Day 43. All domestic orders for the fanzine have been shipped. Some international too. Another batch will be posted next week. There are issues with mailing to Spain, the US postal service says that there are some disruptions there, that we could mail at our own risk, that packages may be returned. Should I mail them? What do my Spanish friends think of that? Would be good to know your thoughts.

New music for this upcoming weekend:

Melenas: the amazing Pamplona band has released a new video for their song “Primer Tiempo”. How great it is to have more Melenas songs available! Now I really need a copy of the album at home! The video was shot while the band members have been at home during the Covid-19 quarantine. I have a curious question, what book is the one shown at 0:24 seconds?

Kiwis: another Spanish band that has a new video is Kiwis. It is for their song “Cambiaran las Tornas” which will be part of their album “Vida Exterior” that the very fine Snap Clap! Club will be releasing this year! Great vocals, terrific pop!

Low Key Crush: the Melbourne band is back with a very fine single called “When You Were Leaving”. It was a long time since we featured in the blog, so it is interesting to know what they are up to. Will this song be included in a bigger project? In the meantime we can listen to these duo’s song on repeat.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: for sure the band that has been featured the most in this section. The California band has two new jangly and poppy songs up on their Bandcamp, “Sex, Lies & Therapy” and “Worst Side of Town”.

The National Honor Society: this Seattle band sounds amazing really. Their latest two songs are “First Among the Last” and a cover of The Stone Roses’ “Mersey Paradise”. Previously, in 2017, they had released an EP called “All Change” which sounds a bit different, much rockier. The new songs are a true surprise then, with a sound that captured me immediately. Not sure if both or just one of these songs will be part of the “To all the Glory We Never Had” album that is to be released on May 29 by Chien Lunatique Records.

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I have been trying to get a copy of The Tainted Children’s sole 7″ for years now. Since my friend Andreas showed it to me last time I visited Hamburg. A few years then. I remember him playing it for me, and me thinking “this is fantastic, I need this one in my collection!”.

Andreas Van Der Wingen on bass and vocals, Matej Havranek on drums and Max Stamm on electric guitar and vocals were The Tainted Children. On these recordings they did have help from Marc Ashmann on backing vocals and Tommy Mayer on guitar and backing vocals. Stamm and Van Der Wingen are credited to both songs on the record.

Which songs? Well, the A side had “Roll My Stone” and the B side had the sublime “If Julia Ever Knows”. This record was released in 1988 by the German label Smarten Up! (START 7), the same label that released fine bands like The Birdy Num Nums, Die Tanzenden Herzen or Die Profis.

The cover art is particular, the front has illustrations of the three members and a naked woman (who is she?) printed in black and white over a blue crayon-like painted background. The back of the sleeve has a band photo as well as a photo for each of the band members. From the sleeve I learn that the songs were recorded at Grundfunk Studio in November 1988. Now, it doesn’t say where the band was from? Who’d know? I’d make a guess, Düsseldorf. Tell me if I am wrong.

Aside from this 7″ the band only appeared on a compilation. It was also on Smarten Up! and was the 1991 LP comp “Smarten-Up Compilation” (BIGSTART 16). On it the band contributes the song “D.O.W.N.” which is credited to Maximilian Stamm. I believe the inner sleeve of the compilation had a small bio of the band, but I don’t own the record, so can’t say what it says. I need your help here.

So I look into bands the band members had been involved. Andreas Van Der Wingen had been in Kiesgroup, Oiro, Subterfuge and the J, Erwin Blues Explosion. Matej Havranek has played on Sally Blue, Orange, Family*5, The Beatlesons and Asmodi Bizarr. Max Stamm played in Bo Hatzfeld & the Headhunters, Kiesgroup, Bo & Bodo, Sonic Dolls, DeCornelius, and more. He has also played with Marc Ashmann who was also on Bo Hatzfeld & the Headhunters. Ashmann was also on The Beathoovers. Lastly Tommy Mayer who helped on the record as well as Marc, had been in Dortmund, Mardi Gras Band and The Digitals.

Not much more info about the band online. Did they record more songs? Why were there no other releases? Did they play live much? Will they be included in the next German version of The Sound Leamington Spa series by Firestation Records? Many questions that I hope get answerd!

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Listen
The Tainted Children – If Julia Ever Knows

Day 41.

This week started with sad news. Don’t know if you are aware but Andy Wake, who ran the legendary label Medium Cool Records passed away. I never met him or talked to him, but I can’t deny that his label has been important to me and to indiepop in general, releasing the likes of The Siddeleys, The Waltones, The Corn Dollies, The Popguns, The Enormous Room and The Raw Herbs. All very influential and important bands in the late 80s and beyond.

I’ve been lucky to interview The Siddeleys and The Raw Herbs in the past. Have written about The Enormous Room. Have seen The Popguns play live. So yeah, I am a fan. And I am sure in the future I’ll be featuring The Corn Dollies and The Waltones. Rest in peace Andy and thanks for the music!

It is hard to change topics after telling this news, so I won’t be recommending any music today. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’ll share the writeup I did for the Swedish band Neil Armstrong, which was written a few months back and was waiting to be posted.

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Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.

Why would a Swedish band call themselves Neil Armstrong? Why not Arne Christer Fuglesang, the first Swedish citizen in space? Well, the band was around before the time Christer was in space (2006). So that may be why. But still it is an interesting choice to call themselves Neil Armstrong, right?

The band was around in the late 90s and early 2000s and only released one CDR single. That was it. But we can try to find out more information about them, right?

The band hailed from Hagersten in Stockholm. They were formed by Levi Orebjörk on vocals, Stefan Eriksson on guitar, Pontus Nilsson on guitar, Fredrik Danielsson on bass and Martin Gustafsson on drums.

The CDR they released came out on Tuff Tuff Musik (TTM001) in the year 2000. Most probably it was a self-release as there are no other records listed on this label? Don’t know, as there is an address for the label locating them in Karlstad, not Stockholm. So it might be someone else other than the band that put them out. It included just two songs, “We All Knew” and “Fleetwood Mac”. A tribute to the ultra famous band? It’d be interesting to know what inspired them.

Sure they didn’t release any other records but they did appear on quite a bunch of compilations.

Starting in 1997 when they had their song “The Swing” on the “True To You. A Dorian Compilation” released by Dorian Records (Dorian04). The year after, 1998, their song “I’m So Happy” appeared on the comp “Hitta Mitten -98” on Absurd Records (ABSURD 5), while their track “Fastest Girl” would appear on the 7″ compilation “A Single Bite” released by Labrador (LAB002). The fine magazine Benno would put them on a 7″ compilation called “Benno Presents Volume 1” (Benno 1) with their song “I’m So Happy” too. Keep in mind that the first two were CD compilations, and the last two were vinyl one of course. And all of them on Swedish labels.

In 1999 the band contributed “Mr. Bus” to the CDR compilation “19 Ways to Get Back Home” released by Jetboy Records (JR002). This is truly a fine compilation I didn’t know about. I see lots of great bands and many I’ve never heard that I should try to discover!

Firestation from Germany would pick them up to include their song “So Long” in the compilation “You Thought it was the End of the World when the Rain Ruined Your Hair” (FST016) in the year 2000, and lastly another German label, Apricot Records, would include them in “Airpop Terminal 2” with two tracks, “Going For Gold” and “We All Knew”, in 2001.

The fine webzine Popviminns compares the band to The Brilliant Corners and The Housemartins. Then on Blaskoteket I find a mention of them again after the first 7″ Benno release where they were included. Here we learn that the band had even more recordings. They mention that there was a demo cassette from 1996 called “Feeling Alright”, and another two from 1997 called “One Crazy Weekend” and “It Is Good”. What about afterwards? Did they continue recording? Would be great to listen to the songs included in these tapes and any other unreleased material.

There’s more. The blog The Finest Kiss wrote about them in 2006. What’s interesting here is the comments section. Stefan Eriksson comments here and mentions that he is/was in a band called Braxen. He says that most of the band members were in this band. Can’t seem to find their music even though there used to be an old Myspace page for this band.

