Some time ago I wrote a small piece about an obscure 80s Swedish band from Karlstad called Victorian Tin. Happily Christian Gustafsson from the band got in touch not so long ago and was kind enough to do this interview and that way tell us more about Victorian Tin and learn their story! He shared with me 27 (!) Victorian Tin songs, and plenty of them are real jangle gems. Wonder why they only released one tape during their time. For those who understand Swedish here is a newspaper clipping that you might enjoy as well. And now, sit back, read, and enjoy!

++ Hi Christian! First of all thanks for getting in touch! Whereabouts in Sweden are you? Still in Karlstad? And are you still making music?

After a year studying, in Stockholm, I moved back to Karlstad and have lived here since. I still make music but not as much as I used to. I’m involved in my friend’s band The Wonder Boys. Event hough I’m not a real member of the group I write quite a lot of music for them. Both songs I really like myself, but also songs “on demand” that I imagine the singer David would like. But occasionally I manage to write songs that neither of us like 😉
Erik (the voice of Victorian Tin) has moved many times and we don’t see each other that often any more. The last time he moved back to Karlstad, we formed ephemeron. Then he moved again and we meet maybe once a year. At the moment we have just started working on a new fantastic ephemeron song called “And the story goes”. I really love that song even though it’s not finished yet.

++ So tell me about Victorian Tin? Was it just you by yourself? And had you been involved in bands before?

I was in a band with my cousin, called Recidius Catonium. We played quite dark and gloomy stuff influenced by The Sisters Of Mercy, Clan of Xymox etc. One day I wrote a song that was very different. Too different to be a Recidius Catonium song. I thought about recording it myself, but as I can’t sing I asked my friend Erik (who I knew had started writing songs and played guitar) if he would help me out with it. He wrote the lyrics and sang on the song that we called “1986” (I think we recorded it in 1989). We thought the song was so good that we decided to start a band together. And that was the birth of “Scapegoat Palace”. We wrote and recorded new songs practically everyday in the year to come. Sometime later we wrote a song called Septemberia, and we asked a friend of Eriks, named Lina, to sing backing vocals. Again we thought we had moved to something new that deserved a new bandname. So we asked Lina to join us as a member and we renamed “Scapegoat Palace” to “Victorian Tin”. We dreamed about playing live and recruited a guitarist in Ola Frödin. Ola wrote the song “In my rainy weather” for us, but left the band quite soon. Eriks friend Johan Skugge then joined us instead and was with us until the breakup.

++ Was Victorian Tin a bedroom band? Did you ever play live?

We were indeed a bedroom band. Writing, playing and recording everything in my bedroom on my 4-track cassette porta studio. Unfortunately we never managed to play live.

++ Where does the name Victorian Tin comes from?

In the end of the eighties, one of my favourite bands were “All About Eve”. In the song “December”, Julianne sings “-There’s a victorian tin, I keep my memories in”. I thought it sounded like a good bandname. (Maybe I was wrong… 😉

++ And what would you say were the main influences of the band?

Hard to tell… But I remember we listened to “The Church”, “Cocteau Twins”, New Order and “All About Eve” a lot.

++ You only released that one tape on Everlasting Records. How did this deal happened? Did you ever meet them in England?

We all were music-addicts in those days, and found an English mailorder company where we ordered records from, not available in Sweden. In one of their catalogues they said they were starting a recordlabel and wanted new bands. We sent them a couple of songs which they liked and they asked us to send them our favourite songs for them to release on cassette.
We never met them, or talked to them. All conversation was by mail.

++ You were telling me there’s a very funny story behind this tape? Care telling it? 🙂

They asked us to compile our favourite songs for the cassette release and I think we sent them 10 songs. Snow violet heaven, Septemberia, Kitten song etc. We sent the tape in a letter and the post took nearly two weeks to arrive in England in those days. During the wait for the cassette to arrive we made them another tape with some other songs we thought they should hear. After a while we received a letter from them asking where the cassette was. A couple of days later we received another letter saying, “nevermind the last letter, the cassette has arrived now”. We waited for some very long weeks until the pressed cassette with cover arrived in our mailbox from Everlasting. We opened the package and realized that they had pressed the wrong cassette!!! It was the second cassette with “the rest of the songs we wanted them to hear” that had been pressed and released!!! The right cassette with our favourite songs, Snow violet heaven etc must have disappeared in the mail somewhere between Sweden and England! They didn’t know that we had sent them two cassettes, so of course, when the second cassette arrived, they thought it was the one we wanted to release. We were devastated. Imagine that your band was finally going to release something on a real recordlabel, and then the wrong songs is released. It took quite some time for us to get over that.

++ And from the 7 songs included on the tape, which would be your favourite? And why?

Silvery mouths, no doubt. We have been talking about re-recording our favourite Scapegoat Palace/Victorian Tin songs and Silvery Mouths is one of the songs that both myself and Erik like very much. I love the long intro (even though my “mandoline” playing is horrible), the melody, and the stolen drumbeat from The Cures fantastic song “Sinking”.

++ Mine is “The Days of Youth”. Mind telling the story behind this song?

I honestly don’t know much about it.  It’s all Eriks song, but I know that he wrote it in 1987 when he was “Exchange student” in Georgia, USA. My guess it’s about loneliness, far away from home, but I have to ask Erik before you quote me on that.

++ And are there any more songs from Victorian Tin that weren’t included on this tape? And did you ever participated on compilations or this tape is really your full discography?

There are lots of songs that’s not on the tape. Many, in my opinion better songs. Snow violet heaven that I mentioned before, Valentine Voices is a favourite, Kitten song, The Inconvenient Season and Salient which is a strange song that I like anyway. We wanted to make a song like Simple Minds would have done on “New Gold Dream”, but even though we failed that task, it ended up in a strange but interesting song I think.

++ When and why did you decide it was time to call it quits with Victorian Tin?

I’m not sure, but I think it was 1993. We grew apart musically. Erik and the “new” guitarist Johan started writing songs together and to be honest, I didn’t like them all that much so I quit. Typically enough, Everlasting was preparing a new cd compilation and wanted Victorian Tin to contribute to. But Erik & Johan formed a new band called “Phone a fish” and contributed with a song called “Sex”. I Formed a new band called “Emelies Garden” and contributed with the song “The shore”. But I don’t think the compilation cd was finished before Everlasting too called the quits.

++ After this band you were involved in many different bands. If you can, can you name each one of them and give a little description of them?

–Searching For Beatrice. A band which we had parallel with Victorian Tin. It was Erik on voice and guitar, myself on bass & drumprogramming and our friend Stefan on keyboards. A more synth oriented sound influenced by New Order, Depeche Mode, Clan of Xymox etc. We are still close friends, the three of us, and meet once in a while to record new songs.
–Emelies Garden. My first band after Victorian Tin. Myself on guitar, various female vocalists, Olof Hertting on bass, and Åsa Lundgren on keyboards. I wanted us to sound like All About Eve…We failed, but I still like the songs “The shore” and “This Summer Place”.
–Attic Drive/Springlee. When we recorded the Emelies Garden song “This summer place”, Olofs friend Carl helped us with guitar. After Emelies Garden I joined Carl in forming the band Attic Drive together with drummer Jakob and guitarist Mikael. This was the first band I played live with. 1996 I changed from bass to guitar. We got a new bassplayer named Ulf and the old guitarist quit. We changed name to “Springlee” and did a couple of gigs. We were big fans of guitarbased music like Suede, Pulp, Popsicle.
–Recidius Catonium. My cousin Anders and myself played music influenced på The Sisters Of Mercy, New Order, Fields Of The Nephilim, Clan Of Xymox among others. Anders was with us in Emelies Garden for a while, while Olof was abroad for a couple of months.
–Baren Med Vin & Josefin. I was in love with a girl called Hanna and wrote her a song which I gave her on a cassette. The song was dark, slow and in my opinion quite beautiful. The night after I gave her the tape, I had a dream that her father had listened to the song and thought it was “too fucking depressive”. So when I woke up I wrote her a new happy song on my mandolin instead. I played the song for my cousin Anders who wrote some crazy lyrics to it about a cowboy who lost his leg in a war. We decided it was time to start a band. We asked my friend from school Henric to join on guitar, Olof (from Emelies Garden) on bass, Anders on vocals, myself on mandolin. Later on David (The Wonder Boys) joined on saxophone, Åsa Lundgren (Emelies Garden) played Trombone, Åsa Bjureus (who had made the Victorian Tin logo on the cassette) played the flute. Mine and Henrics friend from school, Patrik Strand joined us on bass for the very last gig (when Olof once again was abroad). We were influenced by Irish folk music and especially The Pogues and Swedish versions like Persons Pack and Traste Lindens Kvintett. It was a lot of fun…but we were not good in any way. We did sound terrible! 😀
–Popetree. Erik and Stefan from Searching For Beatrice moved from Karlstad to Gothenburg and started a new band called Popetree. They had a drummer named Bengt and a bassplayer I don’t know the name of. The bassplayer left and they phoned me asking if I could play bass for a couple of gigs. We played a gig in Gothenburg (which was filmed) and one gig in Karlstad. We also recorded 4 songs in a studio in Gothenburg.
– In Losters Blue. Anders & myself played keyboard and my girlfriend of the time being, Karin sang on a couple of songs under the name In Losters Blue. The only band I’ve played in that only used keyboards.
–The Wonder Boys. David from Baren Med Vin & Josefin started a band together with another guy named Christian (Kastén in lastname) when he moved to Lund in the south of Sweden. They played mostly on acoustic guitars and David also played saxophone. When David was turning 30 I recorded an instrumental version of one of their songs called “Bad Luck Charm”, with drums and heavy guitarsound. David liked the version, recorded vocals on it and from that day I have written quite a lot of songs for them. Listen to “A Gift I Never Had”, “If We Get Through This”, “A Bat In The House (featuring my wife on backingvocals!), and “The Girl From Tory Story” from http://www.thewonderboys.se. Songs I wrote the music to which I really like.

Well that’s all I think…

++ Seems there was an interview with you on a zine called “Billig Underhållning”. Do you remember anything about that? And how do you remember the Swedish scene during those years? Were there any other bands or at least like-minded fans of jangle pop?

There was a guy in Stockholm writing a blog, and like yourself he had heard “The Days Of Youth” and liked it. He did a short interview for a fanzine, but I don’t think it was ever released. There was a very good band from Karlstad in the end of the eighties called “All That Jazz”. The backing vocalist Mari sang on the recording of the Emelies Garden song “The Shore” meant for the Everlasting compilation. We liked them very much but apart from them I can’t remember any other band from Karlstad influenced by “English-guitarpop-music”.

++ Also I wonder, was there no interest of other labels to release your songs? I find it very strange that there are no more releases!

We sent our demo to both Swedish and English record labels but apart from Everlasting, no one was interested. Our dream was to be signed by 4AD. We were huge fans of many of their bands, Cocteau Twins, Clan Of Xymox, This Mortal Coil etc. They also had very good taste in artwork, that we liked. But sadly, they were not interested in our music.

++ And when you are not making music, what other hobbies do you have?

As a family-father the time for hobbies is quite minimal nowadays, but one thing I can practice is photography. I love taking pictures.

++ One last question, tell me about Karlstad! What are your favourite spots there? To sightsee, to eat, to drink? Even to record shop?!

Karlstad is a small town with a population of 90 000. The river Klarälven flows through the city and I think it’s a quite beautiful and nice town. Favourite spots…hmm…I love walking by the river in summertime. You can eat good food in “Munken”, the restaurant is quite beautiful as well. The building was built in 1700 century, with valves and was back then some kind of tomb/grave (I don’t know how to explain in English). There was a cemetery nearby back then, and the building that nowadays is a restaurant was used for storing coffins. A nice place to sit and eat, don´t you think? 😉 The days of record shopping is sadly over in Karlstad. In the eighties and nineties we had a great record store called “Riff Raff”. Much independent music and rare bootlegs. They were even a recordlabel and released their own band “Hollywood Indians”. One of my first jobs was at Åhléns record store, by the way!

