing’, but of course it doesn’t work that way.

++ So when did you start as a band? Who were the members and what instruments did each of you play? Where were you based?

We started in 1982, at the Works rehearsal studios near Old St, the edge of London’s East End. (The area is now very trendy, but then it was old warehouses and railway arches, scruffy pubs and intermittent public transport.) Dirk Higgins, who ran the studio, liked what I was doing, and became the bass player. He recruited the drummer, Chris Blawat. My brother Frank played viola. We played with this lineup for a while, then got a violinist in, Jenny Benwell, who’d trained at the Guildhall School of Music.

++ Were you involved in previous bands before The Ringing?

I was in a band called Exile Views (a line from one of my songs – we wanted to be just plain Exiles, but the day I printed up cassette covers for our demos I heard a band on the radio called Exiles). We did 5 or 6 gigs the year we were in existence. We sent tapes out to everywhere and everybody, but were not very proactive in the face of indifference. That was from 1979-80. I brought some of the songs to the Ringing.

++ Where does the name The Ringing comes from?

I think it was just from a stray comment that a band ought to be loud enough to leave your ears ringing. It was slagged off (as a crap band name) by Tony Parsons when he gave our single a bad review in the NME. I agreed with him about the name.

++ You only released one 7″ on the Pink Label. How did you end up working with them? How was the relationship between band and label?

We met Simon Down through my brother Frank, and after his interest in the June Brides. I liked Simon and his partner and got on well with them until they lost interest in us – fair enough – and then we hardly saw them. I probably didn’t think about how businesslike they were, just trusted them to ‘do stuff’.

++ On this 7″ there were two songs, “Caprice” and “Doctor”. Am I crazy to say that there is some sort of Monochrome Set influence? What would you say were the main influences of the band then?

I LOVED and still love The Monochrome Set. I saw most of their London gigs between 1978 and 1985, had all the albums, singles, rarities, posters, etc, worked out all their songs on the guitar, scribed their lyrics as much as I could make them out. I’ve now seen, and like, the revived TMS, a rare thing for me, as I prefer to remember bands as they were.

I liked Dexys’ Too-Rye-Ay tunes, and also liked the Pogues, though both did their thing to death eventually. I’d liked punk (as early as seeing the Pistols in 1976) but thought it had run its course by the end of 1977. I loved early Adam and the Ants and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and, from 77-79 followed them as obsessively as TMS, going to all the gigs, etc, and even auditioning with the Ants. (See my blog here, for further details.) I was, and still am, a fan of all Bowie’s stuff from Man Who Sold the World to Lodger. I began being disappointed in him with 1980’s Scary Monsters. I liked Joy Division and New Order, Young Marble Giants, Kraftwerk, Telex, somewhat humourless European pop, for want of a better phrase, or anything (like the Monochrome Set) that sounded convincingly European. I also loved Devo, who were more comic than they were given credit for. I liked stuff like James White and the Blacks, and The Birthday Party, too (which I now find unlistenable). I’d been a regular at Billy’s, the Beat Route and Le Kilt, all Soho clubs, from 1980-82, and the Blitz scene, so some of that (mostly crap) New Romantic stuff, like early Spandau Ballet, rang a bell with me. I also liked the Skids, who I thought successfully outgrew punk, The Fire Engines (who didn’t fit in to any niche, I thought), people like Paul Haig (but not Josef K). I still loved things I’d been listening to since the mid-70s, like Roxy Music (up to Manifesto in, I think, 1978) and Iggy Pop. And far too many more to mention. Having said all that, I’m not sure I can claim these as influences on the band, though I was the only songwriter. There was no concerted attempt, as far as my vanity and faulty memory can pull up, to sound like anybody else. And I don’t think we ever did, which may have been our downfall.

++ So do tell me, what is the story behind these two songs?

Caprice is fake jazz. I can’t say I remember it being directly TMS-influenced, though I’m sure it was – by The Ruling Class (from Eligible Bachelors) and The Man With the Black Moustache (from Love Zombies). I’ve only learnt jazz guitar properly over the last 10 years, so the guitar is not ‘strictly’ jazzy at all. Nor is the drumming, but I think on the whole we pulled off the impossible to make it give off a jazzy feel that I was happy with. It wasn’t as if I ever liked jazz that much – I still have a hard time listening to anything but Gypsy Jazz.

Doctor was probably influenced a bit by another band I loved, Bow Wow Wow, and as such is ‘kind of’ jungly, albeit with violas imitating bagpipes at the end.

The lyrics to both are throwaway. I’m not much into lyrics, though of course I have a few favourite tunes where the lyrics do stand out, notably some of Bowie’s (Station to Station, Star and Drive in Saturday in particular), Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, the Eurythmics’ Love is a Stranger, Paul Simon’s American Tune. What I really like is just sound, especially the human voice. That’s what attracted me to Eastern European music; I couldn’t understand the words (though I can now, often) so it was all part of the sound.

I can’t remember the impetus for writing these particular songs; I rarely do, I just get a tune in my head, match it with a lyric and get a feel of how it should sound. I often think of basslines at the same time, and how drums might sound, etc – at least that’s how it works now, with tunes I write for the band I’m in. I can write music now – in those days I had to grab a cassette recorder and just play them in case I forgot them.

++ And were these the only two songs you recorded as The Ringing? Are there any more? Maybe some in tapes hiding in someone’s cupboard?