And that’s it really. We know then that there are more songs other than the ones on compilations. That they were involved in at least another band. But can we hear these tracks now? And how come they didn’t release more records? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Neil Armstrong – Mr. Bus

Thanks so much to Riichiro and Jun for the interview! I wrote some weeks ago about Cleandistortion on the blog, hoping to find out more about this great Japanese band which I wasn’t sure if they were still going or not. Luckily they are, and they are working in new music. To find out more about them, you know what you have to do… continue reading!

++ Hi Riichiro! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are there any news coming up for the band?

Riichiro: Hi, Roque, thank you so much for the opportunity to do such an interview at this time. I didn’t expect my favorite Cloudberry label to mention the name CLEANDISTORTION.

The band is now rehearsing and working on new songs with new drum support. We’ve been unable to play live due to COVID-19, so I’m really hoping it get resolved soon.

Jun, Vocal and Guitar of CLEANDISTORTION, is also joining this interview so I’m hoping he’ll answer about the band’s activities before I joined.

++ The band is still going on but it feels there has been many pauses. Am I right? Perhaps you all have been involved with other projects?

Riichiro: I think it’s not unreasonable to feel that way. We’ve got our own pace.

All the band members have full-time jobs or are involved in music activities while juggling family and child-rearing so it can’t be helped that the pace of our activities seems to be slow.

As far as cleandistion is concerned, especially around 2009, the drummer moved away from Tokyo for work-related reasons, so we went into a bit of a hiatus from there.

However, I personally continued to work with Hitoshi Oka(Sloppy Joe/Ivory Past) as the guitarist for Sloppy Joe, and I feel fortunate to have been able to play overseas shows like Indietracks (U.K.), BAYBEATS (Singapore) and Madrid Popfest (Spain).

For the past year or two, I and Jun Inoue, the core member of the band, have been thinking of resuming our activities as our child-rearing has calmed down a bit, and it would be nice to take it slow. Last year we had just played a few gigs with drum support.

++ 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?

Riichiro: It’s been a long time since I heard the first music.Of course, when I was a kid, I loved all the songs that were on the air, especially the ones that hit the charts, and they were played on TV. But the first thing I picked up to listen to music for myself was an FM radio.

I used to listen to all kinds of foreign college chart music and MTV artists from FM radio. Punk, New Wave, New Romantic, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Funk/Soul, etc.

Especially I had a big crush on The Police. STING and Andy Summers are still my heroes. I think the artists I listened to as a teenager (The Smiths, XTC, REM, Aztec camera, Echo & The Bunnymen ,Joy division, New Order) are still in my guitar today.

Jun: The first memory of music goes back to elementary school and those were the Japanese hit charts.

I listened to a lot of Japanese idol groups.

If I take a look at it now, those artists who wrote music for Japanese idol groups  were very familiar to anyone who liked music in Japan, and those artists were very influenced by US/UK rock and pop music and I think you can hear it in my melody too.

As for Western music, I still remember when I was in junior high school, I was blown away by the intro of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” played on the AM radio.

When I entered high school, I became friends with who had the same taste in music and then I really got into music.

Starting from the 60’s and 70’s soft rock (ex Roger Nichols,5th dimension), The Beatles’ follower bands (ex Pilot, E.L.O, Jigsaw, The Rutles) and singer song writers (I love Todd Rundgren!!!), and in the ’90s, I used to listen to guitar bands like Teenage Fanclub, Oasis, Blur and in the US, Weezer, Posies, Lemonheads, Jellyfish.

++ Had you been in other bands before Cleandistortion? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?

Riichiro: I had a couple of my own bands in my early twenties, but both of them broke up.

After that, I met Hitoshi Oka and joined “my coffee moment” on guitar. After that, we put out “Beginning To See The Light” 7inch on Firestation label and then we broke up.

After the band broke up, I met Jun, who had come to Tokyo from Osaka at that time, through the introduction of a mutual acquaintance.

Jun: For me, CLEANDISTOTION is the first and the last band.

++ Where were you from originally?

Riichiro: I lived in Kumamoto city until I was 18 years old.

A former member of JOHNNY DEE is also in Kumamoto, which is where THEE WINDLESS GATES is active!

Jun: I was active in Kansai area until I was 28, then I moved to Tokyo and met Riichiro and the others.

++ How was Tokyo at the time of the start of Cleandistortion? 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?

Riichiro: CLEANDISTOTION is a band that was originally formed in Osaka. I’ll let Jun tell the story of those days.

Jun: When I formed the band around ’98 in Osaka, it was a place where punk, hardcore, mixture, heavy metal, blues, garage, 50’s, etc were the mainstream, and there were no bands playing alternative stuff that I liked.

In Osaka, I used to go to Shinsaibashi WAVE and TIMEBOMB for records and CDs.

I went to Shinsaibashi’s Quattro and Tenpozan bayside janie to see some new bands.

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

Jun: I formed the band when I was a sophomore at art college with ones who I met in the same college music circle, who have same taste in music.

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

Jun: In the beginning, I was practicing in a school club room with all the equipment and tried to write songs by just copying the people around me.It ended up being a bit like a bad Smashing Pumpkins cherubrock.It didn’t go very well at first.

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

Jun: I named this band because I wanted to express both the clean pop sounds and the noisy distortion sounds that I was influenced by.

Riichiro: When I first heard it, I thought it was a very straightforward band name, but I thought it was nice to be able to leave various interpretations to the listener.

++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band?

Jun: The Beatles, weezer, posies, fountains of wayne, matthew sweet, teenage fanclub.

Riichiro: Dinosaur Jr, Blur, The Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer.

++ First release was a song called “Hang Up!” that appeared on a compilation called “Sunshine Pop Show! Vol. 3” on the Sunshinepoplabel. I must say I have never heard of this label. Who were they? Can you tell me a little bit about them?

Jun: You know it well.

The story goes back a little bit before this compilation album.

We had two goals as a band: one was to play live music in a live house, and the other was to be published our band name in the submission section of “American Music”, a magazine which was being published in Japan at that time introducing new pop bands from both domestic and overseas.

I was submitting a song for a while and then one day my name was on it and I got a compliment and that’s when I thought I might be able to release our songs, so I put it out to various places, and as a result, it was sunshinepoplabel that gave it to me for the first time.

To be honest, I’ve never met them in person and didn’t interact with them much before that.

++ I understand that your second release was a song on the compilation “Pop Comes Up!” that Bluebadge released. You would work with this label closely after this. I was wondering how did you know them? Were you friends? Or how did they approach you?

Jun: It all started when I met a band called “spaghetti vabune!” at a live house in Kobe, a city in Kansai area, and became friends with them.

At that time, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Higuma, the label owner who was going to release a music of “Vabune!”.

After meeting a couple of times, he started to like our music, so we decided to put it on the compilation first.

++ How was the relationship with other bands in the label? Did you know them? Share gigs?

Jun: We’ve done a few gigs with spaghetti vabune! that I mentioned about earlier, and we became good friends.

Also, I was a friend with a member of “Caraway” on the same label. They covered our song called “endpaper” in their own release from bluebadge label.

++ Speaking of labels, was there any other labels that were interested in your music?

Jun: Shortly before we had a release from bluebadge label, we had some relationship with a major label for a while, they were looking for new talent, but it didn’t turn out to be the case.

++ In 2004 you released “Teenage Archives” on the Bluebadge label as well. This is a great record, but quite short! Just 6 songs. Why so short?!

Jun: I don’t know, it feels like an eternity to me. All jokes aside, there was actually a full album’s worth of songs, but due to the level of perfection at the time, recording time and budget, I think we ended up with 6 songs as a result. Also, maybe it was risky because we weren’t such a well known band.

++ I also really like the artwork for the CD. Who made it? Was it one of you?

Jun: Thank you, I’m so glad you like it. It was done by a girl in the same art college who liked the band at the time. I asked her for something like if it were a cut from our college life at the time.

By the way, she’s married to a former guitarist of the band and now has a beignet and chicory coffee shop in Nara, so if you ever get a chance to come to Japan after COVID-19 converges, please visit there.

++ Where did you record the songs? How long did it take? Who produced the songs? And most importantly, what did the diet of the band consist during those sessions, beer and what else?!

Jun: We did the whole thing from recording to mastering at a recording studio in a local town for the bluebadge release. The other recordings were basically done in rehearsal studios. We do all the producing ourselves.