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

Now it’s time for you to tell your story, and let me know when and how you found out about Victorian Tin! And thank you very much for showing interest in our music! 😀

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Listen
Victorian Tin – Snow Violet Heaven

Funambule (French for Funambulist) from the Latin funambulus  (funis ‘rope’ + ambulare ‘walk’).

I’m a bit mixed up in my head since yesterday. Friends of mine would joke and say I’ve been like that since forever and especially since my heart made that sound Harper Lee sang about. Like every week I was going to write a blog post, and I was in the diatribe between a diary of the days I spent in Scotland two weeks ago and a list of the things I dislike and everyone loves.

I wanted to go over the great Aislers Set gig at Mono, seeing all the Glasgow jet-set all at once and being a bit starstruck, Wyatt pulling dead-on puns and jokes in between songs, and having to take the last train when the dance floor was going nuts on a Monday night. Unbelievable. I wanted to dedicate a few lines to the record shopping at Elvis Shakespeare, to the new Occasional Flickers Giorgos kindly let me listen at his place, to the Cullen Skink I tried for the first time, to Edinburgh and it’s wet weather, to Inverness and it’s gray bleakness, and to the Megabus ride between these two cities. I wanted to get everyone jealous of the sunny and bright afternoon at Loch Ness, with a wonderful rainbow arching over it’s shores and it’s dark, almost black, waters; or of the boat ride over the loch with Rod Stewart’s songs on the background, and later exploring the ruins of Urquhart castle.

But yesterday I was riding the Q train that struck a man on the 49th street station here in New York. We stopped all of a sudden. My car was still on the tunnel when suddenly the driver asked us all to move towards the front of the train and exit. There had been an accident.

And about my list, who cares if I dislike Wes Anderson or David Lynch really. If they bore me to death with all their cliquey and forced dialogues and scenes. So at this point, I feel I better stick to news and music for now. Feelings, and my small personal vignettes, although appreciated by many, seem tiny and unimportant. Also while in UK I learned how many people resent them, and take them as bashing sometimes, as full criticism. Seems that some can’t differentiate a personal blog (THIS ONE) and a music review blog. I don’t review new bands, only obscure older bands, because they are not part of the scene anymore. But I think I’m entitled to like or dislike bands and if I’m writing about a festival or a gig and there are bands that I think are not good, why can’t I say that? Me as a fan, attending a gig, I think I have all the rights to say what I think. Still people don’t agree.

So better, not even do lists. In any case I must be terrible at that. I can’t do a top 5 bands list that looks the same when everytime I’m asked to. It’s always different with the only similarity that McCarthy is on position number 1. I can’t do year end lists though I force myself to fill in the blanks of the Twee.net year end poll. I think I’m more keen to polls than to lists. Answering questions is easier than filling an open page.

When I got down of the train there was a big group of people halfway down the train. Well, halfway half of the train. The other half was still in the darkness of the tunnel. This crowd was taking pictures, photos. I didn’t realize that until I was close to them. I thought taking the 47th street exit which was further down instead of the 49th street exit. The reason. It was closer to work. Why was I being so practical. All day yesterday I had been practical. I never use an alarm to wake up. And I did. I went early to the laundry. I felt productive. And top of it all, I decided to leave to work earlier. If I had been my usual self, procrastinating a bit, I would have probably avoided the shock.

I managed some “moral” victories while in London. Some things went my way instead of the way of others (those others that I happen not to like). All thanks to randomness, to luck. It’s not usually like that, if there’s something I’ve learned from life, it’s that everything requires effort, planning and determination. And I’m happy with that. I enjoy that sort of control. But for a change, it felt great not to have to move a finger for getting away with it.

Yes. I don’t love everyone. But I’m not dehumanized or a misanthrope. I love life, I celebrate it. It’s just that I’m not in the same wavelength as some other people. But in any case, I can’t believe no one helped the guy that was trying to get back up to the platform. Instead they took photos. Instead they are being published as front pages in the newspaper. I would have run and helped. How wouldn’t I? Sure I know that people react differently. But there are moments that you have to take action. In cases like this,  it doesn’t matter if you don’t like this person, you have to save even your worst enemy, your nemesis, or whatever you call it. There is no victory when one dies. There’s none.

It’s been the closest I’ve seen death. I felt my feet heavier. I left the station, in a mix of shock, fright, and numbness. I don’t know if it matters, but I feel a bit ridiculous still thinking of some girl when really, there are more important things. I’m very sorry for what happened yesterday.  I read that the widow had a fight with the victim before he left home. There won’t be any reconciliation. That is a heavy weight, an anvil of guilt to carry for the rest of life too. I can’t understand who would ever push anyone to death. It’s beyond words.

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Hopefully next week there’s a happier post on my part. But let’s move to what people come here for, the weekly band, for the obscure, for the unknown, for the mysterious. That sounded quite esoteric. Perhaps I should change the blog background to black.

Fear: From Middle English feer, fere, fer, from Old English fǣr, ġefǣr (“calamity, sudden danger, peril, sudden attack, terrible sight”), from Proto-Germanic *fēran (“danger”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to attempt, try, research, risk”). Cognate with Dutch gevaar (“danger, risk, peril”), German Gefahr (“danger, risk, hazard”), Swedish fara (“danger, risk, peril”), Latin perīculum (“danger, risk, trial”). Albanian frikë (“fear,danger”) and Romanian frǐca (“fear”) are also cognates, although probably influenced by an early Germanic variant.

Perform: From Middle English performen, parfournen (“to perform”), from Anglo-Norman performer, parfourmer, alteration of Old French parfornir, parfurnir (“to complete, accomplish, perform”), from par- + fornir, furnir (“to accomplish, furnish”), from Frankish *frumjan (“to accomplish, furnish”), from Proto-Germanic *frumjanan, *framjanan (“to further, promote, accomplish, furnish, carry out”), from Proto-Indo-European *promo- (“in front, forth”), *per- (“forward, out”). Cognate with Old High German frummen (“to do, execute, accomplish, provide”), Old Saxon frummian (“to perform, promote”), Old English fremman (“to perform, execute, carry out, accomplish”).

Yes, I love linguistics. Thought you knew by now.

Early in January 2011 I discovered this band. Can’t remember how though. But it was definitely through their fabulous single “Funambule”. I immediately got in touch with Pascal Carreau from the band and send him interview questions which I sadly never received answers for. What I did receive was a bunch of MP3s, all songs from their two CDs. Still, “Funambule” reigns supreme for me.

At that point Pascal told me that he was involved in another band, Strange Pepper, which you can check out their website here. He told me that he probably had extra copies of the 7″ at his parents house but that there were no more copies of the CDs at all. Happily I snatched a copy of the 7″ a couple of weeks ago on eBay.

The 7″ includes “Funambule” on the A side and “The Rope Dancer” on the flipside. The latter being an English version of the superior original song.

The Fear Performance was born in Caen in 1984. The year I was born. There were three founding members, Thierry Thomas (bass), Dominic Bélier (drum machine and keyboards) and Pascal Carreau (guitar and vocals). But soon Thierry would leave the band to form Bruges La Mort and was replaced by Michel Carreau. He was the brother of Pascal of course. And to keep it more in family, Giles Carreau would join to play drums. And to complete the band Laurent Piquot would also join on guitars.

The very first mentions of the name of Caen are found in different acts of the dukes of Normandy : Cadon 1021/1025, Cadumus 1025, Cathim 1026/1027. Year 1070 of the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to Caen as Kadum. Despite a lack of sources as to the origin of the settlements, the name Caen would seem to be of Gaulish origin, from the words catu-, referring to military activities and magos, field, hence meaning “manoeuvre field” or “battlefield”

The artwork for the single was great, black and white, the band logo with a car. It’s really cool and classy. It was done by Philippe Jaffre. It’s no surprise that they would reuse it later for one of their posthumous CDs. Because there were two. The first one, with this artwork, called “Indifférent’ and the second one, “My Dreams and Your Shadows”. Surprisingly all of their songs are in English! Not in French. Nonetheless they are pretty good. You can check the tracklist for these CDs here.

And of course this is their old site where you can read a bit in both English and French and see some pictures. Oh! If you want to listen more songs, there’s a myspace as well.

It’s a bit odd to find such great French bands, playing guitar pop and being so unknown. It’s very odd that they don’t have a Discogs entry for example. But anyhow, please enjoy “Funambule”! And if you have any memories or anecdotes or anything you’d like to share about The Fear Performance, please do!

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Listen
The Fear Performance – Funambule

Back to New York after 9 days in the United Kingdom. Many might think I’m glad to be back, but I have to say I’m not. I’m in love with London. And if I could, I would stay there. Even if it’s underground is always packed and I hardly ever find a place to sit down. Even if there’s chicken bones all over the sidewalks. Even if everyone offers you tea at home and never a soft drink. Even and even and even. I love it. And I can’t wait to go back, probably not until next year around Indietracks time.

My trip was terribly busy and sadly couldn’t meet all the people I wanted to. Also couldn’t do everything I would have liked to. But more or less I did everything I had planned to. On top of it all it was the best record shopping experience I’ve ever had. A massive haul of 19 CDs, 2 10″s, 25 7″s, and 43 LPs in 2 carry-on bags. I crossed my fingers and hoped the British Airways clerks wouldn’t ask to weigh my bags. I didn’t want to check them in. I didn’t want them handling my precious findings with their rough and uncaring hands.

The week went fast. And hopefully on some next blog offerings I will cover a bit of this trip, especially what interests the most to indiepop fans, like for example the Chickfactor gigs. Or going over one of the many obscure records I found at that fabulous Greenwich record store. But right now it’s time to catch up with Cloudberry news.

First of all, a year in the making, the Nixon 7″ will be out on December 10th. The sleeves have already arrived at home and they look truly amazing. Just waiting for the vinyl. This weekend I should put together the insert, I have some ideas of what to write about, and don’t worry I won’t be dwelling anymore on sad thoughts. I’m on the way to shining again and good days. The 7″ is an EP with 4 songs and it’s the first one of our collection that runs at 33rpm. You can pre-order it now from the Cloudberry site if you like.

I have already said it before, but releasing Roger Gunnarsson’s Nixon is a milestone for me, as I’ve been a fan of his for at least 10 years now. Roger has been a true inspiring force, not only through his many bands but also through his absolutely indiepopstastic label Fabulous Friend Records. This label is an inspiration to mine. Definitely.

On other news I’m happysad to say that the 3″ releases of The Medalist, Bye Bye Bicycle and Log Lady Train are now sold out. I have found a Bart & Friends 3″ though, one last copy, that if anyone wants it let me know. If not, I’ll probably throw it in in the next big order we get.

The fanzine has been selling really well too. And I think I want to start on number eight sooner than later. My only issue is that I have kind of ran out of colors. Colors that look and print ok. And that are legible for 10 pt fonts. Do you all have any suggestions? And also, who would you like to be featured?

During the time I was away I received the tracks for the Alpaca Sports single. This weekend probably I will update the website with a song for all of you to download and preview plus a pre-order button. And soon also for Tripping the Light Fantastic as well. And coming up is also the Flowers 7″ who have just confirmed that they will be playing NYC Popfest. I just saw them playing a gig in London, at the Buffalo Bar, and all I can say is that they are really special. They remind me of fabulous 80s bands like Heart Throbs, Parachute Men, Popguns and the like!

And talking about Popfests, I feel I’m going to head to Madrid Popfest next year again. Perhaps alone this time, but, can’t wait to see Alpaca Sports playing live this time. And also my good friends of Northern Portrait who I’ve never managed to catch them live. Well, unless you count Stefan doing an acoustic rendition to many of his songs in his living room? I’m pretty thrilled. Especially as this year’s edition was the best week I’ve had so far in such a long time. It was magical. One of the best times ever. Perfect from start to finish. Also joining the festival are another favourite of mine, Burning Hearts, who I’ll happen to see for the third time live. They are always great.

