For those who haven’t noticed I’ve added a little sale offer for Christmas, only available until December 23rd. You can get 3 Cloudberry Cake Kitchen CDs for the price of 2. All available titles are part of this promotion. So if you are missing any of them, this is a good opportunity. Bear in mind that there are few copies of Strange Idols, so if by any reason they sell out, well, bad luck! Check this promotion on the Cloudberry website.

The Beths: the amazing New Zealand band has two new songs on their Bandcamp and they are about Christmas! So if you are feeling in the mood of holiday season, do check out “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and “Happy Unhappy”!!

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: yet another demo song by this superb project by the San Francisco band. I can’t wait for the properly recorded versions of all the songs the band keeps publishing in their Bandcamp. Their latest is called “What’s in your DNA?” and it is a lovely slice of janglepop!

True Sleeper: Italian shoegaze! The song “Blurred Hears” is now available to stream from the label Lady Sometimes, the same label that a week ago was giving us their Italian Sarah tribute. This sounds pretty good. Looking forward to more songs.

Control Room: this Hattlesburg, Mississippi, band sounds pretty cool. Definitely influenced by post-punk and synthpop, they do have a very nice pop sensibility when making their songs. That is what I like! There are four songs in their “Retreat” cassette EP, “Shield”, “Ground Rules”, “War” and “No Zeros”.

Rilev: the last year we’ve find out so many good Mexican bands. Rilev being the latest one I discover. Their dreamy songs are part of a digital EP that includes 5 songs, “Intro”, “Control”, “Vampira”, “Antes” and “Amar”. I wonder though, when I’ve visited Mexico City, never seen any of these bands performing. Will I do one day?

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It has been a while since a New Zealand band was featured on the blog. I think since the Exploding Budgies? I did try to interview them and sent questions, but sadly I haven’t heard back yet. Hopefully one day I’ll get those answers. That’d be great. Still I think it is good time to check out an obscure guitar pop band from New Zealand.

I would love to know why they named themselves Mainly Spaniards. Was there any connection with Spain? Has there been a Spanish immigration to New Zealand? Would be interesting to find out. What we do know about them is that their legacy is a 7″ and a couple of compilation appearances, nothing more.

The good thing is that their 7″ came out on Flying Nun (FN014), that means, I hope, we’ll be able to find some interesting information about them. An important label gives us that possibility.Though I must say I don’t remember this band being mentioned on the book Roger Shepherd published a few years ago.

The “That’s What Friends are For” 7″ included three songs. On the A side we find “That’s What Friends are For” credited to Richard James. The B side has “Secretaries’ Lunch Break” and “Questions”. We know that the band was formed by Nick Strong on bass, Dave Swift on bass, Mike Jeffries on guitar and Richard James on vocals and guitar. All songs on the record were produced by Chris Knox from the Tall Dwarfs and many more and Doug Hood who was one of The Clean’s original members.

500 copies were pressed for this record and we know there were 3 colour sleeve variations, pink, lemon and red. They were designed by Rudolph Boelee who had Groucho on the cover.

The compilation appearances that are listed for them are way more recent. Just from a decade ago. Their A side “That’s What Friends Are For” appears on the “Christchurchthemusic” double CD that EMI put out and also on the “Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set” 4-CD compilation that Flying Nun put together for their 500th item in their catalogue.

There is a Wikipedia entry about the band. On it we learn that a 2nd single was recorded but never released after Richard James moved to Auckland from Christchurch (where the band were based) to work as a schoolteacher in late 1983. What songs were going to be on this single? have they been available anywhere else? Would love to hear them! Why weren’t they released?

From it we also learn that Richard James played in The Pterodactyls and The Letter 5. Later on, in 2008 he was in a band called The South Tonight with John Kelcher from Sneaky Feelings. And there was also some lineup changes in 1982, David Swift would leave the drums for Tony Green to take over.

AudioCulture has a couple more details about the band. Here it gets confirmed that the band was active between 1981 and 1983 and played gigs at The Gladstone, Star and Garter, Canterbury University, Punakaiki Festival (April 1983) and the Empire Tavern in Dunedin (1982 & 1983). That Richard James was even in more bands like the Stanley Wrench and The Monkey Brothers and was a guest horn blower in The Vauxhalls. David Swift moved to the UK and became a journalist, writing even for the NME.

There is a video on Youtube for “That’s What Friends are For” that includes many bits of information about the band. I like these sort of videos. Why aren’t there more like it? It tells us that the band recorded the songs at a local studio but weren’t happy with it. A friend of theirs, Roy Montgomery, would play it to Roger Shepherd from Flying Nun who liked it and wanted to put it out on his label. The band wanted to re-record them and that’s when Hood and Knox came in.

Then there is an article written by David Swift for TheBigCity, a website that covers Christchurch culture. Here he mentions that Mike Jeffries was a screen printer, that Ross Humphries from the Pin Group almost became a member but was too busy with other projects, and that the name of the band was his idea. An idea of reading newspapers and circling any two words that taken out of context might work. A report on the press foreign news pages about a bus crash in Spain that killed 35, ‘mainly spaniards’. The mystery of the name is solved.