We made several recordings as The Ringing. I remember the first attempt at a session: we took a day off work and turned up at the recording studio only to find there’d been a flood or a fire or something, so we went to a pub and spent the day blowing the money we’d brought for the studio, and got wasted. We recorded 6 more tracks with that line up, and 2 more with a later version of the band, which I’ll mention later. They’re all on cassettes somewhere. They’re not great, in general – done on a low budget in a great hurry by people not used to recording techniques. And, in one case, by an engineer who hated us after Chris banged his reverb sheet absent-mindedly with a drumstick, and hated us more after Dirk slagged off some keyboard there, which got the engineer declaiming sniffily that it was ‘his baby, Mantovani in a box’.

++ About the 7″, how come there are no credits in it? And would you have wanted a different sleeve instead of the Pink standard ones?

I think there might have been an insert slip with credits. The people on it were as above. The songs were recorded at London’s Alaska Studios and the engineer was called Ian O’Higgins (I think). He was from Dublin, and I was intrigued that he was reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, a book I later became utterly obsessed with. I think Joe Foster was around, but don’t remember him having any input – I may be wrong. The June Brides were in right after us, for the midnight session, so Frank had a double shift. I designed a sleeve (can’t remember the design), but it was abandoned as it would be too expensive to produce. The decision made sense, and I didn’t mind the standard sleeve.

++ Tell me about gigs! Did you play many? Any favourites? Anecdotes you could share?

I think we played about 40 gigs. We were often on the bill with people called the Greenwich Performance Collective. They were mostly local (SE London) affairs, and sometimes the only people in the audience were the other bands. There was a lot of talent in the GPC, some quirky, adventurous music, now lost forever. As we got to know other bands, we hitched onto their gigs. We often played with a band called The Big Combo, who had a sort of jazz feel – we even did one of their songs, called Drums in the Night, which had apparently been influenced by one of my songs, a tune called Baby is a Millionaire. Incestuous or what…

I think my favourite gig was one of the many we did in the infamously dank Cellar Bar at Thames Polytechnic in SE London’s Woolwich. We played there often as I studied there from 1984-1987, and was able to blag spots on the bill regularly. I enjoyed this particular gig maybe because the whole crowd was off its face (and half the band… actually, at least two fifths of the band) and really into it and the place was heaving and everything was just right. I remember we played an encore of cowboy tune Ring of Fire, for the only time, probably.

We also played on a bill with the June Brides and The Jesus and Mary Chain, at a venue called The Ambulance Station in SE London, and again, everything just worked, the crowd and bands on a roll.

We were on at the Living Room (put on by Alan McGee) one night and well after we’d played Alan McGee told me some mad guy was trying to get in, that he was one of my friends, and could I go sort him out before there was trouble. I didn’t know him at all: he’d been brought by a casual acquaintance of mine, an American guy, who’d just bumped into him in the street in a drunken camerarderie; he’d been released from jail that day and was still angsty. But not charmingly or wittily. In the end I got sick of being diplomatic and just told him to piss off, and urged my American pal to take him away, which he did, but not before the other guy told me I’d ‘never play the fucking violin again’ when he’d finished with me. It’s funny now, but was scary at the time. At that same gig, I was told that a couple of people came up the stairs, took one look at us, said, “Violins? Fuck that!” and walked out.

++ How do you remember the scene back then? So many talented bands, right? What were your favourite places to hang out? Your favourite bands? The worst bands? Any fanzines you loved?

I used to go to mid-size venues a lot, colleges and pubs, small clubs. I saw any gigs featuring The Triffids, the Band of Holy Joy, an early version of the Auteurs… or maybe it was the Auteurs, and the band that has really influenced me a lot, the 3 Mustaphas 3. I really loved Big Audio Dynamite, too. I wasn’t so into the bands on ‘our’ scene – ie signed by Pink, Alan McGee, etc, like Biff Bang Pow and the Jasmine Minks, the Loft, etc. I wasn’t mad about the Jesus and Mary Chain, either, saw them as enjoyable hype if you were in the exact right mood. They were kind of Dada, I thought, taking the piss until somebody was unafraid to tell them to stop it. Maybe I just saw these bands too often when we played on the same bill. I really liked Jamie Wednesday, another act on Pink, whose members went on to form Carter USM and Abdoujaparov. They tended to be dismissed as being ‘lightweight’, but there was a music-hall feel to them that grabbed me a lot.

I was also into clubbing again, after a few years’ break from it, so went to the Wag Club (where I rediscovered ska, the music I’d liked as a teenager) in Soho and the Mud Club on the edge of the West End, with DJs like Jay Strongman and Mark Moore. I got into the start of house music, and listened to that a lot rather than conventional rock stuff – I loved the electronics, and realised that black music plus electronics was a brilliant combination. I hadn’t listened to black music since my early teens. (I hated all that disco stuff in the 70s.) I also went to straight night at (gay nightclub) Heaven – Thursdays – and to warehouse parties where a whole new mix of music was played: country, but with sound effects in the background, funk/metal like the Beastie Boys, dub and early hip-hop and rap, and the start (I think) of DJs (like Don Letts) mixing comedy and movie soundbites into the music. I was just really into staying up all night, and I guess regular gigs didn’t do it for me in that respect.

I can’t really name any ‘worst’ bands – I think if I didn’t like them I had such a short attention span (and there was so much good stuff out there) they’d vanish from my radar. I saw a lot of bands I’d liked take it a step too far, in the interests of commercialism, mainly – and who can blame them? – and was just amused by and dismissive of the careers of Adam Ant, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club and anybody, I guess, I’d been aware of when they weren’t mega-famous – a bit snotty of me, of course.

