13
Jan

Okay, I hear our friend Cris is mastering now the next Cloudberry Cake Kitchen release. Then we are figuring out now our next 7″ and this past weekend I finally had some time to work on the fanzine, at least send all the bands, I wanted to interview, questions. That is important as I will be away in Mexico City starting this Saturday. I will be going to work there so I should have my computer with me and will be able to update the blog I think. We’ll see. In any case here are a bunch of cool new finds from over the weekend!

Dayflower: this is amazing news really. Our latest 7″ was Dayflower’s “Sweet Georgia Gazes” and now it has a video! It is terrific to see images accompanying this terrific song! The video was directed by Keith Allott with the help of Paul Daniels and Bill Newsinger and with actress Jess O’Brien.  We still have copies of the 7″ just so you know!

The Know: this moody shoegaze track called “Hold Me Like You Know Me” is the latest by this husband and wife band from Los Angeles. It was released just last week and aside from the lyrics that are posted on Bandcamp we don’t have more info about it. Will it be released somewhere? Will it be part of an album or something? Who knows. Just know it sounds good!

Soma Lake: more shoegaze! This time from Mexico’s Stupid Decisions label. They will be putting a six song mini-album by Soma Lake on January 13. We can only preview the first track, “When We Were (Angels)” which sounds very good. Also I like the artwork, very Cloudberry blue.

Tom Boyle: it has been a while since I heard the Spanish band from Getxo, Tom Boyle. More than a year. And their comeback is quite a surprise! A quirky rendition of “Burbujas de Amor”, the mega-hit of Juan Luis Guerra, a Dominican bachata/pop star from the 80s/90s. I think this is very cool!

The Hazy Seas: not too long ago I discovered this terrific Chicago pop band!  heard their song “Heavy Heads” and was hooked. And that was it. But now they have a proper release, a self-titled album of 8 tracks of superb guitar pop! It is available now on tape and they also have some t-shirts for sale. Really really enjoying this.

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The Prayers, that Scottish band that I love. Whatever happened to them? I discovered them quite late, when Egg Records started their restoration programme in the early 2000s. Oddly enough I didn’t manage to get a copy of the release they put out then, the retrospective CD “Everything but the Rubber Cat”, but I did end up getting the 7″s released in the 80s. It’s something.

The story starts with Egg One, the first release on Jim Kavanagh’s Egg Records. It was a 7″ with two songs by The Prayers. The A side was the magnificent “Sister Goodbye” and the B side had “Under the Deep Blue”. The 7″ came out in October 1988 after the songs had been recorded in March that same year.

EGG 002 was the “A Lighthouse in the Desert” 12″ sampler. Here the band appears with the track “Puppet Clouds” that was produced and engineered by Nick Quail from Playing Soldiers. Other bands on this record were The Church Grims, The Bachelor Pad and Remember Fun. The song was recorded in Autumn 1989. It is also worth mentioning that the German Edition 59 Records would re-release this as a mini-CD (EDL-051) in 2010.

Then in November of 1990, the band released another 7″, this one being EGG 004. The A side was “Fingerdips” and the B side was “Head Start”. These were recorded in December 1988. This 7″ also had a 12″ version where the two songs, “Fingerdips” and “Head Start” appear on the A side, while on the B side we find “Puppet Clouds” from the sampler and “Sister Goodbye” and “Under the Deep Blue” from the first 7″. This was EGG 005.

In 1991 Egg would release a tape with the four songs included in the 7″s on a split tape with The Bachelor Pad. The Prayers would appear on the B side. It seems more like a promo tape but can’t say much about it even though it appears listed on Discogs. It has no catalog number.

As I mentioned, in 2003 Egg Records reappeared in the indiepop scene. They released a bunch of great compilations of long lost bands. The fourth in that series (EGGREST 004) was “Everything but the Rubber Cat” that included the 5 songs we know from the early vinyl records but added 5 more: “Feet (demo)”, “Daze (demo)”, “Sister Goodbye (demo)”, “Under the Deep Blue (demo)” and “Puppet Clouds (demo)”.

Thanks to this compilation we learn that the band was formed by Hugh McLachlan on vocals and guitar, Colin Murray on guitar, Andy Muiry on drums and Bob Gregory on bass. we know too that most of the songs are credited to the whole band but “Sister Goodbye” and “Under the Deep Blue” to McLachlan and Murray only. The demos were recorded as follow:  “Feet (demo)”, “Daze (demo)” and “Puppet Clouds (demo)” in the spring of 1989, “Sister Goodbye (demo)” in October 1987 while “Under the Deep Blue (demo)” in November 1987.

The band through the years have appeared on many compilations. Back in 1991 they had their song “Puppet Clouds” in the tape compilation “Beneath the Valley of the Magnetic Monster” released by Hypertonia World Enterprises (HWE 050). This was a compilation put together in Norway by J. R. Bruun. That same year Elefant Records from Spain released “Egg Records compilation” (ER-008), a sort of sampler featuring many bands from the Scottish label. The Prayers contribute “Sister Goodbye” and “Under the Deep Blue”.

In 1992 the band appears on the tape comp “Garden Party” (ALIEN α) released by the French Aliénor Records. The band shows up with “sister Goodbye”.

Then we jump to 2003, for the CD comp “Egg Records: an Introduction To 1988-1991”. the first of the Egg Records releases during their “restoration programme”. They have the songs “Sister Goodbye”, “Puppet Clouds” and “Fingerdips” in it.

In 2006 appears the CD compilation “Souvenirs from Egg Records”, the 15th release in the Egg Records restoration programme (EGGREST 015). “Sister Goodbye” and a track we hadn’t heard before, “Forevers Over”, appear on this CD.

Then comes Cherry Red and their arsenal of boxsets. First their song “Puppet Clouds” on the “Still in a Dream: A Story of Shoegaze 1988-1995” in 2016 and then “Sister Goodbye” on the “C88” boxset from 2017. A year later, 2018, “Fingerdips” is included in “C89” and lastly this year, 2019, “Head Start” appears in “Big Gold Dreams-A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989”. Seems Cherry Red will be releasing all of their songs, one per year?

And yes, the only name I found was that of John Connor, their bassist, on a Youtube comment.

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Listen
The Prayers – Sister Goodbye

10
Jan

I think this weekend I’ll be finally able to work on the fanzine. This is exciting. At the same time I want to remind you all that next week I’ll be heading once again to Mexico City. Please let me know if you need any records and we can find a way for you to save on shipping costs!

New finds? You got them!

Sloome: this Modesto, California, band took two years to record and release their first album “Smorgasbord”. There are 12 songs of classic American indiepop, quirky and fun. There are some songs that I am not crazy about but there are some good ones like “Squeaky Bones” or “Whisper to Me”.

Corriendo por el Bajo: here is an Argentinean band, from Buenos Aires, making some cool music. Their latest track is called “Radiación Solar” which was recorded at the same time they did their “Sístema” EP that was released last September. If you like dreampop and postpunk, this is for you.

Fule: this Japanese band formed by Ryohei Enoki on vocals and guitar, Miyu Knno on bass and Anri He on drums has recorded a very nice shoegazy track called “Morning Glow” that will be part of a 3 song EP titled “藍、梔子”.

Closer Preys: the 19 year old Minjun Kim has recorded a lo-fi dreampop EP called “Betrayed” EP. It has three songs, “Distant Friends”, “Dark Room” and “I Tried to Swim Across the Ocean”. It is dreamy sure, but at the same time it is gloomy and the vocals are buried and mysterious.

Jimbo: some classic tweepop from Pensacola, Florida? Sure thing. A collection of seven songs form the mini-album “Epic” by the band Jimbo. This sounds very early 2000s US indiepop to me, with it’s lo-finess and fun vocals with catchy choruses.  Worth a listen.

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Let’s head back to Sweden, to the year 2006. That was a great time in Sweden’s indiepop. Lots of bands, labels, festivals, and fans. I wish I had lived there then. At the time I wished so very much. I wanted to be there. It wouldn’t be until 2009 that I would finally visit that country I had dreamed of so many times and meet many popfriends.

Anyhow, 2006. As I was saying it was a good year for indiepop in general. It was kind of the year building up for the revival that would be 2007. 2007 was a worldwide revival. I even started Cloudberry in 2007. But of course, Sweden had been brewing great indiepop for many years now. The rest of the world was just catching up.

One of the labels that made a splash was Friendly Noise, releasing records by Friday Bridge, Action Biker and more. Lots of superb stuff. Today I wanted to look into a band that is quite obscure, that I know very little of, but left a song that is truly great, Dianas Tempel.

