Day 48. Went to the post office on Monday and posted more orders. Still a few more to go and also the ones for Spain. They are not letting me post any records to Spain. I am very sorry about this. I will keep on trying.

Things are a bit quiet at the moment. So some good new music finds would be great, right?

Talulah Gosh: this is quite a surprise. A few weeks ago there was a long lost Chills video surfacing on Youtube. This week it is Talulah Gosh’s turn! The video is for their classic “Steaming Train”!! The quality of the video is not great, but as a document of the band and the time, it is amazing to see this!

Cápsula de Sueños: the latest on Elefant Records is the new project of Paco Tamarit (from the superb Serpentina). The release is a 7″ with three songs part of the New Adventures in Pop series. On this new band, he partners with María Ferrando to craft some precious music!

Gum Country: and finally the “Somewhere” album is available on Bandcamp. You can pre-order the debut record by the Los Angeles based band now on vinyl. It is coming out on June 19th and will include 12 tracks. Again we can only preview the opening track “Somewhere” which is a killer song.

I Like Birds: this Japanese band released a tape on Galaxy Train not too long ago but sadly is now sold out. This tape mini-album was called “Ameiro” and had 7 bright songs. We can at least play them, all of them, on Bandcamp. And that’s what I suggest doing.

Verano del 83: and the Trujillo, Peru, band is back with a new 4 song EP. The band who is quite a rarity, hailing from a place where indiepop must be very rare methinks, craft some pretty upbeat indiepop in the vein of bands like Vacaciones or Las Ligas Menores. Welcome back.

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Tribbles are a fictional alien species in the Star Trek universe. They were conceived by screenwriter David Gerrold, and first appeared in a 1967 episode titled “The Trouble with Tribbles”. They are depicted as a small, furry, gentle, attractive, and slow-moving but rapidly reproducing invasive species. Though they appear infrequently on-screen, they have become a popular feature of the Star Trek universe, featuring in their own eponymous official card game, and even lending their name to a family of proteins which are associated with the biology of the fruit fly.

Do you remember the great US band The Ropers? Well, I’m not going to write about them today. I wrote about them a few weeks ago. But I want to feature a band that shared a 7″ with them many years ago: The Tribbles.

The year was 1994 when the American label, from Richmond, Brilliant Records (ant-09-si) and the German label, from Krefeld, Giant Pool Balls Records (ball002) released this split 7″. I believe in Germany the record came alongside the summer 1994 issue (#8) of Sunset Magazine. I guess in the US you just ordered directly from Brilliant or through your favourite mailorder, or even better at your record shop.

The Ropers were on the A side with the song “Sweet Lord I Know”. Just one song. The Tribbles had two songs, but on the B side. They were “Mercury” and “Liberty 5-3000”.  I haven’t read Ayn Rand but a quick search lets me know that Liberty 5-3000 is a character on one of her books, “Anthem”.

Aside from these two songs at least another was released. In 1993 the band contributed the song “In the Sun” to the compilation “Something Pretty Beautiful” that Brilliant Records (ant005) put out. Here they appear alongside a bunch of great US bands from that time like Small Factory, Tree Fort Angst, Veronica Lake and more.

The blog Wilfully Obscure wrote about the split 7″ many years ago, in 2019. 10 years before me. How proper. There is an interesting comment though on the blog from Tinsel Heart (is it by the Swedish band?) saying that The Tribbles hailed from Richmond, Virginia.

I can’t seem to find any names of people involved with the band. Nothing at all. It seems like they disappeared into thin air. True that they weren’t one of the biggest bands of the period, but I find their music really lovely. I would like to know more, what happened to them? Where they involved in any other bands? Are there more recordings?

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Listen
The Tribbles – Mercury

Thanks so much to Harry Vogel for the interview! I wrote about the German band Friends Ahoj some time ago. Happily Andy from The Bartlebees saw my post and directed me to Harry. Then Harry was the best as he answer all my questions in record time, a few days! And even better, answers with lots of detail and you can also tell his passion for music (and soccer!). Enjoy!

++ Hi Harry! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Still making music?

I’ve been playing in bands ever since 1981, in local punk bands at the beginning and then in 6Ts-oriented bands;  right now I’ve got a band called “Smart Patrol” which plays 1978-inspired Powerpop. Check out our website: www.smartpatrol.de (the guy in the middle with the sunglasses is me!)

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?

I’ve wanted to play the guitar ever since I was a little boy, but due to my family’s economic situation I just couldn’t afford instrumental lessons or the instrument, so I started saving money when I was 15, bought a guitar and taught myself how to play.

I got into Punk in 1977 when I was like 13, my favourite bands being the Sex Pistols and the Jam; influenced by Punk I completely rejected the music of all the “big” MOR rock groups and this hasn’t really changed since then, but of course I broadened my horizon and developed a keen interest in any music that was unusual, new, provoking etc. .. .all the stuff that was called “New Wave” over here in Europe around 1979/1980, bands like Joy Division, Spizz Energi, Gang of Four, Specials or US bands like Devo (still one of my favourite bands today) or the B-52s and lots of more or less unknown German bands of that genre …

I also very much enjoyed those 1981/1982 bands playing what we called “hedonistic pop”, such as ABC, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Human League and the likes but somehow around 1982/83 I grew more and more and disillusioned by most contemporary bands. Having bought into the “independent” ideology of early Punk I just hated to see how bands that I appreciated change their style just to make more money …

So at one point in 1983 I started to look around for music that was fresh and new and could not be commercially exploited … and found in those thousands of 1960s bands that never made it … so compilations like “Chocolate Soup for Diabetics” or “Pebbles” or the Kent Soul compilations became my new gospel so to say … I immersed myself in the rapidly growing European Mod scene and never left it – I’m still active these days as a DJ, musician and organiser of a regular all-nighter here in Munich

++ Had you been in other bands before Friends Ahoj? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?

Of course, I started my first band in 1981  – we called ourselves “Doppelschock” (yes .. that translates as “Double shock” and we simply covered the Ramones and added German lyrics .. .then in 1982 I joined another Punk band called “Tollwut” (= rabies) and in 1983 I started one of Munich’s first Neo-mod bands called “Swinging London” (https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/1614732-Swinging-London) – we played kind of a mixture between US Garage Punk and British beat and the people on the German Mod scene liked that a lot, so although we couldn’t play that well we were invited to pay all around the country

Another newly formed Munich Mod Band was called “Merricks” (https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/20233-Merricks), and Bernd Hartwich and Günther Gottschling were founding members  -we played some gigs together, found out that we shared the same ideas in many respects (not only music wise, but also when it came to soccer: we fervently hate Bayern München and love  Munich’s “underdog” soccer club 1860 München, which has been on the losing side ever since the early 1970s).

What I liked about Bernd and Günther was their open-mindedness and enormous creativity; while I was trying to meticulously copy the 1960s sound they were using the 1960s as a kind of foundation on which they started to build something new …

++ Where were you from originally?

Bernd and me were born in Munich and have been living there ever since! Günther and Carl are from Geretsried (near Wolfratshausen)

++ How was Wolfratshausen at the time of Friends Ahoj? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Wolfratshausen is and always was a nice, little, cosy, but also very sleepy provincial town – no record stores, pubs, venues etc. that are worth mentioning…

But that’s not a problem, because it’s only a 20-minute ride on the speed train to central Munich anyway!

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

Well, as I already mentioned we’d known each other for some years already and played soccer together every now and then.

In the summer of 1988 the Merricks and Swinging London played a gig in a larger venue (there must have been about 600 people there) and before the gig Günther and Bernd suggested we’d do an encore together … so we agreed on playing “There’s a cloud over Liverpool” by one of our favourite bands (The Times form the UK) and a silly version of a silly ice-cream commercial that had gone viral back then!

We had a great time and a lot of fun doing this improvised bit and what I liked was this crazy mixture of something we really, really loved (The Times) and something as trivial as an ice-cream commercial!

Well, a few weeks later Bernd told me (in the beer garden that we used to go after playing soccer) that there’d be a band competition in Wolfratshausen (where Günther (and his mate Carl) lived, and that they had this idea to form a band just for this occasion and play something really weird and unusual, just to make fun of the whole concept of a band competition and asked if I wanted to join.

I liked the idea a lot and after a few beers we had a concept and a name for the whole thing:

Friends Ahoj (cause we were friends, “Ahoj” is Czech for “hi”) and our idea was to play 6Ts style surf music … I as the lead guitarist was ordered to play on my 12-string Rickenbacker, though – not really the best idea if you want to play surf … but that’s what the whole thing was about, anyway.

