Thanks so much to Johan Gille for the interview! Got in touch with Johan thanks to the Watermelon interview. Thanks to that, he noticed I had written about his old band Théhuset on the blog. I was very happy to be able to ask all of these questions as that one release they put out was quite a mystery to me. Even better, to discover there are more songs by the band, and finally seeing photos of the band, has been quite a treat! Also so you know Johan has been in another classic band, Able, who are still going and who we’ll be doing an interview very soon too! Check them out! Hope you all enjoy reading the story of this obscure but fantastic Uppsala, Sweden, band!

++ Hi Johan! Thanks so much for getting in touch! How are you? Where are you at now? Still in Uppsala?

Hi Roque, and thanks to you! I’m in Uppsala, doing my duties at the university, bringing up kids, playing music, generally living.

++ You got in touch thanks to the connection with Erik from Watermelon Men, how lucky for me. But how did you two know each other? Did you ever make music together?

I moved to Uppsala to study, and I started studying Spanish. Erik was in the same course, and we became friends. He was a bit older and had been playing quite a while with Watermelon Men by then. He opened my eyes to a lot of things, and I’m very grateful for it. We played a few gigs as an acoustic duo, mostly covers as I remember it (singer/songwriter stuff, The Church, sixties pop…). I bumped into Erik the other day, it’s great that he’s making music again (with Distant Days).

++ Are you all from Théhuset still in touch to this day? What are you all up to?

Not that much, to be honest. It’s been a long time, and we all live in different parts of the country by now, but we get in touch every now and then.

++ You are still making music with Able right now right? Would be great to do an interview later about Able, but at this moment, what is coming up for the band?

Yeah, we are actually, and it feels great. Over the winter we’ve been recording songs for a new album, and we’ll continue with that until we’re satisfied with it. After that, we’ll see what happens. We played a show just the other week, and it felt fantastic. We’d love to play in New York. 🙂

++ Let’s start from the beginning. Like what are your first musical memories? What was the first instrument did you get and how? 

Oh, wow. I remember having a plastic toy guitar by the age of three. My parents played a lot, especially my father, who had been in bands since the 60’s, and was out playing every other weekend. So music was a natural part of life growing up. His father (my grandfather) had played in bands since the 30’s, and his parents in turn met when playing in some religious context back in the late 19th century. I started taking guitar lessons by the age of 8, and kept playing though I gradually moved away from playing music on sheets. I wanted to get closer to the magic of songs. I was intrigued by that. How do you write a song? A bit later, when I was 13 or so, I started studying Paul Simon’s songs, and then I wrote my first songs. Which were pretty horrible.

++ Had any of you been involved with other bands prior to Théhuset?

Some of us did actually play in a band in Borlänge (where I grew up, two hours north of Uppsala) before Théhuset. It was called Projekt Byrån, but we didn’t have a clear sense of direction, to put it diplomatically. When some of us started to figure out what kind of music we wanted to make, there was a flurry of activity for a while. There was one band called Barking Up The Wrong Pyramid, which eventually led to Théhuset being formed.

++ How was Uppsala back then? Were there any bands that you liked? What were the good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Théhuset was actually formed in Borlänge, we relocated a bit later. Borlänge was a pretty good place to be in a band back then. Not that there were many (or any!) bands around that we felt similar to, but there were a few places to play, and a good crowd at most of them. The music scene there was generally more oriented towards heavier stuff. A lot of heavy metal. At the time, Sator (Codex) were making their first records, Blue For Two were also getting a lot of attention. We played softer pop songs, and in Swedish, with a flute. It’s no overstatement to say that we didn’t quite fit in. In that sense, it felt like a relief when we moved the band to Uppsala, which was far more open-minded musically. Being able to play at the student clubs (“nations”) was also a great way to get practice. That said, Borlänge had (and has) one of the best record shops in the country: Folk å rock, run by the great Ingemar Magnusson. I only realized after I left how special that was.

++ When and how did the band start? What was the recruiting process like?

The band formed around 1987-1988 in Borlänge, when Jonas Leksell, Gunnar Alm and I started having an idea on what we were supposed to be doing musically. I’m not entirely sure who joined when, but you could say that there were two versions of the band. The first line-up was Jonas on drums, Gunnar on bass and me on guitar and vocals. Soon after that, Anna Blomqvist joined on flute (which was a pretty radical instrument to have in a band in Borlänge at the time) and tambourine. In this first version, we were all close friends before forming the band. Jonas and I had been to school together, Gunnar was living with my sister, and I was going out with Anna. The second version of the band was when we were in Uppsala. Lotta Nyblad joined on guitar and vocals, Patric Thuresson on violin and guitar, and then Tomas Bergman replaced Gunnar on bass. After a while, Anna had to leave, and Anna Carlsson came onboard.

++ Why the name Théhuset?

I think we wanted a name that went along with the soft and slightly intellectual character of the music (as compared to the other bands around in Borlänge). We were also heavy tea drinkers, and some of us had been reading “The Teahouse of the August Moon”.

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

I would write the songs, or sketches of songs, and have pretty specific ideas about the arrangements, which would be adapted by the band as they saw fit. At first we practiced in Jonas’ basement in Borlänge, but in Uppsala we eventually had a place around the corner from my flat where we rehearsed when we were the six of us. Lotta and I would play a lot at home too. Towards the end, it got more difficult. Tomas lived two hours away, Jonas in Stockholm. So we didn’t exactly rehearse twice a week by then.

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

Many! The Go-Betweens, the Church, Big Star, the Byrds, Prefab Sprout, the Sugarcubes, Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega, the Triffids, Sarah Records in general, the Cure… The list could go on and on. Any music with a heart and brains.

++ What would you say are your all-time favourite Swedish guitar pop bands? And why do you think there’s been always quality Swedish pop bands up to this day?

At the time we started Théhuset, there really wasn’t a whole lot. We’d listened to some Swedish new wave bands, like Reeperbahn, Camouflage and Tant Strul, but as far as we were concerned, the 80’s wasn’t a great period for Swedish guitar pop. But that might have been us living in our bubble. We hadn’t even heard Watermelon Men, for instance. Anyway, things changed in the 90’s, a lot! The first sign of things changing was, for me and I remember discussing this with Erik Illes at the time, “My Hometown” by the Wannadies in 1990. It’s hard to pick one band among so many great ones. You’d have to mention Eggstone, obviously, they were brilliant, but there were so many, from Bear Quartet to Stevepops to Cloudberry Jam by way of countless great people and bands. I honestly have no idea why there has been so many good Swedish pop bands. One reason people usually mention is the general music training that we’d get back then, which meant that when you formed a band, the people would have a basic schooling and generally know how to play. That helps, obviously, but I’m not sure if it explains it, really.

++ Your one record was released by Ambush Records. Who were they? And how did you end up in the label?

It was through Mattias Bolkeus Blom, a friend of mine who knew the people running the label. It was all pretty simple with them, hardly any discussions at all. But I don’t know much about that label.

++ There are three songs on the record, “Egen Värld”, “Världens Bästa Dag” and “Tänk På Något Annat”. If you don’t mind, in a sentence or two, tell me the story behind these songs?

“Egen värld” was to our own ears perhaps one of the few proper pop songs we had then. Many of the other ones were all a bit… quirky. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ask Paddy McAloon. The lyrics are about a loved one you can’t communicate with anymore due to illness. And the flute solo was inspired by Bach! For some reason, this was the only song that for a long time had English lyrics, I had to write new ones for the recording. “Världens bästa dag” used to go over quite well when we played it at gigs. Might have been one of the few songs where we had a harmonica. The lyrics tell a rather twisted tale of a couple cheating on each other. Don’t know where I got the inspiration for that! “Tänk på något annat”: I distinctly remember sitting on the floor in the rehearsal room writing the lyrics to this one after reading far too many Borges and Cortázar novels for anyone’s mental health. The narrator is in anguish about not actually being him, but rather a dream made up by someone else, while the girls try to calm him down, telling him to think of something else (which quite easily could be taken as evidence that he was actually right all along). I can see now that we didn’t really write songs about the normal stuff…

++ How was the experience recording them at MBS Studios? 

It was our first time in a proper recording studio, and the engineer had some strange ideas. He didn’t want to use compressors, for instance, which everyone uses, and for obvious reasons. We had a really hard time getting radio to play the single. They liked it, but the volume on the record was a whole lot lower than on other recordings, so it was hard for them to fit it into the playlists. I don’t think the engineer was very used to recording pop music, to be honest. It wasn’t the best experience, but we learned a lot. And I like the fact that we played the backing tracks live, all of us at once.

++ Tell me about the art of the record, who is the girl from the photo?

There was this postcard that we had, I don’t know where it came from, but we used to have it on our posters. She became the Théhuset girl. So it made perfect sense to put her on the cover.

++ Are there any other releases by the band? What about compilation appearances?

There were no other official releases, but we recorded a couple of demos, and there’s a live recording as well. One of the demos was named “Demo of the month”, or something like that, in a Swedish music magazine.

++ What about unreleased songs? Are there any still? 

Well, there are those demos, about 11 songs altogether, and the live recording, but we didn’t record any other songs in a studio.

++ Was there any interest from other labels perhaps?

I don’t know how hard we tried to promote ourselves, but knowing ourselves I’d say probably not very much. There was some interest from labels, but I don’t know how serious it was. And not long after the single, the band was dissolved, leading eventually to Able forming in -93.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? Any in particular that you remember?

We played quite a lot, around Uppsala mostly, at student clubs primarily, but also quite a lot in our native town of Borlänge. The most memorable gig was probably playing to a big crowd at Dalarna University in Borlänge. That was a great gig. At one point, my father joined us on stage to play the accordion. And my mother was furious with me afterwards because we had played too loud. I tried telling her that we weren’t the ones to blame, but she’d have none of it.

++ And were there any bad gigs at all? Any anecdotes you could share?

I’m sure quite a few of them were sub-standard, especially in the beginning, when we were all pretty new to having gigs and dealing with everything around it. At our very first show in Uppsala, the engineer got the idea that the flute and my guitar competed in the same frequency range, whereby he promptly brought my guitar way down in the mix, leaving the band basically sounding like drums, bass and flute. I tried to compensate for that by playing harder on my guitar, which inevitably lead to me breaking a string on the first song… So that show was a bit of a disaster, especially since there were some record company people there checking us out. But apart from that we had a great time together, and in time we grew to be a pretty efficient live machine. As far as anecdotes go, every time we played in Borlänge it would take about one song or two before people started shouting on us to do songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival. We never did.

++ When and why did you split? Did you all continue making music afterwards?

It was towards the end of ’92 and mostly due to practical reasons. People living in different parts of the country. All of us kept playing afterwards. Jonas played with the Standards (they were pretty successful), Patric formed a ska band (Rude boys). Lotta and me started Able.

++ Was there ever a reunion gig or talks of a reunion gig?

Not that I remember. We’ve been living in different parts of the country, playing in new bands, eventually raising kids and having less and less time for it. But who knows what happens?

++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press?

We were an underground band all along, but we received some attention. We did some interviews for radio and newspapers, the demo was picked and featured in a magazine. The 7″ didn’t sound like it should have to be played in the radio at the time, though.

++ What about from fanzines?

I don’t know if there were many Swedish fanzines around at the time that wrote about that kind of music. If there were, they didn’t find us. Ha ha.

++ And today, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

Well, there isn’t a lot of time for hobbies when you have children and a full-time job, so we’re happy to find time for the music. Other than that, I am a linguist by profession and that’s kind of a hobby as well. And I’m a pretty good golfer.

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

It’s hard to pick one single thing. What I keep and value most from that time is how good friends we were, and all the good times we had together. I also remember recording one of the demos, with a hi-fi wiz in a concert hall in Uppsala. We recorded the whole thing live, no overdubs. The memories from that session are all envolved in pink fluffy clouds.

++ How is Uppsala today? I visited once and really liked it. But compared to the Théhuset days, has it changed much? If a reader of this interview was to visit one day, what would you say are the sights I shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks I should try?

I love Uppsala, I have since the day I came here. It has a bit of everything without being a big city, and the university has its stamp on much of it (which is a good thing and a bad thing, but coming from Borlänge it has mostly been a good thing for me). The city’s grown since then, and now has a football team in the top division (IK Sirius, which we support wholeheartedly). The music scene is quite different, though. There aren’t many venues that offer live music, which is a real shame. Considering the size of Uppsala, and the music being made here, there should be a lot more. A tourist to the town should probably spend some time just walking around, stopping by the normal sights (the cathedral, the castle, the university, Gustavianum, the botanical gardens…), all of which are within easy walking distance. I think many would want to make the trip out to Gamla (‘Old’) Uppsala, to get a feel of the Viking age.

++ Thanks again Johan! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks to you, Roque! I’m quite impressed that you found Théhuset. Keep up the good work!

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Listen
Théhuset – Vid Din Fot (demo)

Let’s start the week straight to the point, let’s discover some new music and then of course let’s try to find out whatever happened to one of the great bands from the indiepop halcyon days.

Physical Media: a band from Queens, New York. You know I love that. Where in Queens I wonder? Do they play in Queens at all? Or maybe they are in Ridgewood. I have started to think that doesn’t count like Queens anymore. That’s more like the appendix of Brooklyn, of Williamsburg and Bushwick. I don’t really know much, but I’m listening to a superb tune now called “The Ethicist”. Who are they? Where did they come from? Well, it doesn’t look too new. March 2016 is their latest release.  It is a digital album called “Towers in the Park”. Would be interesting to know more about this band formed by Mike, Ed, Rob and Brian.

Harry Teardrop: another New York band. Well actually it seems just one guy, Harrison Li, who is 18 and attends NYU. There is this one song that sounds lovely called “Sleeping Cutie”. It is not THAT new, he had uploaded it back in December, on Christmas day. His latest song on the other hand is “Chinatown” that he published last February. But it is not as good as “Sleeping Cutie”. Though if you go further back you’ll find a 7 song mini-album called “June gloOm” that has some very nice jangly and quirky guitars!

Poppel: a jangly Belgian band? From a place called Turnhout? Thanks to the label Gazer Tapes I have found out about this album called “Hit It” that was released last December. For the time being it looks like it is only available digitally which is quite a shame. But well, it is better than nothing of course. There are 10 fine guitar pop songs in total by the quartet formed by Fik, Driesos, Bram and Lars. According to Facebook they are influenced by some not very good bands but well, hasn’t that happened many times before? Let’s just try to ignore that.

