Day 74. No news today. Quiet. It was a long weekend here, but couldn’t take advantage of it. Before the virus I was planning to go to Boston this weekend. But nah, I stayed put. Videogames, reading, answering emails, writing this post, writing a few interviews for the blog. I spent my time doing that. What about you all?

Here are some good finds from this past weekend.

Las Margaritas: last post I shared a video of Las Margaritas, the band that has Mai from My Light Shines From You. Now I found an amazing EP called “Invierno” that packs all the sweetness and twee in 6 songs. It is one of my favourite releases this year already. Jangly, bouncy and fun!

The Suncharms/Mirrorlakes: out now on Shiny Happy Records from Indonesia is the tape of two of my favourite bands of the moment. About The Suncharms I don’t know what else to say. A classic band who released records in the 90s and who we put a retrospective compilation a few years ago. So we love them. You know that. Mirrorlakes on the other hand have been reviewed on the blog in the past. Always recommending them as they sound great. Each of the bands contribute 3 songs to this cassette.

The National Honor Society: this Seattle band sounds amazing. We know that. Wish we had known about them early on before they putting out their first record. Yes, because they are releasing an album on May 29 and will be called “To all the Glory We Never Had”. It will include 10 songs and we can now preview one of them, “Cristalize”. It sounds terrific.

Airu: what a great discovery! This Bilbao, Spain, band has a dreamy and jangly sound. Their latest song is called “Me Sabe Casi Igual” and I am already hooked to it. From what I understand this song is the second single out of their up and coming EP “Do It for the Catharsis” that the trustworthy label Snap! Clap! Club will be releasing this year! We have to keep and eye on them!

Space Daze: the new project of Danny Rowland from Seapony has just put up on Bandcamp an album called “Phantosmia”. You can listen to all 10 songs in which we can see Danny’s talent. He recorded and wrote all of them! My favourite track? It is hard to pick, but I’ll go for “Get By”.

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A reader on Facebook asked me about this German band after reading a very old interview I did with the Firestation Records guys. So of course I said yes, we aim to please. So let’s see what we can find about this classic German band!

On that interview with Uwe Firestation, he told us the label started when Bungalow Records passed him the demotape of Bazooka Cain. What songs were on this demotape? I am guessing the same or similar to the ones that appear on Firestation Tower Records first release, the “Viele Grüße” 10″ (FST 001) in 1997. There were 10 songs on it, 5 by side. The A side had “Annahmeschluß” which Uwe told me was his favourite German indiepop song in that interview, “Wilkommen”, “Les Jours Parfaits”, “Immer Wieder” and “Ich Lach Mich Tot”. While the B side had “Juanita”, “Das Schönste Paar”, “Stop!”, “Zeit Zu Gehen” and “Egal”.

This record would be re-released the next year by Elbtonal on CD (CD ET 17). It will include 2 more songs: “Verlangen” and “Bitte Weine Noch Ein Letztes Mal”. This release had totally different art thanks to Sebastian Hartmann (from the bands Golden Toast Quartett and The Looney Tunes) and photography by Rüdiger Nehmzow. The liner notes were written by Reinhard Jellen a well known german journalist and Northern Soul DJ. And then we find the credits. The band members were Henry Grant on drums, Marcel Vega on vocals, guitar and lyrics, Matthias Pacht on bass and Max Knoth on guitar, mandolin and arrangements.

There would be many guest musicians in these recordings too, starting by Harald Monse on bass clarinet, Bea Kopyto and Julia Hinrichsen on backing vocals, Christian Wohlers and Udo Kern on clarinet, Stefan Sieveking on keyboards and melodica, Gabriel Coburger on saxophone and flute, Jonathan Myers on trombone, Christian Regel on trumpet, Nils Ostendor on trumpet and flugelhorn, Michael Biel on vibraphone, glockenspiel, timpani and percussion and Schorsch Külzer on zither and percussion.

The songs were mastered by Tom Meyer and were recorded by Clemens Kinder.

One thing to be aware of, is that a tape, with the same running order and 12 songs as the CD is listed in Discogs. It dates from 1997. It may as well be the demo tape that Firestation received? Who could confirm this?!

But let’s actually go back in time. This wasn’t the first ever release by the band. The band had already put out a 7″ back in 1992. Perhaps on their own. The label has no catalog number and was named No Harm Done Publications. The song titles are now in English, “Savings Of My Soul” on the A side and “Blank Space” and “Laughing” on the B side. Songs are credited to Marcel Vega but “Laughing” to someone with last name Loeseke. This is truly a mystery to me. What happened then between 1992 and 1997? Were there more songs recorded? How did these songs from the 7″ sounded like? Differently? Were the band members different? It is something we should try to find out.

In 2001 the band would release a split 7″ on Quince Records from Japan (QREP-06). It was shared with Cakeheads and Bazooka Cain had the A side. There they contributed the songs “Here Come the Days” and “Superschmoozer do Brasil”. The songs were written by Marcel and arranged by Max. They were recorded and mixed by Karsten Boettcher and Max Knoth. Produced by the band.

At this point in time the band had signed with Apricot Records. So, in 2002 the band would release a new album with this German label. Called “Here Come the Days Of” (APRICD025) it would come out in CD and LP vinyl as well as getting licensed in Japan by Quince Records (QRCP-05).

The album would have now 14 songs. The A side had “Frühling Im Herbst”,
“Hauptsache Gesund”, “Fürst-Pückler-Art”, “Fehit Dir Was”, “Superschmoozer”, “Schaf Um Schaf”, ” L’Homme À La Tête Gonflée” and “Am Morgen”. The B side had “Here Come the Days”, “Tais-Toi”, “Kurze Fahrt”, “I’m Lost”, “Komm Mit Mir” and “Allein”.

The Quince Records release had a different tracklist though. I don’t know exactly why. And it had 16 songs total. “One Fine Day”, “Fruehling Im Herbst”, “I’m Lost”, “Tais-Toi”, “Kurze Fahrt”, “Fuerst-Puekler Art”, “I Could Spell”, “Superschmoozer”, “Here Come the Days”, “Fehlt Dir Was”, “Hauptsache Gesund”, “Komm Mit Mir”, “Am Morgen”, “Superschmoozer do Brasil”, “Here Come the Days (Rremicks by Merricks)” and “Am Morgen (Remix by Erobique)”.

On this album Erich Abel appears as part of the band, playing the organ.

The album would be mastered by Tom Meyer and mixed by Karsten Böttcher and Max Knocht. The band would produce the album. Again too the band would seek many guest musicians for the record including Markus Bersing on alto saxophone, Rolf von Nordenskjöld on baritone saxophone and concert flute, Falk Breitkreuz on tenor saxophone, Ralf Zickerick on trombone and Wolfram Borchert and Eddie Hayes on trumpet. The wind section was recorded by Max Knoth and Michael Pregler. The photography was taken by Frenzy Höhne.

But that wasn’t all. The band would appear on many compilations. Starting in 1990!

Yes, that might be the earliest we know of the band. When were they formed then? So on the “Karls Unruhe” compilation released by Manick Turttle in 1990 they included the song “Nashville Tennessee”. This compilation featured bands from the city of Karlsruhe and surroundings.

But then I find in the Apricot Records biography that the band actually  was founded in 1989 by Marcel.

In 1992 their song “Laughing” would be included in a 7″ compilation called “Garbage Pearls Vol. 1” also released by Manick Turttle (MTP 002).

Then there is silence until 1998 when their song “Zeit Zu Gehen” appears on the promotional CD “Komm Küssen Kompilation #5” that came alongside the Komm Küssen fanzine’s 5th number. In the year 2000 their song “Here Come the Days” gets included in the Firestation compilation CD “You Thought It Was the End of the World When the Rain Ruined Your Hair” (FST 016). Again that same year on the “Brausepulver” a joint-release by Apricot (APRICD032) and Firestation (FST044) they would contribute a song, “Frühling Im Herbst”. This same song and “Cigarillo” a song by them and Die Soundmasters would be included in Hazelwood Records (HAZ 022) compilation “Pop Ist Sheriff 2” that year too.