Most of the band’s food were come from convenience stores, but afterwards it was a beer party every night.

++ Then there was 2005 CD single with the songs “Sailor” and “Teen Wave”. This one isnt even on Discogs. On the cover there’s a photo of the four members of the band. Care telling me who is who?

Jun: The members on this jacket are from the Kansai era. From the left, Drums  Kenta Kobashi, Guitar Naoya Ookubo, Vocal/guitar Jun Inoue (it’s me! so slender!), Bass Takashi Icikawa, Now they are having their own lives these days.

++ How come you decided to release a CD single? I still remember 2005 and I feel CD singles were quite a rare format by then!

Jun: I’m not sure how I remember it, but I think they probably put it out as part of a promotion before they put out a mini album for 300 yen.

++ Lastly in 2010 there was another release called “One Four Harmony”. This is the one I have the least information. For example, who released it? In what format?

Riichiro: These are the first three songs we recorded after Jun moved to Tokyo. It’s completely self-recorded and I did the track-down, mastering and CD production.

After we started in Tokyo, we played quite number of lives, but we wanted to record our  sound at least for once, no matter what form it took. So we did it ourselves.

But we made it a little before. Actually, I think it’s about 2007-8.

++ Because I’ve been having a bit of trouble finding your releases, are there any more?

Riichiro: I can imagine your struggle to find sound sources and activities. After all, it’s not like there’s a whole record of our archives in one place.

Some of the songs were taken as demos, but unfortunately, after Jun moved to Tokyo, there’s nothing else had released out from our recorded materials.

Jun: When I was in Osaka, I played two songs in clover records’ “pop jingu vol 2”. Two songs, “Wendy’s blues” and “Teenage Green Cracker”. I joined the release event held in Tokyo at that time.

++ And are there more recordings by the band? Unreleased tracks?

Riichiro: There are a lot of unreleased songs for some reason. Some of them had been recorded but not released, and some of them are just live recordings that are posted on Youtube.

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

Jun: It started when I got this idea of making a song like “Some People Try To Fuck With You” by Teenage fanclub which I liked very much at that time.

Even before that, I liked songs like “you and me song” by the wannadies that blended bossa nova style and guitar pop.

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

Jun: The style of the work is different depending on the time period.

Before the mini-album, I think the song “Girl Friend” was well done as far as I’m concerned.

It’s more of a guitar pop feel.

Also, I’m loving “endpaper” and “Teen Wave”.

But a few songs we’re rehearsing and working on right now are the ones I like the most, and I’d like everyone to hear them.

Riichiro: I don’t know, I can’t choose just one but I sometimes like songs that we haven’t recorded before.

I really like the songs we’re rehearsing and making right now.

I recorded songs on “One Four Harmony E.P.”  so I have a lot of feelings for them.

I like “wendy’s blues” before I joined the band.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? 

Jun: I’ve done a lot of that. Recently, I’ve been concentrating more on each and every one of them due to limited opportunities.

Riichiro: Yes, We’ve done a lot of gigs. I’d love to do some recording, but I don’t get the chance.

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

Jun: “Carnival Ride” was the most exciting event that we planned and played, having both DJs and bands who’s been good friends with us.

The best thing I’ve done recently was to play in the same live show with “Shortcut Miffy!”, a Japanese band that I respect very much.

Riichiro: Yes, I still remember the events we’ve held. It was a form of a party with DJs and we played with “PLECTRUM” and “BOYCE”. We also had Mr. Higuma, the owner of bluebadge label, as a DJ, so it was a very memorable night!

++ And were there any bad ones?

Jun: There were a lot of them, but I forget all about them when I had drinks.

Riichiro: There’s a lot of that, but those became a part of my fun memory now.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio? TV?

Jun: I love radio and TV, which I’m afraid I didn’t get involved with at all.

Riichiro: No, it didn’t happen at all. It would be interesting if we could be on a show like “top of the pops.”

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

Jun: In the same way.

Riichiro: We’ve never gotten much attention from the press or magazines.

++ What about from fanzines?

Riichiro: When Jun were in Osaka, there were a few things written in fanzines, weren’t there? How’d it go?

Jun: I think we had some of them, but I can’t remember that. Sorry.

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

Jun: Looking back, I don’t think we’ve accomplished anything yet.

I’m hoping to have some sort of highlight in the future.

Riichiro: I wonder what the highlight will be, I guess it’s just the beginning.

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

Jun: Listening to radio shows, drinking beer while watching “STAR TREK”.

Riichiro: It’s nice to be camping. It’s a great feeling to have a drink outdoors, isn’t it?

++ Never been to Tokyo so I’ll take the opportunity to ask a local for any recommendations you’d have? Like sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?

Jun: If you’re in Shibuya, Tokyo, you can go to “Bar-Edge End”,

If you’re in Kichijoji, I’m sure there’s a party you’ll love at “ichibee”.

Also, if it’s food, I can introduce you to Osaka (Udon, Kushikatsu, Yakiton…).

Riichiro: Have you ever eaten sushi?

If you come to Tokyo, you should eat it!

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Jun: We don’t know where it will come out or what form it will take, but we’re hoping to drop some new works by next year or so.

In Japan, there are good guitar bands (e.g., “Linustate”, “Shortcut Miffy!”, “Softtouch”, “Fishbasket”…) that’s been around for a long time, and they are releasing new songs one after another, so please check them out.

Riichiro: It’s a terrible situation all over the world, but we would like to stay at home and do some kind of creative activity. I can’t wait to make some of our works. So let’s keep stay at home / work from home / play at home / dancing on the inside!

Finally, thank you again for giving us the opportunity to do this kind of interview.

We really enjoyed the interview.

We’ll keep you posted when we release songs.

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Listen
Cleandistortion – Teenage Green Cracker

Day 39. Finally the sleeves for the CD that comes with the fanzine arrived late on Friday. Now I will be able to post all your orders this week. It is very exciting. Honestly, being stuck at home, I needed good news like this one. I really hope you all like them.

Now I did find some interesting new things to share with you this past weekend.

The Catherines: “Bingo!”, that’s the name of the new album by the German duo of Heiko and Sandra from Hamburg. This new album is out now on CD and cassette through their Bandcamp and it includes 10 lovely jingle jangle pop songs with long and smart song titles!

The Chills: you need Facebook to see this one. This is the lost video clip for the classic song from 1982 “Rolling Moon”! The story says that the video was deemed too dark for use and then the film was lost. Only to be discovered 30 years! Amazing story really, terrific video and legendary song!

Skytone: another duo, this one hailing from Ottawa and formed by Rodney and Darius Doddridge. They have a new poppy and dreamy song called “Without You”. That’s all. But it is quite good!

Juliper Sky: a new digital single by this very good Manchester combo is out now on Bandcamp. It is called “Infinite Jets” and it shimmers. Not much more info I can add to it. I could hope that the band is working on an album and that this song will be included. But those are just my wishes.

Dreams of Empire: the London/Brighton indiepop band is back with two new songs, their first after their 2019 debut album “Nothing’s Ever Finished”. These new songs are “Broken Keys” and “Lying Awake” and are as good as the ones in the album. Let’s hope for more to come!

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Super 8, from Badajoz, Spain. I remember them as if it was yesterday. But it isn’t. They were around in the late 90s and early 2000s. And today they seem to be forgotten. I couldn’t even find their records on Discogs. Strange.

They took their name from Los Planetas’ first album. Los Planetas being perhaps the most succesful indie band of Spain of the 90s and beyond. But their sound wasn’t really much influenced by Los Planetas. Today, rediscovering their music, listening for example the track “Lluvia Helada” I feel them closer to La Buena Vida even.

The band was formed by Carmen Estévez on vocals, Alfonso Villalobos on guitar, Carlos Aragonés on guitar, Juan Carlos Nacarino on bass and Antonio Carretero on drums. They hailed from the town of Montijo and before being in Super 8, Antonio, Carlos and Juan Pablo were in a sort of sixties band.

