16
Oct

:: The Intrynsics

author: Roque       category: recommended

There’s a Bandcamp with three tapes by The Intrynsics, a late 80s Boston, U.S., indiepop band.

That’s quite a trove. I wonder though if all of these tapes were all the recorded output of this four piece. Let’s see what info we can find.

The first tape dates from 1987 and was titled “Pizza and Faerie Tales”. It was recorded at Acme Studios in Mamaroneck, NY, in May of 1986 and August of 1987 with producer Peter Denenberg. The songs on it were “As If I Were You”, “Mistake”, “From You”, “Means of the Cure” and “In Sue’s Room”.

The second tape was self-titled. Recorded and released in the summer of 1989, it was produced by Sean Slade at Fort Apache South in Boston. This tape includes an address, Allston, Massachusetts. That is a neighborhood in Boston, south of the Charles River. In this neighborhood is the Harvard Business School.

Five songs appear on this tape, “Crusade”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Too Much for Words”, “Repetition” and “Distortion”.

The third tape dates from August 31, 1990. This tape was again produced by Sean Slade at Fort Apache South. Five songs again, “Foregone Conclusion”, “Cover”, “What Does it Take (Michael’s Song)”, “Inside Out” and “Nineteen”, were included in it. This tape was titled “The Story of Hair”.

I keep looking. I see that The Intrynsics played on September 5, 1989, the venue The Channel. That evening they played in the same bill as T.V. Dream, What We Like, Work Force and The Balls.

Then according to Discogs the band contributed two songs to “SAWPIT – A Compilation”. This compilation was released by Bolt Records (BOLT007) in 1993. The songs by The Intrynsics are “Behind You” and “In the Basement”.

Then I finally find a name. George Faulkner. He was a member of The Intrynsics and was also behind Bolt Records, the one that released the compilation. George was also in NYC band The Rabies as well as The Mod Squad, The Juicemen and Junkstar.

Cool!

Now, who were the other members? Where are they now? Why didn’t they release any proper records? I’d love to find more. The sound of this band is really good!

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Listen
The Intrynsics – Means of the Cure

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12
Oct

:: The Adored

author: Roque       category: recommended

Formed by Damien “Smeg” Channing on vocals, Jason Channing on guitar, Richard Lewis on drums and… the owner of the Soundcloud account that has The Adored songs… he left no name.

That’s great. I wonder why would anyone do that? I find the pretty song “Atom Bomb Subculture” and I think this is superb, I need to find more. But yeah, the details are incomplete.

We know though that the song was recorded in 1988.

There is another track by this band. One called “Heading for a Wall“. This one also dating from 1988. An interesting thing here is that I do find that the person behind this Soundcloud had the last name Allcock.

And two more, “Gone to Seed” and “Maybe the World Will Change Tonight” also both from 1988.

In this account there are songs since as early as 1984 and as late as 1997. Sadly there are not many mentions of the bands that made these songs.

We know this mystery Allcock was in other bands like Sulphate. The Great Family of Man, The Funk Furious Five and Delphi.

We also know that this bands hailed from the UK.

I look for the band members and I think I may be in the right path. Perhaps. I find that there were a Jason Channing and a Damion Channing in a band. Not Damien, but Damion. But MAYBE? This band was called The Blocked and were around in the mid 90s. They hailed from Newport, Wales.

I wonder if my detective instinct is right here. The dates make sense. The instruments they play also seem to be correct.

What is true though is that I can’t find anything about The Adored, nor about the mysterious Allcock who I saw went under the name Delphi on a few Youtube videos.

Anyone remember them?

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Listen
The Adored – Atom Bomb Subculture

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10
Oct

:: Here Comes Everybody

author: Roque       category: recommended

Many years ago I interviewed Richard Ramage from The Anyways. He mentioned a band he was in called Here Comes Everybody…

The Anyways wasn’t my first band. I’d done cover versions in a school band, then had a one-gig punk incarnation in 1978 (Dick Terminal and the Deathbeds, no less). Things really got going when I joined a local Oxford band called Discontinued Lines, which morphed into Ward 10 in the early 80s. After the demise of that, Pete Lock (the drummer from those two bands) and I got together with Angus Stevenson, Peter Momtchiloff and Valerie Howell – Here Comes Everybody was the result. It was kind of a springboard for Angus joining Razorcuts, Peter M forming Talulah Gosh with Amelia Fletcher, and Pete L and me starting up The Anyways. As for recordings, I believe there might be one track by Here Comes Everybody on a MySpace site if you can still find it! There is also some footage in Jon Spira’s 2009 Oxford music film, Anyone Can Play Guitar.

Clearly they had named themselves after The Wake’s album “Here Comes Everybody”. Richard even says that that record changed everything.

I had tried to find their Myspace page with no luck. I haven’t been able to listen to any recordings by the band. But then last year Pete Lock, the drummer, got in touch with me.

He had been in The Relationships (just like Richard), The Black Cillas and was friends with The Clamheads and Borgnine. The great thing was that he shared a Youtube account that had three live songs by Here Comes Everybody!

They all date from 1985 and were recorded in autumn of that year at the Pegasus Theatre in Oxford. They are “Hattie’s House“, “My Grey Heaven” and “The Chiming“.

Yes, the band hailed from Oxford and was sort of a supergroup, right?

I had asked Pete if he was keen to do an interview, but he felt more of a team player in the bands. So maybe I should ask Richard. It’s been a while since we have emailed though…

The other good thing about Pete Lock was that he shared a CD with me called “Here Comes Everybody: A City Father’s Collection”. This CD was a compilation of Oxford bands that came out in 2008. There’s a catalog number JMP091058.

The first track on this compilation is “Here Comes Everybody” by Here Comes Everybody. This song was recorded on a Portastudio 244 and was written by Peter Momtchiloff in 1986.

The band didn’t release anything sadly. This is the only song that was released. And it was 20 years after the facts.

One detail that I can add thanks to the CD booklet is what each member played. So Richard Ramage was on vocals and guitar, Angus Stevenson was on lead guitar, Peter Momtchiloff was on bass, Valerie Howell on vocals and Pete Lock on drums.

The one thing that I am trying to track down is the “Anyone Can Play Guitar” rockumentary about the Oxford scene that was directed bby Jon Spira. Anyone has a link to it?

That’s all I have about this really cool band. Would have been fantastic to see them live. Would be great to listen to more recordings (if they exist!). I know very little but still, I am very curious. Maybe some of my Oxford friends remember them?

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Listen
Here Comes Everybody – Here Comes Everybody

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05
Oct

:: Terrible Head Cream

author: Roque       category: recommended

We travel  to Rio de Janeiro. It is 1994. It is the summer. Later that year Brazil would be World Cup Champions for the 4th time.

It is at this time that Zezinho, Marcelo Pires and Alexandre “Dub” decided they wanted to record some songs. When at the studio they notice they are lacking something in their sound, a second guitar. Well, no problem, Jorge who works at this particular studio (don’t know the name) can play the guitar. Now we have a four-piece. Terrible Head Cream was born.

On Soundcloud there are recordings from this period. An album called “Like a Blue Olive” dates from 1994. I don’t know if this was properly released. I don’t think it was. But 8 songs were recorded: “After and Before”, “Leticia”, “Roundabout”, “Alliviated”, “Ália”, “Light Now”, “Pumpkin Days” and “Sibyl Vane”.

The band’s shoegaze influences shine on these tracks.

In 1995 the band becomes a trio as “Dub” leaves the project and continue recording demo tapes. More tapes are recorded like “Pink Smoke / Orange Vodka” that had twelve tracks: “Anything”, “In the Cold”, “So Close to You”, “Stay in my Dream”, ” Summer Days”, “Burning Eyes”, “I’m Going to Love You”, “The Smile of a Dead”, “Blood Yawner”, “Ália”, “Losen Senteces to You” and “Untitled”. “Dub” still played bass on thesee reccordings.

From what I understand another tape was recorded in 1996 called “Do What You Want” but I don’t think the songs are on Soundcloud. On this last one the bassist was Duda, an old friend of the band that used to play soul music.

All of these demo tapes were distributed by the legendary Brazilian label Midsummer Madness.

During their time the band played few gigs, just 4 total. They were at Sacristia, Sem Destino, Bang! and a pub in the city’s Zona Oesta alongside the band Cigarettes.

In 1997 Francisco Kraus, bassist of the classic band Second Come, would join them as their bassist…

And then silence..

Well not really. We know that Marcelo Pires and Francisco Kraus would start a new band called Jess Saes, but that is another story.

Who do my carioca friends remember Terrible Head Cream? Would love to learn more about this band!

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Listen
Terrible Head Cream – The Smile of a Dead

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04
Oct

:: The Violet Trade

author: Roque       category: interviews

Thanks so much to Simon Parker for the interview! I wrote about the Chichester band Violet Trade on the blog not too long ago, and through Facebook Simon got in touch and offered to answer all my questions! And he did! It has been great to hear that he continues to be involved with music with his record label and that soon there will be a digital reissue of his autobiography. On top of all that, there are many Bandcamp links here that you should check out that have music from many of his different bands. Also check out this link to see some rare photos of the Violet Trade! Very cool! Hope you enjoy this great interview!

++ Hi Simon! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?

Hello Roque! Thank you for discovering the music of The Violet Trade! Thirty three years after it was first recorded! I feel older but not old! Yes I have always been involved with music one way or another for what seems like all of my life! My current involvement is with NAKED Record Club which is the world’s first eco-record label. We take great indie albums and press them sustainably without harmful chemicals or huge amounts of water and electricity.  The process we use is brand new technology and sounds amazing! To date we have released albums by Babybird, Beezewax, Lowgold, The Chesterfields and Stars with our 6th release confirmed as Tahiti 80’s wonderful ‘Ballroom’ album.

Now that NAKED Record Club is up and running I hope to find time to return to my 2 bands

Villareal and Lightning Dept .

Villareal records take a long time to make and usually involves me rounding up string players, brass sections and various talented musicians to add to my studio sketches of songs (listen to https://villareal1.bandcamp.com/album/unravelling for an idea of how this sounds!).

Lightning Dept are the polar opposite of this and record short, sharp albums only ever using first or second takes. This process takes no longer than 2 days for recording of a whole album and then a further 1 day for mixing. The first album is here: https://lightningdept1.bandcamp.com/album/things-keep-blowing-up

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?