So we rehearsed a few times and then went to Wolfratshausen. The venue was packed, there must have been nearly a thousand people there, and apart from us all the other bands were of the usual kind: there was this leather-clad Hardrock band, the long-haired Hippies improvising for hours being high on whatever they were high on, the College Kids Funk band, the 5th generation Punk band and of course the Jazzers – all of them (apart from the Punks, of course) far better musicians than we were, so we thought “What the heck – we’ve got the better show”

So we decided to do mock the standard Hardrock-band show (all the stereotypical poses, every solo on your knees with the head bent backwards etc.) while playing surf-music (on a 12-string guitar)

Oh, and our encores were the ice-cream commercial and a kind of blues-version of Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side of life”

The kids in the audience just loved it and we ended up as number 2 in the contest (the kids voted for us as nr. 1, but the jury consisting of music teachers opted for the Jazzers instead – and they had the decisive vote)

Evers since that day we had  a lot of fans in Wolfratshausen and people in Munich heard about us and asked us to play in Munich to, and so  we did … in 1989/90 I guess we must have been among Munich’s 10  favourite “Indie”-Bands or so …

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

Swinging London and the Merricks shared the same rehearsal room, so that’s where Friends Ahoj rehearsed, too.

I like rehearsals very much because it was all about creativity with no limits – we’d reject no idea, no matter how weird or impossible it sounded. We’d simply throw ideas together and see what happened. In the beginning Günther would come along with songs and we’d simply join in and see where it would carry us.

And by and by I started writing songs, too, because I found it sort of “liberating” no to think “does it sounds 1960s enough”?

Bernd would instill ideas such as “How about writing a song about Kurt Vonnegut?”  – that’s how “Kilgore Trout” came about, and Carl, who was not only a great drummer but also a fantastic pianist would suggest “Hey about me playing the break in ¾ time and you tick to 4/4 time” … after 25 seconds be all broke down laughing as it sounded so weird!

++ You mostly wrote songs in English right? Why? And where there any German songs?

Back then we didn’t really think about that … we just did it … the Merricks had already started singing in German, I had been singing German in my first two bands … I just felt right that away and we never sang any song in German as far as I can remember

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name? And why sometimes it was written Friends Ahoi and other times Friends Ahoj? What’s the preferred way?

OK, I’ve already explained the name and we never thought about how to spell it correctly; I guess in Czech the correct spelling is “ahoj”, but in German you haven’t got words ending in “i”, so some people possibly just used a German spelling habit on the word … we didn’t care much about things like these!

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

Phew … that’s tough … The Beach Boys, The Fantastic Baggys, Jim Jiminee, They might be Giants, The Housemartins, The Freshies … it wasn’t about bands, more about using different styles and putting it all together – so back in 1989/90 that must have been anything from Soul via Wimp-Pop to Neo Rock (e.g. we occasionally covered the Godfathers’ “Love is dead” …

++ As far as I know you only released one 7″ in 1993 on the Ice-Cube Toneporter label. Who were behind this label? How did you end up working with them? And how was your relationship with the label?

I honestly can’t tell you as Bernd was the one who was in contact with those guys – they heard our tape, liked it and offered to release a 45, and that’s what we did

No other label was interested in us anyway, or maybe we just didn’t care and take those things seriously enough – after all we all considered Friends Ahoj to be not our No. 1 band: the others had the Merricks (and they were going from strength to strength in the early 1990s) and I played with Swinging London and (starting in 1988) “The Heartbeats” (https://www.discogs.com/artist/1056159-The-Heartbeats-4) … also a household name on the German Neo-Sixties scene …

++ Where were these two songs recorded? Was this your first time at a recording studio? Or were you already familiar with them?

We recorded the songs in Bernd’s studio, not a studio as such, but it had everything we needed, some mics, mixing desk, 8-Track (or was it already hard-disk recording? I can’t remember)

We all had been in recording studios before with our other bands, but being in Bernd’s  studio was much more relaxing … no pressure, no financial constraints etc.! AND Bernd was a great producer: very patient, calm, easy-going …

++ Who produced the record? And were there any other songs recorded during that session?

At that time we only recorded the two songs for the 45s, and those were the only studio recordings that all of the members of the band contributed to – and Bernd produced it, of course!

++ Tell me about the art of the 7″. Who made it? And how come there were different colors for the sleeve, yellow, white and blue? Were there more colors?

I guess some friends of Bernd’s must have provided the drawing, but the writing and the layout were obviously done on my computer … the colours – that was a label decision that we liked but I can’t say if there were more colours – I don’t think so, as that would have been a bit too expensive, I guess!

++ I read that some copies of this 7″ came with German candy. Is that so? What sort of candy?

Yeah the guys from the label came up with this great idea of throwing in some packs of “Ahoj” fizzy powder … stuff we’d known from our childhood in the early 1970s … you could eat it like that and it would kind of foam in your mouth or you could stir it into a glass of water and it would give you the worst lemonade you can imagine!

It’s still sold today: https://www.ahoj-brause.de/

++ Why were there no more releases by the band? Was there any interest from any labels?

Hmm, well … in 1993 there was a bigger label interested in releasing an LP, but then Bernd and the others somehow felt that it would not be that good for their No. 1 band “Merricks” if a “side-project” (and that’s what Friends Ahoj was for all of us) used up more and more time, so they decided to cut down on Friends Ahoj

That was ok by me anyway, as I’d just started working as a High School/College teacher of English and history and that was pretty time-consuming too … and after all I was in three bands, too!

So we decided to reduce Friends Ahoj to a project that would produce some songs occasionally and release them on compilations

++ You did appear on a few compilations like “Frischer Morgentau”, “Die Schönste Platte Der Welt”, “Wagweiser Durch’s Eiswürfelland”, “Ein Spätsommercocktail”, “Limited Europopsongs” and “Munich Goes Pop”. Am I missing any other ones? And do you remember how did you end up on them?

All sorts of minor labels asked us for contributions and we would gladly agree, as long as it all would not turn into a full-time commitment again.

We used rehearsal room recordings for the first compilations (“Step by step” and “Dark rooms”) and recorded “Man who sold Manhattan” and “We might be giants” in Bernd’s studio sometime in late 1993 and 1994 – back then Carl was no longer involved, he’d already joined Munich’s most famous and successful Indie-Band “FSK” (who to the present day still occasionally rehearse in our rehearsal room).

“My woody’s called Woody” and “Drink to me” came from the same tape of rehearsal room recordings as “Step by step” and “Dark rooms” … those must have been recorded in 1990/91 …

++ What about demo tapes? Are there more recordings by the band? Unreleased tracks?

The only Demo we ever made was this tape with ca. 12 songs, about half of which ended up on the compilations – I still have the tape but never bothered to digitalize it … might have to do that sometime soon.

The songs were Step by step/Mushroom seller/My woody’s called Woody/Life has just begin/The vanishing girl/Drink to me/Surf Ahoj/Kilgore Trout/Have you seen that girl/Where have all the beach girls gone/Dark rooms/From my sweetheart to the bottle/Love comes slow/Grandstand girls/Have you seen that girl (7″ version)/Larissa

++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Grandstand Girls”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

We went to all the home matches of our favourite soccer team 1860 München and became quite notorious as we were so different from the ordinary soccer fan: we were about 20 people, most of us with a more or less academic background (so the fans around us called us “The academics” (not really – there is a rather condescending Bavarian slang word they used – and we liked that).

We really enjoyed deconstructing stereotypical fan chants (just like Friends Ahoj did with  musical stereotypes) and did that all the time while in the stadium. Actually the last time I met Bernd in the stadium last December it took us about 3 minutes to start doing that very same thing again!

The other thing in which we were different was that some girls came along with us and they were just as fanatic as we boys were – and so as to pay our respect to the girls (back in the late 80s it was rather unusual for girls to attend football matches)I wrote “Grandstand girls” – they were really special .. I still meet some of them around the stadium when there is a match today!

++ If you were to choose your favorite Friends Ahoj song, which one would that be and why?

Very hard to say, of course I love them all … of all the songs that Günther wrote I guess it’s “Step by step” (which ends with me babbling some phrases I had pinched from Monty Pythons) and from my side I’d say it’s “My woody’s called Woody”  … you know … if you were a surfer in in LA in the 1960s and had Woody, what would you call it? Of course, “Woody” is the best name for a woody! Of the more “serious” songs I’d say it’s “The man who sold Manhattan for a dime”

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? 

Possibly 15-20 gigs in 5 years, don’t forget: it was just a side-project!

++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

Well, the first one became a legend in itself as we did not only take the piss of ourselves, but also of the Hardrock band and the mayor of Wolfratshausen, who attended the band contest and was called “Rockhart”, which we immediately turned into “Hardrock” and so dedicated every other song to “Mayor Hardrock”

The first gig in Munich ever was great, too (like all the others, actually), we possibly spent more time on stage telling jokes or starting and stopping songs, throwing in weird breaks (I think we played the  “Guns of Brixton” intro as a break in every song that night)

Oh yes, and there was a brilliant gig in a village close to Wolfratshausen. When the people asked for more and more songs after we’d played all the encores, we decided to play the whole set again, but all the songs would be Ska versions … we’d never tried that before, but it worked!

++ And were there any bad ones?

Not as Friends Ahoj proper – but I remember that in 1994 we were asked to play at a New Year’s Eve party – Günther, Bernd and me … and Bernd didn’t show up, Günther was always kind of quiet and shy and I was in a rather gloomy mood that night … I shouldn’t have gone on stage that night, it was depressing, as it was so obvious that Friends Ahoj only worked with all the four of us on stage!

++ When and why did Friends Ahoj stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?