2013 seems really exciting!

So the Tony Head Experience. I only own their first 7″ which I bought on eBay many years ago. It was one of the first vinyl records I bought actually. I don’t know exactly why or how did I know them. But I thought with that name they were going to be good. “Debbie One” started playing on the old Fisher Price record player that I owned and I was blown away.

These days there are a couple of bands that sound a bit like this fantastic track. I can think Betty and the Werewolves and Shrag to name two. They do it really fine. But for me this is the original. This is the first time I heard such punchy female vocals under pop hooks and catchy lyrics. No other band can live to my expectations when they make songs like this.

Who was Tony Head I ask. I guess only the band could answer that. My guess is the actor Anthony Head (born 20 February 1954), who  is an English actor and musician. He rose to fame in the UK following his role in television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend (Taster’s Choice in the U.S.), and is known for his roles as Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and as Uther Pendragon in Merlin.

Head was educated at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). His first role was in the musical Godspell; this led to roles in television on both BBC and ITV, one of his earliest being an appearance in the series Enemy at the Door (ITV, 1978–1980). In the early 1980s he sang with the band Red Box.[2] In the late 1980s, he appeared in a storyline series of twelve coffee commercials with Sharon Maughan for Nescafé Gold Blend. (A version made for the US featured the American brand name Taster’s Choice.) The soap opera nature of the commercials brought him wider recognition, along with a part in the Children’s ITV comedy drama Woof!  Head played Frank N. Furter in the 1990–91 West End revival of The Rocky Horror Show at London’s Piccadilly Theatre, with Craig Ferguson as Brad Majors. In 1991 Head’s rendition of “Sweet Transvestite” was released as a single by Chrysalis Records.

Could that be their Tony Head? There was also a Tony Head that was a British statesman, a Viscount, and a Tony Head that was an Australian paralympic athlete. But I doubt it’s about them. I found a small little special about that Nescafé ad with Tony Head here. And another here. Seems these ads were huge in the UK back in the 80s!

Now a quick stop to last.fm where there is a small bio of the band:

The Tony Head Experience were formed in Street, Somerset in early 1991 by Elisa Young. Within days she had roped in her ex-Felicitys band mates Nik Dalgarno, James Merry and Rob Buckley to record a four song demo at Nik’s Giant Recording Studios in Compton Dundon. Along for the ride and to produce this meisterwork came Jon Mates (Basinger/ex-Felicitys) and Nick Osbourne (The Becketts) who also helped out on guitar and tambourine respectively. Recorded in a day and featuring the songs ‘Lighthouse’, ‘Sleeper’, ‘Let Her Drive’ and ‘Go’ the recording was deemed a triumph in low-fi barn recording and hi-fi lager drinking.

I remember Twee.net having a bio as well, but it seems Twee.net is having some hiccups and all band profiles show Aberdeen!

The Felicitys. I remember them too. They had some songs on some compilation tapes. Should be interesting to go over them sometime as well. And Basinger! Oh! That’s why I got a 12″ while in Scotland. Their name sounded familiar to me and I decided that I had to take their EP with me. And what about The Becketts? I don’t know much about them but I remember a song called “Angel Heart” that I really like.

Their first 7″ was released in what I assume their own label, “Big Internation”. Though there’s a chance it wasn’t as this label also released Automatic Dlamini’s “From a Diva to a Diver”. This band had PJ Harvey before she was huge. It came out in 1991 and it was catalog number BOT 01. It included “Debbie One”, “Let Her Drive” and “Sleeper”. The artwork shows a black and white photo a little sign saying “Paradise”.

Then two more releases came out which I’ve never heard, though from listening to some stuff on Youtube I feel they are much more harder, more rockier, less poppier, less of my taste. It was the early 90s anyways, people were into this kind of Pixies kind of sound. So I can understand. Their second release was a flexi disc. Again on the same label and catalog number BOT 02. Released also in 1991, this record contained “Oh yeah, Albatross”, “Frontiers” and “Swings”. The interesting bit is that Tony Head is credited as the producer and mixer of the single. It was recorded 7 engineered at Giant Studios, Somerset.

Their last 7″ came out in a different label, Hair Records. It was catalog number HAIR 004 and included two tracks, “Heavy Mother” and “Kelly’s Hotel Forever”. This was released in 1993. Hair Records had released Basinger, Gear and Gutless before and it was Simon Barber’s (The Chesterf!elds) label.

The band also has left a Myspace page where you can stream some more songs. There is a version of “Debbie One” on the Peel show, “Leather”, “Caucho Sol”, “Freeway” and “Anschuls Song”.

They appeared on a couple of compilations too. One of them was the “The Noise and The Melodies – The Pearl Compilation” where they contributed the song “Heavy Mother”. This compilation was part of a German fanzine of the same name.

From what I gather there was also a split flexi with Automatic Dlamini where they included the song “Jack’s Back”. But I’ve never seen this one.

And searching a little bit more I found an even longer and bigger biography. So either you stop reading here and go straight to the MP3 sample, or you continue reading. I suggest the second.

The Tony Head Experience were formed in Street, Somerset in early 1991 by Elisa Young.

Within days she had roped in her ex-Felicitys band mates Nik Dalgarno, James Merry and Rob Buckley to record a four song demo at Nik’s Giant Recording Studios in Compton Dundon. Along for the ride and to produce this meisterwork came Jon Mates (Basinger/ex-Felicitys) and Nick Osbourne (The Becketts) who also helped out on guitar and tambourine respectively. Recorded in a day and featuring the songs ‘Lighthouse’, ‘Sleeper’, ‘Let Her Drive’ and ‘Go’ the recording was deemed a triumph in low-fi barn recording and hi-fi lager drinking. The following Sunday on The Caz Ford Show on BBC Radio Bristol, Caz played the demo and enthused. Greatly encouraged Elisa, Nik and Jon (now ex-Basinger) recorded more tunes at Giant, whilst James and Rob went and formed Three Men In A Boat with (another ex-Felicitys) Hugh Edwards. James and Rob would return though for the recording of the bands debut single in August of that year…..

Taking advantage of the momentum built up from numerous radio plays and a special offer at a London record manufacturer the group reconvened at Giant to record their debut single in that balmy summer. Re-recording demo faves ‘Sleeper’ and ‘Let Her Drive’ the band dismissed their initial attempt at an A-Side as awful, and returned three days later with the newly written ‘Debbie One’. It was deemed cool! Especially the drumming by guitarist Nik. So the band formed their own label, Big Internation , and via the Cartel distribution network released their debut single ‘Sleeper E.P.’ in Oct ’91 on glorious 7″ vinyl. The single was picked up quickly by various regional radio stations, received a glowing review in the NME, and then as if by magic was played on The John Peel Show on Radio One…twice! The orders flooded in, and the band realized that they had a going concern and should maybe think about playing live.

James and Rob returned to Three Men In A Boat and with Elisa on Vocals, Jon on guitar and Nik on lead guitar they needed a rhythm section. First to sign up was Strode College student Matt Fry on bass and then a letter and record was sent to the Netherlands……..Steve Mobley had been a local drummer of some regard (and another ex-Felicity!) and was at the time working in a frozen fish factory, living on a barge, and avoiding debts on the outskirts of Amsterdam. He didn’t have a record player but liked the look of the single and so hurried himself back to Somerset in time for the groups first gig at the Fleece in Bristol supporting Ocean Colour Scene.

Job done the band began a relentless tour around the indie venues of England and Wales ( sorry Scotland they never made it!) for the next year, and swiftly released a follow up record, the ‘Albatross E.P.’ a three track 7″ flexi-disc. Recorded again at Giant Studios, by now relocated to an industrial unit in Street, the flexi shot to the top of radio playlists in France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Germany and the States, and the three thousand copies distributed by fanzines in the UK and Europe sold-out within eight weeks. Nice.

Now with local face Anschul Brandt already installed on additional guitar, in the summer of ’92 Matt Fry left the group to go to university and Anschul took over the bass guitar duties. Matts final contribution came on the track ‘Jack’s Back’ which was released on a Big Internation split-flexi with Automatic Dlamini. Then in the autumn the band recorded a session for BBC Radio Bristol produced by Mike Chinaski (The Becketts), and recorded (and aborted) the ‘Freeway E.P.’

Turning to local producer John Parish (Automatic Dlamini/PJ Harvey) to help record a proper follow-up to ‘Debbie One’, ‘Heavy Mother’/’Kelly’s Hotel Forever’, a double A-side 7″ was released in the spring of ’93 on Simon Barbers’ (The Chesterfields) Hair Records. The single featured John Parish on Slide Guitar and Clare MacTaggart (Portishead) on Violin. The group shot videos for the single directed by Dan Knight (Hoffman) and continued their tour around England’s indie toilets to much acclaim and indifference….great reviews though for the single began to pour in from Europe and coupled with extensive radio airplay a tour of Germany was scheduled for the autumn. Unfortunately, again, the pull of higher education was too much and Anschul left the band in August ’93 to take up his university studies in London.

Nick Osbourne (The Young Hurlants), now a music teacher at Bridgewater college, recommended a replacement for Anschul in the form of 17 year old Rob Perdrix and the group set off on some warm-up dates around Somerset. Then Nik dropped a bombshell. Indifferent to thoughts of Germany and newly in-love, he left the band. Luckily, Rob’s best mate Paul Kelly was a fan and an outstanding guitarist. The fellow 17 year old joined and played his first gig in Germany in the December of ’93. The two week tour was a big success. Gigs in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and throughout East Germany brought big crowds and great times. Tour managed by Nick Osbourne (yes…Parrot), and sound engineered by Haggis, the tour was to prove the highlight of the bands career. It ended in Hamburg in a fog of marajuana smoke, riots, and a cover of The Beatles ‘Day Tripper’……………..

The band returned from Germany just in time for The Head Club’s Xmas Party at the Tor Leisure Centre in Glastonbury, which featured local legends Gutless and Hoffman, and a sell-out crowd. Then in the new year of ’94 they contributed two tracks to the Hair Records CD compilation ‘Trigger’. The songs ‘Horse and Van’ and ‘Who Is Roscoe?’ were recorded by the band during the previous summer and re-mixed by Head (PJ Harvey). They turned out to be the groups epitaph.

Parting company with Rob in March ’94 the group re-enlisted Anschul for what turned out to be the Tony Heads finally show. On April 23 The Tony Head Experience appeared at Tor Leisure Centre in Glastonbury alongside The Family Cat, Bandit Queen, and Hoffman for the final night of their ‘Head Club’. The band members had been promoting these live music nights in one form or another every week or two for over six years and with the group relocating to London it was a night of high emotion and fantastic music. In the summer of ’94 Elisa, Jon and Steve moved to London, Paul stayed in Somerset and Anschul returned to university. The group dissolved officially in Feb ’95 when Jon joined the band Pout. That would be the kiss of death for anything.

Postscript:

Jon left Pout after six months but two of the fellow inmates happened to be Sam Miller and Joe Thompson who subsequently turned up in the only live reformation attempt of The Tony Head Experience in 1997 at the Fortress Studios in London. Irving Welsh walked in during a version of ‘Leather’. That was the highlight…. The group did release new material that year on the London based Sounds Junoversal label but re-workings of songs from their last major recording session at Giant in the summer of ’93 proved uninspired and the band quickly disolved again. And that was that.

Jon Mates eventually moved to New York, met up with Elizabeth Mone’, returned to London and formed My Symptoms. He then went on to lead the group English Electric (www.myspace.com/theenglishelectric) and is now out doing his own thing at www.myspace.com/jonmatesmusic.

Elisa Young became a midwife and a wife of Pout bass player Joe Thompson (Stanton/Hey Colossus). She occasionally still sings on records, has two sons, and is now back living in Street.