In 2003 they would have their song “Fürst-Pückler-Art” on Tapete Record’s “Müssen Alle Mit.” (TR 013) compilation.

In 2003 the band would contribute the song “Hauptsache Gesund” to ZYX Music double CD compilation “Aufnahmezustand – Neue Deutsche Vielfalt”. The next year also oin the same label, their song “Here Come the Days” appear on “Digging Your Scene” CD comp. Lastly, on the DVD “Neue Deutsche Vielfalt” from 2005, the band would have their video for “Annahmeschluss”.

This video was actually shot in 1995, before the Firestation release. It was shot mainly in Poland by Bernhard Marsch.

Then it is worth mentioning that sometime along these years there was a compilation on triple vinyl called “Maximum Beatbox HKTC 01” released by Fidel Bastro (FB 05). The band appears here too, with could be a live set, or a live song (I am not sure). The recordings come from the legendary Heinz Karmer’s Tanzcafé in Hamburg.

Lastly in 2013 the band appears with two songs, “Annahmeschlus” and “Immer Wieder” on the compilation “Firestation Pavilion” that was released in Japan by TKO New Music Corporation (TKOK-0015) that features songs by many Firestation releases!

There are some more videos too on Youtube worth watching. For example a live performance of “Besame Mucho” and “Mountain King” at the Treuanisch Ship in 1995 as well as “Immer Wieder” at the ShuShuShow in 1997. There is a trailer for a movie of the band that was to be shot by Bernhard Marsch. The year is 1999 and one wonders what happened? Why wasn’t it filmed? There is also a small interview of the band on the Polylux tv programme in 2002.

What are they up to now? Max Knoth seems to be successful as a composer, arranger, orchestrator and sound designer, working for many movies including “Die Sterne” and “Lassie Come Home”. He was also involved in other bands like Frank Spilker Gruppe and Mobylettes. Harry Grant went to play with Charles Curtis Trio and Die Antwort. Matthias Pacht played on Go Plus.

I also was told that Marcel Vega had released one 7″ under the name of Jean de St. Malo on the Hochverdichtet Schallplatten label (HVS 0601). I don’t know the year for this release but it included two songs. Would like to listen to them!

There is not much more about them on the web. It is true that some years ago they had a website. But it doesn’t exist anymore. Something that I thought I was going to find was interviews or articles about them, as they had been around in the late 90s and early 2000s. Not in pre-internet days. So kind of unlucky there.

I did find an article from June 16, 1994. Here it mentions another name that was part of the band then, Markus Lezaun. It says that the band had toured Prague in 1992. In 1993 they had been to Moscow and that year, 1994, they were planning to go to St. Petersburg. Another tidbit I found on the web is that they played at least once at the Atomic Café in Munich.

Now it is time for you all to help me fill in the blanks. Especially those years in the 90s were we don’t know much about them. It seems they had been traveling all over Europe. But what about songs? Had they been recording at that time? Why didn’t they put more releases? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Bazooka Cain – Annahmeschluß

Day 71. Not much news today. Just that it is weekend and that’s a good thing. New releases on Cloudberry are progressing slowly, but surely. What about you all? I’ve got a few requests on bands to feature. That was cool, one after the other. I’d like that. Keep the ideas coming.

Littler: “This Boulder Won’t Push Itself” and “Natural Disaster” are two brand new songs by this Philly band whose proceeds they will be donating to Movement for Black Lives COVID19 Mutual Aid Fund. Even though the band tags themselves as a punk band, at least in these two songs I can see a lot of American 90s noisy pop!

Dig Nitty: is Reggie Bender, Erin McGraith and Bernardo Ochoa. I believe they hail from Brooklyn, so pretty close to me. And they are releasing an album on July 24 on Exploding Sounds Records. It is coming out on vinyl with 11 songs as well as digital. Only one song available to preview, “Lomita”, which sounds promising.

Las Margaritas: this cool band that features Mai from My Light Shines For You has just put together a wonderful video for their song “Las Flores”! It is a great jangly song by this Chilean band. The video are a collage of little snippets she recorded on her trip to the island of Chiloé, in her countries’ southern region.

Un Día Soleado: we cross to the other side of the Andes, to Argentina. There we find this great new project called Another Sunny Day, well, in Spanish. A tribute to Harvey Williams for sure. The band has just put together a digital two-track single on Hikikomori Discos. These two songs are lovely crafted jangle pop songs, “Patinando con los Muertos” and “La Lluvia Vuelve a Caer”.

The Spanish Amanda: the album “Pop’s Gone and Bought a Gun” is a terrific comeback of the London (now Luton) band! Remember them? They released a classic album on Firestation Records in 2000. I interviewed them also on the blog. Amazing pop. Terrific lyrics. Is great to hear Huw’s songs again. Here you’ll find 10 smartly crafted songs, with no guitar solos as he says. To play time and time again.

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Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called “rayographs” in reference to himself.

Here is yet another amazing Irish band I discover through one of my favourite blogs, The Fanning Sessions Archive!

it is true I mentioned Man Ray on my post about Bam Bam and the Calling as they both shared a flexi back in 1988. But I hadn’t had the chance to listen the wonderful track Man Ray contributed until not too long ago. I could finally listen to “Apology” thanks to that blog!

It doesn’t look as if the band released any other songs which is a shame. This one song, “Apology”, appeared as an A2 on the flexi released by Helden Magazine (HL03) after Bam Bam and the Calling’s “New Surroundings”. This flexi was given away the Helden fanzine in Northern Ireland and was their way to support the local music scene.

The quality of the track doesn’t seem to be the best, but I am very thankful to the Fanning Sessions blog. You can appreciate what a good indiepop track this is. You wonder if there were more tracks recorded by the band. Perhaps this one song was part of a two or three song demo cassette. Who would know?

The little bio on the Fanning Sessions blog tells us three names that were in the band: Robert McGlone on drums, Brendan Morrison on vocals and guitar and Mary Mulrine on backing vocals. He also says that Robert McGlone now plays in Jam Pact.

The comment sections do shed some more light. We know that Anthony O’Kane on rhythm guitar and Phil Crothers on bass completed the lineup. It is actually Phil Crothers who shares this info and also lets know that the band started in 1986, with all the members but Robert at the Foundation Year Art courise in Rupert Stanley College in Belfast. The band would later play across Ireland and even recording a session for the BBC show Across the Line as well as appearing on the BBC show Channel One hosted by Jackie Hamilton of the Moondogs. I would love to watch it! And listen to the session!

Another interesting bit of info is that EMI and Polydor had interest in the band just after the band had decided to split!

Aside from this information there’s not much more on the web. Maybe Mary Mulrine played played in a band Gráscar in the early 90s. But that’s really all I could find. Oh! And it seems too that Robert McGlone collaborated with The Knievels. Then we know Brendan moved to Chile and plays there. Mary has been playing folk and traditional music. Phil would end up playing in a band called Stonefish through the 90s who have recently reformed. But no other information about Man Ray. And I’d really like to find out if there are more songs about them. And where are they now? Why didn’t they release any other records? How long did Man Ray lasted as a band?

Please let me know if you have any other details about them! They do sounds amazing on this one song, “Apology”!

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Listen
Man Ray – Apology

Day 69. Tired of wearing a mask. My glasses get foggy all the time. Yesterday went to the post office and was able to mail the orders from Spain, Germany and Japan that I couldn’t in the past.  I have mailed everything now. Don’t owe any records. That feels good.

New music:

The Royal Landscaping Society: The Facebook page From a Social Distance has been putting together some videos of bands playing live from home. And that is really cool in these times of Covid-19. The latest one is by my talented friends from Seville. 15 minutes of pop perfection. Totally enjoyable. I really can’t wait to release them!

Daiistar: this one man project hails from Austin. I don’t know the name of the person behind it, but it looks like it is just the one telling from the photo on Bandcamp. He has just released a 3-song EP digitally, where the songs are burst of noisy/fuzzy wall of guitars. Nice!

