Anyone knows who were behind June Evenings? There is the one song I am aware of, just one… called “I Wasted All My Wishes On You” and as you might notice it is really great.

Problem is that even though it rings a bell to me, I can’t remember anything about them. My thinking is that it is not an old song. Not older than 15 years at least. Has to be from the 2000s. Maybe it was from one of those MP3 compilations that sometimes blogs would put together. Maybe?

The boy/girl vocals, the clear Sarah influences (think Field Mice, Brighter), and lo-fi recording make this a delicious slice of indiepop. But did they record anything else? Did they go to be in other bands?

Were they named after Air France’s song “June Evenings” perhaps? Where were they from?

The questions are many. I am just hoping someone remembers them and can give me a few details about this band.

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June Evenings – I Wasted All My Wishes On You

Dum spiro spero, which translates to “While I breathe, I hope”, is a Latin phrase of indeterminate origin. It is the motto of various places and organisations, including the U.S. state of South Carolina.

Next year I am going back to Manchester, I am very excited. I am going to see The Man from Delmonte at Band on the Wall on February 25. Will just be for a short time but I am hoping this time to see some of the sights. Last time I barely saw anything, it was too quick. Hope to see some friends too.

So far I am traveling solo, it seems not many indiepop kids from my generation are going to this gig. It seems the big crowd will be fans from the band’s heyday.

But today I want to talk about another band I’ve just discovered that hailed from the Manchester area.

Probably from Stockport, there was an 80s band with the name Dum Spiro Spero. They were formed by Simon Wroe on vocals and guitar, Isabel Keyes on vocals, James Michael on bass and Nick Berry on drums. To my surprise they released a 7″ in 1985 which makes them not as obscure as I thought they would be!

The “England Does Not Exist” 7″ came out on a label called Lizard Literature Records (LL 1). Probably it was their own, right? No other releases are listed for this label. Aside from the title song on the A side the record came with another track, the B side “The Hunter & The Hunted”.

The black and white sleeve shows headshots of all four members on the front, and on the back we find lyrics for the two tracks. We also find some credits, the band members names which I’ve shared and also that the record was engineered by Paul Machiavelli at Drone Studios in Manchester. The record is dedicated to Stephen Berry, and all songs are credited to Simon Wroe.

But then there’s the find… the tracks are online. They are on Isabel Keyes Soundcloud account. You can find both tracks from the 7″, “England Does Not Exist” and “The Hunter & the Hunted” as well as two other songs, “Tell Me” and “Looking for the First Time“.

One immediately wonders if these two extra tracks were a possible second single? Or maybe they were recorded as demos? Or even recorded at the same recording session of the 7” tracks?

There are no details.

What there is though are some other tracks from bands Isabel had been involved like two 80s bands The Blue Dolphins (the track “Secret” is very good) and Tortoise.

And that’s what I could find about them.

Maybe some of you have more details about this band who are categorized as a goth rock band on Discogs, but I didn’t think that was the case. But you tell me.

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Dum Spero Spiro – England Does Not Exist

Happy to new to all the indiepop fans out there.

I would love to do a recap for this year but it hasn’t been the most exciting to be honest.

It started quite great with the release of the Blind Terry 10″. But this also meant that Cloudberry was stopping. This was to be the last record by the label.

A bittersweet farewell, one I didn’t dwell much and didn’t make it a big deal. It was just an announcement for the few fans left out there.

I have continued the blog but with a slower rate of posts. Once a week, on Mondays, unless there was an interview.

How will 2025 go? I don’t know. I will try to continue the blog. Energy and time are two things I am lacking these days. But I try to continue being  in the loop with the indiepop scene. I am not too knowledgeable of the new things happening. My main event this year seems to be seeing The Man from Delmonte reform in Manchester in February. Other than that I have no plans at all. If any cool new band will come to NYC, I have no clue. Would be good to know though.

Yeah, that’s mainly it. I have lost touch with many people. I do think it has to do with indiepop interest waning around the world, the price of records and shipping, streaming platforms taking over physical records, and so on. Things are tough. And it is understandable.

But anyways, here is the last post of the year, see you in 2025!

When in 2018 Cherry Red released the 5 CD boxset compilation “Revolutionary Spirit: The Sound of Liverpool 1978-1988” (CRCDBOX 39) I discovered quite a few bands. One of them was The Press Club. They had contributed a superb track titled “James Where are You Now?” and of course caught my attention.

The band formed by the brothers Paul (vocals) and Alan Cunningham (guitar) plus Martin Wallace (bass) and Alan Murphy (drums) had released that track as a maxi single in 1985. It came out on The Admiralty Label (ADM 212) which I think may have been their own label, the releases are all The Press Gang’s.