Anschul Brandt briefly re-united with Jon in dance music outfit Firefox before launching a variety of musical visions onto an unsuspecting world. Currently residing in Sweden his last major contribution to the culture was the Giants Of Design www.myspace.com/giantsofdesign.

Nik Dalgarno is a computer software programmer with a wife and four kids and happily also lives in Street.

Matt Fry graduated Oxford University with flying colours.

Steve Mobley joined Yeovil based Elliot Green after the demise of The Tony Head Experience. The band released a couple of classy singles and the album ‘United States’ on the legendary Playtime record label.

It seems there were other poppy songs recorded by the band. They mention on their Myspace blog a tune called “Go Go Tripper” that they say was a throwaway indiepop moment. And also they mention they had done a semi-reunion gig in Glastonbury. They were planning something for their 20th anniversary in 2011 but I guess nothing really happened sadly.

About Youtube, you can watch some videos for Heavy Mother, Deaf Ted / Leather and Horse and Van by clicking on these links.

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Listen
The Tony Head Experience – Debbie One

Before I leave to the UK for, what I think, are some deserved vacations and also to avoid Thanksgiving and Black Friday, I want to ask for some help. Not that I don’t ask for it often here in the blog when it comes to tracking down bands. I do. Often. Once a week at least. But as I won’t be writing anything next week, I thought maybe it’s a good time to pick your brains.

I’ve been trying to track Nine Steps to Ugly for the last couple of months. Phil from Feverfew/The Rileys, was kind enough to ask around his contacts around Reading, but there was no luck. There was the odd comment by Cameron (guitar) on Javi’s old, very old, blog “Lost and Found”. But there was no email. I looked all over Google, which I’m training on search skills thru their “Google a Day”, but no luck. Same on Facebook.

The first time that I heard about Nine Steps to Ugly was thanks to The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol.5 that Firestation Records released in 2005. “Eddie Lopez lives in Slough” opened the CD. It was fresh, it was catchy, it was the kind of pop that I’m a sucker for. On the booklet, they took the center spread, a long list of gigs and a bit of band details were included:

Popstatic Facts and Gigathon

Band formed in January 1987 for Windsor College Rag Stomp held at the Old Trout Windsor on 24th March 1987.

Original line-up 13th January-14th January 1987. Jenny Miell singing, Cameron Smillie guitar, Stuart Scott drums, Nick Elson bass, Jim Turner guitar, Andrew ‘Flan’ Flannery guitar, Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Malibar saxophone (part time).

We write one song ‘I’m in Love with the Girl from Tallulah Gosh’. I no longer am and the song was crap. Jenny and Johnny leave.

Jenny as she couldn’t sing and Johnny as the sax was on hire and had to go back to the shop.

Tracey is found and off we go. Lots of awful noise created in an effort to get a set together for the Rag Stomp.

Line-up for 24 March 1987. Tracey Owen singing, Paul ‘Beany’ Bateman singing, Cameron Smillie guitar, Nick Elson bass, Andrew Flannery guitar, Jim Turner guitar, Stuart Scott drums.

24 March 1987 Infamous Rag Stomp. Play ‘Purple Haze’ and several forgotten covers and are not lynched. Start to have fun and write our own songs.

A few weeks later we inflict them on the public…

Old Pals Club Taplow 22nd May 1987 + Urgh Leave it Out.
The Greyhound Colnbrook.  4th June 1987 + Stir Fried Pop Stars.
Windor Art Centre. July 1987 + The Wallflowers.
The Rose Maidenhead 22nd August 1987 + Stir Fried Pop Stars.

Stuart leaves to continue his studies; Flan leaves to drink more beer. Beany leaves to join the Stir Fried Pop Stars and wear dark glasses on stage.

Line-up 20th September 1987. Tracey vocals, Cameron guitar, Jim guitar, Nick bass, Dave Best drums.

Herschel Park Slough 19th September 1987 (whilst playing we are attacked by madman wielding a scaffolding pole – we run away, did he not like the music?)
Windsor Art Centre 13th October 1987 + The Shrubs
Old Trout Windsor 4th November 1987 + Stir Friend Pop Stars.
Wexham Parish Hall 15th November 1987 + The Wallflowers.

The George Farnham Road 19th November 1987 + Million Dollar Bash
Upton Grammar School 17th December 1987
Windsor Art Centre 9th January 1988 + Magic Mushroom Band.
Baldwin Institute Eton 16th January 1988 + Hello Revolving Horse.
Pontons High Wycombe 19th January 1988 + December.
The George Farnham Road 3rd March 1988 + The Company
Windsor college Rag Stomp 17th Martch 1988
Maidenhead Town Hall 26th March 1988 Battle of the bands competition, we came 2nd (Robbed!!).
ontons High Wycombe 16th April 1988
Windsor Art Centre 29th April 1988 + Bob
Forbury Park Reading 29th May 1988
Reading Town Hall 1st June 1988 + The Darling Buds
The George Farnham Road 9th June 1988 + The Company
Ninos Wine Bar Reading 15th June 1988 + The Jeremiahs
Ninos Wine Bar Reading 26th June 1988 + Feverfew
Windsor Art Centre 16th June 1988 + The Company
Cool Trout London 27th July 1988 + Bob
Paradise Club Reading 5th August 1988 + House of Love
Windsor Art Centre 2nd September 1988 + The Wallflowers
Old Trout Windsor 3rd September 1988 + Johnny Panic
Skindles Maidenhead 4th September 1988
St. Davids Hall Reading 15th October 1988
Mean Fiddler London 1st November 1988 + Metro Trinity
Paradise Club Reading 2nd November 1988 + Spacemen 3
St. Davids Hall reading 9th November 1988 + Falling Trees
Old Trout Windsor 30th November 1988 + Morbific Seeds

Line-up 30th November 1988. Tracey vocals, Cameron guitar, Jim guitar, Nick bass, Bevis Bevis drums.

The Centre Farnham Road 10th December 1988
Old Trout Windsor 21st December 1989 + The Premonitions
Windsor Art Centre 2nd January 1989 + Morbific Seeds
Blast Club Bracknell Art Centre 9th February 1989 + Thrilled Skinny
Garden of Eden Old Trout Windsor 8th March 1989 + The Bachelor Pad
Garden of Eden Old Trout Windsor 29th March 1989 + Bob
Blast Club Bracknell Art Centre 30th March 1989 + Bob
Garden of Eden Old Trout Windsor 26th April 1989 + Savage Opera

Final gig at Windsor Art Centre 23rd June 1989 supported y Thousand Yard Stare.

And that was that.

Bevis and Cameron joined The Morbific Seeds. Nick went to university in Brighton and writes. Tracey sang with Montefury, The Wallflowers, Foam etc and still is in bands in Brighton. Jim became an archaeologist Cameron works in St Pauls Cathedral and s an actor. Bevis became a troubadour.

I probably have missed a few gigs out, I remember one in Slough High Street for a bizarre parade and I ended up in the back of a van converted to look like the Batmobile driven by a member of the Morbific Seeds. Perhas these things are best forgotten.

You can still find this CD. Get it straight from the label for 3 euros. That’s much much less than what I paid for it when it came out. It’s a bargain, and it’s essential.

Since them I’ve been trying to also track down their flexi single. That one that includes “Eddie Lopez lives in Slough” and “Bobby Charlton’s Haircut”. The sleeve has a kid playing the triangle, while some other schoolmates (?) are watching him. Wonder if that little boy is one of the band members.

So who was Eddie Lopez? He was the Labour candidate for Slough in the 1987 and 1992 elections, finishing runner up on both occasions to the Conservatives.

About Eddie Lopez and the song I found this comment online:

Eddie Lopez actually came very close to winning Slough in 1992. He lost by 514 votes, but a rogue candidate called Alford who also termed himself The Labour Candidate stood (election law has changed now to prevent this sort of thing) and, because he was top of the ballot paper, took 699 votes. He celebrated on election night with the winning Tories.

“Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough” wasn’t taking the piss. Eddie Lopez had been instrumental in the establishment of a recording studio under the Slough Labour Rooms. The song was a Thank You.

You can read more about him here.

While Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road (it becomes the Great West Road closer to London) and the Great Western Main Line, 22 miles (35 km) west of central London. At the 2001 census, the population of Slough was 119,070 (est. 122,000 in 2006) and the borough area was the most ethnically diverse local authority area outside London in the United Kingdom.

The first recorded uses of the name occur as Slo in 1196, Sloo in 1336, and Le Slowe, Slowe or Slow in 1437.

Though I guess most of the people have heard about Slough thanks to the tv series The Office.

About Bobby Charlton. Well, I don’t think he had much of a haircut. Anyways, I assume many of you don’t know anything about footie, but come on. Bobby Charlton is pretty famous. You can read more about him here.

The band also contributed to a couple of compilations. On the  classic “Corrupt Postman” tape compilation they included the song “Vaudeville”. This same song will appear some time later on the tape compilation “Hacia la Luz” released by Elefant Records (ER-005) in 1990. But if we go back in time a little, to 1987, “Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough” appears on an obscure compilation called “The Final Teaze” which was released by Final Records (Final 042).

But those three songs I’ve mentioned weren’t the only that they recorded. Fast forward to 2008. I visit Nana and Andreas in Hamburg. Nana is throwing a big birthday party for herself. Many friends have come from different places, and even The Sunny Street are playing a gig. Then there will be a dance party (these days have been already documented on the blog). They day I arrive Andreas burns me two CDs. One that has everything by Grab Grab the Haddock. And a second one by Nine Steps to Ugly. This CD contains:

From the “Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough” flexi
01. Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough
02. Bobby Charlton’s Haircut

From demos 1987-1989
03. Apart
04. Vaudville
05. Tobogganing
06. Drink Up, Let’s Go!
07. Kevin Loves Sharon
08. Small Pieces of Everything
09. Spencer Says
10. Eddie Lopez lives in Slough (demo)
11. Lemon Badger

From live 29.03.1989 (must be from this gig: Garden of Eden Old Trout Windsor 29th March 1989 + Bob)
12. Glad
13. February Wednesday
14. Vaudville
15. The Friendship
16. Spencer Says
17. Bobby Charlton’s Haircut
18. Apart
19. Meadfield
20. Ever Again

See? Quite a bunch of songs recorded as demos. And I’m not sure if they were all that they recorded. Probably they were. But can’t say. I also find mind boggling that they never released anything else other than the flexi. It’s very odd. And what about that “Im’ in Love with the Girl from Talulah Gosh” song? Was that ever recorded? I have so many questions. I wonder if I should just step in to St. Paul’s Cathedral and ask if Cameron is still around…

So yes, if anyone knows anything else, has something more to add. Please do! Probably won’t answer until I’m back from the UK, but I’ll check my email daily. If you have a spare copy of the flexi, that’ll be nice too.

And by the way, before I forget the new fanzines are ready. I made some silly mistake while doing the pre-press and there are two pages, the second two pages of the Youngfuck interview, that are in the wrong place. It’s not a big deal I think, as they are back to back to the ones that start the Youngfuck interview, and perhaps adds to the DIY spirit of it, but thought it was worth mentioning. So there are no surprises. Also forgot to change the snail mail address of Cloudberry. I’ve been a bit fluffy-headed as of late it seems. In any case, the fanzine looks great, and I’m very proud with it. I hope you all like it!

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Listen
Nine Steps to Ugly – Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough

Peppermint is a hybrid mint, a cross between watermint and spearmint. The plant, indigenous to Europe, is now widespread in cultivation throughout all regions of the world. It is found wild occasionally with its parent species.

Just a couple of days until I travel once again to the UK. Second time this year. My sixth time overall.

A couple of things.

– I bought a Lonely Planet guide to London and been reading it before going to bed. Why now? I don’t know. On top of it all, I will barely have any time in London this time to do any sort of sightseeing. So what’s the point of me getting this book? I don’t know.

