Thanks so much to Tim Mortimer for the interview! Some time ago I wrote about his band The Mandelbrot Set in the blog and Tim was kind enough to get in touch and answer all these questions I have about his band. The Mandelbrot Set released two CDs, “A Place in Kansas” and “The Mandelbrot Set”, both on Ra Records, and then disappeared. They hailed from Adelaide, Australia, and should have made a bigger splash! Just listen to their songs! But now, sit back, read, and enjoy!

++ Hi Tim! Thanks a lot for being up for this interview!

Hi Roque. No problems. Happy that the “Kansas” EP sparked your curiousity to know more about the band.

I apologise however if you have wound up with more than you bargained for, this has ended up quite long….

I don’t get asked to talk about the band very often, so when I do it becomes something of an exorcism.

I hope you & your readers therefore enjoy the story, & hopefully a few people from the bands’ past will get the word that this information exists here, & can add their thoughts or comments.

++ What are you up to these days?

I’m doing a horticulture trade certificate this year while I “tread water” for a bit & think about my next move.

But prospects on the whole look fairly dire in terms of generating any income in this part of the world at present, unless you design military hardware or dig mines.

I guess the good news however is this might, hopefully, give me some more time next year to work on some music…

++ Is it true you haven’t been involved with music for a long time? When was the last time?

I haven’t played in bands for over 10 years, but I still work on music in my spare time, & am probably more passionate about it than ever.

The last 10 years or so I’ve been using the PC, in one way or another, to explore lots of different ideas & directions in my music making, that simply weren’t available to me before things like home PC recording & the internet arrived in my life.

Essentially, I am now trying to write instrumental music for as close to “full orchestral forces” as I can organise effectively, via my PC
using MIDI & samples.

I got to this point via a few years of exploring digital sound manipulation stuff (using things like Python, Max MSP, Csound programming – think Fennesz, 12k label etc, that kind of experimental digital aesthetic), but I think my songwriting roots saw me craving a way to engage with something more structured, & using tonality & “changes” to create that structure (as much as I am drawn to “stasis” & “wallpaper” in music). A lot of private study & research ensued, & this is where I have sort of wound up.

But I definitely was & am over writing songs for the most part. Apart from anything else, I always hated writing lyrics! ; ) Not to mention all the crap aspects of being in a band: booze, late nights, ringing ears, lugging amps…

It’s not something I am doing out of any sense of professional aspiration, but simply as a result of 20 years of accumulated interest & development in writing music, & an opportunity to indulge the more “academic” side of my tastes that were always there, but untapped, uncultivated, & without an outlet.

The dream would be a kind of hazy impressionism like Charles Koechlin or something, perhaps a bit more German, a bit more Bruckneresque, that sense of radiance & transcendence…

So all you indie kids reading this, go listen to a recording of Bruckner’s 8th symphony! (there are plenty on Youtube…) ; )

++ Was The Mandelbrot Set your first band? Or had you been playing with other bands already?

No, Mandies was my first band.

++ So how did The Mandelbrot Set start as a band? Who were the members, what did each of you play and how did you met each other?

Brian (guitar) & I were school friends, & the band really began with me “roping him in” to my dream of checking out of the reality of finding a shit job, & into super-stardom ; ).

Plus his brother had a guitar & an amp! & I knew he was passionate about music of course, but first & foremost, a good friend.

Adam (Bass) I met through a girl (Kylie Folvig, metal chick, Lita Ford etc. That’s kind of cool now really…) who shifted from my school to his.

He switched from guitar to bass to help us put the band together, hopefully based on the catchiness of some of my songs, & the fact that from the outset, unlike most other Adelaide bands of the late 80’s era, I had a vision that I wanted us to be “popular”., rather than “turgid with beer”, or worse, “clever”.

Mike the drummer I was jamming with when I joined another “practice room” band (concurrent to Mandies) as a bass player. Mandies had a drummer (Rob Davies), but Mike was far & away the best musician of any sort that I knew, so one day I took the opportunity to invite him to practice with us.

It was obvious to everyone in the room that all of a sudden our racket had a lot more going for it in terms of togetherness & appeal.

Christie was a part time member of the band essentially, & sister of a good friend of the band Nick. I had scratched my way through a small amount of violin on one of our first demos (got a lucky take essentially…) & she could play violin a little bit, so we got her on board. Plus it was nice to get a bit of gender equity into the band.

++ And where did the name of the band came from?

We had our first gig 6 weeks after Mike joined us on drums. We needed a name, & Mandelbrot Set was on my shortlist, in fact, it was probably the only one we had on the list to be honest.

We discussed it at practice, & reached our usual apathetic state of “no objections”.

I went home that night, flicked on the TV & there was a documentary on Benoit Mandelbrot screening, so I saw that as a bit of a “fate” thing at the time.

Fractal imagery was increasingly common as a pop “meme” at the time, & I chose the name in part because I wanted that sense of “pop”, much in the way that I believe Tom Verlaine selected the name “Television”, for the same reason.

Of course, this backfired a bit – whilst most people had seen images of Mandelbrot Set, they didn’t necessarily know what the name of it was. & 1 or 2 other bands of the same name have subsequently cropped up around the globe…

& of course, there was a general “psychedelic resurgence” happening at the time (late 80’s into early 90’s) which I was happy to associate with.

Aldous Huxley, “Doors of Perception” for the win! ; )

++ What were you listening back then? Who or what would you say influenced your sound?

An enormous amount of stuff.

Primarily, being a miserable, bored teenager growing up in what you could probably reasonably accurately describe as “middle America”, but with kangaroos…

Musically, I grew up a big 80’s jangle head (Church, REM, Rain Parade etc…I taught myself guitar mainly by playing along to “Reckoning” & “Fables of the Reconstruction”) also Television & even some of the weird 80s Tom Verlaine solo stuff.

Adam was the one who brought a lot of the more British influenced sound to the band, & MBV & Ride, & the whole shoegaze thing impacted on the sound of the band quite heavily at this point.

But Adam & I in particular were rabid cultural consumers of any sort in those days. Which wasn’t always easy, from the arse-end of the world in the pre-internet age. I remember films like “Blue Velvet” & “Santa Sangre” being constant points of band discussion. “Twin Peaks” was big at the time. I remember dragging the band along to see the first screening of Pasolini’s “Salo” in 20+ years. Just to add insult to injury, I had glandular fever at the time…

My listening was of course also a bit broader. By the time the band kicked off, I’d kind of moved on into 70’s & 80’s minimalism, Philip Glass etc. The David Sylvian 80’s stuff, Wagner’s “Parsifal” was probably the start of me starting to take any sort of interest in classical music.

But once the band did take off, obviously I began listening to a lot more indie music again, largely under Adam’s guidance.

&, of course, Janet Jackson’s “1814 Rhythm Nation”! & I’m still a sucker for quality commercial RnB.

++ And how would you describe Adelaide during those days? Has it changed lots? Where there any other bands in town that you liked?

The Adelaide I grew up in was basically a proliferation of grunge bands in the mid 80’s. & I use the term quite deliberately, as I think & see a lot of the influences that led to the “grunge” explosion in the 90’s being bred & cultivated in the Adelaide (& probably Melbourne) pub scenes during the mid – late 80’s. Cosmic Psychos etc etc…

Of course the whole lineage is pretty much a continuum back through punk anyway, but there was a lot of kind of “post MC5” / heavy garage kind of stuff (some of it actually pretty good, like early “Nest of Vipers” era Exploding White Mice…) but also just a lot of general “beery sludge rock”.

I set out to start the band with some pretty clear objectives, & having absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with what I saw around me as an endless vomit stained carpet of alcohol fuelled musical self destruction was pretty high on the agenda.

Our mission was simple: be catchy, be cool, be popular. Reach out & try & speak to people directly, in a way that the music we grew up on reached out & spoke to us, & gave us some sense of hope, rather than despair.

A band that did pave the way for us however was an Adelaide band called The Artisans. Adam knew these guys, & we played some of our first gigs with them.

I notice that you have a different band called “Artisans” featured on your site. I recommend finding an EP “Love & Sleep” by the Adelaide band if you can – as with many records of this type from the era (including our own) it only hints at the glories of the band in full stride, but will give you a taste of what was essentially a heavily Wedding Present influenced “hit-machine” / “indie jukebox”…

The Artisans had a revival of late, & Adam (our bass player) did play guitar in The Artisans during various incarnations.

As for the rest of your question, well, I could probably write a book about Adelaide for you, if you have the budget. Only the first 4000 words come free …. ; )

++ What about gigs? Did you play a lot? Which other cities did you visit? What were your favourite venues to play?

Adelaide is a relatively small & isolated town, so we risked over-exposure if we played too frequently.

At our peak, probably only once a month. Again, this attitude completely flew in the face of Australia’s accepted “pub rock wisdom”.

& Australia is a big country. The closest town is 900 miles away, & flights were a lot more expensive back then, so touring was very difficult.

++ And if you could pick a gig as your best, which would that be?

Definitely any of the first 5 or 6 gigs we played.

We didn’t have a vocal PA in our practice room, so at our first gig there was a degree of nervousness as no one had ever heard me sing, nor any of the vocals to any of the songs. Fortunately, it went OK.

I was very blasé about it in the early days, more or less threatening to “chuck it in” if we didn’t start pulling a crowd after 5 or 6 gigs. As it turned out, things did take off for us pretty quickly, & within 6 months or so we had generated enough hype for me to start receiving telephone calls at work (at my day job) from record labels, despite
not having sent out a demo tape …

But basically, as soon as drug dealers started coming to our gigs, well, the crowds really took off. When drug dealers like your band, it’s a greater career boost than any form of critical approval can bring. Although the venue owners constantly complained about not selling any booze to our fans.

Once we had a bigger budget, we got into having heavy club style light shows & smoke machines & what-not. Again, largely as this just completely went against an established pub rock culture that we were walking into. ‘Audiences’ were obviously over it too, as eventually, they started turning up in sizeable numbers.

Playing for free wherever possible also helped, & again, flew in the face of conventional wisdom on the subject.

++ You released “A Place Called Kansas” in 1992. What do you remember of the recording sessions? Any anecdotes you could share?

I remember being disappointed with the guitar sound, as we were always striving for something a bit heavier.

It was also very typical of our experience, in that by the time we got to record that EP, the material was 2 years old & we weren’t even really playing any of it any more, & had moved into more “shoegazey” territory. There are quite a few phases of the band that went undocumented…

++ This CD included 7 songs. Which is your favourite and why?

It’s difficult to say. I have never really listened to the record after it was made. All I really hear is a lost opportunity to do something better.

“Lush” was a good song – I was going for the whole Television 2 guitar duel in the big out solo. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much lost in the mix on the record (a familiar complaint…)

++ Mine is of course “Landslide”, what a fantastic song! Should have been a classic. Any chance you can tell me the story behind this song?

Thanks for the kind words of appreciation.

All the songs on the EP were written in the second half of 1990. Adam wrote “Massive”, & I wrote the rest. I wanted to credit the whole band at the time because I felt it was important to present a “unified creative front” as it were.

Lyrically it’s all pretty much dissatisfied adolescent whining. Chris Martin & I therefore have something in common, virgins with record deals. Although thankfully, the band did eventually help me to find a girlfriend! At least briefly…

EDIT: Tim later recalled that Adam had originally written “I Swan” for the Artisans, but it was reworked with the new middle section & outro, & new lyrics & melodies for The Mandies…

++ Tell me about Ra Records. How did you end up signing to them? And how was your relationship with them?

Unfortunately, that really is kind of a long story.

We had been contacted by the label (the one demo we did send, after a tip off) & flew over to Sydney to meet them.

I was working in a mailroom with, co-incidentally, a guy Don Morrison who had previously had some success in the States & Australia with a blues / rockabilly type band called “The Bodgies”.

He gave me the number of a guy named Richard Ortner, as I was desperately at this point trying to find someone (anyone) who could help us deal with this new stage in our development (dealing with labels & what not) & we were in a position where we were getting on a plane to go to Sydney to record for them 24 hours later.

I rang him & he said “just tell them I’m your manager”.

It turns out that Richard, unbeknownst to me, was one of the original founders of the label, originally set up as a bit of a development (“tax dodge” probably) label by INXS management. So once Richard was involved, that kind of biased our future direction. He’d previously managed a couple of fairly mainstream, “MOR” female performing artists
in Australia.

But as it happens, from before we had even played our first gig I had identified this was probably the label I wanted to sign to. Unlike comparable Australian “mainstream indie” labels (like Mushroom) Roo Art only had a small roster of bands, & once you signed, you generally got some level of support. For a period at least….

The rest of this very long story cut short is that the label eventually completely changed management teams. We were signed by a guy named Craig Kamber, manager of an Australian band worth checking out (kids) called Underground Lovers.

Unfortunately, Craig went to Festival or some other label shortly afterwards, signed Underground Lovers there, & Roo Art was taken over by Todd Wagstaff & co, managers of You Am I (which, in retrospect, carries a rather unfortunate similarity to will.i.am…).

You Am I then became the label darlings effectively, were Sydney based, & were prepared to drag their arses up & down the east coast playing out the “Pub Rock Fantasy” the label expected them to. Unlike us, who would have rather sat in the studio & be packaged & waited to appear on the cover of “Smash Hits”. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work like that in Australia…

There was a disintegration beginning within the band anyway probably around this time, but this certainly didn’t help or boost our already sapping confidence. I went into this adventure with a high degree of confidence & self belief, & probably my major regret, as it all unfolded, is that I didn’t have the faith to keep it.

Someone wrote a book about this period of OZ indie rock called “The Sell In” I believe. I’ve never read it, & don’t think we are directly mentioned in it at all, although we were silent extras in the portrayed drama, from what I understand about the book…

I remember being at the label & one day Ivo Watts from 4AD came in for a meeting re: Australian distribution. We desperately wanted to run into his meeting & plead “save us!”.

++ With them you also released your second EP. I have never heard to it, but I’ve read that you changed your sound into something more electronic. Is that so? If so, why the change of direction?

The sampler, initially, was Adam’s idea, (forever the progressive…)

An Adelaide muso by the name of Mike Gordon created the sample based intro to “Massive” on the “Kansas” EP for us, & we decided to blow a large slice of our publishing advance on a sampler (now dwarfed in capabilities by the average phone of course…), in the hope of expanding the musical avenues of the band, who, with stars in its eyes, had moved beyond any notions of wanting to remain “guitar purists”.

Obviously as indie kids in the 80’s, Adam & I had both grown up as New Order fans, so this was an obvious point of departure for us. More specifically, the first Electronic album had come out, & in a way this was more directly a template for where we saw that the band might head.

Hip Hop was also a bit of an elephant in the room for a lot of indie groups at this time (the MBV influence after Glider / Soon etc…) but the album that concretised this for me ironically was St Etienne’s “Foxbase Alpha”.

Let me say once & for all that the cultural abomination that is “Australian Hip Hop” is not something even we, in our naivety, remotely contemplated. But what “Foxbase Alpha” said to me was essentially (without wishing to too overtly play into dangerous “race card” territory) here was the production & aesthetic of De La Soul’s “3 Feet High & Rising” re-invented as a piece of quintessentially British 60’s kitchen sink nostalgia.

Listening back now, the album is nothing special, (the 1 or 2 singles aside…) but like all ideally fertile grounds for plagiarising ideas, the original did indeed, suggest possibilities way beyond that which it realised.

However the Pandora’s box was definitely opened once the sampler arrived, my girlfriend basically never saw me again, & I locked myself in the bedroom &, not for the last time, became a mad scientist.

The EP ended up a huge mush of possibilities, with the band then layered on top for good measure.

Originally, the label, having heard the demos & been impressed enough to give us the go ahead for the second EP (after a 3 hour phonecall from me where I ad-libbed them my mission statement…) wanted to put us in a warehouse for 3 weeks with newly emergent digital recording technology (remember the ADAT machine?) & let us record it all & sort out the mess & make a record out of it.

This would have been a MUCH more sensible option, but they eventually saw it as too risky, threw us into a conventional 5 day studio setup, with 2 days to mix.

There were times when the EP was partially recorded, where parts of what we were doing were sitting in a fairly sparse isolation (strings, drum loops, a few stabs etc) when I genuinely sat back & thought “This is it. We’ve cracked it. We sound like fucking Chic!”

However in the end, the band exhausted (&, to be honest, pretty wasted), the record was mixed down in a hurry by the production team, everything, including the kitchen sink just stayed in there, & we ended up with what essentially boils down to a big fat crappy electro mess.

Which is a shame, as fundamentally, there was a strong possibility of 1 or 2 singles there that I think could have opened us up to wider audiences…

I would like to take this opportunity however to thank anybody who was involved at the label for giving us the opportunity. (In a previous piece I wrote about the band, I did vent a little on the subject, but that was more to offer insights into some of what we were collectively feeling at the time, rather than any attempt to apportion blame or inject malice. For what it’s worth, I apologise if that was ever the case, & if anything bilious ever did reach any targets.)

++ And it was just after releasing it that you split up. What happened?

In a word, nothing.