With “James Where Are You Now?” on the A side and two tracks, “No Place Like Home” and “A Town by the Sea” on the B side, the band hoped to make a good impact. All three tracks had been recorded at Pink Studios in Liverpool on July 1985 with Gary Wilkinson as engineer and Eric Shark as producer.

It is also worth mentioning that on the record Dave Clark played fiddle and Bubble Hennigen guitar.

The art of the record has a photo of someone. Black and white. Is it James? I wonder if it is not a more important figure, it looks like it. But who could it be? Maybe British?

(EDIT Dec. 30, 11:29 a.m.) Just learned from our friend Cathal Peppard that “The James pictured on the artwork is James Connolly. He was a Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist from the early 20th century who moved to Dublin and was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising and a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. There is a statue of him outside Custom House and opposite Liberty Hall in Dublin.“

There are also interesting details on the runout grooves, we find there two messages etched, ‘Leave It! Theres Youngies Int.’ and ‘Give Em Plenty, One Each’.

But that was actually the band’s second release. The band had previously released another 12″ single that same year. This was the “You Know Falwell” single that had the title song on the A side and “51st State” and “Who Are You Trying to Kid?” on the B side (which here is the double A side). Engineered by Gary and produced by Eric, again recorded at Pink Studios but this time on January of 85.

This record was again put out by The Admiralty Label (PG001/12) and on the sleeve we find American motives, like a US flag covering the eyes of a man on the cover and stripes and starts on the back cover.

That was all the released output by this combo. Some of the band members were in other bands though, both Cunningham brothers were in the Glass Torpedoes in the late 70s while Alan Murphy was on The Last Poet and The Great Western Squares.

Anyone has any other details about them? Maybe there were more songs recorded? Would be great to know where are they now!

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The Press Gang – James Where Are You Now?

“Quinton are a band that came into being after The Sex Chimps… the lead singer is Andrew Woodward, brother of David” were the words from my good friend Matthew Rimell. He had shared with me a video of the band performing the Ashton Court Festival in 1991 which immediately caught my attention.

How come I have never heard the band?

I would notice that there are actually three videos of that gig. Here is part 1, 2 and 3. The uploader shares with us some details which are greatly appreciated. We learn the band hailed from Bristol, that they were formed in the early 90s, and that this gig was happening at the Richer Sounds stage on a Sunday morning in 1991.

We also get to know the band lineup, quite a start lineup… Andy Woodward on vocals, Tom Adams from Beatnik Filmstars on drums, Hugo Morgan from the Heads and Steve Yabsley from Rorschach and nowadays a BBC presenter.

The songs that are played at this gig include “Hanging On”, “Love Shine Down on Me”, “Are You Awake?”, “Butterfly Storm”, “Personality Zero”, “Instrumental”, “Surrealing” and an unknown track.

The band did release an album. It was titled “Propeller” and came out in 1990 on Pop God Records (PGLP 001). This label would release another Bristol band, The Family, that same year as well as releases by Rorschach, The Moonflowers and more.

“Propeller” had 10 tracks, “The Rake”, “Rediscover Me”, “Operation Rise”, “Weird Emotional Scar”, “She”, “Surrealing”, “The End of a Good Idea”, “Flying Very Fast”, “Love Shine on Me” and “Propeller”. All of the songs were written by Steve Yabsley with the exception of “She” that was written by Andrew Woodward and “Propeller” which was written by Cris Warren (Rorschach) and Steve.

500 copies of the album were pressed. It was recorded at P.IJ. Studios in Bristol in September 1990. The producer was John Parrish. The photography for the sleeve was done by Laura Dalgleish.

In what other bands were the band members involved? Steve was in Rorschach, The Harpoons and Nearly. Tom was in Beatnik Filmstars, Forest Giants, Kyoko, Secret Shine, The Fauns and The Total Rejection. Hugo Morgan was in Gonga, Karen, Loop and The Heads.

And that’s it. I haven’t heard the record yet. I should try to find myself a copy. Issue is of course the crazy shipping prices I want to avoid. Maybe when I travel to the UK in February I can find a copy. That’d be nice.

In any case I am curious about the band. If they recorded more songs. Also about the band they were in before, The Sex Chimps, my friend Matthew has spoken highly of them. Wonder if there are any recordings.

Maybe someone remembers them and have more details… let me know!

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Quinton – Are You Awake? (live at Ashton Court Festival 1991)

A Soundcloud account from the UK by someone under the nickname Lunar Jukebox has quite a few treasures.