I really wasn’t into fanzines – Frank used to buy Sniffin Glue in 76 and 77. I think I’d even stopped reading the music press by then.

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

We didn’t exactly split, I suppose – mutated, more like. Now time to mention the sixth member of the Ringing, Eddy Walsh, who was in The Big Combo. An excellent bassist, he’d played with me in Exile Views. He depped a lot with the Ringing because our bassist Dirk was a further education teacher, and worked some evenings, so couldn’t do midweek gigs. It probably wasn’t exactly true, but our drummer Chris remarked that one of his friends had been to more of our gigs than Dirk. One of Dirk’s teaching slots was in Pentonville Prison, which had to be interesting. At the same time, and this was around mid-1985, the June Brides were taking off, so Frank was able to spend less time in the Ringing. In fact, to his credit, he did once give up a gig with the JBs, probably playing to masses of people, to do one with the Ringing, probably playing to a bored barman and a dog. Frank was happy to leave, Dirk less so, but he wasn’t murderous about it, and we stayed friends. We decided it’d be a cleaner sound anyway if we just had the violin. We’d been joined at that point by Jackie Robson (also the sixth member of the band, I guess), who shared vocals with me. We got a new bass player, a guy called Joe Nevin, who I’d met on some awful job on a building site. He had a very slick style. We renamed ourselves The Etcetera School. “Three words that don’t go together,” as several people commented. The name was partly influenced by a Monochrome Set song called The Etcetera Stroll. I liked it, and kind of still do. You can hear one of our recordings here, Pact, which gives you an idea of the kind of thing I wanted to develop.

Dirk Higgins played cello on it. He is very important to me in my musical development, as it was at his place once that he played me an LP of folk music from around the world called The Nonesuch Explorer, with a lot of stuff from Eastern Europe on it: I discovered that it wasn’t all ‘Ra-Ra-Rasputin’.

The Etcetera School carried on for another year or so, but when the recording failed to generate any interest we called it a day. There is a film of our second-last gig (at Dingwalls) somewhere, which I may try to edit and stick on YouTube sometime.

++ What did the members of The Ringing do right after?

Frank went on to be a full-time June Bride until they broke up, but plays now in the revived June Brides and in a country/American folk duo with his wife. I’m not sure what Jackie or Joe did. I may have got this wrong, but I think Chris played drums at some early Phil Wilson solo gigs, before concentrating on running his engineering business – a little corner of industrial Poland in Tooting, SW London. I’ve remained friends with him. I’m also friends still with Eddy, who has played in the odd punk band in recent years. I see them often. I lost touch with Dirk in the late 80s. I think he carried on teaching, and composing music for TV. Violinist Jenny played with Gothmeister Paul Roland, and with various duos, and now plays with a folk band called The Moors. I played, for about a year, in a soca/salsa band called Johnny Love Muscle, which was fun, my first experience of big, crowded gigs. I then did teacher training, and lived abroad for most of the 90s, teaching in Turkey and Poland and, in Poland, also working for a translation agency. I taught for a few years in London after that, but have been an editor and writer since 2006. I didn’t get back into music until 2006 – a 20-year gap – when I joined the London Gypsy Orchestra, playing a range of music from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. From my long stint in Eastern Europe, I knew more about the music, and was better equipped to play it. From there I joined the Trans-Siberian March Band, described by Time Out as ‘the Sex Pistols of Balkan Brass’. Playing with decent musicians has made me raise my own game a lot.

++ Looking back in time, what would you say was the highlight of The Ringing?

Getting the single out was a unique moment one that nobody should be so cool they’re blasé about it, and reviews of the single, and gigs, in mags like Sounds, the NME and Melody Maker were great to have. A lot of the gigs were really great to play, too, and we met some very interesting and feiendly people. We worked hard at the music but also had a laugh. I also loved hearing the ideas from my head given a tangible form.

++ And today, I hear you have a different band. Care to tell us a bit about it?

The Trans-Siberian March Band plays Russian, Turkish, Balkan and Klezmer music. We have a line up of 2 clarinets, 3 trumpets, two trombones, 2 tubas, 2 drummers, 1 sax, and me on guitar, which is relatively unorthodox, though we’re totally unorthodox anyway. We’re not purist about the music at all – very burlesque – and mix it up with some Salt n Pepa, the Inspector Gadget theme, the Tetris theme (a Russian tune anyway). We have a kind of Soviet vibe, but it’s irreverent and tongue-in-cheek, with men in dresses and girls with moustaches. Our best gigs are packed late-night venues with everybody dancing, but we’ve also played children’s festivals, shopping centres, Liverpool St railway station, the bridge in Mostar in Bosnia and a museum in Mtskheta in Georgia. We play on London’s Balkan scene, but are not tied to it. We’ve also done Glastonbury, WOMAD, Secret Garden, Lovebox and loads of other festivals, plus 2 tours of Eastern Europe and one of Georgia. We have an ongoing collaboration with DJ Yoda, a sort of hip-hop/brass band mash-up – it works! It’s enormous fun, and the complete opposite of my ‘day job’ as a writer, sitting in a room on my own looking at a computer.

++ And aside from music, do you have any other hobbies?

Yes, too many. Walking, as aimlessly as possible, especially in London, but anywhere, cycling (as a pastime and as a spectator sport, despite all the drugs – it’s sometimes more rock n roll than rock n roll…), travelling, especially in Eastern Europe, where I go a lot in my own time as well as the band’s, films, plays, art in general, and books in general. I especially like (or am obsessed with) Byzantine art, architecture and history (comes from having lived in Istanbul), and the writing of and about Irish author James Joyce. I think it’s good to have a mixture of solitary hobbies and those, like cycling and travelling, you can do with others. I also like linguistics in general, and, a hobby that is demonstrably useful, language study.