Fryturama: this duo from Mexico formed by Fryda Magaña and Arturo Tranquilino have released a shoegazy EP called “El Mutante Más Lindo”. There are 6 songs of hazy shoegazy with female vocals. It is quite interesting, first time I hear a band from Mexico sounding like this. Are they from Mexico City? or where?

Anna’s Bones: from the town of Manningtree in the UK, comes this trio with what looks like their first song ever as a band! It is called “Sow” and was released on May 1st. The band is formed by Rebecca Simmonds (vocals), Aaron Munday (bass and synth) and Harry Dickens (guitar).

Stomp Talk Modstone: and our last stop in this tour will be Japan. This cool band formed by Takamitsu Kawashima, Naoki Nishino, Kouta Hoshino, Megumi Asai and Mimu Sano, have recorded two wonderful shoegaze/dreampop songs and are now on Bandcamp. They are “Fade Out” and “Untitled”, both very enjoyable! I need to check their back catalogue as they are new to me!

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“Skafferi”. It means pantry in Swedish. It is also the name of a compilation released in 1996 by Slask Records (GOSPEL! 3). If my memory serves me right, it was my friend Jörg Winzer who recommended me to get it, mostly because it had two songs by a band called Iller. Two songs sung in Swedish. Two superb songs.

The names of the songs by Iller are “Innan Jag Förstår” and “Om Fägerna Bleks Ur”. As far as I know these are the two only songs released by them. I am hoping of course that there are more recordings by them as I would love to hear them someday. Other bands in this compilation include Eden, Index and Polio. Each of them contributing two songs as well.

Of course for many the interesting part is that Iller features Per Idborg from Girlfrendo, and The Golden Boy (as well as the Kakofoni label), on vocals, guitar and bass. The other band member was Lars Mattsson on bass and tambourine. They got help from Carl-Magnus Mattsson on trumpet and Mathias Svenungson-Erestam on violin on both tracks.

It is also worth mentioning that this tape was curated by Stefan Zachrisson, who is well known by running the superb magazine Benno. He was then doing a fanzine called Gospel! and so together with Bo Stefan Lundquist who was running the label Slask, they put together this comp, named after a song by Webstrarna.

All the bands on the comp hailed from Gothenburg. Stefan wrote about this compilation and he gives us a few interesting facts about Iller. He mentions that before the compilation was put together the band had already put together demo tapes. What songs were on it? We don’t know. How many demo tapes? Don’t know. But they did get interviewed on a fanzine called “Nowhere”, on it’s sixth issue (winter 1994/spring 1995). This fanzine was made by the brothers Gelin.

Iller’s track “Innan Jag Förstår” got very good reviews on Pet Sounds and Twisterella. In Twisterella it says it should be considered a Swedish pop classic. I agree with Kristoffer Lecander, the reviewer.

Not much written about them on the web. Of course it would be great to find out if they played live or not. And most importantly find out about those demo tapes. If there are more songs. I would love to listen to them. Maybe there are enough for a compilation? Wouldn’t that be something?

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Listen
Iller – Innan Jag Förstår

Day 67. Not much news now. Just a reminder that the fanzine is out and you should all get copies. That’s it for now.

Very soon I should have more news I hope! This year is making everything slower than usual!

Finds from over the weekend:

Good Dog: Suse Bear is behind this band that will be releasing a new album on May 22nd on Lost Map Records. The album, consisting of 15 tracks, seems promising. Especially thanks the song “Floating”, one of two that we can preview at the moment. Some interesting facts about here are that she has worked with The Pastels and Tracyanne & Danny.

Jetstream Pony: Back in April I was telling everyone to check out “It’s Fine”. This was the only song available to preview out of their upcoming album. Well now there are two more that sounds amazing. They are “Trapped in Amber” and “Gone to Ground”. For sure this is looking like an album not to be missed this year, three songs that sound glorious. The album will be out on May 22nd!

eGgs: the French band will be back on June 26 with a new 7″ on Howlin’ Banana Records. On this terrific 7″, with a funny photo of a kid (maybe a band member?) dressed as a Power Ranger, there will be three songs: “Still Life”, “Life During Wartime” and “Guess What”. If you like to jangle, this is for you.

The Telephone Numbers: now a San Francisco band. Just discovered them and I am glad I did. The band has just released a 4 song guitar pop record called “Pictures of Lee”. It sounds really nice, like classic 90s American indiepop. Sadly it looks like this release is only available digitally.

The Finest Drops: and now we cross the Atlantic and head to Newcastle, UK. The Finest Drops just released their “Safe Like No Other” EP a few weeks ago and it sounds great. Four songs are included in it, “Safe Like No Other”, “Loss is Love”, “Lights” and “For Another Time”. Digital only.

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I didn’t remember but a quick search showed me that I had bought the sole 7″ single by Whipcrackaway back in 2009. 10 years later I am writing a post about them, of a 7″ that was released even before, in 1986!

To be honest I know very little about them. I know John Peel played the A side, “The Horses Tale”, as a clip from his radio show, dating from September 4th 1986, is on Youtube. But what else can we find out?

The 7″ was released on a pretty important label at the time, In Tape (IT 035).  This was Marc Riley’s label. Marc is much more known now as a BBC DJ. On this label he would release superb acts like The June Brides, Yeah Yeah Noh or Rote Kapelle.

The songs on the 7″ were “The Horses Tale” on the A side, and “Gingham Dress” and “Betrayed” on the B side. The music is quite poppy, but it definitely has a bit of what they called cow-punk at the time, some country influences. “The Horses Tale” is a fun song, with female vocals, that is catchy and all. But of course you’d think more USA than England if you didn’t know that the band hailed from the British isles.

The sleeve gives us band members and that’s always something to thank. We know on vocals were Ian Marlon Moss, Koyote Karen, Rhinestone Rhonda and Stetson Sue. On guitars there was Simon Taylor and Neil Moss. On drums we find Nick Kokotaylo. The songs were produced by The Box Team and were recorded at “Touch” in Denton and at “Box” in Heckmondwike.. A credit that I don’t understand completely is that Goldie played “Fury”. What does that mean? Other funny credits are included for example it says hair by Carl, meringues eaten by Jeff Brown, unbiased opinions by Family Abused by Stuart and Wendy.

The photo on the front sleeve is credited to Paul Keelagher.

“The Horses’ Tale” would also appear on a compilation album called “Just A Mish Mash” that In Tape (IT 47) released in 1987. This release even had a US version.

Then I stumble onto some important information on the German Shepherd Records Bandcamp. There is a release uploaded for a band called The Bears from Belle Vue Zoo. The interesting thing is that Ian Moss, guitar player in Whipcrackaway, had been in this band. It mentions that before The Bears from Belle Vue Zoo, he had been in a band called The DoDos. And after, he was in the band Oochikomis. After the Oochikomis he went to lead the band Whipcrackaway. After the demise of Whipcrackaway he wasn’t involved with music until he released a record in 1993 with the Stepbrothers, also on the German Shepherd Records. It looks, after checking all of these three releases on Bandcamp that he was based in the Salford area, close to Manchester.

Interesting enough, I would find that actually Ian Moss is the co-owner of German Shepherd Records. It is no surprise then that there are other releases here that feature him like the ones by Ian and Neil Moss or  Ian Moss and Talented Friends. But what about the other members of Whipcrackaway? Were they involved in any of the bands he has put out?

But there’s more. There’s a book by Stephen Dobson called “The Man Who Killed the Hamsters – a biography of Ian Moss” that was published in 2012. Here it tells us that the song was called not “The Horses Tale” but “The Horses Tail”! You can read how the contact between Ian and Marc Riley happened, and how the girls, Sue, Rhonda and Karen convinced Ian to be part of the band. It seems it was originally recorded as demo, and it was the re-recorded, but they still used the demo version for the single. The newly recorded track would end up in the compilation I talked about earlier. The other songs, the ones recorded at Hekmanwike had the help of Bill Clarke, who played for the George Hamilton IV band. We also learn that it was the three girls who wrote “Gingham Dress”. It does look though that the recording was a bit of a disaster and things didn’t get better, so the band ended up splitting soon enough.

