Years ago I interviewed Simon Parker about the band he had been in while in Chichester, The Violet Trade. On this interviewed he told me when asking him about other bands he had been involved with:
This is always a good video to share: Colourburst (with me singing a punked up version of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’) which got shown on late night ITV twice over the yuletide of 1995. We never did get permission to cover this, but I reckon George and Andrew would have liked it!).
Colourburst put out 2 vinyl singles (one good one bad) and then fragmented into Fruit Machine, fronted by Jennie Cruse (Fisher-Z) and Rachel Bor (Dolly Mixture).
Gary left Fruit Machine who were then signed to producer Steve Lovell (Blur, Julian Cope) . The remnants of this band then morphed into Lumina but bad luck and industry dogma thwarted these projects and eventually saw me take a break from music before returning a year or so later with Villareal.
It took me quite a while then to share here the music of the Brighton band Fruit Machine. Simon was the bassist, guitarist and keyboardist on the band. Maybe I should reach out and ask for a new interview about Fruit Machine. I really enjoyed all the songs on their Bandcamp.
Indeed, on Bandcamp they have uploaded a trove of recordings, 18 in total, that include demos but also an unfinished album the band recorded between 1998 and 1999. The songs from this album remain in rough mix format but still worth listening for sure.
All these recordings date from 1995 to 1999. I’m going to break the tracks in a few categories, if they are from the album, demos or remixes.
From the album: “Monte Carlo”, “Oxygen”, “Would You do the Same”, “The World is Upside Down”, “Sickly Blue”, “Electric”, “C-Drift”, “(This Had Better Not Be a) Dream” and “Everybody Needs a Reason.”
Demos: “Ariel”, “In Colour”, “All Fall Down”, “Sickly Blue”, “Monte Carlo” and “Frog.”
Remixes: “Electric (Nathan Ben 240 Volt Mix)”, “Mote Carlo (Remix)” and “Monte Carlo (Chaos Remix).”
The band was formed by Simon as mentioned but also featured Jennie Cruse on vocals, backing vocals and keyboards, Rachel Bor on guitars, keyboards and backing vocals and Nick Hopkin on drums and loops.
On the recordings we also see Gary Capelin who played drums on the demo tracks and James Portinari who played guitar on the demos.
The producer of the songs were Steve Lovell and Pete Jones.
I saw a piece written by Simon on Vinyl Revolution, mentioning that the German label Marina was a big fan of Fruit Machine. Why didn’t they release it then?! Also we learn that at the point the band was going him and Jennie were together as boyfriend/girlfriend. And what’s Vinyl Revolution? Simon explained to me last time:
Vinyl Revolution is at the heart of everything we do! It was actually the name of the two record shops that my partner and I set up and ran between 2016-2019. It was a dream come true for me to own my own record store and we had locations in Tunbridge Wells and Brighton. But running a shop is very difficult these days due to dodgy landlords and extortionate business rates and the rise of Amazon etc. But despite this, Vinyl Revolution was very popular and got a lot of great press, including a brilliant feature in The Independent which said we were the best record shop in Brighton!
But when Brexit came along, Rachel and I headed for France and started looking into ways to make vinyl records more sustainable. The product of this all work is NAKED Record Club and we are out there doing it right now!
Now I would suggest listening to Fruit Machine, rediscover this lost band which has some ace tracks,
“All Fall Down” is a corker, but do check all of them out. If I could suggest checking out the demos first, please do. I find them punchier and poppier than the album tracks, but that’s just me.
Many questions are still to be asked. Why didnt their songs got released properly? Did they play live much? Any Brighton friends remember them?
Enjoy!
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