They start to gain some notoriety with their first demo, “Fotogramas”, from 1999. This demo ended up being a finalist in a demo contest organized by the festival Zorrock. Thanks to that the Spanish Radio3 starts playing their songs, especially the song “Lluvia Helada”.  The other songs on this demo were “Asfixiante”, “Nada”, “Tu Lado y el Mío” and “Fotogramas”. This demo would be recorded by Dr. Ecce Homo at their practice space.

They would travel to Barcelona and be part of other contests, winning the one organized by Rockdelux in Barcelona for the BAM festival.  Thanks to that they won a contact with RCA to record an album.

This album started to be recorded at the end of the year 2000, in the Madrid studios Sonoland. RCA stops supporting them in the meantime and lets them know they can sign to any other label they want. The band decides to stay with RCA and get Fino Oyarte to produce them. Fino had been the drummer of the classic band Los Enemigos. These recordings would end up making the album “Guía Para Oler Colores” that would be released in 2001.

This album included the following tracks, “All Despertar”, “Tu Habitación”, “Asfixiante”, “Lluvia Helada”, “La Bahía”, “Pasaje Sideral”, “Cosas Que Nunca te Dije”, “Olalla”, “Abril”, “Asteroide 8612”, “Nada” and “Fotogramas”.

The pressing was of 3000 copies and it barely gets promoted. Just Julio Ruiz and Jesús Ordovás would in their radio shows. The band naturally is disappointed and in 2002 they split.

Carmen would en up moving to Madrid to study percussion at the Escuela Superior de Música Creativa and later to New York where it seems she has a flamenco trio called Flamenkina. Is she still here in the city? Maybe, the latest I found about her is that she was making music in a duo called CaneliBeat a few months ago. The other band members would continue making music first as Panorama 73 and then as Panorama. Antonio Carretero has also played in other bands like Repicantes, The Six Machine, Cajón de Sastre and Bloco Dum Dum.

It is also worth mentioning some other highlights of the band. For example they played twice the festival Contempopránea and recorded a session for Diario Pop. I would love to listen to that session. Is that available somewhere? Other gigs include many in Extremadura, Valladolid, Basauri, Gijón, Madrid (at the famous Sala Maravillas), Barcelona, Tarragona, at the WOMAD 2000 in Cáceres, and the BAM festival.

There is live footage of the track “Lluvia Helada” being played at the Contempopránea festival in 2000. Then at the Nasti Club in Madrid, we find two videos, one for “Lluvia Helada” and another for “La Bahía“.

Something really cool I found on the web is a video from 2001 in Vimeo that is sort of a small documentary of their town, Montijo. On it the band appears and is interviewed too! Really really cool! And then a bigger surprise, a news video by Canal Extremadura for their show “Nada Corriente” This video interviews Carmen in New York.

Quite a bit of information, right? I am sure there are even more things written about Panorama. But that’s another story for another day. Any other info about the band would be great. Like say are there any unreleased tracks? That I’ll like to know!

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Super 8 – Lluvia Helada

Day 36. Continuing the quarantine. There’s been a small delay with the CD sleeves for the fanzine. I am very sorry. I expected to mail all orders today but it seems I will have to do it early next week. I believe they should be arriving today in the evening. The good thing is that I’ll have the weekend to do these things.

Some important finds from the past few days:

Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters: A few weeks ago I got the CD retrospective “Smashed Full of Wonder” from Optic Nerve Records and it is a must. It is also available in LP vinyl. But what I found out the other day was that a video was just put together for the song “Out of My Head”. And maybe you missed that too. So be sure to watch it!

Love, Burns: this is the new project by Phil Sutton from Pale Lights. And on this new project he is going solo. He has just put out on Bandcamp 8 songs for his album (or mini-album?) “Fiftieth and Marlborough”. The songs sound amazing, jangly and classy. I hope there is a release of it, even if it is in limited copies.

The Snogs: out now on tape on the label Discontinuous Innovation out of San Francisco is this lo-fi bedroom pop project. It is totally new for me and I am really charmed by this 13 song album titled “Charmless”. Boy/girl vocals, and catchy hooks  from this Santa Cruz band.

Gula Gången: who are this band from Stockholm?! 10 days ago they uploaded a whole album called “Spela Allt Från Ditt Hjärta” to Soundcloud and since then it has been in heavy rotation at home! I need to find more info by them. They have some superb tunes!

Pash: lastly a two song cassette release called “Demonstration” on Urban Cowboy Records from Sydney. These two songs by the Sydney band Pash are “Shoplifting” and “Double Date”. The label compares them to Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Talulah Gosh, so that must be a good thing. They label them as a crush-pop band. That I don’t know what it is, but sounds good! We can preview just the first song, “Shoplifting”, and with that we know we are on for a treat!

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Returning to the wonderful German tape compilation “Frischer Morgentau”. Why? Because there are many treasures there of course. In the past I’ve written about the band Schade Schokolade, Die Busfahrer, Die Wurzelsepps, Moosblüten, The Almanacs and Friends Ahoi, all of them contributing a track to this comp! So today I wanted to introduce you to a new band, that if you haven’t heard them, Die Kupferschmiede.

Die Kupferschmiede means the coppersmith in English. A strange choice for a name, right? I think it is pretty cool though. The song they contributed was called “Einsames Wochenende”, which translates to lonely weekend. Who hasn’t had one of those?

Aside from this information my knowledge about the band is zero.

We know a bit about the tape though, stuff I’ve mentioned in the past like that it was released by Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1), a label run by Uli Hahndorf, the brother of our friend Peter who runs Twee.net and was the person behind Clarendon Records too.

Supposedly the tape came with a 16 page booklet with info about each of the bands. Maybe someone could help me with that. Get some band members names. Where in Germany where they from. That sort of info. Maybe that could help me track them down as I’d love to know if they have more songs. Can’t be just this one, this wonderful jangly upbeat catchy track.

So yes, any help, will be appreciated!

Edit: My friend Mike scanned the booklet from the “Frischer Morgentau” tape. There is not much info there about the band but two interesting details. First the band hailed from Quickborn. Second the contact address is the same for the label. Does this mean that the person behind the band was Uli Hahndorf?

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Die Kupferschmiede – Einsames Wohenende

Day 34. Today is the official release date for the new Cloudberry fanzine! Super exciting times! I believe I will be going to the post office tomorrow to post all your orders. Thanks again very very much!

Now you were looking for new music, of course. I have looked for some good quarantunes for my dear readers.

Blush Response: the Adelaide, Australia, band is back with a collection of demos, outtakes, covers and more called “This Band Will Eat Itselt”. It is now available on Bandcamp and has 14 songs of their trademark shoegazey pop. All the proceeds from this release will be donated to Support Act.

Spring Winds: now another shoegaze band, but this time from Saint Petersburg, Russia. First time I listen to this band and I must say they sound amazing. Their latest track is called “Alpine Vic” and it is a winner!

The Short Story Picture Book: Liam James Marsh, with lyrics by Leah Short, has made a fun and interesting indiepop EP called “These Days”. The Nottingham based musician, which I am guessing will be invited to Indietracks it it takes place this year, makes some bouncy folky pop tracks that would be liked by indiepop lovers and the indie lovers that Indietracks have now as their target audience.

Suburban Living: this Philly band is releasing an album called “How to Be Human” on Egg Hunt Records on August 28th. There are 2 songs available to preview, “Main Street” and “Glow”, and they sound pretty neat. The album has 9 songs and will be available on vinyl!

City Flanker: lastly another shoegaze band, from Shaoxing in China. This is a first time for sure. Shaoxing! The band has an album online called “The Journey to City Flanker” that comes with 8 songs. It looks as if it is available only digitally  so I am hoping some of the cool new Chinese labels do release them in CD or vinyl, or something.

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Another band that caught my attention from the “What’s the Idea” compilation was Christopher.

I wrote a bit about this compilation, all the information I could find about, when I wrote about a band that appeared on it called More Perfect Watchers. I mentioned that this LP comp released by Idea Records was a record put together by bands around the area of St. Helens. With the help of their Community Arts Team they released this comp in 1990  and included bands from nearby places like Halton, Lancaster, Wigan and Bolton. Christopher hailed from Halton for example, and More Perfect Watchers from Wigan and Bolton.

Christopher appears on this compilation of 12 songs, with the track “Touch”. It is the last song on the A side.