As I already mentioned it was just a side-project, we all had other bands and for me starting the job as a teacher was a game-changer, so to say, as I could no longer spend most of my time playing music.

Then in the mid-90s the Merricks became very successful with their LPs “The sound of Munich” and “Escape from plane Munich”, I got more and more involved in the international Mod scene as a DJ, organiser of parties, allnighters etc. – not to mention the other bands I played in …

So we never really stopped Friends Ahoj, we just did no longer work on that project … every now and then Bernd and I would discuss the option of maybe reviving Friends Ahoj again, but we actually never really saw a point in that

I stopped Swinging London in 1997 and the Heartbeats disbanded in 2000 after a cool gig at the Purple Weekend in Leon/Spain). I started playing some music with old friends from the 1980s Punk and Mod scene which eventually turned into my current band “Smart Patrol” (LP “Overage Underachievers” on Screaming Apple Records)

++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards?

Carl still plays with FSK  – a highly gifted and appreciated musician.

Günther left Munich for the countryside, started a family, gave up music and is living a quiet life away from Munich – I haven’t seen him for maybe 15 years.

The Merricks ceased to exist at around 2003 or so, and Bernd soon formed an excellent new band called “Der Englische Garten” (named after Munich’s biggest park) – in my eyes one of the best contemporary German bands (http://www.der-englische-garten.de/)

++ Has there been any Friends Ahoj reunion?

No. never, and sadly now it’s impossible

++ Did you get much attention from the radio?

They simply ignored us

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

They did not care, and neither did we

++ What about from fanzines?

Yes, all those fanzines specializing on weird pop music around the world have kept on contacting us ever since the early 1990s

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

The very first gig, no doubt!

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

Soccer, skiing, DJing, dancing at parties to shit-rare original R&B or Latin 45s

++ Never been to Munich so I’ll take the opportunity to ask a local for any recommendations you’d have? Like sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?

Whatever you do, do not miss going to a beer garden, try the different types of Bavarian food they offer and drink a lot of the beer!

Spend an evening in Friends Ahoj’s former meeting point, the “Baader Cafe”

Go any buy records at Optimal (Kolosseumstr. 6) – they also released some of the “Merricks” and “Der Englische Garten” records!

Get completely drunk at “Schwarzer Hahn”(Ohlmüllerstr. 8)

All these places are within walking distance from tube station “Fraunhofer Straße”!

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

The last time I met Bernd was on January 10 when I played with “Smart Patrol” at a fundraiser for an 1860 fan club that is committed to fighting fascism in the soccer stadium. Only two minutes before the gig I learned that Bernd was suffering from an incurable disease, but he was there in the front row enjoying the gig and I was standing there trying to give it all, as I understood that attending the concert was Bernd’s way of saying goodbye to me.

That night we sang two songs in German, just for fun, and after the gig Bernd told me that we should really sing all the songs in German … then he had to leave. Sadly, he died on March 11 and leaves a big gaping hole in Munich subculture. We lost a great musician, DJ, producer, soccer player and fan … and a good friend.

Addendum May 12, 2020:

I visited Bernd’s widow today and she reminded me of possibly the weirdest Friends Ahoj gig ever, so weird that I’d completely forgotten about it!

We were to open for a singer/songwriter called Rodney Allen (of the Blue
Aeroplanes) in a club in Munich in 1992, but Bernd got sick so we couldn’t play as the full line-up. Instead Günther and I decided to play as a two-piece and we didn’t play the whole set on our normal instruments, but on
children’s toy instruments!
The story of the gig is also how his future wife did NOT meet him for the first time (as he was sick), but heard about him for the first time: She went to see Rodney Allen, hadn’t heard anything about us, but was completely puzzled as everybody in the audience talked about us not playing and how terrible it was that Bernd was sick – and she thought “Who is this Bernd Hartwich guy that everybody is talking about? Doesn’t anyone want to see Rodney Allen?”

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Listen
Friends Ahoj – Grandstand Girls

Day 46. How’s everyone?

Not much news on my side. Will keep sending records this week,as you know things are a bit slower at the moment. So please be patient to receive your fanzine or any other records you might have ordered from me. I am only going to the post office once a week now.

Also these past few days I’ve written a few more interviews for the blog. Hopefully we’ll get answers soon. That’s going to be great!

New music, yeah, there’s new music.

Candace: the Portland all-girl trio will be releasing their album “Ideal Corners” on May 29. It is going to be out on vinyl and the label releasing it is called Little Cloud Records. Right now we can preview two tracks that appear on the album, “DM-100” and “Still Phase”, both sounding great!

No Suits in Miami: this Lund band is a favourite of mine. I really want a record by them. As far as I know there was a cassette some time ago. But no other physical records. Sure there was some digital ones, but not the same. A band that sounds this good should be releasing something. Maybe I should get in touch? Something to think about. In any case their new song is called “What We Have” and it is a gorgeous track.

Весна Весна: here’s a new track called “Венера” by this St. Petersburg band. I wish I could understand what they are singing of course, but it doesn’t matter, the vocals are terrific and the galloping guitars sound as good. This is their latest digital single though there is a few more to explore in their Bandcamp.

The Proctors: there is some great news from the classic UK band. They are going to be releasing “Summer Lane”, a retrospective album on Sunday Records this year. There is one song they have uploaded to Soundcloud for all of us to preview, “A Part I Never Knew Existed”. The only one thing that worries me is that there seem to be only 12 songs on the album. Is that true? then it is not a proper retrospective? There are songs missing! I can’t read the tracklist, but as soon as I find out what’s happened here I’ll let you know. This is terrorizing the completist in me!

Seazoo: the Welsh band released a new song on their Soundcloud two months ago called “The Pleasure” and it is the first time I’m checking it out. It sounds very good, so I would say you should check it too. It is called “The Pleasure” and it should be included in their forthcoming album.

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This might be a long post. I usually write about obscure bands as you know, and I believe today’s one is. But I do think there is much more information about them on the web than the average obscure band. Also they had appeared on “The Sound of Leamington Spa vol. 4” (FST 06) on Firestation Records, that’s how I discovered them through the superb song “Love House”, and that means there is information about them on the booklet. So maybe, we’ll end up finding out all we need to know about them?

Aside from that compilation the band contributed the same song to another compilation much much earlier. In 1990, Adrian Gibson who was the programmer at the North London’s Powerhaus venue put together a cassette compilation called “What the World Is Waiting For”. The Powerhaus was owned by the Mean Fiddler Group who turned a pub called the Pied Bull into a live music venue for a limited time from 1989 – 1995. The idea behind the compilation is to showcase 10 of the hottest new bands who were coming through the ranks of the venue around that time. All of the songs were mastered from the band’s demo tapes.  This tape is quite special and perhaps expensive, you see this was the first official release by Suede before they changed musical direction. But yeah, Nautical William were on this one with their standout track.

The Leamington Spa compilation booklet tells us quite a lot.

Nautical William formed from the musical partnership of Jim Cemlyn-Jones and Damian Dingley in 1987. Although they had been writing songs together for several years, it was not until meeting David Oliver (drums), and eventually Pete Bray (bass), that the band were able to play live. Jim and Damian grew up in the small Victorian town of Clevend. The band’s early gigs were in nearby Bristol which they eventually made home. Nautical William’s early music was loosely based around traditional English pop with the classic lineup of guitars, bass and drums. They quickly located rehearsal and recording space at PIJ, already occupied by other Bristolian contemporaries such as The Brilliant Corners, The Montgomery Clifts and the legendary Moonflowers.
The first demo, released in 1988, contained four tracks and quickly circulated around the indieclubs in Bristol, including the Thekla and The Tropic, where Nautical William played some of their early live shows. The band was joined by Damian’s younger brother, Corin, on percussion whose own career saw him focus on sound engineering and the formation of his band, Alpha, in 1995, signing to Massive Attack’s label Melancholic. Nautical William released their first single, “Love”, on their own label, Mojo Filter, in the spring fo 1991, and began playing further afield in places such as The Powerhouse, London, Mole’s Club, Bath and the Jericho Tavern, Oxford. A strong local fan-base was building and the band began to pick up positive press reviews and invitations to numerous west country radio stations, even making an occasional TV appearance. Nautical William’s second single, “Love House”, was released on the 16th September 1991, just as the band ventured on their first European tour including gigs in Holland and the UK. Love House was well received nationally with coveted airplay from BBC Radio 1, and attention from Melody Maker and the NME. A video for the single was made and aired on such shows such as MTV’s 120 Minutes. The band were now sharing stage with the likes of Pulp, Suede, Airhead and the Mock Turtles. All was building for chart success but distribution problems with the single hampered availability in the record stores. Coupled with the departure of Pete Bray, the band struggled to capitalize on their musical success. George Shilling, producer for The Soup Dragons and Yazz to name a few, became aware of Nautical William and went to see them at one of their London dates in the spring of 1992. Ian McLaren replaced Bray on bass and the band were in the process of rebuilding. They spent several weeks with Shilling working on an EP in Kent which unfortunately was never released. Both Corin Dingley and dave Oliver decided their interests lay elsewhere and Nautical William were forced to re-think their future. By Autumn of 1992 three new members had joined Nautical William, John Miller (drums), Trevor Francis (percussion) and Diane (vocals) bringing with them new influences and ideas. Damian and Jim embraced this new funky sound and the fresh challenges it brought. They used a new EP, “Tubular Bellbottoms”, to launch the sound, and made a second tour of Holland together with DJ Professor Bays. They gained interest from record labels such as Acid Jazz and toured the UK with Mother Earth and Corduroy making the round of summer music festivals in 1993. A new fan base volved but a heavy touring schedule brought on by new management began to take its toll. By spring 1994 the band called it a day.