Roadie: a guitar pop band from San Miguel de Tucuman in Argentina. Might be a first? I’m looking at the 7 songs from their mini-album “El Arte de las Decisiones” and notice the last song is called “Smiths”. I wonder why? The band formed by Franco Días González, Fausto Masucci, Facundo David Roig and Julio Goitia, have several releases on their Bandcamp that I will duly check out but right now I’m starting with their latest which they published on January 8th.

Herbario: the latest from this Santiago, Chile, band is a song called “Resonancias” and it sounds really really good. It was published on Bandcamp as a digital single on February 2nd and it is quite a surprise. It seems it actually is a one-man band, one by Ricardo Valdés. He says that these songs are a sort of a diary of his free time. Aside from this song he also has a 4 song demo available to stream.

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Time again to go back to the ol’ UK for some good ol’ indiepop. And even though I don’t own all their discography yet, I must say that I’m on the mission to complete it. I do love the two singles I own. So that must account for something.

When you search for Vicarage Garden the first result is that of the East Ruston Old Vicarage Gardens, in Norfolk. These gardens were established in 1973 and are privately owned. Did the band take their name from this special place? Did the band hail from Norfolk? These are my first questions.

It was 1991 when they released their first record and it happened to be on one of my favourite labels, Heaven Records. The Nottingham based Heaven Records of course was run by Mark Randall and Matt Johnson from The Fat Tulips and this label released not only The Fat Tulips but other amazing bands like Confetti, The Rosehips or The Melons. Well, The Vicarage Garden was going to be part of this brilliant roster with their “Oh! Dawn” (HV03) 7″. The record only had two songs, “Oh! Dawn” on the A side and “You That Is” on the B side. And what’s interesting about this 7″ is that there are two versions. One with a printed sleeve and another one that was limited to 500 copies that is sort of an “action painting” hand-painted sleeve. I have this last version.

Discogs lists 3 7″s, but according to 45cat there was another 7″. One that was released in 1995 by Heaven Records. This one had catalog number HV14 and included two songs, “Victoria Euphoria” and “Good Heaven”. To be honest, I haven’t sen a copy of this record ever. Wasn’t aware it existed. If anyone has any more information about it, that’d be great!

Their next 7″ came out in 1997 on the French label Cavalcade. This label released also the wonderful album “The Start of Our Affair” by The Cherry Orchard. I actually sent interview questions to The Cherry Orchard many years ago, when they put out a compilation on Firestation. Never heard from them. A shame really. Maybe they would have told me more about this label. In any case, let’s get back to The Vicarage Garden.

The “Please Do It Again EP” (GALLY 1) had three songs. On the A side we find the superb “Linda Lovejuice”, which I’ve seen has been a favourite of several Japanese indiepop discos, and on the B side the songs “Please Do It Again” and “More or Less”. This record actually includes some credits, and we can know determine the band members. Jason Kester played guitars and sang, Andy Leek did backing vocals and keyboards, Jerome Bannigan played drums and Steve Hibbert the bass. All songs are credited to Matthew Leake and Jason with Andy produced them. They were engineered at The Haze Studios in Wolverhampton.

Okay, Wolverhampton is not close to Norfolk. Not close to Nottingham. So were they from this town then? And who is Matthew Leake? Did he only write the lyrics for the band?

Two years later, in 1999, the band was to release their last 7″ on the Japanese label Harmony Label (H004). It was a four song EP titled “I Feel Alright Today EP” and the songs on it were: “I Feel Alright Today” and “Will You Always” on the A side and “Down Goes The Sun” and “What You Do” on the B side. Something that caught my attention is that the first song on each side was written by Griffis, Hough and Kester. While the two other songs by Kester and Leake. I don’t understand. Who are Griffis and Hough? Were they part of the band or were they like Leake, writing lyrics for the band?

The four songs were mastered at Greg Lee Processing. The art was created by Daisy and we see that there are liner notes written, I suppose in Japanese, by Hiromi Aki who had written many liner notes, especially for Quince Records releases. This 7″ is the one I’m missing in my collection.

Now here is something that confuses me. Discogs lists Andy Leek as one that had been part of the Dexy’s Midnight Runners and The Blue Ox Babes. Is it the same Andy Leek?

There are 4 compilation appearances listed on Discogs. Let’s check them out.

On the CD compilation “A Tribute to Felt” that was released by Elefant Records (ER-101) in 1995, The Vicarage Garden appears covering Felt’s “Sandman’s On the Rise Again”. This was the first CD release by Elefant and it includes so many classic bands, from Los Planetas to Acid House Kings.

It also seems lately I’ve mentioned many times the compilation “Pop Machine” that was released by Cowly Owl (Calf 7997). I mentioned on The Imaginary Friend last. On this 1998 compilation The Vicarage Garden appears with the song “Now You’re Gone”.

A French tape compilation with no release date called “Sassy” sees the band contribute the song “Zoe Knows”. First time I’m aware of this compilation. A few bands I’ve never heard appear here like Quatre, Calamine, Autumn Sky or Polar Bear. Would be interesting to explore and find out more about them.

Lastly their song “Zoe Knows” appears on yet another French compilation tape. It came along the fanzine Plouf! that was put together by the label Les Tartines. The curious thing here is that the song by Vicarage Garden credits Jason Bronfeld as a performer. I’m more than confused! Now who is he?

My friend Alex wrote about them on his blog 7iete Pulgadas back in 2010. He doesn’t give any more information though he does make the distinction that the B side of the “Oh! Dawn” single is much better than the A side. For me it is hard to decide which one I like best!

I look for the band members. I believe I found that Jerome Bannigan plays drums for the David K band and has contributed drums to the musician Paul Bond. Then I think I’ve stumbled upon Jason Kester. I find a website for a band called Jason Kester & The Believers. Is it the same Jason Kester? It might be. You see many years ago I got a comment on the blog by someone called Dom Vicarage Garden. Sure, there is no Dom as far as I know in the band but he mentioned he was tracking down all Stoke On Trent bands. Now I find that Jason Kester had played in a band called Goya that was based in Stoke. So this would mean that it wasn’t Wolverhampton, nor Norfolk, nor Nottingham, but Stoke-On-Trent the place where The Vicarage Garden came from.

I think that might be a certainty, but we don’t know much more about the band. Like how come they didn’t release an album? What about that 2nd Heaven 7″ that doesn’t show up anywhere. Were they involved with any other bands? Was Andy Leek the same Andy Leek from the Dexy’s? What happened after they split? How come they release records in France and Japan? Did they ever go there? Are there more unreleased songs? Do you remember them?

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Listen
The Vicarage Garden – Oh! Dawn

Thanks so much to Frank Werner for the interview! I wrote about one of the Fast Weltweit bands, Die Bienenjäger, on the blog and Frank was kind enough to get in touch and give me more details about the band. So, I took the opportunity and asked if he’d be up to tell the story of the superb later he ran with his friends back in the 80s, and he was! There is quite some information about it in German on the web but very little in English, so this might be a great way to introduce the label to many! For those that German is their first language the interview is now also available on the Fast Weitwelt website. Also to get a good idea of which bands and how they were connected Frank has shared a Fast Weltweit family tree that might prove useful to read the interview (and to collect the records too of course!). So sit back, and enjoy a trip to memory lane with the one and only Fast Weltweit from Bad Salzuflen.

++ Hi Frank! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! We got in touch thanks to my post about Die Bienenjäger here on the blog. You shared with me an interview with Jochen and could learn a bit more about the band. I’m curious of course if there are any more unreleased songs and perhaps any plans to re-release their songs?

Hi Roque, thank you! That’s a difficult question. Jochen does not want recordings from that time to be published. In the interview you translated, he talks about himself as a Girke-Begemann imitator on his way to himself. There were several demo recordings with Die Bienenjäger and Jochen considers them as a development phase in themselves. He also asked me several times “not to give anything to anyone”. I think we will have to wait a very long time for Die Bienenjäger publications…

++ I asked that as I’m aware some of your label’s bands have had some retrospective releases on Tapete Records lately. How did their interest come about and how is your relationship with them?

We owe this in any case to the interest and the untiring work of Carsten Friedrichs of the Tapete label. The first collaboration came about with the Tapete sampler “Falscher Ort, falsche Zeit” in 2015. Carsten was looking for pieces and bands that fit the theme with their history and effect. The two samplers featured Die Antwort, Jetzt! and the Time Twisters. The collaboration with the label is going very well; we, the musicians involved, are involved and informed in everything.

++ Speaking of Tapete, they do seem like a much bigger label compared to Fast Weltweit. But there must be some things in common, right? What do you think that is? And what other German labels do you have a soft spot for?

Tapete Records has just celebrated its 15th anniversary and has put out over 300 releases to date, including those of Robert Forster, The Monochrome Set, Fehlfarben and many more.
Gunther Buskies and Carsten Friedrichs from the label play in the band Die Liga der gewöhnlichen Gentlemen, which has a lot in common with the Time Twisters, e.g. humour, carefree attitudes and a very own joy about the lightness of being. In any case, what they have in common is the will to give the respective bands the artistic independence and to provide support in the right places.
Other important labels are fore example Staatsakt in Berlin, Trikont in Munich, but also small labels like Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten in Augsburg. 😉

++ You shared with me a couple of German-language interviews and they were great for me to get some background of the label. I still think that most English speakers need some of the basics of the label even if it is a bit repetitive. To start Fast Weltweit was formed by many people. That is kind of uncommon. Who were the people behind the label and how easy or complicated was to work altogether?

The label was founded in 1985 by Michael Girke, Achim Knorr, Andreas Henning, Frank Spilker and myself in the back room of a small Greek pub in Herford. It was a long night and there was a lot of discussion and table football in between.

“It was me who at some point had the idea of getting together with these people in a pub to discover what they have in common, perhaps to support each other and not to stand alone (with a raised and disguised voice) against a ‘big, bad world’. That certain shortcomings that everyone has, can be absorbed, compensated for and perhaps even converted into strength in a network. So first of all, to have an interest group.” (quote Michael Girke)

Beyond the discussion, we planned to organize a tour through northern Germany. The organisational logic of this project followed a simple idea: Since the individual bands already had their “bases” in different cities in northern Germany (Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, Bielefeld, Hamburg), it would not mean a considerable additional effort to find a suitable venue for the other groups instead of just for their own band.

A few days later, the idea of a starting point for the media world was born: a sampler, a record on which all groups are represented, would be a suitable advertising to radio stations, record companies, concert agencies, etc.; the media association of records, performances, advertising material could achieve at least a respectable success vis-à-vis these bodies with appropriate personal commitment.

The realization of the project took a corresponding amount of time. The performances had to be organised, the record pressing was commissioned, a record cover had to be designed in consultation with a designer and then printed – that is, a large number of activities had to be coordinated and realised that we were not yet familiar with before. The design of the cover alone led to countless discussions until a common consensus was finally reached.
It was a world without the Internet. Experts had to be contacted, a lot of telephone work had to be done, demos had to be sent out and conversations had to be held.

In spring 1986 the record was released and the first “Fast-Weltweit-BRD-Package-Tour” took place. The response of the press to this tour was surprisingly good. Fast Weltweit was mentioned in the most important city newspapers, the “scene pages” of the tour sites. Even the insider magazine “SPEX” dealt with the phenomenon in the category “Fast & transient” (Schnell & Vergänglich) and had room for quite positive record criticism. In the Berlin “taz”, a record review even spoke of the “almost worldwide movement”. The record and the tour were performed by the regional radio stations. Thanks to Michael Girke’s organisational talent, various radio interviews took place. The euphoria of the hour was great. The “home game” in Enger and the performance in Cologne were audience successes. The concert in Cologne’s “Salznuß” was sold out. The “Fast-Weltweits” attributed this interest above all to a mention in the WDR scene programme “Graffiti”. The DJ played two tracks from the LP in the afternoon before the concert and repeatedly expressed his astonishment at how such a thing would be possible: on the one hand the self-produced record, on the other hand a concert with five different bands in one evening.

Jochen Distelmeyer and Bernadette Hengst joined the label in 1987.
Jochen had read from us in “SPEX” and contacted Andreas Henning of the Time Twisters in Bielefeld. This was followed by a joint performance of the Time Twisters with Jochen’s first band, the White Palms, at the Bielefeld Youth Centre in Jöllenbeck. Bernadette had supported Michael Girke as a singer at the Jetzt! and Achim Knorr at the Der Fremde recordings and got to know the other musicians.

Several releases followed, e.g. Die Sterne singles, the Time Twisters single, the single of Der Fremde, two joint cassette samplers and many demo recordings.
We helped each other with recordings and performances, talked about our songs, played them and stormed the parties and discotheques in the area. Through the contact with our creatively work, so many friendships have been established that have lasted to this day, despite different places of residence, biographies and living conditions.

In October 1988, at the Berlin Independence Days (BID), an indie fair financed by Senate funds, we had a three-day “showcase” at Café Swing. The main acts of BID were to be seen in the “Metropol”, only a hundred meters away, e.g. Mudhoney. So the “Swing” was a strategically excellent place to be noticed by the professional audience. The response to the performances was good and a few promising dates with media representatives followed. Our main goal was to find sponsors for the label and a better distribution opportunity.

The Germany Way Of Making Pop Exciting

In the early 90s the relationships between the musicians diverged. Some of the bands had signed contracts with other labels with newly formed formations and something that was not granted us in the Fast Weltweit time, namely success (e.g. Die Sterne at L’Age D’Or and Sony Music, Blumfeld at ZickZack and Die Braut haut haut at the BMG). I mean with success not wealth, but artistically self-determined work, continuity and simply the possibility of being able to live from this activity.

Today’s interest in Fast Weltweit is certainly also due to the popularity of these bands.

(The original Textversion of the early history of Fast Weltweit is found here::
Frank Werner: Zur regionalen Szene der Alternativ-Labels. In: Dieter Baacke (Hrsg.): Handbuch Jugend und Musik. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1997)

++ How did you all know each other? And how did you decided to start this label? Most of you were in bands too, so I wonder, where did you all find the time to make all these things happen?

In 1982 I started recording demos with a Teac 4-track tape recorder in the practice rooms of bands. Through this work I got to know most of the musicians. Bernd Begemann should be mentioned here above all as a former influence. He had the first punk band in town (called Vatikan with Bernd Begemann, Frank Jacobs and Martin Stammeier) in 1979 and we met in the smoking area of our school centre. I recorded his band at the Christian youth centre with a tape recorder and borrowed equipment*. The priests thought it was a religious band because of its name, and so they were allowed to rehearse there. Bernd went to Hamburg very early in 1984, had contact to bigger labels with his band Die Antwort since 1985 and already signed a contract with RCA and accordingly airplay in 1986. Bernd helped us a lot with some productions and we could learn from his experiences with the “industry”.

https://soundcloud.com/fastweltweit/vatikan-was-geschieht-aus-den-leuten
*Bernd gets upset at the beginning of the recording about the “disturbing” church bells. The building was only 50 meters away..