When I was looking for more information about More Perfect Watchers I actually stumbled upon a blog post about Christopher. This was quite a surprise because with that name, I thought I wasn’t going to find any info about the band.

From what I understand Christopher was originally Ian Finney. In 1990 when the St. Helens Musicians Collective asked the best local bands he started working on it. Seems at that point the band was not ready, so he ended up recording the entire track on his own. He did so at the Pentagon Studios in Widnes. But that was not the only thing he did for this compilation, he would also produce Jennifer Fever’s track “Near” that also appears in it.

Then Ian tells us what inspired the song, a relationship that went sour with his then girlfriend. Then around October 1990 he got serious about the band and put together the band. They were Ian Finney, Jon Brown, Wayne Booth and Andy Starkey according to a photo I found. But, what did each of them play? Who’d know?

Now something interesting. Ian Finney had been part of a wonderful band before, The Tempest! Oh dear. I didn’t know this connection. I really like The Tempest and until today I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a retrospective compilation for them.

And thanks to that I find out that he has a Wikipedia entry! There it mentions that he continues making music with the band The Coralaines. Before that he had been in the Coal Porters.

This is great! I hope I get the chance to talk to Ian sometime, and find out more about this more obscure project of his, but also about The Tempest! Did anyone catch Christopher live? Did they have more songs? Any info will be appreciated!

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Christopher – Touch

Day 32. This week, on Friday, I should mail the first batch of fanzines to those have pre-ordered. Thanks so so much for that. I hope you like them!

That’s it for news now. Things are a bit quiet, but believe I am working on new releases, like the Macguffins retrospective, to be released as soon as possible!

New finds from the weekend are here of course!

Gum Country: I wrote about Los Angeles band a few posts ago. It came to my attention that their song “Somewhere” had a cool video and so I had to share it! This song is the title track off their debut album that will be released in June 19!

Castro Morfeo: this fun synth-pop project from Chile has just released an EP titled “Amigxs/Niño que Vuela” on the netlabel Gemelo Parásito Records. The EP has 4 songs of introspective and catchy bedroom pop. Very nice.

Las Carreteras: not sure where this band comes from but they are releasing a tape (?) or a digital release on the German label Entes Anomicos. This EP is titled “Panamericana” and it sounds great! There are four songs in total here, and they all very good!

Ciel: there’s also a new EP by the Dutch band Ciel. It is called “Movement” and comes with 4 songs of jangly dreampop. The EP seems to be available only in digital format at the moment, but the good thing is that on Bandcamp all four songs are available to play and hear the very nice vocals and lyrics by Michelle Hindriks, their frontwoman.

My Proper Skin: and to finish this roundup of weekend finds here is a fine Portland, Oregon, band. My Proper Skin make some good shoegaze noise with girl vocals and their latest track, a digital single called “Haunted” is no exception.

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Last post of my “weekdays” challenge, a band now that wrote about Sunday… who else but the superb Washington D.C. band The Ropers who penned “Blue Sunday”. Mind you, this song doesn’t appear on any of their proper releases but on a Slumberland compilation called “Why Popstars Can’t Dance” (SLR 031) that was released on CD and vinyl in 1994. On this compilation they appear alongside other great bands like Boyracer, Stereolab, Rocketship and more. It is not the only song they contributed though, they also had the song “Drive” on it.

But let’s talk first about their releases as there are many. There are many compilation appearances too. This might be a long post! So brace yourselves.

Some introduction about the band won’t hurt too. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist Doug Bailey and guitarist Mike Hammel while they were students at the University of Maryland. They quit their studies (what were they studying?) after two years in to start making music. They recruited Alex Hacker on drums who they had met after a brief stint in the Lilys and also Greg Pavlovcak on bass. Okay, now we have the basics.

The first release was a 7″ on Slumberland Records (SLR 17) which came out in 1993. It had three songs, “Waiting” and “Lost” on the A side and “Cool Self” on the B side. The songs were recorded by Jim Spellman (from Velocity Girl) and Trip Brock. We also know that there were two different versions of the single, one in regular black vinyl and one in white vinyl (for mail order copies).

The year after, 1994, they would release another 7″ on Slumberland (SLR 38). Two songs, “I Don’t Mind” on the A side and “It’s So Strange” on the B side. This time around Geoff Turner recorded the tracks. But something more interesting is that there was a CD version of this 7″ that included 4 more songs! The tracklist for the CD was “I Don’t Mind”, “September’s Rain”, “Lost”, “Waiting”, “It’s So Strange” and “Cool Self”. “I Don’t Mind”, “September’s Rain” and “It’s So Strange” were recorded by Geoff Turner at WGNS Studios in Arlington, Virginia, while the rest were recorded by Jim Spellman and Trip Brock at The Station in Germantown, Maryland. The illustration for the sleeve was created by Khoi Vinh.

In 1994 it seems the band went on tour with Boyracer during the summer. So they prepared a split 7″ for the occasion, to sell them at their merch table. This split 7″ was put together by Slumberland, on their sub label I Wish I Was a Slumberland Record (WISH 005). Boyracer had the A side with the song “One Step Forward” while The Ropers appear on the flipside with “Pretty Quiet Song”. Then that same year the band released yet another split 7″, one that I already talked about on the blog in the past. That is the one they shared with The Tribbles and that was released by Brilliant Records (ant-09-si) in the US and Giant Pool Balls Records (ball002) in Germany. The German version came alongside the summer 1994 issue (which was the 8th issue) of Sunset Magazine. The Ropers appear on the A side with the track “Sweet Lord I know”.

1995 had a bunch of releases for the band. Slumberland would release yet another 7″ (SLR 53), that included their classic song “Revolver” which even has a promo video shot by T. Treyfid and Bill McKenna in 1995. The B side was a cover of the The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “Transparent Day”. This time the songs were recorded at Zabriskie Point in New York City by Kurt Ralske from Ultra Vivid Scene. The art was once again credited to Koi Vinh and also to Caramel. It is said that some mail order copies came in a color xerox Catwoman sleeve. I’ve never seen those. How did they look like?

Then came their debut album which was titled “All the Time” (SLR 50) once again on Slumberland. All songs were recorded at the same place and also by Kurt Ralske as the “Revolver” single. It was also mixed at Zabriskie Point. Khoi Vinh is once again credited to the design alongside Caramel with The Must Brother. The photography is credited to Nalinee. The album was released on both vinyl and CD with the same running order. The A side had “Revolver”, “Flashlight”, “Rain”, “You Have A Light” and “Drive” while the B side had “Chained”, “Blind”, “Spider Web”, “Tried” and Mystery Girl”. Now the CD had an extra track at the end, “Drive (reprise)”. For this record the band added some cello to the songs thanks to Melora Mather.

Lastly, in 1997 the band would release their sophomore album but this time on a different label, Teenbeat Records. “The World is Fire” (Teenbeat 225) was also released on CD and vinyl (the vinyl version was a co-release with the German A Turntable Friend (TURN 33)). This record only had 7 tracks, the A side had “Drink You Up”,  “Please Understand”, “Take Your Time” and “Home”. The B side had “Paste”, “These Days” and “Dawn”. The tracks were recorded by Treiops Treyfid again. On this album we see that Mike Donovan had replaced Alex Hacker on drums.

I’ve already mentioned one of their compilation appearances but there were more. For example they contributed a version of The Cure’s “Jumping Someone Else’s train” to “Give Me The Cure” a benefit CD for AIDS research released by Radiopaque Recordings (ROPQ01CD) and Corduroy Records (ROPQ01CD) in 1995. The proceeds from this CD were donated to the Whitman-Walker clinic.

Then in 1998 they contributed “You Have a Light” to the “1998 Teenbeat Sampler” CD (TEENBEAT 251). Then 11 years later they had “Pretty Quiet” on the CD compilation “Slumberland Records The First 20 Years” (WISH 12) that was released by I Wish I Was a Slumberland Record in 2009. Then 9 years after they would contribute the song “These Days” to “The Test of Time” a compilation released by A Turntable Friend (TURN50) on vinyl and CD celebrating the comeback of the label.

It is also worth mentioning that the video of “Revolver” was included in the “Munch (Part Two) Another International Independent Music Video Compilation” that Season Records and Drive-In Records put out on VHS!