– Also after coming back from London last July, I bought a book about the names of the tube stations of the Undeground. I had seen one of these books for sale at the British Library and caught my curiosity. I stopped myself from buying it there as I assumed (correctly) that it was overpriced. Upon returning to NY, I ordered it online. Quite interesting. Now I could probably tell a story or two to those tourists that ask me, another tourist, for directions.

– I’m going to my second Chickfactor gigs this year. First was here in New York and was during weekdays. Now in London during a weekend. I’ll see for the first time The Pastels and Would-Be-Goods. Would-Be-Goods being one of my favourite bands ever. I admit the only time I’ve chickened out of asking to take a photo with a band member, was with Jessica Griffin who happened to be next to me and my friends outside the 100 Club. To be a success, this time I must get their setlist. At least.

– I’ll see Amor de Dias for the third time. I’ll see Pipas for the third time as well. Can’t have enough of Lupe’s bands.

– Second time for the Aislers Set and the Legendary Jim Ruiz Group. Two favourite bands. And fifth time seeing Tender Trap. I clearly go to many gigs, or what?

– Talking of the Aislers Set the other day I saw Linton walking down Bleecker St. with a brown paper bag. Thought saying hi, but then I noticed I was wearing my green t-shirt that has her name printed on it and thought, that was much of a fanboy already.

– I have grand plans of record shopping during this trip. The question is, how will I carry all my records back to the US if I’m planning to just take a carry on. Mind you, I already bought some records and they are waiting for me at my dear friend’s place.

– I will visit a Peruvian restaurant in London. Been terribly curious about them after they opened this year. I’ve been meaning to invite friends while I was there years ago, introduce them to our rich cuisine, but the restaurants were non-existant. Now there are two by Tottenham Court Rd. Are we the new thai as some Peruvian officials love saying? Not yet, not quite. Someday perhaps.

– Then will take a train to Edinburgh. Spend some hours record shopping, hopefully have haggis for lunch. I have haggis craving. Hearty haggis.

– Next stop Glasgow. For third time lucky Aislers Set. At Mono. Will see Stephen Pastel there for the second time. This time he’ll be DJing, won’t be selling me records. And Camera Obscura will DJ as well. I saw them once playing though. Just once. It seems I only see big bands once, and the smaller bands I see millions of times.

– Taking a bus to Inverness. What to do there? The word Inverness sounds to me like “invierno”, winter in Spanish. I feel just by the name that I will freeze. It’s up north. From there we’ll take a bus to Loch Ness. Fulfill a childhood dream. Visit Nessy’s den. See castle Urquhart. Send some postcards from there.

– A trip for me with no castles is not a trip. So we’ll be heading to Arundel castle. It looks glorious. Everyone has told me it’s beautiful. I hope it is! I just really hope it doesn’t rain, like that time  I went to Tintern Abbey and the weather was miserable. The most “romantic ruins” in Wales had become the most dreary ruins in Wales all of a sudden. So better behave you famous English rain.

– Note to self. My grandma doesn’t want chocolate like last time. Suddenly she figured out that it wasn’t Cadbury powder Hot Chocolate what she wanted but Cadbury Cocoa! She also insists that I have to buy me a sweater at some famous “sweater town” close to London that she visited two decades ago. “It will do you good in the NY winter”.

– There’s also the gig at the Buffalo Bar where Flowers are playing on Thursday. Will go to that. Definitely. Time to see one of my new favourite bands play live after touring with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Hopefully we can sort out the 7″ soon!

– And speaking of my carry-on bag, I feel half of it’s weight is going to be gifts, from mac n’ cheese to records, to friends. I so look forward to see my transatlantic friends. I miss them. Can’t wait to catch up!

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Parlour (or parlor) is a name used for a variety of different reception rooms and public spaces in different historical periods. Parlour derives from the Old French word parloir or parler (“to speak”), and entered English around the turn of the 13th century In its original usage it denoted a place set aside for speaking with someone, an “audience chamber”.

A band from Wales. That Wales I really liked and had a great time in July. That Wales I won’t be visiting this time, but that I do have strong plans to revisit next time I go to Indietracks. The band was Peppermint Parlour and they had one 7″ single but many more songs recorded.

Uncommon to most obscure bands, I could actually find an extensive bio about the band online:

Peppermint Parlour was the brain child of founder Alan Thompson along with his school friend, Clive Widdison. The two met at Llanederyn High School in Cardiff at the beginning of the 1980s. Alan Thompson is an extremely talented songwriter and was soon penning many songs. His musical influences coming through in an intelligent mix of The Beatles, Squeeze, 10cc, The Jam and The Beach Boys.
Peppermint Parlour came together in the autumn of 1984 with the line-up of Alan Thompson, vocals and rhythm guitar, Clive Widdison, bass guitar and backing vocals, Mark Haggart, lead guitar and backing vocals backed up by the newest addition of Simon Davies on drums. St. Martin’s Church Hall on Crwys Road, Cardiff became their rehearsal venue every Monday night. Alan’s friend from childhood, Rhys John used to help out with rehearsals, adding keyboards and some excellent guitar pieces in between him finishing off his degree at the University of East Anglia.
Months of practice, practice and more practice, Peppermint Parlour finally got their first gig at the Joint Students Union, Cardiff University on the 25th May 1985. The group added Rhys John to the line up and by the end of 1985, Mark Haggart left The Peps and Rhys took over the duties of lead guitar. The band were finally on their way. The band developed their extremely tight sound from hundreds of gigs across Cardiff and in London. Several record companies were alerted to them with particular attention being paid by MCA Records, who even came to see them in rehearsals at Simon’s fathers factory in Cardiff and EMI Records.
Being a Cardiff based band and with the capital’s rather stereotyped view of Wales made it hard for The Peps to get to see the right people. It is generally considered that they paved the way for less talented Welsh bands to come into prominence, like the Manic Street Preachers, Sterophonics and Catatonia. Peppermint Parlour made the “hard yards” and the others felt the benefit. The band eventually were pestered to release a best of CD in 2002, called Pet Sounds. Within that CD are 19 musical gems.

Is it really “Pet Sounds” the name of the CD? I have never seen it, and somewhere I’ve seen it mentioned it as “Pep Sounds”. But still no luck. I would definitely LOVE to hear these 19 songs. At least since 2009 when I first heard about this band, I’ve often revisited and listened to a bunch of their songs thanks to Last.fm.. If you head there you can find 7 songs to listen fully: “Gary Sobers Up”, “Playhouse”, ” It’s Wonderful”,  “Evermore”, “Whole Damn World”, “You Are The Drug” and “You’re Gonna Crash”.

What can I say about these songs? They are fantastic! If you like catchy pop, jangly guitars, and smart lyrics, you’ll like this lot. This is a band that I would have loved to release definitely. They remind me a bit to Feverfew and The Chesterf!elds on their more upbeat songs, while in their more “classic” c86 songs you can think of Bob or Reserve. So yes. Pretty good. Pretty amazing stuff.

By the way, did you know that Alan Thompson from Peppermint Parlour is a UK radio broadcaster, presenting on BBC Radio Wales? I just found out.

Here is a little interview I found where he is asked about Peppermint Parlour:

As the popular presenter of the Radio Wales evening show, Alan Thompson has acquired a reputation as a man who enjoys revisiting the ’80s classics.

Haircut 100, Simple Minds, Wham! and Duran Duran have all cropped up on his playlists.

But there’s one nugget from the decade that taste forgot that he won’t play – his own.

In the mid-’80s, Alan was the frontman of Peppermint Parlour, a Cardiff powerpop four-piece which, over their seven-year lifespan, managed to garner a hardcore of devoted fans thanks to tireless gigging around South Wales and one fondly remembered single, Whatever Happened to Pop Songs.

He’s too modest to admit it, and far too modest to actually play it on his show, but there are many who would herald it as a little indie pop classic.

And in Japan – where they’ll always find a place in their hearts for such things – it’s something of a collector’s item.

Alan, 49, remembers his days in the band with nothing but fondness. “We’d first got into a band at school in Llanedeyrn,” he said, “a mod outfit called The Standards – terrible name – with Clive Widdison, who played bass.”

After school, he and Clive formed Peppermint Parlour in 1984 , gigging mainly in Chapter and other venues in South Wales but also as far afield as London.

“The Pepps were a good band,” said Alan. “We were compared to the Housemartins but I thought we were more like Squeeze, melodic pop with a bit of edge.”

Like countless other bands, when real success proved elusive, the Pepps petered out. By 1991 Alan had started work at the BBC and with A&R men loathe to head over the Severn Bridge (this was long before Cool Cymru) they called it a day.

Happily, Alan retains his enthusiasm for music, as his listeners will readily attest, and he continues to write and record in the little studio he has set up at home.

But if his reluctance to play Whatever… is any guide, we can’t expect to hear his songs any time soon.

1984. They were ahead of their time. I can’t believe. Maybe that’s why they are so obscure. Because their songs should have been HITS. It’s always so unfair to read or hear stories like this.

But let’s go back to their one and only 7″. One that I’m still tracking down and I suppose will be impossible for me to ever get my hands on because the Japanese will always have a bigger wallet than mine!

The 7″ included two songs. On the A side “Whatever Happened to Pop Songs” and on the B side “Awkward Girls”. It was released on Apex Records and was the first reference on their catalog. Both songs are credited to Alan Thompson and were produced by Peppermint Parlour and Len Davies. Len Davies seems to have been involved in many releases of the Apex Label. Maybe it was his own label?

The songs were recorded at Apex Recording Studio in Cardiff. The engineers were Davies again and Matthew Butler.

Peppermint Parlour were:
Alan Thompson – lead vocals/guitar
Rhys John –  lead guitar / keyboards / vocals
Clive Widdison – bass guitar / vocals
Simon Davies – drums

On the back cover it’s also written:
Special thanks to Gary Price of “Red Dragon Radio” for his belief and support. He truly is the Hippy King of Mintsville!
The record is dedicated to Johnny L. and to Julie B. And also to all you Pep Cats everywhere.

As a curious cat I went to look for Red Dragon Radio and found out that it changed it name years ago to Capital South Wales and that is a radio station broadcasting from Cardiff Bay. I get flashes of walking down the promenade, next to the sea, in Cardiff Bay. Walking towards that Turkish restaurant on the pier which we didn’t like the prices.

And that’s about all I could find about Peppermint Parlour. It’s more than the usual I find though. So that makes me happy. But I would really love to listen to the rest of their songs. Track that “Pep Sounds” CD is possible. And if anyone has a box full of spare copies that is willing to give a new home, a lovely home, please let me know! And yes, if you happen to have any memories, anecdotes, or know the whereabouts of any of the band members let me know! Their songs deserve to be much more known than they are already!

Edit: I just noticed they have a Facebook page!

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Listen
Peppermint Parlour – Whatever Happened to Pop Songs

I got out of bed at 10:30 am. Unwrapped myself from the sheets and as usual, first thing in the morning, I went to check my email. It was election day. Mentally I had prepared for it during the weekend. The long haul. Staying up late in the newsroom. Updating things every couple of minutes. Stressing out at giving the right call, not messing up the numbers, being correct at all times. And on top of it all, being fast. You want to beat the other news agencies.

This was my second time working and covering the elections. Both times we had the same winner. This time the responsibility was bigger, working for a much larger organization. Large enough that I was thrilled to see some of the graphics I worked with my colleagues embedded in pages like El Mundo, Aftonbladet, Televisa and so on. All over the world. On top of it, those Spanish-language newspapers that embedded our main graphic, were using a version that I had translated to Spanish. I was worried all night that someone was going to spot some typo or a grammatical error on it.

I woke up the computer, as I only turn it off when I travel. I always only put it to sleep. I received a couple of miserable emails. The day seemed bleak outside from my window and it felt cold in the room. I turned on the heater. A friend started chatting me, telling me that today was the launch of Halo 4. I had already pre-ordered it I tell him, but I won’t receive it until Thursday. He sends me a bunch of codes that I need to plug on some Doritos page to get some bonus in the game as soon as I start playing. I asked him, how the hell he got 20 codes, did he had a Doritos fest or something? My friend, as a good resourceful Peruvian, spent the best 5 minutes of his day at the supermarket taking photos of Doritos bags and their Halo 4 codes.