The second EP sold about half as many as the first, & I think everyone (including the label, not sure I ever spoke to anyone there personally ever again) I think just really couldn’t be bothered anymore. & drink & drugs then started seeping in a bit more than they should have ideally.

That & the fact that the band was constantly developmentally about 2 years ahead of the rollout schedule, & got to the point where the production & performance ideas really became, for 1 reason or another, impossible to execute. There was no such thing as home PC recording in 1992/3 after all….

The band never really ‘split up’ as such. One day, we all just stopped turning up essentially. No one had to say anything really at this point.

I started going out & listening to a lot of House Music, & then drifted into doing an Architecture degree for a bit, but I dropped out & moved to London in ’97.

I kept getting like $20 royalty cheques for many years after from places like Eastern Europe. Rock & Roll baby!

++ Are you all still in touch? What are the rest doing these days?

Not really no.

Sadly, Mike Bajer passed away in December 1999 (& I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I throw in the obvious Spinal Tap joke here about dearly departed drummers…). He was a good friend, & is very much missed by all who knew him.

Brian has a business that he has done quite well out of doing posters & promotions, visual merchandising stuff etc. for record labels.

Adam still plays but is something of a mystery man these days, but always immaculately dressed.

I believe he is in a band called Swimsuit I saw a few years ago, as well as playing with Artisans intermittently. He lived in London for a period, as did I (for 4 years…), but he more or less arrived the week I left…

Christie is married, has her own business & a couple of kids approaching their teens.

Nick (honourary member & Christie’s brother) lives in Sweden with his wife & child.

++ What about more songs? Are there any other recordings by The Mandelbrot Set that never saw the light of day?

Demos & stuff. Adam has a box somewhere. To be honest, I listened to some of it a few years back & a lot of it was rubbish. ; ) . I’d like to get our very first 3 track demo up & into circulation however.

I have a Soundcloud page, but Soundcloud reorganised their site, & for me it was a real pain, as it’s very difficult now for me to isolate my “pop” demos directly away from some of the other sketches & experiments, which are mostly a few years old now anyway.

None the less, this link should do the trick, if people are interested. But I’m not really active on the site & would like to find somewhere else to host my music in future.

https://soundcloud.com/timmortimer/sets/pop

1 or 2 of the tracks I think definitely represent a direction Mandies eventually could have gone in (“Ticket to Ride” in particular).

Some of it however is songs I wrote for the band that, if I were to put one together, would be the only type of thing I’d like to do now – a straight ahead, power pop trio or quartet, ideally situated somewhere between the Smithereens & the Bangles. (the choice of overtly commercial examples of the genre being, ideally, deliberate) It aint going to happen though.

As “once we were young & beautiful, but now we are old & withered”…

++ Looking back in retrospective. What would you say was the biggest highlight of The Mandelbrot Set?

Being young, & living with a sense of hope & opportunity that you might not have to spend your life as a paper shuffling debt-riddled wage slave.

Meeting people.

Playing music with my friends. Some of the early practices we had with Mike in the band we actually fell apart mid song laughing because we couldn’t believe how fucking good we sounded. This is not an experience I have ever relived in 20 years of music making since. Maybe, on a good night, some of the people who used to come & see us got a glimpse into that.

Free drinks.

Having your friends sister cut your picture out of the newspaper & stick it on her fridge…

Having people believe in you & what you are trying to do.

Having the arrogance & the audacity to rail against mediocrity from the middle of nowhere, even when doomed to failure.

++ A couple of last questions, just out of curiosity, what would you say is your favourite Australian band ever?

Easy. The Church – in the period from 81 – 87 .
“Tear it all Away” – youtube it now kids! – The perfection of indiedom.

Also a lot of time for the Go Betweens (“Liberty Belle”, “Before Hollywood”, “Spring Hill Fair”).

Stems / Someloves, early Died Pretty, first Hoodoo Gurus album, Sunnyboys (esp. “Individuals”).

A couple of EP’s & bands from the era you may not have heard of:

‘Ups & Downs’ were a really good band from the late 80’s. early stuff was very Church influenced, but very good. They made a shoegazey EP in the early 90’s, & then became “Big Heavy Stuff” with some kind of success….

& there was a Sydney band called ‘Jupiter’ who put out a full tilt Shoegaze 3 track EP in the early 90’s. You’ll never find it, but keep looking… I’ll have to dig it out & record it sometime.

Glide (Sydney) were a band we played with a lot, & stayed with in Sydney a few times, & are worth checking out if you’re a diehard indie person…

Hummingbirds were good, when they were good…

Falling Joys were another band who predated us slightly, but who we played with a few times.

++ Aside from music, do you have any other hobbies or passions?

Not especially.

My hope for the future is to have a little house away from the neighbours that won’t fall over in a strong wind, do some gardening & work on my music for at least a few hours a day…

I like to go on day bushwalks & stuff…

I watch a fair bit of NFL: it’s like this exotic alien fantasy world to me, but very entertaining. Go Colts!

++ And one last one, what’s the best thing to see, do and eat in Australia?

I don’t eat out much, I can’t really afford it.

But food here is generally very good. This is the country that produced “Masterchef” after all, which is simply to suggest that a large slice of “middle-Australia” is obsessed with food as an expression of their petit-bourgeouis credentials.

To see? I haven’t been there yet, but I hope to make it to the Tarkine forest in Tasmania soon. Flinders Ranges is awesome. Australia to me is all about the grandeur & expanse of the country.

After all, you can go see crappy globalised (sub)urban hipster culture anywhere…

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Listen
The Mandelbrot Set – Landslide

Thanks to much to Ros, Dani, Ochi and Sonia for this fantastic interview! I translated a bunch of questions from Spanish, I hope I haven’t lost the energy or the charm of these answers! If anyone wants I can always share the original answers! Anyhow, Las Pulpas were a fantastic short-lived band from Madrid that released just one CDR demo with three songs. I loved these three songs for so many years and wrote about them some time ago on the blog. I was happy that they got in touch with me and were up to telling me their story as a band, so I’m sharing that with you all. Enjoy!

++ Hey all! Thanks so much for being up for the interview. So Las Pulpas are no more, so let’s start from there. Whereabouts in the world are you? And are you still making music?

ROS: I’m in Manchester now, but about to move to London. Ochi and I have a band called Wachi Wachi here in Manchester, and I’m also playing in Trash kit in London and Electrelane.

Dani: I’m still in Madrid and I sing to myself. It helps a lot these days.

Ochi: I’m in transition from Manchester to London right now. I tried to learn instruments all my life but thought I didn’t have any talent until recently I realised that I have a natural talent for drumming and I am now the drummer of Wachi Wachi.

Sonia: Not right now.

++ In the past all of you have been involved in many other bands. Mind telling me a bit about some of your favourites projects you’ve been in?

ROS: I’ve been in quite a few bands but my favourite was definitely Las Pulpas. We never got anything done, just drank and ate all the time and never bothered to book any gigs or tours but it was great anyway. Also my other favourite band I was in was The Battys, a very short lived queer band in London. We recorded a live CDR which we put out as part of the Homocrime 3″ CDR club.

Dani: The coolest group I’ve been in has been Las Pulpas. It was a party every time as our friends would always show up and join as at our practice space. And after the party we would end up having tapas, of course. (By the way Ros I still have The Battys CDR)

Ochi: My favourite one is still Las Pulpas because it was so much fun, every time we met for a rehearsal it was a party. It was a great time.

Sonia: I had a band when I was in university in Alicante with which we won a band contest and we recorded a CD (it was the 90s). Now I’ve found out that the “leader” has formed another band but with the same name with young girls and without telling any of us that were part of it back in the day. If he thinks we had a NAME, that’s great. So funny. So yeah, definitely Las Pulpas.

++ Let’s go back in time then. When and how did you all meet? And how did Las Pulpas start as a band?

ROS: For me it was all down to Hello Cuca who I was totally obsessed with. I met them at Ladyfest Glasgow 2001, and then I moved to Madrid in 2004 and I met Ochi who Lidia (the singer from Hello Cuca) introduced me to, and then I met everyone else.

Dani: Oh, what a mess. I remember clearly that in the beginning we used to meet for playing, eating and drinking at Sonia’s house, with no real drum kit. And also that Alexis used to join us. Soon after we had to find a practice space so we could be noisier.

Ochi: I slept with them all one by one, even Dani, and then we made a band.

Sonia: (I thought that that myth about sleeping with everyone was about Rosa, our “manager”, but it seems I was wrong). Some of us met before, some met later, and eventually we were together in a band. When we started Las Pulpas we were already friends.

++ And tell me, when was the first time ever did you pick up an instrument? How did you learn to play it? And do you still own that first instrument you ever bought?

ROS: I’ve been playing stuff all my life I think. I still have my first guitar, it was a samick, an imitation strat, I saved up for it working at a sandwich shop on weekends when I was 15. it cost me £60. I tried to replace it for a more expensive one when I was about 22, but it wasn’t as nice to play.

Dani: I bought the guitar just after watching The Subsonics playing live. I then learned four basic chords on an internet tutorial. It’s red. Sometimes I think that I would have liked best the black one.

Ochi: I tried to learn bass and guitar and keyboards but I couldn’t do it so I sat at the drum kit last March and realised I could play it. I don’t have a drum kit though yet.

Sonia: When I was little, around 8 years old, I started piano classes and also my  grandpa taught me a bit of clarinet.

++ What about the name of the band? Who came up with it? And why?

ROS: I can’t remember but it may have came out of the tapas we were eating, as mostly our rehearsals consisted of drinking cañas and having tapas in the Galician bar just round the corner from the practice room. that was probably it. We ate a lot of octopus. for me it also made me think of Pulp, who I love.

Dani: I would love to know why. But it sticks, right?

Ochi: I don’t remember how it happened but as the others said it was brainstorming names in a bar over tapas.

++ When you were around there were many exciting bands in Spain that were releasing mostly CDR demos like you, or publishing songs on Myspace. Which other bands from that period did you like? And did you ever felt part of some scene in Madrid?

ROS: The first thing I did when I went to Madrid, before I met any of Las Pulpas, was to go round to this guy Murky’s house. He runs Alehop! records, which is one of my favourite labels. I bought a whole load of records off him for a distro I was involved in back in London. he had some really great compilations. I loved Solex, Nananas, Hello Cuca. There was also a connection with some of the bands I knew from London, Wet Dog and Reverend Pike I think? Country Teasers were on some of the compilations and would play gigs with Solex. I was going to a lot of gigs then, it was the time when Gsssh Gsssh record shop was still open and they had a great label. then soon after we formed Las Pulpas there was a Ladyfest Madrid, so we were involved with that. But I don’t know how much we were part of a scene. there was this really great band called Kaken who were our friends. And Hello Cuca of course.

Dani: I believe Hello Cuca was a big influence for all of us. Around that time we were very into Bananas, Los Incrucificables, Los Muebles, Sibyl Vane… That year, as Ros reminisces, was the year when the first Ladyfest Madrid happened. It was really inspiring.

Ochi: I agree with Dani. Hello Cuca are the band in Spain.

++ Talking about Madrid and Spanish pop. How influential was to you the music from La Movida? If you were to picky up your five favourite Spanish bands ever, who would they be?

ROS: Really influential I think, although I don’t want to talk for anyone else cause I’m not Spanish, but I discovered all that stuff (Alaska, Kaka de Luxe, Paralisis permanente, Los Nikis) through Las Pulpas, mostly through Ochi who listened to those bands a lot at the time, and Carlos Berlanga too. My five favourite Spanish bands are probably Hello Cuca, Bananas, Solex, Los Incrucificables and Kaken. I would also highly recommend the soundtrack to the film ‘Animals’ that just came out, it’s all Spanish bands and is really really good. You can get it here:
http://www.tiendabang.com/magento/index.php/vv-aa-banda-sonora-de-animals.html

Dani: Parálisis Permanente, TCR, Crono, Los Nikis, Hidrogenesse.

Ochi: The movida was and has been and will be an influence for all pop bands in Spain because there was an explosion of freshness and creativity and revolution at that time. I don’t have favourite things but I love Alaska y Los Pegamoides and the Radio Futura first record, from la movida. And then Los Fresones Rebeldes are my favourite band of all time.

Sonia: Golpes Bajos, Carlos Berlanga, Hello Cuca, Parálisis Permanente, Bananas. The soundtrack that Ros mentions is really good, in it you can see what’s happening in Barcelona.

++ And what about your favourite places to hang out in the city? I’ve been a couple of times, and mostly for Madrid Popfest, but I’ve been around a bit. It’s a lot of fun! If you can give me some tips where to go next time, that’d be great!

Dani: As The Specials used to sing, “this town is coming like a ghost town”.

Ochi: I haven’t been in Madrid for 7 years so probably everything has changed. I’m sure the others could say something

Sonia: Now I mostly go to friend’s bars where you eat really well. And when we feel like listening to music or dancing we hang out at someone’s house. I’m not sure what’s going on out there.

++ Tell me about the CDR you released? How many copies did you do? Who made the artwork? And how well did it sell? Did you get many reviews?

ROS: It was Marina, our friend and sort of honorary member of the band. there were often about 15 people at our rehearsals, just hanging out. the image is of her eating pulpo! I don’t think we made very many at all, and it didn’t reallly sell because we hardly ever played and we weren’t really trying to sell it, except to our friends. I don’t think we got any reviews really (but I can’t remember).

Dani: We recorded in a studio in the same practice space we used to rent, during a weekend. I think that the person in charge of the studio didn’t take us seriously because we were a ‘girl group’. Marina was the designer and also the model for the cover art.

Sonia: I think that the CD was a demo that we presented it nicely because we’d like to show it off and also to sell it. We didn’t end up very happy with the recordings, we weren’t ready yet when we went to record and the engineer didn’t want to get too involved. He wasn’t our producer but someone who we just paid for the space. But I’m really glad that we did it!

++ What about the songs on it? Care telling me the story behind them?

ROS: “Me estoy cansando” is a song Ochi wrote about our relationship – a bit embarrassing! It means ‘I’m fed up’ (as in i’ve had enough). “Vaya momento” is about her photography teacher who she had a massive crush on and who looks exactly like her. “Angels on TV” is about a spanish tv presenter.

Dani: “Felices fiestas del mañana”  is about when you invite a lot of people to your house and then later there’s no way for them to leave.

Ochi: Me estoy cansando is about the clash of culture between Britain and Spain, the coldness of British people against the warmth of the Spanish as played out in my relationship with Ros. Vaya momento was initially recorded with my first band Ochiqueochenta, but it was a sort of rap song, and with Las Pulpas it became a pop song and it is about or for my mentor, a very important person in my life. I guess you could call it a crush.

++ Why, after that fantastic demo CDR, didn’t you get to release anything else? Was there any interest from labels at some point?

ROS: I don’t think we had any label interest and we just never got around to doing anything. and then people moved away.

++ And do you happen to have more proper recordings other than those three songs?

ROS: No, we have some live recordings though.

Sonia: There’s only some audios recorded live from practices and videos from a concert.

++ What about gigs? Did you play often? What would you say were your favourite shows and why?

ROS: I think we played less than 10 times. my favourite was a couple of years ago at our friend rosa’s wedding. she was our ‘manager’, although that didn’t involve anything except getting really drunk at our gigs. we were really terrible, and afterwards emma told me off for playing badly, we were pretty drunk though so I don’t think it mattered. we also played a great gig with kaken in a bar in madrid. and we played at a slaughterhouse that had been turned into a cultural centre, that was odd.

Dani:  The first gig, at the Ladyfest, was lots of fun because we only had a handful of songs but it was the perfect time for playing our debut show, so we made a lot of noise.

Ochi: My favourite shows were the rehearsals, we always had an audience.

Sonia: The practices with our friends were the best, no doubt. And the Ladyfest was really special.

++ Because some of you live in UK, I wonder how do you feel about the scene in Spain compared to the one in UK. Where do you think it’s easier to play? Or to be successful? What differences do you see?

ROS: It’s different. I feel like in Madrid there is a bigger difference between bands that come from abroad and bands that come from spain – there’s this weird hierarchy. It also exists in the UK with bands from the US but not as much. And gigs with bands from abroad tend to be really expensive. I guess the best example of that is when you go to big festivals like Primavera sound and all the Spanish bands are playing on a separate stage during the day, as if it was like a showcase or something, and then the bands from abroad get the ‘proper’ slots. Then there is the DIY scene that is not so much like that. but when I was in Madrid there was definitely more of a bar culture than a gig culture, I think there were less DIY venues than in london at the time. In england we don’t really have bars so much, it’s pubs, and they’re mostly owned by big breweries, they tend to be bigger so you get venues in pubs, in Spain there are bars with live music but the bars are much smaller so venues tend to be elsewhere. but there is a really amazing pop scene of course in Madrid – that’s what people in the UK know, most people that are into spanish bands are into the pop bands that play at indie tracks.

Ochi: I think the scene in the UK is more prolific and it’s not about being successful or not because that doesn’t matter, people just do music for the sake of it and then things happen. British culture is very musical, there are gigs everywhere, every night all the time.

++ Why did Las Pulpas split up? And what happened to you all right after?

ROS: I can’t remember! we are all still friends, I think it was maybe when ochi and I went to london, and then the others formed Las Olivas, who are really great.