My first musical memory was hearing Marc Bolan/ T.Rex ‘Ride A White Swan’ and watching ‘Top of The Pops’ on TV on a Thursday evening. Musicians looked like they came from other planets! Watching the show was a real family affair although my sisters music tastes were routinely awful. My first instrument would have been the record player because I spent a lot of time listening to my parents record collection (Beach Boys, Electric Light Orchestra and Simon & Garfunkel). Finally I started buying my own records as an eleven year old circa 1979.  The Boomtown Rats ‘Fine Art of Surfacing’ and XTC ‘Black Sea’ (1980) were my two favourite albums when I started secondary school. But I was also an avid 7” single collector. I now have over 2500 singles including many punk, new wave and indie gems alongside a lot of not quite so cool 80’s and 90’s howlers. When I was thirteen I started saving for an electric guitar because the tennis racket I was prancing about with didn’t really have the same effect. I think I was 14 when I bought a second-hand Satelite, similar to this but all in black

I was self-taught and gave up about a year later because the guitar neck was so hopelessly warped and unplayable. I invested in the future, which at the time was a Casio PT-50 mono keyboard.

It was the time of the synth becoming very popular (1983) and I liked the fact I didn’t have to actually fret any notes to make a musical sound but I quickly got bored and eventually went back to learning the guitar. This time I persevered with all the major and minor chords and then started writing my own songs in 1985/6. Lyrics always came easy to me as English was the only subject I was good at during my school years. By 1987, I had moved to bass because nobody else wanted to play it in those fledgling bands I formed prior to The Violet Trade. I was already in love with The Cure and in particular, Simon Gallup’s style of bass playing. Ditto Peter Hook from New Order and Mike Mills from R.E.M. He’s very underrated as a bass player, isn’t he?

++ Had you been in other bands before The Violet Trade? What about the other band members? Are there any songs recorded?

My school band in 1982 was called ‘The Wasps’ but this generally involved no more than wearing sunglasses indoors and posing for photographs.  My mate Phil Bennett and I had a bedroom band called ‘October Fallen’ in 1986/7 and my first ‘proper’ band (i.e. one that had a drum kit and the need for a rehearsal room) was called ‘Frantic Heads’ (1987/8). This quickly morphed into ‘Onion Johnny’ (1988/89). There are recordings, not many of which are online but the soundtrack to my ‘Road To Nowhere (Mishaps of an Indie Musician)’ biography DOES let the world hear the full horror of a few of these very early recordings https://villareal1.bandcamp.com/album/road-to-nowhere-the-free-listening-companion

++ Where were you from originally?

I grew up in Chichester, West Sussex UK. It was a very boring cathedral city which did its best to forget about anybody under the age of 65. Probably still does…

++ How was Chichester at the time of The Violet Trade? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

In Chichester you had to make your own entertainment. The Violet Trade started rehearsing at the end of 1989. By February 1990 we were playing live locally in youth clubs and leisure centres(!) because the pubs didn’t want bands playing original material. I spent most of my life looking for places to play or hanging out in record stores. I recall that ‘Shattered Records’ in Chichester and ‘Domino’ in Portsmouth were treasure troves of great indie releases.

Other than that I religiously scoured the bargains bins of Our Price, WH Smiths and Woolworths like many other devoted but hard-up record collectors did.

Violet Trade were heavily influenced by the growing indie scene (Charlatans, House of Love, Wedding Present, Pixies, Cure, REM etc) and at this time there was nowhere to go to hear this sort of music in Chichester. So myself and Violet Trade manager Mark Mason took our lives into our own hands and went to a biker pub on the outskirts of town. This place was called the Coach and Horses in Westhampnett and they only ever put on heavy rock or covers bands. But we convinced the pub manager to give us a mid-week shot on the proviso if we bring a decent crowd he would give us a monthly weekend residency. We filled the venue and kick-started an indie scene in our hometown, even though the pub was a good couple of miles outside of the town centre! We had our own DJ’s (Pete Wood and Tim Kelly AKA ‘DiscoSexHeaven’) and we chose our own support bands from a small but perfectly formed scene of like-minded indie kids.

++ Were there any other good bands in your area?

We loved Amazing Windmills from Portsmouth, who later went on to become ‘Velcro’ but shout out’s must also go to: Secondhand Daylight, Pyramid of Johnny, The Green Ray, Squelch, The Daniel Grade and The Helicopter Spies.

++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process?

The singer and I shared the same Christian name but no, we were not brothers!! The band was certainly like a dysfunctional family unit though, especially after we all started sharing a house in Chichester! I came from Onion Johnny who had played a handful of ragged shows in 1988-89. I met Simon McKay (vocals, guitar) who wanted to start a band after seeing us play live in the summer of 1989. We started hanging out together and it just became a natural evolution for us to form a band. We never auditioned anybody in the usual way, but you did have to pledge a lifelong allegiance to Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’ album which was only a couple of years old at this point and on the verge of being written off forever as a work of folly that ended their career! How times change!  To become a member of The Violet Trade you also needed to like drinking and getting very stoned. Nothing heavier than spliff when we started though, and the band quickly got known for putting on great parties in it’s large, detached rental abode! It helped we lived with a drug dealer and were situated just across the driveway from a local pub who sold us cheap kegs of (slightly out-of-date) beer.

++ On Bandcamp some of you appear as Si, Si, Greg & Gaz. Who do these names correspond to?

Simon McKay (vocals, guitar)

Simon Parker (Bass)

Greg Saunders (keyboards, backing vocals)

Gary Capelin (Drums)

++ Was there any lineup changes?

Yes, we added a fifth member Ted Tedman in the summer of 1992. Ted was a very talented musician who played second guitar, trombone, percussion and just about anything else you threw at him. Sometimes literally…

++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?

All the Violet Trade songs were written by either Simon McKay or myself. We had adjoining bedrooms for a while and would literally throw comments out to each other when we heard each other playing in our own rooms! It was a very easy process and we wrote songs very quickly. The outlines of these songs were then kicked around in the front room of our rented house because we set up the drums and a full PA down one end of the lounge. VERY handy for those exciting world cup matches of the 1990 tournament.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

Simon McKay and I chose one word each that we liked the sound of. ‘Violet’ was mine and ‘Trade’ was Simon’s. A band called ‘The Violet Hour’ got signed around the same time but they were nothing like us.

++ When it comes to compilations I believe you appeared on a cassette called “All Fun and Games” where you contributed the songs “Pseudo” and “Elegy”. Curious how did you end up on this tape released by a label called Asylum. Did they approach you? How did it happen?

Unfortunately this was not our Violet Trade! It’s news to me that anybody else ever took that name, even more so that they did it around the same time! The pre-internet world was a state of blissful ignorance for most of us!

++ So, the songs you recorded, were they available in any way at the time? Perhaps as demo tapes?

Violet Trade mainly recorded on 4-track and 6-track portable studios and only released their music on cassette! How indie is that?!

++ The first collection is called “…Give me the Happy” which encompasses recordings from 1990 and 1991. Where were these songs recorded? At different recording studios? Did you use a producer perhaps?

“…Give Me The Happy’ was basically a collection of studio and home demos. Tracks 1-5 were recorded at Crystal Studio’s in Southsea where The Cranes did a lot of recording. We used the studio engineer and had a lot of fun on this session but when we came out we realised those songs sounded nothing like us! So we quickly borrowed a friends 4-track and started recording in our front room. And that was tracks 6-18 on ‘Give Me…’. When we self-released a slightly-shorter version of this in 1991 I recall we gave 40 tapes to the Chichester branch of ‘Our Price’ thinking we would get most of them back. The next day they phoned up and asked for another batch!! We also sold a lot at live shows. I kept all the money in a shoe box under my bed and amassed a huge collection of £1 coins which we used to buy various ‘comestibles’. And to manufacture these cassettes I had to sit there and make the tape to tape copies in real time. Very laborious!

The song ‘Headstrong’ from the Crystal studio session has picked up some internet traction over the years as someone said it basically sounded like Slowdive before Slowdive were formed…which was nice because I really like that band! And ‘Salvation’ has often been cited because people are convinced it was the blueprint for Oasis and everything post 1994! The only problem was we wrote and recorded it in 1990/1 when Britpop had not yet been invented. It was definitely informed by The Stone Roses and to a lesser extent Flowered Up whom we all loved. That era was magical and indie music had a real power to it. That horrible put down ‘indie landfill’ would not be coined for at least another ten years.

++ The second collections dates from 1992 and 1995. It is titled “Sold to the Man with no Ears +” and has 19 tracks. One thing that caught my attention is that it has a release date for June 19, 1996. Was this released in any way at that time?

OK, I have to admit to a typo here! I actually digitized these files during covid and uploaded to Bandcamp because the original cassette masters are all steadily degenerating. You can hear this on some of the recordings here! All Violet Trade recordings were actually made between 1990-1993 although the original 4-piece re-grouped twice post 1995. I think I was trying to get the date to be as close to those re-union dates as I could but they don’t really make any sense to the lineage! So I’ve now changed them all to 2020. The original demo tapes came out in 1991 and 1992 with a smattering of that Crystal studio session appearing just before this in 1990.

‘Sold To The Man..’ was really an extension of how we recorded ’…Give Me The Happy’ although we had progressed to a 6-track machine and often recorded in my Dad’s small workspace where he restored books! The original ‘Sold To The Man..’ was a 6 song cassette (tracks 1-6) and was very popular when first released. It was number one in a respected  fanzine (‘The Word’) for a good few months and sold really well at gigs. The writer at The Word called it our ‘Screamadelica’ which was nice. Wrong, but nice! It showed off the many musical sides of the band at a time when this was not the thing to be doing.

++ This one has a song that caught my curiosity, “Salvation (Flat Records Version)”. I am curious if there was a Flat Records. Perhaps they were set to release you?

Yes, we had some record company attention. In 1991 it was Chrysalis Records but this turned out to be a bit of a mad one as an A&R scout started turning up at our band house for months and months telling us we were about to be signed to a big deal. Obviously this never happened and she lost her job! ‘Flat Records’ was run by Dick Crippen ex Tenpole Tudor and he wanted to put out ‘Salvation’ as a 12” single. We recorded it at his place in Surrey (the only Violet Trade song were recorded 3 times!) but the deal fell through. I don’t like the keyboards on the Flat version, far too jazzy and trying to show off. Stick with the earlier demo’s for the intended vibe!

++ The last collection is a live recordings album from 1990 to 1993 called “Doing the Upside Down”. Curious about where were these recorded? Was it all over the UK? From which venues do these recordings come from?