I assume there was a girl vocalist in the band. That is obvious. But was there a band? Or was it just her playing everything? In those days I would stumble upon so many talented people that would just create songs on their own. I wouldn’t be surprised. The song Dianas Tempel recorded and contributed to the Friendly Noise compilation “Are You Scared to Get Happy?” (FYN 30) was called “I’ll Be Different This Time”. It is gorgeous.

On this compilation that was released on CD and was compiled by two greats of Swedish indie, Mattias Holmberg and Stefan Zachrisson, we find top music by The Radio Dept., Kuryakin, Sarto and many more. The album was mastered by Andreas Tilliander.

Not much written about the compilation, aside from some very favourable reviews on blogs and webzines, and whenever Dianas Tempel is mentioned the reviewer is very supportive about the great track that “I’ll Be Different This Time” is. Now, if only I knew who is behind it, and if there are more recordings…. who’d know? The vocals remind me quite a bit of Sarah from Action Biker… but I don’t know if I’m in the right track there. Maybe the CD booklet has information, I should try to get myself a copy. But any help would be appreciated!

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Listen
Dianas Tempel – It’ll Be Different This Time

08
Jan

The bit of news this week is that the anniversary sale for records released in 2009 is not available anymore. Replacing it we have a similar sale for records released in 2010. Here you can pick 3 of the 7″s that were released that year (Horowitz, Zipper, Sad Day for Puppets, Oh! Custer, A Smile and  Ribbon, Bonne Idée) for a very fair price including shipping. So take advantage of it if you are missing any of these records in your collection as they are, I think, fantastic!

The Go-Betweens: I don’t remember sharing this Youtube link with a conversation between Robert Forster and Peter Paphides talking about the new “G Stands for Go-Betweens Vol. 2” boxset. I post it a bit late here, but I really want to make sure no one misses this. It is not to be missed.

Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters: Optic Nerve has just announce a new LP retrospective compilation for this amazing band that released just a few records back in the 80s, notably on Dan Treacy’s label Dreamworld Records! The new compilation is called “Smashed Full of Wonder” and will have 14 tracks including 2 demos that have never been released in the past!

Teenagers from Outer Space Comeback (A Tribute to Bee Keeper): the Portuguese label Bee Keeper was for sure the most important independent label in that country. Maybe it is still. I wouldn’t know if there has been a better one afterwards. Most probably not. It is no surprise then that there is a tribute to the label being released now by the label Skud & Smarty Records from Castelo Branco on vinyl LP. This tribute includes 19 tracks!! An amazing feat and it includes even The Pastels or Tullycraft. But that’s not all, there are familiar faces here, like Safety Matches who released a 3″ CD with Cloudberry many years ago. Very very cool!

Anuncio en Blanco: now a bedroom project coming from Cuernavaca in Mexico. The man behind this project is Marco Mendoza. He has put together 7 tracks as a mini album called “Este Año”, this year. It is a lovely effort packed with jangle and drum machines!

Mint Julep: “So You Say” is the newest track by Keith and Hollie Kenniff. And as their previous releases it is a superb song. Guitars chime, Hollie’s vocals swoon and the melodies are dreamy. What else can one ask for? Maybe I need this in a physical record? That’d be nice.

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High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is 47 km west north west of Charing Cross in London; this information is also engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town. The name Wycombe appears to come from the river Wye and the old English word for a wooded valley, combe, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary of Place-Names the name, which was first recorded in 799-802 as ‘Wichama’, is more likely to be Old English ‘wic’ and the plural of Old English ‘ham’, and probably means ‘dwellings’; the name of the river was a late back-formation.

That’s where I am transporting the blog today. Because I have just discovered a band that sounds great from there. A band that was around during the early 90s. One that seems left to us a few recorded tracks and nothing else.

It seems that the Record Collector Magazine rediscovered them for new fans back in 2016, when they included their song “Stoke” on a compilation LP called “Small Town Scenery”. It also looks like that the first 100 copies of the magazine then (Jan. 26 2016), came with a bonus 10″ (featuring the band Blindmans Rainbow). I didn’t know of this release. I wish I did. I hope I can find a copy as I am not familiar with any of the bands on it! Maybe I can explore them later on. the blog? One by one?

Anyhow, Triple Blind. Happily on Discogs there are scans of the LP and thanks to that I found out more about the band.

Triple Blind formed in the late 80s and played lots of gigs including an episode of Eastenders. “The Levellers were supposed to do it but refused to sign a deal regarding insurance,” recalls drummer Neil Peters. So Triple Blind performed threesongs in the background before 17 million people and got paid £1,000 for the pleasure. This money funded the recording of “Stoke” in a proper studio and is probably the most exciting thing to come out of the show after Ian Beale’s love life.

I think the band actually recorded 3 songs that time. Not just “Stoke”. The other two songs being “Bus Shelter Boy” and “Take Me Back”. I know that because I found the tracks on Soundcloud! There I find the band’s lineup:

Phil Bird – guitar
Iain Wooster – bass
Neil Peters – drums
Rev A Floyd – guitar and vocals

I believe later on some of the band members were in a band called SubRosa5.

And that’s it really. No more information about them. I hope I can find out more about the band members, if they were in other bands, and if there were more Triple Blind recordings. In any case I need to get this record and I will definitely start checking on the other bands in it. I think this might prove a trove of great indiepop bands!

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Listen
Triple Blind – Stoke

06
Jan

Had a busy weekend so I haven’t finished writing the fanzine questions for the bands, but it is shaping up. Also not this weekend but the next I will be traveling to Mexico City for a week. Again if anyone needs some records in the Mexican capital let me know and I’ll be happy to bring some!

Here are some finds from over the weekend!

Debonaire: it really pains me that the Blue-very label releases cassettes. I just don’t like tapes. And here this label is putting amazing music by classic and legendary Japanese bands on tape! Oh dear. What to do? Their latest release is an album by the superb Debonaire from the 80s titled “Lost from the Pictures”. It is coming out on February 5th and will include 11 tracks! Great stuff!

Curling Dreams: what a discovery this band from Halmstad, Sweden. They only have two songs on their Soundcloud, “Falling Down” and “Happy Now”, but the good thing is that even though their is no big quantity there’s lots of quality here! There’s not many details about them on the web but we know they are formed by Jonas Börjesson, Anton Albertsson, Tobias Söderblom, Jonatan Axetorn. I hope to listen more from them soon!

Big Baby: the Richmond, VA, based band is releasing on January 10th a new EP called “Fizzy Cola” on Jigsaw Records (CD) and Hidden Bay Records (tape). At the moment we can preview the track “String of Pearls” which is a terrific fuzzy jangly track. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the songs on the EP and I have to say I am very glad this will be available on CD and not just tape. Makes my life easier.

Flower Crown: the latest from this Pittsburgh band is a terrific track called “High Fantasy”. Released last December, this song even has a video for us to enjoy. This dreamy band is formed by Richie Colosimo, Mike Iverson, Chris Sexauer, Zach Bronder and Jon Sampson.

Decepción Cromática: “Hace Frío Afuera” was released just before Christmas by this Barcelona project. The song title translates as “It is Could Outside” and of course it makes sense that it was put out then. I discover it a bit later, but nonetheless it is very enjoyable!

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From Manchester, a band that had in its rank Craig Gannon who would end up in The Smiths. But The Smiths is a story we all know. I want to know about The Cradle. Who were they?

The band was formed by Craig Gannon on guitar, Ivor Perry on guitar, Gary Rostock on drums, Lee Bennett on bass and Andy Housley on vocals. They released just one record when they were around, in 1987. It was released by Rough Trade on both 7″ and 12″ formats (RT 202).

The A side for this record was “It’s Too High” and the B side had “Walk Around” (both written by Ivor Perry) and, on the 12″, the song “Wires” which was penned by Philip Larkin. The A side was recorded at Amazon Studios in Liverpool while the songs on the B side were corded at Out of the Blue Studios in Manchester. All songs were engineered by Nick Garside who we know from the superb band The Distractions.

Discogs doesn’t list any songs on compilations. Just this release. I wonder then if there were more recordings. If there were demo tapes made. Who’d know. And how did they end up on Rough Trade? Were they big or supposed to become big? Well, they did have people in the band that had been in important bands. For example Gary Rostock was in Easterhouse. Craig Gannon was not only in The Smiths, he was in The Bluebells and played with the Blue Orchids, Adult Net, Vinny Peculiar, Terry Hall and even helped on a track on the sole album by the lovely Help Stamp Out Loneliness.

