As mentioned, I’m going through a Swedish indiepop phase. Remembering the days when I fell in love with that country, the bands, the music, the people. Good times.

Maybe many remember We Are Soldiers We Have Guns, Malin Dahlberg’s alter-ego. It was a good band who released a bunch of records. The music of the band could be indiepop but other times was a bit more experimental, more sparse.

We are Soldiers We Have Guns started in 2004 with a self-titled CDR EP on Yellow Mica Recordings (YMR 006), the label of our friends Martin Cannert and Christoffer Lärkner. That EP with that iconic drawing of a girl bleeding from a gun wound on the back had four songs, “Damn Those TV-Shows Damn Them Straight To Hell”, “My Hero”, “Jodi’s Noise” and “Psalm 190”.

The next year, 2005, there was a CDR that I believe was self-released. It was titled “Soldaterna #2” and had the tracks “Tourists in Our Hometown” and “The Ego is a Tricky Business”.

After that the band signs to Stereo Test Kit Records in the UK that was releasing some of Labrador Records music there like Club 8 or Laurel Music. With them Malin releases the band’s first min-album, also self-titled (STK CD008). The songs on this record are “Tourist in Our Hometown”, “Redefine”, “Damn Those TV Shows; Damn Them Straight to Hell”, “On Hold” and “Jodi’s Noise”. These were new recordings done at Min Vilja Är Folkets Studio in Mellanbygden, Västerbotten, and mastered by Mats Hammarström (from Isolation Years, do you remember them?) at Second Home Studio in Umeå.

On this record Malin who sang, played guitar, piano and organ, got some more people to help. Lovisa Nyström (from Two White Horses) played cello and Robert Tenevall (from Horseface, Knugen Faller, Royal Downfall and Totalt Jävla Mörker) played guitar. Jon Brännström, previously of the band Purusam and owner of the recording studio, was the producer and also played accordion.

2006 sees the band release “To Meet is Murder” on Stereo Test Kit (STK CD012). Again a mini-album or EP of 5 songs. These were “In the Morning We’re OK”, “The Line is a Dot to You” (which has a great video, check it out), “The Trick is to Love”, “Konservatism” and “Songs that No One Will Hear”. This time the record was mastered at Studio Folkhemmet by Petter Ericsson. The artwork was done by Emma Mierse and other than Malin Dahlberg, we see music playing credits for Jocke Rosén.

In 2007 We Are Soldiers We Have Guns releases their only vinyl release, a 7″ single on our friend Andreas from Celestial label Lavender Recordings (LAV7001). This beautiful single had two covers, “Wild World” by Cat Stevens on the A side and “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” by Marvin Gaye on the B side.

Then we jump to 2008. This is the proper We are Soldiers We Have Guns album. It was called “Get Up, Get Out” and is actually on Bandcamp so you can listen to it in its entirety. It came out on CD on Stereo Test Kit Records (STK CD019) and had the tracks “Better Days/More Alive”, “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”, “Rain, Heart, Scars”, “The Great Depression” (which has a top video made by Andreas Andersson and shot on 8mm in Gothenburg), “November”, “Create Your Own Psychosis!”, “Nina”, “Speak Up, Speak Out”, “Power” and “What Your Sister Said”.

The album was recorded at Folkhemmet and we see some more musicians involved in the album this time. Ramo Spatalovic (from Douglas Heart, Franke, Shipyard, The Greencoats and Melody Fields) played bass on “Power”, drums on “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”, “November” and “Create Your Own Psychosis!” and guitar on “The Great Depression”.

Susanna Brandin (from Winter Took His Life, Hunt, Rome is not a Town and Unikorus) played bass too on “The Great Depression”, “Nina” and “Speak Up, Speak Out”. Max Sjöholm (from Douglas Heart and Sambassadeur) played drums on “The Great Depression, “Nina” and “Speak Out, Speak Up”. Ulf Wederbrandt (from The Jam of the Year) played drums on “Rain, Heart, Scars” and piano on “Me Vs Time = Fixed Game”. Ulf was also the producer of the record.

The artwork is credited to Valero Doval, a Spanish designer.