++ But you weren’t part of any of the bands on the label, is that right? I only see that you were part of a band called Maramu, but that in the 90s? How come?

After Fast Weltweit I had the recording studio until 1998 and from 1990 I had a permanent job in a local computer company as a supporter. This work proved to be more and more time consuming.
I definitely wanted to continue with music and founded a new company with the musician Thomas Welzel* in 1992. Maramu was our joint project for the world music band Dissidenten. In 1996 we created a very teutonic techno mix from samples of the dissidents for an album (“Mixed Up Jungle”). They called the track the „Evolution Mix“. The contact to Marlon Klein from the group has been maintained and we are still good friends today.
Marlon comes from Herford and was the drum teacher of Volker Seewald, the first drummer of the Time Twisters, and his brother Pitty Klein was the guitar teachers of Jürgen Jahn and Andreas Henning.

*(not to be mistaken for Thomas Wenzel von den Bienenjägern and Die Sterne)

++ Would you say there were any other labels influence in Fast Weltweit?

Musically the influence is surely Creation, Postcard or Stiff Records – still Independent Labels. With reference to the release of singles and sound also Motown. With regard to radical independence, Schneeball. It was a definitely small German Krautrock label that sought its own economic way of production and distribution for the first time in Germany in the 1970s. This also closes the circle to the Dissidenten who used to be members of Embryo, Missus Beastly and the Real Ax Band; they were all snowball bands.
Schneeball later became Efa and Indigo. Indigo is today one of the most important independent German music distributors for independent labels. The headquarters are in Hamburg.
Today, indigo distribution is also used by Tapete Records and many others.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_(Vertrieb)

++ Discogs lists a sister label, Werner Klangforschung that released some cassette albums in the first half of the 80s. I suppose, because of your last name, that you ran it? What did you learn from this experience that helped establish Fast Weltweit? And care telling me a bit about the bands that were on this label?

After the split of Vatikan, The Toll was the first band in the early Fast Weltweit history. The group had energy and charm and a changing line-up (with Michael Girke, Jürgen Jahn and Rolf Birkfeld, later with Heike Hickmann on saxophone and Christian Methe on drums). They had keyboards and horns, used Super 8 movies on stage. That was very pleasing. Michael Girke left the band in 1982/83 and continued working with Bernd Begemann. There were ambitions for a common band and there were recordings. 1983 The Toll split up. Andreas Henning and Heike Hickmann formed the Milk-pops – pop folk with much Jonathan-Richman and Cherry-Red influence. Later followed the formation of the Time Twisters with Andreas Henning, Ralf Wendler, Volker Seewald and Jürgen Jahn.

Frank Spilker and Mirko Breder I met in 1983 through Veto recordings. In 1984 we recorded with the new band “the discount” (Frank Spilker, Mirko Breder, Christian Böhm) an audio cassette with the significant title “Linoleum im Hirn” (Linoleum in the Brain).

++ And what sort of infrastructure did the label had? Did you run it from your bedrooms perhaps?

It was more of a garage studio at the nearby forest with 43 square meters and a telephone. The equipment got better and better over time: 16-track Fostex, Seck mixer, Eqs, Reverbs etc. and a digital Sony PCM 601 for mastering. For the masters, analog 2-track copies were pulled on a Tascam 22-2.

The main advantage was our network and the “branches” in the northern German cities mentioned; communication took place via telephone, letter and mutual visits. We also had an internal newsletter, produced with Atari and dot-matrix printer. It was the time before the internet.

++ The label was based in the town of Bad Salzuflen. To be honest I’ve only heard the name of the town when the label is mentioned. Don’t know much about it. How was it back in the day? Did you get many concerts? Were there any good venues to check out bands? Were there any like-minded people aside the Fast Weitwelt gang? Were there any good record stores?

Oh, Bad Salzuflen is a spa town with a very old population and thermal baths. In some parts of the city one cannot get rid of the feeling of being an integral part of a perpetual therapy session (physical education). There is a large spa park, a lot of forest and good possibilities to go for a walk.
The first natural reflex as a young person is to quickly leave the city and its sometimes strange inhabitants behind. I am a little hospitalized with Stockholm Syndrome, live in a suburb and like to visit the nearby bigger city Bielefeld. Many friends of mine have left the city over the years.
Bielefeld is a university town with over 330,000 inhabitants and a few good clubs. That’s an alternative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Salzuflen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Radio was very important for us, especially BFBS as an local English-language station of the British Army of the Rhine, with a much more relaxed program compared to the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, with its cruel hit & german „Schlager“ program.
Our region was occupied by the British Army. English soldiers, army cars and the white english school buses were part of the street scene in Bad Salzuflen and Herford. In Salzuflen there was even a small district where the British officers and their families lived.
I started listening to Nightflight by Alan Bangs and John Peel’s Music early. A large English garrison was stationed in Herford and concerts in the old „Scala“ in Herford were almost like a home play for many English bands.
And there were good clubs, e.g. the Forum in Enger, a privately organised music club with an excellent concert programme. This was a regular meeting place and extended living room for many.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar-Club

There was a good local record store in the 80s; unfortunately it had to close later.
The small “Rock Shop” in Schießhofstraße was a meeting place in the early 80s. When we finished the first The Toll cassette, the owner, Frank Lenschen decorated the whole shop window with it and we were really proud.
The record store owner was local hero and sometimes a little dictator.
They’ve heard increasingly gloomy industrial stuff from Manchester & London, Throbbing Gristle…
And if you had bought a nice pop record, there was a saying, “What do you want with that shit?”
Support your local record shop!

++ What’s the story behind the name of the label?

The name was invented by Michael Girke. Big-mouthed, but with a wink.
“Fast” means almost, not fast in the sense of speed.

++ What about the artwork for the label? Was the aesthetics of the label important for you all? Who came up with the label’s logo?

Again Michael, he insisted from the beginning that we needed a proper logo and organized the contact to young graphic artists in Bielefeld. Rena Tangens and padeluun designed it, as they did the cover of his first single.
My girlfriend Susanne Beimfohr designed the cover of the first Fast Weltweit LP. She studied graphics and design in Bielefeld. Through my work with her I learned a lot about typography and design. She also designed the cover of the first Die Sterne single. In return, Frank Spilker and Mirko Breder created a soundtrack for a slide animation about El Lissitzky, a Russian artist – “Von zwei Quadraten”. That was part of her thesis.

++ You also produced most of the records if not all. How did that work for you? Which studio did you use? and what would you say were the easiest and most complicated records to produce?

I was lucky enough to have been able to renovate and use an old garage near my house since 1984. I recorded the Milk-pops in my little apartment.
The easiest and most difficult recording at the same time was the first Time Twisters single at the beginning of 1989. We had to postpone the recording. It took several weeks until a spare part was available because the sales department of Fostex in Germany went bankrupt. I was able to purchase a spare part in Frankfurt from a former employee and have it installed there. We recorded the single in three days – soundcheck, recording and mix. The Twisters were very straightforward and had a new drummer, Matthias Reth, with beat and very good timing.

++ And was it easy to distribute your records? Did you manage to create interest abroad?

It was very difficult. We didn’t have any real distribution. Achim Knorr did mailorder from Cologne. We also sold at concerts. Record shops were often only willing to record the records under commission.

++ Also do tell me about the catalog numbers of the label, they seem quite odd to me, like they don’t follow a logic! But I’m sure there is one!

No, no logic. The names were more important, like Ikea. The red sampler, the blue sampler etc. These were the toner colors in Mirko Breder’s parents’ Xerox.

++ Another thing that surprises me, is that there is a website for the label. That is not common for a small 80s label, to have an online presence these days with so much memorabilia and more. Who runs it? Is it updated often? And who kept safe all of these photos and articles?

In 2008 there was a major exhibition in the Museum of Literature in Oelde about Die Sterne, Blumfeld, Bernd Begemann, Bernadette La Hengst, Erdmöbel and Fast Weltweit – “Stadt.Land.Pop. The Literature Commission for Westphalia was responsible for the event, in particular Moritz Baßler, Walter Gödden, Jochen Grywatsch and Christina Riesenweber.
We were all quite surprised at the interest in the topic – a lot of press and over 6,000 visitors. There was a very extensive volume accompanying the exhibition with a lot of journalistic and scientific research. “Stadt.Land.Pop.” was an interdisciplinary project and had support in teaching at the universities of Paderborn and Münster. There were also some concerts during the six months of the exhibition.

I had conversations and compiled a lot of material, digitized interviews, scanned covers, texts etc. for the book, restored the sound for the almost-worldwide promo video shown at the exhibition, etc. Michael Girke and I gave a video interview, which can be found on the DVD supplement to the exhibition catalogue. The others have written wonderful contributions to the book, given concerts and interviews. However, the main work was done by the staff of the Literature Commission and the participants of the „Museum für Westfälische Literatur“ in Oelde-Stromberg. We have deliberately not interfered in their work.
The wealth of material that came to light during my research prompted me personally to revamp the Fast Weltweit website. Dirk Bogdanski of the Nottbeck House of Culture has made many photos available and thus an impression of this exhibition is virtually preserved. The work on the blog developed a momentum of its own, also because I mix old references and new ones. The preparatory work for the four Tapete records also caused many pictures to reappear.

https://www.kulturgut-nottbeck.de/ausstellungen/ausstellungsarchiv/stadtlandpop-popmusik-zwischen-westfaelischer-provinz-und-hamburger-schule/

++ Well, let’s talk about the label’s releases! I believe the first release was Jetzt’s „Acht Stunden Sind Kein Tag“ 7“, right? I notice that this was a co-release with Hit-And-Run Records. Who were they?

Oh, that was Michael Girke. Pastell, a label from Dortmund, had promised him financing and distribution. We have included the single in our program. It was mixed and produced by Thomas Schwebel von Fehlfarben.

++ There are two „Fast Weltweit präsentiert“ compilations. The first on vinyl, and the second on tape. Of course, I have to ask, why the second on tape?

Cassettes were very popular, easier and cheaper to create and send. We used the tapes as a demo for concerts at the same time. Cassettes were also a statement for the still new DIY and independent culture.

++ Not all of the artists that are related to the label, got a proper release. Only a few did like Jetzt!, Die Sterne, Die Time Twisters or Der Fremde. Why was that?

For the first single of Bernadette La Hengst we had already finished the recordings and photos. Horst Luedtke, producer of “Monarchie und Alltag” of Fehlfarben, produced Bernadette in the Klangforschung for a week in 1989. He came in a Mercedes, wore cowboy boots and lived in the Maritim hotel. The recordings were very exciting and had a positive influence on me. A little later Bernadette met her comrades-in-arms at Die Braut… and the story took a different turn.

++ Speaking of bands released by the label, just as an introduction to the English-speaking fans, maybe in a line or two could you explain or tell who formed these bands, or which song would be a great entry point each of them?

The Time Twisters – Jürgen Jahn, Andreas Henning and Frank Jacobs. A good start would be the first single or – even better – the album “Guten Morgen Sommer” released by Tapete.
http://www.tapeterecords.de/artists/dietimetwisters/

Jetzt! – Michael Girke, solo and in different line-ups with band (Klaus Mertens, Mijk van Dijk, Oliver Mills etc.). Here, too, the publication of Tapete should be mentioned: JETZT! – Liebe in GROSSEN Städten (1984–1988)
http://www.tapeterecords.de/artists/jetzt/

Mijk van Dijk has published a wonderful report about his time at Jetzt! on his website. All in English language: http://microglobe.de/jetzt-liebe-in-grossen-stadten/

Die Sterne – Mirko Breder and Frank Spilker. (The other Die Sterne band was founded in Hamburg in the early 90s with a different line-up but with the same name.)
Especially the first single “Ein verregneter Sommer” is recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGD7VVcFuWE

Der Fremde – Achim Knorr, Andreas Reth and Andrea Kilian; later with Frank Spilker on bass and Thomthom Geigenschrey on violin. German grunge with a lot of Dinosaur Jr. influence. The recommendation: “Stunden dazwischen” – live with the support of Frank Spilker and Mirko Breder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8udCYt2bkbw

Bernadette La Hengst – here the cover version of Michael Girkes “Das Dorf am Ende der Welt”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kAk9c103t8 The woman is incredible, climate activist, musician, actor & theater.

Jochen Distelmeyer, Die Bienenjäger – “What will we find”.
At that time with Thomas Wenzel, Mikro Breder and Jochen Distelmeyer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4335RV7PgkM

++ And if you were to choose your top five releases on Fast Weltweit, which would they be and why?

I can’t decide. 😉

++ I must say that my favourite band on the label is Die Time Twisters, as they are perhaps the most jingle jangly band on it. I believe they could have been much bigger maybe if they sang in English. But at the same time I love that the bands in your label are true to themselves and were all singing in German. I do wonder what you think about that? Do you think this limited in any ways the bands and or the label?

We deliberately chose the German language. As a “native speaker” it is much easier to express yourself in it. A large part of the bands in Germany sang English at that time. People thought it was cooler, didn’t understand the strange lyrics and the funny accent of these bands. We also saw each other as a result of the early German punk and new wave bands, which were distinguished by the then new use of German lyrics. Even if music as a language is universal, the decision to use one language limits the target group. On the other hand, we wanted to be understood and it is more obvious to speak the same language.

++ Are there any other German bands from that period that you would have loved to release on the label?

There were contacts to other bands, but nothing came out of it.

++ And is there a complete discography of the label somewhere? Is the Discogs one complete?

Discogs is a good introduction and almost complete in relation to the official releases. Of course, the many demos are missing. The German Wikipedia entry also mentions some demo recordings.

++ When and why did you decide to stop the label? What did you do after? Did you continue being involved with music?

It was a creeping process. Due to my computer job I had less and less time at my disposal. At the same time there were changes in the bands. Michael Girke stopped making music and became a journalist for the “Bielefelder Stadtblatt”. Jochen also stopped making music for a year and later reinvented himself with Blumfeld. Bernadette founded her band Die Braut haut ins Auge. The drummer of Der Fremde, Andreas Reth, founded a new label for his band in 1990, Reth Tonträger, and we produced the album “Daneben” together with Achim Knorr.
Die Sterne were also newly founded in Hamburg.

https://www.discogs.com/de/Der-Fremde-Daneben/release/1988984

++ Probably the question most people are asking by now, do you still have any stock of the label’s records?

