It is still quiet here. I did buy my Lush tickets for a concert that is still a year away. A bit crazy if you ask me. But that’s how it is in the days of modern capitalism. I don’t even book my flights with such anticipation. I did with Lush though. Who knows what will happen in a year time. Perhaps I have to be somewhere else other than NYC and they’ll probably keep my money if I can attend. Or I would have to sell the tickets to someone else for a lesser value. Ah! It makes me a bit annoyed but at the same time I’m really excited to see them!

Now I think I should start fixing my record room. It’s been messy for months and I have records in places they don’t belong. I need to do some sorting. Put the 7″s in alphabetical order at least. The CDs are growing everywhere and there are no shelves left for them. I need to invest in new shelving furniture in IKEA soon. Especially as boxes of Cloudberry stock are piled everywhere. As it’s also my guestroom in my small apartment, and assuming next year friends will come visit at least for NYC Popfest, I should fix this room soon! It’s not very comfy at the moment.

Then on Saturday I fly to Peru for a week. I guess it won’t affect any orders as there hasn’t been any on the past two weeks (!!!!). Cloudberry becoming less and less popular. These are the times we live in! But if you place any order next week, be sure they will be sent on the first week of December to your place.

I have booked a side trip too while in Peru. Can’t be all the time in Lima as I know it so well (though eating there is like paradise, everyday you can eat amazing and delicious dishes). I’ll be flying to Puno, so I can visit Lake Titicaca and the Uros people and their floating islands made of reed. Will also try to cross to Bolivia and see Tiawanaku. And in Puno visit Sillustani and Aramu Muru. Places so mysterious that I’ve always wanted to visit. Hopefully I don’t get any altitude sickness!!

And that’s what’s been happening. Don’t know of many new releases that came out the last week. Have you heard of anything worth getting? I still haven’t got my hands on the Sun Days and I feel it’s taking forever to get this record. It’s never on Jigsaw and not on Discogs either. I probably just need to make up my mind and order it all the way from Sweden. I think it’s the only record that has came out this year that I really want that I haven’t got.

Though perhaps that is not 100% true and now that December is coming and everyone starts doing their year end lists I will see what I’ve been missing.

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Mystery in indiepop is synonymous to Nomad Pop.

I heard this band for the first time on my Japanese “nemesis” PomPomTakashi’s myspace. I thought it sounds so fresh and fun. Trumpets here and there.

A nomad (Greek: νομάς, nomas, plural νομάδες, nomades; meaning one roaming about for pasture, pastoral tribe) is a member of a community of people who live in different locations, moving from one place to another. Among the various ways Nomads relate to their environment, one can distinguish the hunter-gatherer, the pastoral nomad owning livestock, or the “modern” peripatetic nomad. As of 1995, there were an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world.

Of course I don’t have any contact with Takashi. He hates everything about Cloudberry as he wants to keep his bands and discoveries secret or at least he needs to be credited as the great discoverer, the Columbus of indiepop. Bit childish. But it’s been a long time, perhaps he has changed, I don’t know. To be honest though, many indiepop collectors know about this record and I would love to own to have a copy.

The problem with this 7″ is that there is absolutely no clues on their sleeve to know who were Nomad Pop. We do know that they liked art. Their sleeve has two nice modern art paintings. One on the front, and one on the back. The one on the back is signed by a Caroline Hepburn. I looked for her, but no luck. There seems to be an actress that appeared on a movie called “One Night Stand” in 1997 alongside Dennis Quaid. But I assume that’s not her.

We do know that the record was released in 1986. The label was Redhouse Records (catalog RHR 1). And it included two songs. They were both A sides. The A one was “Dignity”, which I have never listened before, and “Best Man” as AA, double A side.

That’s really all there is for this band. I assume they were British. But that’s all I dare to guess. Does anyone remember them? Did they play many gigs? Did they record any other songs? Would love to know more about Nomad Pop!