And of course you noticed all the Douglas Heart’s connections, and it is true, Malin was also in Douglas Heart (and I wrote about them many years ago), as well as in Shipyard and Laurel Music.

When it comes to compilations the band appeared on a few. In 2005 the song “The Ego is a Tricky Business” was on Cosy Recordings CDR comp “Cosy Den Goes Lägenhet Ett År” (Cosy 001). Tht same year we see “Tourists in Our Hometown” on “Records Make Great Pets Vol. 1/Sweden” released by Stereo Kit Records (STK CD005) and the song “Anchorless” on Yellow Mica’s CDR compilation “Our Hearts Beat Out of Tune” (YMR021). Then in 2008 the song “Olis” was included in “Björn Kleinhenz – Quietly Happy and Deep Inside ‘Covers and Remixes'” released digitally as an MP3 compilation by IAT.Mp3.

Then there is another release on Discogs which I am not sure what it is. It says “The Fool on the Hill” which is a Beatles’ song and it seems We Are Soldiers We Have Guns covered it, I think just as an MP3.

Another interesting bit to share is that there is a live session on a tram, dating from 2009. We see the snowy city through the windows and we notice too that Malin is joined by two friends, not sure who they are though. It looks like these tram sessions were organized and recorded by Tom Jerry Boman at the time.

I find an interview with Malin dating from 2009 on a blog called The Ampeater Review. It is mentioned that there are 3 videos. So far I’ve only found 2 on Youtube. Which one was the third? Malin also talks about her influences including Delta 5, The Au-Pairs and The Go-Go’s.

Another interesting bit is that it seems she was recording something in Brooklyn at the time. I wonder what. Anyone knows?

And then what happened to Malin? What is she doing these days? Still involved with music? Was she ever in other bands after We Are Soldiers We Have Guns? Did she play live much? I couldn’t find much info on that field.

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Listen
We Have Soldiers We Have Guns – Electricity

I’m listening again Swedish bands from my youth. There are quite a few that haven’t made the blog and are still fresh in my memory. Stockholm’s Unarmed Enemies is one of them.

I remembered they had a video for their song “Show Me Your Plans“. I was surprised to see that 19 years ago, it was Starsgoneout who had uploaded it to Youtube. She was my colleague (and friend) who helped me write on my blog Mira el Péndulo. Time flies indeed.

Unarmed Enemies was a duo formed by Azi Ashourvan and Jordi Bergstam. They used to have a website but of course it doesn’t exist anymore. They released two records, both on the label Songs I Wish I Had Written. The Malmö label was quite fashionable at the time as they released Le Sport.

The band’s first release was a self-titled “Unarmed Enemies” EP (SIWIHW005) released in 2005. It had five songs, “Missing Out”, “Hustlers Recharged (Wheelcher)”, “Show Me Your Plans” and “Hustlers Recharged (Mr. Suitcase’s Armed Friends-Mix)”. The songs were mastered by Frederik Hellström.

The next year, 2006, saw the release of the CDR single “Show Me Your Plans” (SIWIHW008). The single had 2 tracks, “Show Me Your Plans (Radio Edit)” and “Show Me Your Plans (Le Sport Remix)”. From what I read, due to the video the band had to cut the original version of the song from 5 minutes to 3. That is the radio edit. Then the video, we learn, was recorded partly in Paris. Good life!

Discogs also lists “On Track” as a digital release from 2008 on a label called Kitty Litter MP3 (KLMP302). This one has the title track and a remix of it called “On Track (Mr. Suitcase Derailed Edit)”.

Other than these releases the electropop band had a few songs on compilations. “Missing Out” was included in “Songs I Wish I Had Written” released by that same name label as a promo CDR. Then they had a song called “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in a 2005 digital compilation called “Euro X-Mas EP”. Lastly their song “Show Me Your Plans” was on the CD comp “Pophopp 2006” released by Dagens Nyheter (DN006). This last one is quite interesting as this was a release by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter and included some great bands like Loveninjas, I’m From Barcelona, Sarto and more.