No, all out of stock.

++ Did the label get much support from the German press or radio?

The fanzine “Straight” of the Grether sisters supported us very much. There were some mentions (“Spex” and others) and articles in the local newspapers.
In the mid-90s the Münster fanzine “komm küssen” published a big article and a fat CD supplement to the magazine with Weltweit-Tracks with the help of the Hamburg label L’âge d’Or. This was a great honour for us, as the magazine about Christoph Koch, Linus Volkmann, Ivo Schweighart and Michael Brandes was one of the best German-language fanzines.

++ Looking back in time, what would you say was the biggest highlight of the label?

Live the performances at Café Swing in Berlin, musically the red and the blue cassette sampler.

++ I’m curious, as I also run a small label, did you lose much money with the label? Or maybe you were one of the lucky indiepop labels that could break even or make a little?

I wasn’t in debt 😉

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

I live off my job as a computer supporter.
My hobbies: still listening to music and sometimes also producing. 😉

++ I think this has been a long interview Frank!! I could probably keep asking questions but let’s wrap it here. Just one more question, as I’ve never been to Bad Salzuflen, do you recommend visiting at all? Are there any sights or maybe traditional foods or drinks one should definitely try?

Maybe “Pickert” This is a pancake-like dish that used to be a “poor people meal”. It is a dough dish and is fried in a pan and served with butter, plum or plum jam, jam, compote, applesauce and others. It’s definitely very tasty. 😉

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickert

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Michael and Bernd met through a tip from The Toll drummer “Balou”. He said to Michael: “I know someone who is just as crazy as you are”.

Some of the band names have their own meanings. „Toll“ means “great, awesome and fantastic” in German. “Die Braut haut ins Auge“ is a “bride that bangs the eye”. All the band members had just been through a divorce. “Die Bienenjäger” are “bee hunters” and “Die Sterne” are “stars”. “Der Fremde” is a “stranger” and “Arthur Dent”, an early band of Frank Spilker has a quote to the fictional character of the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Many thanks for your interest!
Best, Frank

PS: Many thanks to Roque for the interview. Thanks to Andreas Henning, Bernadette La Hengst, Michael Girke, Marlon Klein, Carsten Friedrichs and Sarah Wassermair for the reading and the comments and Volker Koring for the correction.
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Listen
Die Time Twisters – Sonst (Denn jetzt bist Du da)

Thanks so much to Micky for the interview and his wife Victoria for getting me in touch with him after I had written about them on the blog. The Beaujolais Brothers were Rodney and Micky, sadly Rodney passed away in October 2008, so Micky is now the only surviving “Brother”. The two of them were in many bands together and even though they didn’t release many records, The Beaujolais Brothers 7″ is a classic in my book. There was not much information about them on the web so I always wanted to learn more about them. I was lucky that Micky answered my questions with lots of details. Felt like I was transported to the Beaujolais Brothers time. Hope you enjoy this interview!

++ Let’s start from the beginning, from your first music memories. Like when growing up what sort of music did you listen to at home? Were your parents into music? What was your first instrument?

I shared a small flat with my mum, nan and uncles in South London.  My mum was a teddy-girl and my uncles were teddy-boys, we all listened to rock-n-roll, especially Little Richard, a lot of American black artists, but not so much to Elvis.  We used to listen to Forces Family Favourites, on the BBC which was for people based in Germany.  They played lots of different songs from different places.

I would listen to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg underneath the bed-covers.  They were independent radio stations and the DJs on them went on to BBC Radio 1 in the 60’s.

My first instrument was at school – a bass drum in the junior orchestra and I still have the melody in my head.

I got into guitar later on, in my late-teens.  When I was 18 or 19, I learnt 3 chords and started playing gigs; I never learned the guitar properly until later on.

++ Were you involved in any other bands before The Beaujolais Brothers? If so, care telling me a bit about each of them?

In the late 70s I was playing with a band called ‘KP and the Peanuts’ and Rod had joined ‘the Heroes’, a local Croydon band (Dave Berk’s manor).  Rod and I were both born in South London; Rod was born above a radio repair shop and he was one of seven.  We lived round the corner from each other, but we didn’t play in a band until much later.  We didn’t go to the same school for example and he was a year younger than me.  We both played in different bands.  When we started playing together he was in a band called ‘Red Socks’.  Tony Bulldock was in that band and he later did the artwork for the Beaujolais Brother single – he created Cedric the Seagull.  Gerry Shephard (who was guitarist with Gary Glitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glitter_Band) and Tony Day were also in that band.

There was a lot in between which I can’t now remember.  I was in a middle of the road rock band called ‘Shade To Far’ and we wrote our own songs.  That band was Ricky Hammond, Terry Kavanagh, Tony Bulldock and me.  Our bands used to rehearse in the same studio in Streatham called ‘the Pit’; and I was jealous of Rod’s band and he was jealous of mine.

Then Gerry left Red Socks to join the circus (he and Gary Glitter went off to join the circus and they thought they could put rock into the circus…https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xmT0CQAAQBAJ&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=gary+glitter+join+the+circus&source=bl&ots=ZaNtk_vbY4&sig=VLt8PVwlstGjPrkXKQHzte2iHGc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj26LW_lOTZAhUmD8AKHWULAMUQ6AEIRzAI#v=onepage&q=gary%20glitter%20join%20the%20circus&f=false) and I was asked to join the Red Socks.  The Red Socks went onto become ‘the Dolephins’, which was a mad covers band (e.g. from 1950s to 80s stuff but in our own whacky style).  We’d have certain themes for the gigs, ‘Dolephins of Sherwood Forest’ or ‘Dolephins go to Tahiti’ (there are some pictures on Rod’s Facebook page).

How it started I was in the ‘White Lion’ pub in Streatham, South London.  On a Sunday afternoon, they had a band, the governor of the pub asked me to do a couple of songs with the band.  I did ‘Johnny be Good’ and ‘Aint that a Shame’.  I got free beer and £20, the governor offered me a regular gig on a Friday night; so I had to form a band, a proper band.  So ‘The Dolephins’ was formed.  We had various singers one of whom later became a singer with the Sexed Up Lambeth Boys – Paddy.  I played lead guitar and Rod played rhythm.  ‘The Dolephins’ played various pubs in South London, including ‘The Crown and Spectre’ which was made famous by Mick Jones of ‘The Clash’.  We had a weekly spot, that was the beginning and we later became The Sexed Up Lambeth Boys.  We played things like ‘Sorrow’, ‘Stepping Stones’ and ‘Walking the Dog’.

++ How did you and Rodney meet? Did you start the band immediately?

My first gig was in the Corn Exchange in Ashford; supporting a band called ‘Dirt’.  We were called ‘Danny Diarrhoea and the Wet Farts’, circa 1977.  Rodney was guitar player in Dirt at that time.  We knew each other as we live close-by when we grew up, but we didn’t socialise together.

++ Why the name The Beaujolais Brothers? Would Beaujolais be your favourite wine?

You are correct about how we got the name the Beaujolais Brothers.  We had gone to France for the vendanges (grape picking) it was about wine, lots of wine, drinking it, and grape picking.

++ So you were a busking band. So wondering whereabouts did you busk, what were your favourite spots?

Rod and I played constantly – we busked every day.  We had a regular busking spot outside the toilets by a shopping centre in West Croydon.  We used to hear a harmonica player coming from the toilets; it was the toilet cleaner who wanted to be our manager.  He would make us cups of tea if we weren’t making any money.  If we made money, we would have a beer – usually Fullers ESB.  We would play anywhere, parties, gigs, we once supported ‘Postman Pat’ (a children’s TV character) in Preston Park in Brighton; walking behind him singing the theme tune to the TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postman_Pat.

++ What would you say were influences to The Beaujolais Brothers sound?

I was a huge fan of 60s bands like, the Kinks, Small Faces, The Who, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Staxs and Tamla Motown.  I was never a huge Beatles or Rolling Stones fan and I wasn’t really into mainstream.  Rod loved the Beatles though.

++ How was the creative process for The Beaujolais Brothers?

We thought about doing a Beaujolais Brother’s single.  I’d started writing the song ‘Here Comes Summer’ as I used to bunk off work in London and jump on a train to Brighton on the south coast.  I’d write down silly words and they became Here Comes Summer; written through numerous visits to Brighton.

Rod had a tape-recorder and we would write silly songs, like ‘Ping Pong’.  Which went – ‘love is like a game of ping pong…’ and the harmony went ‘ping pong, ping pong…’

++ You released just one single, “Here Comes the Summer” with “Day After Day”. Wondering if it is not much to ask, if you could tell me in a couple of sentences what is the story behind each song?

When we did ‘Day After Day’, Dave wanted to be Frank Sinatra.  Also, he didn’t get on particularly well with Andy Dalby the engineer and producer of the recording sessions.  Andy Dalby was quite adverse to people drinking in the studio, so we’d wind him up by coming in at 8am with a bottle of Jack Daniels.  By the time we’d recorded the drums, it was 11am and the pubs were open.  We recorded it on tape so if you made a mistake, you’d have to start again and go right back to the beginning and do it all again.  So for Andy it was not a pleasant experience, especially recording the vocals with Dave as it nearly ended in a big fight every time he got it wrong; which was most takes.

The sound effects (the fun-fair and seagulls) were taken from a BBC sound effects library record.  That cost us more money as we had to buy two different records – they are probably still available today.

To make it stereo, we had to record it twice to make it go out of each speaker, which was very boring.  So the pub round the corner from Cherry Studios got a lot of our money.  Both middle-eights and solos were made up in the studio.  We also used a little Casio keyboard in the studio.

‘Day After Day’ was our version of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ (I wish it was) and yet again we made up the solo in the studio.  When we finished recording we had to wait for a date to put the single onto acetates.  We had to go to the Edgeware Road on a freezing cold day, to meet a man from ‘Triple A Records’, who were pressing the single.  We met a guy called George who was mixing the single and he was one of the greatest blokes ever.  While he pressed the single, his workshop was right next door to a pub and he had an archway between the workshop and the pub which he could use to go to the pub anytime he wanted while he was working.  He had mastered on ‘Let It Be’ for the Beatles which really impressed Rod.

++ This record was self-released on your own Seagull Records. How was the experience of selling the records, distributing them? And why is the catalog number CORK 001. Why Cork? Because the cork of the wine perhaps?

Everything to do with the single had to be based on drink, so when we went through George’s archway to the pub and chatted, he was the one who came up with the ‘cork 1’ on our single.  If you look at the single, you’ll see his own private message, which was very special to us.  It says ‘A PORKY PRIME HIC-CUT’.  ‘Porky’ was his pressing place and he said it was a ‘HIC-CUT’ from him.  Rod loved the Beatles and we both loved it that he came up with ‘cork 1’ and he was on the same wavelength as us.

++ And tell me a bit about the recording session for this record. Where was it recorded? Who produced it? How long did it take? How many copies were pressed?

One day in the pub we decided we’d record ‘Here Comes Summer’ and ‘Day After Day’; another song which I had written which was lying around in numerous different versions.  Neither of us was earning much money, so we thought we’d record the single, which we did in 1988.  At the time it cost us about £1,000 for the recording and pressing.  We recorded it at Cherry Studios, Cherry Road, Croydon.  We have an idea of how the songs should sound, but both songs were very rough – and still are.

We didn’t have a drummer, so we used a drum machine – a Roland 505, which was the hardest thing to program.  Dave Crawley was a computer programmer and a singer with ‘The Heroes’.  So we got Dave to program Roland with Rod and he then sang on ‘Day After Day’.  The drum machine was a nightmare as I never knew when to come in.

Around that time Michael Jackson had taken over all four of the pressing places in the UK with ‘Man in the Mirror’, so we had a delay in getting the single pressed.  Maybe if not we’d have been more famous than Michael Jackson?  We had a letter to say what day the singles would be delivered to Rod’s house in Croydon.  Rod was worried that the singles wouldn’t fit through the letter-box on his front door.  So he made the letter-box about four times bigger than it already was.  Of course the postman left the singles outside, by the front door; so Rod had a dirty great hole in his front-door for no reason at all.

++ What’s the story behind the artwork for the single, that seagull which I believe was called Cedric the Seagull?

When we got the singles we were really, really excited.  We designed the cover so that it was made in the cheapest way possible and we could easily photocopy it.  We used Tony Bulldock’s artwork as he had been the drummer in lots of bands we’d been in.  We asked him to do a quick drawing of what he thought the song would look like and he came up with Cedric the Seagull (I have no idea where the name came from).  We took some photos of Rod, Dave and me on Streatham Common (long before digital cameras), including one I took of Rod having a pee (urinating) behind a tree.  We have no money and we thought it was a clever way to do it.

++ Did you appear in any compilations?

The Beaujolais Brothers are not on a compilation album, but we were in a mod band called Eleanor Rigby http://themodgeneration.com/profiles/blog/eleanor-rigby-mod-icon-or-the-girl-you-love-to-hate (Rod, me, Tony Day and Nicky Simonon on drums (brother of Paul Simonon of the Clash), Nicky now teaches drums).  We did a Dr Martens CD https://www.discogs.com/Various-Generation-To-Generation/release/3871251.  We were on two of the singles and one nearly got into the English charts – ‘Over and Over’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZmK8Ojq–E and ‘1995’. We were said to be one of the worse bands by Sounds, which made me really happy.  On ‘Over and Over’ the drummer was Vince Price.

In traditional rock and roll style we are still waiting to be paid for the session.  When Live Aid was playing, we were playing some dodgy club in Manchester Bullring, we were there for nine hours and after a return trip from London to Manchester, we ended up to £10 each.

++ Are there more songs by The Beaujolais Brothers?

There is also a BBC tape of us singing the Postman Pat theme song as the Beaujolais Brothers.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? What were the best ones that you remember?

Separately, as the Beaujolais Brothers we’d play weekly in Jonguleurs, Battersea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jongleurs and in the ‘Wine Cellar’ in Croydon.  We played a wine bar in Kingston called MadCats and it was just nuts.  We’d play for an hour and then have an hour off.  We had free beer and got paid at the end of the night.  The problem was we had a break and so we’d head off to the pub called the Druid’s Head.  By the end of the night it was messy, but we always got paid.  We’d play ‘Tequila’ and the whole bar would buy tequila.