Quite interesting!j

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Listen
Whipcrackaway – The Horse’s Tale

Day 64. How is everyone holding?

Weekend again. Halfway through May. Days start to go fast.

New finds here:

The Beths: the superb New Zealand band is releasing a new album very soon. It will be called “Jump Rope Gazer” and will be out on July 10 on Carpark Records. This is not all, the band has put together a video for the song “I’m Not Getting Excited” that sounds and looks great! Definitely we can’t miss this one!

Chavales: the latest on Elefant is a digital single by this duo formed by Daniel Rodriguez from Mallorca and Javier Paredes from Extremadura. Influenced by La Mode, Estación Victoria and The Human League this new song is terribly catchy, makes me think the label wants to continue placing their music on all the Spanish Netflix series. I wouldn’t be surprised if this song “Ey, Que Estoy Aquí” happens to follow that route!

The Wolfhounds: “Electric Music” is the name of the new album the legendary band will be releasing on July 3rd on the very fine A Turntable Friend Records. The album will be available on LP and CD and will have 9 songs total. Right now we can preview the first track on Bandcamp. It is called “Can’t See the Light”.

Ballboy: another classic band. The Edinburgh based band  has been publishing some live sets during the time of Pandemic. I am not sure when where these recorded but this new live set includes the songs “Godzilla vs. the Island of Manhattan (With You and I Somewhere in-between)”, “Olympic Cyclist” and “Oh Lord”.

Flannel: my friend Tomohiro has remastered two of his songs, “Little” and “At Least I” and they are now on Bandcamp. These are timeless songs, beautifully crafted pop. Dreamy and sweet. It is always a good time to rediscover him!

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The Office from Belgium. First time I’ve heard them. Stumbled upon them on Youtube and thought the song “That Girl Too” sounded cool. But who were they? Did they release more records? I honestly don’t know. Need to do some research.

Then I stumbled upon more songs, “Your Loving” and “Liverpool”. Actually “Your Loving” might be my favourite one! Wow! What a track! I really need to find more.

It turns out these two last songs, “Your Loving” and “Liverpool” were  A and B sides respectively on a 7″ released in 1986 by Colour Records (CR 615). This was actually the first record the band put out. What a sound really! Definitely influenced by, no surprise, the Liverpool pop scene of the time.

The 2nd 7″ was the one with “That Girl Too” on the A side and “Girl Scouts” on the flipside. This record came out in 1988 again on Colour Records (CR 804). This label put out a bunch of records mostly in the 80s. It was founded by Marc van Beveren in the city of Gent. Did the band hailed from there as well?

The 7″ had some etchings on runout according to Discogs. The A side said “Enjoy it – The Office” while the B side said “The Hit?……..”. Happily this 7″ has scans of the sleeve on Discogs and I notice that on the back sleeve there are a bunch of brands that sponsored the release! Even big names like FIAT! Other ones were Cafe Barfly, Atlas Reizen, Piet Lair, AnHyp, LP Center, RAF and Bossuyt. I suppose all of these were local businesses. And these businesses were based in Waregem, not in Gent. So, does it make more sense for them to be from Waregem? I would think so!

Then on the labels I finally find a name, that of Frédéric Maenhout! Interestingly enough he would later be part of a band called The Candy Dates who I’ve been meaning to write about! Small world! But what other band members were in The Office?

The band appeared on four compilations too. The first dates from 1987, an LP compilation called “The 2nd Belgian 6T’s Boom Vol. 1” where they appear with the track “Your Loving”. This release came out on Waterloo Sunset Records (WSR004) and 007 Records. That same year this same song would appear on the LP comp “From Behind the Bushes” released by Mad Colour Record (MCR 001). It seems this release was actually a co-release of their label, Colour Records, and the magazine Mad in Belgium. It makes sense.

Lastly their track “The Daze” appeared on the LP compilation “The Belgian Garagemania Vol. 3” in 1988. This LP was released by Boom! Records (Boom 3). and Waterloo Sunset Records (RUSS 106).

In 2008 the Belgian label Coincidence Records put a band called The Office on a digital compilation called “2 Years of Coincidences” with the track “Ultimatum”. I am not 100% sure if it is the same band. So I will need some confirmation. Other bands in this comp are techno and electronic bands. And the years don’t match. Who would know?

As you can expect not much more info about the band. So I really hope someone can answer all my questions!

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Listen
The Office – Your Loving

Day 62. Last batch of orders I could mail were sent. Still at home orders for Spain, Germany and Japan waiting. I will try next week, see if the postal service has resumed service to these countries.

In the meantime, there are a bunch of great releases out there now:

C19: our friend Joel in Peru has just put together a new digital compilation under the Impermeable Records name. This compilation is titled “C19”. It is an interesting name, right? It is 2020 now. But yeah, these are all songs recorded in 2019, and I must say this is a very careful and thoughtful compilation. The songs have been cherry-picked and you can see it as it includes amazing bands like Astral Brain, Dayflower, Nah…, The Umbrella Puzzles and more! 22 songs in total and artwork by the great Casio Van Doesburg!

Los Monocromos: two songs recorded during the shelter in place in Chile, “Un Lugar” and “Hace Tiempo”, that is how Matías Valmore presents his new project. The sound of DIY, of bedroom pop with poppy guitars, are what makes this a charming digital single.

Eterna Joventut: the debut song (!) for this Barcelona duo formed by Júlia and Asier is called “Vuelve Junto a Mí”. It is a sweet short song (under 3 minutes) with jangly guitars and female/male vocals! From what I see this is the first song they have been recording during the pandemic, so we should keep an eye on them, probably there will be more soon!

Apple Orchard: are our friends Ryan and Dale back? It looks that way! “A Slow Dissolve” was just recorded during the past few weeks! How cool is that. Sporting a cool artwork, this new digital single sounds excellent. It is noisy, poppy, and just so good! Are they preparing a release? I really hope so!

Dan Dan Dero: the Lima band is back with a new video for their brand new song “La Camiseta de James Rodriguez”. It is a great song, catchy and fun. But I must say that it causes me some problems! I really don’t think highly of James Rodriguez. He is terribly overrated in my book! Well, all Colombian players are overrated these days, they always choke at important matches. The last great Colombian for me was Iván Ramiro Córdoba. Not that you care, you came to read about indiepop and not football. But I am passionate about football too. So nevermind me. This song is GREAT and the video is FUN!

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I have had the intention of writing about the Autumn Parade for a long time. Finally I will do it. It is hard to plan ahead for these things to be honest. I just write and write about bands and I leave drafts ready or almost ready to publish. Then I revisit them when it is time to publish. Sometimes on a post I’d say “a few weeks ago”, but then when publishing three months have passed. It is funny.

The Autumn Parade didn’t leave us any records. No releases. But they did leave at least two songs recorded and published in a compilation called “Expo 1” that was released both in vinyl and CD in 1991 by the label Beachwood Music (EXPO1). These songs were “White Sand” and “Julia Blue”.

This record was compiled by Colin Simmons and Tim Millington. And I am thinking all tracks were recorded for this compilation. Why? Because there is one producer, Chris Nagle, for the record. Though ok, there are many engineers, Alastair McMillan, Dave Drennan, Huw David Price, Paul Tipler and Richard Scott. The photography on the sleeve is credited to Sheena Land.

Then in the credits it mentions that the songs were recorded at different places, like Blackwing in London, Strawberry in Stockport and Homestead in County Antrim. Where then did Autumn Parade recorded their songs? I think Stockport. There is a small bio on Last.fm that mentions that they hailed from there and were around 1988 to 1992.

Shelflife Records wrote about them many years ago, in 2009. That’s how I heard about them for the first time. It was a cool time, there were many good blogs discovering lost gems. Shelflife shared a Myspace page for Autumn Parade, and there were two more songs, “Skylight” and “Phased”. It also mentions that the band had an album to be released called “Indian Summer”.