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Listen
Nomad Pop – Best Man

Some weeks ago I wrote about The Divorce Brothers on the blog. Happily Ged Lerpinière got in touch with me some days ago and was kind enough to answer all my questions about the band in the 80s. It was great as I got some facts wrong on my post and now I know a bit about that scene of Dundee thanks to his thorough answers! Hope you enjoy reading it as I did!

++ Thanks so much Ged for the interview! How are you? It seems I totally got it wrong earlier on, you weren’t from Perth but from Dundee! Are you still based there?

I’m fine Roque thanks for asking. Yes The Divorce Brothers were from Dundee. I think only one of us lives there now. I live outside of Edinburgh.

++ How was Dundee back then? Were there any other like-minded bands? In what venues or places would you usually hang out?

Well Dundee was a lot of fun back then. The music scene was kind of centred around Fat Sams which still seems to be going strong. The Associates and Danny Wilson were contemporaries of ours and I’m sure you know all about them. We hung out with Gary Clarke, Ged Grimes and Kit from the Danny’s Ged is now bass player for Simple Minds. And The Divorce Brothers had a lot of cross over from The Associates. Billy was a pal and Alberts brother in law. Ian MacIntosh played guitar in the Associates, Roberto Soave played bass for them (good friend who turned out for us once or twice I think?) he also played with The Cure briefly. Liz McKenzie was Billy McKenzie’s sister. Jimmy McKenzie also played bass with us for a while towards the end. Martin Lowe also played guitar for us for a while and he made an album with the great Scottish Musician Martin Bennet in the mid 2000’s.

The other bands that were around were Sweden Thru The Ages led by Stephen Knight who is still making music and released an album ‘Rope and Vine’ last year which I recommend you look up on line. Inca Rhodes which featured Colin Knight and Setting Fires whose singer was Kim Pallas. I’m a bit hazy after that. Before this period 84-87 ish there were a lot of punks bands and before that big hitters like the Average White band also with Perth connections. Then Skeets Boliver, which featured the wonderful Marra brothers (Michael, Chris, and Eddie) amongst others.

++ Before The Divorce Brothers, were you involved in any other bands? Or was this your first experience in a band?

I had played drums and percussion in a pretty terrible free form mess called ‘The Soul Vibration Posse’ I think. The name was the only good thing about us. And I had played drums on a couple of bad demo recordings and did some working mens club gigs, but that is going back a long way and can’t remember much about them. Ian roped me in to the band to add some colour on percussion we were a gang as much as a band.

++ How did the band start? Where did you all meet?

Ian and Albert are brothers, Paul was their brother in law and Derek and I were pals of theirs. They had a previous incarnation as Loco Jonny Mince! I think; and you guessed it, that band featured another McKenzie; Billy’s brother John was the singer. But it kind of morphed into the Divorce Brothers.

++ And where does the name come from?

Well Ian was divorced and Albert was his brother I think Roberto Soave suggested the name I can’t remember exactly.

++ What bands would you say influenced your music back then?

A lot of what would be called ‘Indy stuff’ now, so yes the Associates as Ian supplied the guitar for many of the tracks on ‘Perhaps’ and toured with them and was involved in the writing. But we had lots of different ideas. Albert was very much of the rock and roll Eddie Cochrane and Punk ethic. Ian was into; Small Faces, Zombies, Steve Marriot stuff but also very classy pop so I remember we were very taken with The Propaganda Album ‘A Secret Wish.’ The Cure Album ‘Head on the Door’ was a big favourite as was ‘Stop Making Sense’ and ‘Remain in Light’ the Talking Heads ideas on rhythm interested me a lot, still do. Roxy Music were always an influence and Ian still thinks Avalon is one of the classiest albums ever made. I think we nicked the girl vocals on the end of the track Avalon for ‘To Understand’ (attached). We had eclectic taste though I went from The Clash and Ry Cooder to plenty far out prog and jazz stuff that everyone hated. But if It’s worth nicking you can find things in all sorts of places. Two of my favourite bands at the time were Microdysney and the Railway Children. Perfect pop music and some great lyrics especially Microdysney.