The owners at MadCats wanted to do a Beaujolais day and open at 8am to get the first bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau wine over from France in the wine bar.  They said we could have as much wine as we liked, which wasn’t the wisest move they’ve ever made.  We played an hour on and an hour off, the same as we did in the evening, but this was 14-hours in the day, starting at 8am.  By about noon, the wine had kicked in so in a break, we went to have a quiet beer in another pub by the river Thames.  We were attacked by some dogs in the pub and then arrested by the police and taken back to MadCats to get our guitars.  The manager said we had another set to play and as he was paying us £100, he was a bit concerned where we were.  He said he could vouch for us until the end of the night.  So many people had turned up to see the Beaujolais Brothers play, so the police let us play.   We hadn’t done anything wrong, just drunk too much wine too early in the morning, that was all.  We carried on, mainly playing the ‘Time Warp’ and we did get paid.

We played there a few more times, but MadCats fizzled out and it closed down.

++ Any gig anecdotes you could share?

We did a gig in Croydon in September 2008, which although not known to us at the time, was out last gig as the Beaujolais Brothers.  We did our usual repertoire, such as ‘Dirty Ol’ Town’, ‘Pick a Bail of Cotton’, ‘The One After Nine O Nine’.  Then suddenly one night in October 2008 Rod passed away.  He was only 49.  I was absolutely devastated.  He was my brother and I did and do miss him so much.  Besides all of the music, we were best friends.  Rod would go along with more or less everything I ever suggested, and then just every now and then, he’d put his foot down and say ‘no’.  He was usually right.

Funnily enough he would have loved his wake, which was held in his local pub, as every muso in the world turned up.  The sign on the door said the pub was closed for a private funeral, but the jamming session was so good, people were hammering on the door trying to get in.  It was probably the best live music that has been played in that pub for a long time.

Prior to that, I had got married, did some traveling and I still write songs, poems and short stories.  I also have a young son, whom Rod would have adored.  I have a fishing boat (called Shameless, hence the song I wrote) in Brighton Marina.

++ So what happened then, when and why did The Beaujolais Brothers called it a day?

Tony followed a wilder path, sold his drums and sadly he’s no longer with us; be we had played in lots of different bands and had lots of fun together.

By this time, Rod and I had burnt each other out, living in each other’s pocket 24/7.  So we started doing different stuff with different bands.

++ What did you do afterwards? Did you continue making music?

We formed the ‘Sexed Up Lambeth Boys’ from playing in a pub in Streatham and we did loads of gigs.  Rod and I would play with a different band in the day and then play with the Lambeth Boys at night.

Then I moved to France and Rod started to play with Slimy Toad from Johnny Moped on the Croydon scene and moved into Toad Hall with Toad.  Rod joined ‘Ol’ Dirty Bar Stars’ with Martin, Robbo, and Jacko from ‘Johnny Moped’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Moped.

When I came back from France I moved to Brighton.  Rod decided he wanted to move to live by the sea and he came and moved in with me.  We recorded the Beaujolais Brother’s Christmas tape.  I changed my garage into a gaff (apartment) for Rod and we started writing songs together again.  We did open mic nights in Brighton.  Then the Tour de France came to Brighton in 1994.  The BBC were featuring a busking festival and the Beaujolais Brothers were invited to be interviewed.  We said yes straight away and Rod was very, very funny on the recording (on the CD).

We had 15 minutes in the green room with the organizer of the busking festival – I can’t remember his name and he’s on the recording.  We said we’d go for a quick half [of a pint of beer] in the pub round the corner.  He panicked as we ran off to the King and Queen pub.  We got back two minutes before the recording started; perfect.

I can send you a copy of the recording, but it was a fun interview.  Our engineer said afterwards the interviewer thought we were funny.  We asked the promoter afterwards if he wanted to come and have a beer and he looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown.

Rod then became involved with his girlfriend Sue and we still did various gigs and open mic nights around Brighton.  We knew Dave Berk, but at that time weren’t in the same band as him https://www.repeatfanzine.co.uk/interviews/DAVE%20BERK%20of%20Johnny%20Moped.htm.

Sue knew Rod and Dave Berk from the Croydon scene and she had bought Dave’s old house in Brighton and Rod moved in with her.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press? Perhaps from fanzines t0o?

We took the single over to France and it was played on Radio Neuf in Bordeaux, it was a big surprise to us hearing ourselves on French radio.  If we had had another £300 the record promoters reckoned we could have had a hit in Europe; but we didn’t have £3, never mind £300.  We were also popular in Germany and since then, the Japanese quite like us.

The most money we got from the single was £16 from a pub in Streatham.  The single was on a juke box and we earned the same money from it as George Michael – it’s the only time I earned the same as George…

++ Today, what other hobbies do you have?

We formed a band to play at my wife’s 40th birthday party, which included Slimy Toad, Pete the Meat (from the Sexed Up Lambeth Boys – he was called Pete the Meat as he was a vegetarian butcher) on drums and Dave Berk was on bass.  We called ourselves the “Dave Berk Five’.  I did vocals, although I was always a reluctant vocalist and had always left that to Rod, but we had no one else who would do it.  We also did a couple of gigs as the ‘Crooning Punks’ with me, Dave Berk, Pete the Meat and Paddy (from the Sexed Up Lambeth Boys) on vocals.  Paddy is a far better singer than me and is a great front man. Pete the Meat lost interest and got married, Paddy went to rehab and fell out with Dave and we carried on as the Dave Berk Five, with just me and Dave.

Dave does bass and drums and I do everything else.  We write our own songs and we both do vocals.  We spend a lot of time in the studio and we have two albums’ worth of material.

++ Thanks again, anything else you’d like to add?

I hope you like what you hear, there are so many stories and so much that I can’t remember (Rod could always remember things, he used to keep records, so I left it to him and can’t remember a great deal).  I hope this shows you how much fun we had.  Thank you for your interest in the Beaujolais Brothers.  We had a million ideas and we just didn’t stop, we didn’t stop.  We are still recording as the Dave Berk Five and I’m just tidying up the cover to the Beaujolais Brothers single to send you a copy.  I’ll also send you the album when it’s finished, or in the meantime a rough copy.  I still have a few Beaujolais Brothers singles left if there’s any interest.

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Listen
The Beaujolais Brothers – Here Comes Summer

Well, I heard from the pressing plant, Mobineko, where I press my 7″s. Now it seems the Salt Lake Alley 7″s won’t be arriving until late June. A 4 month turnaround. It has never taken this long. I’m very annoyed and disappointed. Normally it took 2 months and change, max 3 months. But 4 months is way too much. Vinyl production is indeed becoming more of a headache. To think that pressing a CD takes just weeks, I wonder if we are all on the right path?

So as soon as there are news on that, I’ll let you know. In the meantime a few new finds!

Dronjo Kept By 4: Jun from the Japanese band Dronjo Kept By 4 shared me a new song he has published on Soundcloud, one called “Lemonn” and it is a hit. I had reviewed their Galaxy Train EP some months ago after I stumbled upon it on Bandcamp and I do see a bit of a change in their style on this new song. This is much more guitar-driven and poppier! Reminds me a bit of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, right? A little shoegazey but keeping it’s lofi-ness at heart.

The Stroopies: this Melbourne, Australia, band was recommended on the blog time ago when they put out their self-titled album. Really liked that and wished it was available in any other format other than cassette. Well, now they are releasing a 7″ on an English label it seems as the prices are in pounds (?). There are two songs on the record, “Maddest Moments” and “Architectural Charades”. Only the first one is streamable at the moment and it is not as immediate or poppy as many of the songs on the album. Not sure if it was the best choice for a single myself. The guitars are nice and all, but for me it doesn’t have that excitement as previous tracks. Maybe the B side does? It is coming out on May 25, 2018.

The Blue Herons: Thierry from the fantastic My Raining Stars has shared this top song called “All I Keep Inside”. It is actually not his own song, he is singing on it. Well, and he wrote the lyrics. The band is actually one from Lucerne, Switzerland, and I must say I know next to nothing about them. First time I’m checking their songs. This one is already a great introduction. It is a jangle beauty. But there are other ones too worth checking out like “New Day” which has female vocals by Krissy Vanderwoude and sounds top. How come have these songs flown under the radar? At least my own radar? Very good stuff, and from a country I don’t usually get to hear these sort of sounds to boot!

Young Scum: a new album by the superb Richmond, Virginia, band? Yes please! I must say I have heard most of the songs already some time ago and though that it was really good, if only I would dare to do albums…. They found a good home in Citrus Records and Pretty Olivia Records who are releasing the record called “Young Scum”. So far there’s only a teaser, one song to stream, to understand what this will be about. Check it out, the song “Wasting Time” is truly good. And well, so you know, Pretty Olivia will be releasing the vinyl version and Citrus the tape. It is a short album, 8 songs, but it does sound great. Now, I wonder, if they are in Richmond, why don’t they ever come to NYC to play? It is not THAT far.

Useless Youth: “Goodbye” is the first single from their upcoming album “Cities” to be released on October 5th. And it is a very nice little song by this Mexico City band. The band formed by Yak, Ian, Pepe and Emi have had a few releases so far and this is a fine song. It made me a bit uncomfortable reading the artists they like on their Facebook, but I won’t let me bias, this is a good song and that should be it. For now.

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Dale Arden is a fictional character, the fellow adventurer and love interest of Flash Gordon and a prototypic heroine for later female characters, including Princess Leia and Padme Amidala in Star Wars. Flash, Dale and Dr. Hans Zarkov fight together against Ming the Merciless.

When I interviewed Seán McDermott of the fantastic label Mickey Rourke’s Fridge I was curious about one of the bands that appear on the highly sought after 7″ compilation “Mickey Rourke’s Fridge Presents…”. That band name was, obviously, Dale Arden & The Claymen. So I asked him on the interview about who were they, hoping to find some more details or anything at all. There was that one song on that 7″ comp called “Breakfast, Dinner & Tea” that I thought was brilliant. I wanted to know more.

I got an answer from Seán of course. He said:
The Claymen were Hey Paulette again, under assumed names, again. Dale is a mysterious shantooze who goes by the name of John Healy during the hours of daylight. John was also in High School with Éamonn + me, then later my right hand man in Mickey Rourke’s Fridge, from ‘Dostoevsky lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight? ’till the end of Phase II, mid-90’s.
Dale guested in concert with 16 again, an acoustical sideline of mine, + with Fréres Jackman, + emerges from time to time, when the occasion arises. No further recordings exist!

Okay then. Maybe I should interview Hey Paulette on the blog? Or maybe the members of Hey Paulette and ask them about Dale Arden & the Claymen? Or both! Two interviews would be great.

But there are still some details about the band that are interesting to go over, stuff I’m only learning about now. Well, the compilation 7″ as you might now was the second release on the label and had the catalog number MRF2. It was released in 1990 and the art was designed by Darragh McCann. On it there are four bands, two on each side. On the A side there’s Seán McDermott and Hey Paulette while on the B side there’s Dale Arden and the Claymen and The Twigs. The song The Claymen appear with is “Breakfast, Dinner & Tea”. All the songs seem to have been recorded at Sun Studios, in Dublin.

Okay, so one of the first things that I notice is that the song is actually credited to Rheinhardt and Golightly. But to me it looks more of an inner joke. See Django Reinhardt is spelled with one H less and this one was Jangly Rheinhardt. Then on the credits I notice that the producer is credited as Hollis Golightly. Definitely not Holly Golightly. So it must be an original by the band, but they are probably paying homage to their heroes.

The credits have Dale Arden as all vocals, Derrick Dalton on guitars and Joe Cairo on bass. Sadly, as you are aware, Derrick passed away some time ago. Then it mentions that the drum machine was programmed by Colm Fitzpatrick and John Lyons. While the song was recorded by Paul Lacey. I believe Colm Fitzpatrick did the artwork for the Hey Paulette 12″! It seems it was all a big family in the Dublin scene at that time.

There’s not much more on the web as you can expect from a band that didn’t really exist. But there is a good find on Youtube. There’s a different mix of the song, a “Mrs. Arden Edit” created by a J D Baptist in 2011.

So there are no more recordings by the band under this name. A shame, as it sounds glorious. Even if it was the same people as Hey Paulette! I make a distinction, the sound and style is different to me! What do you think?

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Listen
Dale Arden & the Claymen – Breakfast, Dinner & Tea

Thanks so much to Maurice Kelly for the interview! Imelda’s Boyfriend was an 80s guitar pop band from Dublin, Ireland, who sadly didn’t get to release any records, but they did record a bunch of demos. Demos that sound great! I was lucky to be introduced to them by D from the Fanning Sessions blog, he had posted one of their songs and told me I was going to like it. He was not wrong! “Smile” was a top track! So I knew I wanted to find out more, and so I got in touch with Maurice so he could tell me the story of this obscure but brilliant band!

++ Hi Maurice! Thanks so much for getting in touch! How are you? Where are you based now? Still making music? 

I still live in Dublin as do all the original members of the band.   I’m still writing songs and really need to record them at some stage.  Myself and Terry still do some home recording together.  I saw Sean sold his kit on Adverts a few months ago so bang goes the reunion LOL.

++ Are you still in touch to this day with the rest of Imelda’s Boyfriend? What are you up to? Are you still involved with music?

Sean and Terry are two of my best mates and we see each other regularly.  I’m still friendly with John and was out with him a few years ago.  We all have day jobs of course now – but Terry is as bohemian as ever so does his own thing and always has. Sean and Terry would still be mad into the music.  After John left, I played guitar and sang and Paul Flanagan came in on bass.  He was only young at the time and was the little brother of a guy I knew.  He was an amazing player and I remember we did a demo out with John Scott in Maynooth and he was blown away with Paul’s playing.  Paul left after a bit and we ‘borrowed’ Morgan Hughes from the Drinkwaters.  He was another brilliant player and became a great mate.  Morgan was football mad so fitted in nicely with us at the time.  I still hear from him from time to time.  We had fantastic fun back then it was a great time to be playing music in Dublin.

++ Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from in Ireland? Like what are your first musical memories? What was the first instrument did you get and how? 

We were all from Dublin.  Nice and symmetrical two from the northside and two from the southside.  Even when John left we replaced him with another northsider –Paul Flanagan – to maintain the balance.  LOL.    Myself and Terry were the southsiders.  I was always mad into music and always wanted to be in a band.  My first bass was a Squier Precision which I bought in a local guitar shop in Dublin.  About a year after I got it I began to fancy myself a bit as a bass player and went to Belfast to buy a Fender Jazz because they were cheaper in Northern Ireland.  I sold the Precision to a guy called Peter from a band called The Skips.

++ Had any of you been involved with other bands prior to Imelda’s Boyfriend?

John was in a band I can’t remember the name it.  Terry was is a band called the ‘White Spirits’. Imelda’s was my first band and I think Sean’s first proper band too.