The band supported The Clean at the Star and Garter in 1982 to a crowd of 500. They supported and played with The Chills, The Pin Group, The Newtones, Sneaky Feelings. The songs on the 7″ were recorded at Paul Kean’s (The Bats) house in Sydenham in March 1982.

I find something interesting dating from July 2018. The label Failsafe Records mentions that they are putting together a “Collected Works and Live” by Mainly Spaniards. We should keep an eye on that, if it happens.

And that’s where I hit a wall. I can’t fin any more information about them. It is not bad of course, I’ve found more information than I expected and hopefully in the near future there will be that retrospective compilation. What about you all? Do you remember them?

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Listen
Mainly Spaniards – That’s What Friends are For

If you see on our website, we have a few copies of two 7″s released by the German label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten. We have 7″s of the split single by Lake Ruth and Pale Lights and also the latest 7″ by Botschaft. We only got 4 copies of each, so if you are in the US and you want to save some postage this is a good opportunity.

Finds from over the weekend? Of course!

Remington Super 60: the classic Norwegian band is back with a new Christmas song. It is called “A Winter Song” and it does sound gorgeous! As it says on their Soundcloud, Remington Super 60 never disappoints around Christmastime. I do hope though to hear new songs by them at other times of the year!

Seeing Hands: there’s a new 10″ on Discos de Kirlian by this Newcastle based band formed by Kev Curran, Nick Hodgson, Jon Varty and Liam Guillan. There are 7 songs and they sound superb. Dreamy jangly pop! The record is limited to just 150 copies.

Young Agings: not sure who this band is. I know they are Japanese and that the main driving force is Shota Kaneko. I’m listening to the last song on their tape “Before I Go” that is called “Stars” and I think it is brilliant. This tape is out now on Sauna Cool Records from Kobe. This tape is also very limited, just 100 copies.

Figure: so as I’m curious I went to check the other release available on this Japanese label, Sauna Cool Records. It is another tape, this time the sound is more shoegazy. The band is called Figure and this 6 song tape is titled “Parakalein”. And even though I’m not loving this as much as Young Agings, there are some terrific tracks like “True Bosom” or “Daylight”.

Perfect Body/Zac White: some nice songs on this digital split EP by two Cardiff bands. There are 3 songs by Perfect Body and 4 by Zac White and I must say I’m more partial to the first band.  This is out now on Bubblewrap Collective, from Cardiff also.

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I continue checking out the list on Janglepophub. There is a Canadian band that is unknown to me. Well, there are a few of them to be honest. But I decided to start with the one called The 21 Hundredz. Why? Not sure. I guess the name caught my attention. Also that there were no sound bites shared. I wanted to listen to them. And also the year they released their single, 1988, it had to sound good if it was released that year, right?

According to Discogs the band released one 7″ on Accent Records (which I suppose it was their own). It had no catalog number and included just two songs. The A side had “Modern Romance”, while the B side was “A New Rhythm, A New Name”. But according to 45cat this first single was released in 1987 and there was actually a second single, also on their own Accent Records.

That comes as a surprise. I didn’t expect them to have a 2nd single. This second 7″ had also two songs, one on each side: “Life is Eternal” and “Today”.

Thanks to 45cat I get to know that “Modern Romance” was composed by Lori Kennedy and Jed Dyals, “A New Rhythm, A New Name” by Jed Dyals and “Life is Eternal” and “Today” by Jed Dyals and David Saturne.

The website Calgary Cassette Preservation Society has a 2012 post about the first 7″. There is not much information about the band but there is a scan of the back sleeve of the “Modern Romance” 7″. Thanks to this I find out the proper lineup of the band.
Bruce Callow – vocals, rhythm guitar, emax
Jed Dyals – guitar, vocals, piano
Karl Harter – bass, guitar
Lori Kennedy – drums

Dough Callow is credited for the photo and design of the record. The songs were remixed by Doug Faires.

Then I dig on this website and find a post about their 2nd 7″. There is not much information but it tells us an interesting detail, that both records were manufactured through Doug Wong Music (that’s why they carry a DWM catalog) despite being on Accent Records. Who was Doug Wong?

Thanks to these names I find that Bruce Callow and Karl Harter had been in a band called New Internationalists. I should check them out. But there is even a more interesting post here, a 21 Hundredz demo!

Make sure to check out these links as they have dropbox links for downloading the music. So what about these demos? It says that two of the 3 songs on the demo tape were included in some compilation LPs called Tones and Calgary. I’m not sure if these are the real names of these comps, but that’s how this website mentions them.

It also gives some little details like that the band produced 4 videos, one of which was in Much Music’s rotation in 1984. They performed at the Montreal New Music Festival in 1987, and won Calgary radio station KIK FM’s band contest in 1989.

Other information I could gather from this website is that Lori Kennedy was also involved in bands like Maud, Same Difference and Anne Loree. More bands to check out. Maybe there’s some good jangle there?

So, if this website covering this band is named Calgary Cassettes, then it is safe to assume the band was based in Calgary, right? I feel confident about that.

As it is common with these obscure bands there’s really not much more on the web about them. So I’m hoping some of you will help me fill in the blanks. Anyone remembers them?

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Listen
The 21 Hundredz – Modern Romance