++ You only released one record in 1986. It came out on Separation Records. Who were they?

Separation records was our own label. We distributed it through something called the Cartel it sold poorly, very poorly.

++ What do you remember from the recording session for that record?

Gibson studios was a tiny space in Carnoustie so I remember it being small! The control desk was in a space under an elevated bed. I can remember doing the timbale break on To understand thinking I might bash my elbows off the wall. We had rehearsed and knew our parts but it was our first real experience but Ian had done it before so he was the ‘guvnor’. But to be honest its 30 years ago so pretty hazy.

++ There were 5 songs on the record, which one was your favourite and why?

Well I think we wrote some better songs later. I loved The Divorcee as this was the song we opened with and Paul and I would open up on percussion. But I think ‘To Understand’ is the best song. The Liquidator is our homage to Sergio Leonne.

++ And how did the creative process work for The Divorce Brothers?

Well it changed as we evolved. But originally Albert and Ian wrote everything and brought it to the group and we worked on refining it into structured songs everyone chipping in ideas. We rehearsed often in Fat Sams as Derek was also an employee there. Then later others started to bring ideas in, a bass line here, a groove there, a lyric or melody. But the Divorce Brothers EP is very much the MacIntosh brothers writing.

++ How did Liz, the sister from Bill McKenzie of The Associates, collaborated on the record? Were you from the same scene perhaps?

Well yeah as I say she was married to Albert and we all hung around together.

++ And what about the Soul Kiss Club that is thanked on the sleeve. How important was it to you guys?

That was Nick and Chris Wright who were a couple of friends who ran what would maybe called ‘Pop Up’ events now. They would hire say the Tayside Bar or The West Port bar and play music’. I think they put on bands occasionally as well so we probably played with them. I remember a great gig at the Blue Mountain pub where both of us were involved. Chris and Nick were good guys, great taste in music always something new, oh and Steff I think?

++ So what about gigs? Did you play many? Any anecdotes you could share?

Er yes we played many gigs over 100 I believe but could be wrong Ian probably knows. There are some stories that cannot be told or you and I would be sued! But the personnel changed and after Derek left. We got in a very good keyboard player Drew Scobie and at his first gig there was fight and Ian was hauled off stage, in his second a girl danced onto the stage and we all parted like the Red Sea and allowed her to dance in front of Drew and she started playing with his bald head, in the third he was accosted by a drunk in Peterhead who kept sticking his head in front of Drews keyboard so Drew couldn’t see what he was doing. I think Drew had a good time though! Our ‘manager’, a bloke who shall remain nameless, was also a bit of a spoofer (liar) so we could turn up at gigs and not know what he had told the management before we arrived. So we once saw a poster telling the audience to watch Top of The Pops on Thursday because we would be on it. It was all rubbish of course but maybe we got a few more quid as a result.

++ What about press then? Did you get much radioplay? Or perhaps appearances on magazines or fanzines?

Yes we got a bit of local air time Radio Tay and Radio Forth and it got played on Radio 1 I think but I might have imagined that. Ian and Albert occasionally get a cheque for 9p (not much) so someone has played the record every now and then. We had gigs featured in local press all over the place, the NME etc. Local fanzines covered us the names of which are sketchy in the memory I think 99 Free? called us ‘Ignoble’, we had to look it up! Albert and I took issue with the reviewer, we turned him upside down in Fat Sams and tickled him!

++ You were around during those mid, late 80s, there was a big explosion of guitar pop bands in the UK, so I think it’s fair to ask why do you think this happened?

I think that scenes develop for lots of reasons most are a reaction to what went before. What went before was Wham and a lot of glossy horrible pop, what went before Punk was overblown Symphonic rock. Fashion I suppose. There will always be guitar bands it depends what you do with it as to whether it’s popular or fashionable which are not the same thing And neither of those things necessarily make you good!. The Stone Roses were I suppose the epitome of cool at that time. But you can hear, The Byrds, Small Faces, The Who in that sound but after that they went a bit Dance orientated as a response to the fashion, and the drugs at the time.