According to Wikipedia, “It’s Too High” was actually a number 12 indie chart hit. In 1987, when Johnny Marr left The Smiths, The Cradle was put on hold. Why? It says that Ivor Perry was considered to replace Marr. He even recorded some new material with the band, including an early version of “Bengali on Platforms”. Perry was uncomfortable with the situation within The Smiths and in the end decided to leave and resurrect The Cradle with new vocalist Craig Davies. But soon enough Davies signed a solo deal with Rough Trade. This in turn made Rough Trade drop The Cradle. It mentions too that the band continued with another singer. Which singer?

I continue digging and find a name, John Barratt, he was The Cradle’s manager. Then on a book “Meetings with Morrissey” by Len Brown it mentions that Ivor got Gannon to join The Cradle after seeing him “staggering round, pissed, at the Hacienda”.

What about the other members? How did The Cradle start as a band?

There’s many questions, especially if there are more recordings, and what happened with the band after they were dropped by Rough Trade. Who knows. It feels like they were supposed to be bigger. Maybe they played live a lot? Maybe they got good gigs supporting top bands? How long did the band last too? Many questions, few answers on the web.

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Listen
The Cradle – It’s Too High

03
Jan

Happy new year to everyone!! Hope this 2020 brings lots of good news to all, more great indiepop records, gigs and bands to all of us. For Cloudberry I really hope it is a good year. Last year we put one retrospective and 2 7″s. Hopefully this year we can do the same or more. That’s the plan at least! This year for sure we are adding a fanzine, that already makes it different!

Have I found any good music in the past few days?

Nah…: “Perfect Game” is the treat the German band is giving us for 2020! It is a song about darts & love and it is darn good! Very influenced by Orange Juice, the jangly track gallops and swoons. It is one of their finest moments and so I hope they release this physically this year!

Golden Teardrops: another band that treats us with new music in 2020 is the duo of Ryan and Lei Marquez! They have a new song “I Won’t Be Fooled Again” that continues what they have been releasing in the past few years. Another great entry to their catalogue of shiny summery songs.

Jetstream Pony: our favourite Brightonians cover 20/20’s “Yellow Pills” for New Year’s. And they do it great! What do I wish the band for 2020? I hope they release more records. Maybe an album. And definitely to come play NYC!

Dummy: a five people band from Los Angeles. That’s all I know about them. They have a self-titled EP supposedly (their artwork looks like a tape with 3 songs on the A side and 2 on the B side), but on Bandcamp I can only find one track, “Angel’s Gear”. It is terrific, so I hope to hear the rest. If it exists!

Tawings: this trio from Tokyo released a few weeks ago a self-titled album consisting of 8 tracks. Dreampop and shoegaze fans will definitely enjoy this, with it’s sweet melodies and dreamy female vocals. The record is available on CD now.

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This might be a short post because I think this is one of those ultra obscure bands that no information is available on the web. And that’s kind of funny as the one and only song I know by Alphabet Extravaganza was released not THAT long ago, in 2007. Not in the 80s. There was internet then. But still there’s nothing about them online.

This one and only song I know they recorded was called “Don’t Pay Attention”. It has female vocals and the sound of it reminds me a lot of the Marine Girls. So yes, it is pretty nice.

The song wasn’t even released in physical format. It was part of an MP3 compilation released by the Swedish label Friendly Noise called “I Godan Ro” (FYN 51). This Stockholm based label was founded by Stefan Zachrisson and Mattias Holmberg and released some very good albums, among my favourite those by The Dreamers and Action Biker.

This compilation included four songs. The Alphabet Extravaganza was the second one in the tracklist. The other bands were We Feed Them Knives, Kim Ki O and The Radio Dept. (doing a glorious version of the Go-Betweens’ “Bachelor Kisses”). The songs were compiled by Per Johansson who had once been in the amazing band Kissing Mirrors.

Aside from all of these connections, I can’t find who was behind the band. I can’t find other songs either. So, I need your help as it would be nice to hear more songs by Alphabet Extravaganza!

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Listen
Alphabet Extravaganza – Don’t Pay Attention

31
Dec

Thanks so much to Ada Wilson for the interview! I wrote about The Magnificent Everything some weeks ago on the blog and Ada got in touch! That was lucky! And even better he was up to tell me the story of the band! I knew very little about them so this was great. If you have never heard them, it is a good time to discover this early 80s Wakefield band!!

++ Hi Ada! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Still making music?

Hi Roque, I stopped making music 30 years ago, but I’ve finally put a little band together to mark my 60th birthday in 2020. It’s sounding good so far.

++ 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?

I was born in 1960 and music seemed to be a lot more important in the 60s and 70s. I can’t remember not being aware of songs – from the Beatles on. When my brother fell out of a tree and had to go to hospital, I was allowed to go to the Beatles Club, which the girls on our street had. I’d be about four I guess. So it was always there. I had a guitar from the age of around eight, a Framus, fumbled about with it and started playing in Working Men’s Clubs when I was 12 – old rock’n’roll standards etc.

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

Bob, Bas, myself and drummer Ringo Higginbottom had been in a band called Strangeways from 1977-79. We got a little success too young really, signing to Real Records, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, which also signed the Pretenders and Johnny Thunders. The Pretenders supported us for their first low-key gig in Wakefield, then became a hot thing and we had to support them. I’m sending you an unreleased track of Chrissie Hynde singing ‘Wild Thing’ with us at an early recording session. It was pretty obvious she had something special, wasn’t it? We also supported The Ramones, Johnny Thunders, Graham Parker & the Rumour and various others and released two singles, Wasting Time and Show Her You Care on Real Records. A compilation of our songs called Powerpop! came out about ten years ago on Detour Records. We also appeared on the TV programme ‘Get it Together’ with Roy North at this time – it’s on YouTube somewhere – and I just found this bio from somewhere else here.

++ Where were you from originally?

Wakefield.

++ How was Wakefield at the time of The Magnificent Everything? 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?

This was the early 80s, so the venues were The Hellfire Club at Heppy’s, Unity Hall, The Red Shed, Henry Boon’s, The Grove and a few other pubs. The record shop was JAT records and a second I can’t remember now. There were some great local bands like Fiat Lux, Citron Girls, The Fourth Estate, The Juvies, The Rainy Days – many more. Wakefield had Bretton Art College at that time, so there were lots of young people moving in and out and forming bands for five minutes.

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

After Strangeways split up, I did some solo gigs and released a single called ‘In the Quiet of my Room’, which did quite well and was Single of the Week in Sounds, the weekly music paper. I sold the rights to Chas Chandler – former Animal and manager of Jimi Hendrix and Slade etc., so it seemed to make sense. It promptly sank without trace. I then formed another band called Ada Wilson and Keeping Dark, who were on the Hicks from the Sticks compilation and released a (pretty lame) single called Head in the Clouds. Inevitably, I started playing with Bob and Bas again, because I missed the harmonies we had between us.

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

Bas or I would have a chord sequence or melody and go from there. We rehearsed under a pub called The Hammer in a little pit village called Ryhill. The pub disappeared years ago.

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

It was the New Romantic period and there was a definite move towards swing and jazz in pop. Dexy’s were the big influence for me at this time.

++ I know you released only one record, back in 1982 on the label Handful of Snake Enterprises. I was wondering about this label, was it a self-release? Or who was behind it? Care telling me a bit more about it!

Yes, it was a self release.

++ This 7″ had a very cool art made by Lee Walsh. How did he come to work with the band? Who came up with the idea behind the art?

Lee’s an old friend and I’m pretty sure it was just his idea.

++ The 7″ included two songs, “Tuxedo Lights” and “Jackpot”, and I was curious where were they recorded? Who produced the record?

There were a few local studios we used but mainly Woodlands in Normanton run by Neil Ferguson, which was perversely the home of both Chumbawamba and Black Lace! ‘Jackpot’ was recorded in a home studio in Ryhill.

++ And was that your first time in a studio recording or you had already previous experience?

We were spoilt during our Strangeways period – ‘Wasting Time’ our second single was recorded at Abbey Road, produced by Tommy Ramone.

++ You also appeared on the compilation “On the Rocks” that was released by TPL Records. You contributed two songs, “Blue Sky, North Street:” and “Uptown Electric”. Were these songs recorded at the same time as the single? Or are they from a different session? And how did you end up on this comp?

I think the band had split up by the time that compilation finally came out. It was a labour of love from the chap who put it together and didn’t really hang together.

++ You were also on another compilation, “Real Time 7”, on Unlikely Records. Who were Unlikely Records? Did it come with a magazine or fanzine?

Unlikely Records was an endeavour of a chap called Robert Cox, who put out wonderful cassette compilations of a lot of obscure music. I wonder what he’s doing now?

++ I was wondering too if you were friends or part of a scene with the bands that appear on these two compilations? Or perhaps not?

No, not really – we used to communicate by old-fashioned mail – that’s how long ago this is, so didn’t know any of the other bands.