Dani: I suppose it’s because it’s really difficult to combine a life of rock n’ roll with a very disciplined and successful life.

++ And these days aside from music, what other activities or hobbies do you enjoy doing aside from music?

ROS: Listening to records, does that count?

Dani: Lately the ones that don’t cost money.

Ochi: I am a photographer so most of my time I spend preparing for projects, reading about other artists and reading theory.

++ Now just some questions because I’m always curious about these things. Do you still buy music? And what’s the favourite record store you’ve ever visited?

ROS: I buy records all the time. the last one I bought was Los Cripis 7″. also I bought cleaners from venus, and a karen dalton record. and tapes of all the bands I see in manchester, like dinner party, sex hands, the comfortable on a tightrope cassette club. I buy most of my records from norman records in leeds, but also sometimes picadilly in manchester. my favourite record shops are probably the ones you don’t expect, in small towns. I went to a really great one in hull once, and found some great cheap stuff but I can’t remember what it was called.

Dani: I buy less music than I would want to. The record store that I remember the most is the one Ochi and me, as teenagers, used to visit in Alcalá de Henaras. On the front it was a jewelry shop but on the back of the shop they had the records. You couldn’t tell from outside, from the street, that they sold records. I agree with what Ros says, that the best record stores are in smaller town.s

Ochi: Ros is the one who buys music at home so I mainly listen to what she brings home apart from a record that I don’t have yet but I’m going to buy, the mantles new LP. I listened to it yesterday in my friend Alex’s car.

Sonia: I really buy little music lately. When I do, they are usually vinyl records and mostly when they happen to be from friend’s bands.

++ And what’s your favourite Spanish dish that you can cook? And your favourite Spanish dish just overall?

ROS: I like them all! I make good tortilla, and gazpacho. I really like arroz con pollo that ochi makes. and Sonia’s paella is the best. I was vegetarian before I lived in spain but it all went out of the window when I met ochi.

Dani: The paella that Sonia makes was a fundamental element in the existence of Las Pulpas. I love eating animals with tentacle.s

Ochi: I don’t have favourite things but the other day for my birthday my friend javi cooked a whole octopus (pulpo) for me and I loved it.

Sonia: Creo que el arroz es mi especialidad porque también es lo que más me gusta. I love eating and cooking. And the most important part of food os the social element of it. I believe that rice is my specialty because it’s what I like the best.

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Listen
Las Pulpas – Me Estoy Cansando

Thanks so much to Andy, Tim and Paul for this fantastic and very thorough interview! I wrote about Shine not so long ago on the blog, and thanks to my friend Andreas I was finally in touch with them. One of my favourite “obscure” bands from the 80s, they released one flexi and a 12″ split with The Bardots. The important thing about Shine! is that all of their songs are really good! So you better rediscover them now! Hopefully there will be exciting news about them in the future, so keep an eye on this blog!

++ Hi Andy, Tim and Paul! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! I see Andy dedicates his time to photography these days. So what exactly do you do in this field? And how rewarding this is for you?

Andy: I actually work on a nature reserve, by shear fluke my bird watching hobby has become my living. I enjoy taking photographs and do a little teaching of this on the side, enough to fund some occasional birding around the world.

++ And what about music? Do you still pick up your guitar some days?

Andy: I’m still heavily into music. Ive always had fairly broad tastes and recently Ive been producing more studio based electronic tracks, more just for fun than anything else, although a remix I did last year did get released. I just bought a ‘new’ guitar a few weeks ago from friends who run a carboot stall, it’s a first generation USA made Fender Bullet and it sound ace!

Tim: No, I’m afraid not. I’m more of a listener than player these days.

Paul: I’ve still got the guitar I had then but I don’t play it much now though I’d like to given the right opportunity

++ Had you been involved in any other bands prior to Shine!? When did you learn to play guitar?

Andy: Yes a few, a basic punk band, a Joy Division influenced post punk outfit then The Mysterons from which Shine! rose from the ashes. Difficult to put a date on learning to play, still a bit shaky now! but probably 1980/81.

Tim: I’ve been in several bands prior to Shine! All with Paul and with influences from glam rock to punk. I learned to play bass by myself and I borrowed heavily from Peter Hook and Jean Jaques Burnel.

Paul: I started off on keyboards. The band started in about 1975, it went through various name changes and ended up as ‘Stranger Still’. Tim was also in the band (on bass), as was my brother who played guitar. When he left to go to university in 1981 I took up the guitar, trying my best to rip off Bauhaus.

++ Tell me how did Shine! start as a band? How did you all knew each other?

Tim: Andy, Paul & I were in an indie band called The Mysterons which folded when the singer went to college. The three of us decided to carry on with Mark (the drummer) and take it in turns to sing. Paul & I had been friends since school and we met Andy when he joined The Mysterons.

Andy: It was spring 1987 and the singer from The Mysterons knocked on my door (he lived about 20 doors down the road) and asked if I’d like to play with them. This first time I’d properly met Tim, Paul and Mark apart from seeing them out occasionally in King’s Lynn pubs. The singer of the Mysterons left for university in September so that band had reached an end. The Mysterons songs were quite complex in parts so Shine! was a breath of pop fresh air and we hit the ground running. We played our first gig at the West Lynn Community Centre 21st November, so we’d written a load of songs in a couple of months.

Paul: Tim and I were in a band called The Mysterons with Mark (drums) and Andy joined later on when our other guitarist left. When The Mysterons split we decided to carry on and this because Shine! I can still remember our first rehearsal and how it all instantly fell into place.

++ And who came up with the name of the band? And does it have any meaning at all?

Tim: I believe Andy came up with the name and he’ll furnish you with the details.

Paul: Andy will have the definitive answer as it was his idea, but I seem to remember him saying he heard some kids by the side of the road chanting ‘We will Shine!’ Who they were and quite why they would do so may never be known….The exclamation mark may have been my idea, but I think I originally wanted it to be ‘Shine!!’

Any: I actually was cycling home from work and heard a group of children chanting ‘we will shine’ at least that’s what I thought they were saying? I think we wanted to avoid having ‘the’ in front of name too so Shine! stuck. I can’t remember how the exclamation mark came about? No meaning at all.

++ How was Norfolk back then? Where there any other good bands in town? What were the best venues to play and hang out?

Andy: King’s Lynn was to some extent quite cut off. You realyl did have to make an effort to travel to see bands, normally in Norwich, Cambridge or London. The scene around King’s Lynn was quite good with bands like The Chancers and The Boatmen. Our hang out was most definitely The Wenns which is a pub on the Saturday Market Place in King’s Lynn. A huge amount of time was spent in there! We played many local gigs at the West Lynn Community Centre but the Norwich Arts Centre provided us with some of the best gigs.

Tim: Norfolk had a rather healthy music scene, lots of bands, though there were few places to play unless you headed for Norwich or Cambridge. There were quite a few bands that drank in the same pub and most were friendly. For some reason we always supported a heavy metal band called Passion Flower Hotel (God knows why!). The best local venues were Norwich Arts Centre & The Junction in Cambridge.

Paul: Well we were based in King’s Lynn and there was a good local scene there, and we would socialise with many of the other bands, usually in Wenn’s, a pub on the Saturday market place. Live venues locally tended to be village halls which we would hire, along with other bands so we could share the cost.

++ Talking about playing, did you play many gigs? Which were your favourites and why?

Andy: Somewhere I have a list of all the gigs we did that Tim compiled, I’ll dig it out and send you a copy. Personally I used to get very nervous before playing and the adrenaline rush from playing always left me slightly unsettled, I think the point was ‘does this make us more attractive to women?’, which it probably did:) Best gigs? I have a hazy memory but supporting the The Darling Buds with the Norwich Arts Centre full to capacity was particularly good.

Tim: We played 50 gigs in a 3 year period which doesn’t sound a lot but most other local bands didn’t play nearly as many. We always ended up playing the Wilde Club at the Arts Centre as Barry got us support slots with bands like My Bloody Valentine, Darling Buds, The Wolfhounds etc. Barry financed the flexi disc & 12 inch.

Paul: Tim can probably tell you how many as he tended to document these things, but we did gig regularly, playing in pubs in Cambridge, Peterborough and Norwich. It’s difficult to pick out a favourite but I think The Oxcart in Peterborough was our first gig outside of King’s Lynn. It was a new-ish pub on a housing estate and a very unlikely venue but we went down surprisingly well with the regulars

++ What about the aesthetics of the band? I see you always wrote your band name with a particular font, and also the artwork for the both the flexi and the 12″ split is very similar. Was this on purpose? Who took care of the looks of the band?

Andy: Ah the joy of letraset! The posters of our gigs and the flexi and 12″ came from b&w images cut from some charity shop books I’d collected. A lot of them came from the Photography Year Book 1967. Tim put it all together and I used my work place photocopier. Although we provided the art work for the cover of the 12″ sleeve, it was botched together by somebody else, well I didn’t like how it had turned out. The black and white images suited our photocopied poster campaigns and gave an overall look to our ‘publicity’.

Tim: We liked to stand out from the other bands and we had a particular style. Most of the artwork was done by myself though I plundered a book of sixties photographs for interesting pictures. There wasn’t a fashion style within the band but we all tended to wear the same sort of thing.

Paul: Tim and Andy looked after the artwork. I had nothing to do with it. I was always very impressed with what they came up with.

++ It seems you always worked with Barry Newman. How did you meet and how close was your relationship with him?

Andy: Yes Barry Newman is a good man. He put in a lot of effort in establishing his Wilde Club nights at the Norwich Arts Centre. I think we must have sent him a demo tape angling for gigs. He obviously liked what we did and had us play there quite a few times and that lead to him releasing the Millions and Millions flexi disc on his Baz McHat label before it became Wilde Club Records.

Tim: As mentioned Barry financed the singles and got us most of our gigs in Norwich. I believe we just sent him a tape and he invited us to play the Wilde Club one night. He seemed to like us and asked us back for more gigs. The relationship was not that close but he really did help us quite a lot looking back. He did invite us to do a reunion gig (20 years) but the band are all living in different parts of the UK now and would have been a nightmare to organise.

Paul: He used to put on gigs at the Norwich Arts Centre and he often booked us to play there. I can’t remember who approached who though.

++ My favourite song of yours, and possibly one of my favourite songs all-time is “Bite the Apple”. Is it much to ask the story behind this fantastic song?

Tim: Over to Andy. I think you’ll find the bass line makes the song…….!

Paul: Better ask Andy as he came up with the song in the first place. The rest of us added bits to the arrangement after he’d brought it to the band, including the vocal harmonies. Andy had the opening guitar riff and I came up with the riff at the start of the verse.

Andy: Wow thanks I’m glad you like it so much. Tim, Paul and myself would write the basic songs structures and lyrics and present them to the rest of the band for approval. If you wrote the song then you would be singing the main vocal. It all worked well and provided an element of competition. I wrote Bite The Apple, Tim provided the bass line and Paul the guitar flourish. Bite The Apple (an adam and eve reference) is about the madness and delight of love with just a tiny element of doubt thrown in at the end.

++ Who would you call your influences, especially for those fast guitars?!

Paul: Has to be the Wedding Present! They were bringing an excitement to guitar music which had been missing in the mid 80’s.

Andy: I think we all loved a good pop song, still do. I guess the C86 bands gave us a sonic template to work on. Most obviously The Wedding Present. I heard Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy on John Peel and it struck a chord (pardon the pun). The Smiths, Joy Division and New Order to some extent and certainly The Velvet Underground.

Tim: My own influences at the time were That Petrol Emotion, The Smiths, June Brides, Mighty Lemon Drops, House Of Love and we can’t really deny it……The Wedding Present.

++ You contributed songs, as far as I know, to two compilations, “Everlasting Happiness” and “Everlasting”. Do you remember at all how you ended in them with “I Just Can’t Celebrate Today” and “The Art of Lying Low”?

Paul: Not sure how that came about. Rubbish answer. Sorry.

Tim: Not sure how these tracks got put on the compilations. If it is Andreas who compiled them then I guess he is the man to ask. Both these tracks were on ‘Numbrained…’.

Andy: Both of those songs were ‘properly’ produced. The Art Of Lying Low was recorded at Lifetime Sounds in Duke Street, Norwich for the Millions and Millions flexi and I Just Can’t Celebrate Today was recorded at Raven Studios at the Bite The Apple session. Ive no idea how they ended up on the compilations. I think Andreas wrote us a nice letter and we gave him the recordings to use.

++ Which would you say was your favourite songs? You know, those that you always had to play at gigs, and why?

Andy: Well we didn’t have that many to play. I really love playing She Looks So Good, Out Of Touch, Million and Millions and Bite The Apple mainly because they were simple:)

Tim: My personal favourites were Millions & Millions, Bite the apple & No way I’d much rather be. We tended to write new stuff then play it live with a few old favourites as encores but we were never precious about doing certain songs as far as I can remember.

Paul: I don’t think there were any particular favourites. Everything we’d written got played live at some point. With three of us writing there was usually an even split between us in the setlist

++ Also, how come you didn’t release any more records?!

Paul: Lack of money!

Andy: We really just spilt up before any further plans or expressed interest in us took hold. We didn’t play any further a field than East Anglia. We received a tiny amount of interest from Food Records, I think they signed Seymour instead, what became of them?

Tim: We drifted apart in 1990. We were into different sounds around this time and it co-incided with Paul getting married and moving away.

++ There are two tape albums by Shine! These are very obscure to most indiepop fans, so do you mind telling a bit about them? How many copies were made? And if possible the full tracklist for the nerdiest of fans? 🙂

Paul: I’ll have to find the tapes first!

Tim: They were 4 track recordings produced by Paul. The first tape was our live set at the time and the second was a bit more sophisticated as Paul got into production more. No doubt he can tell you the details. We made a few hundred copies of each I believe.

Andy: They were self produced and recorded over many months using Paul’s portastudio four track. Lots of bouncing down and over dubbing of vocals and guitar parts. Pretty rough and ready indie pop, a fair representation of our craft.

The first tape – ‘Shine!’ (I don’t think we considered an actual proper title for it) was made between January and June of 1988. It came with a free Shine! badge.

You Can’t Help Yourself
THe Art Of Lying Low
Empty Heads Ring Hollow
Out Of Touch
It’s Nice To Be Loved
She Looks So Good
It Could Never Happen To Us
Stop Looking Back
Millions And Millions
The City Can Wait
Heaven

The second tape – Numbrainedeadumbrain was recorded in 1989/90(?) certainly released in 1990. The production is slightly slicker, with perhaps a dash of psychedelia thrown in.

Tim hand painted most of the covers so they are all originals.

20 Days Away
I Just Can’t Celebrate Today
Ladybird
Give Me Soul
Jerk
All Fall Down
Open Up Yourself
Dangerous Day
The One That Stops You

++ The split 12″ was released by Wilde Club Records. I haven’t seen much written about this label/club online. I’m more curious about the club. Did you go often? What was the best about it? And how important was it for your town?

Paul: That was run by Barry Numan. He was quite a big figure in the Norwich scene at the time.

Andy: http://norwichmusic.wikia.com/wiki/The_Wilde_Club

This was Barry Newman’s baby. It was based in Norwich at the Arts Centre which was a converted church, the acoustics didn’t suit everything but the list of gigs Barry put on is enviable. We supported My Bloody Valetine, The Inspiral Carpets and McCarthy among others. As well as travelling across from King’s Lynn to see Mud Honey, Bob and one of the best gigs Ive every been to, The Four Brothers.

++ So, what happened in the end? When and why did you decide to call it a day?

Andy: Circumstance took over. In a moment of clarity I decided I need to go to university and signed up for a access course in september 90 in order to again entry the following year. Paul got married and moved to Norwich at the same time and somehow practicing and gigging became untenable. Myself and Tim hooked up with a keyboard player and wrote some songs with a drum machine driving the beat, but we never gigged.

Paul: Well I moved to Norwich in 1990 but the others did continue for a while. It wasn’t an acrimonious split or anything like that, but I think we had done all we could with our 2 guitar / bass / drums lineup in the face of the burgeoning dance music scene.

Tim: It ended amicably in 1990. We still speak to each other though Mark is not in touch anymore.

++ Are you all still in touch? What did you do after Shine!?

Andy: Yes, thou I live ‘up north’ so not as often as I should. I went to the University of Manchester in 1991, played quite a few gigs in a band called Dooba based in Leeds in the mid 90’s and since then a lot of birding.

Tim: Andy & I carried on for a while with a keyboard player/programmer but it didn’t last. I played in one or two bands after, one with Paul again but this folded soon after also.

Paul: Not as much as we should be! Shine! was more than just the music. It was three glorious years of my life which no one can take away from me. After Shine! I played in Norwich based Ivy with a CD release ‘The absence of angels’, and got to tour with the Wedding Present’. I am now involved in the rather less rock and roll musical activity of barbershop singing!

++ And these days, aside from music, and photography in your case, in what other hobbies and interests you spend your time?

Andy: Well birding used to be my hobby and now it’s sort of my job. So now music has become my hobby. I have some good monitors, Ableton Live 9, assorted instruments and software. It fills the waking hours very nicely indeed.

Tim: I listen to music all the time and still do some artwork in my spare time.