Now, interestingly enough on Youtube there are more songs by the band. My friend David from Spain has uploaded a cover of The Go-Betweens’ “Going Blind“, “Consume” and “Binging“. I believe these three tracks are unreleased still.

I look for more info about the band members. I find a Soundcloud for Jordi. It hasn’t been updated for a while.He called himself Jordisaurus. I also believe he is a psychologist these days.

And that’s it. That’s what’s online about this duo. Do you remember them?

Then a Soundcloud for the band, last updated 6 years ago. There are quite a few unreleased tracks it seems. There is “Disco” and “Boat” which are new to me.There is also “Waiting for the Happy Ending”.

I see some remixes of the band has done too like one for Mr. Suitcase called “Christmas Leftovers (Unarmed Enemies’ Starving Gourmand Remix)” or one for Le Sport called “I Comes Before U (Unarmed Enemies’ G-Mix)”. And there are more too.

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Listen
Unarmed Enemies – Show Me Your Plans

D’Estrellitas Power was a short lived band from Zaragoza, Spain, that was active just between 1999 and 2000. It was formed by Raquel Palacio, David Sanz and Luis Javier Velilla and released a superb EP called “En el Año 2000” on Jabalina Música (JAB-016) in, needless to say, the year 2000.

Raquel and David were also members of the band Cassino. Actually it seems D’Estrellitas Power short life has to do with Cassino, as them two wanted to focus more on that band and their releases.

After the demise of the band Luis Javier formed the band Alice. He was also on Solo Va, Jafi Marvel and Winter Note.

In any case, we got more than a handful of songs by D’Estrellitas Power, terrific songs to be honest, punchy and fun. The songs on the record were “Siempre en Jueves”, “Estamos en Verano”, “Empanados Fritos”, “Todo da Vueltas”, “Maquillaje” and En el Año 2000″. It is worth mentioning that “Maquillaje” is a cover of the classic song by Mecano.

The song “En el Año 2000” would also appear on a double CD compilation called “Don Diablo Disco I” that was released by El Diablo! Discos (EDD002) in 2000.

That same year the band had the song “Un Día Más” in a compilation called “El Sol Sale Para Todos” that Jabalina (JAN-2017) put out. This song is perhaps my favourite, so good!

As mentioned the band was short-lived but they did get quite a lot of attention by the Spanish radio and press at the time. I believe they also played the Lemon Pop festival in Murcia.

The only other interesting bit I have found is that there is an extended version of the song “Siempre en Jueves” that is about 8 minutes long. David Sanz has uploaded that track to Youtube.

Very little written about them, just the same bio over and over online. Wonder if they had more songs. And yeah, would love to hear of any memories people may have of them!

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D’Estrellitas Power – Un Día Más

I’m going back to some classics. Classics in my book. Classics that I haven’t got around in the blog. Have to be fair to all that great music I remember from the early 2000s. That’s when I got involved for real with music. And I have a terrible sense of nostalgia of that period especially of the Swedish indiepop scene then.

My Enemy is a band that was formed in 2004 and had 3 releases in 2005. And then disappeared. Their tracks were great, and you wonder what they did after. Maybe I’ll find out.

The band was formed in the great town of Gothenburg, a town I want to go back of course. They line-up of the band featured Helena Jäderberg on vocals and guitar, Samira Englund on bass, keyboard and vocals and Leonel Jäderberg on keyboars, guitars and vocals. Were Leonel and Helena siblings?

The band first release came out on a label called Vapen & Godis. I have forgotten about it! This label released also Tokyo Eye and Otur. The label, whose name translates to “weapon and candies”, released the “Elil EP” as their first ever release, having catalog number V&G001. It had 5 songs, “Can’t Blame You”, “Gullvivas Koloni”, “Don’t Need!”, “Add Some Spiders” and “Grönland”. The artwork was done by Veronica Stenberg and the songs were mastered and mixed by Peter Åhrberg from the bands THe Solar Lodge and Whippet.

Shortly after the band releases the “Roo EP”. This one came out on the fantastic Yellow Mica Recordings of our friend Martin Cannert of The Faintest Ideas. The EP was a CDR and had four songs, “My Time Coming”, “Khreis”, “Catch One Word” and “Bothers Me”.