Something the band doesn’t mention is that they made a video for their first single “Love”. You can watch it here. The video was made in 1990 according to its first frame. Before releasing the 12″ on their own Mojo Filter (NWTS 1). “Love” of course was the A side. On the B side we find two songs, “She’s Been Changing” and “Got to Find a Way”. “Love” was recorded at Loco Studios in South Wales while the B sides were recorded at PIJ by Fat Paul. The producer for all these songs was John Parish of PJ Harvey fame. They even say that PJ almost sang in the song “Love”.

That same year they released “Love House”. I am linking to the video they made for the A side. This time, the B side was “Fourteen Days in May” and the catalog number was NWTS2. The songs were recorded at Loco Studios and produced by Jessica Corcoran. The engineer was Tim Lewis. There was not just a 12″ vinyl release, but also a CD single for these two songs. Both versions’ artwork was created by Alice Harfield.

Lastly, their third release and also third one on Mojo Filter Records (NWTS3) was the “Tubular Bellbottoms” 12″. This record didn’t have a cool sleeve like the previous ones, it is a black sleeve with the songs listed. They were on the A side, “Eye Know” and “Sexy”, while the B side had “Mmmm.” and “Funk it Out”. It is pretty clear that they had changed their style at this point. I haven’t heard the songs but you can tell by what they said on their biography and by the looks of the record and the song titles.

The very good website Bristol Archive Records has more information about them. It mentions that at the earliest period of the band, when it was just Damian and Jim making music, they recorded a two song demo at Foxhole Recording Studios in Hanham, Bristol with Martin Hyler. Two songs were recorded then, “This Sinking Feeling” and “Sea of Sighs”. Would love to hear them.

We also know that their first ever gig happened at Bristol Poly in late 1987. They had already moved to Bristol at this time. While there we know they got a rehearsal space at PIJ. There they recorded another demo cassette with two songs “Go Back and Start Again” and “Railway Track”. Cool! Again, would be great to listen to them!

Then came a third demo, which is the one they mention in their bio on the Leamington Spa booklet. This one included “Love House”, “Backbreaking” and “Splutter”. These were recorded at The White House in Weston-Super-Mare in the spring of 1990.

About the first Netherlands tour, we know now that they played the cities of Amsterdam (along the wonderful Rorschach), Utrecht and Rotterdam.

Damian Dingley moved to the US. At least in 2010 he was living here. Ian is still local in Bristol and was in a band called Sunna. I can’t seem to find any other information of other bands they might have been. Maybe Nautical William was their one and only band?

I did find a TV interview that was aired in 1992 on Music Magazine. Not sure which song they are playing, but it is a bit too rocky for my taste! Not as great as the sublime “Love House”. And then I stumble upon a special edition tape released in June 1992, I believe for their second Netherlands tour. Why? because a user from Almelo, Holland, bought this tape there at a show in the venue Poort van Kleef. It included funkier sounds indeed. The songs on it were “Fight On”, “Funk it Out”, “What do You Know” and “Rollercoaster”. I guess guitar pop, the baggy sounds, were not fashionable anymore.

Well, that’s quite a bit. There are a few early songs that I’d love to listen. And what a song “Love House” really is. A true classic. Who remembers them?!

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Listen
Nautical William – Love House

Day 43. All domestic orders for the fanzine have been shipped. Some international too. Another batch will be posted next week. There are issues with mailing to Spain, the US postal service says that there are some disruptions there, that we could mail at our own risk, that packages may be returned. Should I mail them? What do my Spanish friends think of that? Would be good to know your thoughts.

New music for this upcoming weekend:

Melenas: the amazing Pamplona band has released a new video for their song “Primer Tiempo”. How great it is to have more Melenas songs available! Now I really need a copy of the album at home! The video was shot while the band members have been at home during the Covid-19 quarantine. I have a curious question, what book is the one shown at 0:24 seconds?

Kiwis: another Spanish band that has a new video is Kiwis. It is for their song “Cambiaran las Tornas” which will be part of their album “Vida Exterior” that the very fine Snap Clap! Club will be releasing this year! Great vocals, terrific pop!

Low Key Crush: the Melbourne band is back with a very fine single called “When You Were Leaving”. It was a long time since we featured in the blog, so it is interesting to know what they are up to. Will this song be included in a bigger project? In the meantime we can listen to these duo’s song on repeat.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: for sure the band that has been featured the most in this section. The California band has two new jangly and poppy songs up on their Bandcamp, “Sex, Lies & Therapy” and “Worst Side of Town”.

The National Honor Society: this Seattle band sounds amazing really. Their latest two songs are “First Among the Last” and a cover of The Stone Roses’ “Mersey Paradise”. Previously, in 2017, they had released an EP called “All Change” which sounds a bit different, much rockier. The new songs are a true surprise then, with a sound that captured me immediately. Not sure if both or just one of these songs will be part of the “To all the Glory We Never Had” album that is to be released on May 29 by Chien Lunatique Records.

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I have been trying to get a copy of The Tainted Children’s sole 7″ for years now. Since my friend Andreas showed it to me last time I visited Hamburg. A few years then. I remember him playing it for me, and me thinking “this is fantastic, I need this one in my collection!”.

Andreas Van Der Wingen on bass and vocals, Matej Havranek on drums and Max Stamm on electric guitar and vocals were The Tainted Children. On these recordings they did have help from Marc Ashmann on backing vocals and Tommy Mayer on guitar and backing vocals. Stamm and Van Der Wingen are credited to both songs on the record.

Which songs? Well, the A side had “Roll My Stone” and the B side had the sublime “If Julia Ever Knows”. This record was released in 1988 by the German label Smarten Up! (START 7), the same label that released fine bands like The Birdy Num Nums, Die Tanzenden Herzen or Die Profis.

The cover art is particular, the front has illustrations of the three members and a naked woman (who is she?) printed in black and white over a blue crayon-like painted background. The back of the sleeve has a band photo as well as a photo for each of the band members. From the sleeve I learn that the songs were recorded at Grundfunk Studio in November 1988. Now, it doesn’t say where the band was from? Who’d know? I’d make a guess, Düsseldorf. Tell me if I am wrong.

Aside from this 7″ the band only appeared on a compilation. It was also on Smarten Up! and was the 1991 LP comp “Smarten-Up Compilation” (BIGSTART 16). On it the band contributes the song “D.O.W.N.” which is credited to Maximilian Stamm. I believe the inner sleeve of the compilation had a small bio of the band, but I don’t own the record, so can’t say what it says. I need your help here.

So I look into bands the band members had been involved. Andreas Van Der Wingen had been in Kiesgroup, Oiro, Subterfuge and the J, Erwin Blues Explosion. Matej Havranek has played on Sally Blue, Orange, Family*5, The Beatlesons and Asmodi Bizarr. Max Stamm played in Bo Hatzfeld & the Headhunters, Kiesgroup, Bo & Bodo, Sonic Dolls, DeCornelius, and more. He has also played with Marc Ashmann who was also on Bo Hatzfeld & the Headhunters. Ashmann was also on The Beathoovers. Lastly Tommy Mayer who helped on the record as well as Marc, had been in Dortmund, Mardi Gras Band and The Digitals.

Not much more info about the band online. Did they record more songs? Why were there no other releases? Did they play live much? Will they be included in the next German version of The Sound Leamington Spa series by Firestation Records? Many questions that I hope get answerd!

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Listen
The Tainted Children – If Julia Ever Knows

Day 41.

This week started with sad news. Don’t know if you are aware but Andy Wake, who ran the legendary label Medium Cool Records passed away. I never met him or talked to him, but I can’t deny that his label has been important to me and to indiepop in general, releasing the likes of The Siddeleys, The Waltones, The Corn Dollies, The Popguns, The Enormous Room and The Raw Herbs. All very influential and important bands in the late 80s and beyond.

I’ve been lucky to interview The Siddeleys and The Raw Herbs in the past. Have written about The Enormous Room. Have seen The Popguns play live. So yeah, I am a fan. And I am sure in the future I’ll be featuring The Corn Dollies and The Waltones. Rest in peace Andy and thanks for the music!

It is hard to change topics after telling this news, so I won’t be recommending any music today. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’ll share the writeup I did for the Swedish band Neil Armstrong, which was written a few months back and was waiting to be posted.

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Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.

Why would a Swedish band call themselves Neil Armstrong? Why not Arne Christer Fuglesang, the first Swedish citizen in space? Well, the band was around before the time Christer was in space (2006). So that may be why. But still it is an interesting choice to call themselves Neil Armstrong, right?