As the morning rolled the emails were getting nicer. Friends reconnecting, and also making plans for my London trip next week. I also had finally purchased tickets to visit Arundel, a castle that has been on my top list for some years now. I ordered a pizza as I wasn’t heading to work until 4pm. I turned on the Xbox to distract myself, to not overthink, and went on a very good winning streak on PES2013. Suddenly it struck me that I was being really dumb to order pizza as probably they would feed us pizza as well at the newsroom.

Stopped at the post office and dropped some Cloudberry orders. There were lots of people outside. I could see many proudly wearing their “I Voted” stickers on their coats. The coffee shops around my subway station were packed. Not that I care, I don’t drink coffee, but I have the bad habit of walking watching the store fronts, their windows, their displays, instead of just looking ahead. Suddenly the smell of the halal cart always gives me the heads up that the stairs to the subway station are just a couple of steps away.

I live at the end of a subway line so I don’t need any luck to find a place to sit down. There’s always one. Thanks to that I’ve been able to devour so many books this year. Something unthinkable in Miami. This is one of the things I’m most thankful to NYC, the reading time it has offered me in it’s subways. The ride feels shorter and accomplished at the same time.

From Herald Square to the office is another 10 minute walk. I walk it fast. Sometimes I stop by my bank’s atm. Today is not one of those days. It’s almost 4pm when I enter our building. The lobby is packed. There are huge lines waiting to check in at the front desk. It’s election day I’m reminded. I’m excited all of a sudden. This is why I like working for the news industry. When the newsroom comes alive and we are all running around with the sole goal of providing the rest of the world with the most accurate information.

This day I’m changing desks. I’m moving closer to let’s say the main hub, outside of our department. I’m working directly with our mobile app and those who update it. I’m in charge of some balance of power map, updating it every couple of minutes, as soon as a state is called, as soon as new House representatives are called, or the Senate as well. I live in the future, I know who has been elected and which state has been called before the rest. Until I push the update and then it’s public knowledge.

Of course by 6:30 pm we are treated to pizza. One that is kind of greasy and not very tasty. And warm soda cans. I grab three slices of meat lovers and head to my desk. The margherita pizza seems to be the least favourite from what I observe. I’m sitting close to the big table where they’ve set up or dinner. Everyone, from every corner of our floor, is driven here, not for the smell or the taste of greasy pizza, but for the free-ness of it. And then, it’s going to be a long night, better have your belly full.

The night goes smoothly aside from some incorrect tweets we make. We notice other websites calling some states before the results are ready. They take risks. We can’t though, we need to be 100%. That’s why people trust us. I get a bit frustrated when the soda machines have run out of soda. I return to my desk and keep updating. By 1am I have made 65 png files for our mobile app. I’m exhausted.

The president calls his victory before anyone else does on Twitter. A couple of minutes later it’s official. We will go home early, and Florida won’t matter at all. Ohio decided it. We congratulate each other. The newsroom is cheerful because we all agree we’ve done a really good job and things went really well. There was no major mistakes or bugs, everything worked accordingly. I want to say it was a successful night. I love the newsroom. I love covering events like this. I like feeling history so close to me.

By 1 pm, in a surprising good mood, one that I haven’t had in months, I walk alone the streets of midtown, under the shadow of the Empire Estate building, watching flashy store displays, Macy’s big Christmas tree, and the last open halal carts on the way. The night is cold, but it feels warm to live in the US today. I put on my gloves, I push play and the Sugargliders glide me gently into the N line. In less than an hour I’ll be home. And things are going to be bright again from now on.

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Here’s another band that I’ve been trying to get their one and only 7″ without luck. Not because it’s terribly expensive, but because I always end up losing at the last minute on eBay. One day hopefully I’ll be the lucky winner. Their name was Life Studies, and they were Gloucester.

A cathedral city, capital of its county which was built on a flat spot of land, Gloucester is situated on the River Severn and the Bristol and Birmingham Railway.  Gloucester was founded in AD 97 by the Romans under Emperor Nerva as Colonia Glevum Nervensis, and was granted its first charter in 1155 by King Henry II.

Cathedral city, Roman city. Sounds like my kind of town. I haven’t been there yet though, but I was really surprised the day I was taught that you pronounce the name of this town “Gloster”. I used to say something much longer.

There’s a tiny bio around the internet that says:

The Life Studies were formed in 1982 in Gloucester by Graham Nicoloson, Phillip Thomas and Martin Bennett. This is their only single release, and was featured by John Peel on several occasions on his radio show. The band performed several extremely successful gigs in and around Gloucestershire, before dis-banding. Nicholson and Thomas went on to form ‘The Trout Faced Few’ whilst they were considered one of the most influential and popular in Gloucestershire, they did not release any records. 

Only one 7″ as far as I know was released. The 7″ went by the name “Homeward” and included three great pre-C86 songs as this was released in 1983! The songs are: “Girl on Fire”, “Inside Out” and “Citizen of Love”.  The single was released on Occasion Records. Catalog number OCC-001. My guess being that it was a self-release.

On this record they also counted with the help of Richard Thomes, Helen Davey and Dean Gifford. Not so sure what instruments each of them played. The songs were produced and engineered by John Eeles. And the whole thing was recorded at Spadger Studio in Rudford, Gloucestershire.

The sleeve has on both sides a black and white photo. Both of a girl. As I’m a bit knowledgeable when it comes to movies I recognize these photos from the Spanish movie “The Spirit of the Beehive”.

The Spirit of the Beehive (Spanish: El espíritu de la colmena) is a 1973 Spanish drama film directed by Víctor Erice. The film was Erice’s debut and is considered a masterpiece of Spanish cinema. Made during the last few years of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, and set in 1940, the film subtly criticises post-civil war Spain.  The film focuses on the young girl Ana and her fascination with the 1931 American horror film Frankenstein, as well as exploring her family life and schooling. The film has been called a “bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life”.

Back to that band they formed after, “Trout Faced Few”. I found a little text about them from a band that supported them back in the day, The Living End:
The Citizen’s were a Gloucester group with practically all their members coming from Brockworth and most had been in a band called The Trout Faced Few. The Citizens and The Trout Faced Few leant heavily on Manchester post-punk outfit The Fall for their inspiration!

I’ve only heard so far “Girl on Fire” and “Inside Out”. Still missing “Citizen of Love”. But how much I enjoy the trumpets on “Inside Out”. And the jangly guitars. It’s really thrilling that they were doing this kind of pop ahead of the C86 days, before the rest caught up. And I can only wonder if there are any more songs by them. Perhaps a demo tape stored in some box, on the cupboard, somewhere.

And that’s all I’ve found about this band. But of course, if you know anything else about them, have a spare 7″ of “Homeward”, or more songs by them, use that little comment box just below this post.

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Listen
Life Studies – Inside Out

Thanks so very much to Chris Brady for this great interview! Surreal Madrid were a late 80s English band that made fantastic jangly pop as you can tell and listen at their soundcloud account. They only released one 12″ EP, but what an EP it is. Now it’s time to rediscover this band, especially as it seems they will be playing gigs very soon again!

++ Hi Chris! Thanks so much for the interview. How are you? I hear there is some sort of Surreal Madrid comeback, is that so?

Hi Roque, I’m fine thanks and thanks for inviting us to be interviewed. There is indeed a reunion going on at long last. Loads of other bands from the late 80s early 90s are doing it so why not ? I think the fact that we are having another go is down to our continued love of music.

++ That’s so cool. So how did you track down the other members from the band? And when do you think you’ll be playing your reunion gig?

I found the guys via LinkedIn. First up was Shaun (drummer) who was already on there in his professional guise as Head Vet at Battersea Dog’s Home. I got in touch with him and we went for a beer. Rob (bass guitar) is his best friend from when they were about 8 years old so that was two of them snared ! I LinkedIn to some old university mates and got John’s (singer) details . We all met up in London for a beer and talked music all afternoon and evening and decided it would be fun to book a rehearsal room and see if we could still play. 

We found a great studio in Little Venice and have now been there 4 or 5 times working on getting the old songs back up to speed. We’re all scattered round the country now so can’t get together as much as we’d like to but we should be ready to gig early next year.

++ So yeah, how come  a band from the UK calls themselves Surreal Madrid? What’s the story behind the name? I assume you’ve been to Madrid?

The name comes from a pathetic football joke …. “Heard the latest scores from Europe ? ….. Real Madrid 2, Surreal Madrid Fish ” We called one of our demo tapes Fish. The late, great John Peel was a huge football fan and he apparently chose to play “Sorry Sir” on his Radio 1 show because he liked the football gag . Madrid’s a cool place. Been there a few times on business

++ Where were you based, in Biggleswade or in London? I’m a bit confused there!

We were and it’s fair to say we still are based in London. Biggleswade is a sleepy little town famous only for being the birthplace of the tractor and there is no music scene other than covers bands playing in pubs. Nice place to live and a 40 minute train ride into London.

++ And you were telling me that there was another Surreal Madrid after you, from Liverpool, right? Are they any good?

Yeah, they came along with the Madchester / Liverpool baggy scene. Not my cup of tea ! They show up on Google searches so we considered changing our name to PerryComa …… but have now decided to stick to our guns as we had the name first

++ So let’s talk about the past. When did Surreal Madrid start as a band? how did you all knew each other?

John and I were mates at university and started a band doing covers of Joy Division, Cure, Cramps, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus etc with an epic Goth bass player. We started writing a couple of songs of our own to slip into the set and played a few low key student gigs. The best of the names we used was “He’s Dead Jim”

After university John and most of our friends moved down to London to start work and I was living a short train ride from the capital in a shared house with a couple of mates from work, one of whom was a drummer. We started messing around with a few songs & covers, then Andy (the drummer) decided he needed to concentrate on his career. Fortunately one of John’s colleagues from the day job (Lol) was a drummer so we signed him up and John brought his mate (Johnny B) in on keyboards. John & Lol worked for a courier firm at Heathrow airport and we used to use their office out by Terminal 4 to rehearse on Saturdays. Great place to play as you can make a lot of noise !

This was the start of Surreal Madrid proper. We played a few gigs in London then decided it would sound better sans keyboards and then Lol got married and fled to France. We stuck an advert in Melody Maker for a drummer and Shaun responded. At the time John was playing bass & singing so when Shaun asked if he could bring his bass playing mate Rob along it seemed like a good plan.

It worked really well and this is the line up that made the record and played regularly around London.

++ Where you all in bands before Surreal Madrid?

Rob & Shaun had been in bands but I’m not sure what they were called, John and I did some stuff at university and there was an interim period after university and starting up with John and my housemate Andy where I was in a local band called Code 7 Victim 5. This one sounded a bit like the Cocteau Twins with guitar, bass, drum machine, and clarinet.

++ What about after?

After we split up I joined up with some guys in the town I was living in and tried to kickstart them but it was never going anywhere. We had a singer that looked like a blond Jim Morrison ….. but totally choked when we did our one & only gig and a bass player who couldn’t stay out of  jail.

Rob & Shaun started a new band called Two Robs which got about as far as Surreal Madrid.

John has spent the last year or so writing solo material and playing acoustic guitar and is all over Youtube as Johnkneem. He’s got an album’s worth of material more or less ready to record

++ Who would you say were your main influences back then?

All  the obvious ones, mainly the Smiths with a bit of Joy Division and the Cure thrown in. On the later songs Braver, Belt and a Better Time you can hear the Stone Roses creeping in too.

++ You released just one fabulous single. It included four songs “In Dreams You Stay Mine”, “Now It’s You”, “Sorry Sir” and “Blood on the hand”. I think my favourite is “In Dreams You Stay Mine”, though it’s very hard to pick. Care telling me the story behind these songs?