So, many people will tell you that seeing Violet Trade live was the best way to witness our music. As I’ve mentioned earlier we put on some great parties, took over a local pub and created a bit of an indie scene between 1990-1993 in Chichester. Live recordings show our band to the best of its abilities and as I had accumulated lots of live recordings from across the south coast of England I thought it would be a good way for people to hear the true essence of Violet Trade. Many of these live takes are better than the demo’s in my opinion! We covered The Cure, R.E.M. and Camper Van Beethoven which neatly sums up our disparate influences.

++ I was asking myself, looking at the dates of the songs of these live recordings, that none of them were from 1993. All from 1990 to 1992. Wondering if there are any missing perhaps? Or it was just a mistake?

We played our very last show in January 1993, so most of the recordings are 1990-1992. We played a LOT of live shows in this time. I recall at our last ever show (at that Biker pub in Westhampnett, but of course) we went offstage and came back dressed in each other’s clothes and started playing each other’s instruments! We finished the encore with ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’ and I was the one singing and playing guitar. Something I had never wanted to do but would have to get used to as the 1990’s progressed…but that’s another story!

I wish I had a recording of that last show but it was all a bit sad really. We never fell out with each other so the last gig was quite upsetting for me. Basically Grunge had come along and blown away bands like Violet Trade. But within a year of us splitting up Britpop would be rearing it’s inquisitive little head and people were saying ‘oh I keep hearing bands that sound like Violet Trade on the radio’. Out of time and out of place. That was Violet Trade!

++ As mentioned, on Bandcamp there are many many songs. So I wonder why were there no proper releases by the band?

I think the fact we were based in Chichester and didn’t really enjoy playing in London probably hampered our chances of success. Everything was much more difficult to achieve pre mobile phones and the internet if you were a tiny band from a backwater town. We enjoyed our own local notoriety and lived for writing new songs and playing live. Who knows, maybe we can put these out on vinyl one day…

++ Was there any interest from labels at any point?

Yes and no. Lots of rejection letters from office juniors but some great comments when A&R scouts actually saw our band live (usually by mistake when awaiting the main band when we played at places like London’s Rock Garden, Islington Powerhaus, Harlesden Mean Fiddler etc). Chrysalis and Flat records were our two biggest chances I guess, but both floundered on that rocky indie coastline.

++ Are there more songs recorded by the band? Other songs that are not on Bandcamp?

Yes there were others but these are now all lost in action. Mainly due to the disintegration on those old cassette tapes. I threw some rehearsal tapes out in the early 00’s and then realised they had some undiscovered songs on them such as ‘Tunnel Walking’ which was great. Simon McKay might still have the odd tape kicking around but it’s unlikely. But there’s enough up on Bandcamp to paint a decent picture of a band doing its own thing and writing some great pop tunes!

++ My favourite song of yours is “Nightmare Ride”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

Well, you are in luck because it was one I wrote! Thank you! ‘Nightmare Ride’ started life as a two chord riff that I attached a half-decent bass line to. This was called ‘I Dream of You’ and was rehearsed in 1988/89 by Onion Johnny. Then, late one summer night in 1989 I was busy falling asleep at the wheel and lost control of my car whilst travelling back from my girlfriends place in East Sussex. I remember swerving to avoid an injured dog in the road and nearly ended up in a lake. My car hit a kerb and somehow avoided flipping over and sending me into the water at seventy miles an hour! I came home wrote some new lyrics and a completely different chorus, changed the title to ‘Nightmare Ride’ and presented it to The Violet Trade a few weeks later. It was always meant to sound more like The Wedding Present (circa ‘George Best’) but our drummer made it more indie dance because he’d never heard the Wedding Present but didn’t like to admit it!

++ If you were to choose your favorite The Violet Trade song, which one would that be and why?

That’s a difficult one because so many of them have great memories attached! But I hate people copping out and not having favourites so I’m going to say that the best song I wrote for the band was  ‘Twelfth of Never’ because it’s the nearest I got to writing a perfect pop song. If I was to choose one of Simon McKay’s songs I would go for ‘Peggy Bottles’ ‘cos it’s just so fab. But most people say the best Violet Trade song  was ‘Salvation’ because it always rocked live.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many?

We probably played around 150-200 live shows between 1990-1993. I loved playing gigs but as time wore on some band members would prefer to stay at home with the bong instead. Good drugs turn to bad drugs. It’s always just a matter of time.

++ And what were the best gigs in general that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

The best shows would have been at The Coach & Horses pub in Westhampnett when we had our own club night which ran once a month for 2 years on and off. Honestly, people couldn’t wait to get up on the dancefloor and join in with the singing! It was as if we were a much bigger band than we actually were. I recall we played a stormer of a live date at Islington Powerhaus in the summer of 1991 with a great band from the Midlands called ‘Steam’. This one turned into a totally unplanned stage invasion and was viewed by an A&R scout at Island Records called James Dewar if memory serves. Just googled him. He’s still in the music business!

++ And were there any bad ones?

We rarely played bad gigs but I recall we did have a bit of a bad night in Worthing once when the audience were really only there to watch another (much more serious) local band.  Try as we might we could not win them over no matter what we did. It was like an audience of Leonard Cohen fans coming to a Madness concert. But that was a very rare occurrence and even when we played to complete strangers we always got people up and dancing! Even grumpy sound engineers at various flea-bitten London venues were known to smile at our shows-and that was no mean feat.

++ When and why did The Violet Trade stop making music? Were any of you involved with other bands afterwards?

Gary (the drummer) and I really wanted to make a career in music and decided we had to get out of Chichester. The town was stifling AND the Coach and Horses pub shut down around the time we decided to leave. The Violet Trade was going nowhere but the rest of the band seemed dis-interested to say the least. As I’ve mentioned above the musical climate had changed dramatically from the ‘indie dance’ period to the Grunge rock explosion and there was just no way we could re-invent ourselves and not look pathetic. So Gary and I moved to Brighton and put together Colourburst who had 4 distinct phases (and 2 different singers 1993-4), before I eventually found myself providing lead vocals from the end of 1994 until we disbanded for good in 1997.

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.

I remained in Brighton and started the very popular indie bands night ‘Cable Club’ in 2002. Bands such as The Cribs, Kooks, The Bees, Bat For Lashes, Fujiya and Miyagi, The Maccabees, Kasabian and many, many more play a Cable Club gig between 2002-2014.

++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?

Back in the early 90’s it was very difficult to get indie bands exposure on anything! I think local radio may have played some Violet Trade but the most bizarre mention on radio was by the esteemed Chesney Hawkes during our association with the crazy Chrysalis A&R department. Apparently (none of the band ever witnessed the radio show in question) Chez told a reporter that Violet Trade was his fave new band of the moment in 1991. How nice of him!

We never appeared on TV but there were several live video’s which did the rounds of our friends VCR recorders over the years. None of these survived to get digitized!

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

Try as me might to get NME & MM interested, we never managed to crack this nut. I don’t think we had the right image and we definitely had the wrong manager! NEVER employ your mate(s) to manage your band! We needed someone with contacts and connections, ours had neither.

++ What about fanzines?

Yes, as detailed above fanzines did feature us quite a bit. ‘The Word’ (a Sussex based fanzine) certainly loved what we were doing for a while. There were others, some in London, various good live reviews but nothing that has stood the transition to the digital age.

++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

I think the biggest highlight for the band was being given the keys to our own large house in the early summer of 1990! From here we wrote, rehearsed, partied and avoided the real world for about one whole year! During this time the band’s songwriting took flight and our lives were unsullied by outside forces. Looking back, this was a truly magical time and it was a bloody miracle nobody ever died or got arrested!

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

Music is still my guiding passion but my partner and I have a dog called Treacle who is quite a character and takes up a lot of our time. Southern France is a stunning area with amazing landscapes and breath-taking walks over red-earth terrain. We are very lucky to call this home. The wine is good, too! I love films and books and want to explore more of the planet but without having to use aeroplanes to get everywhere. I’d like to visit the beautiful Scottish coastlines and maybe go coast to coast across the USA in a car. But it doesn’t feel right to be jetting off anywhere right now. Corruption and corporate bullying is destroying the planet. Thanks to the right-wing press this is a very scary moment in time and it is frustrating to see that so many people are still in complete denial about why rain forests are burning, cities are flooding and only the share-holders prosper. PEOPLE WAKE UP! You’re not getting the truth about your planet!

Getting off my soap-box, I still adore and collect vinyl records and I also consume a lot of music documentaries and magazines. I love old and new bands and have never lost that spirit of being ‘indie’.

++ Tell me a bit more about the NAKED record club. From what I understand it is the first eco-friendly vinyl record!

My job at NAKED Record Club is an extension of what I love and is concerned with sustainability in vinyl record manufacturing. I am always on the look-out for great indie albums that we can eco-press. Obviously this is not easy because major labels control their catalogues like jealous lovers! But NAKED’s aim is to get a high profile artist such as The Cure, R.E.M, The National, Radiohead or Kate Bush to grant us a licence to manufacture one of their records using a sustainable factory. Indie isn’t just about scratchy guitars it’s a state of mind and we feel these artists share the same pioneering spirit as NAKED. We’ve already done it with a handful of great bands but now it’s time to take it to the next level because green issues are being buried by governments and those bloody corporations. We have the solution but time is running out.

++ And what is Vinyl Revolution?

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!

++ You also wrote an autobiography called “Road to NowhereL Mishaps of an Indie Musician“. I’d love to read it someday. What inspired you to write it and where can people find copies of it?

‘Road to Nowhere (Mishaps of an Indie Musician)’ was the extended story of everything you’ve read in this article! I was approached by a friend who runs a small publishing company about detailing my musical career. He knew there were heart-breaking moments and funny stories connected to my life in indie bands, and thought people might like to share in these highs and lows! The music industry was in the process of changing during my tenure in bands and by the early 2000’s it was virtually unrecognisable to the one I had started out in during the nineties. The A&R world that I had tried so hard to infiltrate was utterly decimated by the arrival of online music. The book was a lot of fun to write but I also found it quite poignant too.

Apart from my own music (which is only of interest to a very small proportion of the world’s population!) I also wanted to include some of the hundreds of fantastic indie artists and records that have been a huge part of my life since the mid-eighties. I got to do this in ‘Road To Nowhere’ by including lots of ‘Top Ten’ lists and by namechecking indie artists from the last four decades. For instance I got to write about my love of Edwyn Collins, Mark Eitzel, XTC, Trashcan Sinatra’s, The Cure, Talk Talk and many, many more by weaving my own story throughout an already existing indie narrative.