The band was around in the late 90s and early 2000s and only released one CDR single. That was it. But we can try to find out more information about them, right?

The band hailed from Hagersten in Stockholm. They were formed by Levi Orebjörk on vocals, Stefan Eriksson on guitar, Pontus Nilsson on guitar, Fredrik Danielsson on bass and Martin Gustafsson on drums.

The CDR they released came out on Tuff Tuff Musik (TTM001) in the year 2000. Most probably it was a self-release as there are no other records listed on this label? Don’t know, as there is an address for the label locating them in Karlstad, not Stockholm. So it might be someone else other than the band that put them out. It included just two songs, “We All Knew” and “Fleetwood Mac”. A tribute to the ultra famous band? It’d be interesting to know what inspired them.

Sure they didn’t release any other records but they did appear on quite a bunch of compilations.

Starting in 1997 when they had their song “The Swing” on the “True To You. A Dorian Compilation” released by Dorian Records (Dorian04). The year after, 1998, their song “I’m So Happy” appeared on the comp “Hitta Mitten -98” on Absurd Records (ABSURD 5), while their track “Fastest Girl” would appear on the 7″ compilation “A Single Bite” released by Labrador (LAB002). The fine magazine Benno would put them on a 7″ compilation called “Benno Presents Volume 1” (Benno 1) with their song “I’m So Happy” too. Keep in mind that the first two were CD compilations, and the last two were vinyl one of course. And all of them on Swedish labels.

In 1999 the band contributed “Mr. Bus” to the CDR compilation “19 Ways to Get Back Home” released by Jetboy Records (JR002). This is truly a fine compilation I didn’t know about. I see lots of great bands and many I’ve never heard that I should try to discover!

Firestation from Germany would pick them up to include their song “So Long” in the compilation “You Thought it was the End of the World when the Rain Ruined Your Hair” (FST016) in the year 2000, and lastly another German label, Apricot Records, would include them in “Airpop Terminal 2” with two tracks, “Going For Gold” and “We All Knew”, in 2001.

The fine webzine Popviminns compares the band to The Brilliant Corners and The Housemartins. Then on Blaskoteket I find a mention of them again after the first 7″ Benno release where they were included. Here we learn that the band had even more recordings. They mention that there was a demo cassette from 1996 called “Feeling Alright”, and another two from 1997 called “One Crazy Weekend” and “It Is Good”. What about afterwards? Did they continue recording? Would be great to listen to the songs included in these tapes and any other unreleased material.

There’s more. The blog The Finest Kiss wrote about them in 2006. What’s interesting here is the comments section. Stefan Eriksson comments here and mentions that he is/was in a band called Braxen. He says that most of the band members were in this band. Can’t seem to find their music even though there used to be an old Myspace page for this band.

And that’s it really. We know then that there are more songs other than the ones on compilations. That they were involved in at least another band. But can we hear these tracks now? And how come they didn’t release more records? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Neil Armstrong – Mr. Bus

Thanks so much to Riichiro and Jun for the interview! I wrote some weeks ago about Cleandistortion on the blog, hoping to find out more about this great Japanese band which I wasn’t sure if they were still going or not. Luckily they are, and they are working in new music. To find out more about them, you know what you have to do… continue reading!

++ Hi Riichiro! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are there any news coming up for the band?

Riichiro: Hi, Roque, thank you so much for the opportunity to do such an interview at this time. I didn’t expect my favorite Cloudberry label to mention the name CLEANDISTORTION.

The band is now rehearsing and working on new songs with new drum support. We’ve been unable to play live due to COVID-19, so I’m really hoping it get resolved soon.

Jun, Vocal and Guitar of CLEANDISTORTION, is also joining this interview so I’m hoping he’ll answer about the band’s activities before I joined.

++ The band is still going on but it feels there has been many pauses. Am I right? Perhaps you all have been involved with other projects?

Riichiro: I think it’s not unreasonable to feel that way. We’ve got our own pace.

All the band members have full-time jobs or are involved in music activities while juggling family and child-rearing so it can’t be helped that the pace of our activities seems to be slow.

As far as cleandistion is concerned, especially around 2009, the drummer moved away from Tokyo for work-related reasons, so we went into a bit of a hiatus from there.

However, I personally continued to work with Hitoshi Oka(Sloppy Joe/Ivory Past) as the guitarist for Sloppy Joe, and I feel fortunate to have been able to play overseas shows like Indietracks (U.K.), BAYBEATS (Singapore) and Madrid Popfest (Spain).

For the past year or two, I and Jun Inoue, the core member of the band, have been thinking of resuming our activities as our child-rearing has calmed down a bit, and it would be nice to take it slow. Last year we had just played a few gigs with drum support.

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?

Riichiro: It’s been a long time since I heard the first music.Of course, when I was a kid, I loved all the songs that were on the air, especially the ones that hit the charts, and they were played on TV. But the first thing I picked up to listen to music for myself was an FM radio.

I used to listen to all kinds of foreign college chart music and MTV artists from FM radio. Punk, New Wave, New Romantic, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Funk/Soul, etc.

Especially I had a big crush on The Police. STING and Andy Summers are still my heroes. I think the artists I listened to as a teenager (The Smiths, XTC, REM, Aztec camera, Echo & The Bunnymen ,Joy division, New Order) are still in my guitar today.

Jun: The first memory of music goes back to elementary school and those were the Japanese hit charts.

I listened to a lot of Japanese idol groups.

If I take a look at it now, those artists who wrote music for Japanese idol groups  were very familiar to anyone who liked music in Japan, and those artists were very influenced by US/UK rock and pop music and I think you can hear it in my melody too.

As for Western music, I still remember when I was in junior high school, I was blown away by the intro of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” played on the AM radio.

When I entered high school, I became friends with who had the same taste in music and then I really got into music.

Starting from the 60’s and 70’s soft rock (ex Roger Nichols,5th dimension), The Beatles’ follower bands (ex Pilot, E.L.O, Jigsaw, The Rutles) and singer song writers (I love Todd Rundgren!!!), and in the ’90s, I used to listen to guitar bands like Teenage Fanclub, Oasis, Blur and in the US, Weezer, Posies, Lemonheads, Jellyfish.

++ Had you been in other bands before Cleandistortion? What about the rest of the members? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?

Riichiro: I had a couple of my own bands in my early twenties, but both of them broke up.

After that, I met Hitoshi Oka and joined “my coffee moment” on guitar. After that, we put out “Beginning To See The Light” 7inch on Firestation label and then we broke up.

After the band broke up, I met Jun, who had come to Tokyo from Osaka at that time, through the introduction of a mutual acquaintance.

Jun: For me, CLEANDISTOTION is the first and the last band.

++ Where were you from originally?

Riichiro: I lived in Kumamoto city until I was 18 years old.

A former member of JOHNNY DEE is also in Kumamoto, which is where THEE WINDLESS GATES is active!

Jun: I was active in Kansai area until I was 28, then I moved to Tokyo and met Riichiro and the others.

++ How was Tokyo at the time of the start of Cleandistortion? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?

Riichiro: CLEANDISTOTION is a band that was originally formed in Osaka. I’ll let Jun tell the story of those days.

Jun: When I formed the band around ’98 in Osaka, it was a place where punk, hardcore, mixture, heavy metal, blues, garage, 50’s, etc were the mainstream, and there were no bands playing alternative stuff that I liked.

In Osaka, I used to go to Shinsaibashi WAVE and TIMEBOMB for records and CDs.

I went to Shinsaibashi’s Quattro and Tenpozan bayside janie to see some new bands.

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

Jun: I formed the band when I was a sophomore at art college with ones who I met in the same college music circle, who have same taste in music.

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

Jun: In the beginning, I was practicing in a school club room with all the equipment and tried to write songs by just copying the people around me.It ended up being a bit like a bad Smashing Pumpkins cherubrock.It didn’t go very well at first.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name? 

Jun: I named this band because I wanted to express both the clean pop sounds and the noisy distortion sounds that I was influenced by.

Riichiro: When I first heard it, I thought it was a very straightforward band name, but I thought it was nice to be able to leave various interpretations to the listener.

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

Jun: The Beatles, weezer, posies, fountains of wayne, matthew sweet, teenage fanclub.

Riichiro: Dinosaur Jr, Blur, The Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer.

++ First release was a song called “Hang Up!” that appeared on a compilation called “Sunshine Pop Show! Vol. 3” on the Sunshinepoplabel. I must say I have never heard of this label. Who were they? Can you tell me a little bit about them?

Jun: You know it well.

The story goes back a little bit before this compilation album.

We had two goals as a band: one was to play live music in a live house, and the other was to be published our band name in the submission section of “American Music”, a magazine which was being published in Japan at that time introducing new pop bands from both domestic and overseas.

I was submitting a song for a while and then one day my name was on it and I got a compliment and that’s when I thought I might be able to release our songs, so I put it out to various places, and as a result, it was sunshinepoplabel that gave it to me for the first time.

To be honest, I’ve never met them in person and didn’t interact with them much before that.