Then came “Khreis” a new CDR single on Vapen & Godis (V*G003). This one had “Khreis (Original Mix)”, “Khreis (Tommy Eld Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Johan Fotmeijer Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Claudia’s Shoe-gazer Remix)”, “My Time Coming (Mein Feind Remix)” and a cover of Kim Wilde’s “Cambodia”.

The band covered “What is Love”, Haddaway’s big hit of the 90s, for a 2006 ompilation called “This is Love” that was released by Dig Your Own Grave (DIG003) that incldued other familiar bands like Komon, The Mexicos or Bare Knees.

Last but not least the band did a video for the song “Khreis” which I uploaded to Youtube 19 years ago. It is still there gladly and sounding brilliant.

I look for other music projects from the band members on Dicogs. I see that Helena had contributed backing vocals to an album by Nicke Lurig. There is a Soundcloud account by someone with her name with some nice music. Could it be her?

Now Leonel looks to have a website. Here he shows his projects as he is a composer, producer and mixer. There is a bit of a history about him here. It mentions that he was originally from Hälsingland in the north of Sweden but moved to Gothenburg in 2000. He was in a band called Den and toured Germany with the band Incognito Pop. Here he confirms Helena was his sister and that he founded the label Vapen & Godis. Then he started recording under the name Tommy Eld. Wow! Great info!

Samira Englund looks like a painter these days. Her art looks amazing I must say. She was from Stockholm and ended in Gothenburg to study at the Gothenburg Art School.

It looks like My Enemy continued being cool after the band split. That’s really brilliant.

I do wonder one thing, I didn’t find much information about the band playing live, did they play much? And of course, as always I am curious if there are still unreleased songs by them out there…

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My Enemy – Khreis

++ Then there was a blog that mentions that you may have released a track on a single alongside March to the Grave. But it seems the blogger is just speculating. Is this something real?

Pure speculation. I don’t even know who March to the Grave are. Or is. Or were.

I miss so much to release records, to do label stuff, be in touch with bands. Sadly this seems like a dream now. Is anyone buying records still? Who is paying $40 for an LP? I feel the good old days are gone. One of my dream projects was to do a compilation of Australian indiepop bands from the late 80s, early 90s and when I discover a band that could have fitted the bill I just have this sense of excitement mixed with impotence that is hard to describe.

Batswing Saloon was a late 80s band from Brisbane, Australia. They released just one record, in 1988, a 7″ single titled “Harold and Maude”.

The record included the title song “Harold and Maude” on the A side and “Split Level World” on the B side. It came out on Cosmic Records (BSW01) which probably was the band’s own label. The band’s logo is on the front sleeve, a logo taken from Batman clearly. On the back of the sleeve a band photo with some information about themselves. This sleeve was designed by Michelle.

So we learn the band was formed by Jenny May on bass, Sue Holman on drums, Leanne Holman and Michelle Bowden on guitar and Liza McDonald on vocals. The band co-produced the record with Ian Wadley who had been in many bands including Dragster or Small World Experience. The single was recorded on a 4-track at the band’s practice room in the old Target building in Fortitude Valley.

One thing that does surprises one is that the band was all female. We know that some of the girls had been involved in bands like Michelle Bowden was afterwards on Chopper Division, Gravelrash, The Worm Turns and Koko Uzi or Sue Holman who also played in Cut.

The Brisbane Music Graveyard Bandcamp account has uploaded the two tracks of the single. Here there is more information about them. We learn that the band was formed in 1986 and it mentions that the single sold well in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Germany and New York. The title song reached number 12 on the 4ZZZ Hot 100 radio programme, and the band was voted the 4th best new independent band in the RAM readers poll in 1988.

It seems that originally the vocalist was Anne Deller but she left in 1987 and that’s when Liza joined.

About gigs we see that the band played especially around Brisbane and South East Queensland where they supported Hunters and Collectors, TISM and the Hoodoo Gurus.

The band would split up in 1990.

Then I find a Soundcloud account for Sue Mikkelsen. Could it be Sue Holman? Maybe married name? Here there is the single too. But there is another little treasure, a beautiful Batswing Saloon song called “Secret Mile”. Wonder where that one came from? A demo? An outtake from the single recordings? Or a future single that never happened?