++ Are there more recordings by the band? Unreleased tracks? Demo tapes?

Yes there are. I’m sending you a track which I think is great, called ‘Suddenly It’s Not Funny’, written by Bas., please feel free to use it as you like.

++ When and why did The Magnificent Everything stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?

I had a band called That Uncertain Feeling before deciding I was sick of having no money and it was time to do something else. That Uncertain Feeling released one album called What the World Wants. It wasn’t really.

++ Never been to Wakefield so I would love to ask a local for some recommendations. If  I was to to visit your city what shouldn’t I miss? What are your favourite sights? And any particular food or drinks that you think one shouldn’t miss?

To behold our wonderful city in its splendour you probably need to be in The Pie Shop overlooking Westgate at 11.30 on a Saturday night. It will tell you all you need to know.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

It’s amazing what you can find out about your past on the internet.

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Listen
The Magnificent Everything – Tuxedo Lights

30
Dec

Happy New Year! This is the last post for 2019 and of course I’ll continue posting and updating the blog. It will be the 12th year of updating it! Time does fly! The format has changed through the years but still the curiosity, the hopes of finding new great popsongs and popbands. Meeting bands, making new friends, and releasing records as part of the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen.

We have two releases for the series lined up for the new year. I am working on a new fanzine as we speak and also discussing possible new releases on Cloudberry as part of the 7″ series. It is exciting times!

Here are my last finds for 2019!

Loca Polka: another great Indonesian band? Yes! It is no surprise anymore to surprise more great Indo Pop! This band formed by Nuri Hapsari, Mikael Yudi Priamuda, Ginanjar Wahyu Aji and Christian Agung formed back in 20017 in Magelang. But only this year they released their super first single “Surrender”!

Tusindfald: this Danish band has made a very good 80s new wave influenced dreampop mini-album called “Blik”. The record is quite short, 7 songs, and seems to be only available now in digital format. It does sound great and I hope it gets released properly, meaning, physically.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: three more songs by the San Francisco band, “The Record Player & the Damage Done”, “Life with the Damned (has gone Sour)” and “The Walking-Away World” are now on their Bandcamp. I don’t know how they are this prolific. Really impressive!

Blondehouse: more from Indonesia! The label Don’t Fade Away Records has just released a tape by the band Blondehouse titled “Melt”. It is a 5 song EP of shoegazy sounds and dreamy melodies. The EP is out now in cassette format.

The Orange Peels: the classic California band has put together a new version of their debut album “Square”! it is released on vinyl LP and it comes accompanied by a double CD that includes a bunch of demos and bonus tracks. This is a terrific release that no none should miss!

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The label Cornflakes Zoo was created in the early 90s by Stéphane Teynié who at the time was the writer of the Anorak fanzine and also was in charge of the Anorak mail order. This label released many classic French bands like Les Autres and Non Stop Kazoo Organization, both featured already on the blog. Among these French bands there was one that excelled when it came to jangly guitars, that was Des Garçons Ordinaires!

But the band’s first release wasn’t on Cornflakes Zoo. it was actually on Glam Records. It was a single sided flexi (GLAM 003) and it is not surprise as this label had previously released flexis by Solace and Smily Post (both also featured on the blog in the past!). I believe Des Garçons Ordinaires’ flexi was the last one this label released. They managed to include three songs on the flexi, “Sister Love and Mr Moon”, “Caroline” and “My Favorite Garden”. These songs were recorded on a 4track in November 1991. The artwork for the sleeve is very indiepop I’d say, with a drawing of four girls.

Des Garçons Ordinaires released their debut album in 1993. This one came out on Cornflakes Zoo (ZOO6). The album was self-titled and included 12 songs of superb jangly pop. The songs were: “Flower Power”, “Bung a Loo Goo”, “Nice Price”, “Funk Them All”, “Galaxy”, “Clouds”, “Freud’s Hairstyle Technique”, “La La La”, “Bass Drum”, “Sometimes We Smile”, “Sixteen Cannons” and “Lost in Space #3”. All songs were recorded and mixed by Damien Bertrand on most of the songs and Vincent Lecouplier (also known as Vincent Balloon, owner of Studio balloon Farm in Rennes, France) on “Nice Price”, “La La La” and “Bass Drum”.

The credits give us the names of the band members:
Alban Rautenstrauch – bass
Emmanuel Lamour – drums, guitar, keyboards, vocals
Bors – guitar
Stéphane – vocals, guitar, harmonica.

The band appeared on many compilations during the 90s. First was the song “Into Space” that was included in the “Heol Daou” tape compilation that Katiho (Katiho 002) released in 1990. Then in 1991 they included two songs on the compilation tape “In the Limelight” which was a French ompilation as well. This tape came with a fanzine-type booklet that I would guess had information about the bands on it. Des Garçons Ordinaires appears on this one with the tracks “Circle Corners” and “Into Space”.

Elefant Records from Spain would include them in “Around the World Again’ (ER-020) in 1992. The band had the song “Summer Songs” on this one. That same year the band had their song “Little World” on the French compilation “Whoops!” that the label Houpla (HOUPLA01) put out. The song “Summer Games” would also be included in “Garden Party” another tape compilation from 1992. It was on another famous French label, Aliénor Records (ALIEN α).

Then in 1993 the band would have their song “Sometimes We Smile” on the tape “Ces Chères Têtes Blondes” (CIN 01) on Cindie. And then in the classic German CD compilation “The Noise and The Melodies – The Pearl Compilation” (PERLE 1).

Lastly in 1994 the band had their song “Laughing Box” in the Alienor Records’ box set of 7″s called “The Onion Most Dangerous Game” (ALIEN λ). I believe this compilation was sort of a tribute to the fanzine Onion’s Soup.

It is also worth mentioning that in 1994 the band had the video for their song “Flower Power” on the VHS compilation of indiepop videos “Munch Part I (An International Independant Music Video Compilation )” that Season Records (Season Two) put out. Oddly enough I can’t find a copy of the video on Youtube. I feel it was on Youtube some years ago? Maybe?

Aside from all this info I know that Emmanuel Lamour has made music under the names Emmanuel, Manu, Manu Love, Mr De Cuny, Polar Bear, Mark 2, Love and Dave Quartet and Shop. Stéphane on the other hand had been in the band Mum’s The Word.

The blog of the Shoegaze Movement has a post about them and there the author talks mostly about the quality of the tracks. There is also a post about the flexi the band released by my good friend Alex at his blog 7iete Pulgadas.

Then on Les Autres’ Bandcamp I find them covering Des Garçons Ordinaires’ “Sister Love and Mr Moon”.

What else? Well, the band hailed from Rennes. I know that thanks to the archive page of the venue Krakatoa in Mérignac, close to Bordeaux. I know they played there on January 23rd 1993.

And that’s it really! I thought the band was much more known, at least to have more written about them on the web. I still have many questions about them. And I really hope I could find out why they split? What other bands had the band members being involved with? What are they doing now? Are there more songs recorded by the band? I hope to find out soon!

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Listen
Des Garçons Ordinaires – Clouds

27
Dec

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Here are some cool finds, see you again Monday!

Night Flowers: the London band has a song called “Snowfall” which they’ve recorded just for this holiday season with a good cause behind it. All proceeds will be donated to the Epilepsy Action charity. I really like this band a lot. And I think everyone should too. This reminds me I still haven’t got myself a copy of their album. I should change that in 2020.

Drinking Boys and Girls Choir: Damnably Records, home of the excellent Say Sue Me, seem to have found another great Korean band! It may sound more punky than pop, not your usual recommendation on the blog. But it is poppy enough, fun enough, I think. The vocals are sweet. And I said why not. The band has just released a self-titled album packed with 18 tracks! It is available on CD and vinyl of course.

Les Bicyclettes de Belsize: a very fine Christmas song called “Another Christmas Song” is what the London band presents us this year. Lyrics are posted too for singing along. The last few days I was making a playlist of cool indiepop Christmas songs, and I missed this one. But for sure it is going on my next year playlist. You do the same.

Close Lobsters: the Scottish band is back with a new album on February 28th. We are able now to preview one of the tracks, “All Compasses Go Wild”, and it sounds faaaaaantastic! I can’t wait to get a copy of this record which will be available on orange and grey vinyl. And CD too. The album which is called “Post Neo Anti: Arte Povera in the Forest of Symbols” comes with 10 tracks and a very cool artwork on its sleeve!

The Fisherman and his Soul: and lastly another Christmas song, ” A Christmas Tree Bright as a Lighthouse”! This one comes all the way from Münster in Germany, thanks to Sebastian Voss, who you might know from the lovely Nah… and his older band The Grindcore Poppies which made me a fan of his music. This track is another one I need to add to my Christmas playlist next year!