++ I understand that your second release was a song on the compilation “Pop Comes Up!” that Bluebadge released. You would work with this label closely after this. I was wondering how did you know them? Were you friends? Or how did they approach you?

Jun: It all started when I met a band called “spaghetti vabune!” at a live house in Kobe, a city in Kansai area, and became friends with them.

At that time, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Higuma, the label owner who was going to release a music of “Vabune!”.

After meeting a couple of times, he started to like our music, so we decided to put it on the compilation first.

++ How was the relationship with other bands in the label? Did you know them? Share gigs?

Jun: We’ve done a few gigs with spaghetti vabune! that I mentioned about earlier, and we became good friends.

Also, I was a friend with a member of “Caraway” on the same label. They covered our song called “endpaper” in their own release from bluebadge label.

++ Speaking of labels, was there any other labels that were interested in your music?

Jun: Shortly before we had a release from bluebadge label, we had some relationship with a major label for a while, they were looking for new talent, but it didn’t turn out to be the case.

++ In 2004 you released “Teenage Archives” on the Bluebadge label as well. This is a great record, but quite short! Just 6 songs. Why so short?!

Jun: I don’t know, it feels like an eternity to me. All jokes aside, there was actually a full album’s worth of songs, but due to the level of perfection at the time, recording time and budget, I think we ended up with 6 songs as a result. Also, maybe it was risky because we weren’t such a well known band.

++ I also really like the artwork for the CD. Who made it? Was it one of you?

Jun: Thank you, I’m so glad you like it. It was done by a girl in the same art college who liked the band at the time. I asked her for something like if it were a cut from our college life at the time.

By the way, she’s married to a former guitarist of the band and now has a beignet and chicory coffee shop in Nara, so if you ever get a chance to come to Japan after COVID-19 converges, please visit there.

++ Where did you record the songs? How long did it take? Who produced the songs? And most importantly, what did the diet of the band consist during those sessions, beer and what else?!

Jun: We did the whole thing from recording to mastering at a recording studio in a local town for the bluebadge release. The other recordings were basically done in rehearsal studios. We do all the producing ourselves.

Most of the band’s food were come from convenience stores, but afterwards it was a beer party every night.

++ Then there was 2005 CD single with the songs “Sailor” and “Teen Wave”. This one isnt even on Discogs. On the cover there’s a photo of the four members of the band. Care telling me who is who?

Jun: The members on this jacket are from the Kansai era. From the left, Drums  Kenta Kobashi, Guitar Naoya Ookubo, Vocal/guitar Jun Inoue (it’s me! so slender!), Bass Takashi Icikawa, Now they are having their own lives these days.

++ How come you decided to release a CD single? I still remember 2005 and I feel CD singles were quite a rare format by then!

Jun: I’m not sure how I remember it, but I think they probably put it out as part of a promotion before they put out a mini album for 300 yen.

++ Lastly in 2010 there was another release called “One Four Harmony”. This is the one I have the least information. For example, who released it? In what format?

Riichiro: These are the first three songs we recorded after Jun moved to Tokyo. It’s completely self-recorded and I did the track-down, mastering and CD production.

After we started in Tokyo, we played quite number of lives, but we wanted to record our  sound at least for once, no matter what form it took. So we did it ourselves.

But we made it a little before. Actually, I think it’s about 2007-8.

++ Because I’ve been having a bit of trouble finding your releases, are there any more?

Riichiro: I can imagine your struggle to find sound sources and activities. After all, it’s not like there’s a whole record of our archives in one place.

Some of the songs were taken as demos, but unfortunately, after Jun moved to Tokyo, there’s nothing else had released out from our recorded materials.

Jun: When I was in Osaka, I played two songs in clover records’ “pop jingu vol 2”. Two songs, “Wendy’s blues” and “Teenage Green Cracker”. I joined the release event held in Tokyo at that time.

++ And are there more recordings by the band? Unreleased tracks?

Riichiro: There are a lot of unreleased songs for some reason. Some of them had been recorded but not released, and some of them are just live recordings that are posted on Youtube.

++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “Teenage Green Cracker”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

Jun: It started when I got this idea of making a song like “Some People Try To Fuck With You” by Teenage fanclub which I liked very much at that time.

Even before that, I liked songs like “you and me song” by the wannadies that blended bossa nova style and guitar pop.

++ If you were to choose your favorite Cleandistortion song, which one would that be and why?

Jun: The style of the work is different depending on the time period.

Before the mini-album, I think the song “Girl Friend” was well done as far as I’m concerned.

It’s more of a guitar pop feel.

Also, I’m loving “endpaper” and “Teen Wave”.

But a few songs we’re rehearsing and working on right now are the ones I like the most, and I’d like everyone to hear them.

Riichiro: I don’t know, I can’t choose just one but I sometimes like songs that we haven’t recorded before.

I really like the songs we’re rehearsing and making right now.

I recorded songs on “One Four Harmony E.P.”  so I have a lot of feelings for them.

I like “wendy’s blues” before I joined the band.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many? 

Jun: I’ve done a lot of that. Recently, I’ve been concentrating more on each and every one of them due to limited opportunities.

Riichiro: Yes, We’ve done a lot of gigs. I’d love to do some recording, but I don’t get the chance.

++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

Jun: “Carnival Ride” was the most exciting event that we planned and played, having both DJs and bands who’s been good friends with us.

The best thing I’ve done recently was to play in the same live show with “Shortcut Miffy!”, a Japanese band that I respect very much.

Riichiro: Yes, I still remember the events we’ve held. It was a form of a party with DJs and we played with “PLECTRUM” and “BOYCE”. We also had Mr. Higuma, the owner of bluebadge label, as a DJ, so it was a very memorable night!

++ And were there any bad ones?

Jun: There were a lot of them, but I forget all about them when I had drinks.

Riichiro: There’s a lot of that, but those became a part of my fun memory now.

++ Did you get much attention from the radio? TV?

Jun: I love radio and TV, which I’m afraid I didn’t get involved with at all.

Riichiro: No, it didn’t happen at all. It would be interesting if we could be on a show like “top of the pops.”

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

Jun: In the same way.

Riichiro: We’ve never gotten much attention from the press or magazines.

++ What about from fanzines?

Riichiro: When Jun were in Osaka, there were a few things written in fanzines, weren’t there? How’d it go?

Jun: I think we had some of them, but I can’t remember that. Sorry.

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

Jun: Looking back, I don’t think we’ve accomplished anything yet.

I’m hoping to have some sort of highlight in the future.

Riichiro: I wonder what the highlight will be, I guess it’s just the beginning.

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

Jun: Listening to radio shows, drinking beer while watching “STAR TREK”.

Riichiro: It’s nice to be camping. It’s a great feeling to have a drink outdoors, isn’t it?

++ Never been to Tokyo so I’ll take the opportunity to ask a local for any recommendations you’d have? Like sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?

Jun: If you’re in Shibuya, Tokyo, you can go to “Bar-Edge End”,

If you’re in Kichijoji, I’m sure there’s a party you’ll love at “ichibee”.

Also, if it’s food, I can introduce you to Osaka (Udon, Kushikatsu, Yakiton…).

Riichiro: Have you ever eaten sushi?

If you come to Tokyo, you should eat it!

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Jun: We don’t know where it will come out or what form it will take, but we’re hoping to drop some new works by next year or so.

In Japan, there are good guitar bands (e.g., “Linustate”, “Shortcut Miffy!”, “Softtouch”, “Fishbasket”…) that’s been around for a long time, and they are releasing new songs one after another, so please check them out.

Riichiro: It’s a terrible situation all over the world, but we would like to stay at home and do some kind of creative activity. I can’t wait to make some of our works. So let’s keep stay at home / work from home / play at home / dancing on the inside!

Finally, thank you again for giving us the opportunity to do this kind of interview.

We really enjoyed the interview.

We’ll keep you posted when we release songs.

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Cleandistortion – Teenage Green Cracker

Day 39. Finally the sleeves for the CD that comes with the fanzine arrived late on Friday. Now I will be able to post all your orders this week. It is very exciting. Honestly, being stuck at home, I needed good news like this one. I really hope you all like them.

Now I did find some interesting new things to share with you this past weekend.

The Catherines: “Bingo!”, that’s the name of the new album by the German duo of Heiko and Sandra from Hamburg. This new album is out now on CD and cassette through their Bandcamp and it includes 10 lovely jingle jangle pop songs with long and smart song titles!

The Chills: you need Facebook to see this one. This is the lost video clip for the classic song from 1982 “Rolling Moon”! The story says that the video was deemed too dark for use and then the film was lost. Only to be discovered 30 years! Amazing story really, terrific video and legendary song!

Skytone: another duo, this one hailing from Ottawa and formed by Rodney and Darius Doddridge. They have a new poppy and dreamy song called “Without You”. That’s all. But it is quite good!

Juliper Sky: a new digital single by this very good Manchester combo is out now on Bandcamp. It is called “Infinite Jets” and it shimmers. Not much more info I can add to it. I could hope that the band is working on an album and that this song will be included. But those are just my wishes.