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

I’m the author of numerous published short stories and one novel, Laikonik Express, which is about 2 American slackers haring round Poland in the snow in search of a woman one of them has met on the train of the title. It’s a comic novel, quite rock n roll (I think) and can be sampled here, with extracts and reviews here.

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Listen
The Ringing – Caprice

This has been already a difficult week. The United States Postal Service has raised the postage prices. It’s expected that every year they do so, and for the last couple of years their increases were really reasonable. This year in the other hand has been insane albeit not for domestic postage. It has been international postage what had been hurt the most with increases of almost 100%!

What used to cost around $6 to post a 7″ abroad now costs almost $10. Small labels that don’t really have big distributors behind them, that rely on individual buyers abroad will be hurt the most. Thus, Cloudberry will be really hurt. Unless of course international fans don’t mind paying now much more for postage than what they are already buying. We’ll see.

Sadly I spent yesterday afternoon updating the paypal buttons with new prices. Please do write me if you want to combine postage. We’ll always try to work something out. The terrible part of it all  is that all these new prices weren’t calculated in the pre-orders for our next three 7″s. This will only mean that we’ll be losing a hole lot of money when posting these pre-orders. But what can we do? What’s fair is fair. Perhaps we shouldn’t do pre-orders anymore if the USPS are going to come with crazy surprises like this one.

I do see a good opportunity though for international indiepop fans. It might be a good time to start a mailorder in your country as people will probably prefer buying records that way as it might be cheaper as the mailorders usually buy in bulks. Or perhaps the existing mailorders will take advantage of it all and become more central, more important and more successful too. This is all yet to see, but the chances of thriving are big I think.

On a not so related note, the New York Subway fares are also increasing. My monthly pass will go from $104 to $113. Everything’s going up!

Anyways, back to the big issue of the week. Sure these prices are less competitive than the ones we used to have. It’s funny. I used to complain of German postal rates. But they have gone cheaper in the last couple of years. I think that you can mail 5 7″s for 5 euros. That’s a super price. The US instead think we should have Japan-like prices for our postage. I wonder if many of the other small business around won’t be affected by it. Probably they will. And is this the way the American government tries to help it’s businesses?

I read in some forums some Canadians cheering for this postal increase. Their reasoning being that they couldn’t compete with the previous US prices. The Canadian postage being quite pricey. They said the previous US prices were unrealistic, that they were subsidized, and now things are getting fairer. Maybe they do have a point. But doesn’t it feel terribly stupid to pay 10 dollars postage for something that costs really around 5 dollars? Doesn’t make any sense.

I can understand that prices had to go up. But I do hope the USPS bright minds come with some flat rate ideas as the German did. That would alleviate this complicated panorama were are seeing. In the meantime I urge everyone that reads this to sign this petition, we need to fight in every front to make indiepop survive. This might be the biggest blow I’ve experienced since starting the label. I have to be honest that, for the first time, the future of the label is a bit scary.

PS. I have one good news. The Flowers 7″ will be out February 15th. More on that next week! Keep your eyes peeled!

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PATRIC (Pathosystems Resource Integration Center) is the Bacterial Bioinformatics Resource Center, an information system designed to support the biomedical research community’s work on bacterial infectious diseases via integration of vital pathogen information with rich data and analysis tools.

The only famous Patric I could think of:

Jason Patric (born June 17, 1966) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is known for his roles in the films The Lost Boys, Sleepers, Your Friends & Neighbors, Narc, The Losers and Speed 2: Cruise Control. His father was actor/playwright Jason Miller. Patric is the maternal grandson of Jackie Gleason.

Not many clues there about the mysterious, enigmatic and obscure Patric.

A couple of weeks back Stephan from Germany sent me a couple of songs from this mysterious band. He asked me to blog about them. The information online seemed scarce, but I actually ended up finding a 12″, their one and only, for a good price. The songs were brilliant. Perfect jangly pop. Chiming guitars, and the kind of British vocals we all love!

The songs were: “The Message”, “On the Road”, “It’s Over”. My favourite being “The Message” with those girl backing vocals. It kind of reminds me a bit of The Bats! But UK style? Yeah, something like that. Strangely. It’s pretty good.

This record that has on the front cover a black and white photo of who I would guess is the real Patric was produced by Chris Groothuizen, engineered by Charles Bullen and recorded at Cold Storage, Brixton. There are special thanks to Sarah, and the cover photo was taken by Suzy Gibbons. It was released by Orange Records (catalog JOOS IT) from Camberwell, south London.

On the labels of the record we see credit to a P. O’Connor. Probably then, Patric O’Connor?

There is some information though about what happened to our hero Patric after this release. He joined the House of Love (?!). Well, not quite. He joined the remaining members after Terry Bickers left and Guy Chadwick was having a sabbatical. With them they formed a band called My White Bedroom who released an album with Plastic Records in 1991. I have never listened to it, but I plan buying it next week, it doesn’t seem hard to find, though with all these price increases perhaps I should cut my spending! The Youtube uploads of some of their songs are nice… Anyhow…

On an internet forum I read one of the guys that was in Counterfeit (the band on Creation Records and who had a re-release not so long ago on Vollwert) saying about My White Bedroom:

The band were originally called “Patric” – at the time the only HOL member was Chris Groothuizen (the bassist who didn’t make the HOL reunion).