Although the original paperback has long since sold out there is a new updated ten year anniversary digital edition due in 2024 (possibly even sooner if I can get around to editing the last couple of post-band chapters!). I’m not sure what platform this will be issued on but anybody interested should email info@nakedrecordclub.com to get added to the mailing list for Road To Nowhere V2.0!

++ Of course now you are living in France and I wonder when and why did you go there. Whereabouts in France are you and what do you like of this location. And if there is anything you miss about the UK, Chichester in particular?

As I’ve mentioned previously my partner and I now live in a small town in Southern France not far from Montpellier. We are both British by birth and saw how badly the Conservative government was treating its citizens so we just decided to stay here and not come back! We now have French residency and enjoy a different pace of lifestyle. It is a challenge for us to set up NAKED in a foreign country (especially as our French speaking is still very rudimentary) but we have met a lot of great people who are interested in our idea of sustainable vinyl records. And the French government still invests in culture and green issues, so being in France is a no-brainer for us.

But I do miss England for its great pubs, record fairs and countryside walks in winter. And of course I miss friends, family and band members too. It’s funny, as I get older I also find myself missing my hometown and try to return to Chichester at least once a year. Of course it is virtually unrecognisable from the town I left all those years ago but there are still indelible memories attached to everything I see and hear in that crotchety old town.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you Roque and Cloudberry for discovering the music of The Violet Trade, many years after it was first made. How did you ever stumble across it?! Surely by mistake or maybe it was divine intervention?! I’m still in touch with the original band members (although sadly Ted Tedman is no longer with us to share in this moment) but I will be sure to tell them about this interview!).

To anyone who listens to the band after reading this interview and who likes what they hear, The Violet Trade salutes you.

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Listen
The Violet Trade – Nightmare Ride

0
02
Oct

:: Razor 18

author: Roque       category: recommended

Here’s an interesting find on Soundcloud. 14 songs by this obscure but fine sounding shoegaze band from Washington D.C.

Razor 18 was Sarah Azzarah on vocals, Ivan Pongracic on guitars, Bill Fantegrossi on bass, Rob Monn on guitars and a revolving door of drummers including Tim Soller, Ben Azzara, Greg (no last name) and someone that it seems the name has been forgotten.

It is Rob Monn who uploaded the tracks 7 years ago. He tells a little bit about the band…

He mentions that he moved to D.C. and less than a year since moving there he was already in the band. Where did he come from? Doesn’t say.

He does say that he played a few venues including the legendary The Black Cat and also the 9:30 Club. He also says that the band may have burned down a place called ArtsLab. How did that happen?

The recordings that are available here come from tapes. They are from sessions at the American University and Evil Genius Studios and most of these were recorded by Rob Christensen.

The songs available are “P Street Beach (version 2)”, “La Llarona”, “Queen Bee”, “Wake”, “Carrying Hostile (version 1)”, “Temple (version 2)”, “Chroma”, “Flowers on the Lawn”, “Carrying Hostile (version 2)”, “P Street Beach (version 3)”, “P Street Beach (version 1)”, “Temple (version 1)” and “Flowers on the Lawn (instrumental)”.

On his Soundcloud account he has tons of other recordings, solo recordings, and also with his mates.

Looking for more information I see that the band shared a gig with Chisel and The Ropers (!), a favourite band of mine, at The Black Cat on May 26, 1995. There’s a scan of the flyer here.

That was not the only time they played there. I find another flyer of them playing there on July 28 (not sure of the year) with Your Majesty.

That’s what I could find. I hope we can find more details, wondering why they didn’t get to release any records at all!

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Listen
Razor 18 – P Street Beach (American University version)

1
28
Sep

:: Exact Setting

author: Roque       category: recommended

Was the band called Exact Setting? I am not sure.

I think it may have been called that. There are four recordings on Soundcloud and they are part of a demo dating from 1991. The title is “Exact Setting”. Take your guesses.

The songs on this demo tape were “This Feeling”, “Cutting Edge”, “Standing” and “Overwhelmed”. They were recorded at Richard Allan Studio on June 1st of 1991.

The account owner goes under the name “bowenjaybee”. The location of the account says Dundee, Scotland. There are tons of songs.

There is barely any information about these recordings though.

Most are demos dating from the decade of the 90s. There are different styles. My favourite by far are the Exact Setting ones.

I think there might have been a band called Radius between 1997 and 1998, though there are recordings too dating from 2017. Highwired seems like another band the owner of the account might have been involved in the nineties.

It is all a mystery here. But these tracks are worth checking out. Who would know anything else about these Dundee band?

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Listen
Exact Setting – This Feeling

0
27
Sep

:: Lipstick Vogue

author: Roque       category: interviews

Thanks so much to all Lipsitck Vogue members for this wonderful interview! Great to get the point of view of all four! I had written about Lipstick Vogue, an Irish band that only got to release two songs on a Danceline compilation, but who did record many more songs. The good news were that it didn’t take long for Cathal to contact me on Facebook and we agreed on the interview. Then he got aboard his mates, and here it is, a superb interview with lots of details. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

++ Hi Mark, Cathal, Denis! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?

Mark: Through my job in advertising I still occasionally work with composers and musicians. My Son is now doing drum lesson. So, I’m finally learning how it should be done.

Denis: Not as a player. I still buy records and go to gigs. And I suppose I have a kind of professional interest, as an academic researching early and silent cinema, in what music was played in those venues.

Tony: Not directly, but as I work for a high-profile book publisher, I have met various musicians and bands who have written books. All that must stay confidential.

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?

Mark: I loved watching the Beatles movies as a kid. Then The Rolling Stones and the Boomtown Rats were the bands that I really got into. REM came along and that was like discovering the music I actually wanted to make. Through the Stones I discovered Muddy Waters. I got his Hard Again album and got a harmonica to play along to Mannish Boy. 

Cathal: First music memories are probably Irish folk music – The Dubliners particularly which I would have heard as a kid. My parents liked music well enough but didn’t have music collections per se.  I remember Abba becoming huge in the mid 70’s. First band I really got into was the Boomtown Rats – coming at the tail end of punk but being from Dublin which was important. I remember having a huge Tonic for theTroops badge that I wore everywhere!  I bought a Yamaha accoustic guitar around 1984 and struggled with it. Eventually when I joined the band Tony showed me a few chords so I could play rhythm in some songs to free him up a bit for frills and solos and to flesh out the sound a wee bit.  To my embarrassment I’ve never really expanded beyond a very basic level of competency (if you could call it that!!).

Denis: My first instrument was probably a tin whistle – a kind of small flute used in Irish traditional music – for school music lessons, but that was more a torture instrument for all concerned, and not an experience likely to engender love of music. I had no other formal musical training.

At home, my mother didn’t have much interest in music, but my father enjoyed classical music and light opera that he mostly listened to on the radio rather than buying records. I slowly requisitioned an old cabinet radio-record player combo, and although I didn’t have much money, I began to buy singles. Bob Marley was an early favourite. Music programmes on TV and radio were also major sources of new sounds. We got UK TV stations in Ireland, so Top of the Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC and the more anarchic The Tube on Channel 4 were staples at various stages.

Tony: First musical memories – Has to be Opera!! My uncle supplied and fitted sound systems to the major supermarkets in Ireland from the 60’s onwards and had serious audio kit at his home. His gig was Opera and on many a Sunday as a child my family and I would visit for dinner, what followed afterwards was a complete loud fest! My internal organs felt like they moved position as the floor vibrated to Verdi!

My first instrument was a Guitar – An acoustic Suzuki, which I confiscated (without a fight) from my eldest brother and which I still have to this day.

How did I learn to play – I fiddled around on it for years before actually learning a single chord, I might have accidentally created a new genre of music by the age of eight.

Music at home – I was the youngest of 5 kids, I had no choice! My one goal in life was to rid this world of Chris De Burgh, Leo Sayer and The Stylistics!!!
I was a blank canvas in my early teens when I fell into the arms of Mark, Cathal, Denis and our other good friends, they deserve all the credit for my musical education.

++ Had you been in other bands before Lipstick Vogue? What about the other band members? Are there any songs recorded?

Mark: No and No. 

Cathal: None of us had been in other bands before really – been to plenty of gigs etc but not really played.

Denis: This was the first band for us all. Mark, Tony and myself did a few gigs as a three piece before Cathal joined out front, with Mark doing the main vocals from behind the kit.

Tony: Never!! That would have been treason.

++ Where were you from originally?

Mark: Dublin

Cathal: We’re all northside Dubliners and knew each other from school in Glasnevin.  Myself and Denis left school in 84 and Mark and Tony in 85.

Denis: Dublin; always Dublin. But I did migrate to the less soulful Southside suburbs after school. I’m back on the Northside of the city now.

Tony: Ballymun, North Dublin – probably best illustrated musically in Running to Stand Still by U2 – I see seven towers, but I only see one way out, add in a diet of Chris De Burgh, Leo Sayer and The Stylistics and the deck is stacked against you. Once again, I credit my band mates and other friends of The Vogues for that one way out.

++ How was Dublin at the time of Lipstick Vogue? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Mark: Economically still quite depressed. A lot of emigration. But the music scene was vibrant. Lots of bands playing live. 

Yea, Something Happens, A House (we supported them a couple of times) A little earlier The Blades. They were the Irish bands we admired. Others were Light a Big Fire, Stars of Heaven.

Were there any good record stores? Freebird records was the go-to indie store. Sounds Around was a another good one. Music World was the closest to home. It wasn’t great but it was local.

The Baggot Inn was the venue that up and coming bands aspired to play. We headlined there and played support to other bands including Auto de Fe, who were produced by Thin Lizzy’s Philip Lynott. David Bowie did a surprise gig with Tim Machine.

Cathal: That period in Dublin was the aftermath of U2 becoming huge so there was a lot of interest from record companies in the next U2.  In addition it was the middle of a huge recession so a lot of unemployment and young people with nothing to do so that combination meant there were a lot of bands playing in Dublin at the time. I liked lot of bands from that period and a lot of them are still playing in one form or other.  Loved Something Happens – very jangly kind of stuff, did cover versions of REM and Jason and the Scorchers alongside Borderline by Madonna. Also the Stars of Heaven who were more Television meets Gram Parsons and had a bit of Indie success in the UK with John Peel sessions etc.  A House were the other big band at that time and were more kind of arty/clever.  Their singer was in college with Mark so we got a support slot with them at some stage.  Light A Big Fire were also kinda big at that time and looked like they might break big but it never happened for them.