++ Thanks again! Looking forward for more Shine! news in the near future! Anything else you’d like to add?

Andy: Roque, your email was shot out of the blue, it’s nice to know we aren’t forgotten:) and it’s given us an opportunity to reminisce.

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Listen
Shine! – Bite the Apple

Thanks so much to all Michael and Ralph for this fantastic interview down memory lane. The Pariahs are one of German’s best jangle pop secrets. I wrote a bit about them not so long ago, and now at last we get to know their story. And what a story! Interesting that they are back, and also here at the end of the interview you can listen to an exclusive demo of Offer Me. On top of that, they have just added new stuff to their ReverbNation page. Don’t miss it!

++ Hi Michael & Ralph! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you doing? Are you still based in Berlin and are you still making music these days?

Michael: Yes, we still live in Berlin and we’re still (or should I say: again) making music together. Three years ago, I took our old 4-track-demos and remixed it again. Then after I sent him the results Ralph and me met, took our instruments and played together for the first time after a 16-year-break. We found out that we still like what we’re doing and so we startet making music together regularly with Thomas Bleskin (Ex-Decades), who established a littler recording studio in his sleeping room. Then Silke Nauschütz joined the band. Only a few month later – in December 2010 – we decided to record two songs in a professional sound studio, engineered by Hardy Fieting (Scream Silence). We recorded “Rock’n’Roll Has Saved My Life” and “Winter’s Finally Gone” – both songs were written by Ralph. On drums: again Ralf Kündgen! That was real fun!

Since then we did a couple of home-made-demos at Thomas’ flat. He’s a composer, too. When Silke left, we started working on German lyrics for our songs – and eventually we found a young strong female singer and founded a new project with our German songs together with her. We just recorded four songs with the help of Marcellus Puhlemann (Nina Hagen) on drums. Producer was our old friend Thommy Hein (Tightrope Walk). We hope to do some more recordings this year and are planning to publish an album in the near future.

++ Let’s start to a time before Pariahs. When was the first time you picked up a bass? And were you involved with bands before Pariahs?

Michael: That was in autumn 1988, when me and Ralph started making music for a “pop session” in our school, one year after we finished our school-education. Before that none of us played in an a band. We only did music on our own; we had started writing songs when we were still kids (12/15)- and in summer 1988 we began to record them on a four-track-recorder – the good old Fostex X-15.

++ How did Pariahs start? Did you know Ralph, Thomas, Ralf and Silke already? How had you all met?

Michael: When we did that gig in the aula of our ex-school on Nov. 8, 1988 we recognized how much the audience liked us. It really had been an incredible reaction. So we decided to build a band. We searched for a drummer in a City-Magazine (“tip”) – we wrote: “Drummer needed for studio and live-performances” and so some called us. Ralf Kündgen was the one we liked most, musically and personally. Then, in the spring of 1989, we rented a rehearsal room in Berlin Neukölln and met two or three times a week. Our first gig was in London, at the “Amersham Arms” pub in Deptford, were the Cutting Crew played a few days before we did. Back in Berlin we supported Edwyn Collins at the “LOFT”.

++ Where did the name of the band come from?

Ralph: I had the idea, though all the time we pronounced it wrong… It was those days with the Smiths and be loners that nobody would touch – “Pariahs” meaning “untouchables”. Sounds rather gloomy now, I suppose, but back then it seemed a good idea…

++ And what kind of bass did you play in Pariahs? Do you still have it?

Michael: I started with a Yamaha then switched to a Warwick Corvette 5-String which I still own and play.

++ Why did you choose to sing in English and not in German like most bands do in Germany?

Ralph: Back in 1987, except for Neue Deutsche Welle (new German wave- but that the beginning of the eighties) I didn’t really care much for German bands singing German. All the music I loved came from Britain, and I wanted to communicate with them. Again, maybe not the best of ideas, looking back.

++ You started as a band in 1989 and released your album in 1992. Why did it take that long for Tightrope Walk to be released?

Ralph: If I remember correctly, Michael and I met at school in 1986 and found out that we were both huge Beatles fans. We both played guitar, sang and wrote songs. So we teamed up and had that little two-guys-gig at a school party – I simply refused to switch to the bass, so Mike did. He also played the piano. We had a six-song-gig which was quite a success. Then we looked for a drummer and found Ralf, who was amazing and so much better than we were. That must have been in 1989. We played some small concerts and developed our material, but the industry never took notice, I think we were not the best live band around. So we took our money (and went to the bank) and financed our album recording Dec 1991 and
released. And again, nobody noticed.

Michael: We booked the studio for 22 days in December 1990 and did “Tightrope Walk”. About 14 days recording, one week mixing. One of the last songs that has been sorted out was “Offer Me”. Before – in 1990 – we had made a 16-track-demo (with Thommy) with four songs on it and tried to get a contract with the record-industry; when we failed we decided to do the album.

++ And why didn’t you release any other records in your career?

Michael: I wish we would. In 1994 we made another 3-track-demo with Thommy and a fourth man, Chris DeVine, on E-Guitar – as a last try – but we didn’t had the money to release it on our own.

++ Do you happen to have many more songs recorded, still unreleased?

Ralph: We do have a few, seven songs were recorded as demos. And we have lots of recordings from the rehearsing room which can never be published. And then there’s countless home recordings, mostly mine.

++ Why the name “Tightrope Walk” for the album?

Ralph: It was the name of Michael’s song, so he can tell you. When we sat down at a pub in Neukölln, I suggested “Friendly and Courageous” as album title – it was song that didn’t make it on the album, so I thought maybe we honour it. But Michael and Ralf weren’t intrigued, so I suggested “Tightrope Walk” and they immediately agreed. My thought was that this recoding for us was some kind of tightrope walk anyway, so it fit.

++ How was the experience recording with Thomas Hein at Tonstudio?

Ralph: It was wonderful. Thommy is incredible to work with, and he has become very successful since then (I think Tightrope Walk was his first independent production), and now works i.e. with Jens Heppner, Nena and Bushido. The only thing was we didn’t have enough time, but Thommy is a huge part in making that album as good as it is. And I think it is, even after all these years.

++ If you were to choose a favourite song of the album, which one would it be and why?

Ralph: My personal favourite song is I Run Away. The best performance is Hey, Turnkey!, and our choice for the single that never happened was Going Down Niagara Falls, so if it is your favourite, we had that right.

Michael: The same goes for me. But iI also like That’s A Bargain, specially the last minute of it, also Rattle My Cage and STP. And some parts of Roots.

++ Mine is “Going Down Niagara Falls”, if it’s not much to ask, what’s the story behind this song?

Ralph: Sorry, no story, just me being artsy, using fancy words over horribly difficult rhythms. But I like the hookline… 🙂

++ And who were the label Civic Dust?

Ralph: Ralf, Micha and me. For the name of the label we were using a line from the lyrics of Niagara Falls. Just a joke.

++ Something that always struck me was that not many bands in Germany, very few really, were doing the sort of jangly pop you were doing. So of course I have to ask what music were you listening then, who would you say influenced you?

Ralph: I could name a few, but let’s just say: Prefab Sprout. And they have a new album out these days, it’s incredible and lights my life…

Michael: ..no to forget Elvis (Costello), R.E.M., Paul Weller, The Go Betweens and Deacon Blue… and Joe Jackson!!

++ And do tell, how was Berlin back in those days? Were there any other bands in town that you enjoyed? And were would you usually hang out?

Ralph: We played support on a small tour of East Germany in 1990 with a band named Big Savod. And there was a band called Club Savage we played with; they a song called “Dance on the Graveyard” which was fantastic, and we dreamed we would produce them once we became stars. 😉
We hang out in a very cheap place next to our rehearsal room in Neukölln. But we would sit in the rehearsal room or in one of our homes, because there we could make or listen to music.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? Which were your favourites?

Michael: Not too much. We played only a bit more than 30 gigs from 1989 to 1994. We had fun on tour with Big Savod; it felt like beeing a “real musician”. And we did the support for The Immaculate Fools in Berlin in Oct. 1992 again in the famous LOFT on Nollendorfplatz. At Quasimodo (a jazz club) we celebrated the record release.

++ And if you had to choose a highlight for the band, what was it?

Michael: Definetely the first two gigs in London (the Mixer said, he toured with McCartney and the Wings through the US in 1976) and with Edwyn Collins.

++ These days you have quite a bit of presence on the web, I’ve found your songs on Myspace, Soundclick, Soundcloud and ReverbNation. Do you feel the internet has changed way too much how a band can make themselves known? Would you prefer this decade or when you were around to have a band?

Ralph: Hard to say. Back then we were either too early or too late. 1991 was Grunge. Britpop came later. Humph.

++ When and why did you split?

Ralph: It was 1994. We were unsuccessful as a band, but getting busy with our “real” jobs. It seemed natural, though a bit sad. But we went in peace…

Michael: Esp. Ralf was building up his music-career which he did, and he didn’t want to spend so much time in the rehearsing-room without playing gigs. Now he is the drummer in the Udo-Lindenberg-Musical “Hinter’m Horizont” on Potsdamer Platz.

++ And this is what I always wondered, what happened to you after? I can’t believe you would stop making music, am I wrong?

Ralph: Aaaaaaah…..now it’s getting interesting! As he told you, Michael and I reunited a few years ago with our friend Thomas Bleskin and re-started The Pariahs. Thomas’ and my colleague (we’re all radio journalists) Silke joined as backing vocalist and flutist. We recorded to more demo songs. Again, who would want to buy that? Nobody. So Thomas had the idea of casting, producing and promoting a girl band with German lyrics. Well. There’s no girl group, but we found an amazing young female singer and founded a band, and we went back to the studio (Thommy Hein, we’re faithful) back in April this year and did your new songs. We think they’re best thing we’ve ever done. We’re trying to sell this, but as always this seems to be tough. It’s really good material, though. I’m still optimistic…

++ I love Berlin, and I like Germany a lot. And as I always have great meals there, and great beers, I must ask, what are your favourite German beers, and German dishes?

Ralph: My favourite beer is Paulaner Hefeweizen. Goes well with Wiener Schnitzel – sorry, Austrians!

Michael: I prefer czech beer – esp. Pilsner Urquell. And i adore the gulash of my mom.

++ And do you support any Bundesliga teams?

Ralph: Three. Hertha BSC (I’m from Berlin, for God’s sake!), Werder Bremen and Borussia Dortmund.

Michael: Hertha, of course. And Ralf was a fan of VfB Stuttgart, wasn’t he?

++ And aside from music, do you happen to have any other fun interests or hobbies?

Ralph: I love good films and good television. Also I’m gaming quite a lot. And I enjoy reading.

Michael: I love to go to live concerts, big ones and small ones. This weekend I will see Blur for the first time (yeah, I’m still the old school-type;)

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Listen
Pariahs – Going Down Niagara Falls
Pariahs – Offer Me (4-track demo)

Thanks so much to Richard Preece for the interview! The Spinning Wheels only released one 7″ back in the late 80s, but it included an indiepop classic, “A Million Years”. Years later he was going to be part of bands like Lovejoy or The Snowdrops. Most importantly for those curious about his 80s past last year Jigsaw Records released a compilation called “When The Music’s Over” that you can get here.

++ Hi Richard! Thanks a lot for being up for this interview. First things first, when are you releasing new music? I’m longing for a new Lovejoy record, or Snowdrops would be nice too!

Hi Roque – thanks for getting in touch! It’s a long time since I answered any questions about the Spinning Wheels, such is the impact of the ‘group’! I’m afraid there’s no new Lovejoy or Snowdrops releases on the horizon. It’s been a while since I released anything – the last 2 songs were on a Matinee compilation and on the Country Music compilation – both were closely linked to Keith and really, his absence from my life led to me retiring from writing and recording new music. (That and a work schedule that leaves little time for anything else!) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not moping about or anything, its just that making music has always been about connecting with friends and sharing ideas and inspirations and I had a lot of fun and met some really nice people, but it was the right time to stop. There are a few Lovejoy demos knocking around, and I recorded some amazing songs with Keris and a guy called Andrew a couple of years ago which was immense fun, but for various reasons they never saw the light of day. I’ll try to keep some of the following answers a bit shorter…

++ So The Spinning Wheels was just yourself? There was no one else helping in these recordings?

The Spinning Wheels was mostly just me – any recorded music was just me, but there was a three piece version for a while. The band came together after the 7″ came out and I was asked to play some gigs. (We played a handful of gigs in Brighton – Scott and James were the other members. We were ok, fairly tight even. But once the record deal fell through (not with Teatime) I just gave up and hid for a while and that sort of finished the band off. I probably didn’t behave too well about it, but I was deeply embarrassed at my failure…and I was young and foolish…

++ I assume you didn’t play live or if you did you didn’t do often, is that right?

3 or 4 gigs was the total. All in Brighton although we were offered gigs at home and abroad.

++ Where did the name of the band came from?

I wrote a song called The Spinning Wheels. It seemed apt at the time – I think the passing of time has been a common feature of interest and concern for me throughout my whole life. The song was recorded on my cassette 4 track and it was released on the Tea Time cassette. I think it was one of the first songs I’d written as a young student, living away from home for the first time.

++ And where you involved in any bands prior the Spinning Wheels?

Not really – a joke school band and a joke college band (although we supported the Chesterfields!) – early to mid 80s. I really didn’t have much to offer anyone musically at that point. The Spinning Wheels started as a way of sending demo tapes out to some of my favourite labels from about 86 or 87 onwards. I’d met some guys from a band called The Visitors who were selling demo tapes at gigs and local record shops and I’d seen The Chesterfields and Razorcuts as my first live music experience and I just wanted to join in really…I saw some great bands and look back on those days really fondly – apart from when I remember my social ineptness.

++ I know your music through the 7″ released by Tea Time records. How did you end up releasing the “A Million Years” 7″ with them?

See above really…Teatime had released some really good singles, Mousefolk / Teatime were fairly local to where I was living and Stuart who was in Mousefolk and ran the label was really supportive. I kept sending poorly recorded demo tapes out to loads of labels and Stuart always came back with positive comments. I probably badgered him into releasing the ‘Land of the Soviets’ cassette of my demo recordings, but Teatime had released one or two other cassette tapes (I have a Mousefolk one somewhere), so it came about quite easily. After the cassette came out, Stuart eventually liked a later demo tape enough to put some money into recording costs for a 7″. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! By then I was living in Brighton and had been in touch with La Di Da, so arranged to record the songs with Grant…

++ The three songs on that record are by far the most known to indiepop fans. Do you mind telling a little bit of the story behind these three songs?

Well, its all a bit lost in the midst of time really…but ‘A Million Years’ was a love song about a fictional break up that was yet to occur. ‘Naked Ladies’ was (you guessed it) about a girl. Actually it was really about the pictures on her and my wall…I was a young student who kind of liked Modigliani and Matisse in that rather irritating, pseudo way that students sometimes do… Yes I was an idiot and took thing quite literally. ‘Because We’re Queers’ is / was a really clumsy and poorly written homage to my hero, Joe Orton. I was obsessed. I was pleased with ‘A Million Years’, less so with the other songs.

++ You recorded the single with Grant from La Di Da. It seems so many records were recorded at his kitchen! Tell me about that experience?

I didn’t ingratiate myself well with Grant when I first met him. A group called All Over The Place were recording at his house (the mixing desk was actually in a bedroom, although instruments and vocals were recorded all over the house). I’d just turned up at Grant’s, having just moved to Brighton and although we’d had some written contact, he clearly had no idea who this person who had turned up uninvited on his doorstep was. He invited me in to listen to the mixes of the songs he was recording. I was complimentary but mentioned that one of the tracks sounded a little ‘tinny’. It went quite quiet and shortly afterwards I left…The record was released soon afterwards and the song in question was labelled as ‘Re-mix’ on the sleeve! Fortunately Grant welcomed me back a few more times and a sort of friendship developed and of course it was an obvious choice of studio when Teatime offered me the money to record some songs. He also told me about ‘This band called the Art Bunnies’ and tried to introduce me a couple of times. That’s another story though!

++ What about the photo on the front cover of the 7″, who is that?

The girl is called Jane and she was my girlfriend at the time. (So predictable, I know…)

++ And is it true there was a second 7″ scheduled for release? What happened?!

Well, yes it is true. The 7″ had been fairly well received – got a couple of plays on John Peel plus local radio stations etc… and Stuart and I were writing fairly regularly (this is a long time before emails don’t forget!) I had recorded some more songs on the trusty porta studio and Stuart seemed keen for me to record them. I’d booked some studio time, started to design the sleeve when I got the letter saying that it had all gone wrong – The recession had recently hit and a lot of small businesses were suffering – Not that Stuart would have called Teatime a business of course, but the simple fact was there was no more money – some distributors were going bust as well as smaller labels and I think a lot of people lost out. At the time I remember thinking ‘maybe he just doesn’t like the songs’ but the fact that ‘A Million Years’ remained the final release on the label eventually convinced my that Stuart had genuinely been a victim of the recession…I think he called it a day with music at that point as well.

++ I remember, maybe 10 years ago, on soulseek, a digitised copy of the “In the Land of Soviets” tape was shared around. There were no track list on the songs though. What’s the story of this tape? And I guess the title of the tape is because you are a big Tintin fan?