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Wow, really wow! What a discovery for me. This Falkirk band, who once supported The Bluebells at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh, has a brilliant sound. At least on this superb song I’ve found on Youtube called “I Believe its Love”. I really want to hear more! If there’s more, and they sound like this, I wouldn’t mind releasing a retrospective compilation too!

I know only a few little facts about the band. “I Believe its Love” was a single. I think it was taken from a cassette single released in 1983 by A&M Records called “Long Summers”. It got some radio play on Radio One by Peter Powell.  Was there a B side for the cassingle? I would love to know.

The band was around from 1981 to 1985. It was formed by:
Gordon Davidson on guitar
Chas Fotheringham on bass and vocals
Ally Gibb on guitar, saxophone and keyboards
George Smith on drums
Barbara on vocals

The band recorded a Radio Royal session in 1982. Where is that? I’d love to hear it. What songs were recorded?

After this session Barbara was replaced by Diane Smith. I am confused if on the song “I Believe its Love” is Barbara or Diane singing? Who could confirm me that?

Then in 1983 the band recorded a Radio Forth session. Again, what songs were recorded? Is there any way to listen to it? After this session more lineup changes, Davidson was replaced by Alex Irvine (ex Shout) and with this new lineup the band would win the Levi’s Battle of the Bands in Edinburgh which was judged by Radio One DJ Peter Powell. Thanks to this success the band ended up supporting The Bluebells.

Another interesting fact is that Ally Gibb guested in the Cocteau Twins album “Head Over Heels” playing sax on the track “Five Ten Fiftyfold”. It also seems that David Hair, who would later be in the Smokehouse Blues Band, played a few dates with the band.

In 1985 Diane Smith left the band as she wanted to become a dancer and even appearing on the Cadbury’s Twirl advert and in the video for “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen! It was this year too when the band split. Ally Gibb would join The Breakfast Boyz and later The Bottleneck Blues Band and Alex Irvine would join Frank’s Wild Years.

I find also some info about gigs they played. For example headlining at The Burns with support of Complex. It seems they played this venue many times.

Then an old Myspace. Here I see two more songs by the band, they are called “What Does it Take” (which looks as it was the last song the band recorded), “Make My Day” (recorded at Cava Studio for A&M Records) and “Fred Astaire” (recorded live).

Then I find out that Ally Gibb played last November a solo gig at The Graeme Hotel in Falkirk. I believe he played many of the songs of Pastis 51 in this occasion. Must have been a nice evening!

I am craving so much to listen to more of their tracks. The one I’ve heard is great. Hopefully I’ll be able in the near future! Maybe someone will help me with this wish!

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Listen
Pastis 51 – I Believe It’s Love

24
Dec

Thanks so much to Zack, Dan and John for the interview! I wrote about Rebecca Fishpond in early November and immediately got in touch with the band. That was super cool! This very obscure but wonderful SE London band was around the late 80s and even though didn’t release any records left a bunch of great songs! If you’ve never heard them before, you must do so before the year ends! Sit back and enjoy!

++ Hi Zack, Dan and John! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Still making music?

Zack: Hi Roque, all is grand! Yes, I’m still busy making music with my band Mystery Tapes and also as a solo performer. I’m also planning to write some new stuff with my long-time pals from my old bands The Kildares and Rebecca Fishpond again which is something I’m very excited about. Music is in my blood and I try to make a point of doing something musical every day in my home studio. Some folks play music for a period and then quit to do something else but that’s not me. I have no inclination to stop anytime soon as I feel that I’m still improving. Plus I still get a real buzz from recording and performing.

Dan: I still doodle about with music. Acoustic guitar mainly, but haven’t performed live since 2010.

++ 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?

Zack: My first music memory is sitting on the stairs at my Uncle Hendrick’s house in Singapore watching him jam out some cheesy, seventies easy-listening hits with his covers band – Freddie Fender’s Before The Next Teardrop Falls, some Jose Feliciano stuff, that sort of thing. My first instrument was a flute. I had a few lessons at school but the flute got the better of me. I was hopeless at it and ended up losing the damn thing at school, much to my parent’s annoyance. At home growing up in the seventies, it was mainly the hits of the day that was being played – Leo Sayer, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, Bad Company and a fair bit of disco.

Dan: I was brought up around Welsh choir music but was also in love with pop music from an early age. Probably started off listening to Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits and Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits courtesy of my parents. Then top 40 pop music.Went through a stage of listening to heavy rock from about aged 10 to early teens, then rock music, chart music, and ‘indie chart’ music by my late teens. Learned piano for a couple of years around the age of 9. Also learned cornet for a bit at primary school. Started learning guitar aged 17.

John: I remember my parents having Irish records, the Dubliners, Val Doonican- compilations of 60’s hits with Lilly the Pink on.  My mum would sing hits from when she was younger and my dad would whistle a lot but not tunes I recognised.  The first record I bought was the first Fun Boy 3 album.  I didn’t get pocket money so wasn’t an early consumer.  I remember stuff like Yazoo, Bronski Beat, Culture Club- gender ambivalence- making an impression on me on Top of the Pops.  I remember Ghost Town and Cure songs but also Angel in the Centrefold and Kim Wilde singing Kids in America.  In the Scouts, my leaders were big Queen fans and I remember doing a review where I was in platforms as the bass player miming to some song.  For me though they weren’t earthy, Queen weren’t and I remember being influenced by criticism of them for playing Sun City under apartheid..  I remember being impressed when what looked like super cool kids in the local park, wearing bondage trousers, asked me the time and I remember kids coming to school dressed as rude boys. I had piano lessons with Mr Ham, maybe while I was still in primary school, but I lacked inspiration, which Mr Ham didn’t provide, and I just pretended to practise until he told my mum I wasn’t learning anything.  Once I sent a ‘jingle’ into a Saturday Superstore competition- just me singing onto a cassette- ‘Saturday morning and I’m feeling bored, I turn on Saturday Superstore, maybe if I’m lucky one day I’ll see, a message in the tellygrams just for me’; nothing came of it.

++ Had you been in other bands before Rebecca Fishpond? What about the rest of the members? I read that some of you were in The Kildares, right?

Zack: Before the Fishponds, I formed The Kildares with a few pals whilst studying in the UK – in Oswestry, Shropshire, out in the sticks. We were a school band that played all originals, mainly written by me with my repertoire of bad poetry and five or six open guitar chords, really basic stuff. I was inspired to form a band by The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy and the C-86 scene that was happening at the time. I was also heavily into David Bowie, The Smiths and Postcard bands like Aztec Camera and Orange Juice but they seemed like musical gods to me, virtuosos that were way out of reach for mere mortals like myself. I had missed out on punk and was slightly too young to get into the post-punk scene so when the C-86 thing came along, it was as if a light turned on in my head. I felt that it was something that I could get myself involved in and I wanted a piece of the action so bad. To travel around making cheap records, playing gigs, drinking beer and meeting girls, that seemed infinitely more preferable than going to college, university or worst, full-time employment. None of us could play our instruments worth a damn but technical expertise didn’t seem to matter that much with bands like The Pastels and The Shop Assistants, or so we thought back then. They sounded as raw and untutored as we did which gave us a real boost, like, if they can make records with stand-up drums and gnarly, out of tune sounding guitars and get on John Peel, so can we. The folly of youth eh?

Dan: Yeah I was in the Kildares from aged 17. Zack Yusof and Andrew Richardson were also in the Kildares.

John: I wasn’t in any bands before or after.  Always had a frustrated itch to write songs and then maybe have them heard.  Had a guitar for decades but never left the launch pad but have written a couple of dozen blinders that languish in my head.

++ Where were you from originally?

Zack: I was born in Singapore. My family relocated to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when I was five or six and then when I was 11, we packed up and moved over to the UK, settling in Orpington, Kent. Currently, I live in Perth, Western Australia with my wife, son, cat and dog.

Dan: I was born in Walsall, West Midlands, then brought up in North Wales, near Oswestry, where the Kildares formed.

John: I grew up in Bristol.