I continue searching. I find a post on a blog called Striped Sunlight dating from 2011. Here I look at the comments sections. I learn that the band played at the Brisbane Uni Rec Club in 1988. Someone also mentions that he has a live video of the band. I wonder if it made it to Youtube… don’t think so.

The only other thing worth knowing is that their song “Harold and Maude” appeared on the compilation “Behind the Banana Curtain 1975-2000”  that was released as a double CD by Valve Records and East West in 2000. In this comp they appear alongside so many important Aussie bands including the Go-Betweens, The Apartments and more.

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Batswing Saloon – Secret Mile

There are a couple of tracks from the US based band Paris Working on Soundcloud. They are on an account by someone under the alias of whoopingkafka. What can we find out about this band?

The tracks are “Faith” and “Baby Camille“. Both are good tracks, but I must say that my favourite is the latter, it is more poppy. The songs also date from early in the 80s, before indiepop was even born, so keep that in mind.

“Faith” was recorded in 1982 at Tom Mallon Studios. Where is that? According to Discogs it was located in San Francisco. We know that the song was produced by Peter Woods and Michael Belfer. On top of it all we also have the names of the people that were part of the recording.

Gregory Griffith was on vocals and guitar, Paul Ramont on vocals and guitar, Dan Magazin on backing vocals and keys, Steve Winkle on bass, Richard Doty on drums, Benjami Bossi and Norman Salant both on sax. Safe to assume the band was formed by Gregory, Paul, Dan, Steve and Richard?

I look for more info. I find that the name Paris Working is most probably named after a period of intense ritual involving strong drug use in which the gods Mercury and Jupiter are invoked. Is that so?

Discogs has a 12″ vinyl listed dating from 1983. It is a self-titled release and is listed as a goth rock, synth-pop, minimal EP. It came out on Fatal Marble Records (FM 001). This is the only release on this label, could it be a self-release?

The tracks on it are “Movies of You”, “Everything is Coming After” and “Pieces of Heaven” on the A side and “Sleep” and “The Film of Breakdown” on the B side. Now the band members include Ken Weller on bass. We also see two new drummers listed, Phil Hertz and Dave Carothers (who is credited as a guest, thanking his other band Mutants). The producer for the record was Steve Fisk. The engineers were Dr Bob and Gary Clayton. the songs were recorded at the Tom Mallon Studios again.

Some of these songs are on Youtube as well as some other that are unreleased and they are good. Here are “Pieces of Heaven“, “Everything is Coming After“, “Sleep“, “It’s a Wonderful Life“, “Staples“, “Movies of You“.

I look if the band members had been in other bands. Dan Magazin had been in Surface Music, Gregory Griffith on Martian Lamps, Ken Weller on Seven Day Diary and Voice Farm, Phil Hertz on Scientists.

The band also appeared on compilations. Their song “Sleep” was on the tape compilation “Sub Pop 9” released by Sub Pop(S/Pop 9) in 1983. Then “Downtown” was on “On-Slaught No. 6” a 1985 cassette comp released by Idiosyncratics. This was a tape that came accompanying the 6th issue of On-Slaught magazine. Lastly the track “I Won’t be Dancing” appeared on the German vinyl compilation “Voices from North America” that was released by Temporary Music (TM001) in 1986.

I learn too that the band hailed from Berkeley, close to San Francisco, in California.

There seems to be another band of the same name hailing from the UK. So it is a bit difficult not to confuse some of the info online. But I am confident what I shared is correct.

So I wonder, what other information we can find about them? They had some very good songs, and you wonder why their name is not more known. Did they play live much? Did they play outside of California? Anyone remembers them?

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Paris Working – Pieces of Heaven

Benton is a city in and the county seat of Franklin County, Illinois. The population was 6,709 at the 2020 census. In 1839, Franklin County was split roughly in half and the county seat was permanently fixed “at a hill at the south end of Rowling’s Prairie”, the site of the future city of Benton. Benton’s namesake is Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. The village of Benton was organized in 1841 on 20 acres (8.1 ha) of property donated by John Ewing and Walter S. Akin. In 1902, the village became a city, and incorporated under the mayor/commissioner form of government.