The venues really were Underground – a tiny basement bar which ran gigs 7 nights a week and hosted all three bands listed above. I spent a lot of Friday and Saturday nights in there in 1984 and 1985 and a live Mini LP was recorded there around then.  If you outgrew the Underground you moved on to the Baggott Inn which was a more standard music venue and was kinda t-shaped. When Something Happens got a record contract they moved to a Friday night residency there for a while. Another fave of mine – the Blades – also gigged there regularly.  U2 had played there in the late 70’s and it also hosted visiting bands – I saw Wilko Johnson there and Roger McGuinn played there too.  In later years it hosted David Bowie in his Tin Machine incarnation.

As far as record shops go – there was an Irish owned chain which is still operating called Golden Discs which was fairly mainstream but you could find the odd gem in.  I loved Sounds Around on O’Connell St which had more variety and Freebird Records which was on Grafton St at the time.  Freebird is still on the not far from the original shop and I still shop there fairly regularly.  Sadly Sounds Around is long gone.

Denis: Dublin was pretty economically depressed and looked it. A lot if people were on the dole or emigrated after school. Music was a way out of that, in both being something creative to be involved in – connecting with friends and things you were listening to – and Irish bands were seeing some success. We went to a lot of gigs, bigger ones by international acts and often smaller, pub-based ones for local bands. I got a job in the post office straight from school – college came later – which meant I had money for the first time in any useful amounts. A lot of that went on music: records and gigs. I felt I had to make up for lost time, build a collection. Freebird on Eden Quay was the record shop with the best stock of what I was interested in, but I visited them all, looking for something unusual, bargains, whatever.

Lots of pubs had a back room/function room that could be hired for an occasional gig, but there were venues that specialized in gigs and had back line and a sound engineer. The main places where we went to see local bands were places we played in later ourselves: the Ivy Rooms, the Underground and the Baggot Inn. The more successful bands played clubs like McGonagle’s, the TV Club or even the SFX.

Tony: Both Mark and Cathal have pretty much nailed this one in their replies, it was grim, but it was also fun, there was a unique character to Dublin and characters in Dublin back then.

++ Were there any other good bands in your area?

Cathal: I didn’t really know any other bands in the area (Cabra/Glasnevin/Ballymun) but there were a lot of bands in Finglas which was close by including Aslan whose singer Christy Dignam passed away recently.  A few work friends were in bands too – Pat Dalton in the Anthill Mob and Joe McDonnell in Giant.

Denis: The area of the city I grew up in – Glasnevin – is famous as the site of the city’s largest cemetery. Growing up, there wasn’t much for the living, and no local bands I was aware of. You had to go into the city for that.

Tony: We all hung out together and went to the same gigs, once again I refer to my learned colleagues.

++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process? You were brothers? related?

Mark: We were all in school together. 

Cathal: As I mentioned we were all school friends really. Mark and Tony started the band and rehearsed in Mark’s bedroom as a singer and guitar player. Mark had a drumkit too and sometimes would play in the kitchen. Not sure when Denis joined on bass but I remember seeing them as a 3 piece in the Ivy Rooms with Tony out front and Mark also singing from behind the kit.  They did a cover of Bob Dylan’s Isis which Tony sang.  At some stage after that they asked me if I would be interested in being the singer – based on my dress sense more than any singing ability I think.

Denis: We went to school together and had common interests in music. When I heard that Tony and Mark were starting a band and looking for a bass player, I bought a bass. Then I began to teach myself how to play it.

Tony: The embryo of the band emerged after a conversation in the Addison Lodge Pub, Glasnevin between Mark and I, if memory serves me right.  We roped in Denis and Cathal very soon after. All of us were in school together.

++ Was there any lineup changes?

Mark: No, there were only ever four Vogues. Much like the Beatles. 

Cathal: The band probably lasted 4 or 5 years max but was always the same lineup.

Denis: No, not really. We were pretty consistent.

Tony: No, just us four. We were loyal and never considered changes to the dynamic.

++ What instruments did each of you play in the band?

Mark: Cathal Peppard – Vocals and occasional guitar. Tony Purdue Guitar, Denis Condon bass, Mark Nutley Drums/Vocals.

++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?

Mark: We’d jam ideas for songs, usually starting with some riff or chord sequence that Tony came up with on guitar, or a bass line from Denis. Cathal and myself would contribute lyrics. We’d put it together and see what happens. We rehearsed mostly in a place called Alan Furlong Studios in Dublin. A kip.

Cathal: At first we practiced in a friend’s garage and then rented rehearsal rooms in Alan Furlong’s studios which was pretty run down but we rehearsed there twice a week for a good while and that was where we would have written most of the songs that are on that Soundcloud page.  Often the songs would  start off with a guitar riff from Tony but Mark and myself usually had bits of lyrics on the go too. As thing progressed it was something from everyone really though.

Denis: Somebody would have an idea that we all worked on at rehearsals, developing the various parts and arrangements. In the early days, we rehearsed in our parents’ houses, which was not popular with family or neighbours. Better for a while was a friend’s large house which had a part where a crèche operated during the week but was largely free on weekends. Later, we would meet at one or other, most dingy, rehearsal studio.

Tony: We’d jam mostly and work on various ideas we had, time was always against us as we had 3 hours here, 5 hours there. Looking back, I would have loved to get us in an isolated barn for three weeks on the west coast of Ireland with a good power supply, good PA and see what would have happened.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

Mark: Took it from an Elvis Costello Song. I liked the sound of it. Maybe I thought it was a bit New York Dolls or something. Kinda punky, but sort of smart. Anyway, we went with it. 

Cathal:Taken from Elvis Costello song – much loved by us all. If I remember rightly it was decided at a band meeting in Mark’s kitchen but now I’m wondering were the 3 piece version called something different….

Denis: Unhappy with a previous moniker and needing a change for an upcoming gig, we were listening to some Elvis Costello and the Attractions in Mark’s house when “Lipstick Vogue” came on. The rest is rock-and-roll history.

Tony: We just loved that Elvis Costello song, it pretty much had everything to aspire to musically so the name just stuck.

++ There’s very little information about the band but one thing that seems to be clear is that the only songs that got released were the tracks “Riversend” and “When Will You” that appeared on the “Swimming Out of the Pool” compilation. Is that right? No other songs were released?

Mark: No, that’s it.

Cathal: No – they were the only songs foisted upon the unwitting public!

Denis: I think that’s right.

Tony: That was it, unfortunately.

++ Why didn’t you get the chance to release more songs? Or your own record? Was there interest from any labels at any point?

Mark: We got face to face meetings in EMI, MCA and Chrysalis where A& R guy Bruce Craigie was the most encouraging. However, the deal never happened.

Cathal: At the time self released singles were really expensive to doso we didn’t go down that road.  We had looked at the possibility of giving a song to a Comet Records compilation too (another really good record shop I forgot to mention above!!) but it never worked out.

Denis: Lack of money, I think. We had enough to write songs, rehearse them and hire a studio so we could get to the demo stage, but we found it hard to get beyond it. Serious label interest I don’t remember.

Tony: We would have loved to; Mark and Cathal did great work in London but the interest shown never developed beyond that,

++ Back to the compilation released by Danceline Records. How did you end up on it? Did they approach you? Did you send them demos?

Mark: I think we sent in a demo and got picked. 

Cathal:I worked (and still do) in the Civil Service and a lot of civil servants were in bands and/or caught up in the music scene.  Pete and Eddie who ran a club night in a Civil Service club in town and also the Danceline label had given a write up for one of the demos in the Public Sector Times (very rock ‘n’ roll I know!!) so knew the songs and were looking for bands for a new compilation.  Think Eddie also did the local band column in the Hot Press (Ireland’s version of the NME) and had reviewed an early demo so knew us a bit through that.  Myself and Mark went to London with copies of the demo and visited some of the record companies there. No hard interest but if I remember Chrysalis had talked about maybe funding further demos but nothing came of it so that may be me recollecting things in a more positive light than was the reality!

Denis: I think they contacted us – may be wrong. Possibly on the back of the Hot Press Battle of the Bands?

Tony: I think Cathal detailed that perfectly.

++ This compilation features many great Irish bands. Wondering if you were fans of any of them, or even friends? Or perhaps you shared with some of them some gigs?

Mark: From memory I don’t think we really knew the other bands. 

Cathal:I remember the Outpatients well enough – they were kinda quirky. Think the Storm were more straight ahead rock.  Don’t think we ever shared gigs with any of them after. We supported Giant who also had a single released on Danceline once or maybe twice – I also knew their bass player Joe who was another Civil Servant!

Denis: Looking at it now, the only band I can remember is the Outpatients, but I don’t think that’s because we were in a mutual appreciation society. I seem to remember a Danceline gig; did that actually happen?

Tony: I didn’t know any of the other bands personally but would have seen posters for forthcoming gigs about the town, that was it.

++ Another tiny thing that caught my attention is the spelling of the song “River’s End”. On the Soundcloud appears as two words, on the compilation as “Riversend”. Mistake?

Mark: I think two words was how we intended it.  

Cathal: A mate posted the songs on Soundcloud a few years back and that’s his typing! The title is Riversend – in retrospect I like the James Joyce kinda vibe with the two words running into each other. I was mad about a record by Nikki Sudden/Jacobites called Robsepierre’s Velvet Basement at the time and that had a song on it called Where the Rivers End so that also fed into it I’d say.

Denis: It was the days before the spell checker. Likely an editorial decision by Eddie or Pete at Danceline, dislike of apostrophes or the like.

Tony: I have to admit that I always wrote it on playlists as one word, so not a mistake.

++ From what I understand you recorded a demo tape in 1988 at Windmill Lane. Do you remember if this demo had a name? And what songs were included in it?

Mark: We recorded the two tracks that ended up on the ‘Swimming” compilation in the Windmill session. We just did those two tracks. 

Cathal: Don’t think it had a name per se.We recorded in Windmill 2 which was on Stephens Green – rather than the main studio which was where U2 recorded. The main claim to fame for Windmill 2 was that Def Leppard had recorded Hysteria there.  The demo was the 2 songs from Swimming Out of the Pool – Riversend and When Will You?

Denis: I don’t have a copy of that, but I don’t think any of the demos had a name. Likely a name seemed like an extravagant waste of cassette-label space that was needed for our contact details for radio producers and A&R people. When I do play any of the old songs, it is from a CD compilation called One for the Money that Mark put together, with some entertaining liner notes. That has nine songs: “When Will You Be Home?”, “River’s End”, “You Think Too Much”, “Raintown”, “Walk Alone”, “Dreaming”, “Tidal Wave Woman”, “Anywhere But Here” and “Malthouse.” Those are the ones that are on Soundcloud.