I think I have partially answered this above, but ‘In the land of the soviets’ was a genuine Teatime release, with a catalogue number and everything! It sold a few hundred copies as well…The tape was a collection of poorly recorded 4 track demos that I’d been sending to people. 11 songs, 1 cover version. Yes I was / am a big TinTin fan, and I still love TinTin now. But really, I was too excited that Stuart was happy to release the songs to stop and ask myself if the songs were good enough or well recorded enough. With hindsight, of course the answer to both questions is ‘no’, but like I said before, I was young and foolish…

++ I read you were at some point signed to a larger label. Who were they? And how come there were no releases with them?

I’d probably best not say who the label was, but it looked like it was going to be pretty big at the time. Once Teatime closed down, I sent copies of the 7″ to a number of labels to try and get some interest. The label in question were new, had contacts with some big labels and really cool bands. I was convinced by them that I was going to release records for them and be really well received. Basically I think they were always struggling with cash flow – promising recording time, equipment, transport etc…but singularly failing to come up with the goods. They were really nice people but in the end I think they were just naive. Songs were recorded at a studio and eventually the tapes were wiped when the bill never got paid…12 months or more of angst and uncertainty really wasn’t good for me!

++ When and why did you decide to stop doing The Spinning Wheels?

Well – once it became clear there wasn’t going to be a single and album on the new label, I was devastated. I really withdrew from music altogether for a few years. This was probably in ’91 or ’92.

++ Last year Chris at Jigsaw Records released a compilation called “When the Music’s Over”. How did this release come about? Have you ever thought before this about releasing a retrospective album?

Chris had emailed me once or twice over the years – He’d been really supportive when I was releasing records as Lovejoy and he’d sometimes ask about The Spinning Wheels. I guess ‘A Million Years’ is a bit more raw than some of my later songs and probably quite in tune with Chris’ tastes…Chris wanted to hear more! Eventually I found some demo tapes and transferred them onto my current porta studio for Chris to hear. He liked them and asked if he could release them through Jigsaw. I thought that the songs sounded pretty bad and poorly recorded, but Chris was keen and so I thought ‘why not?’. The other thing is that over the years I’d had letters and later emails from people who had actually liked something they’d heard by the Spinning Wheels, and I thought it would be good to make them available, if only to the handful of people who would still be interested.

++ But one thing that caught my attention is that many songs of yours are missing. For example “That’s the Question” that appeared on the Everlasting tape. Or many from the “In the Land of Soviets” tape. Why was that?

Roque – you are good! You have done your homework! Well, ‘That’s the Question’ appeared on ‘In the Land of the Soviets’. Chris and I talked about whether to include the songs from that tape. He was fairly keen to, but I really found it all a bit to painful, especially the sound quality but also the quality of the songs and the performances. So we agreed to release only songs that hadn’t been released before apart from the ones on the ‘A Million Years’ 7″. So all the songs on ‘When The Music’s Over’ are demos from just before and just after the 7″. None were intended to be released and were recorded as simple demos.

++ Are there many more unreleased Spinning Wheels songs? How many tapes did you make back then?

There’s possibly a few – my catalogue system is really poor. There were one or two songs that I actually really liked but the tapes were damaged and they couldn’t transfer without some dropping out, which is sad. All told I probably recorded over 30 songs as the Spinning Wheels.

++ How do you remember the scene back then? Did you go to many gigs? Who were your favourite bands? And where would you usually hang out say on a Friday or Saturday night?

Well, I touched on this earlier. I got great introduction to live music, living near Exeter in the mid and late 80s. Loads of great bands from the Flatmates to the Field Mice, Wedding Present to 1000 Violins…Countless fantastic gigs that I am so pleased to have witnessed. I then moved to Brighton in 1990 – I’d been inspired to know that Creation records had relocated there and of course there were some great bands there too – Popguns, 14 Iced bears etc…I was never cool enough to be ‘part of any ‘scene’ though- I just dragged the girl I was dating to whichever band I wanted to see. Venues like The Richmond and THe Concord seemed to be pretty cool – most of the Sarah bands who played live visited Brighton at some point – Sea Urchins, Brighter, Even As We Speak, Orchids etc… as well as plenty of great bands on other labels.

++ I also wonder, how important were fanzines for you back then? And do you think blogs have the same impact, or importance, as fanzines had?

Fanzines were really important, And flexis and tapes. The thing is, there was no social networking, so unless you knew someone you were really isolated and you know, for indie kids, isolated can be a good thing, but it’s also really cool to be able to share thoughts and ideas with like minded people, which is probably why indie pop seems to thrive on blogs and electronic media. I loved some of the fanzines of the day – it was like a message in a bottle from a like minded person (if it was any good!)

++ One last question, besides music, what other things do you enjoy doing? Any hobbies?

Well, I see a few friends from time to time – Keris and Alex and I meet up fairly often…I don’t have too much time for hobbies because work is so full on, but I do spend a lot of time ferrying my own kids to their hobbies! I still enjoy listening to music and I sometimes pick up the guitar and think, optimistically, that maybe this is the day for me to finish a song off…

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Listen
The Spinning Wheels – A Million Years

Thanks so much to Pat (JP Bananas) for the interview! Screeming Custard was a late 80s-early 90s band from London that released two records, a 7″ and a 12″ as well as some appearances in compilations. I was always curious about them because they sounded so different to their indiepop counterparts. Even though there’s quite a bunch of information on their website, I always wondered what happened to them. If you also want to know more, sit back, read and enjoy!

++ Hi Pat! Thanks so much for being up for an interview. Tell me are you still making music? And are you in touch with the rest of the band these days?

Hi Roque, good to hear from you and thanks for remembering us!

Although I get the guitar out from time to time I’m not doing anything serious any more. I think Rob (Action Jackson – bass) is still playing and Paul (The Corner / Donkey – guitar) may be as well. Paul went off and did the whole rock star thing with a real band after the Custards, not that any of us are jealous..

Paul, Rob and I got together at Flo’s funeral last year – nice to see them again but obviously not under those circumstances. Our original drummer, Larry, surfaced recently but no-one has seen Abbie for a while.

++ I read on the Screeming Custard page that there is or was the intention to make a retrospective compilation if there was enough interest. How is that going? Might it happen? Also, how feasible will it be for a sort of a reunion gig?

I did get the old tapes re-mastered but they were in a sorry state unfortunately. The engineer (Chris from the excellent Dalek Beach Party) said he’d never used so many Q-tips in one session. The plan was to find the best version of each song and then release a compilation through the website. Unfortunately it never really got further than wondering about names for the album – Never Mind The Dollops? I was wondering about doing something with Spotify but wouldn’t really know where to start.

We briefly discussed a reunion but Paul is living down in Bristol now. I suppose we could do something clever using the internet for rehearsals but for us the rehearsals were almost as good as the gigs. We used to be holed up in a cat-infested room on the Catford one-way system 2 or 3 nights a week and the noise and energy was fantastic. Not sure that’ll be quite as exciting over Skype. I don’t want to rule it out as I always wanted to play an English festival – back when we were knocking around there weren’t any to speak of other than the occasional New Cross and Lewisham Fun Days – but it’s unlikely.

++ When did you get your first guitar? And what made you choose that instrument over the others? Was Screeming Custard your first band?

My first guitar was from the Freemans catalogue – a Kay I think with terrible action. Must have been in the mid 1970s and it took months to pay it off. I wasn’t bothered about any other instrument – it was always the guitar for me. I took classical lessons at school, which almost put me off but then bought a book of chords, so when punk broke I was ready with E, A and D. I was in several bands before the Custards, most of which are not worth mentioning. A couple with Norman Cook (I was going out with his sister at the time) and then when I moved to London I joined The Wait, who were a pretty good Lewisham band. The band before that was called Between Yes and No; we had trumpet, viola, flute and me thrashing away on guitar. Very serious, very early-Eighties.

++ So how did the band start? How did you get to know each other?

We really did do it all through the Melody Maker ad pages. Paul advertised first and I went down and we thought we might have something. He got Rob in on bass (they’d been in a band together before) and Larry helped out on drums. We didn’t think we needed a singer and were just going to do instrumentals… When we realised we did need a singer we advertised again and didn’t get much response. But Abbie came along and although we couldn’t really hear her she just slotted right in, which was fine by the rest of us. When we first heard her voice on tape we thought Oh my God – how didn’t we notice that in the audition?

When Larry had his glider accident we advertised again and Flo was the only drummer who could keep up. He was amazing – easily the best and most innovative drummer I was in a band with. We used to see how many songs we could play in a row before he fell off his stool. We would open the set with five songs in a row but my girlfriend pointed out it was probably a little too intense, and we were also finishing the set too quickly. We all got on really well – lots of banter, lots of abuse, and no fallings out until the very end.

++ I read that it was on your second gig that you played under the name Screeming Custard. So, under what name did you play the first? And how did the name of the band come about?

The first gig was in Bromley and we went under the not very clever name of Bastard. It was the only thing we could agree on for some reason. Before our second gig we decided we needed something else so went for a lunchtime session in the Sun On The Sands pub in Blackheath. We didn’t come up with anything at all but on the way back Paul just said, how about Screeming Custard? We changed the spelling to annoy journalists I think. We knew it was a good idea when our first break was a mention in Sounds’ ‘10 Crap Band Names’ chart. Fantastic.

++ I read you were based in Bromley. How was it back then? Where would you usually hang out? Were there any other good bands in town? And has it changed much from those years?

Paul and Rob were the Bromley boys – I was in Blackheath Standard, Abbie in Eltham (I think) and Flo somewhere in-between. We used to rehearse in Pauls’ Mum’s Front Room until she got fed up and then we moved to Catford. We were part of the Catford Musician’s Collective so spent more time there and did some early gigs they put on at the Black Horse and Lewisham Labour Club. There was a band called Dandelion, who were pretty good. Before I joined the Custards I knocked around with the June Brides a bit, who were probably the best band to come out of the area at the time.

++ I’ve met Ian Watson many times, so I’m pretty curious how did he end up being your manager?

Ah, the mysterious Ian Watson. He was going out with a friend of mine so I asked if he’d be interested in helping out. He did a great job and got us some good gigs we wouldn’t have got otherwise. Not sure what we gave him in return other than headaches and five minutes on-stage at one of the Pauls Mums Front Room Extravaganzas. Before Ian got involved we were facing the problem all bands in London did at the time – you couldn’t play the better clubs unless you had a manager. Our solution was for Rob or I to phone the venue as Mr Potter to book a slot. After we’d played we’d just say that Mr Potter was with one of his other bands that evening and that we’d give him the money later. It always worked. We chose Potter because England had a caretaker manager at the time and Potter was the caretaker in 70’s sitcom Please Sir.

++ You toured in Spain. That wasn’t that common for indiepop bands back in the 80s . How did that come about and what were your highlights of that trip?

Spain was a great laugh and we got paid enough to release the first single. It was done through the Musician’s Collective so we went out and stayed with a band who got us gigs and then we did the same in return for them. So they got us on TV, a slot at a Barcelona festival and a couple of gigs in packed clubs, and in return I’m afraid they played to an empty Hype Club, were interviewed on local radio but did a good show at the Labour Club. We weren’t really similar music – they were quite quirky and rocky. Luckily (for us) the collective in Terasa where we stayed were mainly punks so we had a great time. Paul and I stayed with a performance artist called Kiku Mistu (I think) who once posted himself across Spain in a box. The TV was a definite highlight but the festival was also good. That was the first time we strangled Chic’s Freak Out.

++ And in the UK you played so many gigs! Which would you say were your favourites and why?

Hard to remember them all but playing with Cud was always great. We got in touch with them and said we’d book them a gig in London – they hadn’t played anywhere major at that point. We put them on at Hype and the place was packed. In return they put us up in Leeds and we did a gig with them in a pub – great weekend. David Gedge was apparently in the audience which was a thrill as the Wedding Present were one of the bands we all looked up to. We always loved playing at Hype before Jon Beast went off with Carter. It became a bit of a home venue for us in those rather bleak days before Brit-Pop opened doors to guitar bands again. The Fountain in Deptford was also always a good night. Not sure how they got away with cramming that number of people in the upstairs room.

++ I love your sound, “Tracy”, is one of those great indiepop gems you know. But I wonder what were you listening at this time to make music like this?!

Thanks! It was just one of those happy accidents that that was how we sounded. We were already quite noisy and then with Abbie’s twee vocals on top it seemed to just work. We were likened to The Cranes, who I liked along with bands from the Twee movement, but we mainly listened to the likes of Pixies, Gang of Four, Wire, Wedding Present, Cud, Carter, Family Cat and New Model Army.

++ Your two releases came out on Pauls Mums Front Room Records. What’s the story behind that peculiar name of the label?!

As you’ve probably guessed, that’s where we rehearsed initially and also where we recorded the first single. The engineer set up at the top of the stairs and we used the front room. Abbie was nervous so recorded in the dark apart from a globe that lit up on the mantlepiece. We set up the label because it was hard to get anyone to take a chance on us at the time. I’m pleased we did as it was a good experience running it. The label of the second single shows Paul’s mum on one side and the front room on the other. We signed up with the Cartel and sold a lot of singles in America as we were getting played on college radio out there.

++ Your first release was the “Tracy” 7″. Who was Tracy? And David?

I think David was one of Abbie’s old boyfriends but Tracey was Abbie’s generic term for any girl happy to under achieve in life. John Peel asked us the same question and then told us his daughter is called Tracy. Slightly awkward.

++ For the second release, the “Lurve” 12″ you had to get a big loan. How did that work out? Is it all paid now?

I had to take out a loan to get a roof fixed and used it to pay for the single instead. It took a lot longer to pay off than my first guitar! In fact the second single didn’t sell very well but I had 250 nicked from a lock-up, which turned out to be the label’s best day’s business when the insurance company finally paid up.

++ On the Waaaaah split flexi you were supposed to contribute a New Order cover but in the end you gave Richard the song “Raft”. What happened with New Order?

We were still doing one of the early instrumentals live and Abbie wanted to put some words over it so she wasn’t just standing there. She said she knew John Barnes’s rap from World In Motion and promptly sang it over the instrumental. It fitted okay and so we offered it to Richard at Waaaah. Someone said we should ask New Order in case they had a problem with it and we were amazed that they said they did. In the end we had to give Waaaah an out-take track that we had also offered to another fanzine, which we felt bad about. New Order then got some bad publicity for turning us down and said we could use it after all. Too late by then of course so it’s just become one of those tracks that turns up on download sites from time to time.

++ You had a song on a Big Muff fanzine flexi. I wonder how involved were you in the fanzine scene of the late 80s? It seems like there were so many of them championing indiepop.

Yes, we loved the whole fanzine scene. I’d grown up with the punk fanzines and then through the football fanzine era so the idea of DIY was always something I supported. I’d helped Norman Cook out with his Peroxide fanzine and later a football fanzine, but there wasn’t really time to get too involved once the Custards were up and running. We were good friends with Richard Waaaaah so I still have a soft spot for that publication. The internet has done many good things and keeping the spirit of fanzines alive with blogs like yours is definitely one of them.

++ Tell me a bit about the “several dodgy tapes” you made. And what about the t-shirts and badges? Did you make any other merch? You seem to have been pretty productive!

This was something I got from Norman really. He was great at making badges and tapes of that band so it seemed obvious to do it for the Custards. We had the idea for the logo and Better Badges did some good ones for us. The T-shirts were as rough and ready as everything else. I’d already hand-made one, which I wore at early gigs but we then did two versions – one with yellow custard and then one with pink. I think they sold better than the records. The tapes were just demo tapes that we drew covers for. We’d do special editions that we’d send out to fans that wrote to us. We used to get a lot of mail from fairly troubled young girls. Flo was very good at writing back; he was our agony Aunty hence his band name of Aunty Flo.

++ From all your songs, which one would you say are your favourites, and why?

I did have to go back through them when I was thinking about the compilation and it was interesting hearing them as complete songs rather than just wondering where my guitar had gone to in the mix. I have to say I still like Mouth and a Brain, for the lyrics but also for the way we were able to get the guitars to sound a bit heavier with each verse. I also like the two singles and Le Freak. When you’re playing the songs, your favourites are different because there are some parts you just like doing so as I say it’s odd hearing them again in a more dispassionate way.

++ Something that always caught my attention about Screeming Custard were Abi’s vocals. They are quite unique! How important were they in the vision you all had of the sound Screeming Custard were creating?

Yes, I’d like to say it was all part of a plan but as with most things with the Custards it was just a lucky accident. Abbie really was unique and had done a bit of work with Terry Hall after his Colourfield period, that didn’t go anywhere. We were the next people she tried, luckily for us. She could have been a top gymnast when she was younger but injured her wrist I think. She’d turned to music after that.

++ And when and why did you decide to split?

Well, Abbie was still finding playing live nerve-wracking and in the end decided to leave. That was the end of the band really although we did struggle on with a new singer for a while, who had big plans and took some of the band with her. It was the right time to end as we’d run our course.

++ What did you all do after? Were you involved with other bands?