John and myself wrote these usually based on a riff or fragment of a vocal melody. We’d introduce new material at rehearsals and develop it into complete songs as a band. The subject material is fairly dark and focuses on relationships going pear-shaped.

Blood on the Hand is about being accused of doing evil when you didn’t actually do it but have no way of defending yourself.

Sorry Sir concentrates on being in a good relationship ….. but making a mess of it by doing bad things and getting away with it. This segues neatly into

Now it’s You which is about the point where you stop getting away with it and the relationship ends leading neatly into

In Dreams which is all about regret and yearning.

You can sense a theme going on here ! One day we’ll consider doing a happy one about puppies or kittens.

++ And which would you say was your favourite? And why?

In general when listening to music I listen to the overall sound rather than trying to make sense of the words or whatever and my favourite on the record would have to be Sorry Sir. Plus it’s a blast to play live. A lot of people reckon that the best songs are the ones that come together quickest and Sorry Sir was one of those.

++ Rottweiler Records? Was that your own label or who were them?

We made the record back in the days where everybody made demo tapes on cassette and posted them to record companies thinking that if we sent them finished product it would stand out from the crowd. To make it look good we used the name Rottweiler Records. It wasn’t really a serious label.

++ You were telling me you had a  total of 20 songs, but only got round to recording 7. So that’s 3 that weren’t included in the single. Were these 3 supposed to be released in a new single? “Belt” is fantastic, could have definitely been one!

We sent the record to all of the record companies and got really strong interest from Stephen Street (produced early Smiths and went on to work with Blur). He came to see us live and commented that the record, which we’d recorded one instrument at a time, sounded sterile compared to the live sound. So we booked another studio with a big live room and recorded Belt, Braver & a Better Time in 2 overnight sessions. These were done live with a couple of guitar overdubs.

++ But yeah, 20 songs, seems like you had enough to make an album even. Or two!  What happened? Why didnt you get to release any more records?

Stephen liked the sound of the new demo and we kept ourselves busy gigging hoping something good would happen but at the time he was busy with Spin (who evolved into Gene) and early Blur. The recording process was different back then and more expensive and at the time we couldn’t afford the studio time to do justice to a whole album’s worth of songs. The plan was for somebody else to fund that ….”

++ And did you ever had any sort of big label interest in your band?

Oddly enough we did ! The head of A&R at Virgin came to see us at the Robey in North London and the guy who allegedly signed Madonna to WEA came along to a gig in Hampstead. They both liked the music but nothing ever came of it.

++ Tell me about gigs! Did you play a lot? Are there any particular gigs, favourite gigs, that you remember? Any anecdotes you could share? 

I think we did about 30 gigs in total. Places like the Robey, Bull & Gate, Rock Garden, New Merlin’s Cave, Camden Falcon ….. all London venues. My personal favourite place to play was the Robey as they had a good sound system, 3 or 4 bands a night followed by Indie disco until 2am and it was next to the Tube station so easy to get to. It was a lively scene back then with most venues putting on 3 or 4 bands a night. The Rock Garden used to host great gigs on Holidays where they would put 10 bands on between 2pm and 2am.

The best gig was in a pub in Islington where we supported the Boo Radleys just after their first album came out. It was a hot summer evening, the pub was full of people in for the music and cheering on Cameroon in the World Cup which was on the TV, everybody was in a good mood and the music flowed nicely

++ What about radioplay? Did that work alright for you guys? Press? fanzines? I ask because it’s so strange that with the songs you had more people don’t know about you!

The record got played a handful of times on GLR, a Cambridge station and most notably on John Peel’s show on Radio 1 which at the time was the go-to station to listen to interesting new music. Our record got reviewed in NME the week they started a new feature where they invited celebrities in to do the reviews. Comedian Vic Reeves reviewed ours and wasn’t complementary claiming we sounded “probably overqualified”. Given that we are basically a doctor, vet, chemist & physicist he was probably right. NME reassured us that even getting reviewed was a good result as they get sent so many records a week

++ And then what happened to you guys? Why did you split?

We did a gig at the Robey with a good crowd in, played really well and everybody enjoyed it. On the way out I said to John something like “Great gig mate see you next week at practice”. He told me he didn’t think there would be another practice and that was it

When we met up again earlier this year the recurring topic of conversation was “Why did we split up ? ” and nobody actually knew.

++ When you are not making music, what do you do? Do you have any other hobbies?

My wife & I bought a fixer-upper Victorian house about 17 years ago and have been working on it ever since. It was a mess when we first saw it but instant love for me as it had a basement converted into a recording studio.  John goes to gigs all over the country and when he’s not doing that is an avid plane-spotter & twitcher. Rob has taken up running and completed the London marathon. Shaun works strange hours but fits in a busy social life.

++ One last question, in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight of Surreal Madrid?

It has to be hearing our record on the radio for the first time. GLR was a London station and the DJ told us he’d slip it on between 6:30 – 7:00am on the breakfast show. It got to 06:50 and he put the Rolling Stones on and I thought there was no chance ….. but then he played In Dreams You Stay Mine. Celebration ensued !

++ And bonus one question, as I’ traveling to London again, what do you recommend visiting? eating? drinking?

Tough question as there are so many choices. Camden is the obvious Indie hangout with the market, music venues & interesting places to eat. Let me know when you’re coming over and we’ll help plan your visit. As far as food and drink are concerned you’ll have to have a night out with us !

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

Thanks Roque, great questions. We’re really enjoying playing music again and the difference this time is the Internet. It is so much easier these days to get your music out there and opens up opportunities that just weren’t there 20 years ago. Hopefully a few more people will hear us this time round.

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Listen
Surreal Madrid – In Dreams You Stay Mine

Sandy. Ugly storm. I’ve spent the last couple of days away from home, away from my records, my books, my computer. Due to work I’ve been staying in a fancy hotel in Manhattan, 5 blocks away from our offices. We have to cover the storm, that’s our duty. I would love to go home right now, but the subway system has been shut down and the bridges won’t open until later today. Yesterday I worked 12 hours.

The hotel lobby is packed with people. Are they feeling cabin fever? There’s families sitting down in couches, on the floor. Everyone with laptops and ipads. They barely talk to each other. There are sirens wailing and it rains intermittently. The streets were empty and peaceful. The distant sound of things cracking. The tourists queue at the couple of bodegas still open. All of them have better jackets than the New Yorkers. They were better prepared.

At the hotel a black plush gorilla welcomes me at the room. There’s a kitchenette. There’s a bunch of white towels. We had wi-fi one day, but we have no more. There is no room service. The beds are unmade. The heating is way too high but I don’t have control over that. So I turn on the a/c, see if they cancel each other. Cars are honking.

At work there’s only one elevator working. And the newsroom is empty. We are just a handful cracking some news. But at the same time we are clueless about what’s happening. Always waiting for the major to come with some press release, updating us the state of the city. We see photos of destruction and flooding. We watch a video of an explosion on 14th street. It doesn’t feel that bad around here, but some areas seem to have been battered considerably.

I end up at St. Luke’s hospital. I have an issue on my right eye. My cornea has been scratched. The ER is empty. I don’t know if that’s a dream or a nightmare. ERs are never empty. The wind is blowing hard and you can hear it from the bunker like facilities of the hospital. They test my vision. I get a bunch of different drops on my eye. They numb it. With some tweezers they pull. I get prescribed some ointment that I have to apply directly in the eye. It’s odd. Meanwhile everyone is at home and are silently going through a blackout.

We get free food at work. Tasteless tuna and chicken wraps. Warm cans of diet Coke. Some fruit. That’s for lunch. For dinner some pasta. They arrive in big aluminum trays. I haven’t seen who delivers them. We eat quietly assuming this is not going to get better. At night we drink, but we run out rapidly of beer. The hotel bar closes at midnight.

The days are bleak. There’s not much to do other than finish reading some novels I’ve brought. The pillows are awful and the mattress feels strange. Maybe the bed is too high. The shower is terrible, there’s little pressure of water. And on top of that, it’s so low, it barely reaches my neck. I have to crouch to shampoo my hair. It’s only making me miserable.

I wonder how much longer this will last. On average they say it may take 4 more days to pump out the water from the subway tunnels. From my Miami experience I know these things take time. And perhaps it takes longer here as people are not used to this inclemency of the weather. I want to return home. This has been already ugly.

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The first time I even read the name of Twelve Angry Men was on the “Future” section of The Leamington Spa website. I think after that some other guitar pop friends have asked me about them on several emails. They knowing barely nothing about them, and me knowing absolutely nothing. I didn’t have a clue how many records they had released but I think we were all certain that they were British.

A couple of weeks ago I found this blog called “From a Northern Place”. I don’t know who runs it, but it seems this fan owns a nice bunch of obscure and rare records. Sadly there is no write up of the records he posts, but he seems like a reasonable person and only links to one song from the release. The only issue being that he links to a WAV file instead of an MP3, being considerable bigger in size, usually around 40 megs and counting.

In any case, I feel a visit around this blog is really recommended as I’m finally listening to many bands that I only knew by them. So I’m thankful for that, for the work he is putting by scanning in hi-res fashion not only the cover and back cover but also the labels of the record.

Among these posts there is one of Twelve Angry Men. At last I could confirm they had one release, a 7″. And maybe now you call can help me start filling in the blanks. The sleeve artwork in black and white. Some band photos on the cover. On the back more band photos. The A side is “Magdalene”, but the 7″ is titled “… the Heart of Magdalene”. The B side is “Clyde”.  Sleeve design by Steve Godfrey. Photography by Neil Stockwell and Ian Firth.

The back cover has some more information. There is a quote on the top that says: “… he left the land of freedom for the promise of religion”. I wonder what they mean by that. All songs by Paul Flinton. Recorded by Stewart Field at Meadow Farm. If it’s the Meadow Farm studio that I found online, then it’s closed to Ripley, in Derbyshire. Very close to where Indietracks takes place every year.

The release is number 009 on Everbimes Records. They seem to be a record label fro Nottingham. So yes, close to Ripley. It starts making some sense. I can’t find more info on the label, especially as according to Discogs there are 2 labels with the same name. Should I pick one? Probably not.

The band lineup at least at the time of the release was: Nick Smith (v0cals), Paul Lillie (bass), Paul Flinton (guitars & vocals), Chris Zani (mandolin) and Steve Godfrey (drums and percussion). On the B-side, “Clyde”, the cello was played by Vicky Evetts.

So far I’ve only had the chance to hear the B side, and it’s a nice slow jangly song. But I’m very curious about the A side, I would love to have a chance to listen to it. If anyone knows anything else about them, has spare copies, or even an MP3 of “Magdalene” that can share, please share!

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Listen
Twelve Angry Men – Clyde

This Monday I finally booked train tickets to travel from London to Edinburgh on another Monday. The 19th of November.  Just a day after the Chickfactor shows. The idea being to hang out with my friend Giorgos, head to Glasgow that same day when I arrive, see The Aislers Set, and Tuesday go to Loch Ness to fulfill my childhood dream. Stand outside castle Urquhart and watch the loch and perhaps become hopeful of seeing Nessie.

I would have loved to stay longer in Scotland, but time is of the essence when I travel. American companies are not known for being generous when it comes to vacations. Perhaps I should have skipped the Chickfactor shows. There have been some signals telling me that I may not spend a fantastic time. First it was Alex that wasn’t going to come anymore. That was a hard blow to swallow. And then this week, after getting excited at last, after getting to know some dear friends are coming, some that I haven’t seen in years, I get an email from the organizer telling me that I need permission from the bands if I want to film them with my ridiculous Sony Bloggie camera for my own private archive. Well, after buying 4 tickets, and even going to the shows in NY, paying quite a bunch of money, to support the shows, the bands, and why not Chickfactor, I feel unwelcome. Treated badly. Today when everyone has iphones and similar devices, getting a message like that, just because, is quite infuriating. Especially to me, one that militantly supports and celebrates indiepop and DIY. I guess some people have a different agenda.