Dreams of Empire: the London/Brighton indiepop band is back with two new songs, their first after their 2019 debut album “Nothing’s Ever Finished”. These new songs are “Broken Keys” and “Lying Awake” and are as good as the ones in the album. Let’s hope for more to come!

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Super 8, from Badajoz, Spain. I remember them as if it was yesterday. But it isn’t. They were around in the late 90s and early 2000s. And today they seem to be forgotten. I couldn’t even find their records on Discogs. Strange.

They took their name from Los Planetas’ first album. Los Planetas being perhaps the most succesful indie band of Spain of the 90s and beyond. But their sound wasn’t really much influenced by Los Planetas. Today, rediscovering their music, listening for example the track “Lluvia Helada” I feel them closer to La Buena Vida even.

The band was formed by Carmen Estévez on vocals, Alfonso Villalobos on guitar, Carlos Aragonés on guitar, Juan Carlos Nacarino on bass and Antonio Carretero on drums. They hailed from the town of Montijo and before being in Super 8, Antonio, Carlos and Juan Pablo were in a sort of sixties band.

They start to gain some notoriety with their first demo, “Fotogramas”, from 1999. This demo ended up being a finalist in a demo contest organized by the festival Zorrock. Thanks to that the Spanish Radio3 starts playing their songs, especially the song “Lluvia Helada”.  The other songs on this demo were “Asfixiante”, “Nada”, “Tu Lado y el Mío” and “Fotogramas”. This demo would be recorded by Dr. Ecce Homo at their practice space.

They would travel to Barcelona and be part of other contests, winning the one organized by Rockdelux in Barcelona for the BAM festival.  Thanks to that they won a contact with RCA to record an album.

This album started to be recorded at the end of the year 2000, in the Madrid studios Sonoland. RCA stops supporting them in the meantime and lets them know they can sign to any other label they want. The band decides to stay with RCA and get Fino Oyarte to produce them. Fino had been the drummer of the classic band Los Enemigos. These recordings would end up making the album “Guía Para Oler Colores” that would be released in 2001.

This album included the following tracks, “All Despertar”, “Tu Habitación”, “Asfixiante”, “Lluvia Helada”, “La Bahía”, “Pasaje Sideral”, “Cosas Que Nunca te Dije”, “Olalla”, “Abril”, “Asteroide 8612”, “Nada” and “Fotogramas”.

The pressing was of 3000 copies and it barely gets promoted. Just Julio Ruiz and Jesús Ordovás would in their radio shows. The band naturally is disappointed and in 2002 they split.

Carmen would en up moving to Madrid to study percussion at the Escuela Superior de Música Creativa and later to New York where it seems she has a flamenco trio called Flamenkina. Is she still here in the city? Maybe, the latest I found about her is that she was making music in a duo called CaneliBeat a few months ago. The other band members would continue making music first as Panorama 73 and then as Panorama. Antonio Carretero has also played in other bands like Repicantes, The Six Machine, Cajón de Sastre and Bloco Dum Dum.

It is also worth mentioning some other highlights of the band. For example they played twice the festival Contempopránea and recorded a session for Diario Pop. I would love to listen to that session. Is that available somewhere? Other gigs include many in Extremadura, Valladolid, Basauri, Gijón, Madrid (at the famous Sala Maravillas), Barcelona, Tarragona, at the WOMAD 2000 in Cáceres, and the BAM festival.

There is live footage of the track “Lluvia Helada” being played at the Contempopránea festival in 2000. Then at the Nasti Club in Madrid, we find two videos, one for “Lluvia Helada” and another for “La Bahía“.

Something really cool I found on the web is a video from 2001 in Vimeo that is sort of a small documentary of their town, Montijo. On it the band appears and is interviewed too! Really really cool! And then a bigger surprise, a news video by Canal Extremadura for their show “Nada Corriente” This video interviews Carmen in New York.

Quite a bit of information, right? I am sure there are even more things written about Panorama. But that’s another story for another day. Any other info about the band would be great. Like say are there any unreleased tracks? That I’ll like to know!

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Super 8 – Lluvia Helada

Day 36. Continuing the quarantine. There’s been a small delay with the CD sleeves for the fanzine. I am very sorry. I expected to mail all orders today but it seems I will have to do it early next week. I believe they should be arriving today in the evening. The good thing is that I’ll have the weekend to do these things.

Some important finds from the past few days:

Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters: A few weeks ago I got the CD retrospective “Smashed Full of Wonder” from Optic Nerve Records and it is a must. It is also available in LP vinyl. But what I found out the other day was that a video was just put together for the song “Out of My Head”. And maybe you missed that too. So be sure to watch it!

Love, Burns: this is the new project by Phil Sutton from Pale Lights. And on this new project he is going solo. He has just put out on Bandcamp 8 songs for his album (or mini-album?) “Fiftieth and Marlborough”. The songs sound amazing, jangly and classy. I hope there is a release of it, even if it is in limited copies.

The Snogs: out now on tape on the label Discontinuous Innovation out of San Francisco is this lo-fi bedroom pop project. It is totally new for me and I am really charmed by this 13 song album titled “Charmless”. Boy/girl vocals, and catchy hooks  from this Santa Cruz band.

Gula Gången: who are this band from Stockholm?! 10 days ago they uploaded a whole album called “Spela Allt Från Ditt Hjärta” to Soundcloud and since then it has been in heavy rotation at home! I need to find more info by them. They have some superb tunes!

Pash: lastly a two song cassette release called “Demonstration” on Urban Cowboy Records from Sydney. These two songs by the Sydney band Pash are “Shoplifting” and “Double Date”. The label compares them to Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Talulah Gosh, so that must be a good thing. They label them as a crush-pop band. That I don’t know what it is, but sounds good! We can preview just the first song, “Shoplifting”, and with that we know we are on for a treat!

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Returning to the wonderful German tape compilation “Frischer Morgentau”. Why? Because there are many treasures there of course. In the past I’ve written about the band Schade Schokolade, Die Busfahrer, Die Wurzelsepps, Moosblüten, The Almanacs and Friends Ahoi, all of them contributing a track to this comp! So today I wanted to introduce you to a new band, that if you haven’t heard them, Die Kupferschmiede.

Die Kupferschmiede means the coppersmith in English. A strange choice for a name, right? I think it is pretty cool though. The song they contributed was called “Einsames Wochenende”, which translates to lonely weekend. Who hasn’t had one of those?

Aside from this information my knowledge about the band is zero.

We know a bit about the tape though, stuff I’ve mentioned in the past like that it was released by Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1), a label run by Uli Hahndorf, the brother of our friend Peter who runs Twee.net and was the person behind Clarendon Records too.

Supposedly the tape came with a 16 page booklet with info about each of the bands. Maybe someone could help me with that. Get some band members names. Where in Germany where they from. That sort of info. Maybe that could help me track them down as I’d love to know if they have more songs. Can’t be just this one, this wonderful jangly upbeat catchy track.

So yes, any help, will be appreciated!

Edit: My friend Mike scanned the booklet from the “Frischer Morgentau” tape. There is not much info there about the band but two interesting details. First the band hailed from Quickborn. Second the contact address is the same for the label. Does this mean that the person behind the band was Uli Hahndorf?

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Die Kupferschmiede – Einsames Wohenende

Day 34. Today is the official release date for the new Cloudberry fanzine! Super exciting times! I believe I will be going to the post office tomorrow to post all your orders. Thanks again very very much!

Now you were looking for new music, of course. I have looked for some good quarantunes for my dear readers.

Blush Response: the Adelaide, Australia, band is back with a collection of demos, outtakes, covers and more called “This Band Will Eat Itselt”. It is now available on Bandcamp and has 14 songs of their trademark shoegazey pop. All the proceeds from this release will be donated to Support Act.

Spring Winds: now another shoegaze band, but this time from Saint Petersburg, Russia. First time I listen to this band and I must say they sound amazing. Their latest track is called “Alpine Vic” and it is a winner!

The Short Story Picture Book: Liam James Marsh, with lyrics by Leah Short, has made a fun and interesting indiepop EP called “These Days”. The Nottingham based musician, which I am guessing will be invited to Indietracks it it takes place this year, makes some bouncy folky pop tracks that would be liked by indiepop lovers and the indie lovers that Indietracks have now as their target audience.

Suburban Living: this Philly band is releasing an album called “How to Be Human” on Egg Hunt Records on August 28th. There are 2 songs available to preview, “Main Street” and “Glow”, and they sound pretty neat. The album has 9 songs and will be available on vinyl!

City Flanker: lastly another shoegaze band, from Shaoxing in China. This is a first time for sure. Shaoxing! The band has an album online called “The Journey to City Flanker” that comes with 8 songs. It looks as if it is available only digitally  so I am hoping some of the cool new Chinese labels do release them in CD or vinyl, or something.

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Another band that caught my attention from the “What’s the Idea” compilation was Christopher.

I wrote a bit about this compilation, all the information I could find about, when I wrote about a band that appeared on it called More Perfect Watchers. I mentioned that this LP comp released by Idea Records was a record put together by bands around the area of St. Helens. With the help of their Community Arts Team they released this comp in 1990  and included bands from nearby places like Halton, Lancaster, Wigan and Bolton. Christopher hailed from Halton for example, and More Perfect Watchers from Wigan and Bolton.