++ Whereabouts in SE London was Rebecca Fishpond based? Were there any bands in the area that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Zack: The Fishponds were based in South East London; Lewisham first, which wasn’t nearly as gentrified back then as it is now, and then Blackheath which was much posher and prettier. There was nothing really appealing about Lewisham back then, apart from the cheap rent and quaint, quiet pubs, which attracted some interesting arty types, our type of people. I can’t remember any decent local record stores though. Buying cool records back then meant having to go into the city to the Rough Trade shop or Sister Ray in Soho. But even though Lewisham was a bit of a dump, we were only a short bus ride away from Goldsmiths College in New Cross – that wonderful English art institution where the likes of Blur and Damien Hirst attended and first cut their teeth as artists – which was very handy when it came to meeting pretty female students and buying cheap drinks at student prices during uni disco nights. In New Cross, there were places like The Goldsmiths Tavern, The Dewdrop pub and The Venue, cool, slightly ramshackle hangouts where we could get glammed up in our indie finery, drink cheap booze and meet like-minded souls. Through hanging out at those places, we became tight with some of the best local bands in the area like Laverne and Shirley (who are still going strong now as Spearmint), The Desirables and A Colourful Mess. With those bands, it felt like we had our own little cool South East London scene happening. Our friend Mike Meniro and his pal Alison ran a great regular indie night at Goldsmiths Tavern and they gave us some of our first gigs there. That place was like our CBGB’s. Mike was our first supporter with any sort of clout (he ran his own club night and booked some of our favourite bands to play there) and he used to blast our demo through the club’s PA after gigs which was a fabulous ego boost. I have a hazy memory of us supporting The James Dean Driving Experience there at one of our earliest shows. Great times.

Dan: We were based in Lewisham, S.E. London.

John: Az was living in Blackheath with his brother when I met him, before Dan and Richie moved to London- I was living on the Old Kent Road.  Mostly our stomping ground was New Cross where there was Goldmsiths University and the Goldsmiths Tavern where the promoter took a liking to use and put us on supporting the Inspiral Carpets amongst others.  He also started running gigs at the Venue in New Cross, a bigger venue, and put us on there and he put a word in with the guys at the Falcon in Camden so we got gigs there.  I remember mates’ bands, Laverne and Shirley- we were signed by guys who managed the Beloved who were relatively big news but we never met them.

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

Zack: The Kildares broke up when I left school up in Oswestry and headed down to London to embark on a new musical adventure. My plan was to get a serious band together and really go for it or end up in rehab trying. To that end, I began studying the musician wanted ads in the Melody Maker every week until I eventually met John Sheehy, who looked drop dead cool in a sixties, Velvet Underground kind of way and who had a really nice, gentle way about him. The fact that he could sing, write great lyrics and was thoroughly committed to the cause was a bonus. To make up the rest of the band, I drafted in my old Kildares brothers Dan Rowlands and Andrew Richardson who, to my utter amazement and delight, were just as keen to put higher education on hold indefinitely in order to chase that rock dream of ours. Every band needs a drummer, especially one with a big red van, and when John brought his pal Lar to beat the skins aggressively and drive us around, the Fishponds line up was complete.

Dan: As mentioned three members of Rebecca Fishpond had been in the Kildares. Zack had hooked up with vocalist John in London, and drummer Lar was a friend of John’s

John: I met Az through an ad in Melody Maker or one of the music papers.  We made a demo.  Dan and Rich, who’d done stuff with Az/ Zack at school in Oswestry, came to London to be in the band.  I knew Lar, he was a neighbour, he played drums.

++ Were there any lineup changes?

Zack: After about a year, maybe more, Richy left the band for reasons I can’t quite remember now and was replaced by our good pal Mr Toby Carter on bass, a naturally gifted musician, witty raconteur and sporter of the finest mane of hair this side of Lee Green. Tobe was so talented and so funny, it made us all collectively up our game.

Dan: Yeah Toby Carter became the bass player when Andrew left.

John: My memory is Rich left and Toby Carter took over on bass.

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

Zack: One of the things I loved about us was the way everyone would chip in with ideas for songs. People in the band either wrote songs on their own or with others. Personally, I loved writing with John as much as I did writing on my own and I really loved the songs Richy wrote with John too. John was really great in the way that he wouldn’t never object to singing our lyrics even though he was hands down the best lyricist in the band. Dan contributed some great finished songs too, as did Richy. We were a real band in the sense that everyone had a go at writing and weighed in with ideas, either musically or lyrically. There were no egos in the way of getting the songs done. After months of schlepping around dodgy rented practice rooms in Deptford or New Cross, our managers Angie and Robert eventually sorted us out a practice room in Camberwell which we shared with a band called Spin who went on to become Gene. Remember them?

Dan: Mainly jamming I would say. My recollection is that lyrically and musically it was pretty collaborative. I guess I’m talking about once the group was up and running on the live circuit. We used to rehearse in rented rehearsal rooms in various S.E. London locations.

John: Initially, Az had a bunch of songs ready and I had a few lyrics and melodies that he and I bashed into the songs on the first demo.  I couldn’t play anything- just had lyrics and melodies.  When the others got involved, the vibe changed a bit.  Dan wrote stuff and worked on it with Az I think.  Maybe it started to pull in different directions from early on.

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

Dan: I think John and Zack came up with the name or maybe just John. Fishponds is an area of Bristol where John had previously lived as I recall.

John: My memory is it was my idea- Fishponds is an area of Bristol where I grew up as a child.  Rebecca was just a girl’s name- at the time, to me, it sounded like a posh name.

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

Zack: Our influences were quite diverse. I was heavily into early Primal Scream and that My Bloody Valentine record Isn’t Anything and was trying to push the band into that direction with the material i was bringing into the band, a heavier, more shoegazey type of sound. I still really love that record. John was into sixties stuff like Love and The Velvet Underground as I recall and Dan was very partial to the rockier side of indie, things like House of Love’s Destroy The Heart. We loved the sound of guitars in the Fishponds and most things with a good melody. We weren’t too snobby about our tastes. We started out jangly and then got heavier as time progressed.

Dan: Influences wise I guess there were loads…Anything from the Marine Girls to Dinosaur Jr I guess would be one way of putting it. I guess we loved guitars. Acoustic guitars, electric guitars, amplified guitars. Distorted amplified guitars. Me, Zack and Andrew used to mess around covering U2 tracks and stuff sometimes, but live performance-wise it was original material only.

John: I guess we started sounding jangly then, influenced by stuff around, moved to sound a bit heavier.

++ I know you recorded a 5-track demo tape. Where was it recorded? How many days were you in the recording studio? Was it your first time in one? Any anecdotes that you can share?

Zack: That first five track demo, the one that really kicked everything off for us, was recorded over the course of a single day in Enfield, Middlesex at a studio called In The Pink Recordings. Five songs in a single day seems incredible now but that’s how we did it back in those days. It wasn’t my first time in a professional studio as a couple weeks previously, I had booked a half day in another studio somewhere to lay down some songs that John, whom I’d just met a couple of weeks previously, supplied lyrics to, just to show John that I wasn’t bullshitting when I said that I could make songs out of his poems. So Enfield was actually my second time in a professional studio and John’s first. I can’t recall why we chose that studio in Enfield as we had never been to that part of the world prior to the session or anytime since. That session, I remember being quite nervous and tense to begin with but also very prepared. I knew what I wanted to do in the studio and worked hard to prepare accordingly. I played all the instruments, John sang and I worked out the drum machine programming with the engineer. The engineer was cold and unfriendly to begin with as he had us pegged as a couple of clueless kids. As the session progressed, he warmed up to John and I and ended up laying down an amazing Roddy Frame-esque acoustic guitar solo in one take on the last song of the session, a tune called All I Ever Wanted. That demo has stood the test of time to my ears which is quite incredible considering how little time we spent making it.

Dan: Zack and John got together the initial 5 track demo but it had a track on it that I had written called “Tell me when it’s twelve”.

John: Az and I recorded it in a day in a small studio in someone’s house in Enfield- a place we’d found in the music press small ads.  I think Az and the Oswestry boys might’ve been in the studio before- they had some recordings from before London & Rebecca Fishpond.  For me it was the first time in a studio but it was relaxed, just three people in someone’s spare room.  I remember being on a train platform with AZ on a cold, bright day.  Felt quite different from the Elephant and Castle and Old Kent Road, areas of London I knew that were more inner city- Enfield was more open and green- I think we could see either the Alexandra Palace or Crystal Palace transmitter aerial from the station.  Az seemed to have in his head what he wanted.  He played guitar and bass and guided the engineer guy how to set the drum machine.  The engineer I think put on some guitar and keyboards.  I sang two or three songs and backing vocals.  Did I contribute some tambourine too?

++ Aside from these 5 songs I know there are two more songs, “Revolved” and “Bought and Sold” that were properly recorded. Was there a second demo tape? Or what’s the story behind these songs?

Zack: Revolved and Bought and Sold, we recorded at Meantime Studios in Deptford. Those two songs were the sound of the band moving away from our old jangly thing into harder territory. Bought and Sold was Dan’s tune. Revolved, I wrote with John. I can’t remember much about how that song came about but I do remember buying a cheap, secondhand fuzzbox to use on the track. That pedal was so noisy, it practically played itself. The session was paid for by our managers Angie and Robert who ran a company called Orange. Orange also paid for another session in a posh 24 track studio where we re-recorded two tracks – Laugh and Always In A Dream – for a possible seven inch single release. We also did another studio session where we recorded another two tracks – Dream On and Two Ways To Die – but those tapes seem to have vanished.