The others did – I’d always said it would be my last band so I hung up my plectrum after that. Rob gigged around with the Pig-Keepers Daughter, Flo had a band the name of which escapes me but they did a single or two and Paul did very well. He’s a great guitarist so it was no surprise. We called him The Corner because he was good, but not quite as good as The Edge.

++ And these days, what do you all do? Do you have any other hobbies other than music?

I think Abbie was doing some bread-art when I last heard but the others are still into their music I think. Football was my other big interest and I currently run the doingthe92.com website for people trying to visit all 92 football league grounds. There’s about 5,000 people signed up on it and I’ve just done our first piece of merch – a poster showing the location of them all, which is selling well.

++ One last question, looking back in time, what would you say was the best part of being in Screeming Custard?

For me it was the rehearsals in the early days when the songs started to come together and we thought we were going to be as big as Bros. If you’re reading this and you’ve ever wondered about being in a band just find a couple of mates and do it – there’s nothing quite like it. I was never a good guitarist but a bit of fuzz and the right attitude can cover up a lot!

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Listen
Screeming Custard – Love

Just a couple of weeks ago I was lucky to see The Brilliant Corners perform at Indietracks. It was the gig of the year for me. It was just amazing!!! I thought it was a good idea to see what The Brilliant Corners are up to these days and Davey was kind enough to answer a bunch of my questions. But first and foremost I will point you to Wearitwell Records were you can buy a CD of a live performance of The Brilliant Corners called “From Bristol to Berlin” and also the latest of Davey’s other band (who are still going by the way!), that is the Experimental Pop Band’s latest album “Vertigo”.

Very jealous of those who will see them at Berlin Popfest soon, but I’m here crossing fingers I’m lucky enough to see them play next year, somewhere close or far away from me. Catch them if you can!

++ Hi Davey! It was so great to meet you at Indietracks. And very happy that you are up for an interview. I have thousands of questions but I’ll try to make it not too long. But first things first, how was your experience at Indietracks? What was the best thing about it? And how come you didn’t prepare an encore?! 🙂

I liked the intimacy of the event, there was a feeling that a lot of people were meeting old/new friends. People playing acoustic in the merch tent was cool, doing something like that is a bit scary but also a really exciting thing to do. I would be happy to do it next year!

The best thing has to be the wonderful reception the band got. Yes I should have kept a number back for an encore, think I was too excited and just played all the songs on the set list with out thinking ahead!

++ You are playing Berlin Popfest very soon too. With what kind of expectations are you traveling to Germany? And I wonder if you are planning to keep playing with The Brilliant Corners some more gigs after this gig?

Well I don’t think the BCs have been to Germany since 1989! I have toured Germany with The Experimental Pop Band quite a few times over the years as we were on City Slang Records ( Berlin label) for a few years. Used to get a lot of people coming to gigs saying they were fans of the BCs and did I remember the Fanzine interview I did with them. Most times I did remember. I think there is a real possibility that we might play a few more dates In Germany in 2014. I have a friend in Hannover, Jens, who really wants to put us on and record a session for his radio show. Our only other date this year is in our hometown Bristol on The 2nd November. We will continue to do reunion dates until June 2014 then our year of fun and joy is over.

++ Was it thanks to the Scared to Get Happy shows in London that you decided to reform? Or have this been in the pipeline for some time? How was that gig? Were you a fan of the other bands that played back in the 80s? I read Amelia Fletcher joined you on stage! Would have loved to see that!

No STGH had nothing to do with it. Bob ( our drummer) has periodically asked me to think about doing a one off gig for old times. I always said no as I don’t really like the idea of bands reforming as they usually sound crap! I am so pleased we don’t sound crap! Last xmas Bob and Steve ( road manager) got me drunk and pestered me for a whole night to do a gig. I told them about the BCs album Cherry Red were putting out. John Reid who put the project together and Richard who had a lot of the live recordings were also asking if there was any chance that the band could play live. I had already told them no. However during the course of listening to the songs for the ‘Hearts on your Sleeve’ album and really enjoying those songs and knowing that I had no commitments with The Experimental Pop band ( we had an album out in 2012) for the first time in decades I pondered the possibility. I was also quite drunk. Between Jan and March this year me Bob and bass player Boo met up and I have to say it was a joyful experience working out those old songs and even with just the three of us playing I knew it could be good. It was a kind of now or never moment.

STGH was great , on so many levels it was great. There was no warm up gig prior to it but we played and all the old magic was in the air, the audience were wonderful. I had not seen Amelia for a long time but got in touch with her and she was really up for doing the gig, she like me was uncertain how it would go but we really enjoyed it. Amelia played a lot of gigs with us in the 80s. I remember buying the Wolfhounds debut album, great album, so it was wonderful to see them live for the first time!

++ In the last couple of years there has been a bunch of Brilliant Corners CD reissues by Cherry Red Records. How did this partnership start? And are there any more releases coming up?

Think Cherry Red asked me for the rights to the back catalogue some 5 years ago or more. I agreed as I was often being told that people could not get hold of the old stuff and I also saw that some people were paying crazy prices for vinyl on ebay. I also thought a new generation of kids might be into what we were doing so it should be available to them and I did not have the time to do it myself.

The idea was that Cherry Red would put out stuff chronologically. It was not until the recent release that I got really involved mainly due to John and Richards enthusiasm for the project. They still have ‘Hooked’ ( not our best LP but some good songs on it) and History of White Trash ( our final album and a bit of an overlooked gem, lots of good pop songs on it.) Not heard if they intend to release these. You can get a limited Live CD of a gig the BCs did in Berlin on my label Wearitwell records.

++ Let’s go back in time. Were you involved in any other bands prior of The Brilliant Corners?

Prior to the Corner’s me and Chris were in a band called The Hybrids we started out sounding like The Jam and Kinks and ended up sounding like Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division!

++ What are your first musical memories you have as a kid? When and how did you get your first guitar?

I got my first guitar pretty late in life. I was 16 and it was right in the middle of the whole new wave, punk scene and that inspired me to write songs. My mothers side of the family were very musical, mainly country music and 50s and 60s pop , so I grew up with uncles and cousins who were in bands. I don’t know why I did not take guitar up at an earlier age, I was buying records with what little money I had so I was already hooked. My earliest musical memory is having my plastic Beatles guitar flung on the fire ( 1964), mum got mad with me for making a racket so she threw it on the fire, I think Paul McCartney’s face melted last. Ah so I was traumatised by this experience and that’s why I got a guitar so late in life!

++ How did The Brilliant Corners start? What was the recruiting process? And was it an easy choice to name the band with the Thelonious Monk album name?

Me and Chris met Dan ( trumpet) and we would go to his house and jam and sometimes I would bring songs I had written. I met Bob when I was working as a lab technician and he was the test tube washer. He looked like a punk and said he played drums. So we now had a drummer. Bob had a friend called Winston who would turn up and bang on stuff. They both had a friend called Steve who would show up and say we were great and we should play in a pub. So we did and that was out first live experience. Dan owned the Monk album can’t remember if it was me Chris or Dan who took the song title as the bands name.
Later Winston bought a guitar. Dan left to go to university and we put our first singles out. Dan came back from university, rejoined the band, we then became quite well known. Winston broke his arm prior to a German tour and Phil had a week to learn all his parts! Phil then left the band when Winston came back in but rejoined us when I broke my arm and he learned all my parts! When Winston and Dan left. Phil joined the band for a while. Phil then Joined Cowboy and Spingirl and Paul Sandrone played guitar in the final line up.

++ That you named your band after that always made me wonder. You must have such a wide and broad specter of influences. But I wonder if there are any indiepop bands that you would think influenced your band?

I have really diverse tastes and that shows from the BCs development through to everything I have done since. Also not many people realise that me and Dan played in an avant guard Jazz band called Spaceways in the late 8o’s when he had left the band and I was still in the band. So my ears were really open to stuff. I don’t think indiepop bands did influence what we did but bands of that time that did were certainly Orange Juice, Josef K and the The Go Betweens. Infact a song on Hooked ‘Hemingways Back’ could be the Go Betweens!

++ Trumpets. I love that you have trumpets. How did trumpets become a big part of The Brilliant Corners sound?

Dan played trumpet! Bearing in mind I have already said that my first band metamorphosed into Echo and the Bunnymen meets Joy Division, only a nutcase would add trumpet to that! but we did. It has to be said that a lot of our first gigs were primal , noisy Jams, the songs came later. I also think those 60s records I was exposed to with lush orchestral backing was knocking around in my mind..

++ On the liner notes of the last Cherry Red cd I love that you mention how important were haircuts and how to dress back in the 80s. Though I’m sure you were the coolest kids in Bristol, I wonder how was your town back then? Has it changed a lot? What were your favourite places to hang out? And which other bands did you like hanging out with?

Gosh, Bristol was a really difficult place to grow up in the 70s and 80s, if you were a bit of an outsider/ oddball like me, one was always getting beaten up or picked on. Later after punk had happened I noticed that there were more oddballs around and I could hang out with a few people. These people seemed to go to the gigs I went to. Getting involved in music made me feel special and not too much of a freak.

In the early 80s there was only the Dugout Club which we could go to. You could hear all kinds of music there. Revolver Records and Tony’s was the place to get vinyl. The Student Union bar had local art school type bands on. You could hear 60s R &B at The Western Star Domino Club. We played some gigs there too. By the mid 80s there was more of an alternative scene. I was living in a part of Bristol Called Stokes Croft, ( The area is now considered very Bohemian) it was very low life but the pubs were good, the Tropic Club was around the corner from where I lived and every indie band worth mentioning played there. By now Sarah Records and Subway were happening. Bands I hung out with? We did lots of gigs with The Chesterfields, Mark Barber from the band is still a good friend and The Flatmates, in fact I grew up a few streets away from Deb Haynes, we just thought it was a fucking joke the two of us in an indie band! No one from where we grew would have a clue about being in a band! I’ve run into Rocker quite a lot recently he’s a good guy. (If you want more details about stuff like this I have written Blogs about it that you can access via wearitwell records) I remember some mad nights in Belgium with The Dentists- great band.

++ Another thing that I often think about is although you have a vast discography, I’m sure there are still many unreleased recordings by The Brilliant Corners. Am I wrong? And if not, any chance they will ever get released?

There are many unreleased songs, I used some on the recent album and some were used on the Berlin live CD too. You never know some of this stuff might see the light of day but I would have to think carefully about this. The live CD works really well as it is a whole gig in its entirety with the mistakes, out of tunesss and me yapping in between. All this captures the mood of that time. Cherry Red have an option to put the bands last 2 albums out.

++ To what extent would you say your songs are autobiographical? I ask because there’s many many times where I’ve felt these songs very dear to me, experiences that anyone could have been through, especially songs like “Oh!”, “Teenage”, and the like. You know, those of boy meet girl.

Well I think there is always going to be elements of autobiography in some songs. Part of the charm of song writng for me is that sometimes it comes from the heart and at other times I don’t know where the hell the words have come from but they come and it happens and rather magically it means something to me and hopefully can mean something to others. I think you can say an awful lot of things in boy meets girl songs, a lot people underestimate this. Its a genre that I continue to enjoy using. The songs you mention are mainly autobiographical.

++ And if I would make you choose the one song that you like the most of your repertoire, the one that has to be played at every gig, which one would you choose and why?

Strangely that is not too difficult a question. I would always want to play ‘Meet Me on Tuesdays’ and ‘Growing up Absurd’ I don’t really know why though!

++ Tell me a bit about the video of “Why Do You Have to Go Out With Him?”. How did it come about? Any funny anecdotes while filming it?

I don’t really remember too much about making that video. Think at the time we had got into a habit of choosing a song for a single and then begging someone to film us in return for beer money or sex , which to our surprise seemed to work. Seem to recollect that it was made after we had done a UK and German tour so we were buzzing and tired at the same time.

++ During the 80s you mostly do everything by yourselves. You released your own records, did your own videos, probably even found your own gigs. It seems you had this energy most bands during those years lacked, that after the one record they would split up. I wonder what it was that kept you going? It mustn’t have been that easy right?

ou are absolutely right that we did most of these things ourselves but we also ran into a few people who would also find us witty and charming and would do a few things for us. One example being a guy Called Andy Franks, at the time he was Depeche Modes tour Manager. He had remembred us from the early days in Bristol when he sometimes did the door at The Western Star Domino Club. Andy came to one of our our London gigs and we got drunk and had a laugh and before you knew it he got us a tour set up in Germany. So it was not entirely down to all our own endevours. Chris delt with most of that side of things, the money and planning and he was very good at it. We both spent a lot of attention to the look of the sleeves. I really liked that creative side of it, how things looked, our haircuts were very important too!

The longer we were together it actually got more difficult to do as the indie bands who were considered our contempoararies did become more professional and were on big labels that we would never be able to compete with. Also for whatever reasons we did not conform to what the ‘indie scene’ became so in an odd way we were outsiders again as we had not released one classic disc and dissapeared! Back then we could continue to put out stuff becuase we were so fucking obsessed by it. We just about earned enough money to keep doing it and most important of all we had time to do it as we had avoided getting anyone pregnant!

++ Many questions already. Perhaps we should do a second part if you are up for it! I still have so many questions! But before we stop, why did The Brilliant Corners split? And what would you consider was the biggest highlight of the band?

It’s hard to specify a single reason or incident that lead to the band folding but in many ways it was due to some of the above. The more the buisiness side of things had to be thought about the less one could play a gig with an open heart. I think with in the band there was a creeping sensation that we had to ‘have made it’ and what ever made it was, we had not made it. I remember on our last tour getting the feeling that the band was going through the motions a bit and that was a horrible feeling to have. I don’t think one can underestimate the power of the written word too. The BCS had always polarised opinions but some of the press and comments we were getting was pretty vicious. I remember Dan reading a live review we had and him almost in tears, not long after he left saying he could not play live anymore.

Biggest highlight was hearing the band on John Peels show but in a strange way here and now, playing these reunion dates is, because I know we are doing the songs justice, I know we are playing with joy and verve and I never thought that would have been possible. To have this short opportunity to do this again, is perhaps the best highlight.

++ Thanks again Davey!

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Listen
The Brilliant Corners – Meet Me on Tuesdays

Thanks so much to Steve Jenkins for the interview! Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Chalk Garden and Steve was kind enough to get in touch and be up for the interview. It’s so great to read and know the story of this obscure band from London. I recommend everyone also to head to Steve’s soundcloud where you can stream more Chalk Garden songs as well as songs by his other projects Bel-Air-Lip-Bombs and Spinning Belinda. So discover one of the best kept secrets of the UK’s late 80s!

++ Hi Steve! Thanks so much for getting in touch! Are you still  living in Lewisham? Do you feel your town has changed for better or worse since the heyday of the Chalk Garden?

Actually I do still live in Lewisham but the CG’s were never really a Lewisham band, that was another of my bad jokes. The main 4 band members were from all over the UK, Tim (singer) grew up in Chichester on the South coast of England, Carlo (bass) grew up in the Midlands, Ken (drums) is from, Leicester and I grew up in the West Country, a village just outside the trashy seaside resort, Weston-Super-Mare. When the band first got together most of them lived in West London; later Tim & I got a flat together in Lewisham, because it was cheap and Carl ended up living there too. For a while we were practically the Monkees (minus the television programme, recording contract and Californian sunshine).

++ There’s very little information online about the band, but there’s the mention that you were the fifth best band in Lewisham. You say that’s a joke, but I wonder if there were any other good bands in Lewisham that you enjoyed?

As mentioned above we weren’t really from Lewisham, we just live(d) here. If there was a Lewisham scene then we knew very little about it. By the time we moved here we were gigging all over London and the bands that we knew were one’s that we ran into at the various venues or at the rehearsal studios. If pressed I would have to say that the other great Lewisham bands were Spinning Belinda & the Bel-Air Lip-Bombs but, since these were my other bands I may not be the best judge. One other band of note was Yellow Bird. They were the band of another room mate, Tim Groves and mainly consisted of Tim & his crazy talented girlfriend. I played bass for them for about a month and Tim played drums in the CG’s for a similarly short period. I don’t think Yellow Bird played more than 2 or 3 gigs before Suzie (the singer) went off to art school and was never seen again. Tim has posted some songs on SoundCloud which are definitely worth a listen. On the wider London scene we rubbed shoulders with a lot of bands who were up & coming. We played gigs with Suede, Senseless Things The Blue Aeroplanes, Jesus Jones and an early version of Elastica amongst others. None of them really impressed although I later became a big fan of Elastica. In all the time gigging around London only 2 bands really stood out for me, a Bristol band called Nautical William who were excellent live but disappointing on vinyl, except for their debut single ‘Love House’ which is great and can be found on YouTube. The other band that I loved were the Murrumbidgee Whalers; we shared the same rehearsal space, bonded during drink breaks and played a number of gigs together. It was a great arrangement, we all got on well and even shared some fans, unfortunately we had to stop playing with them because they were so good they made Carl feel insecure; he even left the band for a while claiming that we were wasting our time because we’d never be as good as the Whalers. Just one example of the bizarre self-harming which marked our career and pretty much guaranteed that we would never get a record deal.

++ What about in the rest of London? Did you follow any bands in the late 80s? And where did the Chalk Garden band liked hanging out? What were your favourite venues?