Benton, today with a population of 6,709 people, that’s where we are heading today.

The band Cruces, formed by Derek Cook on vocals, Christopher Fouke on guitars, Danny Wilson on bass and Matt Arms on drums, was around in the early 90s it. They released a tape album in 1991 called “Painted Grey”.

The name of the band seems to be in Spanish and would translate to Crosses. I do a little bit of digging and find a Youtube channel for Chris Fouke were he has uploaded tracks from the album as well of many of his own videos showing his own guitars. It looks like he makes industrial guitars and here in this channel he demoes lap steel playing in different styles.

The songs in the album are “Tapestry of Change“, “A Summer Afternoon“, “The Cabin Song”, “Shade Me Grey“, “Dear Harriet” and “To Touch so Fine” on the A side and “Remember Me”, “The Forbidden“, “Skin“, “So There“, “Peaceful Rock”, “I Tell Myself”, “Thirteen Hours” on the B side. I have linked the ones that are on Youtube. It is important to mention too that “Dear Harriet” is a tribute song to Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays.

The songs from the album were recorded at different periods. So “Thirteen Hours” is from October 1990, “Shade My Grey” and “The Cabin Song” from November 1990, “To Touch So Fire” from December 1990, “Peaceful Rock” from January 1991, “Remember Me” from February 1991, “Skin”, “The Forbidden”, “Dear Harriet” and “So There” from March 1991, “Tapestry of Change” and “A Summer Afternoon” from April 1991 and “I Tell Myself” from June 1991.

The other bit of information we have is that the album was produced by the band and Scott Munson. Scott also is credited as the engineer. The songs were recorded and mixed at Soundcore Studio in Carbondale, Illinois.

The design of the cassette sleeve was done by Todd Freeman and Derek Cook with art by Derek Cook and Christopher Fouke.

On Discogs I looked if any of the band members were listed in other bands, but no, no other bands show up.

And that’s all I could find about them. Anyone remembers them? Did they play much live? Are there any other recordings by the band?

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Cruces – Dear Harriet

Years ago I interviewed Simon Parker about the band he had been in while in Chichester, The Violet Trade. On this interviewed he told me when asking him about other bands he had been involved with:

This is always a good video to share: Colourburst (with me singing a punked up version of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’) which got shown on late night ITV twice over the yuletide of 1995. We never did get permission to cover this, but I reckon George and Andrew would have liked it!).

Colourburst put out 2 vinyl singles (one good one bad) and then fragmented into Fruit Machine, fronted by Jennie Cruse (Fisher-Z) and Rachel Bor (Dolly Mixture).

Gary left Fruit Machine who were then signed to producer Steve Lovell (Blur, Julian Cope) . The remnants of this band then morphed into Lumina but bad luck and industry dogma thwarted these projects and eventually saw me take a break from music before returning a year or so later with Villareal.

It took me quite a while then to share here the music of the Brighton band Fruit Machine. Simon was the bassist, guitarist and keyboardist on the band. Maybe I should reach out and ask for a new interview about  Fruit Machine. I really enjoyed all the songs on their Bandcamp.

Indeed, on Bandcamp they have uploaded a trove of recordings, 18 in total, that include demos but also an unfinished album the band recorded between 1998 and 1999. The songs from this album remain in rough mix format but still worth listening for sure.

All these recordings date from 1995 to 1999. I’m going to break the tracks in a few categories, if they are from the album, demos or remixes.
From the album: “Monte Carlo”, “Oxygen”, “Would You do the Same”, “The World is Upside Down”, “Sickly Blue”, “Electric”, “C-Drift”, “(This Had Better Not Be a) Dream” and “Everybody Needs a Reason.”
Demos: “Ariel”, “In Colour”, “All Fall Down”, “Sickly Blue”, “Monte Carlo” and “Frog.”
Remixes: “Electric (Nathan Ben 240 Volt Mix)”, “Mote Carlo (Remix)” and “Monte Carlo (Chaos Remix).”