We also know the names of the band members:
John Hamlin – vocals, songwriter and guitar
Phil Pearson – keyboards and backing vocals
Rob Bennet – bass
Ben Power – drums

It mentions that indeed two songs were recorded at Strawberry Studios but also two other were recorded at Amazon Studios in Liverpool. We find out too that the band toured a lot and got some demo budgets from labels like Phonogram and Siren but nothing came to fruition. Then in 1991 the American label Atlantic Records showed interest but again, nothing happened in the end. What a shame really!

I keep looking for more info and I find that at some point John Hamlin was making music with Emmy McIntyre and released two with Invisible Girl Records.

Not much more information sadly, but this is good stuff right? Now I do hope someday we get to listen to more of the songs that were recorded for “Indian Summer”. And also of course, I do hope to interview them sometime and find out the story behind the band!

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Listen
Autumn Parade – Julia Blue

Day 60. Tomorrow have to go again to the post office. That’s all the news I have. Now it is 2 months since I started sheltering in place.  As many of you I’ve been playing Animal Crossing a lot these past weeks. Want to be friends? Maybe that way I can get some people to comment on the blog! It’s been a bit quiet!

New music from Bandcamp, found this weekend.

The Honeydrips: Our friend Mikael is back with a new fantastic track called “Here Comes the Sun #1″! The ex-Dorotea, and also half of Salt Lake Alley (who have a 7” on Cloudberry, don’t miss that one!) has made a name under The Honeydrips, already a classic band when you think of Swedish indiepop, with so many indiepop hits in their hand. This song is no exception to that. Terrific!

Did You Die: from Victoria, Canada. The capital of British Columbia. I visited once. So nice. How I miss traveling. The band’s latest is a digital single, just the one song, called “Shine So Real”. You’ll find nose, and jangly guitars buried in it, and what’s kind of interesting too, is that the song was recorded in an airplane hangar.

Glaswen: more shoegaze sounds, now from Russia. Noisier than the previous band, their latest track is called “Definition”. It seems that during the pandemic shoegaze music is much easier for me to find than canonical indiepop. It is an interesting trend.

Blume: now another shoegaze band, but on the other side of the spectrum, not the noisy but the fragile and dreamy. This project by Arthur Bennell from Edmonton, Canada, has released a new EP called “Take your Time” with 4 songs. They was all recorded by Arthur in hos own computer.

Star-Crossed Lovers: last shoegaze sounds for today. The debut EP from this California cambo! It is self-titled and has 5 songs. It is also on the dreamy sound, with jangly guitars. I think a bit of Secret Shine when listening to this. That’s a good thing, right?

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This is definitely a blast from the past. I was going down memory lane and remembered those days of Myspace, when we befriended bands and musicians and listened to their tracks easily. I remember discovering so many bands then. All sorts. Old and new. And from all over the world. I always say that if there hadn’t been that social platform, Cloudberry would have been a total different thing. Who knows, maybe it wouldn’t have existed.

One of the bands I discovered there was the Swedish Lucky Lucky Pigeons. I really liked their catchy tunes. They were fun and they had a special punk attitude to them. I was a fan. I think I wrote them at some point. I can’t remember tho. It was before Cloudberry. Maybe I wanted to do something with them on Plastilina Records? Maybe not. Maybe I dreamed that. I do know, that I found some of the members if not all on Last.fm. I was friends with them there. Those were the days when you added people and it didn’t feel weird. Or maybe it is like that still and I’ve become old and have strange ideas. Who knows. The fact being, I was a fan.

Today I can’t remember much about them. I didn’t get round getting a copy of their demo CDR that they self-released as the “Happy Birds Day EP” in 2006 and that was later re-released by Freedom Road Records (FR009). It had three terrific songs on it, mind you. Not surprising the UK label ran by Russell Barker re-released them also on CDR. These songs were “Who Smells Marshmallows?”, “Lucky Song” and “N to the Ice”.

The band was formed by Hanna Olsson on guitar and backing vocals, Elin Pärsson on keyboards and backing vocals and Amna Maksumic on vocals and tambourine. Artee 123 is credited for drums and bass on the CDR. That was a drum machine.

Happily the band had more songs. I know that the track “Red Santa” was included in the Cherryade compilation “A Very Cherry Christmas 2” (CHY 006) in 2006. And then their terrific track, “Keep On, Kingie!” was included in the CDR comp “Club King Kong: Med Musiken I Mitten Vol. 2 Säsongen 06-07” released by Donkeyboys Recordings  (DNKYBYS002). This was a compilation that was put out by Club King Kong, a cool indiepop night from Stockholm.

Other songs by the band were “Knife for Life”, “No Lips on Locos” and “Make Money Money”, which I believe were intended for a second EP titled “Bird Flu”. Was that ever released? It looks as if it is available in digital formats and include some remixes for “Who Smells Marshmallows?”. There are the following remixes for this track, “TIAC remix”, “Lucky Misu remix”, “Compute remix” and “Jmyhaze Beatbox remix)”.

Something that we can’t forget is that there was a video for “Keep on Kingie” that of course you need to check out! This video was made by Amna Maksumic and Linnea Rutz. This same account, which probably belongs to a member, has some live videos of the band playing in the city of Gävle. This first video have the band playing “N to the Ice” and “Red Santa”.  The second video has “Make Money Money”, “Who Smells Marshmallows?” and “No Lips on Locos”, while a third video has “Keep on Kingie” and “Knife for Life”. There is also a collage of photos on video with the title “2005-2008“. I am guessing those are the years the band existed.

Then I find an article on Dala-Demokraten, and this tells me that the band was formed in Dalarna, in Borlänge precisely. They were teenagers then and attended the Kristinegymnasiet school. They mention that they weren’t really accepted in Falun, as they were making lovely indiepop and the city was more into hard rock. I learn too that they played the Seaside Festival in Falun in 2008.

There are a few blog posts about them, like on well remembers blogs like Unpopular or Skatterbrain, though aside from praising the band (well deserved of course) don’t add any details about them. I am curious for example if the band members ended up playing in other bands. Who’d know?

Another article, on DT.se, tells that the band’s first gig was at the Christmas party at Forssaklackskolans. They band also played Emmaboda Festival and the Lund club Phone Me. Here are more details too, for example Hanna hails from Falun, Amna from Borlänge and Elin from Gagnef. All are the same age. They were in the humanities program in the Kristinegymnasiet. They were fans of The Radio Dept. and the Magnetic Fields. The band name comes from an inner joke, they translated “turturduvor” (lovebirds) into Lucky Lucky Pigeons!

But I still look forthem and find out that Amna Maksumic works in the film industry. She worked for example as a production manager on the movie Midsommar. She also was project manager of the TV series “Älska mig”. She even acted on a short called “Half Brother”.

The other band members are harder to track. Still this has helped me remember them, remember those days of Myspace when indiepop was once again exciting. I hope you also enjoyed this trip down memory lane and if you remember anything else, about the band, please leave a comment! Would love to know if they had more songs, or if they had been involved in any other projects!

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Listen
Lucky Lucky Pigeons – Keep On Kingie

Day 57. About to complete two months.

Here are some new finds from around the web, and happy Friday!

Riel: this duo from Argentina, formed by Mora and Germán, have been around for a bit. This is the first time I am listening to them thanks to their latest song “1990”. It is a very nice indiepop/shoegaze track! Great female vocals, bright guitars, for this digital single.

S.D.W.: all the way from Feilding, New Zealand, comes this project with a brand new self-titled EP. 5 songs of upbeat shoegaze/noisepop  There is not much info about the band or anything really. It probably is just a digital release.

Fred Fredburger: the Spanish band will be releasing a 10″ on Elefant Records on May 29th. The record will include 8 songs and so far we can preview two of the songs, “Colegas” and “El, Uriel”. It is already up for pre-orders. If you like Los Fresones Rebeldes or Juniper Moon this probably is up your street! Lovely and innocent.

The Crystal Furs: “Expo 67” is the latest song by the Portland, Oregon, indiepop band. The digital single comes too with an acoustic mix of this song. The song seems to be inspired by an architectural lesbian love story. Their new album should be out in June in Subjangle Records.