Vaguely remember the My White Bedroom record – but I have the only 12″ Patric released – “The Message”.

I played with Patric and The Motorcycle Boy at the Goldsmiths Tavern in’89 with a band called Stranger – we changed our name to Counterfeit, made one shit Creation 12″ and split up

On this same forum, on a message from August 18, 2008, our hero Patric shows up and decides to tell us the story of the band! So hold on tight and read:

My White Bedroom was formed in late 1985 and performed their first ‘proper’ gig at The Ambulance Station in early 1986. They continued in one form or another until 1996.

In 1989 after being dropped by Orange records Patric approached Chris with the idea to make an album . Chris had taken over Plastic records from Guy Chadwick and was keen to sign up new acts to the fledgling label. Money was raised from various quarters ( Alan McGee stumped up a couple of grand) and the record was recorded in two weeks at a studio on Bedford Hill in Balham in December 1989. More recording and mastering followed in 1990 but it wasn’t released until May 1991.

Some of the musicians on the album had played in the band at various points during the 1980’s :

Simon Walker joined the original My White Bedroom lineup in 1986 and was with the band for two years before he went on to join HOL after the departure of Terry Bickers. Simon played lead on ‘Lazer Gun’ , ‘The Garden’ and ‘This Time’.

Chris Groothuizen met Patric in 1985 and spent many an hour ‘jamming’ and honing his bass playing skills in a Camberwell squat before joining HOL in 1986. He played bass on all the tracks and produced the record .

Pete Donaghy was an American guitarist who played with MWB when they supported HOL on the English leg of their European tour. He played lead on ‘The Ocean’ and ‘Into the Light Now’ .He went on to form Mung in the 1990’s .

Pete Evans was the HOL drummer and is still with the band today. He played drums on all the tracks.

Mick Gallen was an Australian musician who played the Doors style keyboards on ‘Lovechild’ and a few other tracks.

Backing vocals were by Patric’s sister Rachel.

All lead vocals and other lead and rhythm guitar parts were sung /played by Patric who also wrote all the songs.

The album had some ecstatic reviews and went on to sell a respectable amount in spite of having no promotion and being deleted by Creation Records after it’s initial run.

Hope that clears up a few facts for anyones who is interested,

cheers – Patric

And that’s the end of it. No more information about this obscure Patric. If they had been going though for so long, they might and must have more songs. And that would be amazing.  If they played any gigs? If anyone of you saw them play? I wonder what happened to him after the My White Bedroom record too. If he continued making music. As always so many mysteries. But here, I will urge you to get yourself a copy of the Patric 12″. It’s a long lost classic. You’ll like it!

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Listen
Patric – The Message

Poppyhead is a form of carving of the end of a bench or a choir stall. Its name is unrelated to the poppy flower. It is derived, by way of Old French, from the Latin word puppis, which means the poop or the figurehead of a ship. In its simplest, and its most usual form, it has the appearance of a stylised fleur-de-lys. In some cases, it consists of a much more intricate carving; for example in Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, some of the poppyheads represent the seven deadly sins.

Back from a nice weekend in San Diego and waiting for me 500 vinyl records for Alpaca Sports. The only missing piece now are the inserts and they will be arriving on Friday. Pre-orders then will start shipping on Saturday. I love when we make it on time, before the release date deadline. But it won’t stop there, there’s more work to do as we have Flowers coming out on February 20th.

I took the red eye flight on Monday night, arriving at 6:20am yesterday. 2 hours of sleep at home. And then to work, on the coldest day of the winter so far. Today is as cold though and for the first time I use a huge puffy jacket to work. Looking good doesn’t matter anymore when it is this cold. It was a very long day yesterday, but quite rewarding as I met Ed for dinner in K-Town. He brought me the latest Shelflife releases which was a surprise. There is one 7″ that everybody should get this year, and that’s the Goodly Thousands one that he just put out. It’s beautiful. I joked about “stealing” him this band. It’s that good. While you are at it, do get Nalda’s new album and the Pia Fraus compilation.

In San Diego I didn’t step into any record store. Actually it was an indiepop-less weekend. I didn’t even bring music with me. I stuck to doing the touristy stuff. Seeing the sights. Enjoying the beautiful weather and with stoic discipline having only Mexican food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

$44 to get into the zoo seemed a bit over the top. The world renowned San Diego Zoo. But I’m not much into saving money when I’m on a trip. I always convince myself saying “once in a lifetime”. So in there I went and saw for the first time panda bears, red pandas, koalas, okapis, and komodo dragons. I had a really good time watching at the apes and monkeys as well. Since I was a kid they were my favourite with their silly occurrences.

Another fun thing was taking a cruise into the Pacific Ocean for whale watching. Sadly the cruises don’t get too close to the whales so bringing binoculars would have been a great idea. But I didn’t know. I thought the whales were going to be jumping next to the boat. Nonetheless it was fun and I saw plenty of whales spouting and diving, bringing their huge tales out of the water. Best of all of this 3 hour tour was that they served very cheap beer on board.

True was that there was cheap beer everywhere. So unlike here in New York. We even crashed into an art gallery opening where there were two kegs of beer. And it wasn’t cheep beer, it was some San Diego microbrewery brand. It was good. Even in the zoo beer was at reasonable price.