Listening to the songs I find some quite interesting. The one band that catches my attention immediately is one that seems to be called Evry 5 Minits. That’s how it shows up. Or E5M. Is that their name really? Misspelled like that? I wonder…

I suppose that’s the one name we got, so we’ll use it. There doesn’t seem to be any other information about the band. We can hear the superb guitars and female vocals, a bit like The Primitives? Darling Buds? That style. Yes!

There are 5 tracks uploaded by this band. Possibly all hailing from the same demo tape. The songs are “Seal of Approval”, “Lucky Day”, “Get it Right”, “I’m Into You” and “Unobtainable”.

It is safe to assume though that there is a connection with the other bands in the Soundcloud account. These are Arch, Some Assault, Lunar Vibe, Moon Struck Too and The Attic.

I look for info about these other bands. Maybe I can find a connection.

I find a name that I think could be behind the Soundcloud account, Chris Finch.

And that’s where I hit a wall. I guess it may be a matter of talking to Chris and finding out more details about this band. If this was the right way to spell their name or maybe it was Every 5 Minutes or Every Five Minutes. Who knows.

In the meantime enjoy the songs, they are really nice!

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Every 5 Minits – Seal of Approval

I believe Öderland would translate as barren land. Is that right?

I continue exploring some compilation tapes of obscure bands and I’ve been mostly focused on the “Frischer Morgentau” tape that Ulli Hahndorf put together in 1993 under his Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1) label.

I have written, at least, about a half of the bands in this cassette. But there are still a handful of bands I don’t know nothing about. I wonder if it will be possible to find details about them online. Maybe?

Öderland appears on the A side of the tape with the song “Was Du Mich Kannst”. It is a nice lo-fi pop song with clear British indiepop influences. According to the insert that came with the compilation the band was based in Hamburg and featured Christian Neumann as its sole member.

The insert also mentions the existence of a few more songs, “Du Hast Die Welt in Deinen Bett” and “Was Soll Ich Hier”, and also one about Blumfeld’s Jochen Distelmeyer but no song title is given for this one.

The two other songs we know about would eventually find a release. Under a reworked title “Welt = Bett” it appears on “Ha, Ha, Funny Feeling!” the compilation tape that Meller Welle Produkte (MEL 15) released in 1994. And then “Was Soll Ich in Dieaser Stadt”, again a reworked title, appears on “Caught By the Warmth” a compilation tape released by Meller Welle Produkte (MEL 17) in 1997.

But here comes the surprise. It is in this “Caught by the Warmth” tape that the song about Blumfeld’s leader also gets released. It is titled “Ich Weiß, Wo Jochen Distelmeyer Icht” and I would really love to listen to it. Anyone could help me with that? I’m very curious about it!

So now we know, 4 songs in total. Probably from a single demo tape? And you wonder what happened to Christian Neumann? Did he continue making music in any other way? There are few Christian Neumann’s in Germany related to the music industry… so seems a bit hard for me to figure out what happened to him.

In any case this is more than I expected. I know there were more songs than the one I knew. Now, I need to track them down.

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Öderland – Was Du Mich Kannst

Can we translate their name as Armored Hearts? Or something like that?

Corazones Blindados was a Madrid band that was active between 1983 and 1985. They were formed by Danilo Peña on guitar and vocals, Santiago Agudo on bass and backing vocals and Alfonso Lantero on drums.

The band only released one record, a 7″ single that I highly recommend. This record came out on the label El Fantasma del Paraíso (FAN-010) in 1984. This label, founded by José Martínez Pujante, had started their run a year earlier, in 1983, releasing for example the legendary Spanish band Kaka de Luxe.

The 7″ single by Corazones Blindados had two songs, “El Parque Inglés” on the A side and “Tercer Conflicto” on the B side. The songs were recorded at Audiofilm studios in Madrid. The engineer for this record was Luis M. González while the producer was Roadrunner Jak and REDMAN (a team formed by Redi Hevia and German Torrellas).

Aside from this record the band also contributed their song “El Parque Inglés” to the compilation “El Fantastma del Paraíso” (FAN LP-2 / FAN CT-2), released by the same-name label that same year. This comp was released on both vinyl and cassette formats.

It is also worth mentioning that in 1984 the band play an important gig that celebrated the first anniversary of the fanzine “Escala Progresiva de Resistencia” in the mythical Rock-Ola, a venue where so many Spanish 80s legends played. At that gig they shared the bill with Alphaville and Esclarecidos.

Other gigs included one of them supporting Los Ilegales at the San Juan Evangelista school and also one where they played to more than 2,000 people at the Vistillas de Madrid. It is thanks to this last gig that they get approached by their label.