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

I used to work with John in the old Irish Press and we were mates.  He was in a band and I was playing a bit of guitar badly at the time.  John had a friend called Dave Gunning who played drums and so I ended up on bass to form a new band.  Dave left after only a few weeks and we never gigged with him.  We stuck an ad in the Hot Press (Irish music magazine) looking for a drummer and Sean replied.  We met him for a pint in the old Foggy Dew before he even auditioned to see how we would get on.  We all hit it off and that was it really.  Thankfully he was a good drummer as well LOL.

We gigged a bit as a three piece and figured we could expand our sound a bit with another guitar player.  Again, we stuck an ad in Hot Press and that’s where Terry came in.  We did hold auditions this time.  I always remember I wanted to go with a different guitar player at the time but John was keen on Terry.  John followed Terry out of our audition room and more or less offered him the job on the spot.  I wasn’t impressed LOL.  Of course John was right and Terry is a brilliant guitarist as well as an amazing bloke.  I remember Dave Kennedy who went on to play with Crossbreed and Holemasters  and who set up Road Records here in Dublin auditioned.  Dave was a great player but we were totally unsuitable for him and him for us.  Another lovely fella who we used to drink with in town for years afterwards before we all grew old and settled and moved to the suburbs.

++ How was around your town back then? Were there any bands that you liked? What were the good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Dublin was brilliant back then and still is.  We played in any venue that would have us, though mostly in the Underground.  Jeff Brennan who ran the place was a phenomenal. It was an amazing tight little venue where nearly every band in Dublin at the time cut their teeth.  Jeff did more for music in Dublin at that time than nearly anyone else.  I still see him from time to time as we are both big fans of St Patrick’s Athletic so we do bump into each other.

We also played in the Baggot, Whelans, the New Inn, the Attic and the International, but the Underground was the best.   I was music mad back then.  We all were.  I spent my Saturdays buying records in Base X on Batchelor’s Walk, Freebird Records on Grafton Street and Macs Records in the George’s Street Arcade.  There was also a little shop in a mall on Grafton Street up near where Champions Sports is now.  I think the guy who ran it was called George Murray.  He used to have some cool stuff.

++ What’s the story behind the name of the band, Imelda’s Boyfriend?

Ha ha ha, I couldn’t possibly tell you that.  All bands need a little mystery LOL

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

My self and John wrote the songs – separately not together.  We would just bring them in to the rehearsal room and see what happened.    I don’t think we ever wrote a song together.  When John left I wrote pretty much all the songs but I do remember we had a song called ‘Running out of time’ which Sean wrote.   We practiced in Temple Lane Studios.  Temple Bar was very different back then and we used to have a few pints after rehearsal in the local pubs, mostly the old Foggy Dew and the old Norseman.

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

We all had different influences.  John was in to melodic stuff like the Beatles, Terry was and still is a great blues guitarist, Sean was mad into Aztec Camera and I was always into guitar based stuff  and liked a bit of country as well.   Very little of this actually came out in the music.  Later on myself and Terry did some heavier, nosier stuff but not as Imelda’s Boyfriend.  I think Morgan would have played on some of this as well.  We never really did anything with it.

++ And in general, what would you say are your all-time favourite Irish bands?

I can’t answer for the other lads but for me ‘Stars of Heaven’ were the best from our time.  Their Sacred Heart Hotel album is amazing and still sounds great today.  I got to know them later on and me and Terry played with the stars drummer Bernard Walsh in $1000 Wedding.  Bernard is another lovely fella.

++ And what would you say was your favourite song and why?

My favourite song was always the Velvet Underground’s ‘Sweet Jane’.  It’s just the perfect song.  No ifs or buts.  Musically and lyrically clever and just so cool.  Neil Young’s ‘Powder Finger’ runs it close and almost anything off of ‘Marquee Moon.’

++ The only recording I know is the “Smile” song that was uploaded to the Fanning Sessions blog. It is mentioned that Dave Fanning played the song in 1990 from a demo he was sent. Where there more recordings in this demo tape? 

There were three songs on that tape.  Smile, The Misogynist and It Could Be Better.

++ Where was this demo recorded? Was there anyone producing it perhaps?

I don’t remember for certain where we recorded it.  It was either Sun Studios in Temple Bar or Ashtown Gate Studios out on the Navan Road.  We produced it ourselves.  As mentioned earlier we recorded another demo out with John Scott in Maynooth after John left.  There was a song on it called ‘Down the Stairs (and around the corner)’ which was played a few times by Dave Fanning.  I have it on cassette and have just gotten around to digitising it.

++ If it is not much to ask, would you tell me the story behind this great song, Smile?

I can’t help you with that one because John wrote it.

++ Was there any interest from labels at all?

Like everyone else at the time we bombarded record companies with our tapes but never really go any interested.  I have an attic full of tapes addressed to myself in sealed envelopes because someone told us that was the best way to copyright your music back then.  LOL.  All you had to do was produce the unopened envelope in court when you had taken a case against U2 for ripping off your song.  Everyone thought U2 were ripping off their songs back then LOL LOL

+++ Are there more recorded songs by the band other than the demo tape? 

Yeah, as I say we did a tape with John Scott later and there was an earlier demo too.  Our first proper recording.  I have tapes of live gigs in the Rock Garden, Underground, the Attic, the Baggot etc but they are of dubious quality.  Whether that was down to the sound in the venue or the quality of the playing is anyone’s guess LOL

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? Any in particular that you remember?

We played loads of gigs back then in any venue that would have us.  I had forgotten some of the places until I had a look back when trying to remember things before talking to you.  We played Whelan’s with the Revenants, which was a real treat at the time because I was such a fan of Stephen Ryan’s from when he was in the Stars of Heaven.    We also played the same venue with The Harvest Ministers, they were another great band.  When we were starting out bands like Rex and Dino and Hey Paulette were really supportive by letting us play with them.

The maddest night was probably the night we went on last in the Underground as part of a ‘festival’ – a bit like ‘Woodstock on Dame Street’ LOL.  The event went on for three days and we got to play as the last act on the Saturday night after numerous bands had been playing since 12 noon.  The place was packed and everyone was in wild form given they had been drinking all day.  Thankfully the audience were drunk enough to enjoy our performance even if we had to keep throwing them off stage.   We also had some amazing nights in the Attic as well. 

++ And were there any bad gigs at all? Any anecdotes you could share?

I’m sure there were lots of bad nights but thankfully the passing of time has managed to blot them all out.  I do remember being devastated about losing out in various ‘battle of the bands’ competitions LOL.  A bit like X Factor in 1990s Dublin…

++ When and why did Imelda’s Boyfriend split?

I’m not sure we are split at all.  I’d say if we had the time we could get the original band back together again and certainly myself Terry and Sean could rehearse tomorrow if the mood took us.   John left around 1992 over what with hindsight was a ridiculous argument started by me I’m sad to say.  Seems crazy now.    The band didn’t really split as such but stopped using the name and then fizzled out.  Myself and Terry did some stuff with another drummer, Paul Vickers and that was very different from Imelda’s so it would not have made sense to keep the name.  That band never really had a name and I can’t remember ever gigging in it.

++ Did you continue being involved with music? I read you were in Northlight Razor Blade and $1000 Wedding. How did these bands sound like? Any similarities to Imelda’s Boyfriend?

Northlight Razorblade were a million miles from Imelda’s Boyfriend.  It was really Dermot McNevin and his then girlfriend Yvonne Cullen’s band.  They were brilliant, really gifted the two of them.  Dermot wrote wonderful intelligent songs and Yvonne was a multi instrumentalist playing cello, piano and saxophone.  Dermot was an old friend of mine and he asked me to play a bit of bass with him.  Yvonne’s brother, john Cullen, was playing drums at the time. I roped Terry in to play guitar.  John left and I remember we recorded a wonderful demo with Shane Rafferty from Revelino.  He was a seriously good drummer.  I knew him and asked him as a favour.  Yvonne returned the favour and played cello on some of the Revelino stuff. Sean from Imelda’s Boyfriend then joined on drums and left amicably after a while.  I can’t remember why.  I suggested Paul Vickers who was playing with me and Terry at the time and he became the drummer.  We did a Fanning Session, produced by Pete Holidai.  They were great times in a great band.  Like all bands issues crop up and I was given my marching orders from Northlight Razorblade.  Terry and Paul then left as well.  Dermot and Yvonne kept it all going and got some other guys in and made some wonderful music.

$1000 wedding was Sean A McDermott’s band.  As everyone in Dublin knows Sean is a genius, a one off.   The band has had a cast of thousands over the years and knowing Sean is probably still going under some guise or other. It was a country band, pure and simple. The songs were absolutely wonderful.  I was lucky enough to be in the band when the ‘Exile on Dame Street’ album was recorded.  It is a wonderfully off centre lo fi country romp.    Sean shared vocals with Mary Whelan, I played bass, Bernard Walsh from the Stars of Heaven was on drums, my mate Terry Rainey played lead guitar and the late Derrick Dalton played guitar and produced the album.  Eveyone in Dublin knew Derrick.  He probably played in more bands simultaneously than anyone else and probably produced and gave guidance to half the bands in Dublin.    When I first met him he was in Hey Paulette who became good friends of ours.  He also played bass in the Mexican Pets and the Skips, who would have been well known in Dublin at the time.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio or press?

We didn’t get much attention at all.  Dave Fanning kindly played our demos a few times and we got some gig reviews and promos but not a huge amount.  We did get asked to headline a Hot Press (Irish music magazine) gig at one stage and got a full page promo out of it but that was about as good as it got.

++ What about from fanzines?

We were lucky to get people to go to our gigs, never mind write about us!.

++ And today, aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

I was always big into football so that’s still part of what I do.  I’m a fan of St Patrick’s Athletic in the League of Ireland and I mange my son’s team, Terenure Rangers in the Dublin and District Schoolboys League.  I’ve looked after them for years and they are currently Under 14.    I also have a much better guitar collection now than I had back then.  I’m a sucker of old Fenders and Martins.

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

Best highlight had nothing to do with music.  It’s about the lasting friendships that I have with the lads from my own band and with guys from other bands that I know back then.  The memories are also great.  They really were wonderful times.

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Listen
Imelda’s Boyfriend – Smile

Feeling terrible with spring allergies but had prepared this post some days ago. Don’t have many updates sadly but there are more indiepop findings of course all around the web.

Some Gorgeous Accident: Dale Marquez (from Cloudberry friends Apple Orchard) has a new EP coming out soon on the fine Greek label Melotron Recordings. One of the songs that is to appear on the “Heaven Days” EP will be called “Evergreen Days” and it is available now to stream on Youtube. It sounds, needless to say, gorgeous.

Les Autres: the classic French band has a Bandcamp. On it they have been uploading songs from back in the 90s, songs I suppose weren’t properly released. There’s a new EP of 6 songs available that was recorded in Rennes, in 1991. It is called “I’ve Lost Everything I Held” and it is the fifth of these Ovvk Recordings archive, I suppose the band’s own digital label. Would be interesting to do an interview with them later on, right?

Mortalcombat: lovely sounding electro-pop by this duo formed by Sarah Riguelle and César Laloux. The 6 songs of their EP “Vacances en France” are now available digitally and on CD thanks to the Brussels based label Dear Deer Records. The band too is from the capital city of Belgium and if you want to see how they look, well there is a video too for the song “Beau et décadent“.

The Death of Pop: the London band is not unknown to the blog, I’ve recommended their music many times before. So I’ll do it again now because they have a new cassette EP titled “Heads West” with 5 brand new songs: “Marbles”, “700 Spas”, “Ready for Us”, “Cash for Gold” and “8:10”. This tape is being released by Leisure Records and you can expect their trademark jangly popsongs one more time!

Skytone: the Ottawa, Ontario, band that releases stuff on my friend Wally’s label The Beautiful Music have a  new live EP “This is Gonna Get Real!”. It is up on Bandcamp and it is jangly and catchy. Recorded at a basement gig in Ottawa, on November 2017, the band formed by Darius, Rodney, Tristan and Logan, shows us that live they must sound great!

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As you might have noticed I’m trying to vary the country of origin of the bands I feature on the blog. Indiepop is a global thing. So today I’m heading to Australia, check out a superb band, one that I’m still looking for a good copy of their 12″ record: The -Ists.

I have to start the post saying that I know absolutely nothing about them. Actually I’ve only heard one of their songs, “There Is A Light That Shines”, and nothing else. It is a superb song, brilliant. But there are 5 more songs on the record that I haven’t heard. I hope I do so in the near future.

The -Ists, that’s quite a name. They are not the vanguardists, nor the cubists, or the leftists nor the modernists. They probably were mocking all these terms or maybe they didn’t fit in one. I wonder.

They released their “Rose” (GPR 136) mini-album in 1987, on the Australian label Greasy Pop Records. This label was based in Adelaide, and was established by Doug Thomas, who had been involved with bands like The Dagoes, The Assassins or The Spikes. I’m looking at the discography of the label and I see some bands I’m familiar with, The Mad Turks, Dust Collection or The Garden Path.

The record songs were on the A side: “There Is A Light That Shines”, “Rose” and “The Train”. The B side had “Reason or Rhyme”, “Bliss” and “Nobody Likes My Kind”.

There are etchings on the runout grooves. On the A side: “The Ists Light Shines”; and on the B side: “Inwards Every Time”.

The back cover has some more information. We know that the songs were written by Allan Robbins who also sang and played guitar. Rees Hughes Jnr. played bass and Craig Rodda the drums.

That’s all. There aren’t even compilation appearances.

I do know though that Rees and Craig were part of the band The Screaming Believers who also released on Greasy Pop Records. This confirms that the band hailed from Adelaide, same as their label.

I find a hit on Google at last after lots of searching. The State Library of South Australia has some information about them. More like a small bio. It says: “Short lived trio around from 1986-1987. The Ists released one album Rose in 1987. The trio consisted of Allan Robins from The Units, and Rees Hughes and Craig Rodda from The Screaming Believers. The Ists were described in The Advertiser June 1987 as having ‘won a great deal of critical acclaim for its driving original rock from discerning city audiences’.” For the curious, there are also 30 second snippets of all songs of the record.

Lastly, there seems to be a documentary called “Rock in a Hard Place” were many bands from Adelaide seem to have been featured, among them The -Ists. I haven’t seen it, but noticed in its Facebook page that the DVD of the documentary is available for $25 Australia. Is it worth it? Do they talk about guitar pop bands or mostly rock bands? How many minutes do we get of The -Ists. I’m curious. Anyone seen it?

I hope my Australian friends can help shed some light about this obscure band. One record and then later they disappeared. Would love to listen to the rest of their songs. Find out if they have unreleased tracks. And in which other bands they were involved with!