++ You were telling me you recorded many more songs. Were they sold on demo tapes perhaps? Or perhaps they haven’t been heard yet by the no one? Do you remember the names of them?

There are some demos’ and if I can get them into some form of digital format I’ll see if we can forward to you but most of it is lost I think. The names: There is: ‘Experience’ which is groove and bass thing, ‘Shake the hand of a Millionaire’ which would have been a number one on all continents and made us Millionaires (maybe `8¬) )’One Night in a small Town Cabaret, ‘Go’, ‘You bring out the worst in me’ and some others I can’t remember.

++ And why didn’t you release these songs?

We were falling apart in about 1988 as we had to get on with our lives. It started to be not that important; that and we were not very well organised. We didn’t get signed so we didn’t have the energy to try again. We didn’t want to be the guys in the bar who people would mutter at ‘Jesus give it up guys’.

++ Was there ever any interest from other labels?

Yes we had a show case for Warner Brothers and London records. London records ‘apparently’ decided to spend the money on Love and Money instead. Some you win. But it was already becoming a bit of challenge to keep the enthusiasm going at this point. And I think a lot of the responsibility was falling on Ian which wasn’t fair.

++ Have you ever thought in maybe putting together some sort of compilation of all Divorce Brothers songs?

No as I can’t find much more than 8 tracks. I don’t think it has crossed anyone’s mind. Who would listen to it? But if we do you’ll be the first to know Roque.

++ So when and why did you split?

Split is a bit dramatic. The Divorce Brothers petered out in about 1988. Ian and I went into education, Albert concentrated on his business, I have lost touch with Drew, Paul was already an engineer doing very well and Derek left to work in the entertainment business.

++ Were you all involved with music after The Divorce Brothers?

Well in about 2010 Ian and I formed a band called Sinderins with our friend Ian Caddell, who sadly passed away in 2011 we have some demo’s and I’ll see what I can come up with for you. Attached is a file of a song Ian and I recorded a few years ago I’m singing, did the drum pattern and a bit of percussion, Ian played everything else. I wrote the song in response to the summer 2011 riots in England. Hence ‘5 Days in July’. We performed briefly as ‘The Jyne’ with two other friends but this split in 2012.

I played in Steve Knights band ‘Any Wednesday’ and have sat in as dep drummer for loads of people. But having kids takes up time and joining a band is a big commitment. Ian more or less gave up music after he qualified as an Engineer until I persuaded him to join Sinderins. He remains a great musician in my book.

++ Are you all still in touch? What are you up to these days?

I work in Education.

Ian is an Engineer running his own business. Albert still runs a business in Dundee and I’ve seen him recently. I keep in touch with Derek but don’t know what happened to the other guys. Maybe I should use Facebook? And sadly some of the people mentioned above are no longer with us.

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you enjoy doing?

I am an artist http://www.marchmontgallery.com/Lerpinire-Ged(2386281).htm I have two exhibitions next year and will be exhibiting at Summerhall Gallery in Edinburgh on the weekend of 22nd November. And I run a lot.

++ I’ve been to Scotland a couple of times and I love it, never to Dundee though. Wouldn’t mind some tips on what to see and what’s traditional to eat there?

In Dundee!! You should eat: Pies, White puddings and Sare heid Cakes (sore head cakes) pretty unhealthy food!

Have a walk up the Law and you can see for miles around. I used to drink in the Tay Bridge Bar which is immortalised in song by the wonderful Michael Marra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X0rqVVAmXw

++ And one last question, looking back, what do you think was the biggest highlight for The Divorce Brothers?

I really enjoyed the gigs and being the first Dundee band to headline Fat Sams Dance Factory and hanging out with my friends. It was all part of growing up.