Tony: It didn’t have a name, happy to refer to it as the Windmill Session. Both Riversend and When Will You recorded that day and featured on Swimming Out of the Pool.

++ And how was Windmill Lane Studios? How was your experience there? Did you work with a producer?

Mark: The recording took place in Windmill Two which was just off St Stephen’s Green. John Grimes was the engineer, he was very helpful. We had no producer. We got a good deal on the studio from the then manager of the studios, Irene Keogh. She was later married to the Waterboy’s Mike Scott for a while. It was a great experience. Kate Bush had been in the week before. It felt like the big time.  

Cathal: It was enjoyable – we worked the night shift Saturday night into Sunday if I remember right.  A good friend of the band,Don KcKevitt was there with us and knew studios a bit. He was a bit older than us and had been in bands in Dublin in the late 70’s. My main memory is the engineer getting us to put the feedback in Riversend and the backing vocals on When Will You.

Denis: That was a great experience in lots of ways. It felt like a step up in terms of our own ambition and the quality of the material we produced. This was down to our own preparations but also to the engineers; we didn’t have a producer. It was, like all of this, self-financed, so we only had a limited time. But it really felt that we worked those songs.

Tony: It was Windmill Lane 2 just off Stephen’s Green, a small studio but with a strong pedigree. We had no producer just a very good engineer. I remember being very well rehearsed prior to going into that session, you had to do that to maximise the time you had, it wasn’t limitless. We never had the luxury of sitting back for a long mixing session, it would have been nice to do that.

++ Were there any other demo tapes the band put out? If so, can you share a demo-graphy?

Mark: When will you be Home?, River’s End: Recorded 27th February 1988, Windmill Lane Two, Dublin, Engineer – John Grimes assisted by Richard O’Donovan.

You think too much: Recorded Origin Studios, Dublin. February 1987. Engineered by Quill.

Raintown: Recorded at The Lab, Dublin. 18th of March 1987, Engineered by Louise McCormack,

Walk Alone, Dreaming, Tidal Wave Woman, Anywhere But Here, Malthouse: Recorded 21st December 1988, Origin Studios, Dublin. 21st December 1988, Engineered by Terry Merrick

Cathal: Think all the stuff on Soundcloud covers most of the demos apart from some very early stuff.  We recorded a bit in a studio called Origin in Santry – which was essentially a converted garage and had an engineer enigmatically named Quill! You Think Too Much was recorded there and later on Walk Alone, Malthouse, Anywhere But Here, Dreaming and Tidal Wave Woman.  We recorded Raintown in Litton Lane Studios after the manager there saw us playing support to someone in the Baggott Inn (think the idea was the engineer and band both got some experience out of it).  The band sound great but my vocals less so which I think was hangover related!

Denis: My rarest recording is our first demo, recorded in Origen studios, 8 November 1986. This I have as a cassette, with a hand-drawn cover by Harry Purdue. Those songs didn’t make it onto One for the Money, probably because of the quality of the recording. I know from Mark’s One for the Money liner notes that there were two other Origen sessions in February 1987 and December 1988, and that between these, we recorded at the Lab in March 1987 and Windmill Lane in February 1988. The Danceline compilation was also 1988, so those three years were the productive ones.

Tony: Mark listed them all, although I do have a secret DAT recording session we did when I was training to be a sound engineer. I have no idea as to what’s on it or how good or bad it is. I must investigate a DAT transfer one of these days as I still have the tape.

++ Generally, what would you use your demo tapes for? To send them to the press? Sell them at gigs? Try to get the attention of labels?

Mark: To get gigs, press and ultimately to get a deal. Plus, we felt, we’ve written these songs, let’s record them. 

Cathal: Generally we sent the demos to Hot Press, Dave Fanning (the Irish John Peel) and touted them to record companies.  Think they got us the Hot Press competition gigs too.

Denis: More as a means to an end: record company attention and radio play, where we would have the opportunity to make the recordings better. We never sold them, unless I’m forgetting something.

Tony: All the above except for selling at gigs, our business acumen and economically viable production facilities hadn’t developed to that level at the time.

++ Are there more songs recorded by the band? Other songs that are not on Soundcloud?

Mark: I think that’s the lot. 

Cathal: Just some very early songs and possibly another later one called Good To Have You Back we recorded in Sun Studios (Dublin not Memphis sadly!) when Tony was training as a sound engineer later on.

Denis: The songs from the first demo are not there, as already mentioned. And no doubt there were a few others whose names escape me.

Tony: None but the secret session I engineered, I’m now in fear of listening to it!!!!!

++ My favourite song of yours is “River’s End”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

Mark: That’s one for Cathal to answer. 

Tony: Cathal Peppard – our great wordsmith can answer that one.

Cathal: Listening back to it now as I write this.  Pretty sure the lyric is mostly me.  Think it was the standard dark come on to a girl type of song but living in Dublin there has to be lot of bad weather references!! Don’t think it worked as a come on either!  In general though I tend to agree with Ian McCulloch that it’s more about what words sound good with the melody.  The music is great on there too – especially like the staccato drum thing at end of the chorus.

++ If you were to choose your favorite Lipstick Vogue song, which one would that be and why?

Mark: Maybe, Walk Alone. I still think it could be a hit! 

Cathal:I think it’s a toss up between Anywhere But Here and Walk Alone.  Anywhere… has that kind of Stars of Heaven sound and some lovely guitars. If I remember Mark wrote most of the lyrics with a bit of input from me when we were in London touting the demo around. The kindred spirit mentioned in the song is Don McKevitt who we were staying with and who had a band called the Kindred Spirits.  Loved to play Walk Alone live – it was good and noisy and we often opened gigs with it!

Denis: “Walk Alone”, when it worked, was the one in which I felt we were most together.

Tony: I have one we never recorded as it had a life of its own, it was called Vague Traces and existed with no exacting structure. I again refer back to time limitations, given a wild expanse it could’ve flown into something extraordinary.

I also have another which we never really nailed, Raintown! A bit more time, a key change and who knows. It possible had the strongest structure but we didn’t have time to add the beautiful finish.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many?

Mark: Yea, a good few. Do wish now, in retrospect, that maybe we should have gone over to London to play, just to experience it.  

Cathal: A good few – We did few support slots in the Underground and at least one headline gig there. Also did a good few support slots the Baggott Inn and one memorable headline gig on 4th July which saw us come on stage to Jimi Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner.  I remember it as one of our better gigs.

Denis: We played quite a few, but we never had a regular slot, so looking back, it was a hard graft to hire a venue, advertise it, get the gear in before actually playing. And then get the gear out and starting arranging the next one.

Tony: We played a fare few, some good some bad. I think Mark and Cathal have detailed these extensively.

++ You mentioned that there were Hot Press band competitions gigs in Cork. How did you fare in them?

Mark: We played it once in 1988. We were robbed!

Cathal: We played two years in a row 88 and 89 I think. It was exciting to go on the road as we hadn’t played outside Dublin.  We didn’t win on either occasion but we put in a good performance in 89 as I recall. We were playing a fairly demented version of Alex Chilton’s No Sex in the set at that stage and I remember having a drunken in depth conversation with an audience member about that.  The audience was bigger than any other gigs I remember.  As I recall we also had an altercation with one of the other bands – can’t remember what it was about but most likely about the backstage beers!

Denis: We should have won; we were robbed. Particularly the second one.

Tony: It was a great experience to play in Sir Henry’s in Cork City, I’m still unsure how we ever managed to ship us and all our gear down there in a Renault 12, it was a minor miracle and as Mark says, “We were Robbed”.

++ And what were the best gigs in general that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

Mark: We did a gig on the 4th of July in the Baggot Inn, I remember that as being amazing. And that’s the way I will always remember it. 

Cathal: The 4th July gig in the Baggott was a good one – we had decent songs and were a fairly tight unit by then.  We played a version of Patti Smith’s Dancing Barefoot in most of the sets with a medley of other tunes including Gimmer Shelter in it and I especially loved that.  We also played a reunion gig in 2003 (I think) in the Sugar Club (the other side of Stephen’s Green from Windmill 2!) and that was a good night – mix of the tunes from the Soundcloud page and covers – Driver 8 (REM), Wide Open Road (Triffids), State Trooper (Bruce) and Creep (Radiohead).

Denis: I don’t think it was our best musical moment, but we somehow got into a Battle of the Bands in one of the distant southern suburbs of Dublin. I think it was a church hall, and there was an attempt by the people running the event to limit alcohol consumption. Having none of this, we proceeded to get pissed on beer we had brought in with our gear, played out set and expected to get thrown out. Instead, we won the competition. We felt we’d raised some hell.

Tony: 4th July, Baggot Inn. Everything clicked. I remember irritating numerous Trinity college students as I stuck up posters in the archway of the College in the days leading up to the gig, they weren’t too pleased with the American flag design and staged a political protest there and then.

++ And were there any bad ones?

Mark: Yea. But let’s move on. 

Cathal: Oh yeah!  Remember playing to a handful of people upstairs in the Earl Grattan – the gig wasn’t bad per se but the attendance was a bit demoralising!  Still it’s the kinda thing that happens to all bands I suppose.

Denis: Quite a few, no doubt, but not worth remembering.

Tony: All memories have been erased, bad make you get better.

++ When and why did Lipstick Vogue stop making music? Were any of you involved with other bands afterwards?

Mark: No, I think we all left it behind after that, really. I think we finished because we had other things that we wanted to do. Further education, jobs etc. 

Cathal: Around the end of 89 – was just a feeling that things had run their course.  I don’t recall anyone being in bands afterwards.  Tony did a course as a sound engineer but don’t remember anything beyond that really.

Denis: It began to feel like another job added to the day jobs we all had. The breakup was amicable, but it crystalized my decision to leave the post office and start filmmaking and eventually university. For me, some rehearsals with Niall Austin was about the only musical thing I was involved in afterwards.

Tony: No bands, I had a short-lived dalliance with sound engineering which didn’t come to anything.

++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?

Mark: We got played on the legendary Dave Fanning Show on 2FM. That was the one show all the bands listened to and wanted to be on. 

Cathal: Think the Swimming Out of the Pool tracks got an airing on Dave Fanning’s radio show – he played alternative stuff and demos etc from Irish bands.  They also did sessions for bands but we didn’t do one of those.

Denis: Not really.

Tony: We got radio plays but no TV,

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

Mark: Couple of reviews in Hot Press magazine. 

Cathal: Some reviews in the Hot Press for gigs/Swimming Out of the Pool/demos.  Maybe a notice in In Dublin too – a listings magazine at that time.