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Listen
The -Ists – There is a Light That Shines

Let’s start a new week then. Waiting for news about Cloudberry projects. And in the meantime I’m trying to set up a proper Bandcamp site for the label, with all of the releases on the catalog available to stream, and with the option to purchase them if they are still available. It may take a while! There are way too many releases in the past 11 years!

Clay Hips: for a long time I thought the Clay Hips songs were going to be released by Matinée. Then there was silence. No news. Nothing. But when I attended Madrid Popfest, Gregorio from Annika Records told me the news. He was to release the debut album of two ex-Fairways, Kenji Kitahama and Andrew Leavitt who now make music under the name Clay Hips. The album will be released on both vinyl and CD, and will be titled “Happily Ever After”. Pre-orders are available now at Annika’s website and we can stream two songs on the band’s Bandcamp, “Failure” and “The Bridge (A Song for Augsburg)”. Actually there’s also a video for this last song which you can check here. Beautiful and fragile, this is one of the records that will be essential this 2018. It is coming out on June 1st.

Gentle Brontosaurus: seems this band has been going since at least 2015. I believe that this is the first time I’m listening to their indiepop thanks to their recently uploaded album “Bees of the Invisible”. It seems that this album by this Madison, Wisconsin, band is only available on digital formats, which is quite a shame. A CD would be nice. There are 12 songs of classic indiepop, influenced by early Camera Obscure I would say (?). The band is formed by Huan-Hua Chye, Nick Davies, Cal Lamore, Paul Marcou and Anneliese Valdes. Really lovely discovery.

Marc Elston: the latest batch of songs by Marc were up on Youtube a month ago. As I am sometimes slow with these things, I’m only listening to them. The “A Box of Letters” EP has three songs, “At Least Try”, “Your Every Thought” and “I Wouldn’t Want To”. They sound timeless, jangly and very early 90s. A bit like Love Parade maybe? I hope they are released physically later, maybe in an album?

No Cars: it says they are based in London, UK, but they are also a self-proclaimed cute Japanese band. The band formed by Haruna, Takaco, Tomoko and Candy, have a Bandcamp and there is an album called “Welcome to Yoko’s Hot Spring” but one can’t stream any of the songs yet. But there are more songs by themselves, for example now I’m really loving this song called “Spring”. Really sweet stuff! Hey Indietracks, here is a band in the UK that would be fantastic at your festival. Just saying!

The Crystal Furs: the great Forth Worth band have a new single out, one that will be part of their new upcoming album to be released this summer. The single is called “In the Mirror” and it is really promising! What does it bring to mind? Maybe early 2000s British indiepop? Tompaulin? Kicker? At least these names come to mind. In any case the band formed by Steph, Kevin and Tanner, is one we should all be following!

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Indiepop from The Netherlands. There’s been a few bands of course, and two of them have been featured on the blog like Formica, Golden Strings or Crockett & Jones. Generally they are not well known. Perhaps the Dutch band most people can think of could be The Nightblooms. But the rest seems to be long forgotten. One band I’m really surprised that has been lost to obscurity is Buy Off the Bar. Why am I surprised? Well, they released two albums but that’s not all. They recorded 4 Peel Sessions. That’s not a small feat!

The Amsterdam band was named after a song by reggae singer Sugar Minott. The band was influenced by British groups like Buzzcocks, Nightingales, The Fall or The Undertones. It is said that the band was related to bands like Golden Strings and the Four One & Only’s. They were formed by Paul Hekkert (Papa Paul) on guitar and vocals, Michel Lemmens (Papa ‘Sjil) on saxophone and vocals, Marcel Van Hoof (Papa ‘Cil) on bass and Loet Schilder (Loetje) on drums.

Their first release was a self-released cassette titled “Billy at The Bar”. This tape had 9 songs. On the A side we find “February 6th”, “Bang Bang Billy”, “Annie Moore”, “The Shout” and “Pig City”. The B side on the other hand had “Einstein in Mineur”, “Wishes”, “Jollywood” and “Whistle Off the Bar”. All songs were recorded in January 1985 at Nickelodeon Studio in Amsterdam with the engineer Erwin Blom. The band thanks two bands on the tape, Golden Strings and Eton Crop. It is important to mention that Erwin Blom was part of Eton Crop, a band that I’ve seen listed on Twee.net but it is not really poppy. It is more of a punkish, rockish band, which actually have a Bandcamp with all of their recordings. The story of the Dutch underground, is there any research on that, I wonder? Anyhow, the art for the tape is credited to a Margrietje. The art is simple, black and white, and we see a cowboy having a drink at the bar. We also see someone who seems has passed out on the bar.

The next year, in 1986, they put out a split 7″ with Golden Strings. I have written about Golden Strings many years ago on the blog. Sadly I haven’t been in touch with any of the members ever. So can’t tell you much about them or their relationship with Buy Off the Bar. The truth is that this “Untitled” 7″, released by Bang Bang Records (BILLY 1) and Deng Deng Deng Records (DENG 002), had two songs by Buy Off the Bar on the A side: “February 6th” and “Silence”. The songs were once again recorded at Nickelodeon Studio in Amsterdam. On the A side, there is a runout etching that says “Bring Back the Buzzcocks”. Yeah, it is clear the band was a fan of them. But also we find something that was to become a trademark by Buy Off the Bar: comparing the length of their songs to other songs lengths. For example here “February 6th” length is compared to the Undertones’ “The Way Girls Talk”, The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated”, Protex’s “I Can Only Dream” and Yeah Yeah Noh’s “1901”. Then for “Silence” they compare the length to the Buzzcocks’ “Orgasm Addict”, the June Brides’ “Sick Tired and Drunk”, Liliput’s “Split”, Jasmine Minks’ “Black n’ Blue” and The Clash’s “White Riot”. Yup, instead of showing the tracklength, the band was to always write down some of their favourite songs with the same tracklength instead.

Don’t know how their split 7″ or tape found its way to the UK, specifically to Ediesta Records. That story would be interesting to know. In 1987 they were releasing with this label their first album, “It’s Up to Billy” (CALC LP 18). Yes, by now I’m also wondering who Billy was. It is mentioned time and time again. 9 songs again, just like the tape. On the A side: “It’s Up To You”, “Peanut Butter Boy”, “Papa’s Music”, “Too Shy To Die”, “Commie Come Back”. On the B side there’s “Amuse Yourself”, “Guitar Maffia”, “I Belong” and “Wishes (Live)”. This time the producers for the record were Alex Roelofs and Corné Bos. Roelofs had been in a band called The Nits while Bos was in Eton Crop. All songs were recorded at P.P.M. Studios in Amsterdam during several days in January 1987 but “Wishes (Live)” which was recorded live at “De Pieter” in Amsterdam on December 10, 1986. The record included a picture collage sheet and only for The Netherlands an info sheet on Megadisc, their distributer in their homeland. The runout grooves now say on the A side “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” and on the B side “Ooh – Hoo – Ohoo – Ohoo”. And again we are going to find that instead of track times, they mention other songs by other bands with the same time:
A1: The Wedding Present – Living And Learning
A2: The June Brides – I Fall
A3: The Undertones – My Perfect Cousin
A4: The Soup Dragons – Whole Wide World
A5: Marc Riley with The Creepers – Shirt Scene
B1: Buzzcocks – Love Battery
B2: Serious Drinking – Hangover
B3: Bog-Shed – Mechanical Nun

Their second album was to be titled “Parboiled” (Bi-Joop 23) and it wasn’t going to be on one of the big indies, like Ediesta, but on the much smaller Bi-Joopiter Records. A label that deserves to be rediscovered. I would suggest to start reading a fantastic article Daniel from So Tough So Cute!  from Malmö, Sweden, put together with all the discography by this very fine label founded by Paul Rixon and Gillian Elam in 1983. This record had once again 9 songs. They loved that number it seems. On the A side there was “Stretch Out”, “One Of These Days”, “No Money for the Lavatory”, “Illegal Shed” and “Shot By Both Sides”. The B side included “Shopdropping Emergency”, “World of Camera”, “Empty Theory” and “Fade Away”. The producer this time was Dolf Planteijdt who was the owner of the recording studio Koeienverhuurbedrijf which was also known as Rent-a-cow sutdio or Soundbound Rent a Cow Studio. Anyhow on the runout grooves the band had on the A side “Egbert Sousé (Accent Grave Over Thee)” and on the B side “Mr. Muckle”. I did a bit of research about these names. Turns out Egbert Sousé was a character on the 1940 English comedy “The Bank Detective”. Sousé is played by W.C. Fields and as you can imagine the character was a hard-drinking man. From another movie by W.C. Fields, one called “It’s A Gift”, there’s a character called Mr. Muckle who was played by Charles Sellon.

I have ordered both LPs last week from Discogs. I’m hoping to see to which songs they compare the length of theirs on “Parboiled”.

There are a bunch of compilation appearances too. Chronologically:

1987 – Their song “Free Beer” appears on the tape compilation “Zelfkrant Fanzine Cassette 1” (Zelfkrant 5) that was put together by this Belgian fanzine. There seems to be info about the bands on the tape insert but the scan is too little for me to read. I do notice the Dutch bands I’ve mentioned in this post, Golden Strings and Eton Crop appear here as well. This same year they start their relationship with Bi-Joopiter. How? Well they contribute the song “Cracked-Up” to the tape “Pluralism D” (Bijoop 017). The tape in this compilation came in a heavy cardboard, folded to an envelope with inserts and used stamps glued on the inside. All very DIY. Lastly, “Free Beer” also appears on the terrific compilation “13 Great Bands from The Low Lands”. This compilation released by Noet Lachten Records (NOET 4). On this LP, we see familiar faces again, Golden Strings, Crocket & Jones and more.

1988 – They were to appear on one of the legendary C86 sort of tape compilations, “Something’s Burning in Paradise” (Subtle 001) released by Subtle. On this poppy tape that included the likes of Another Sunny Day, James Dean Driving Experience or The Mayfields, the Dutch band contributed the song “There’s No Fridge On the Bristol Bridge (Live)”. Where was this recorded live? It doesn’t say. Then on yet another tape, this time one from Germany called “I Hope We Die Before We Get Old” (F.A.T.2) that was released by F.A.T., they opened the tape with their song “Too Shy To Die / That Man”. I don’t know any of the other bands that appear on this cassette.

1990 – Lastly on the Dutch label Noet Lachten Records’ double LP compilation “Let’s Have a Picnic and Barbecue Some Corrupt Not Self-Programming Dee-Jays” (NOET 10) they had a song titled “Hi America”. This compilation had bands from various countries, like Belgium, Germany, England and of course The Netherlands. The other contribution this year was on the UK compilation LP “Own Goal” (GOAL 1) that was released by Goalpoast. They had a song called “Big Sleep”.

I click now on the band members, see if they are listed on any other bands or projects. But it doesn’t look like it. How come?

Then we do know that out of their 4 Peel Sessions, one of them was actually released. “The 2nd Peel Session” came out in The Netherlands as a 10″ vinyl in 1987. The songs they recorded were, on the A side, “There’s No Fridge On the Bristol Bridge” and “No Progression”, and on the B side, “Keyword Control” and “In the Back”. It was released by Bang Bang Bang Records (Billy 2). I have the suspicion this label was their own label. The engineer for the session happened to be Mike Engles while Dale Griffin was the producer. The 4 songs on it were recorded at Maida Vale Studios in London on July 5th 1987. Again some funny runout grooves. On the A side “Jo en Willy”. On the B side “Ajax – PSV 9-0”. Clearly they were from Amsterdam and not Eindhoven. Also another fun fact is that they called the A side as HEADS, and the B side as TAILS. And here once again, instead of track times they mention songs by other bands that had the same tracklength:
A1: ‘Heart Of Song’ by Josef K
A2: ‘Psycho Maffia’ by The Fall
B1: ‘Legs Can Be Sturdy’ by A Witness
B2: ‘Lower Than Ever’ by The Nightingales

There are two other blog posts I found on the web. The first is from the blog XPQWRTZ that used to be written by Crayola from the band Sarandon. Here he tells the story of him supporting Buy Off the Bar at a Birmingham gig in 1988 when the Dutch band was touring the UK. Another support band for that gig was The McTells. Which was Crayola’s band name at that time? He mentions that only 20 people came to that gig.

The other blog that wrote about them is one called Maggot Caviar. Here we get the tracklist for all the Peel Sessions! That is quite important.

1st 28/10/1986 – uploaded to Youtube by the great Dave Driscoll from The Aurbisons!
“Peanut Butter Boy”
“Commie Come Back”
“To Shy To Die/That Man”
“Papa’s Music”

“That Man” is a cover of The Fall.

2nd 07/05/1987
“There’s No Fridge On The Bristol Bridge”
“No Progression”
“Keyword Control”
“In The Back”

“In The Back” is a cover of Flag of Convenience.

3rd 03/07/1988 – Uploaded by Dave Driscoll too!
“No Money For The Lavatory”
“Euroburger”
“Illegal Shed”
“Go Away”

4th 30/07/1989
“Pleasure Machine”
“Big Sleep”
“Hi America”

From another blog, Kill Your Pet Puppy, I found out that the McTells toured Holland alongside Buy Off the Bar.

I couldn’t find much more about this Dutch band on the web. It is strange, a band that recorded 4 Peel Sessions should have more of a web presence I think. It might be that only one of these sessions was later released. The other three didn’t get a physical release. I wonder if they played any other countries aside England and Netherlands. Where in the UK did they play too? And what happened to them after the band was over? They must surely have continued making music, right?

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Listen
Buy Off the Bar – Papa’s Music

Fridays. It feels great that the weekend is about to start. And that is always nice, isn’t it?

For today I have some of the latest findings from the Latin American Twee Facebook page and more.

Niños del Cerro: Joel, who runs that fine Facebook page, shared the song “Flores, Labios, Dedos” which is their promo single for the Chilean band’s second album. Don’t know what’s the name of the album, or when will it be available. They are just promoting this song for the time being. It is good, though not as great as I remember their previous songs. Maybe this is more 60s influenced? I don’t know, it is still enjoyable but wouldn’t have picked it as a single myself.

Las Ligas Menores: my favourite Argentinean band is back it seems. They have shared on their Bandcamp the song “En Invierno”. Ok, pay attention, because this is a superb band, one that is on my list of bands that I want to see live one day. And the song doesn’t disappoint. This track will be included in their 2nd album, “Fuego Artificial”, which will be released on May 10th on Discos Laptra. How do I get a copy in the US?