Club Med: “Busy, Busy Busy” is the name of the 4-song tape the band released last September on Roolette Records. This band sounds amazing, maybe my fave new find this week. They hail from Melbourne and they have some great melodies and very catchy lyrics. There are not many tapes left so be quick. I don’t do tapes, so don’t worry about me.

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A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface.

I keep discovering new obscure Swedish bands. It feels that it is an unending resource. How many Swedish pop bands has there been? Ever? I don’t think we’ll ever be able to answer that question!

I only know one song from Waterwheels. It is called “Lisa” and it is a fragile and sweet indiepop track. A lo-fi recording most probably. My question of course is, if during that same recording session they made more songs. A recording session that happened at the Ambassaden studios in Eskilstuna. Yes, that is one of the few facts about them. They hailed from that city in Sweden.

This song, “Lisa”, appeared on a 1994 tape called “Popangelov #1” that came alongside a fanzine of the same name. Was it an Eskilstuna fanzine? Probably. All the bands on the tape hailed from there. We find Yvonne, Superswirls, Beetroots and Gentle Tuesday. This last band a true favourite of mine. What a great band they were!

Popangelov would release 3 more tapes but we won’t see Waterwheels again. It is curious. What happened to them?

Popfakta may answer us. There is a release listed for Waterwheels. Sadly it doesn’t have a date. It seems to be a CD single with two tracks, “Leaving You” and “Electric Girl”. The only credits we find are for Totte Almström who took the photos for the artwork and Crippe who produced. This time around it seems the songs were recorded at Underground Studios in Eskilstuna.

I’ve never listened to these songs. This release doesn’t show up on Discogs. In Popfakta they don’t even have what label released them or anything. Maybe it was a self-release. I also can’t find any names related to the band. Who were the people behind it?

The only other thing I found about tehm was that the band played a festival called Bokrock in 1995. Gentle Tuesday also did. I know this thanks to a PDF I found from 2016 where they mention that there was a music exhibition of Eskilstuna music in the City Museum.

If anyone knows anything else by them. Please use the comment section. It’d be great to find out more info about them!

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Listen
Waterwheels – Lisa

Thanks so much to Bruce and Ian for the interview! I wrote about Beware the Green Monkey not too long ago. Happily both Bruce and Ian got in touch to tell me the story of their band!

++ Hi Bruce and Ian! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? How are you handling these Covid-19 times? Still making music?

Ian: Just chilling out in the apartment, chatting with old mates on Zoom, and yes, a little bit of music making on the sofa. We have just been allowed out by the Authorities after 7 weeks of very strict lockdown. Nice to walk around again outside without being hassled by the police or the army.

Bruce: Pretty much the same as Ian but in a cottage in Colne. Like Ian I’ve been keeping in touch with family and friends via technology and shopping regularly for my parents who are self isolating due to their age. We can go out in the UK and to be honest it’s pretty much the same for me as I’m quite a home bird now.

++ Ian you moved to Tenerife, right? How are you liking it there? How’s your Spanish? Have you been in bands there? What about you Bruce? Are you still in the UK?

Ian: Tenerife is fine. Nice weather all year round and an easy going lifestyle. The Canary Islands are an interesting place to visit or spend time discovering. Occasionally I have done some impromptu gigs with friends. It’s more about having fun and making a noise than being a great band. I have worked with a variety of singers, brass players, blues/rock musician friends and so on who have contributed to recordings or just turned up at gigs and played.
The music scene here is not what it was a few years ago. Down to problems such as drugs and noise a lot of the “real music” venues were closed down and now it’s just tourist fodder so I mostly don’t bother going to see music live these days. We are off the beaten track and it’s Spain so we never get any decent English language bands playing here. I got a freebie to see Simply Red’s “Farewell Tour” a few years ago. It was on a golf course and the band were about a mile away as they had overestimated how many people would want to pay for the VIP seating that was about 20 rows deep. So about 2 people were up near the stage and the rest of were somewhere in the distance. Surreal gig. Personally not a fan myself but hey, it was free ha ha.

My own music, or a small selection of it, can be found here:

https://soundcloud.com/warburger-1

Bruce: Yes I’m still in the UK in the sae area I’ve lived in for the last 50 years. I do yearn to move to the Mediterranean as recently I have discovered I am half Cypriot. I was adopted as a baby to an amazing family but after a DNA test I’ve found not only my heritage but also 10 brothers and sisters! Amazing really.

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

Ian: My first musical memories was my parents record collection…lots of country and western and ballad stuff for my dad plus a couple of my mum’s Beatles LPs. 
I started as a drummer. A friend needed a drummer for his new wave band and never having played I said I would give it a go. Turns out I was OK at it. Then I fronted a rock band, just local gigs when we were about 15. After that I picked up the guitar.
The first song I learned to play was Stairway to Heaven. A friend knew the first 4 intro guitar phrases and I worked out the rest by just playing along. It was a good one to start with, it has a bit of everything so if you could master that you could play pretty much anything.

Bruce: Like Ian to was The Beatles, I still absolutely adore this band and had the privilege of working for them a year or so ago (more on that if anyone is interested) I also love most prog rock bands ie YES, Genesis etc…. But also Floyd, Zep and all the classic bands from that golden era. I do play guitar but not well enough to preform on stage but I strum away whenever I get the urge to play.

++ Where were you from originally?

Ian: A small village near Stockport.

Bruce: A small village near Burnley

++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?

Ian: BTGM was formed in around 1986 at North Staffs Poly where I was a design student. In my halls of residence I found a guy named Paul with a bass guitar and started jamming with him. We decided we need a drummer and rumours led us to the door of Jon the drummer, also a student (partially) and he was up for making a noise with us. We all liked bands like Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Rush so we had some common ground for making music.
We had a few guitar players, percussionists, singers etc all come and go, it was a non-serious venture but we did a few gigs at the Student Unions and bars around the city.

Bruce: I met Ian & Paul through Jon Turner the drummer in BTGM. We were in a cover band together when I was 17 and one evening Jon played me a video of the track ‘Beware the Green Monkey’ that Ian had made whilst at Poly. Jon was performing on the track and the video was animated, it just absolutely blew me away and from there I suggested that perhaps this band could reform with myself having a ‘go’ at singing. Quite a hard ask as Ian, Paul & Jon were doing this years ago at Poly and I was just some cover band young singer with daft ambitions. Mark Jezierski was a great keyboard player who I’d known for a few years and was really eager to play with, he joined the band after myself when we’d been offered a full UK tour back in 91 with another local to me band ‘The Millltown Brothers’ Have to sayI felt pretty guilty asking to be the lead vocalist but glad I did and we all got together and made an attempt at stardom.

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

Ian: Mostly songs were just written, either by myself or Jon, and we just worked it out and rehearse together. We jammed a little but mostly ideas were brought in to be worked on.

We were fortunate in that Jon’s house also doubled as our rehearsal space, poor neighbours!
Later on Jon’s Dad had a room up in Lancashire that we had as a permanent practice room. At first we would make the trip up there at weekends, me from London and Paul from Manchester, then eventually we decided that work was boring so we thought we would give rock and roll stardom a shot, packed in our jobs and decamped to Lancashire, which is where eventually we met with Mark and Bruce.

Bruce: The creative process was very much driven by Ian & Jon, both outstanding songwriters!!! Ian and Paul being graphic designers put the finishing touches with merchandise, cassette sleeve designs, gig posters etc… this was a time where your t-shirts were as important as the music you created, and we had two cracking designers knocking up some really strong designs, we sold tons of merch.

As Ian stated, we had our own practice room that myself, Jon and the cover band we were in built (with bits of carpet on the walls, and it was as damp as a rain forest in there) we used this room as the base for our rehearsals.

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

Ian: The name refers to the African Green Monkey. In the 80s when the AIDS epidemic appeared there were many (probably inaccurate) theories around where it came from, and the Green Monkey was one of them.