Denis: We got some coverage in Hot Press but felt we should have got more as we drank with them in the International Bar.

Tony: The legendary Bill Graham reviewed us in The Irish Press after seeing one of our gigs and compared us to Television!! That was either a highlight or a dream! I’m sure it happened.

++ What about fanzines?

Mark: No. I don’t remember fanzines being a big thing in Dublin. But maybe I just wasn’t interested. I only read the NME.

Cathal: Can’t say as I recall fanzines in Dublin at that time – would have been a small scene for them during punk I think but not much after that.

Denis: I wasn’t really aware of a big fanzine scene at the time.

Tony: I’m afraid not, we might have been to early for that bus.

++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

Mark: Probably that 4th of July gig. And getting a couple of tunes out on vinyl. And just having three great mates and a small band of followers who were all great people to be around.

Cathal: Getting songs released, those 2 gigs I mentioned above and so many after gig nights drinking and talking nonsense with guys who are still good mates to this day.

Denis: Recording-wise, probably the Windmill Lane session. Gig-wise, the 4th July Baggot Inn or the second Hot Press gig in Sir Henry’s.

Tony: Getting those two tracks on vinyl, that was special. Not discounting all the good memories.

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

Mark: I think we were all interested in cinema and other areas of the arts. 

Cathal: While I don’t play I still collect music and listen to a lot so that takes up a fair bit of my spare time.

Denis: Going to the cinema, swimming in the North Atlantic.

Tony:Travel, reading, gardening, walking, cinema and arts in general.

++ I’ve been to Dublin once and really had a good time there. But still I’d love to ask a local. What do you  suggest checking out in your town, like what are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?

Mark: I think the best thing about Dublin is to enjoy it without much of a plan. See where it takes you. Have a Guinness. Have fish and chips from Burdocks in Christchurch. I’m afraid the live music scene is nothing like it used to be. But do go to a trad music session.

Cathal: Lots of good pubs – away from the tourist trail of Temple Bar etc.  The Long Hall, the International Bar, Grogans, Idlewild – all around the Georges St/Grafton St area. Just wander around and that area and see what you fancy.  If you’re venturing outside the city centre do the Glasnevin Cemetery tour and have a pint in the Gravediggers! As far as music goes there are still plenty of venues – the Workmans, Whelans and the Grand Social have a mix of local and visiting bands. Have a look to see what’s on in the Olympia – lovely Victorian theatre which recently hosted Wilco (Mark was there) and the likes of Paul Weller, Jason Isbell.

Denis: The Dublin pub remains an important institution. Have a sneaky pint in the middle of the day. The city has become much more ethnically diverse since the 1990s and has many good restaurants that reflect this; areas like Parnell Street or Stoneybatter are worth visiting for this reason.

Tony: After all the Guinness and fish dinners that have been suggested take a long walk down Dollymount strand and clear your head.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Mark: Thanks for showing an interest! Keep up the good work!

Cathal: Not really- was a nice trip down memory lane alright.  Always nice to hear someone enjoy the songs.  Thanks for the mention and look forward to reading more on the Cloudberry blog.

Denis: Thanks for asking and invoking the memories.

Tony: I think that it. Thanks for showing interest and liking the music we but out.

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Listen
Lipstick Vogue – River’s End

0
26
Sep

:: Flower Gang

author: Roque       category: interviews

Thanks so much to Donald Larson for the interview! I had written about the superb New England band Flower Gang in the blog some time ago, and I was surprised when Don got in touch. Flower Gang was part of that scene that included legendary bands like Small Factory or Honeybunch and released two records that I highly suggest tracking down if you haven’t already.

Now join me in discovering more details about them!

++ Hi Don! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?

Hello! The last gig I played was the Flower Gang reunion show in 2012. I am currently retired from the music business but I still play my banjo at home regularly. My love of music and records has never faded and I am an obsessed 45s collector. I spend much of my free time digging for rare rockabilly, soul, surf, garage, girl group and bubblegum 45s at flea markets, yard sales, junk shops, estate sales, etc.

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?

I recall the first record I ever bought was a Queen “We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You” 45 when I was 6 or 7. I also have a vivid memory of going into a record store and being awestruck by the display for all four of the recently released Kiss solo albums a few years later. My first instrument was an inexpensive, no name acoustic guitar that I received as a birthday present when I turned 14. I took guitar lessons on and off throughout my teens with a handful of local guitar teachers. I gleaned valuable things from each of them that all came in handy when I started wrtiting songs and playing with others. My parents were not big music fans but they were very supportive of my musical interests.

++ Had you been in other bands before Flower Gang? What about the other band members? Are there any songs recorded?

My first proper band was Laverne. We formed when I was 18 in 1988. We were a trio with me on guitar and vocals, Alec K. Redfearn on bass and Art Tedeschi on drums. We played a handful of shows but did not do any recording. My next band was called Wavering Shapes, which also featured Alec on bass, Rick Ross on drums and Jamie Brolin on vocals (Bill Reed replaced Jamie on vocals and second guitar towards the end of our tenure, Art Tedeschi returned to his rightful throne on the drums and future Flower Gang drummer Matt McClaren joined us on additional percussion). We recorded a 4 song demo on a friend’s 4 track cassette recorder but I am unaware of any surviving copies. We played frequently at AS220 in Providence. Concurrent with Wavering Shapes, Alec and I started another band with Jen Dollard (guitar and vocals) and Phoebe Summersquash on drums (pre-Small Factory) called The Big Wazoo. We played one show in Providence and broke up. Matt and Jack had a pre-FG primitive Misfits/Horror garage combo called Mole People.

++ How was your Mansfield/Plainville at the time of Flower Gang? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Mansfield and Plainville are small, adjacent towns about 15 miles north of Providence, RI. There weren’t any other local bands in our immediate area that played even remotely similar music (mostly metal bands doing Anthrax and Metallica covers) with the exception of nearby Attleboro punkers Neutral Nation. They were a great band who showed me it was possible to be from the uncool burbs but still play original, left of the dial music. There was a good record store just one town away in Foxboro called Good Vibrations. They were a Mass based chain that had 8 or 9 stores and were the only local resource for punk, post punk and indie records.

++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process?

Wavering Shapes broke up when Alec K. Redfearn traded his bass for an accordian and began his lifelong journey as a critically lauded composer and band leader (Space Heater, Amoebic Ensemble, Alec K Redfearn and the Eyesores, D.U.M.E, SWRM, etc). I had already played with Matt in Wavering Shapes so we snagged Matt’s buddy Jack Hanlon as our bassist and Flower Gang was born!

++ Was there any lineup changes?

We added Erin Sharicz on vocals before recording our double 7″ for spinART but otherwise our lineup was stable during our existence.

++ What instruments did each of you play in the band?

I played guitar and sang, Jack played bass and sang and Matt played drums.

++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?

We practiced in the basement of my parent’s house in Plainville, Mass. I was 20 when we started and Matt and Jack were still in their teens.  I usually worked up some ideas on guitar in my bedroom and then we would flesh them out and see where they took us during band practice. It was a collaborative process. We were quite dedicated and rehearsed 3 or 4 times a week.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

As I mentioned earlier, the local scene in Plainville/Mansfield was mostly metal cover bands. Our initial plan for Flower Gang was to play impromptu acoustic sets in the parking lots of local American Legion/VFW hall metal shows under the name “Hairy Diarrhea” (an idea that sadly never came to fruition). When we had an opportunity to play a local “battle of the bands” event, we chose the wimpiest, least metal sounding name we could muster and it stuck. We embraced our outsider status as the only indie/punk rock band in Plainville and did our best to antagonize the locals.

++ Your first release was the “Guys with Glasses” 7″ that was released by Boy Crazee Records. My first question has to do with this label. Was it yourselves running it? Or who was behind it?

Boy Crazee was our label and “GWG” was our only release. We recorded that record before we had ever played a show. It was the first time any of us had been in an actual recording studio and it was a hurried, bewlidering experience. I’m just glad some of our energy and youthful enthusiasm came through on the recordings. Matt was going to school at Emerson College in Boston at the time. He ditched class one day, went to the Boston Public Library and found an Olympia, Washington phone book. He found Calvin Johnson’s phone number, called him and asked if K would distribute our record. Calvin obliged and also helped us get distribution in the Netherlands via Semaphore (which explains why you can find numerous copies of that record for sale on Discogs from the Netherlands).

++ This release came with sleeves in different colors, orange, red, blue, green and yellow. Why was that? And am I missing any other colors?

No, you have not missed any colors! I think that the lady at the local print shop gave us that five-different-colors option and we thought it was a fun idea.

++ Another thing that caught my attention is that you are listed as Dan, not Don or Donald. How come?

I have copies of the yellow, green and blue covers and I am listed as Don. I’m unsure what color cover you have but perhaps it was a typo on that particular color cover.

++ This is a great record and has great songs. One song that I was curious about was “Matt’s Dilemma”. Is it about the band’s drummer Matthew Edward McLaren?

Yes, that was one of our earliest songs and was written by Jack as an homage to our drummer complaining about feeling parched.

++ Later you would sign with spinART Records in New York. How did that happen? Did you send them demos? They came to see you at a gig? And how was the relationship with this label?

The spinART guys saw us at the Providence Indie Rock Explosion in 1992 and liked what they heard. It was a three day indie pop festival organized by Dave Auchenbach from Small Factory and local promoter Ty Jesso. I can’t recall everyone who played but I know that Small Factory, Honeybunch, Magnetic Fields, Velocity Girl, hypnolovewheel, Love Child, Belly (their first show), Tsunami, Versus, The Swirlies, Dambuilders, Fudge and Lois Maffeo all performed. Flower Gang broke up shortly after our spinART record was released so our relationship with them was brief but amicable.

++ With them you released a double 7″ record, “Junkdrawer”. Of course I am curious about the format, doing a double 7″ is not common, probably a 10″ or a 12″ would be a more normal approach.

I was a huge fan of the Fastbacks and loved their “The Answer Is You” double 7″ release on Sub Pop. In addition to tipping our hat to the Fastbacks, we all thought it was a unique format that might help garner some attention.

++ And yeah, who is on the cover photo of this record?

That is my nephew Matty on the cover. The gatefold inner is a painting by Matt McClaren and the photo on the back is Jack’s father.

++ On this record there are vocals by Erin Elizabeth Sharicz. Was wondering if she was in another band or how did she end up collaborating with the band?