Invernal: the Peruvian band, based in Lima, has uploaded the song “Universo” to their Bandcamp and they say it is their 2nd promo single for what will be their new album. The dreampop band is formed by Marco Malpartida, Mayra Ojeda, Marco Atencio, André Román and Christian Vargas. I believe I recommended them a long time ago, when they played Lima Popfest. Good stuff.

Nah…: one of our favourite releases this year was the “Summer’s Failing Again” EP that the Münster by Amsterdam band released just a few months ago. It seems the CD was a big success and was sold out very fast. For those wanting more, well, there is a “Remix EP”. We see remixes by Papernut Moon, The Catherines, Orange Crate Art and The Fisherman and his Soul.

The Vegetablets: some months ago I was complaining that The Vegetablets were only available on tape. Their songs were a great discovery but I didn’t want to get their tapes. Well, the Tulip House label, from Nagoya, Japan, have put together both tapes on a very nice CD that comes in different varieties: 4 color, normal or  pixel art for one to choose, all very DIY.

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I only have a few releases on Aliénor Records, one of the most known French indiepop labels from the 90s. I haven’t really explored the whole catalog. If only I had all the money and time in the world.

I am very curious, and interested in finding out more, the whole picture if possible, about all indiepop bands. Indiepop is barely documented. And I’m trying to do my part, little by little. Don’t know if one day this sort of work will be publishable, but some of it might. See, there have been some books published. I’m not saying I will do one. Maybe one day that’d be nice. But again where do I find the time? In the meantime I can do these sort of detective investigations about the bands, try to find out every detail available on the web and then hope to get in touch with the band for an interview.

Les Chaplinn’s, with that strange apostrophe and s name, is a band I know very little. That’s why a few days ago I ordered the only 7″ they released. Well, no, that’s not why. I had heard a song by them called “Sunny Day” and I thought it was great. Jangly, poppy, catchy. Of course, as it usually happens, this song is not part of the 7″, but from a compilation tape. So not sure what I’ll encounter when I play the 7″, but I’m hoping it sounds similar to this brilliant song.

“Run Turn Turn EP” was released in 1993 on the French label Aliénor Records (Alien β). This was a fun label, they used to catalog their records with Greek letters. The label was based in Bordeaux. From what I read on Discogs, the label is now part of Les Disques Aliénor which includes Platinum and another indiepop label, Cornflakes Zoo. Not sure what happened with the labels, how one became another or how they bought each other.

The EP had three songs. On the A side there is “Run Turn Run” while on the B side we find “Mute” and “The Fool”. We find first names credited on the back cover, Willy on bass, Dilip on drums, Gé on guitar and Franck on guitar and vocals. According to Discogs, Franck’s last name is Mossenta. Franck Mossenta, and Dilip’s is Saint-Jean, Dilip Saint-Jean.

Aside from that EP, there is an 8 song demo tape listed. There is no date for it, nor artwork, but at least we know the names of the songs that were included: “Mute”, “Wake Up”, “Sunny Day”, “Who’s”, “Run, Turn, Sum”, “Lost”, “The Fool” and “Jesus”.

As many of the bands from the early 90s, they participated in several compilations. The first one in 1991, two years before their release. On the “In The Limelight” tape that was released in France and came with a fanzine-style booklet, I suppose with info on the bands, they included three songs: “Mute”, “Wake Up” and “Whose”.

The next year, 1992, their song “Flying” appears on the compilation “Rosenbud (Born to Be a Star) – The Great Collection V.1” that was released on both CD and tape format by the French label Rosebud (ROBCD9214 / ROBK9214). It seems like only French bands were part of it, among them one I’ve interviewed in the past, Les Freluquets.

Another compilation they were in 1992 was “Teeny Poppers” released by Anorak Records (SHOUBIDOUWA 01). I mentioned this compilation not too long ago, when I wrote about Budgie Jacket. This time around Les Chaplinn’s contributed the song “Wake Up!”.

Then “Sunny Day”, the song I’m sharing, and the one song I heard first by this band. It appeared on the “Garden Party” tape compilation released by Aliénor Records (ALIEN α). This cassette also came out in 1992 and included many great bands from the time including The Bedflowers, Mosaic Eyes, The Spinning Wheels and more.

A 1993 compilation “Simple as Them”, released by Ora Pro Nobis (OPN 9303) has an “Untitled” song by the band. Actually all bands’ songs are untitled. How come? It is a very strange compilation.

Lastly another 1993 compilation, this time from Germany. The tape “Frischer Morgentau” included the same song I love, “Sunny Day”. It was released by Steipilz Tonträger (Stein 1). I remember mentioning this compilation quite a bit on my Moosblüten post, as one of the members was behind this label.

I found a photo and then another on a web called Ooplaboom, where they have concert photos from the pre-digital era, of the band playing in Brest, on April 8th, 1996, opening for Peter Astor. That’s the photo I’m using for the post too by the way.

The band used to have a Myspace too. Of course, the songs don’t stream.

What else? Not much more! Where in France where they from? Why no more releases? I would love to hear to the rest of their songs, the ones from their demo at least. What were the last names of the band members? Were they involved in any other bands? There are a few blog mentions about them, but just name checking them. No story. No details. How come?

Edit (same day): Michaël from Watoo Watoo has confirmed that the band hailed from Paris and that Dilip used to work at Studio Ornano.

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Listen
Les Chaplinn’s – Sunny Day

There’s so much to cover on the blog, I’m only catching up and there has been already an announcement of a new Paris Popfest! After seeing the lineup, I must say I’m very interested in attending. If only I could!

The festival will be held at the venue Le Hasard Ludique on September 21st and 22nd. The lineup is pretty impressive for the two nights: Go-Kart Mozart, The Orchids, Cocoanut Groove, Birdie (!), Soft Science, Peaness, Beach Youth and Xavier Boyer (Tahiti 80). Plus the DJs Popnews and Section 26.

Most of these bands I know, but Beach Youth, so I’ll explore. But what about the DJs? Who are they? And how good is this venue? Would be great to know more details about the festival.

Beach Youth: a band from Caen, France. That must be a first on the blog. Their latest release seems to be “Singles” which is a compilation of their debut songs. It was released last September on 10″ vinyl. It sounds quite hip, catchy and fun. There are 5 songs in total in the EP, “Days”, “Memories”, “Young”, “Closer” and “Diary”. The band is formed by Etienne Froidure, Simon Dumottier, Louis-Antonin Lesieur and Gautier Caignaert. I would like a copy too!

And 4 more findings so you have a good middle of the week!

Verbludes: I have recommended in the past this Moscow, Russia, band. Actually, I raved about them. They sound GREAT to me. Well, there is a new EP on their Bandcamp, one called “Supernova” and I’m eager to listen to it. Of course I wonder if it will be released physically, and the answer is that probably not, or maybe just on cassette. Anyways, now I’m listening, and even though I don’t understand anything, I’m hooked. The first song sounds a bit rockier than their previous releases, but it is still very enjoyable! The thing I really like about this Russian band is their girl/boy vocals. They combine perfectly. Which is my favourite song? At first listen I could say: “кошмары”, but in due honesty, I suggest listening to all six songs!

Nos Miran: I have recommended the “Humo” 10″ that Elefant is to release by this superb band. I shared one video too. Now it is time for a second video, one for the song “La Montaña del Amor”. And it sounds great. Should try to get this record soon.

Putochinomaricón: another video from another Elefant Records band. I had recommended the new 10″ mini-album by Chenta Tsai Tseng that is quite a sensation already on social networks. Now a video for the song “Tú No Eres Activista” is available on Youtube to promote the record, and I’m loving it, especially the fun and poignant lyrics.

Pale Blue Morning: had recommended their song “Eleanor” some time ago on the blog. It was their only song available on SoundCloud then. Well, now the Quezon City, Philippines, band have a new song, one called “Haze” and it is terribly good!

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The bee hunters.

What do I know about them? Barely anything. I must say I just discovered their songs on Youtube. The few that are available there. They sound good. They sound jangly. They sound 80s. They are in German. I need to investigate.

Discogs tell me that the band was formed by Jochen Distelmeyer, Mirko Breder and Thomas Wenzel. And worst of all, that they had no releases. Just two compilation appearances. That’s a bummer. I suppose though it it not the worst case scenario, at least two compilations meant that there songs were out there somehow.

These two compilations were cassettes. Both on the German label Fast Weltweit. This label was originally based in Bad Salzuflen and would play an important part of what would later be called the Hamburg School. The label was founded in 1985 by Michael Girke, Andreas Henning, Achim Knorr, Bernd Begemann, Frank Spilker and Frank Werner. A lot of people according to the German Wikipedia. Later it seems Jochen Distelmeyer and Bernadette La Hengst would join to run the label. So the question is then, was Jochen running the label when his songs appeared on the compilation? Or what came first? The chicken or the egg?

The first compilation tape was called “Fast Welweit Präsentiert” and was released in 1988. It included a bunch of important bands from the time like Die Time Twisters, Die Sterne or Jetzt!. The artwork was created by Frank Spilker and Frank Werner and all songs are credited to be recorded by Frank Werner between 1987 and 1988 at Klangforschung Studio. Here Die Bienenjäger appear with two songs: “Große Städte, Flaches Land” and “Das Herz Ist Ein Einsamer Jäger”

The second compilation tape was called “Fast Weltweit Nr. 2” and was released the same year, 1988. We see again the same bands on the compilation. This time around two knew songs are included by Die Bienenjäger, “Was Werden Sie Finden’ and “Tatjana Traurig”. Again, the same people credited for artwork, same people and same studio for the recording.

I wonder if Tatjana Traurig was a real person. The truth is that there is actually a video for this song, “Tatjana Traurig”. That is quite surprising. It looks like a video from that time. Would be interesting to know more about it.

The website Indiepedia.de has a bit more information about the band. It mentions that they recorded between 15 to 20 demos at Frank Werner’s studio. 4 of them we know from the tapes. Where are the rest? Would love to listen. The band split when Jochen moved to Hamburg in 1989 where he founded the band Arm and later Laut. And even later the most famous of his bands, the fantastic Blumfeld.

We also know thanks to this website that the name of the band actually comes from a book of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper.

Then there is a link to the lyrics of the 4 songs that were published! Now you can sing along.

Jochen as I was saying was part of the Hamburg Schule band Blumfeld, they are quite popular and probably you can find a lot of information on the web. He also released some solo records. He was actually not from Hamburg originally but from Bielefeld. On the other hand, Mirko Breder was part of the band Die Sterne and also played in a band called The Discount. Thomas Wenzel played in a lot of bands, Amon Ra, 3 Normal Beatles, Calamity Jane & The Amazing Seven, Cow, Die Goldenen Zitronen, Die Stars, Die Sterne, N.R.F.B. and Naked Navy.

I can’t seem to find any more information about the band. All of the mentions are always the same, that it was the predecessor band to Blumfeld. Nothing of Die Bienenjäger on its own. I understand that Blumfeld was big, but because of that I would have expected someone must have been interested in what happened before. In those 15, 20, demos. Why there were no releases? At least some gigs should be mentioned, right? But there’s not much at all on the web. And I’ve been quite thorough with the German-language websites.

I’m hoping then my German friends will fill in the blanks.

Edit (same day thanks to Frank Werner’s link):

An interview by Christoph Koch on the Headspin zine volume 13 from December 1995. Christoph interviews Jochen about Blumfeld and actually asks him some questions about Die Bienenjäger! Will we find more information about them? Let’s thanks Google Translate here, I hope it is understandable. If you know German it is probably better to click the link!

Headspin: Actually just a little bit, a few individual songs, but maybe you can tell how it all was then, with your old band Bienenjäger, Bad Salzuflen and the ominous Fast Weitwelt  …

Jochen: I believe that Michael Girke and Bernd Begemann founded the label together, whereby Bernd then actually said goodbye again from this context, because he wanted to make music in Hamburg with his band “Die Antwort” at a major label. Otherwise there were from the beginning: Frank Spilker of the Sternen, Achim Knorr as theDer Fremde, Die Time Twisters, I found out about them only two years later through an article in the magazine Spex. They all came from Bad Salzuflen / Herford and I’m from Bielefeld, so I did not have the direct connection to the people and when I read that article, I contacted them because that sounded pretty much like what I was was interested at the time and where relatively little was found in Bielefeld.

Headspin: And you were then at the start under the sonorous name of Die Bienenjäger?

Jochen: At first it was called Die Bienenjäger, then it was called Arm, until we realized – I already lived in Hamburg – that there was already a band in Hamburg with the name, they were so hardcore and in the end we were called, but I know not at all, if under the name what appeared on one of these Fast Weitwelt cassette sampler. Back then, we always did such exceptional sessions and released tape samplers. Michael Girke was at the beginning together with Thomas Schwebel as Jetzt! released a single, the Sternen and Der Fremde and Die Time Twistersthen made even real records, singles and so a sampler.

Headspin: I actually only know two pieces of the bee hunters, but I really like them, on the one hand “Tatjana Traurig”, on the other hand with the “Brief von weit weg” …

Jochen: That with the letter is actually called “Was werden sie finden?” and was just like the other just a demo recording and as far as I know never appeared anywhere. [But it’s on the red or the blue cassette sampler that Achim Knorr kindly sent me a short time later] But actually the cassette samplers were also demo recordings somewhere. I still remember how we went to the Berlin Independence Days and Popkomm and thought we had the hottest stuff ever, the hottest thing so far, just from the lyrics and the attitude behind it. Michael, for example, based on “Cappuccino Kid” (as Paul Weller has always signed the liner notes on his albums) under the name “Nescafé Boy” written on the back of the first sampler, the plate stalls abolished, the plates should be heard and not bought. So for some of the people who were there at that time, there was always, albeit nebulous, a political connotation. For Michael and for me in any case, for Frank Spilker I think so, but for example for Achim, Bernadette and Die Time Twisters barely. When I made music together with Thomas Wenzel, I always said. “You play bass” and he said “I do not feel like playing bass”, so some people used to play bass and drums at concerts. So we always played in cities where we knew someone, then sent a tape to them. Then came ‘ A time when I separated myself from Thomas and did not even bother to play music anymore and at some point I met André, Christof Leich of the Colossal Youth, and we did a jam session together with Thomas Wenzel and Frank Spilker. But that was not the thing, but then André said he knew another bass player and so we called Eike and with that he did a great job. From this jam session but then the new cast of the stars has emerged and after Thomas’ shared apartment Peta lived and I knew Bernadette from before, then resulted from this connection again with the “Die Braut haut ins Auge”

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Listen
Die Bienenjäger – Große Städte Flaches Land