It is said that after the single the band was going to start recording an album. But looks like their was a problem with the band members. Danilo is sacked by Santiago and Alfonso. This seems odd as Danilo was the guitar player and composer, but that’s what I could find online. They replace him by Nacho Pérez Carles and Santiago becomes the vocalist. With this new lineup they record a demo that sadly the label didn’t like. On top of that the name of Corazones Blindados was owned by Danilo and he didn’t want to share it. So in the end there was no album. And the band splits.

It is also worth sharing the band’s promo video for the track “El Parque Inglés” (by the way the name of the songs translates to English garden). Cool to see them playing outside the Temple of Debod in Madrid.

The band members would also be involved in other bands. Alfonso had previously been in Rimmel and after the demise of Corazones Blindados, Santiago and Alfonso would immediately form a band called Dirigidos, and then Alfonso would join Ilegales. On the other hand Danilo, who had been in the amazing Zombies, would be in the band El Refugio. Worth also sharing this video of El Refugio playing live “El Parque Inglés“.

Maybe it would make sense to write about El Refugio at a later day too. The music is excellent.

Other bands Danilo was in include Sidecar and Escándalos.

Santiago would also continue making music after Dirigidos being part of bands like Ciudad Jardín, La Coartada and The Nativos.

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Corazones Blindados – El Parque Inglés

In the past I’ve written about quite a few bands that have appeared in the classic German compilation tape “Frischer Morgentau” that was released by Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1) in 1993. I’ve written about Die Wurzelsepps, Les Chaplinn’s, Friends Ahoi, Die Busfahrer, Moosblüten, Die Kupferschmiede, Fluffy Pillows and more. But there are still quite a few bands on that tape that up to this day remain a mystery to me. One of them is Black Cream who appear last on the tape with the twelfth song on the B side.

That song is called “Now, That I’m Gone” and it is really great. You wonder immediately where they were from. If German or maybe British. I can’t tell. I don’t have any other info about them. I know the cassette sleeve had some info about each band. And yes, up to this day I regret not getting a copy from Peter Hahndorf when I visited him in Breman ages ago. I didn’t like tapes then. Go figure. Peter, who is behind Twee.net, is the brother of Ulli Hahndorf who was behind the label Steinpilz Tonträger as well as compiling this tape.

Luckily Discogs has scans of all the tape booklet. There i find that the address for Black Cream is the same as for the label. Does it mean that this band was German? That it was Ulli behind this band? Ulli was also part of Moosblüten. It may as well be.

The little info that comes for Black Cream doesn’t reveals some interesting bits: “The song tells the story of someone leaving his lover from the point of view of the one walking away, instead of the typical perspective of the person who is left. The song was written 14 months ago after a concert of noise-pop band Resurface. Black Cream actually is no real band, it exists for this song only.”

So a one-off.

That’s sad. The song is great. At least I would love to find out if it was Ulli, or if it was someone else, behind this band.

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Black Cream – Now, That I’m Gone

I wrote time ago about Stephen’s Library and The Non Stop Kazoo Organization, the fine French bands, who featured Jacques Speyser. I eventually got in touch with Jacques but sadly never heard back about an interview we planned to do. So didn’t get up learning the details that perhaps would be good for this post.

Why? Because Les Molies was another of his projects. In this project he collaborated with Renaud Sachet who produced the first Stephen’s Library record. Renaud was also part of the band Buggy and Herzfeld Orchestra (where Jacques was also part of).

But that was not all. There were more people involved including Franck Marxer who was part of The Non Stop Kazoo Organization, Original Folks and Herzfeld Orchestra.

And there was also Jaqueline Yoesslé and Régine Yoesslé too in the band. Were they sisters?

One thing to mention though, their name appears as Les Mollies but also as Les Molies. What was the right way to write it?

Les Molies translates in English as The Mollies. What are mollies? They seem to be fish?

Poecilia sphenops, called the short-finned molly or common molly, is a poeciliid fish inhabiting freshwater streams, coastal brackish, and marine waters from Mexico to Colombia. The wild-type fishes are dull, silvery in color. The molly can produce fertile hybrids with many Poecilia species, most importantly the sailfin molly. The male mollies generally tend to be mildly aggressive.

In any case, the band released an album in their day. In 1994 the band released “Kumcat” as a CD on Cornflakes Zoo (Zoo 12). The album included twelve songs “Lucky Star”, “Speed Queen” (Etienne Greib from Temple Temple and Superdrug plays guitar in this track), “Beat of Your Heart”, “La Nuit Des Etoiles Filantes”, “Escalator”, “Stars Above”, “Summerside”, “Belong to You”, “Away”, “Yoyo Sista”, “Tell Me” and “Lucky Stars”.