It became a song and “concept album” which is lost in the mists of time and also I incorporated the music and ideas into a series of Public Information videos that were used by the Terence Higgins Trust to raise awareness. So really we have always been a band for an epidemic, ha ha.

When we were trying to come up with a name for the band BTGM was proposed by the guys. I was not keen, it’s a pretty crazy name, but I was outvoted and we got stuck with it.

++ You were managed by Hugh Beverton who at some point had a small part in Doctor Who. How did you know him? How was working with him? Any fun anecdotes you could share?

Ian: The night before we played a London gig that was apparently to be attended by 14 major record companies we were playing in Peterborough. A couple of us stayed with Hugh at his friends house. In the morning as we were all waking up we heard cries of distress coming from the bathroom and someone shouting “Help me!”. Hugh had managed to put his foot through the bathroom sink, slicing a nice big hole that required a trip to A&E.
At the gig that evening he turned up with a plaster cast and a crutch for our Big Night.

We didn’t get signed that night. Not Hugh’s fault, and to be fair he was just as prone to calamity as the rest of the band.

We did get a development deal from East West records, the result of another ill fated gig where we drove the length of the country to be greeted by an audience of one person sat a long way away at the back of the room we were playing. Fortunately that one person was Ed…something…a record exec who liked what I heard.

Bruce: Hugh was a real gent, he was so behind the band and spent his hard earned money trying to get us a deal. Hugh very sadly died several years ago of brain cancer the same condition which cost Mark our keyboard player his life also. Both Mark & Hugh are in our thoughts very much, we miss them both.

++ So how come there was no releases by the band? Was there any interest from any labels?

Ian: Yes, but at the time music was becoming more about the Acid Dance scene and bands like us were not that viable a proposition for record companies.

Bruce: In the days we were around you needed a record label to release music, it was all about distribution and without a label you were pretty much dead in the water. We did have major interest but I think we were just too eager for a deal and labels in those days needed to see bands that really didn’t care about the industry aspects, ie they wanted bands that said NO and we would have signed anything. I think our chase for the deal was the wrong way to run the band, we should have just made great music which I believe we did and let the rest happen naturally.

++ You did record some demo tapes, right? How many did you make? Who produced them and where were they recorded?

Ian: We recorded stuff in bedrooms, rehearsal rooms and occasionally in The Shed studio near Stockport or Flame Studios in London.

++ Something that surprised me that even though you didn’t release a record you did make two promo videos, one for “Precious Time” and another for “In My Time Dying”. How come did these happen? Who made them? And where were they filmed?

Bruce: Precious Time was an ITV / Granada production. Every Friday after the local news they’d highlight a band. This spot was utterly important as it was all about Manchester in those days and the bands on the Friday night spot were all signed ie The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays etc… I think we were the only unsigned band to ever get that spot. It was filmed in Sefton Park in Liverpool and due to The Milltown Brothers who’d also been on the show and their connection to Burnley Football Club they assumed we all loved football. I know Ian is a fan of Man City but I was an outlander with Burnley Football Club ie I just wanted them to do well for our local area. I’ve never played football but that is apparent from the shots within Precious Time. It was a very fun day and we loved the exposure, it really helped make the band a more serious set up.

Ian: The In my time of Dying video was filmed in London by a guy called Jon Harris, a friend of Paul, who later went on to a sparkling career as a film editor known for his work on Snatch, Layer Cake, The Descent, Stardust, 127 Hours, The Woman in Black, The Two Faces of January and T2 Trainspotting. 
There was a lot more footage filmed in Highgate Cemetary but for some reason that did not make it into the video.

++ From the video of “Precious Time” I can tell you love football! I have to ask them, what teams are you fans of?

Ian: Manchester City. I used to go as a kid with my brother and stand in the Kippax when football was just starting to boil over with hooliganism problems. Quite a heated environment for a young kid. I saw the classic 70s team full of great players but they never won much as that was also the time when Liverpool, who thumped us every time I saw them play, were coming into their period of domination. I occasionally go to the Etihad where my brother had a corporate box type thing. A long way from the Kippax but tasty food and rubbing shoulders with some City greats. Not bad.

++ A few days ago Ian posted on Soundcloud an album worth of songs of NOT Beware the Green Monkey. I am a bit confused! Are these songs recorded by Beware the Green Monkey or not? Or are these new recordings?

Ian: These were BTGM songs but I do not have the original recordings, or they were just not that great versions. There may be some stuff around that I do not have. Possibly Paul has some more, but BTGM was very much something from the past as we got on with other things. Personally I didn’t really do any music again until 2005.

So a few years later when I decided to start messing around again I didn’t really have much new material but also I felt like playing around with a few of the old songs that had something more to work with. I started writing new stuff, with no real plan to try and sound like BTGM, and my solo stuff has explored a lot of musical avenues outside of the Indie Band sound.
I did come up with a few songs that had that BTGM sound I guess so I included them as part of that compilation of later stuff but it was all pretty much recorded single handed as I explored the wonders of digital production at home.

Bruce: To be fair, Ian has kept the BTGM thing going as it really was his band alongside Jon and Paul. I love what Ian has done and I am massive fan of his music so much so I’ve just bought a mic and stand and am now collaborating on some old and I think new tracks via technology, two rooms etc… We do not have any ambition at all but it’s just fun to work with Ian on some music.

++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Precious Time”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

Ian: It was a song written for an ex girlfriend, I don’t remember exactly what point I was trying to make ha ha.

++ If you were to choose your favorite Beware the Green Monkey song, which one would that be and why?

Ian: Pray for the Rain. Not one of my songs but one of the ones where we got to play complex music rather than just a 3 minute single. That recording whilst not perfect shows really what we wanted to be. We were always a bunch of sad prog rock fans who dressed trendy. We would probably not have got to make a second album as our musical tastes were well out of step with the music scene at the time.

Bruce: I love Pray for the Rain as like Ian said it was our journey into the world of Prog Rock which is really where we all wanted to head. For me Happy Man one of Ian’s songs and In My Time of Dying again an Ian tune are my favourites. We used to open the set with In My Time of Dying and it was always a great one to kick off the live shows.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? 

Ian: Too many.

Bruce: I’d have played loads more, I just love performing live. We did a lot of gigs all over the show including one in Camden where Suede supported us. We also played with Liam Gallagher when he was in The Rain, the band that eventually became Oasis.

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

Ian: We would probably all agree that Cambridge Junction was a high point. Although only the support act the audience treated us like we were the Rolling Stones or something and we got to indulge our on stage rock posturing fantasies without people laughing at us. It was the only time we ever stayed in a Hotel. We joked about throwing the TV out of the window but really we were too nice and sensible to do something like that.

Bruce: Burnley Mechanics our hometown show (well mine and Jon’s) was great and Ian can send you some of the video from that evening. We sold the venue out which was around 450. Also Cambridge Junction, that was a really amazing show! We signed so many autographs and felt like rock stars

++ And were there any bad ones?

Ian: Yes, many. Being held in the dressing room by the police after an unfortunate glassing incident in Bangor, Wales. At that stage we had a lot of hangers on. Mostly good guys who gave up their time to help roadie for us, but the entourage was getting out of hand and that was one of the nights when I realised I was no longer enjoying the ride. Probably the beginning of the end for me.

Bruce: All bands play shit gigs, we did too. The ones where it’s literally 3 people and you’ve travelled 300 miles to get there. It’s all part and parcel of being in a band that isn’t famous. We did have some fantastic one’s also.

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

Ian: A couple of gigs were great, but I have always preferred “the studio” so having a few good songs well recorded was a big thrill at the time.

Bruce: The 21 date UK Milltown Brothers tour. The MB’s were at the hight of their fame after releasing the critically acclaimed album ’Slinky’ so pretty much all the dates were sold out. I have some very very happy memories from this tour.

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

Ian: Doing nothing. An art in itself. Walking, travel. I did an illustrated story book that received a nice review from Mark Radcliffe but got nowhere. But largely nothing where possible.

Bruce: I’m still in a band, albeit a cover band. I love playing covers and performing original music at 50 is too much pressure as you need to have an objective to make that kind of music ie a deal, tours etc… which I do not have any ambition at all for.