Huevos rancheros for breakfast. Lobster enchiladas. Swordfish tacos. Shrimp burritos. Machaca. Chiles toreados. And so on. Everything served with rice and beans. And tortillas. Everyday it was a feast of Mexican food. And again it was cheap. I always ended up ordering so much food because I thought a $6 dollar portion wasn’t going to be enough for me. So I ordered more food. Always. I must have gained weight this weekend. Happily I don’t have a scale at home. So I won’t worry.

On my last day in San Diego I went all the way to Cabrillo National Monument, which is the northern tip of the bay, it looks like a huge elephant trunk that embraces San Diego and the Coronado island. Up there you get some amazing views of the city. You can also see Mexico on the horizon. It was really pretty up there, next to an old lighthouse. There’s also a path there to some tidal pools where you can spot different species of sea-life like anemones and colorful crabs. Next stop was San Diego’s old town, that I would guess is not really that old as it looks kind of fake, like some those “countries” in Disney’s Epcot Center. Still it was really pretty and picturesque. Mexican-style town. The Old West.

Upon coming back, going through all my emails, Uwe reminds me of The Poppyheads. And whatever happened to them?

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For a Sarah Records band there is very little on the web about The Poppyheads. It’s true that it is one of the most sought-after 7″s released by the Bristol label and it was an early release on the label. Perhaps that’s why. I don’t own a copy sadly, and perhaps never will as I don’t feel like investing over 80 pounds for a 7″. Unless I win the lottery that is.

Maybe back in the day they did appear in many fanzines. I don’t think I own any that have an article on them but maybe some of you do? If so, maybe there are interviews and rare photos of the band? These days no one writes about them, and not even those download blogs are offering any of their releases.

They had two releases. One on Sarah as many of you know, and a flexi on the pre-Sarah label Sha La La that Matt Haynes also ran. The sound had changed in between releases. From the ramshackle beauty of the flexi to a more Pastels-kind of sound on the Cremation Town 7″.

As I said the flexi came first, in 1987, and came along the Are You Scared to be Happy fanzine. It was the sixth issue of the zine. I do own the flexi, not the zine sadly. Hard to buy them in bundles these days. The flexi is titled “Postcard for Flossy” and has a fun artwork in yellow and blue with small profile pictures of each of the band members. It was catalog number Ba Ba Ba-Ba Ba 004 and had four songs on it’s one and only side, “Sun Shines Forever “, “Changes Yesterday”, “First Thing” and On And On”. On the back cover there are some credits: “Rob played twelve-string guitar, Del shook the tambourine and sang too, Andrew played bass, David sang and played guitar and Nigel hit the drums”.

In April 1988 Sarah 006 was out. It was the Poppyheads new 7″ and had three songs, two on the A side and one on the B Side. The songs were “Cremation Town”, “Pictures You Weave” and “Dreamabout”. It is one of the most beautiful 7″s ever released in indiepop history. The cover and the back cover have monotone pictures in green taken by an enigmatic Melissa. These songs were recorded at The Facility 31st January 1988 and it came with a black and white poster of the band. Now the credits in this release are more descriptive:
– Bass – Andrew Zurek
-Drums – Nigel Blackwood
-Keyboards – Del Davies
-Producer – Chris Martin
-Written-By, Guitar, Vocals – Rob Young
-Written-By, Vocals, Guitar – David Barbenel

The beautiful, my favourite song of them, “Dreamabout” also would appear on two Sarah Records compilations, on Shadow Factory and Air Balloon Road as well.

Among some tidbits that I found online about the band there is the fact that they were from Cambridge and that Rob Young is a music author, journalist and current editor-at-large of The Wire, a British based experimental music magazine.  Young has contributed to various publications including The Guardian, Gramophone, The Independent On Sunday, Uncut, Frieze and Jazz Times. Actually if you follow this link you can read some of his articles.

He has published a bunch of books already too:
-Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music (Editor, 2002: ISBN 0-8264-6450-5)
-Warp – Labels Unlimited (Black Dog Publishing, 2005: ISBN 1-904772-32-3)
-Rough Trade – Labels Unlimited (Black Dog Publishing, 2006: ISBN 1-904772-47-1)
-The Wire Primers Book (Editor, published by Verso, October 2009)

There’s also a story involving him, Factory Records and the fantastic Stockholm Monsters. As a youngster, Young allegedly wrote to Factory Records, looking to procure a copy of Stockholm Monsters’ latest release for a review in his fanzine, Tony France; the return letter was a rather succinct: “Fuck off and buy their records.”

About the other band members I couldn’t find any information. There’s a cello player called David Barbenel though who was playing for the Alan Tyler & The Lost Sons Of Littlefield. Could it be him? There’s a slight possibility as there are some members in this band that used to be in The Rockingbirds who were kind of close to the indiepop scene back in the early nineties releasing some records in Clawfist Records.

And that’s about it. I’ve heard there are tapes with more songs by The Poppyheads but never had the chance to hear to them. I wonder how many songs were actually recorded. Will they ever release a retrospective like their other Sarah Records peers did? I do know Firestation is interested and that would be a great thing for indiepop fans! If anyone has any memories, or any anecdotes or anything at all, please share! I really would like to know more about The Poppyheads, their legacy is little, but it’s really precious!

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Listen
The Poppyheads – Dreamabout

Thanks so much to Jim Bishop for this interview! K-State was always a mystery to me until earlier this week I found two of their songs on Jim’s Youtube channel. Upon listening to “Lies” I was reminded why I searched for them in the first place, because they were making great jangly pop in those late 80s! As many obscure bands of the period there is not much written about them on the internet, but it’s time for that to change. Now sit back and discover K-State!