I think I would be right in saying that the main thing that drew us together and held us together was our similar musical tastes mainly Echo & The Bunnymen, early REM, Sonic Youth, the usual indie fair but we were also big fans of the late 70’s British punk scene – for me it was all about the Ruts & Crass, for everybody else The Jam and Wire. By the late eighties, predictably enough we were all carried away first by the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses and later by Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, anything loud & brash. My own favourite record from that time was an album called ‘Boing’ by a British band called Airhead. I thought I may have been about the only person to buy it but my wife was as big a fan as me and it was re-released on i-tunes just last year so must have been more popular than I imagined. Our favourite place for hanging out in the late 80’s / early 90’s was a large venue & club in nearby New Cross called ‘The Venue’. Every Friday & Saturday night they would have live music followed by a huge retro nightclub and a separate sweaty room where there was an indie-disco. It was located next to Goldsmiths College so was always filled with bright young things and was a 10 minute walk home even when drunk. Every time I hear Ride’s ‘Like A Daydream’ I am transported back there. As for performing, the best venues were the Bull & Gate, Kentish Town (for hard-core indie credibility), The Powerhaus, Islington (great stage & proper sound system), The Amersham Arms, New Cross (for being close to home so some of us could actually drink) and The Marquee (for all round rock credibility).

++ Tell me about the early days. Were any of you involved with other bands prior to the Chalk Garden?

I only bought my first guitar about 6 months before joining the band so had no previous history, Tim had been playing a lot longer but it was his first band too. Carl had played in bands at school and had some idea what he was doing, which was useful at the start. Ken, the drummer was the best musician by far. While playing in the Chalk Garden he also drummed for a band called The Keetons who were talented and wrote some great stuff but were difficult to like personally. Ken later played in Spinning Belinda & Bel-Air Lip-Bombs and was last seen playing in an excellent band called The Free French who contained other members of The Keetons.

++ How was the recruiting process? How did you all knew each other? And what was the lineup of the band?

Tim & I answered the same ad in NME (New Musical Express). In truth neither of us knew what we were doing but they took us on because we looked the part, liked the right music and were, to some extent, able to compensate for our respective lack of ability. Carl had left the band, which was originally a collection of West London friends who met once a week and did only cover versions, the week before and was persuaded to return on the mis-guided notion that we had some ability. Over the next year the original singer, drummer and saxophone player dropped out, Ken was found through NME and Tim was promoted to lead singer. The line-up stayed like that, apart from a brief experiment with Tim’s brother on keyboards (didn’t work he couldn’t compete with my thrashing) and a short period when Ken left and then came back until its final demise in 1992.

++ Where does the name of the band come from?

It was stolen from the title of a 1964 British black & white film. For a short time we were called Wasp Factory (from the book) but ditched that name when we discovered that we were not the only ones to have that idea.

++ And who would you say were the main influences of the band? Were you into the C86 bands at all?

We were certainly into the C86 bands, we actually first met in 1986 so that was the main thing going on at the time. I particularly liked the Mighty Lemon Drops, The Bodines and, rather obviously, Primal Scream (I was also really into the early Jesus & Mary Chain stuff but I thought they became too boring, I know it’s probably considered sacrilegious to say this, but they started to sound too much like the Ramones who I have always considered to be massively over-rated). BMX bandits had a brilliant name which was not matched by their songs.

++ From what I gather there were no proper releases but that appearance on a compilation 7″. Do you remember how you ended up on the House of Dolls 7″?

I sent them a tape and the magazine editor quite liked it. It was as simple as that. If only record companies had been that easy to convince!

++ That song included, “Drunk Among the Trees”, is really great! Care telling me the story behind it?

I don’t think there are any stories behind the writing of the song. Like most CG’s songs, it originated from Tim and just emerged after couple of months of thrashing around in rehearsals. The version on the single was savagely edited by Tim & the studio engineer and has always sounded mutilated to me. I recently searched for a copy of the original full-length version and came up blank. Around the time that we wrote this my younger brother went touring round Europe with a friend. They had both bought guitars and intended to learn to play them and busk their way from city to city. I showed them how to play DATT and they claim that it fed them for at least 2 months until they managed to learn something else to play. He (my brother) is now a superb blues guitarist, far better than me, and claims that he once came second to Chris Martin (Coldplay) in a pub talent contest.

++ On Youtube there’s a promo video for “Flags”. How did this video come about?

A friend of mine worked for a broadcast hire company and arranged for us to ‘borrow’ a load of equipment for a weekend to film it. One of his colleagues had studied film and was keen to direct, seeing it as a good portfolio opportunity. The Flags recording session was the first one that we had ever felt good about and we really wanted to capitalise on it and make a big push with all the record companies that had been showing some interest. It did generate a lot of interest but the regular A&R mantra of, “I like it but I think you need another six months to mature” continued un-abated. Somehow the video got a few plays on a programme hosted by Boy George on an obscure satellite TV channel but failed to provide us with the platform we were hoping for – it was fun to make though.

++ On the Soundcloud page there are many more Chalk Garden recordings. Why didn’t you get to release any proper records? Was there any label interest?

It was a different world back then. Recording demos was expensive and we were always broke. The Whalers funded their own single which was not uncommon but, aside from the cost we always thought that a record just wouldn’t be authentic unless we could actually convince an real record label to put it out. I gather we got pretty close. A couple of old friends from my home town were in a band called Claytown Troupe who got a deal and put out an album on Island Records in 1989. Some years later they told me that Chalk Garden demo tapes were on practically every record company desk that they saw and they had been convinced at the time that we would be signed soon. We were blissfully unaware, had we known I guess we may have done a bit more to try to get noticed!

++ How many songs did you end up recording? Did you use to sell them as demo tapes?

We recorded quite a lot of demos over the years but were nearly always tremendously disappointed with the results. Some are practically un-listenable. There was a predictable pattern, we’d go into the studio thinking we’d got some great songs, spend one or two days locked in the studio thinking that it all sounded awesome and the minute we left the studio and stuck the tape into the car stereo all the awesomeness would evaporate into thin air. Apparently it is incredibly difficult for a low paid engineer in a cheap studio to transfer a half-decent guitar sound onto tape. In many ways the best recordings I have are a live session recorded in our rehearsal studio. I found it recently and, whilst the sound quality is a bit rough, it is very tight and all the energy that is absent from most of the demos is there in spades.

++ And which song of your repertoire is your favourite? And why?!

As a narcissistic musician, I find it hard to listen to any of my music without obsessing over my own parts so inevitably have a tendency to judge the songs on whether I think I did a good or bad job. ‘Slow’ was always my favourite CG’s song, it’s probably about the only song where the guitars sound almost exactly as intended and my backing vocals are more or less in tune. I also rather like ‘Back To Words’ (the first time my guitar playing actually sounded competent) ‘Complete’ & ‘How To Get There’ (from the last recording session, by that time I was confident and not half bad, though the 3rd song from that session was not a great success).

++ Tell me about gigs. I hear you played a lot in many of the classic London venues. Which were the best Chalk Garden gigs? Any anecdotes you could share?

We really played just about everywhere that an un-signed band could play in London, frequently to extremely small audiences. The best gigs were always the ones where there was a decent sized crowd, the venue doesn’t count for shit if no one turns up. The high points were playing with the Senseless Things at the Marquee, head-lining at the Limelight club in front of at least 1,000 people, and playing at a huge bank holiday indie festival at Dingwalls in Camden Town. Better than all that though was the first Bel-Air Lip-Bombs gig. I had been working in my bedroom writing music and preparing tapes full of sampled & sequenced backing tracks which would be supplemented with live drums, bass & guitar when playing live. I had no idea whether it would work and feared that it might end in immense embarrassment. As it turned out it was amazing, we got a better crowd reaction than I had ever experienced before with the CG’s. The second BALB gig resulted in a call from EMI records, apparently we made an immediate impact. Unfortunately, as always, the recording sessions were unsuccessful, too dense and devoid of any of that live energy. When the singer that I was working with got fed up that instant acclaim was not forthcoming it fizzelled out quickly. My worst experience at a gig was watching the CG’s play without me after I got knocked of my bike and broke my left hand & right wrist (about the worst possible combination for a right-handed guitarist). The second worst experience was my ‘comeback’ gig. Tim managed to break strings on his guitar, his backup and my backup and I then had to give him my guitar so that the set could be completed with me watching, again, from the audience.

++ And then what happened? When and why did you split?

We split in 1992. Everybody else thought it was time to pack it in and had given up hope of ever being ‘discovered’. At the time we had Food records (Blur, Jesus Jones) showing some interest and asking for more material, we were tight, well rehearsed and, at last, confident but without the belief there was nowhere to go. By that time I was so heavily involved with my BALB project that I didn’t shed a tear, even though I thought it was a terrible time to quit. Now I’m frustrated that I could not persuade the rest to invest in one last demo – there were some great songs that never got recorded and may have made the difference – ‘Milk Tooth’, ‘Headstands In The Sand’, Don’t Change’, ‘I Know’, ‘Here We Go Again’…

++ Thanks to Soundcloud I notice that you had many other band projects after. Can you tell me a bit about each of these projects?

I auditioned as a drummer for Spinning Belinda. I wanted to learn to play the drums mainly to make me a better drum programmer, but also because I thought it would be cool to have played guitar, bass and drums in different bands. At the audition I was blown away by the quality of the songs, suggested that they deserved a better drummer than me and asked if they would allow me to audition as a guitarist. I got the gig and roped Ken in to play drums and later persuaded Tim, the other old CG’s drummer to take over from Ken. At the time I thought the songs were great but the sound was a bit staid and boring and would struggle to get noticed. I started writing my own songs with Ali, the singer and formed Bel-Air Lip-Bombs out of that. Initially Paul, the song writer behind Spinning Belinda was persuaded to throw his lot in with us and we performed a mixture of my songs and his songs which I re-arranged and tried to make a bit more interesting musically. Nobody understood what I was trying to do, including me, but it worked well live in spite of this and we did a number of really successful gigs. Unfortunately we struggled to make things work in the studio and by 1993 Paul had decided to return to Ireland and Ali became disillusioned and quit. I briefly had a 2-piece band called Palm. Initially I intended to carry on with the BALB material and let things evolve naturally but the singer, another Architect, insisted on replacing Ali’s lyrics with her own which I hated the idea of so I wrote half a dozen new pieces of music in the space of about 2 months so that Claire could do her own thing. We performed one gig which went down very well, even receiving rare praise from Ken. A few weeks later we recorded a demo. It was the first time that I was actually able to hear what Claire was doing with some clarity and I absolutely hated it. We never performed again.

++ What happened to the other members of the band? What did they do after? Are you all still in touch?

Tim & Carl both live about 5 miles from me and we still see each other on a regular basis. Tim teaches and now occasionally plays in a staff band. After the CG’s Carl formed a mod band with his brother called The Direction. They got some instant success riding a mod revival wave and released a couple of singles. He sold all of his guitars and moved to Italy for a few years but is now back in South London. He is currently recovering from a, thankfully, mild form of Leukaemia. Ken is elusive, we haven’t seen him for at least 5 years and I’m not really sure what he is doing now. I am an Architect and now run my own small design practice.

++ Tell me, when was the last time you picked up an instrument? And how many guitars do you actually own?!

After a long gap I have just put a band together to play at a party in September. Our set list will include at least one Chalk Garden song, ‘Headstands In The Sand’ but is otherwise a crowd-pleasing rock selection from T-Rex, The Cure, Blink 182, The Fratellis and a few others. I still have the same Fender Stratocaster and Fender Lead 2 guitars that I used all those years ago along with a couple of acoustic guitars and a cheap Japanese semi-acoustic with a snapped neck. I also still have every other bit of equipment that I have ever bought, amps (one Fender, one Peavey), sampler, sequencers, drum machines, keyboards, synth modules, I am apparently, incapable of ever getting rid of anything!

++ Aside from music, do you have any other hobbies that you enjoy on the day to day?

My work is pretty all-consuming and fortunately I am lucky enough to do something I largely enjoy. I have been taking piano lessons which has been hard work yet rewarding but the most important thing is my 8 year old daughter; whatever she wants to do is what I want to do.

++ Let’s wrap it here! Thanks a lot. I’m really enjoying everything I’ve heard by your bands. I wonder how they’ve been so under the radar. Anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks Roque I really appreciate your interest. It was all a long time ago now but every single bit of music that I contributed to means an enormous amount to me, even the ones that are patently a bit crap, and you probably can’t imagine how pleased I am that you like some of it. I am planning to go into a studio soon to complete the recording of a few BALB songs that I think deserve completing. If you are interested, and if they are worthy, I will send you copies for review.

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Listen
Chalk Garden – Drunk Among the Trees

Thanks so much to John Hodgson for the interview! The Blofields were a late 80s band from London that released just one 7″ single. A self-released single. I wanted to know a bit more and John was kind enough to reply to many of my answers! You can hear more of their stuff on soundcloud!

++ Hi John! Thanks a lot for being up for the interview. Hope you are well! So tell me, are you all still based in London? Still making music?

Hi Roque, it’s a pleasure. I now live in Hastings – by the sea on the South Coast – it’s a great town full of character – lots of artists and creative people. I do still make music, I’m currently playing bass in my friend Chris’ band – The Ingrid Pitt Orchestra – it’s sort of Eastern European Folk/Punk. I’m really a guitarist and bass is an interesting change.

++ So The Blofelds! I read you took the name from a James Bond enemy? What’s the story behind it? And which is your favourite Bond movie? Do you like Daniel Craig as Bond?

The name is from James Bond. We used to waste far too much rehearsal time trying to come up with a name we all agreed on. I think in the end The Blofelds was the one no one hated, but we grew attached to it.

I guess I preferred the earlier Bond movies. I remember liking On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is the George Lazenby one with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas as Blofeld, but Donald Pleasence was the classic Blofeld for me.

++ How did the band start? When was it? How did you all get to know each other?

I moved to London in 1986 and wanted to start a band, but before I’d really got round to doing much my pal, Tim Briffa who was auditioning people for his band The Atomic Vicars, rang up to recommend a bass player he’d rejected! That was Chris Aitken, we got on straight away, so that was good. Then Tim rang up with a drummer he’d rejected, Jab, who was great so we had him too.

We had more trouble finding a guitarist – Tim already had one so we advertised in all the usual places and auditioned lots of people. We ended up with a fella who was technically very good, but who turned out to be a bit hard work and we sounded too rock’n’roll as he had a traditional rock god style.

Eventually Chris had a huge argument with him and made me kick him out. Thanks Chris. Eventually Nick Connolly turned up at an audition and he was completely unlike anyone else and we grabbed him straight away – that was when we became The Blofelds.

We had the usual drummer issues after Jab moved back to Liverpool – we actually borrowed another couple of Tim’s drummers for various gigs but found Mark Bolland via a friend and he was a great guy so it made life much easier. So the eventual line-up that recorded the single and lasted longest was Chris on bass, Nick on lead guitar, Mark on drums and me, (John Hodgson) singing and rhythm guitar.

++ Were you involved with bands before The Blofelds?

We’d all played in bands before we’d moved to London. My first band was called August The Tenth, we rehearsed a lot, but had no idea what we were supposed to do next. We lived out in the sticks and there wasn’t really anywhere to play.

++ You only released one single, “The Dog is Dead”. Why just only one release?

Recording was much more expensive in those days. We made demos in rehearsal rooms on my Fostex 4-track cassette deck, but to get something that could be played on the radio you really needed a studio.

We recorded “The Dog Is Dead” at a 16 track studio in someones back garden in Camden, but it does sound a bit feeble. We did attempt to record a follow up and did some recording at the original Toe Rag studio in East London with Liam Watson. It was an old analog studio with lots of vintage gear, some from Abbey Road. We were never very happy with the song and though we tried several times we never got it right and gave up on it. I was never very good at song titles and it didn’t have a name when we were recording, it later became ‘Ishtar’ after the disastrous Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman movie that lost $42m at the box office. It was one of those songs that sounded pretty good live but we just couldn’t get it on tape.

In retrospect we probably should have just released it anyway, but as well as paying for rehearsal space and recording time, it was expensive to self fund a single releases – I can’t really remember but we just didn’t have the cash to put stuff out. Nowadays you can do reasonable quality recordings at home, upload it to Soundcloud, tell everyone on Facebook – it’s another world. But I do love having that 7” single!

++ Tell me about the songs on the 7″. What’s the story behind them? What they are about?

“The Dog Is Dead” was about relationships (of all sorts) that break down. How you start out all excited but can grow apart and let each other down. I was actually thinking about the band rather than a boy/girl type thing but it’s all the same really. The song turned out helping the band move on quite well.

The B-Side ‘Felt’ was another song without a name until Chris took the tapes to be mastered and he eventually had to come up with something to put on the label.

++ The single was released by your own label, Throb Records. I assume it was the only release on the label? And how did you enjoy doing the label part? Meaning distribution, promotion, etc…

I think Chris did most of the work concerning the label, getting the 7 inch pressed, getting distribution and promoting it. He was much better than us at that stuff – ringing people up, getting gigs and reviews. I was useless at trying to sell myself, but Chris is shameless about that kind of thing, he would happily tell anyone how great we were – you need someone like that in a band or you’re more or less doomed.