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Listen
Beware the Green Monkey – Precious Time

Day 55. Now I have to say that I wasn’t able to post records to Germany and Japan this week. The mail service seem to be suspended to these countries as well as Spain. I still have a few Sweden orders that I am hoping to mail next week. I hope there are no issues there.

Can only say thanks to everyone that keeps supporting the label. I really hope to have new releases soon, but as everything things move slower.

Some new music of course.

Waspjuice: Chris Blunkell who was in the superb 80s band The Black Cillas has been playing in the very fine Waspjuice for many years. The band has just released a new album on the At Swim label and I totally recommend checking it out. There are 10 songs on it of classic guitar pop and it is not just digital, it is also available on vinyl!

Zack Yusof: Our friend that played in the amazing Rebecca Fishpond (who were interviewed on the blog) and The Kildares (who I hope will be interviewed too) has made a new song called “Pandemic Love Song #1” which sounds really nice! Also keep in mind that all proceeds of the song will go toward Care’s COVID-19 emergency appeal.

Raw Honey: from Ypsilanti, Michigan, comes 8 songs from the archive. Recorded between 2012 and 2016, and many of them produced by Saturday Looks Good to Me’s Fred Thomas, this small digital compilation called “From the Archives” sounds ace, dreamy, calm, and sweet.

The Asteroid No. 4: now a California band that will be releasing their album “Northern Songs” later this year. As a preview they have shared the song “Northern Song” which is a lovely jangly track. Looking forward to the other songs!

Todavía: and another California band to end our little review. These Angelinos have just released a dreamy and fragile song called “Paradiso”. Not at all sounding like the band Paradiso if you ask me. And it also doesn’t look as it is a full band, more of a one-man project by Rhyan Riesgo. Good stuff!

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Strange name of this mod/indiepop band from the UK. I am looking for a copy of their single. And so, I thought finding more info about them as well. That is a good plan. Isn’t it?

The band only released one 7″ back in 1991. It had two songs, “Yellow and Magenta” and “The Reaper”. They were most possibly self-released on the label Sealclub Records (CHOK 1). 500 copies were pressed, and the first 100 copies came with the different labels (black type and on the wrong sides).

We know that both songs are credited to Dave Edley, lead guitar of the band. The other band members were Andy Garngarek on bass, Jez Strrickland on drums and Big Bad Dom on stylophone.

Something interesting about this release is that there was an acetate 10″ release with both songs. I wonder how many copies were made of this rare disc. On this one I notice that the songs are credited to both Edly and Garngarek. And from what I read on Discogs, the labels have a different name for the band, The Three Surgeons. This is very confusing. Do anyone know what was going on?

Something interesting too is that in 2009 the band appeared on a compilation called “Tetters Plays Pop – I Wish You Were Made of Biscuit”. This compilation included their track “Yellow and Magenta” and here I notice that the credits for instruments are different. Was this a re-recording? So we see David Abrahams-Edley on guitar and vocals. He added a last name. That’s ok. Jez Strickland on drums. Ok. Dom Strickland on keyboards. Ok, now we know Dom’s last name. Was he related to Jez? Andy Garncarek on guitar. And Mark Barrett on bass. He wasn’t listed on the 7″ sleeve!

This compilation was released by Trip & Fall Records (TAF003) and included other bands like The Flying Squad, The Threads, Yellowcayke or Tetters Plays Pop. Then I notice that there is something in common for these bands. They all have David Edley in them! That’s good to know. Would be great to find a copy of this compilation! He was also in King Mojo, The Singles, The Avengers, Vals Basement and The Che Men.

What about the other band members? We know that Dom Strickland, also called Big Bad Dom, or Dom “Happy Organ” Strickland, played in Aunt Nelly and The Clique while Mark Barrett played in Afterglow, The Che Men, The Alternative and Thee Strawberry Mynde. Andrew Garncarek was also part of Yellocayke, The Singles, The Avengers and Present Tense.

I check out some of these bands, and I find out that for example Thee Strawberry Mynde, which their song “She Sets the Scene” sounds pretty good by the way, hailed from Hartlepool. Does this mean that The Sealclubbers came from that area as well?

On Youtube I find another track, “Till the Morning Light”, by The Sealclubbers. This song was recorded at Studio 64 in Middlesbrough on June 4th 1991. I guess it comes from the same recording session as the single. This video post also tells that the band was actually only together for 2 days, the 3rd and 4th of June. I guess just to record the single! That’s nuts! Why was that?

And that’s it really. Not much more information about them. And lots of questions left waiting for an answer. Would be great to find out why they only got together to record a single. How did they even promote it? Who remembers them?

EDIT April 23, 2022:

I got in touch with Mark “Bazza” Barrett, the band’s bassist. These are his memories of The Sealclubbers

Back in 1991 I was asked if I wanted to play on a single that Dave Edley (aka Tetley) and Andrew Garngarek (Gwangie) had planned. We all knew each other from the 80s and had met via the Mod scene, Tetley & Gwangie had played in the band The Singles who recorded a few demos and had supported Makin’ Time at Redcar Bowl back on World Cup final day in 1986. I had been playing bass since 1985 and had formed a band called The Alternative which lasted from 1986-87, our first gig taking place on my 16th Birthday 4th October 1986.

At the time I didn’t have a bass or amp so I borrowed an amp off an old school friend and I got my old bass (an Ibenez Rickenabcker copy) off the lad I had sold it to a few months earlier. I had sold the bass for £50 when I needed some money for one of the Mod rallies. We booked 2 days into Studio 64 in Middlesbrough, the studio is long gone now but was just over the road from Dr Browns pub on Corporation Road. The days booked were Monday 3rd & Tuesday 4th June 1991, we spent one day rehearsing the songs & a day recording.

For the session the line up was Dave Edley (vocals/rhythm guitar), Andrew Garngarek (lead guitar), Mark Barrett (bass) and Dom Strickland (organ). We didn’t have a drummer at the time so we borrowed a drum machine from the studio. We recorded 2 original songs for the single – ‘Yellow & Magenta’ and ‘The Reaper’ both written by Dave and also a cover of The Prisoners ‘Till The Morning Light’ which was never released. No one knew how to program the drum machine so all 3 tracks had the same drum pattern! We all chipped in for the recording session, I can’t remember the full cost of the session now but I do remember it was nearly all of my dole money for that week as we also bought the master tape. I also remember we took a break during the session and headed into town where Dom bought the LP ‘Pure’ by The Times at the local Our Price record shop which had just come out on Creation Records.

Later Dom’s brother Jez put drums onto 1 track – ‘The Reaper’. Some 10″ Acetate discs were made for the single (possibly only 1 or 2 copies?) and bare the namd The Tree Surgeons which was what the band were going to go by before going with The Sealclubbers. Due to a cock up my name missed off the credits when the single was released towards the end of 1991. The record labels were also stuck on the wrong sides on all of the records, the original labels were black with silver print, we got some done which were white with black print and stuck them over the top.  I do remember Tetley give me my copy of The Sealclubbers single at a gig by The Clique (who Dom was now playing organ for) at The Adelphi in Hull in January 1992.

The Sealclubbers never did play live, we did get an offer to play at Havana’s nightclub in Middlesbrough which was well known on the rave scene at the time. But that fell through and we went our seperate ways, Dom joining The Clique, I joined the ska band The G-Men and Tetley & Gwangie formed Yellowcayke who put out an EP on Detour Records.

I have since played with Tetley in my studio band The Che Men (for the ‘A Flame That Can’t Be Dimmed’ EP) and also in Thee Strawberry Mynde were Tetley did a few gigs with us and also features on the Get Hip compilation on my record label Red Star Recordings.

King Mojo (whose line up includes Tetley) later recorded ‘The Reaper’ for their debut album ‘Do Not Feed The Dancing Bear’. The album was produced by The Prisoners frontman Graham Day who we had covered one of his songs at that 1991 Sealclubbers session.

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Listen
The Sealclubbers – Yellow and Magenta