Dan: Yeah that was the second demo tape I think. John’s lyric to “Revolved” still sounds a winner…”Bought and Sold” was my lyric. The music was probably a collaboration. I’m on vocals in “Bought and Sold” too – Smiths / Morrissey falsetto influence at the end and all…

Vocal craft is tricky. I guess you gotta tell the story your own way, not Morrissey (or Sinatra’s) way. Ha ha. I guess lyrically Bought and Sold is not a bad music industry analogy.

John: The former was a song I wrote with Az, the latter was Dan’s song.  I think we did a couple of versions before the managers spent for a proper studio.  The sound was getting rockier.  The former is about being unsure in the world and aged about 20 years old, about it being like that everyday, about a feeling of life?  Dan’s song, I remember was more about heartbreak.

++ And then I found yet another song but played live, “Two Ways to Die”.  Was this track recorded in a studio too?

Dan: Yeah it was. Not sure whether any one’s got a copy of that demo though.

John: My memory is that this was written and sung by Dan.  I don’t remember if we recorded it.

++ In total, how many songs did you have in your repertoire? Did you play any covers?

Zack: We had about 20, 25 songs in total and several others which never made it beyond the demo stage. We played all originals.

Dan: Hard to put a figure on the number of songs. I guess between 10 and 20. Original material only.

John: We didn’t do any covers.  Did we maybe have 15 or 20 songs?

++ Is it true that there was a chance to end up releasing in Sarah Records?

Zack: Not too sure about that but I wholly support the rumour being perpetuated decades down the line! I did get a lovely rejection letter from Matt from Sarah one time though, when the Kildares were still going. How I wish I still had that letter!

Dan: Not that I know of personally but I think the Kildares sent a demo tape to Sarah Records.

John: Not that I’m aware of.  My sense is we were on the tail end of that but Az was big into that stuff at the beginning?

++ Was there any interest from other labels?

Zack: There was talk of a seven inch single being put out through a new label that our friend Mike was going to set up but i have no idea if that came to fruition or not. Martin from The Flatmates who ran The Subway Organisation label really liked Always In A Dream from our Enfield demo but not the other tracks on the tape. He wrote to me and said that if we had three of four other songs just like Always In A Dream, then we had a deal. We didn’t so nothing happened.

Dan: We had professional management and at one point there was talk of a single deal with Creation Records.

John: The people who took us on to manage, they would’ve been aiming for that.  I don’t think there was anything concrete before the fabric started to come asunder.

++ Why do you think your songs never ended up on a record? Not even on a compilation, right?

Zack: I really have no idea why we didn’t end up on a record or a compilation. The songs were certainly good enough to be put out for mass consumption I felt.

Dan: The group did do a 24 track studio demo, which hopefully one day might surface, but no record deals were sealed back in the day.

John: I don’t think we achieved that level of profile or traction before we went our separate ways.

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

Zack: All I Ever Wanted, if I recall correctly, was a bit of a throwaway tune that John and I bashed out just before heading into the studio in Enfield. We never played it live to my knowledge. Musically, I was going for a summery, Orange Juice kind of thing and wrote the bulk of it on the bass. I thought John mentioning Cocteau and Rousseau on the track was a nice touch.

Dan: That track is a Zack and John collaboration as far as I am aware.

John: This was a song I did with Az in his bedroom early on and it’s on that 5 track initial demo.  I remember the line, maybe, ‘all I ever wanted was someone to hold’.  I think in my mind it was like one of those Velvet Underground songs sung by Moe Tucker, like ‘I’m sticking with you’- just a simple song with simple lyrics, almost like a list song.  My memory was that it was pretty vapid but funny now listening to it after literally decades, the thing about wishing I had something profound to say is still here so maybe it was true.  This is the song that the engineer put guitar on top of I think, what Az called Echo and the Bunnymen guitar.  Did it feel like a filler?  I don’t think we played it live.

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

Zack: I still have a soft spot for Laugh. I like the way the song has no chorus, just a bunch of verses, and I really love John’s vocals on the track. It was the first song I wrote that made me think that maybe I could make a go of being a proper full-time musician.

Dan: I would probably say “Always in a Dream”. It kind of feels like a signature tune of sorts, to the group as a whole.

John: It’s difficult for me to stand back from but the favourite for me is ‘beauty’.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many?

Zack: We played a fair few shows, mainly around London and a couple out of town. I remember moaning to the guys a lot at the time about how we should gig more. I always wanted to play.

Dan: Can’t recall exactly how many gigs but a fair few round the S.E.London gig circuit.

John: Did we gig for about 2 years?  Did we play 20 gigs?  I don’t know.  I know we played our first gig in Oswestry or Shewsbury, because the Oswestry lads knew people there.  We played once in a university to the north of London- then we played in London, New Cross, the Elephant, Camden.  I remember we played in a pub around Old Street once.  I guess we were building a circuit of London venues that would put us on, trying to up our profile.

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

Zack: Apparently we supported Jesse Garon and The Desperados at The Camden Falcon but I can’t remember anything about that at all, which is a shame because I was a huge fan of that band. The gig did happen though because I saw the flyer for it! I once stupidly left my bag of guitar pedals at a show in Stoke Newington which almost ruined the band for me. My guitar sound completely changed after that show to a more stripped down thing. Not by design I have to add although that was the vibe that I told people I was going for!

Dan: There was a pub in New Cross called the Amersham Arms where we played more than one show which went down well with the punters. I saw an old flyer recently for a gig we did with Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes at the Falcon pub in Camden but I can’t remember it! Zack said he couldn’t either… Ha Ha.  Some of the gigs were at venues I can’t recall the names of. I remember some good nights playing at Goldsmiths Tavern in New Cross, and also the Union Tavern in Camberwell.

John: I remember playing the Venue in New Cross- that was the biggest place we played and we used to go out there regularly as punters, so it was super cool to play there and I remember seeing Radiohead there about the same time (although they already had ‘creep’ on the radio).  One thing that sticks in my memory is we got a rider for the 1st time and I got very drunk. The Falcon in Camden was always a cool place to play and the Goldsmiths Tavern felt a bit like our home ground.

++ And were there any bad ones?

Dan: I don’t recall any that were too bad. Occasional sound issues I guess which could be frustrating.

John: I don’t recall any bad ones.  I remember being freaked out before the first gig in Shropshire and probably having my back to the audience the whole gig.

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

Zack: The band just naturally ran its course in 1990 or 1991. We were very young and everyone ended up wanting to do different things. When a band loses sight of its common goal, that’s when the fun stops. After The Fishponds, I set up a band called Release. I also played in a band called Fast Boyfriends who are still going strong now. I moved back to Asia at the tail end of the nineties and formed a band called Free Deserters which lasted for a decade. We put out several records and did a fair bit of touring around the region. After Deserters, I started Mystery Tapes which is still my main gig today. I also perform solo and deejay a bit.

Dan: I don’t really recall specifically why the band split. We were all pretty young. I was the singer in a band called Open Up with Toby Carter after Rebecca Fishpond, then between ‘97 and ‘03 I was in a band called Emergency Exit in Manchester.

John: I went to Norwich to do an English degree in 1993 and did a year access course before that so we must have stopped by 1992.  I think we weren’t that tightknit and there were pulls in different directions.  I did a few songs with Richie, in the kitchen, with Az putting some guitar on.  I wrote things over the years and always had an unscratched itch but not enough momentum to go beyond that.

++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards?

Dan: Zack has been in a few bands that I know of. The Fast Boyfriends, Free Deserters, and Mystery Tapes. Mystery Tapes is his current band as far as I know. Toby Carter went on to be in the London band UK States, and is still involved with music.

John: Sounds like Az always has and I hear Dan has been doing stuff.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio?

Zack: No radio play that I know of. John Peel, he really missed a trick there.

John: I don’t’ think we had anything the radio could play really- no single.

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

Zack: We got a lovely review from the now defunct Sounds music paper once which was very exciting as we all devoured the music press back then. This was during the heyday of the British music press, when the UK had three music papers coming out weekly. Incredible stuff.

Dan: At one of the gigs at the Union Tavern in Camberwell which I mentioned, we got reviewed by Sounds. The review said we had “blistering potential”.

John: We got a live review in the Melody Maker, in a pub between Camberwell and the Oval.  I think Angie, one of our managers, pulled a string with some press buddies.  That was exciting though.  Still got the cutting bookmarking somewhere.

++ What about from fanzines?