++ Hi Jim! Thanks a lot for for being up for this interview. As you might know there’s absolutely no information about K-State on the internet. Why do you think was that? Were you THAT obscure back in the day?

Good question. I’m surprised there’s absolutely nothing at all except for the posts I’ve put up on YouTube. In a way I was seeing if someone from the band would get in contact. At least you contacted me ABOUT the band so it does work ! But why nothing else..? Maybe.

1) The band was very popular locally in suburban North West London – Harrow, Wembley – but that’s still quite provincial. It’s away from the main live scene, so there’s no record of the band playing at well known venues like Dingwalls or The Dublin Castle. The Roxborough in Harrow for example was well known and popular but not on the live radar so far as London was concerned. Probably the nearest was The Clarendon, in Hammersmith.

2) As a wider answer, the unsigned bands from the eighties and nineties fall into a kind of internet black hole. Budget filming methods barely existed, so decent footage is thin on the ground and very basic quality by today’s standards. So material to put on YouTube is limited. Let alone posting the gig onto your Facebook page the day after. And audio-wise, If you weren’t signed it cost quite a lot of money to go into a recording studio then press the record yourself, so there were only a couple of ‘proper’ recordings made. I’ve posted one track from each vinyl record.

3) Time-wise most people of our era will have got on with their lives & copies of everything may have been lost in the intervening years with moving house, etc. I for one can’t find the early recordings made before I joined, I’m hoping someone somewhere has them.

++ You were telling me that you joined the band when they were already going, right? When did the band start and when did you join? And how did you know them?

I’d say they got going in 81/82. I met them in 83, and we became friends & me a fan.

I played in a guest spot on the first record in 86, and was asked to join after that.

Because I wasn’t there when they formed I’ll do my best to remember what the story was.

The 2 guitar players & bassist were – I think – all at the same school in Wembley, north west London. They definitely all lived in the same area. But the drummer went to school in Acton, where I lived. I was in a band myself and 3 of my band were at this school too, so the two bands were introduced to each other through that. We were playing in a similar style.

As a bizarre side-story, 3 members of The Who went to the same Acton school as the K-State drummer, whereas The Who’s drummer went to the same Wembley school as the other 3 members of K-State ! Also, I think three members of each band had learned to play the trumpet as well. Strange.

++ Talking of “them”, who were K-State and what instruments did each one of you played?

Original line-up:

Richard Elderfield – lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter.
Graham Hodson – Rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Wade Chandler – Bass
Robert Weaver – Drums
Rachel Weaver – saxaphone (from 85)
Jim Bishop – Keyboards, some guitar, backing vocals (from 86)

++ Any clues why they named the band K-State?

Yes. Good answer, this, which is important for a band name. Robert’s Dad Bernie was a retired sound technician who’d worked for The Rank Organisation. As a result he somehow had access to the closed-down Kilburn State ballroom, which I understand was still being used as a BBC soundstage then (the guys told me there was a piano crashed halfway through the actual stage stuck there permanently.) Bernie managed to get the band in there to rehearse and even make some straight-to-tape recordings, which were really good quality. Anyway, someone was cleverly inspired to shorten Kilburn State to K-State. And there you have it. Some more educated scientific folk used to guess that it was referring to the k-state of an electron !

Because the building is listed they’ve kept it intact and you can still see it clearly from the tube with the huge letters ‘State’ on the top, so on the rare occasions I travel out that way it brings a smile to my face as it reminds me of the story. Not a bad landmark to choose ! It became a bingo hall afterwards, it’s even on Wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilburn_State

++ And, yes, very important question. Whereabouts in the UK were you based? And what were the places in your town that you usually like hanging out at?

Nearly everyone lived in Wembley, or nearby. A pretty unremarkable part of London – except for having the most famous stadium in the world. At the time, especially after Live Aid in 85, lots more gigs went on there & the guys lived so close they could hear them from their houses – U2, Simple Minds, etc. I lived in Acton/Ealing, which is a couple of miles the other side of a huge hill & a big main road out of London from Wembley. Nice looking place, but hardly any live music.

++ What about gigs? Did K-State gig much? Any favourite gigs that you remember?

They/we did a regular gig at a pub originally called The Chequered Flag, in North Wembley. That was the ‘home gig’ if you like. Pretty much all the fans would turn up to those & they were good nights.  There are 3 videotaped shows from there, very basic quality. The pub changed its name to The Dog & Duck (yuck).

(The promoters who put that night on were big Gary Numan fans so how K-State ended up playing at those nights is still a bit weird. Apparently they put on a regular Numan disco & the man himself would turn up.)

The Roxborough in Harrow was good in an old-fashioned rowdy beer-drenched boozer sense; downstairs at The Clarendon and most other places like it you felt a bit more pressure. It was right at the height of pay-to-play so the pressure was on to get as many of your mates down to the gig to impress the promoters.

But the first K-State gig I went to (this is before I joined of course) left me speechless. I had no idea what I was in for – they blew the roof off. It was in one of those social clubs which have almost all disappeared now, North Harrow something-or-other.

++ Any other bands from that period that you liked and would recommend?

I’d gotten into the mod scene without becoming a full-on mod, so I used to see The Truth, The Prisoners, Making Time, The Moment, The Rage, The Way Out, to name a few. But that scene was short-lived and eventually splintered, the main result being Acid Jazz. I liked to see rhythm’n’blues bands, preferably with pub rock legends like Gypie Mayo or Mick Green. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There were a load of bands I liked at the time. I could go on and on and that’s not even asking everyone else in the band.