Actually Chris also taught me another valuable lesson when he headbutted a promoter who refused to pay us at a gig. The landlord paid us instead. Occasionally, if very rarely, violence is the only answer.

++ And who was in charge of the sleeve artwork? It’s a cool typography that you used!

I was talking to Chris about this recently, I thought it was his sister Sal, but he claims he did it himself, I guess it was probably a joint effort, they made cool stickers too which we covered the underground with.

++ Who would you say were the main influences of the band? And were there any like-minded bands in London during those days that you really liked and followed?

Realistically our main influences were probably Echo & The Bunnymen, The Waterboys, The Wedding Present, Lloyd Cole, The House of Love and REM although we all into different things. We were never part of any kind of scene. We played a lot with The Atomic Vicars who later became My Drug Hell, more because we were pals rather than being similar sounding.

++ Your first gig was at the Royal College of Art. Were you guys artists? How do you remember that first show?

Jab our drummer at the time was studying at the RCA doing Industrial Design and we played a couple of gigs in the Art Bar there which was fantastic. There was a captive audience as the bar would be full anyway I guess.

Two things I remember about the first gig were firstly I was using a guitar belonging to Steve Hillage who I was working for at the time. He lent me his lovely old Telecaster. The other thing was that Chris had made a big deal about looking good – we shouldn’t look like we’d just turned up from work – I can’t remember exactly what he told us to wear, but it certainly wasn’t the pink mohair jumper and plastic/leather trousers that he turned up in.

++ Did you gig a lot after that first one gig? Which were your favourite gigs and why? Any particular anecdotes you could share?

We played a lot around London from 1986 onwards. They varied hugely. It was so hard to get people to come to gigs – pre-internet, pre-mobile phone – it was endless phone calls and sticking up posters.

Actually making posters before computers was fun but time-consuming – lots of letraset and photocopying.- then going out at night and plastering them about town trying to avoid Police or worse the professional poster people who were not keen on you covering up their stuff.

I think the worst gig we ever played was somewhere over a pub in Balham or Tooting and there was literally no one there – not a soul, but we started, then the headline band (who were our pals The Atomic Vicars) wandered in and watched, then joined in – it was gloomy and hopeless.

We played at The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town endlessly – it always sounded terrible except one time when they lost most of the power and we played by candle light – that was a nice gig.

Most of the places we played have been demolished now – The Clarendon in Hammersmith, New Merlin’s Cave in Kings Cross – maybe it was to stop us coming back.

++ How do you feel about the terms C86 and/or indiepop? Do you think they fit The Blofelds?

I don’t think we felt any connection with the C86 thing – though I had the LP, although looking back we probably should have – we were pretty jangly. It’s hard to judge your own stuff isn’t it? I think we always said we were an indie band.

++ So what happened with The Blofelds? When and why did you split?

We never really split. We had became really good friends and still are. I don’t think we were ever especially ambitious – if we’d really wanted to get anywhere the others should probably have sacked me and got a proper singer and we should certainly have kicked out Chris for his terrible dress sense.

I guess we just got older and I had kids and stuff and we were less interested in playing live. Eventually we all left London – except Mark. I can’t even remember our last gig in London.

Another thing that happened for a while was that I think we became too concerned about trying to please other people, trying to write stuff that we thought people would like and I don’t think many people can do that. I really believe that you have to do what you love and just hope that other people will like it too – otherwise you just become a bad copy of someone else and lose whatever it is that makes you unique or different.

++ Though I’ve seen on Youtube a video of the reformed Blofelds? Will you play more shows or was it only for that special occasion?

You won’t be able to tell from the youtube clips as the sound is horrible, but the gigs we played at Nick’s wedding and then at my 50th birthday were fantastic – really good fun – we’d got past the stage of trying to impress anyone, we were just doing it for ourselves and really enjoying it.

When we played last September we hadn’t even been in the same room together for 10 years – so we hadn’t rehearsed together – Mark had never even played one of the songs – he’d only heard the tape we’d recorded with another drummer.

Naively we thought it would just work. We had an hour to set up the gear and soundcheck and we started and instantly we realised it was a terrible idea, we couldn’t get through a whole song, we were never the type of people who could improvise, we always needed a plan. Finally we managed to get through one song and decided to chance it.

Amazingly something magical happened when we played the actual set, it was great, so we did it again later – it was just fantastic to play these songs with the band again. I think we’d all like to do it again.

++ On your soundcloud there are many Blofelds songs. When were these recorded? Were they released in demo tapes? And how many more recordings are there from The Blofelds?

The stuff on Soundcloud was mainly old demos that we wanted to share between us as we didn’t all have tapes or cassette players anymore. There is some of my own post band stuff – it was really put on there to share with friends or people involved rather than for any promotional purposes – as you’ve probably gathered, that was never our strongest point.

There are loads of live recordings on cassette which are mostly pretty bad quality, but I might put up anything I can find that sounds reasonable, if I digitalize them at some point.

++ Have you ever thought of putting some sort of retrospective album at some point?

I wish we had done an album at the time, but I don’t think there’s much point now, it would only be vanity. I’m happy that there’s stuff online that people can download if they want.

++ And looking back in time, what would you say were the highlights of the band?

Our single was the real highlight – getting the boxes of 45’s, getting played on John Peel – him talking about us, reading out Chris’ ridiculous made-up press release – getting nice reviews for the single in NME and Melody Maker. Some gigs when you are playing and know that it’s working and it really is more than the sum of the parts and that feeling after a really good gig that used to last for days.

++ And do say, aside from music, what other hobbies and activities do you enjoy doing?

I love old cameras and photography. I’ve been making these 35mm film 3d wobblegifs on tumblr – it’s an old fashioned version of the future and mix of old and new technology – a 4 lens Nimslo film camera that takes 4 shots at once which you can then layer and animate in photoshop or display next to each other and get that ‘Magic Eye’ effect by going kind of cross-eyed – it’s really fun to do – http://johnnyhodgson.tumblr.com/

I play 5-a-side football every week – shouting at people and kicking a ball as hard as you can really is the best way to relax and let off steam.

++ One last question, tell me about your London (or if you are in Hastings now like it says in soundcloud?). Which are your favourite places in the city? Your favourite bar? favourite restaurants? or just your favourite place to go for a walk?

I love London, but I’ve lived in Hastings for 12 years and it feels like home. It’s the perfect size town – you see people you know everytime you go out but being by the sea there’s space. The sea looks different every day, I’d find it hard not to live by the sea anymore. I always felt that if you’re going to live on an island, you might as well live by the sea. Unless I had my own wood – that’d be great!

++ Thanks again John! Anything else you’d like to add?

The only useful thing that’s ever come to me in a dream. It was when we were still playing. In my dream The Blofelds were appearing on The Ed Sullivan show – just like the Beatles, and Ed introduces us saying, “And now from England, The Blofelds, playing their number one smash hit, ‘Tell ‘em it was me who told ‘em it was you…’”

I woke up, remembering the song title, but nothing else about it and thought, this is it, I just have to write this song “Tell ‘em it was me who told ‘em it was you” and it’ll go to number one and everything will be great!

So I tried to write the song, but it wasn’t really happening and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work until I realised I could just make that the name of the last song I wrote – which I happened to really like. It’s still my favourite Blofelds song though sadly it failed to get us on TV (in black and white, in the sixties)

Thanks Roque!

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Listen
The Blofelds – The Dog is Dead

Thanks so much to Lee for the interview! Kind were a great indiepop band from the late 80s that had a bunch of song on many Waaaaah releases, sharing 7″s with the likes of The Dufflecoats, Strawberry Story, The Cudgels and more. I always wondered why there werent more releases, and why were they so obscure, being their songs so good! So here are some answers for that and many other questions!

++ Hi Lee! Thanks a lot for being up for an interview! How are you? When was the last time you made music?

If fine thanks. How are you?

The last time that I made music was last week. A neighbour asked me and my partener to joine her and a couple of friends to come over to her house for a singsong. So I took my guitar and joined the others to play some old classics. ‘Days’ by The Kinks, Head and Heart by John Martyn, Northern Sky by Nick Drake, Coz I Luv U by Slade etc.

++ I’ve only heard 4 songs from your band Kind. All scattered in many of the Waaaaah releases. The question is, why didn’t you get to release a record of your own? Was there any plans?

The short answer is lack of funds.There were plans for a single release of a single called Swelter b/w Whirlpool Kisses but nothing came of it.’

++ In the Waaaaah page it says you only recorded one demo tape. Do you remember which songs were there? And does this means that you don’t have any more songs recorded?

There was the two songs mentioned in the first question plus about another 20 ready for recording. Other songs that I can remember off of the top of my head were, ‘Catherine Will’, ‘She Flies’, ‘Promises Made’, and a cover of Galaxie 500’s ‘Snowstorm’.

++ So let’s go back in time, who were Kind? What instruments did you each play and how did you all know each other?

Kind were Lee (Me) – Rhythm and Lead Guitar , ‘Strobe’ (1988-89) Vocals- Lead and Rhythm Guitar, Michael – Bass, Sharron – Vocals (1990-92), Adrian (1989-90) and Tim (1990 – 92).

The band was formed in early 1988 by myself and ‘Strobe’. We had become friends because we would end up at every indie gig in around London. I remember discussing starting a band when we were at The Camden Falcon after watching The Pastels. We rehearsed at Strobe’s
parents large house in Hayward’s Heath in Sussex. We started off sounding like a strange hybrid of The Stooges, The Pastels, The Velvet Underground and The Seeds.

++ And was this your first adventure in music or you had been in other bands before?

I was in a band in the mid 1980s called President Joe. Were influenced by Nick Cave, Birthday Party, Crime and  The City Solution. Lime Spiders, Bowie, Einstruzende Neubauten, The Triffids, Joy Division etc. We then met up with Robert Hampson and Becky and formed a band called Mary aged 31/2 but nothing came of it. Robert went onto form Loop and the rest is history as they say.

++ Whereabouts in the UK were you based by the way? What were the cool places to hang out or watch bands play in your town?

We were based in Deptford/Bermondsey in S.E. London. There were a couple of places that were O.K. The Deptford Albany put on many gigs. I saw The Fall, Nico, and The Slits amongst many others there. Another venue was called ‘A Million Rubber Bands’. So many great bands played there from the late 80s – early 90s. These included Bongwater, Perfect Disaster, Kitchens of Distinction, Blur, God Bullies, The Chills, etc. Deptford had a reputation for music for years. My grandparents met at the local dancehall where the entertainers of that era (1930s) played. Deptford is probably most famous music-wise for the bands that came through during the punk era. The label, Deptford Fun City, was home to Alternative TV and Squeeze (both local bands). Other bands that came out of Deptford were Dire Straits, The Flying Pickets and The Fabulous Poodles.

++ If it’s not much trouble care to tell me what’s the story behind each of the released songs “Disdain”, “Breathe into Me”, “Emily” and “The House (A Dream)”? It can be short!

I’ll give it a go….
Emily was written about a friends relationship with a rather shallow girlfriend. She would be really nasty to him and when he would challenge her behaviour she would  burst into tears and throw a strop. BTW, Emily wasn’t her real name.

Breathe Into Me is about 6th sense. Having ‘that’ feeling that something is about to happen and what is about to happen isn’t very good.

Disdain is about how quickly life can change and making the most of a good situation.

The House (A Dream) is about a recurring dream that my grandmother, mother and myself had. My version of the dream is quite literally spelled out in the song. I would be on the top of a hill looking down into a valley where a white house was situated. I was then standing by a window that beyond was something that wasn’t pleasant. The song was an exorcism. Since writing it I have never had  the dream…. Psychoanalysts make of that what you will.

++ Who would you say were your influences then? Which bands from that period did you really like? Did you follow any?

The band had common influences in The Pixies, Throwing Muses, Galaxie 500 and The Kitchens of Distinction. I was very influenced by bands on the Flying Nun/Expressway labels. The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, Gordon/Bailter Space, The Bats, Tall Dwarfs, Doublehappys and The Able Tasmans. I also loved (and still do) The Go Betweens. Other bands included Sonic Youth, The House of Love, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Momus, The Pastels, Jesus & Mary Chain etc. I didn’t follow many bands but roadied for The House of Love for a couple of weeks. They were friends and asked if I could help out on a mini tour around England sometime during 1988.

++ Tell me about gigs! Did you play many? Which were your favourite gigs? Why?

We played mainly in and around the London area. We did a couple of gigs in the Midlands. I suppose we must have played getting on for about 100 gigs over the four years that we were together. One of my favourite gigs was at The Camden Falcon supporting Motorcycle Boy (ex Shop Assistants). The place was packed and,although we didn’t play that well, the atmosphere was great. The was a band called Birdland in the audience. who really got off on us and their manager showed some interest in signing us. We also had interest from Cherry Red Records but nothing came of it because ‘Strobe’ left the band a bit later and those labels didn’t like the direction that we subsequently took.

++ So how did you end up being in touch and putting your songs out with Richard from Waaaaah?

We played a few gigs at the Deptford Fountain. Richard put these gigs on and he built up a roster of bands which recorded for Waaaaah / Bring on Bull Records.

++ I told a friend of mine that I was writing some questions for you and her being a big fan of Waaaaah, had so many questions. Hope you don’t mind! First, if you considered yourselves part of a scene at all? Maybe of that ‘cutie’ scene that is mentioned on the Waaaah zines?

We were never part of the ‘cutie’ scene. We were too noisy for that lot. If we were part of a scene it was  the one that was coming out of S.E. London. There were some great little groups around at the time. Bands such as Lavern (sic) and Shirley and Rebecca Fishpond. If we had to align ourselves to a scene it would have been that Sarah Records scene if you like.

++ Secondly, there’s this idea that Waaaaah positioned themselves as antagonists of Sarah Records, crashing even the Sarah Christmas Party in the Waaaah bus. Did you partake of this event? And if so, care to tell the story?!

I don’t know anything about that. I remember Richard booking a couple of Sarah bands to play The Deptford Fountain.We supported St. Christopher and some other bands. The Sarah management were going to come and see us there but I heard that they didn’t make as their car broke down. Perhaps something more sinister happened….

++ And last but not least, were there any girls that inspired you? who did you make fun of? who were you jealous of? did you write many fanmail? was there anyone in the scene who missed the mark? did you ever wish to have been part of another band?

The name of the band was inspired by a mates girlfriend who told us that when she and a friend were little they had an imaginary band called Kind. Miki and Emma from Lush were an inspiration and good drinking buddies for a while. Lesley Langton and Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses and Kristen Hirsh were great influences too.

Never make fun of anyone, you never know the situation that they are in. Never be jealous of anyone. Jealousy is shallow.

There were a few unsigned band that missed the mark. Lavern (sic) and Shirley and Rebecca Fishpond I already mentioned. There were bands that I followed that I thought would go onto do great thing but never did including Perfect Disaster.

When I was in my early teens I wished to be in all of the bands that I loved. But if push comes to shove I would have loved to be in any of Bowie’s bands upto and including Scary Monsters, Super Creeps.

++ Now I wonder, as Waaaaaah would make these ace fanzines that actually looked more like proper magazines, how was your relationship with fanzines? Did you ever do one?

I helped out on a couple. One of which was centered on the New Zealand Scene and The early Seattle scene. The fanzine was called ‘The Hog Butcher’ and it was the brainchild of a friend called Bob Taylor. We interviewed many bands including The Bats, The Chills, Kramer (Bongwater), Steve Albini and Sonic Youth amongst others.

++ And well, in general, looking back to those days, what would you say was the biggest highlight of Kind as a band?

When we were recording Disdain, all the staff of the studio came into the control room to watch. Michael and I were recording the intro to a click track and I looked up too see the engineers and other staff all grooving away. That gave me such a rush that was so enervating that I was walking on air for weeks after.

++ This might be a bit too much of a wishful question, but have the idea of reforming someday crossed your mind?

About a year after we split we were approached by Atlantic records to play the New York New Music Seminar supporting The Lemonheads. Atlantic had heard our songs through the American College Radio Network. We had a couple of ‘hits’ on the network. Emily was No.1 for quite a few weeks and Disdain was a top 3. We had a chat about it but we had moved on didn’t fancy auditioning a new singer (more of which in the next question). Michael and I had formed a new band called Fuzz Aldrin(no recordings exist) and we had taken a different musical path.

++ So when and why did you split then? Are you all still in touch?

Sharron got pregnant and wanted to take time away to bring up her child. The rest of the band carried on without her for a while,  recording new songs for the future but after a while we seemed to run out of steam. It simply came to a natural end.’

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies or interests do you enjoy doing on the day to day?

Now that I have become middle aged the hobbies of middle age have become part of my life. I have inherited the ‘green fingers’ of my father and grandfather and I love gardening. Musically, I have got heavily into modern jazz and 60s-70s soul music. I am an enthusiastic historian especially the history of London.I think that I may have become someone that, If I did make fun of anyone, it would be me

++ Thanks so much for everything Lee! Anything else you’d like to add?!

Thanks for the opportunity,Roque.

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Listen
Kind – Disdain