John: Don’t’ think so.

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

Zack: For me, the best part of being in the Fishponds was making music and living the band life with my musical brothers. We were a tight-knit band and the fact that we are all still friends today proves that. There were many things that, in retrospect, we should have done differently for the sake of our career but life is too short to have regrets.

Dan: I’d say one highlight would be some of the quality tracks in the catalogue. That, and the great friendship and camaraderie in and around the group.

John: I remember weird ego rub of having our photos taken around Camberwell one time.  The MM review was a buzz.

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

Zack: Music is a full-time hobby for me. I barely have time for anything else. Apart from playing music, I also host a radio show called 33rpm which broadcasts out of Kuala Lumpur on the station BFM 89.9. The show is in its tenth year now which is amazing. I’m also starting up a new blog called Analog Vs Digital which will be focussing on guitar pedals, music gear, that kind of geeky stuff.

Dan: I like movies a lot, and am trying to increase the amount I read and write. Writing wise I’m currently just journaling / diary keeping for my own amusement. I still dabble with lyrics / poetry sometimes.

John: I’m 52 years old now, I think.  I have recently started piano classes which is a delight so far.  I have two school aged kids (who I’m getting to listen to the Everly Brothers), a wife and a full-time social worker job.  I try to swim once a week and I commute on my bike.  I like telly, an occasional beer in the pub and if I get to see a thoughtful grown-up film (I don’t mean XXX) that’s good.  I have learnt to make a reasonable pizza this last year

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Zack: I think it’s fantastic that our music has managed to endure after all these years. The fact that people are still aware of our little band in places like Asia, the US, Japan and continental Europe is a source of great pleasure and pride to me. Not bad for a bunch of lads from Lewisham! Thanks for keeping the flame alive. Salut!

Dan: Just thanks for the interview. It’s been a pleasure.

John: Gosh.  It was all a long time ago and only a brief thing, and I’ve done lots of other things which were also influential but Rebecca Fishpond was a fun, memorable time.  Who knows, with some different breaks, who knows how it might’ve gone.

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Listen
Rebecca Fishpond – All I Ever Wanted

23
Dec

Started working on the fanzine this weekend. At least planning it. I will email today the bands I hope to interview and hopefully there will be news soon about that early in the next year. Then of course there are many projects for releases in the coming year, so yeah, should be a good one. This is the last post before Christmas too, so I do hope you all have a merry merry Christmas, and I’ll see you on Wednesday, right? Lots of indiepop presents I hope everyone gets!

No Middle Name: the Saint Leonards, UK, band is back with a two part single called “Meet the Folks”. Yeah, a single that is broken apart as “Meet the Folks Part 1” and “Meet the Folks Part 2”. Interesting idea! The two songs are really lovely as usual. No Middle Name never disappoints.

Grids and Dots: always looking and checking what’s happening in Australia. That country, alongside Japan and Indonesia, are the places where more indiepop I see been made in the last few years. And quality indiepop that is. The latest is this Sydney band that only has one song on Bandcamp, “Never Change”. But it is great. It seems there will be more songs recorded in the near future, so we should bookmark their site!

The Groove Farm: the Bristol classic band is also back with a new album called “Groovy Pharmacy”. It is now available to pre-order on their Bandcamp on vinyl. It does look like there are only a few copies left though. So be quick! The record is being put out by their own Raving Pop Blast! Recordings and it sounds like everyone expects, catchy garagey noisy pop! Cool!

The Perfect English Weather: the ex-Popguns have recorded four acoustic tracks live at Sunny Studios in Hove. These are part of a new live EP they have available on Bandcamp that includes acoustic versions of “English Weather”, “Rockin’ to the Beat”, “Under My Feet” and “Christmas Single”.

Lia Pamina e Os Peregrinos: “It’s Gonna Be a Cold Christmas (Unas Navidades tan Frías)” is only available digitally on Bandcamp and I suppose other digital platforms. Lia who recorded one of my favourite 7″s some years ago has teamed up with Os Peregrinos, the band of Charlie Mysterio and Roger de Flor, and with them they have covered the original 1975 song by Dana and adapted it to Spanish. It is a good one to add it to your Christmas playlist.

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Time to fly to Japan! To the early 90s and to one of my favourite bands from the period, the Tip Top Planets. What a name! I love it. So poppy, so colorful and sounds like fun. And indeed this band made among the best anorak-pop to ever come from the land of the rising sun!

The band’s first release dates from 1992, a 7-song mini-album called “We Can Stay in Paradise For Ever”. It was released by the label Chocolat Art Records (CA002) and had the following songs “We Can Stay in Paradise for Ever”, “I Don’t Care”, “Wake”, “Every Time”, “Paranoia”, “Tell Me Why” and “Thunderstom”. On this record we see that Naomi Funakoshi sang and played tambourine and maracas, Koji Isaka played guitar and sang, Kazutoshi Ohno played bass and Kaname Banba played drums on the first and last song while Takehide Fukasawa played drums on the rest of tracks.

The names are not too familiar to me. Maybe Kaname Banba is a bit more known as he had also played in bands like Luminous Orange, Lucy Van Pelt, Littlestone and Advantage Lucy. And Kazutoshi played in the very fine Jenka. The rest seem to have only been part of Tip Top Planets.

In 1993 the band released their debut album called “Bomb” on the superb label Pushbike Records (UFPB-003). As you know I love this label, so I must get this record in my collection! The 12 songs on it are superb, “Speak Your Mind”, “To the Shining Sea”, “Cosmic Panic”, “Silent”, “Pearl”, “Scarlet”, “Blue Boat”, “Until You Come”, “Sun Dress”, “Bomb Bomb Planet’s Hour”, “Sunday Everyday” and “In the Time Casket”. Here the drummer changed, we know see Shigeto Morohara. Also it is worth mentioning that Seiko Ishiguro (from Sunshower and Jenka) played accordion in “In the Time Casket”.

Lastly in 1995, on Vinyl Japan, the band would release the “Go Go Pepper EP” (TASKCD32). This is the one release I have of theirs. And I love it of course. It only has four songs, but what songs! “Go Go Pepper”, “Sunshine Babies”, “Rain” and “Rady Made Boy – Dear Violet”.

Aside from these three releases the band appeared on many compilations.

There was a 7″  that was given for free at the Japanese tour of the Television Personalities and The Chesterfields. Not sure what year it was. But it was released by the Pop Anarchy Label. On it we find three bands, Sunnychar, Tip Top Planets and Melcles. Tip Top Planets appear with the songs “My Day Star” as the A2 and “Give Me L” on B1.

In 1992 the band appeared on the first ever release of Chocolat Art Records, a comp tape called “Story Under Fun” (CA001). On it they appear first and last with the songs “My Day Star” and “Brand New Morning” . That same year they appeared on another comp, “The Reality of Flowers” (FLOWER-002), that was released by Under Flower Records. Here the band contributed the song “Holiday”.

Pushbike Records would include them on the CD comps “See-See-You, Tomorrow!” (UFPB-001) with the songs “Rosy Moon Knows” and “Big Boy And Little Girl” and “Happy Day, Happy Time! Pushbike Compilation Vol. 2” (UFPB-004) with the song “He has the White Dream”. Both came out in 1993.

That same year they contribute the song “Give Me L” on the tape “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (HAAR002) on the Japanese label Haarnadel.

Then Vinyl Japan included their song “Wake” on the compilation “What Do You Want a Japanese To Do Again?” (ASKCD 36) in 1994. Then they had the song “Brand New Morning (Dry Breeze Version)” on the Giant-Robot Records comp “Here We Go ‘Round Giant-Robot Compilation Vol. 1” (ROBOT-002). And afterwards, to close 1994, they appeared on yet another Pusbike comp, “Into Somethin’ Pushbike Compilation Vol. 3” (UFPB 006) with the song “in the Time Casket” and on the comp “The Cacaous Go Like Hotcakes” released by Chocolat Art (CA-010) and Pushbike (UFPB 005) with the songs “Let Me Fly to the Brightest Star” and “Cherry Red Guitar Girl”.

Lastly, in 1995, the band appeared on the CD compilation “Cloudy Records Compilation Vol.1 / Cloud6” released by Cloudy Records (CRCD001) with the song “Rainbow Way”.

Lots of songs in compilations, they may have been able to put out another CD I think!

Something curious I stumbled upon was that the UK band The Hannah Barberas covered the song “Go Go Pepper” in September 2018.

Sadly as it is the case with many Japanese bands the information is scarce. I wonder what happened to the band members afterwards. What did they do? Were they in other bands? Where are they now? Who remembers them? Such a fun band, I hope I can find more information about them!

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Listen
Tip Top Planets – Speak Your Mind