++ Thanks a lot! Anything else you’d like to add?

No just hello to Paul, Ian, Derek, Abe, Drew, Roberto, Bryan McDermott, Alison Burns and Martin Lowe who were all Divorce Brothers at one time or another and I didn’t mention Irene so hello Irene.

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Listen
The Divorce Brothers – That First Kiss

This past week has been a very quiet week for the label. Not so much for indiepop as the Sarah Records book and DVD are out now. I have ordered the DVD and waiting for the book to be out in the US so I can order it from Amazon probably. But as I don’t have them with me yet, can’t really give an honest review! So I’ll wait for them first before rambling!

Then there has been some interesting releases that I’ve picked this last week. One was the Saint Marie Records reissue of Secret Shine’s “Untouched” album (the CD version, vinyl was already sold out). Another was the new and second album from De Montevert (titled “De Montevert”) on Nomethod Records. And last but not least The Stems’ “1984 • 1987” book and CD on High Voltage. On top of it all I manage to get the “Only Ugly People Smoke” album by Nixon at last. I think it was a good shopping spree as I didn’t even put a food in any record store in Italy while on vacation.

In two weeks I’m off again for a small vacation, a week in Peru. Mostly visiting Lima but also doing a side trip to lake Titicaca. Very excited about that trip as I always wanted to go there. Hopefully upon my return the Don’t Cry Shopgirl will be arriving home. That would make me super happy!

So this post will be short then, as I want to write questions for a couple of bands I plan interviewing. I’ve sent a bunch of questions in the last months to different bands, but many haven’t send them back. Which is a shame. But I keep trying in finding out the whole story, the full picture, of the bands, the scenes, indiepop in general. Maybe one day, as Jessel always asks me, this will become a proper book.

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I was looking onto some bands I have on a long list. A list of bands I want to know more about them, that they are obscure and have so little written about them on the web. Mostly from the 80s and mostly from the UK. One of them was The Lovehearts.

As far as I know they only released 2 songs. Both of them appearing on a compilation called “The New Bowery” that was released by Tees Beat Records  (TBLP 1) in 1984.

The Bowery  is a street and neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north,[1] while the neighborhood’s boundaries are roughly East 4th Street and the East Village to the north; Canal Street and Chinatown to the south; Allen Street and the Lower East Side to the east; and Little Italy to the west.

I’m quite familiar with the Bowery. Why a label in the UK called the compilation like that, and even included a photo of the Empire State building on the back baffles me. I have no clue. I don’t own the record, but there’s a very blurry photo of the back sleeve on Discogs. I can read something about the Bowery during prohibition. It seems they are relating the Bowery art and creative scene with that of Teeside. Teeside being the New Bowery.

Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Billingham, Middlesbrough, Redcar, Skelton-in-Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Thornaby and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of Teesside. Teesside remains an important centre for heavy industry, although the number of people employed has declined. Traditional industries, primarily steelmaking (‘British Steel’) and chemical manufacture (‘Imperial Chemical Industries’ or ‘ICI’), have been replaced to a large extent by high technology activities, science development and service sector roles.

Interesting, right? On this LP, we also find other bands like Flower Drum People, Gunboat Johnny, Tec, Must Valk and Dogflesh. It’s really a post punk record.

The best song on the record, I think, without a doubt is The Lovehearts’ “Love Holds Out”. It’s great! Guitar pop, with male vocals and those girl choruses that I love. A true lost classic.

The other song that they included was “It Doesn’t Matter at All”, a pretty but much mellow song.

All songs on the record were produced by Dimmer Blackwell and they were recorded at Teesbeat Recording Studio between May and June of 84.