++ So, from what I gather, there were two releases, a 12″ and a 7″. Is that right? Or was there anything else? Compilation appearances perhaps?

That’s it I’m afraid, both self-made. No record label so no real release as such. Just sold at gigs.

++ The 12″ that had “Promise” in it came in 1986 and it was self-released by the band. What other songs were in this release?  And did your own label had a name?

The A-side was We’ll Find A Way (which Richard sometimes called We’ll Find THE Way, he kept switching.) The other track was Endless Struggle. No label.

++ Then, in 1987 there was the “Lies” 7″. I’ve only heard the A-side for this one. The B-side being “The Connoisseur”. But “Lies” to me sounds a bit different than the previous release, it’s just pure jangle bliss! Who would you say were the influences of K-State? And do you happen to know the story behind this song?

First and foremost, we had all met because we loved The Jam, but sadly they split up just as we’d started.

I was surprised when Richard brought Lies in, it’s so different from anything else he came up with. They way he sings it sounds like he really means what he’s singing, but I have no idea what influenced it. I can say for sure that we all knew the writing was on the wall for angry-young-men-doing-power-pop, which was the thing we’d been into. Once Paul Weller ditched The Jam and stopped being the king of making sharp aggressive music, there was no-one to take his place and tastes shifted away from it, as they always do.

Indie bands were getting more exposure & heading for mainstream popularity, especially The Cure and The Smiths; The Fall started to sound more chart-friendly, That Petrol Emotion were on the rise, Roddy Frame hit with Aztec Camera. So we had to change & although there were a few directions we could’ve gone, the popular thing at the time – and you have to remember all bands wanted to sign a record contract – was slick-sounding white soul, like The Blow Monkeys or Swing Out Sister. If you remember the late eighties you’ll know what I mean. And Richard was going for something like that that still suited the band. He did great I think.

I’ll get around to putting The Connoisseur up. It was a very popular live favourite, the K-State theme song for a while. It’s the first one to add saxophone & go for a smoother sound, but really catchy too.

++ On the sleeve artwork for this 7″ there are some portrait drawings. Who are they?

That’s us, as sketched by a friend of the band, from photos taken at the recording session.

++ By any chance do you know how many copies were pressed of these records? Perhaps it’s because they are not very well known, but I don’t think I’ve even seen them pop on eBay!

My best memory is that there were 200 of the 12” and 500 of the 7”. I know for a fact that 50 of the 7” got totalled because like a prat I drove away from the pressing plant with one box still on the roof of my car! Oops. I seem to remember we put the sleeves together Buzzcocks-style, sitting round with scissors and glue.

++ And what happened between the 7″ and the time you left the band? Are there any recordings from that period?

We did tape some rehearsals – which as I said unfortunately I’ve lost – but no more studio stuff. We were doing a good job forging ahead trying a new direction, but everything seems to have its own lifespan and I’d say ours had run its course.

++ When did the band split? And what happened after? Were you guys still involved with music?

I went travelling at the end of 88 and although I contacted the guys when I got back I really lost proper touch with them not long after; the band came to a halt in 89 and I think everybody splintered a little, as happens. People wanted to start families, spend more time doing other things. Being in a band can be very time absorbing. But I’ve been banging away ever since! I tried to stop when I was going through a hard time in the nineties, but it keeps drawing me back like a siren. I play in a band called, would you believe, King Salami and The Cumberland Three, which has a decent fanbase on the independent garage punk scene. I’m also in a 60’s all-male dance troupe called The Action Men; it’s easier to just watch the YouTube clips than explain. I’ve been in quite a few other band along the way, most recently Luxury Condo.

I record my own stuff under the name The Sayme, a lot of which I’ve put up on Soundcloud under the name Clark Commando (I’ve ended up with pseudonyms all over the place). In fact I pressed a 7” single in 2006 of a song I originally wrote for K-State, with new title & lyrics, called Ebabe. I was hoping to hawk it to Ebay to see if they’d use it in an ad, but that company are impenetrable! I thought of flogging some t-shirts with the ebabe logo on, but that seemed like too much hassle. And I could’ve gotten sued into poverty.

++ You were telling me you haven’t heard from the other band members since then. That’s a long time! Is there anything you’d like to say to them?

Hey ! How’s it going?! Let’s meet up…

I hope everyone’s doing well. We were good friends and a good band, and as you go on through life you realise just how much good fortune it takes to make those things work. I’m sure at least a couple of them are still in touch with each other.

++ And what would you say was your biggest highlight as part of K-State?

Musically, the Lies single sounded great to me, a real epic. I confess I’ve been naughty and put the alternate mix on YouTube with everything on it, that’s the one I love.

Live, the first time I saw the band play – they opened with Heatwave and I couldn’t believe how powerful, tight and sharp they were. Then the first time I played live I got a cheer when my name was mentioned. Typical show-off you see.

Socially we had some great laughs, especially with our drummer Robert, he’s such a character. Lots of growing up lads stuff that would make us wince now, but really funny at the time. But when we recorded Lies we went up to a studio in the middle of nowhere, literally a converted farmhouse. We stayed at a local pub and the landlord took the rare chance (for him) to stay up drinking with us. It was very messy.

I got into Super-8 film; mainly collecting though I tried to make films as well to use as backdrops for gigs. Wasn’t really good at it though.But I now have an unrivaled Super-8 collection, mainly because there’s no rivalry in it.

I took up scuba diving which I’d wanted to do since I was a kid. I love it but time and money make it a rare treat these days.

I’m a general wildlife enthusiast, though I don’t think of it as a hobby as such.