We know that the band members worked on other bands. For example Alex Hacker played in Air Miami, Treiops Treyfid, The Still and (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope. Mike Hammel played in Pink Skull, Juniper and The Mondo Crescendo, these two last bands have been interviewed on the blog!, other members though! Greg Pavlovcak played in The Last Wave, The Castaway Stones, The Still and yet another band that has been featured here, The Saturday People! Then Douglas Bailey was on (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope, Panax, The Still and The Sunshine Feels.

It looks like Douglas is still making music. I found a Bandcamp of his which has recordings from 1998 to 2018! It also looks like he left D.C. and moved to Austin, Texas.

Another question that I have for them is if they took their name from an American TV show called The Ropers…

The Ropers is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from March 13, 1979, to May 22, 1980. It is a spin-off of Three’s Company and loosely based on the British sitcom George and Mildred, which was itself a spin-off of Man About the House, on which Three’s Company was based.It was taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood, California, where its parent series, Three’s Company, was taping at the time, from February to April 1979 (Season 1) and from July 1979 to February 1980 (Season 2).

There are a few blogs that have dedicated some lines to the band, sadly all repeat the same information, adding nothing new. I read that the band disbanded shortly after the Teenbeat release. I wonder why. I also wonder if the band left any other recordings, recordings that remain unreleased to this day.

I’m sure many  of you remember them. They even played not long ago a reunion gig at the Slumberland 20th Anniversary Festival in 2009 at the Bell House in Brooklyn on November 14th 2009. I missed that, I wasn’t living in New York then.

I hope you can fill in the blanks this time around.

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The Ropers – Revolver

Day 29. How is this working out for everyone? The only good news is that I have the fanzine and next week I’ll start mailing them to all of you who have supported this new release! It is very exciting!

For this weekend I will share some new music of course. That’s what we have to do to keep us entertained!

City Rockdown EP: Week III: the third installment of these EPs that Kolibri Rekords from Jakarta is putting together during the pandemic is another top release. The four songs this time are Circarama’s “No Tomorrow”, Low Pink’s “Alien”, Jogn’s “Social Club” and Liminal’s “Muted Chaos”.

Blessed Isles: Nolan Thies from Brookly and Aaron Closson from Dallas contribute together to make some very pretty music. Their first ever song, at least on Bandcamp, is called “Gone” and sounds amazing. It is catchy, dreamy, and heartfelt. This song should be part of their “The Havoc” EP that will be released this spring.

Control Room: first time I feature a band from the state of Mississippi. Pretty sure of that. This post-punk/shoegaze combo hails from the city of Hattiesburg and their latest release is a CD album called “Scenery” that will be released on April 30th. You can preview 3 of the tracks on Bandcamp now, “I Woke Up and Everything Was Moving”, “Crushed” and “Back to Zero”

The Hidden Shelf: the Philadelphia band is back with a low-key, lo-fi, mini-album called “RE:”. It is bedroom pop at its finest. There are 7 songs on this lovely effort, were my favourite song might be “So Much Better”

Rilev: and lastly a new track from this Mexico City project. The new song is called “Mar” and it is a good, very good, shoegaze song. The lyrics are simple but work in the wall of sound made by Manuel Grados, the person behind this one-man project!

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It’s kind of funny to write about Company of Cowards when I am trying to cover “Saturday” on my challenge. You see the retrospective compilation they released back in 2007 on Firestation Records was called “A Mouthful of Tuesdays” (FST 074). So yeah, I guess Tuesday would have made more sense. But then they didn’t record any songs with Tuesday in their name. But they did write a song called “Saturday Night”. So it is all fair, right?

Interestingly enough this retrospective has very little info about them. There is no proper booklet. But I have to give credit to the Firestation guys that they did include a bio in the compilation “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 6” (FST 075). It was actually through this compilation that I discovered them as they had contributed the song “Summer Story” in it. So yeah what does it say?

The beginning of the end for Company of Cowards arrived when singer Nick Ager announced to a packed Astoria in London’s Charing Cross Road that the next song would be the Cowards’ last of the evening. The unanimous cheer that greeted this news was the first cheer of the evening and was very loud.
The Cowards were the opening act for a Blues Brothers tribute act and it was obvious that the porkpie hatted, sunglassed wearing audience had not been seduced by the Cowards’ gentle musings. After a desultory final song, the Cowards trudged off the stage with their oxblood Dr. Marten shoes feeling heavier than ever. After the gig, the band’s dynamic young management duo were noticeably distant… eye contact was being avoided and backs remained unslapped. This had been a chance for the Cowards to impress on a large stage and to win over a big crowd with their witty couplets and fetching facial hair. The chance was blown, the Cowards never really regained their composure and the management’s post-gig shiftiness soon turned into full scale phone call avoidance. Up to that defining moment, things had gone pretty well for the Cowards.
They formed in 1987 without  too much difficulty – a marriage of convenience between the songwriting duo of Nick Ager (vocals and guitar) and Ian Montague (guitar), and a between-bands rhythm section of Glen Street (bass) and Lisa Newsome (drums). Gigs were aplenty at polythecnic Student Union bar within driving distance from London, an agent and management team were secured, A&R men started appearing at gigs, their “18 Again” EP was receiving airplay, favourable reviews in the music press appeared, their demos were being produced by name-record producers… surely stardom was just a formality, Then the Astoria ‘incident’ happened. Shortly after, the Cowards were playing at the Bull and Gate in London’s glittering Kentish Town. The gig promoter was a large man with a shoulder bag full of cheese filled bread rolls that he steadily worked his way through the course of the evening. Whenever he saw a loitering Coward, he sidled up to them – surprisingly nimbly for a man of his size – and whispered ‘Company of Cowards… great band’. What he meant, it was clear, was ‘Company of Cowards’ are vile and are only playing in my venue because I owe someone a favour. It was another disheartening piece of unpleasantness, this time flecked with stray particles of Red Leicested cheese.
Company of Cowards played their final gig at a little known college in Acton in late 1988., As a farewell it had moments of poignancy although the quiet passages were rendered inaudible by the college rugby team who were having a pre-match bonding session at the bar. Company of Cowards left only their “18 Again” EP for posterity.

That EP, was self-released by the band in 1987. It had four songs. “18 Again” and “Party Talk” on the A side and “What About Me?” and “Thoughts to Flowing Ink” on the B side. The front cover has a photo of a record collection. The back cover has a photo of each one of the members and some details about the record. We know that they had Jeff Easton playing banjo, Downs Thompson on violin and Laurence Diana on keyabords. Laurence Diana would also produce the record. The songs had been recorded at Raven Studios in London.

After that release I find on Discogs a demo tape from 1989 that came with two songs, “Waste of a Skin” and “Stay Where You Are”. There must have been more demo tapes like this. These two songs were produced by Bernie Clark at Ezee Studios in London. I say that because the compilation they would release later on, “A Mouthful of Tuesdays”, had 15 songs!

These 15 songs were “18 Again”, “Party Talk”, “Waste of a Skin”, “Summer Story”, “Crushing Wit”, “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (acoustic version)”, “What About Me?”, “Undeniably Blue”, “Mouthful of Foot”, “Buzzard Creek”, “Cool to be Miniscule”, “Saturday Night”, “Stay Where You Are”, “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (elektric version)” and “Let Her Dream”.

The very first recorded songs by the band were “Mouthful of Foot” and “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (elektric version)”. The band doesnt’ recall where they were recorded.

“Summer Story” and “Saturday Night” were recorded by a guy called Nick at a school in Tottenham in 1988. Gavin Mackillop produced the songs “Crushing Wit”, “Undeniably Blue”, “Buzzard Creek” and “Cool to be Miniscule” at Cold Storage Studios in London in 1988,

Then “Let Her Dream” was recorded by someone called Rob. The interesting bit is that it was recorded by Nick and Ian after the band had already disbanded.

As usual I don’t stop there and look for more info. First thing I find was that Nicky Ager had been in a band in 1980 called Twig and the Kicks. They released a single with the songs “I Won’t Apologize” and “The Boy Who Sold His Dreams”. He would later be in a band called The Whole Wide World and this band would eventually become Company of Cowards. Ian Montague in the other hand had been in the band Thin Yoghurts according to this blog post. I can’t seem to confirm or deny this.