As I couldn’t find information on the band I went into digging about this label. On a forum I found this:
Boro_Calling: Dimmer’s Teesbeat studio. (not to be confused with Teesbeat Records wot I ran – Dimmer kindly asked my permission to use the name as I had wound up the label)
The studio grew out of the ad hoc set up that Dimmer had on the family farm in Norton, he moved to a room above Pharoes night club opposite Maxwells Corner in Stockton, where he stayed for several years. He released 3 or 4 compilation LP’s featuring local bands with titles like “All Friends In The Bath” and “The New Bowery”. Later he moved to new premises by the Riverside in Stockton (near where that old boat is moored), and then to the old Radio Tees building in Dovecot Street.
He stayed there until around 1994, releasing a compilation CD of local bands called Whispers and Screams. He also recorded Tony Christie (Amarillo) and did the live sound for Roy Chubby Brown.
Of course he did much more but I’m just picking out stuff from my memory.
The studio closed down and Dimmer worked at TFm as a sound engineer, editing broadcasts and jingles etc.
I haven’t seen or heard from Dimmer for a few years now, I understand he got married again and is living in Norton.

And that’s when I hit a wall. Nothing more about the label or the band. I wonder if anyone knows anything else about The Lovehearts? If they recorded any other songs? Did they participate in any other compilations? And if maybe they released anything on their own? Would be great to learn a bit about this long lost band.

Edit: Kevin McGrother, our good friend, just emailed me and told me some interesting facts: “I actually played violin on the two tracks on The New Bowery. The band had a brilliant front man – Sean Brockbank”

Edit Aug. 1 2021: Found a Soundcloud page with many songs by The Lovehearts: “It Doesn’t Matter at All”, “Love Holds Out”, “Coming Home”, “Flicking Through a Lifetime”, “So Fine”, “Roll back Those Years” and “Fall Down”.

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Listen
The Lovehearts – Love Holds Out

Now we start November. Almost done with 2015 and it looks like it was a good year afterall, with more releases than I expected. I thought I’d be putting something like around 3 records out this year, as things have been slower than usual but in the end there are going to be around 5 to 6 releases (if you count Parcel Post) out this year, with Suncharms to be released in January very early next year. So it’s kind of like 7! That’s a good amount! I’m happy and proud!

This past week, after my vacations, indiepop came back to my life. On Thursday I met with my friend William Jones, the great songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, you name it, behind one of my favourite bands ever, Friends. We had some Mexican dinner and some beers. He was here in the city for the marathon. Yup. He was going to run yesterday, on Sunday. It was quite interesting for me as I didn’t know all the logistics, and the process, and even the organization that goes behind the most important marathon in the world.

Among the most amazing facts that surprised me was that the runners have to be at 6am at the NYC Public Library, at the main building in Manhattan, so they can take free buses to Staten Island. Then after arriving there, they just wait. Wait until it’s time to start the race. Seems like so much pain! It’s so early! Couldn’t they just get the bus at 8am? How can someone go running if they wake up at 5am or 4am to be ready to catch the bus? A cool thing though was that your bag that you take with yourself to Staten Island, then you can pick it up after the race in Central Park. That seems organized.

On Friday I went to see Joanna Gruesome at Rough Trade. Expert Alterations were playing much earlier, at 7pm, at the same venue their release gig. Sadly because of work I missed them, but got to see the guys after at the Joanna Gruesome gig and secured their new release, and their back catalog that I was missing. On top of that, some posters too. With Joanna Gruesome, well, I already have all their releases, minus the Trust Fund split one (I dont like Trust Fund, but I should have bought it, I know), so I bought a t-shirt. A black t-shirt of course. Then talked a bit with one of the new vocalists and she was nice, was telling me she wasn’t Welsh, as I assumed, but from the north, from Manchester. Cool beans. The gig was very nice and shouty as expected, but it seemed a bit short to my friends. I thought it was fine. Oddly there was no encore.