The songs were recorded between August of 1993 and February of 1994 at Downtown Studio in Strasbourg by Didier Houbre (he also plays guitar on “Escalator” and Jew’s harp on “Summerside”). The art for the album was put together by Philippe Roure, the well known French designer.

The first appearance of the band happened in 1990 though. It was on “Heol Daou”, the legendary compilation tape released by Katiho (02). On this record comp the band contributed “It’s Playtime”.

Two years later, 1992, the band contributes the track “Smile” to “Whoops!” a compilation tape, released in France by Houpla (HOUPLA1). This compilation tape came with a booklet, I’ve never seen it, but maybe there are good details?

In 1993 the band has the track “Cha Cha Charlie” on “Ces Chères Têtes Blondes” which was a tape released by Cindie (CIN 01). The track the band recorded was an original by Pat Laureate from Melody Dog.

Les Molies would then appear on a triple 7″ compilation titled “The Onion Most Dangerous Game” in 1994. On this cool compilation released by Aliénor Records (Alien λ), the band had the last song and it was called “Bye Bye”. That same year the band contributed a track to “A Tribute to The Jesus and Mary Chain”. Their choice was “Jesus Sucks”. The compilation tape was released by Candy Chérie (001).

1995 sees the band appear on “Cosmic Shop”. This time as Les Molies, just one L. On this tape released in France by Paperplane (SC-02) the band has the song “Car Boot Sales”. Then that same year on the compilation “Bedroom Palace” on Lo-Fi Recordings (High2), another French label, the band has the track “J’en Ferais Bien Mon Quatre Heures”.

Then in 1997 the band has a track on a Spanish label. The compilation CD is called “U.F.O.logy.” and was released by Green UFOs (OVNI 003). Here the band had the track “Speed Queen”.

Lastly there is a compilation called “L’Éventail” that we don’t know when it was released. It came probably with a fanzine. The label listed for this tape is called Le Fanzine (060672FS) and hailed from France. The song Les Molies are credited for is called “Stars Above”.

And that’s really all we could find about this band. Wonder if we’ll find out more details later on.

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Les Mollies – It’s Playtime

Following the trail of stoneeyedkiller, I discover the Salford/Manchester band The Latest. He had shared the track “I Close My Eyes” on his Youtube channel and I was blown away!

I easily find the Soundcloud of Brian Larkin who now lives in Fahan, County Donegal, in Ireland. There I learn that he was behind this project. He was the bassist. That he was born in Salford in 1965 but grew up in Manchester. In the early 80s he had a band with his friends John McCann (vocals), Wayne Price (drums) and Chris Britton (guitar). That was The Latest. Then in 1989 he would leave England for Ireland.

On his Soundloud you will notice that he has done new recordings of the tracks of The Latest. The latest (pardon the pun) is actually a 2024 version of “I Close My Eyes“. It is nice, but I have to say that the version from Pluto Studios from 1986 is my favourite! From that same session there is another track called “Burned Out” which is as excellent.

I also read that “I Close My Eyes” was written by Brian and John McCann on lead vocals. This track helped the band win the battle of the band hosted by Piccadilly Radio. Winning that prize gave the band the opportunity to record the song in a 24 track studio with a guy that had worked on The Smiths first album.

There are a few other demos from the band. There is “The Sound of Corporation” and “Sale” dating from 1986. Songs are not separate, they are part of the same audio file, so just sharing one link. There is also another track called “I Confess” and maybe one track called “Damaged” (?) but it may just be that the file is damaged. I don’t have it clear. The sounds for these group of tracks is a bit different to the one of the first two songs.

Then there is a full gig of the band playing at Cloud 9 in Manchester on November 7th 1985. Sadly there is no tracklist to know the names of the songs being played but it is definitely worth the listen. Would have loved to be at that gig!

But that’s not the only gig shared, there is also one from June 22 of 1986 at the legendary Manchester venue The Boardwalk. Again no tracklist, but this is top music! So have a listen. At this gig the band was on the same bill as All Fall Down and The Danny Boys.

One thing I learn too is that Chris and Brian were Manchester United fans while John and Wayne were City fans. You can read a little bit more about how important was football for the band on Brian’s substack,

And that’s it. That’s what I could find about the band. Seems that Brian has updated his Soundcloud not too long ago, so hopefully we’ll learn more about the band soon. I read that the band had been reviewed by the NME, I wonder if it was a demo or a gig… I wonder too why they didn’t get to release any records… I wonder if we’ll find out!

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The Latest – I Close My Eyes