What I did find what that Nicky and his wife had written the original songs and score for the Christmas films “Nativity!”, “Nativity 2 ‘Danger in the Manger'” and “Nativity 3 ‘Dude, Where’s My Donkey?'”. He has worked on many other television shows and commercials.

Sadly no more info about them or the band on the web. I would love to find out more about The Whole Wide World for example. Did they record anything? Released anything? And what happened after Company of Cowards. No more music? No more bands? Any info would be appreciated!

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Company of Cowards – Party Talk

Day 27. Getting closer to a month. The fanzine is now already available to be ordered on the website. Isn’t that some good news? We need news like this in these times for sure!

And I’ll share new music too of course.

Suffer Fools: this Vancouver project is new to me. It seems it is the work of Debbie Debased. Not that I know her. But her latest two songs, L’Maclicheblues” and “When I was a Monster” sound great. They have some great vocals, they are catchy, lo-fi, fuzzy and dreamy. It also looks like their debute album is coming out this year.

Shimmerance: now is the turn for this shoegaze band from Moscow. The band has been going since 2016 and they have just released their self-titled album. It has 9 songs of bright shimmering guitar based popsongs with boy/girl vocals. The band is formed by Maria Kondakova, Nikolay Babukhin, Yuri Yakovlev, Mikhail Churikov and Konstantin Grayznov.

Stay Inside – Songs from the Great Indoors: this 4 song compilation from Sydney, Australia, introduced me to four terrific songs and bands. We have Diana’s “Million Dollar Baby” (terrific track), Emma Shields’ “Lucy”, Popfilter covering Stolen Violins’ “Romance at the Petrol Station” and Blessé’s “Sudoki”. These are songs that have been recorded during this period of isolation. It seems there will be more of these compilations so I’ll keep an eye!

Gum Country: even though on Bandcamp it says the band hails from LA, then the bio says they are from Canada. So yeah, they are Canadians from Vancouver that moved to the California city. The thing is that the band is releasing their album “Somewhere” on June 19 on vinyl. But these songs are not brand new. From what I gather they were previously released on Lollipop Records in 2017 as a self-titled cassette. Well, I wasn’t aware of them then! So the one song I can preview now, “Somewhere”, is totally new to me! And it sounds good!

Centrefold: and lastly more from Canada, this time from St. John’s. Not a fan of the opening track of their new EP “Not Enough”, but then things get much much better. “Desintegrate” is a rush of a song. Then comes “Late” another strong track and finishes with the swirling “Not Enough to Fall in Love (Too Much to Forget)”. The EP seems to be available digitally only for now.

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Let’s continue with this challenge. As you know I’m featuring bands that wrote a song with a weekday name on them. And they have to be bands I haven’t featured before on the blog. So that makes it harder of course. For Friday I thought the Belfast band Four Idle Hands would be great, the B side of their first 7″ was called “Friday Man”, so they fit in this challenge of course.

My favourite songs of them is the A side of that 7″, the song called “99 Streets”. This 7″ (GOT 21) was released by the Belfast label Good Vibrations Records that was founded by Terri Hooley. This label supported many Irish punk bands in their time. Of course Four Idle Hands was a poppier band. The 7″ was released in 1990 and both songs are credited to D. Mc Mahon.

The year after the band released their second record, a 12″ on Good Vibrations Records (GOT 24). It included four songs, two on each side. The A side had “Blind” and “Put a Light in Your Window” while the B side had “In Years of Black and White” and “Terry and Julia”. I found a TV live performance of “Put a Light in Your Window” tough I can’t say which TV show this was on. All songs again are credited to D. McMahon and the production is credited to the band and Alan Galbraith who also engineered the record.

I couldn’t find any compilation appearances on Discogs. Was this the case really? They didn’t appear on any? I do find though that they were on “Breaking Sound Barriers Vol.2” a compilation released by PPI Records (BSBCD2) with the song “Rainy April Day”. This song was recorded at Homestead Studios in their hometown.

On Youtube I could find many more songs by the band, some of which I believe are unreleased like “Corner of My World” and “Brilliant World“. Then a super cool promo video for the song “People Shouldn’t Have to Live This Way“, which I wonder if it was released in any way? And a live performance at the BBC playing the song “One Summer” which sounds GREAT!

But that’s not all! There’s a Soundcloud with even more songs! There’s “Funeral of the Sun”, “Boat (That’s Going Nowhere)”, “Treehouse”, “That Might Be Wonderful”, “Killer (in the Ice-Cream World)”, “When the Ship Was Sinking”, “That Might be Wonderful”, “Mr. Moon (Solo Guide)” and “The Trampoline King”. A whole bounty of great tracks! You start to wonder why there hasn’t been a retrospective compilation yet, right?

And finally a Facebook page. Here I find that the band was formed by Davy McMahon, Tommy McMahon, Stephen (Boon) Rooney and Paul Burke. Gerry Carson and Gary English were original members of the band, not sure who they were replaced by and when. On the Facebook page there are photos and other memorabilia. Among them I see that for their “Leading the Blind” tour they played all over the UK, from Belfast to London, playing Larne, Armagh, Enniskillen, Bangor, Coleraine, Lame, Derry, Antrim, Hull, Newport, Warrington, Liverpool, Edinburgh, York, Beverley, Driffield, Manchester and Bridlington. They also played at the legendary Mean Fiddler in London alongside Ashanti, Tiberius Minnows and Answer from Limbo. They also played at the Cork Rocks showcase of 1990..

I keep looking and I find a website about notable people from Rathcoole.

Rathcoole (from Irish Ráth Cúile, meaning ‘corner/nook of the ringfort) is a housing estate in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was built in the 1950s to house many of those displaced by the demolition of inner city housing in Belfast city. Rathcoole is within the wider Newtownabbey Borough. Its approximate borders are provided by the O’Neill Road on the north, Doagh Road on the east, Shore Road on the south and the Church Road and Merville Garden Village on the west.

Turns out that the McMahon brothers were originally from Gortmore Terrace at the north-western edge of the estate.

I believe they took their name from the 1976 BBC programme 4 Idle hands that featured Ray Burdis and Phil Daniels.

I keep searching. I find that the brothers had been involved before being in Four Idle Hands in two punk bands, Pure Mania and Tarot XIII.

Sadly I can’t find much more. The thing is, I wonder how many songs they recorded, I feel there might even be more than the ones on Soundcloud and Youtube. Why was there no release for the song that got a promo video? Did they go to make music with other bands afterwards? What are they up to these days? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Four Idle Hills – 99 Streets

Day 25. Close to a month now. How much longer now? Another month? Two more? Let’s go day by day.

How are you all? Any good new music you’ve found out? About Mcguffins there might be a slight delay in the release. It seems the first demo tape has been found and definitely would be good to include it in the album. We shall see if it still works and all! But that was exciting news.

Now new music. Of course.

Ferri-Chrome: out now on CD on the Japanese label Testcard Records is Ferri-Chrome’s “From a Window” EP. This wonderful new release has 5 songs of dreamy and luminous guitars with girl/boy vocals. One of my favourite new releases for sure, I should order it soon as well!

Red Red Eyes/Hacia Dos Veranos: two new songs on this split release that I believe is only available digitally on WIAIWYA. Red Red Eyes contribute the song “Where Has Everybody Gone?” while Hacia Dos Veranos has “We Have all the Time in the World”. Two classy and elegant covers of James Bond songs. The first one originally recorded by The Pretenders while the second one by Louis Armostrong.

Constant Smiles: 43 copies are remaining for the latest release on Box Bedroom Rebels out of Manchester. It is a 7 track 7″ EP by the band Constant Smiles from Massachusetts. The album is a mix of dreampop, shoegaze and other styles. The official release date is June 14 but it seems you need to hurry up if you need a copy!

Country Club: our friends that one contributed a song to a fanzine CD are back with a new EP called “Le Passage Secret”. Now the band is singing in French even though these Frenchmen are now based in Virginia in the US! Definitely a lovely EP, with 6 tracks from the ex-Les Freluquets! Not to be missed!