Erin was a fan and friend of the band. Flower Gang was her first and (I believe) only band. I was obsessed with Talulah Gosh and wanted to have female vocals on some of the songs. She sang on a handful of songs but sadly only “Shiny Grease” and “McNutt” were recorded.

++ You mentioned that you appeared on the “AS220 1992 Compilation”. I see that this one is online these days, but can you tell me more about this release?

AS220 was (and still is) a non-juried performance space in Providence. It was essentially a compilation of bands who regularly performed at AS220. It was a cassette-only release recorded by Joe Auger at AS220 and holds up as a unique document of Providence area musicians from that time and particular place. I first went to AS220 in the spring of 1988 on a whim and serendipitously happened upon the first ever Honeybunch performance opening for Beat Happening on the Jamboree tour. It was an impactful experience and I soon became an AS220 regular most weekends.

++ My favourite song of yours is “Metzger’s Farm”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

That song was inspired by walking around my old baseball field at age 20 and remembering how it feft playing little league baseball as a kid. The baseball field was across the street from the farm that provided the song title.

++ If you were to choose your favorite Flower Gang song, which one would that be and why?

Of the songs we recorded and released, “Metzger’s Farm” is probably my favorite.  It’s super catchy and has that spastic-but-still-locked-in-a-groove energy of the early Minutemen recordings (my biggest inspiration). We were pretty prolific. I would guess that our recorded output was only about 20% of what we wrote and performed and I wish we had gotten more of our songs on tape.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many?

We played every chance we got. In addition to AS220, Club Babyhead (formerly the Rocket) in Providence was one of the places we played often. We opened for Ween, Uncle Tupelo, Yo La Tengo, King Missle, Velvet Crush, Jad Fair, Sleepyhead and even a freakin’ King Diamond cover band at Club Babyhead. The band we shared the most gigs with was small factory. Our sounds weren’t that similar but we started around the same time and we turned out to be a pretty good fit musically and personally. We also really enjoyed renting out American Legion halls and playing truly local shows in Plainville and Mansfield.

++ And what were the best gigs in general that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

We played a poorly attended but fun Sunday matinee show opening for Grant Hart’s Nova Mob at Club Babyead. We hung out with him after the show and when he found out the club stiffed us on our fee, he paid us out of his pocket. We were all huge Husker Du fans and having that kind of interaction with one of our heroes was memorable. I also vaguely recall a wild, drunken, ramshackle show at Wheaton College in nearby Norton, MA with small factory and Love Child that ended with our booze confiscated by campus police and the student from the college radio station who organized the show having her booking-on-campus-shows privileges rescinded.

++ And were there any bad ones?

We were scheduled to play with small factory and Heavenly on their first US tour at Club Babyhead in Providence. I was a huge Talulah Gosh fan and was psyched to be on the bill. However, Gang of Four had a night off from the Lollapalooza tour (or some similar shit) and wanted to play a club date so they were added to the bill and we were kicked to the curb. I still attended the show and Heavenly did not disappoint but it was a major bummer to get bumped from that bill.

++ When and why did Flower Gang stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?

We started sometime in the fall of 1990 and called it quits in the late spring of 1993. After we broke up I spent a few years learning to play the 5 string banjo in the Old Timey Clawhammer style. After focusing on writing and playing original music for years it was refreshing to learn how to play roots music in a traditional style. I played banjo with StringBuilder from Providence for a few years in the late 90s/early 2000s. We released two 7″s and a CD on a local label (Handsome Records) and did one memorable two week tour. A few years later, Joel from StringBuilder formed a new project called Death Vessel and I played banjo, uke and guitar on his Sub Pop debut “Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us” and joined them for three U.S. tours supporting that record. Jack Hanlon found much greater success than Flower Gang ever attained with his next band Amazing Royal Crowns. Matt teamed up with our old friend and Wavering Shapes bandmate Alec K. Redfearn in the Eyesores (who I also played banjo with sporadically over the years). Both Jack and Matt blossomed into amazing musicians and are still actively playing.

++ There was a reunion gig in 2012 supporting Small Factory and Honeybunch! What a lineup. How was that gig? And what prompted you to reunite?

There was a brief resurgence of interest in indie pop music from the early 90s around that time. I think Slumberland Records did a series of well received reunion shows with some of the bands on their label and that planted the seed. Dave from Small Factory asked us if we wanted to do a reunion show with them and Honeybunch and we agreed. A Small Factory/Honeybunch/Flower Gang bill was something straight out of Providence circa 1991 and it was a fantastic, very well attended night.

++ Was there any interest from the radio? You did a session at WFMU, right? How was that?

We did live-on-the-air sessions at WSMU (Southeastern Massachusetts University)) and WRIU (University of RI) that were lots of fun. We also recorded (not on the air but strictly playing live in one take) at the WERS studio (Emerson College) where Matt was a student. I’m unsure if any copies of those Emerson recordings still exist but they were the best example of what we sounded like live back then.

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

The local press was very kind to us despite our relative youth and often snarky demeanor. Mike Caito was the local music writer for the Providence weekly arts rag The NewPaper and he gave us a fair share of favorable ink in his columns. We played an outdoor block party in 1993 organized by Providence subversive bookstore Newspeak that was reviewed by Creem magazine (the writer seemed smitten by our “Association style power pop”). I think we got reviewed by a few fanzines but I can’t remember any details.

++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

Just being three young, awkward guys with glasses from the uncool burbs who formed a band that put out a few 7″ records and made a minor impact in Providence was quite a thrill.

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

As I mentioned at the start of the interview, I am an avid 45s collector. I don’t consider that a hobby – it’s more like a disease for which I never hope to find a cure. When I’m not obsessively digging through boxes of unsleeved 45s in some rando’s garage or basement, I can be found reading, hiking or spending time at the beach with my wife and partner in crime Anya.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you for posing such thoughtful questions and taking an interest in Flower Gang. It was fun remembering what it was like to be young and playing in an indie rock band in a pre-Nirvana, pre-internet world.

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Listen
Flower Gang – Metzger’s Farm

0
25
Sep

:: Photo Jenny

author: Roque       category: recommended

I first heard of Photo Jenny thanks to their 2000 7″ EP on Elefant Records titled “A Japanese Present For You” (ER-222). I thought it was the band’s only release for years. I never looked into it. Now I look at Discogs and I notice I’ve missed many records, many songs, by this Japanese band that took their name from a Belle & Sebastian song.

The 7″ I mentioned had four songs, “Rainbow Dolly” and “Clover Chain” on the A side and “Beautiful Girl” and “Painted Knees” on the B side. This band was actually a duo that formed 3 years before, in 1997, by Satomi Takeuchi who sang and played the melodeon and metallophone and Tetsuya Kobayashi who played  guitar and bass.

Previously, in 1998, the band had self-released a tape titled “Ladybird Go Home” that I’d love to listen one day as it includes a cover of one of my favourite bands, The Would- Be-Goods. This tape had these songs: “Do Me a Favor”, “Trip Pop”, “Watermelon Crush”, and the aforementioned cover of “Perfect Dear” on the A side. The B side had “Blow Up Your Funny Face”, “Skinny Guinea Pig”, “Umbrellas Go Round” and “Ladybird”.

The band also started to contribute songs to compilations in 1998. “Blow Up Your Funny Face” ended up on “Sunshine Pop Show!! Vol. 2” released by Sunshine Pop (SP-008) aand “Watermelon Crush” was on “Pop Japanese Style!” released by Flavour of Sound (TFCC-87589). Both were Japanese releases.

The following year, 1999, the band would release a mini-album titled “Tier Quartett” on the Left Bank label (LBCD-03). This mini album included 8 songs, “Do Me a Favor”, “No One Brings a Flower”, “Clover Chain”, “Watermelon Crush”, “Blow Up Your Funny Face”, “Window Painting”, “Ladybird” and “Y’Aura T’il de la Neige a Noel?”. Many songs from the tape. I wonder if that tape demo served the purpose of getting the attention of the label?

In the year 2000 the band started working with Minty Fresh Japan. With them early that year released thee mini-album “Painted Kites” (MFJ-1001). Five tracks appear on this CD, “Painted Kites”, “Waiting for the Dawn”, “Rainbow Dolly”, “Umbrellas Go Round” and “Beautiful Girl”.

“Beautiful Girl” also gets included in Minty Fresh Japan’s compilation LP “Get Yer La-La’s Out 2000 Vinyl!!” (MFJ-2000). On the same label, this same 2000, we find the song “Teenage Phase”. It was on the compilation CD “Minty Fresh Japan Compilation Vol. 1 A Small, Good Thing” (MFJ-1002).

That same year on the CD comp “Trolley Bus Music Tour” released by Trolley Bus (TB-001) they contributed the song “Winchester Monday”. Trolley Bus was the label ran by Yoshi from Aikagi!

2001 sees the band release a split CD with the wonderful Birdie (that band fronted by Debsey from Dolly Mixture that I dream of seeing live one day). The split CD was released by Minty Fresh (MFJ-1006) and It Records. Photo Jenny contributed 2 songs, “Bizarre Dream” and “Marshak”. Both were mastered by Tetsuya Kase at Bazooka Studio. Birdie also contributed two songs.

“Marshak” was an EP that came out in 2001 on Minty Fresh Japan (MFJ-1007). Again five songs, “Bizarre Dream”, “How Much Do I Love”, “Teenage Phase (Album version)”, “Marshak” and “Empty Church”. I see ‘album version’ so I wonder why they never released a proper album?

Lastly in 2016 the band had the song “Beautiful Girl (2000)” on “Everybody Knows? Radio Sessions 1997-2014″ a 3CD boxset that came with a DVD that was released by Travelin’Word (QFCT-1001). For those unaware Everybody Knows was a radio program on Shibuya FM.

But wait, there’s another release that came out on Lil’ Red Wagon. It was a split 7” titled “Slumber Party EP” (LRW 08). This came out in Canada but I don’t know what year it was. The interesting thing here is that they shared the split 7″ with the great All Girl Summer Fun Band. And it is on the A side that Photo Jenny appears with two tracks, “Winchester Monday” and “Umbrellas Go Round”.

There is a Tetsuya Kobayashi that is a producer/composer/lyricist. Could it be him? He has worked in a lot of Japanese shows and animes. Would it be the same one as in Photo Jenny?

What about Satomi Takeuchi? I couldn’t find anything else about her, at least related to music.

As with Japanese bands it is a bit difficult to track the musicians down. I don’t know what happened to the duo of Photo Jenny. Why did they call it a day? Did they play many gigs? There’s barely any info on the web, so any help will be great.

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Listen
Photo Jenny – Watermelon Crush

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