The band was formed by Simon as mentioned but also featured Jennie Cruse on vocals, backing vocals and keyboards, Rachel Bor on guitars, keyboards and backing vocals and Nick Hopkin on drums and loops.

On the recordings we also see Gary Capelin who played drums on the demo tracks and James Portinari who played guitar on the demos.

The producer of the songs were Steve Lovell and Pete Jones.

I saw a piece written by Simon on Vinyl Revolution, mentioning that the German label Marina was a big fan of Fruit Machine. Why didn’t they release it then?! Also we learn that at the point the band was going him and Jennie were together as boyfriend/girlfriend.  And what’s Vinyl Revolution? Simon explained to me last time:

Vinyl Revolution is at the heart of everything we do! It was actually the name of the two record shops that my partner and I set up and ran between 2016-2019. It was a dream come true for me to own my own record store and we had locations in Tunbridge Wells and Brighton. But running a shop is very difficult these days due to dodgy landlords and extortionate business rates and the rise of Amazon etc.  But despite this, Vinyl Revolution was very popular and got a lot of great press, including a brilliant feature in The Independent which said we were the best record shop in Brighton!

But when Brexit came along, Rachel and I headed for France and started looking into ways to make vinyl records more sustainable. The product of this all work is NAKED Record Club and we are out there doing it right now!

Now I would suggest listening to Fruit Machine, rediscover this lost band which has some ace tracks,
“All Fall Down” is a corker, but do check all of them out. If I could suggest checking out the demos first, please do. I find them punchier and poppier than the album tracks, but that’s just me.

Many questions are still to be asked. Why didnt their songs got released properly? Did they play live much? Any Brighton friends remember them?

Enjoy!

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Fruit Machine – All Fall Down (demo)

Holger Fath-Tati is the man behind the Berlin-based project Graf Tati. I found out about their music many years ago thanks to Martin from Brideshead who also co-runs the great Apricot Records. It is this label that released the project’s first album “Lind” back in 2007.

As mentioned “Lind” came in 2007 on Apricot (APRICD 039) as a CD album of ten songs. These were “Der Tag Beginnt”, “Zurück Zu Mir”, “Sommerregen”, “Teenage Walhalla”, “Bilbao”, “Trübseligkeit”, “Glücklich Mit Der Bachmann”, “Glaubst Du an Die Liebe” and “Neopren”. The whole album is available to listen to on Soundcloud. As you’ll notice it is a very nice indiepop album with influences from bossa especially.

On digital platforms there is also a compilation called “Cinema Romantics” from 2023 which includes some new Graf Tati songs as well as some by other artists like Zero Solaris, Miss Django and Cécile Dupaquier, which is worth checking out. There is a story about this record where it says that it all started in a Berlin bar when Zero Solaris and Graf Tati were having some beers. While chatting and drinking they figured out they wanted to write about their favourite actress, make a record about them, actresses like Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau, Charlotte Rampling and more. The songs by Graf Tati are “J.M.”, “The Look”, “Natürlich Ich”, “Romy Schneider – Cinema Romantics – Version”, “Foxy” and “Love Streams”. This album was released on vinyl as far as I know.

I also find another album called “Graf Tati & Les Alles”. Maybe a collaboration? This one dates from 2019 and includes 10 songs. 5 on each side of the record. “Beginner”, “Heroin Topmodel”, “Schuft DS”, “Apropos Pop” and “Le Slow” on the A side and “Romy Schneider”, “Wenn Es So Was Gibt”, “Madchen Hinter Glas”, “Leben Konnte” and “Dos a Dos” on the B side.

The only other thing I could find is that a collaboration between Graf Tati and Cécile Dupaquier was included in the compilation double CD “10 Jahre Club 49 – Ihr Seid Solche Fucker”. This collaboration was the song “Gilles” and was included in this double CD from 2015 released by the club itself, Club 49 Berlin.

Berlin friends probably are familiar with this artist. I do wonder too if he had been involved in bands prior to Graf Tati. I have the inkling that he might have. Who would know?

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Listen
Graf Tati – Glaubst Du an die Liebe