And then on Sunday I went to see the marathon around Queensboro Plaza. There was very loud music, songs like “We Will Rock You” or “Eye of the Tiger” were pounding on the streets. A huge crowd was cheering the runners. And me, with this new app William had told me about, was tracking him. That was really cool. I couldn’t take a photo of him, and I regret that. Thing is, I started shouting “William!, William!” as soon as I saw him sporting his Torino FC kit and keeping his pace. He didn’t hear me the first time around, so instead of taking a pic I kept shouting until he noticed me and waved back! Then he kept running towards the bridge, towards Manhattan. That was really cool.

I loved the atmosphere at the marathon. It seemed like a party! Even I thought of the Rio carnival when I saw the runners. They were all so happy, some were dancing, waving or singing so loudly. They were having so much fun. Some of course were focused, some others very tired and walking a bit. They all dressed whatever they wanted. I saw a psychadelic skirt, Sweden jerseys, Denmark socks, German flags and so on. Some even carried video cameras. Others were Facebooking. It was so much fun that I would love to participate if not next year, then the next. I guess I need a lot of training but, it looked like a great experience.

And that was it. It was a good weekend. How was yours? Did indiepop came back to your life as well?

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So because of the week’s visit, I thought checking out a band from the Summerhouse stable that I barely know anything: Quinn the Eskimo. When I asked about them to William on an interview we did he told me:

Quinn The Eskimo were from Newcastle and were recommended to us by Red Rhino, who gave me a tape of their album, which was fully recorded but unreleased as they had no label. It was acoustic indiepop/rock, and if you want a comparison I’d relate it to Miracle Legion who I thought were great. I liked it and thought it was just right for the label. Again it got caught up in the Red Rhino debacle, and we never got back the unsold copies to remarket. We didn’t keep in touch and I don’t know what happened to them. No, there won’t be any CD.

I still don’t own their LP. I believe that’s all they released.

They took their name from a Bob Dylan song it seems:
“Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)” is a folk-rock song written by Bob Dylan and first recorded during The Basement Tapes sessions in 1967. The song was first released in January 1968 as “Mighty Quinn” by the British band Manfred Mann and became a great success. It has been recorded by a number of performers, often under the “Mighty Quinn” title.

The LP “The Mountain is a Dandy” (Summershine 002) was released in 1988. It included 10 songs: “Samantha Rain”, “Breathing”, “Big Hedge”, “The Haymaker”, “Like a Flame” on the A side, and “Eternity”, “Once Upon a Day”, “The Wreck”, “Eastwood” and “The Importance of Being Honest” on the B side.

The artwork is credited to Dawn Main, the photography to David Lyons and Event Horizons. The producer was Quinn the Eskimo (with some tracks produced by John Steel who produced some stuff for Martin Stephenson and the Daintees). The engineer for most of the tracks was Ian McKie while for A1 and B2 was Martin Holle.

The band members were:
Dave Cook on vocals
Richard Scott on guitar, vocals and mandolin
Graeme Cooper on bass guitar
Ken Goodinson on drums

Strange thing is that lyrics are credited to Andrew Wilkie as he doesn’t appear to be part of the band. There was also some piano played by Martin Holle and John Steel. The record was produced at Cluny Studio in Newcastle and also at Desert Sounds in Felling. On the back sleeve there are photos of all the members but Richard Scott. There’s a drawing of his face instead.

On the Summerhouse page there’s a small press note about the record that says:
Quinn The Eskimo’s only recording on Summerhouse was a classic set of acoustic guitar-based pop songs, drawing on the English folk tradition and American guitar rock to produce a refreshingly original sound that is hard to locate in any particular era. Ranging from the upbeat pop of Samantha Rain and Once Upon A Day, through the dreamscape of The Haymaker to the folky barnstorm of The Wreck, the album is a one-off gem which was never to be followed up.

Also there we find a bunch of reviews of the record on this page.

Aside from that I couldn’t find much more online. So I wonder if anyone know whatever happened to them? If they ended up releasing any other songs? Or if they went to form another band? Were they involved in bands before Quinn the Eskimo? Or if anyone has a spare copy that would like to find a home in NYC?

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Listen
Quinn the Eskimo – Samantha Rain