Die Zärtlichkeit: some very good jangle pop coming from Cologne in Germany. Their latest release is a 5 song EP that is also available on cassette.  I must say this is the first time I hear them and I am happily surprised. The band seems to be a duo formed by Andreas Fischer and Tobias Emmerich. We should keep an eye on them!

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The fourth day of my challenge this time is the day Thursday. A band that wrote a song about Thursday. That was easy. The Parachute Men wrote “Every Other Thursday” and even made a video for it. This song was part of their second album “Earth, Dogs and Eggshells” (FIRE LP24) released by Fire Records in 1990.

I really like The Parachute Men. For years now they’ve been a favourite band of mine. To play again and again their records. One thing though, I’ve been trying to find a copy of their first album “The Innocents” on CD. And for that I have had no luck. This first album was released also by Fire Records (FIRE LP14) in 1988. But I’m going in no order here. Let’s start from the beginning, see if we can find all the important details about this terrific Leeds band!

The band started in 1985 with Fiona Gregg on vocals, Stephen H. Gregg on guitar, Andrew Howes on bass and keyboards and Mark Boyce on drums and keyboards. Based on the bio that’s available on Discogs we know that in 1987 the band signed to Fire Records. And then good things started to happen, meaning releases! Though I wonder between 85 and 87 they must have recorded songs, right? Are there demos? Would really like to listen to that if they exist.

The first release was an EP called “Sometimes in Vain”. This was released in 1988 by Fire (BLAZE 27T) on 12″ vinyl. It included three songs, “Sometimes in Vain”, “Leeds Station” and “Heading the Wrong Way”. The latter two were on the B side.  Interestingly the band would get some love in Spain. The A side, “Sometimes in Vain”, would be re-released as a single sided 7″ by Producciones Twins (T-1874) in 1988. And this won’t be the last time they would get love from Spain.

Then came the album “The Innocents” also on Fire Records (FIRE LP14). This album would be released in France under Vogue and in Spain by Producciones Twins. All of this in 1988. The songs on the album were “Sometimes in Vain”, “The Innocents”, “No Wonder” and “Tell Everyone” on the A side while the B side had “Are You Glad You Came? (Live)”, “Goodbye”, “Past Not Forgotten”, “Maybe If I’d Said” and “Quiet Day”. Something interesting is that the CD version had two more songs, “Burgess Meredith (Live)” and “That’s Too Bad (Live)”. The songs were produced by the great John A Rivers and they were engineered by Colin Richardson and Francisco Cabeza. They were mastered by John Dent. This album would make it on the NME top 50 albums of that year.

All their releases would be on Fire. Their next one would be a classic one. The 7″ and 12″ for “If I Could Wear Your Jacket…?” (BLAZE 30). This song it is known to be author Mike Gayle’s favourite. I remember reading about it a long time ago and looking for a book where he mentions the song. The book is called “Dinner for Two” and it’s alright. The A side had the title song while the B side had “Burgess Meredith” and on the 12″ it also included “That’s Too Bad”. It is said that some pressings of the record came with a free postcard. Would love to see any of them. I didn’t know of their existence.

In 1989 they would release “Bed and Breakfast” (BLAZE 35) again as a 7″ and 12″. One thing that is important to mention is that the 7″ for this one and their previous single came in Fire Records standard sleeves, so they are not that pretty. Better to get the 12″s.  The A side had “Bed and Breakfast” while the B side had “Mr. Gas”. The 12″ also had on B side the song “Bad Rain”.

Then came one of their best songs, “Leeds Station” (BLAZE 33), as a single. Again, produced by John Rivers, the 12″ had “Leeds Station” on the A side and “Maybe If I’d Said” and “So Mistaken” on the B side. The 7″ didn’t have the last track. The title track had a video too that was featured on the NME’s “Carry on Disarming” compilation VHS and also on the “Indie Top Video (Take Two)” VHS released by Picture Music International. The video was produced and directed by Doug Ray.

Then another single, “Every Other Thursday” (BLAZE 40). This one also released on both 12″ and 7″. The 7″ would include “Every Other Thursday”, a reference to signing on to the dole, and “Quiet Life”. The 12″ would add “Being of Unsound Mind” to the B side. This was in 1990.

In 1990 too the band would release their second album, “Earth, Dogs and Seashells” (FIRE LP24). This one would get released on CD, cassette, and vinyl. It would get releases in the US and Germany too. The engineers for the record were Colin Richardson, Nick Robbins and Steve Harris, with Hugh Jones producing. The songs were recorded at Slaughterhouse in Driffield and mixed at Elephant Studios in Waping. The songs on the record were “Mad Sadie Can’t Levitate”, “Mr Gas”, “Never Alone”, “Don’t Cry July” and “Miles Away” on the A side, “Elizabeth”, “Earth, Dogs and Seashells”, “Every Other Thursday”, “…Yeah”, “Sleepless, Sleepless, Sleepless”, “Dream of Kings” and “Fear of Falling” on the B side.

It seems this album was actually recorded in 1989 but for some reason it came out a year after. Also around this time Matthew Parkin (Jesus and Mary Chain, Starlings) on bass and Paul Walker on drums joined. Then Perkin would leave and the Canadian Colleen Brown would join. You might remember her as she was later in the fantastic Pale Saints as well as in The Heart Throbs, Warm Jets and White Hotel.

The band would split in 1990 after playing just one gig with their latest lineup at the Liverpool University. After that Mark Boyce would be involved in The Dubervilles, This, Kath Reade, Sabrina Pigott and Camera · Obscura. Stephen Gregg would leave music and gain a PhD in English literature at the University of Leeds and today he is a lecturer at Bath Spa University where he specializes in 18th century literature.

Aside from these releases the band would appear on about 9 compilations. First one was on “The Great Fire of London” in 1987. This one was released by different labels like Fire Records (FIRE LP8), Producciones Twins in Spain, Emergo also in the UK, and Restless in the US. They contributed the song “My Flamingo”.

Then in 1989 they would appear on 4 different compilations. On “15 Flaming Groovies” (FIRE CD19) released on CD and tape by Fire Records they had two songs, “Bed and Breakfast” and “Leeds Station”. “Sometimes in Vain” would appear on “Indie Top 20 Vol. VI – Pride of Independents” released by Beechwood Music (TT06CD). “Maybe If I’d Said” appears on the great compilation “Lie to Me: A Compilation of Guitar Use and Abuse” released by Umbrella (ULP 1) on tape, CD and LP. Then “Leeds Station” would appear on the Rough Trade CD comp “Rough Trade – Music for the 90’s” (RT CD120).

They would appear on the next volume of Rough Trade, “Rough Trade – Music for the 90’s Volume 2” (RT CD170) with the song “Every Other Thursday” in 1990.  That same year they would include “Somehow Today” on the legendary compilation “Borobudur” that was released by La-Di-Da Productions on LP and re-released later in 1992 by King Records on CD.

Lastly “Mr. Gas” would appear on a compilation called “I Wouldn’t Piss On it If it was On Fire” (FIRECD 63) in 1997. This was a Fire Records double CD compilation.

Lots of story so far. But there’s more. I found a Facebook page for the band.

Firstly we know now that Fiona was playing music in the early 80s! There is a song she recorded with Nigel Holleran called “LowenbrauPils“. It is not jangly but it is a cool pop song anyways! It dates from 1980 and I wonder if there are more songs. Also are there more songs by the band members from other projects previous to The Parachute Men? It would be great to find out!

Then we know the band reformed in 2015. They played in Leeds at venues like The Library or the Packhorse Pub. I so wish I had seen them! Would have been great!

Then a cool find, a video of the band being interviewed in 1989 after the first lineup changes.

There are few press clippings and some cool photos too. Also they have written about a few of their songs, which is nice, see what inspired them, what is the story behind them.

But no mention of unreleased tracks. Why did they split? Did Fiona and Stephen made more music afterwards? What about before? Clearly Fiona did… Did they record demos? Maybe that song “My Flamingo” was one of them? And how come if a lot of their peers have gotten reissues and so on, why hasn’t Fire Records put something out yet? I’d buy it in a whim!

Many questions, which I hope to get answers. The Parachute Men are a terrific band who deserve to be rediscovered!

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Listen
The Parachute Men – Every Other Thursday