On top of that, a couple of days after, Chickfactor puts up a poll, where some people involved with the scene answer if it’s ok about having their stuff uploaded on Spotify or Youtube. Of course it is biased and everyone tends to say it’s not. That bands don’t keep their rights and such. This is quite dumb. Because Spotify and Youtube are two very different services, and if someone has ever used them would know. One involves money whereas the other doesn’t. It’s like talking about pears and apples here. I won’t go in detail on this as it’s pretty obvious.

I can agree with some of the statements only if people film bands and then use it for commercial gain. But if you film as a souvenir of a gig you went, to keep it to yourself, maybe to show some friends, and so, I don’t see any harm. I even see love to the bands, respect and caring. It’s not like one of this little cameras have so much memory to store a whole festival, so one chooses their favourite band, or even your favourite songs to record. It’s a matter of love. Nothing else.

I stressed on emails that I was filming for private use. That it was for me. But the organizer insisted that I asked permission to the band beforehand. That kind of attitude, honestly, makes me very unwelcome. There are ways and there are manners, especially when we are all pushing the car on the same direction, a better indiepop scene. Though maybe I’m naive, and everyone has a personal agenda. I don’t know. I can only feel disappointed.

If I’m not allowed to film. I won’t. I just spend over a 100 dollars for this little camera. It’s not much. But it’s kind of sad as I bought it for this special occasion. I’m sure other people will, with their iphones. The quality won’t be that great, but it’s something. And they will upload it to Youtube. A place where band comments, if any, are very thankful and appreciative to the fan who uploaded.

I don’t want to discredit anyone though, mind you. I believe that these shows are one of a kind, and I’m grateful they are happening. I’m utterly happy to see at last my beloved Would-Be-Goods, to see again Lupe playing with Pipas (3rd time?), and my friend Yoshi and The Aislers Set. I’m glad! It’s something very special to see The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group too. I’m very thankful for that and I think we need more of these. I think there’s been a fantastic work in organizing these, but I hope it’s not forgotten that it’s the fans too that make this possible, that they are the ones paying for the tickets, so a little bit of courtesy wouldn’t hurt.

The moment I arrive that Saturday to Heathrow, when I meet my friends Jennifer and Miguel perhaps for lunch that day, and then go check-in at my hotel in Argyle Street, close to King’s Cross, to be reminded of the mornings and the breakfasts with Alex in that same neighborhood, holding hands and getting lost in one way streets and fenced parks, will be a pleasure. I will feel full of life, even if it’s bleak and damp in London. Because I’m happy there and nothing, absolutely nothing, will change that.

Right now my Oyster card is ready, and I can only look forward to a good weekend of indiepop, filming bands or not. I cheekily wonder if I am allowed to take photos too.

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Time for our obscure indiepop band of the week! This time let’s travel north of London, south of Edinburgh. Manchester.

The information about this band is scarce. I think it was Stephan who asked me about this band and so I looked around online. First finding some tracks on Youtube and then some entries on Discogs. I got hooked instantly to the song “Plenty” on Youtube. I immediately bought a copy of the “Plenty” mini-album. And now I’m recommending it to you. Still I need to manage to get all their other releases, especially their 7″. You know I’m a sucker for them.

First release was the “Cherish” single. With “Ordinary” on the B side. This is their only 7″ single as far as I know. The artwork is very simple. Mostly text over white background. On the back cover, a rose and the tracklist. It makes it clear there that they hailed from Wythenshawe.

Historically within Cheshire, in 1931 Wythenshawe was transferred to the City of Manchester, which had begun building a massive housing estate there in the 1920s to resolve the problem of its inner city slums. With an area of approximately 11 square miles (28 km2), Wythenshawe has often been referred to as one of the largest council housing estates in Europe, although a significant proportion of the estate is now privately owned housing.

This record was released on 1986 and put out by Lo-Type Records. Catalog number LYT001.

After this release there are two more listed on Discogs though there are no dates for them. One is the “Plenty” mini-album, and the other one is “Soundtrack of The Film”. Both being 12″s. The mini album was also released on Lo-Type Records (catalog LYT005) and included the songs  “Plenty”, “Finchley Bitch”, “Yellow Flame”, “Going Home”, “The Last American Socialist” and “Wilderness”. The record was distributed by Probe Plus.

The other release, “Soundtrack of the Film” was released by Big Terry Records (catalog FB001) and had the songs “Plenty”, “Emily Street”, “Rachel” and “Plenty (remix)”.

It seems there were more releases though according to the Phoenix Hairpins blog. They list a 12″ called “Weird Scenes Inside The Cyprus” and the “Wrecked” LP.  They also mention that Chris Yets (trumpets & vocals) is now a painter and part of the Stuckist movement.

From what I’ve heard on Youtube mostly, I can tell that they started as a post-punk band, it’s pretty clear on their first 7″. But as they evolved, they got janglier as you can see on “Plenty” or “Wilderness” for example. And you’d be surprised how nice these songs are. And it seems they evolved later a bit into Madchester in the early 1990s. I do wonder how I have never heard about them until recently. And these songs have been up there in Youtube since 2010! So, yeah, always living under a rock.

Then on Amazon.com I found this bit: The “POORS OF REIGN” were an indie band of the late 80’s early 90’s and consisted of: Eamonn Marrinan (Bass), Carl Mansell (Drums), Brainy (Vocals/Guitar), Darren Bullows (Vocals/Guitar, Chris Yates(Vocals/Trumpets) and Kevin Marrinan (Allsorts).

It also lists “Wrecked” as a 27 song CD. 27 songs! Really?

Also found this flyer on the Manchester District Music Archive. What a great lineup, Frankie Sidebottom, Man from Delmonte, Poors of Reign and The Woodentops. Gone to Earth too. But I don’t know them. They were playing at the International 2 on the 1st of December of 1987. A Tuesday.

It doesn’t seem that hard to track down their releases and for a very affordable price. Though I should save so I can have extra money in the UK. But we’ll see. I’d listen to the mini-album when it arrives and see how much I love it. The songs I heard on it already are really good. But, if you have spare copies, if you know anything else about this obscure Manchester band, their whereabouts or some anecdotes from back in the day, just scroll down a bit longer, and share with us on the comments section!

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Listen
Poors of Reign – Plenty

Outpatient: a patient who is not hospitalized overnight but who visits a hospital, clinic, or associated facility for diagnosis or treatment.

It’s Cloudberry news week at the blog. Next week I’ll tell another indiepop-related story, those that I know at least my friends Jennifer and Cristóbal like. I do enjoy them a lot too, and it feels good to make my memory work putting some of those experiences in writing. Though to tell the truth, I would love to write a novel, add some little fiction here and there. An indiepop novel. Though I must admit I have doubts about my English, if it’s cut to impress any publishing imprint out there. But anyways, let’s stop elucidating and move on because even though there are not many surprises, I have dates, facts and plenty of exciting facts for the upcoming weeks and months for Cloudberry.

As most of you know The Spook School 7″ is out since October 10th, but maybe many of you don’t know that the band put together a fun video for the A side, “Here We Go”, pasting together lots of small clips Naomi filmed on her phone during their travels to France and London, as well as images from their time in their homeland Scotland. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do so here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEVPHnHW7g

The other news has to do with the release date of the Strange Idols retrospective CD. That’s coming out on the 25th of October. So yes, next week! I hope you have already read the interview just below this post. I know, it’s long, but it’s great. One of the best interviews published in this blog for sure. And all members answered. So you get a point of view from all of them. Anyhow, the CDs are already at Cloudberry HQ since yesterday and today I started posting pre-orders.
I’ve been carrying the CD today on my pre-historic, cambric, cd-player, and it sounds fab. And it looks great as well. I feel I want to build just a shelf for the Cloudberry Cake releases. They look so nice altogether.

Then this week I’m sending to press the Nixon 7″ at last. And it seems the next Cake Kitchen release will be somehow related to Nixon too. But I can’t say anymore until it’s a bit more concrete. But you can make your own conjectures.

The fanzine is almost done. At last I got all the interviews and they’ve been nicely placed and styled. It will include interviews with Nixon, Caucus, Alpaca Sports, Bonne Idée, Youngfuck and The Spook School. The only thing I’m missing at the moment is my brainy editorial and a quick check throughout the whole zine if I find any typos. The CD tracklist is ready too and it looks like this:

a1. Go Violets – Runner
a2. The Spook School – Are You Who You Think You Are?
a3. Caucus – Party
b1. Pale Spectres – Better than Love
b2. Youngfuck – Högt

A very international lineup, right? We have Australia, Scotland, Japan, France and Sweden.

And last but not least, you can also preview a new track from an upcoming release! It’s a new 7″ by Germany’s Tripping the Light Fantastic with artwork by the lovely Karin Soderquist. You can download and enjoy “Heavy Heart” here too.

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And now let’s try to recover a band from the past. An obscure one like we always like: The Outpatients.

The first time I heard them was through that great blog The Jangle Pop Boutique. Whatever happened to it. I don’t know. But plenty of great gems were posted there as Youtube video (sans the video, just sound). It was great as it featured obscure bands, a little description, and no download links. True to my ideals.

The song that was posted on the blog was “Dog Eared Love”, a pretty pretty jangle pop gem, that one wonders how the hell you haven’t heard it before. And why it wasn’t ever properly released?! If the world was just a fair place…

Some time later I found “Pearl” on Youtube. And I was smitten. Another perfect jangly song. Instead of making things easier, it only made me more curious, the mystery of who were The Outpatients grew on me. I noticed that the guitar player had commented on one of the videos and immediately sent a message.  He was nice to reply the first time.  He said:
“Hi and thank you for your message.  Jinkers, 1980’s, such a long time ago.  However, yes, I would be delighted to help. I may have toooo much information for you.  I had a habit of recording things like the fella from the Rolling Stones, I belive he had the order they made at the chipper after their first rehearsal! Let me know what kind of stuff you need. “

Sadly after sending my overwhelming amount of questions he never got back to me.

Finglas/Glasnevin, Dublin. Never been there. Never been to Ireland period. But that’s where The Outpatients were from. It strikes me a bit as there are not that many Irish indiepop bands. I can think of Hey Paulette from the top of my head.

According to the Irish Rock Discography site, the band was active from 1987 to 1990 and was formed by Ronan, Pat, Greg O’Beirne (who was the one I got in touch with), and Noel.

There’s also a small bio there:
Finglas area quartet who recorded some demo tapes in 1987-88 described as “infectious tunes” by Hot Press. They appeared on Danceline’s Swimming Out of the Pool compilation in 1988 , had a single on Danceline in 1989 and split in 1990.

Greg O’Beirne later in Film (1991-93), Saltmine (1993-94) and The Ferromones (1994-97). Roadie Paul O’Brien later fromed Groov’in Statues.

They also list a discography:

– First demo tape (1988): there were four songs included: “Pearl”, “The Wildest Woman in Glasnevin” and “Rock Steady Freddy”.
– Second demo tape (1989): three songs on this one: “Pearl”, “Corner Shop” and “Dog Eared Love”
– Two tracks on the “Swimming Out of the Pool” compilation (1988). This was released by Danceline Records (catalog DLP 1001). The songs included were “Pearl” and “The Wildest Woman in Glasnevin”
– And an elusive 7″, that supposedly has “Pearl” on the A side, but no one knows what’s on the B side. It might have been released or might have not. If it was, it was on Danceline Records as well, catalog number CLS005 and would have been out on 1989. No idea if there was a picture sleeve for it.

And that’s more or less about it. There are some more MP3s to listen and also some comments from the band members on this blog post by the Dublin Opinion. But aside from that, there is no more information about The Outpatients, more importantly, we have no clue if they ever actually released that 7″!

If you know anything else about them, please, leave a comment! And if anyone has a spare copy of the “Swimming out of the Pool” comp, let me know too!

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Listen
The Outpatients – Pearl