Christopher appears on this compilation of 12 songs, with the track “Touch”. It is the last song on the A side.

When I was looking for more information about More Perfect Watchers I actually stumbled upon a blog post about Christopher. This was quite a surprise because with that name, I thought I wasn’t going to find any info about the band.

From what I understand Christopher was originally Ian Finney. In 1990 when the St. Helens Musicians Collective asked the best local bands he started working on it. Seems at that point the band was not ready, so he ended up recording the entire track on his own. He did so at the Pentagon Studios in Widnes. But that was not the only thing he did for this compilation, he would also produce Jennifer Fever’s track “Near” that also appears in it.

Then Ian tells us what inspired the song, a relationship that went sour with his then girlfriend. Then around October 1990 he got serious about the band and put together the band. They were Ian Finney, Jon Brown, Wayne Booth and Andy Starkey according to a photo I found. But, what did each of them play? Who’d know?

Now something interesting. Ian Finney had been part of a wonderful band before, The Tempest! Oh dear. I didn’t know this connection. I really like The Tempest and until today I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a retrospective compilation for them.

And thanks to that I find out that he has a Wikipedia entry! There it mentions that he continues making music with the band The Coralaines. Before that he had been in the Coal Porters.

This is great! I hope I get the chance to talk to Ian sometime, and find out more about this more obscure project of his, but also about The Tempest! Did anyone catch Christopher live? Did they have more songs? Any info will be appreciated!

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Christopher – Touch

Day 32. This week, on Friday, I should mail the first batch of fanzines to those have pre-ordered. Thanks so so much for that. I hope you like them!

That’s it for news now. Things are a bit quiet, but believe I am working on new releases, like the Macguffins retrospective, to be released as soon as possible!

New finds from the weekend are here of course!

Gum Country: I wrote about Los Angeles band a few posts ago. It came to my attention that their song “Somewhere” had a cool video and so I had to share it! This song is the title track off their debut album that will be released in June 19!

Castro Morfeo: this fun synth-pop project from Chile has just released an EP titled “Amigxs/Niño que Vuela” on the netlabel Gemelo Parásito Records. The EP has 4 songs of introspective and catchy bedroom pop. Very nice.

Las Carreteras: not sure where this band comes from but they are releasing a tape (?) or a digital release on the German label Entes Anomicos. This EP is titled “Panamericana” and it sounds great! There are four songs in total here, and they all very good!

Ciel: there’s also a new EP by the Dutch band Ciel. It is called “Movement” and comes with 4 songs of jangly dreampop. The EP seems to be available only in digital format at the moment, but the good thing is that on Bandcamp all four songs are available to play and hear the very nice vocals and lyrics by Michelle Hindriks, their frontwoman.

My Proper Skin: and to finish this roundup of weekend finds here is a fine Portland, Oregon, band. My Proper Skin make some good shoegaze noise with girl vocals and their latest track, a digital single called “Haunted” is no exception.

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Last post of my “weekdays” challenge, a band now that wrote about Sunday… who else but the superb Washington D.C. band The Ropers who penned “Blue Sunday”. Mind you, this song doesn’t appear on any of their proper releases but on a Slumberland compilation called “Why Popstars Can’t Dance” (SLR 031) that was released on CD and vinyl in 1994. On this compilation they appear alongside other great bands like Boyracer, Stereolab, Rocketship and more. It is not the only song they contributed though, they also had the song “Drive” on it.

But let’s talk first about their releases as there are many. There are many compilation appearances too. This might be a long post! So brace yourselves.

Some introduction about the band won’t hurt too. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist Doug Bailey and guitarist Mike Hammel while they were students at the University of Maryland. They quit their studies (what were they studying?) after two years in to start making music. They recruited Alex Hacker on drums who they had met after a brief stint in the Lilys and also Greg Pavlovcak on bass. Okay, now we have the basics.

The first release was a 7″ on Slumberland Records (SLR 17) which came out in 1993. It had three songs, “Waiting” and “Lost” on the A side and “Cool Self” on the B side. The songs were recorded by Jim Spellman (from Velocity Girl) and Trip Brock. We also know that there were two different versions of the single, one in regular black vinyl and one in white vinyl (for mail order copies).

The year after, 1994, they would release another 7″ on Slumberland (SLR 38). Two songs, “I Don’t Mind” on the A side and “It’s So Strange” on the B side. This time around Geoff Turner recorded the tracks. But something more interesting is that there was a CD version of this 7″ that included 4 more songs! The tracklist for the CD was “I Don’t Mind”, “September’s Rain”, “Lost”, “Waiting”, “It’s So Strange” and “Cool Self”. “I Don’t Mind”, “September’s Rain” and “It’s So Strange” were recorded by Geoff Turner at WGNS Studios in Arlington, Virginia, while the rest were recorded by Jim Spellman and Trip Brock at The Station in Germantown, Maryland. The illustration for the sleeve was created by Khoi Vinh.

In 1994 it seems the band went on tour with Boyracer during the summer. So they prepared a split 7″ for the occasion, to sell them at their merch table. This split 7″ was put together by Slumberland, on their sub label I Wish I Was a Slumberland Record (WISH 005). Boyracer had the A side with the song “One Step Forward” while The Ropers appear on the flipside with “Pretty Quiet Song”. Then that same year the band released yet another split 7″, one that I already talked about on the blog in the past. That is the one they shared with The Tribbles and that was released by Brilliant Records (ant-09-si) in the US and Giant Pool Balls Records (ball002) in Germany. The German version came alongside the summer 1994 issue (which was the 8th issue) of Sunset Magazine. The Ropers appear on the A side with the track “Sweet Lord I know”.

1995 had a bunch of releases for the band. Slumberland would release yet another 7″ (SLR 53), that included their classic song “Revolver” which even has a promo video shot by T. Treyfid and Bill McKenna in 1995. The B side was a cover of the The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “Transparent Day”. This time the songs were recorded at Zabriskie Point in New York City by Kurt Ralske from Ultra Vivid Scene. The art was once again credited to Koi Vinh and also to Caramel. It is said that some mail order copies came in a color xerox Catwoman sleeve. I’ve never seen those. How did they look like?

Then came their debut album which was titled “All the Time” (SLR 50) once again on Slumberland. All songs were recorded at the same place and also by Kurt Ralske as the “Revolver” single. It was also mixed at Zabriskie Point. Khoi Vinh is once again credited to the design alongside Caramel with The Must Brother. The photography is credited to Nalinee. The album was released on both vinyl and CD with the same running order. The A side had “Revolver”, “Flashlight”, “Rain”, “You Have A Light” and “Drive” while the B side had “Chained”, “Blind”, “Spider Web”, “Tried” and Mystery Girl”. Now the CD had an extra track at the end, “Drive (reprise)”. For this record the band added some cello to the songs thanks to Melora Mather.

Lastly, in 1997 the band would release their sophomore album but this time on a different label, Teenbeat Records. “The World is Fire” (Teenbeat 225) was also released on CD and vinyl (the vinyl version was a co-release with the German A Turntable Friend (TURN 33)). This record only had 7 tracks, the A side had “Drink You Up”,  “Please Understand”, “Take Your Time” and “Home”. The B side had “Paste”, “These Days” and “Dawn”. The tracks were recorded by Treiops Treyfid again. On this album we see that Mike Donovan had replaced Alex Hacker on drums.

I’ve already mentioned one of their compilation appearances but there were more. For example they contributed a version of The Cure’s “Jumping Someone Else’s train” to “Give Me The Cure” a benefit CD for AIDS research released by Radiopaque Recordings (ROPQ01CD) and Corduroy Records (ROPQ01CD) in 1995. The proceeds from this CD were donated to the Whitman-Walker clinic.

Then in 1998 they contributed “You Have a Light” to the “1998 Teenbeat Sampler” CD (TEENBEAT 251). Then 11 years later they had “Pretty Quiet” on the CD compilation “Slumberland Records The First 20 Years” (WISH 12) that was released by I Wish I Was a Slumberland Record in 2009. Then 9 years after they would contribute the song “These Days” to “The Test of Time” a compilation released by A Turntable Friend (TURN50) on vinyl and CD celebrating the comeback of the label.

It is also worth mentioning that the video of “Revolver” was included in the “Munch (Part Two) Another International Independent Music Video Compilation” that Season Records and Drive-In Records put out on VHS!

We know that the band members worked on other bands. For example Alex Hacker played in Air Miami, Treiops Treyfid, The Still and (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope. Mike Hammel played in Pink Skull, Juniper and The Mondo Crescendo, these two last bands have been interviewed on the blog!, other members though! Greg Pavlovcak played in The Last Wave, The Castaway Stones, The Still and yet another band that has been featured here, The Saturday People! Then Douglas Bailey was on (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope, Panax, The Still and The Sunshine Feels.

It looks like Douglas is still making music. I found a Bandcamp of his which has recordings from 1998 to 2018! It also looks like he left D.C. and moved to Austin, Texas.

Another question that I have for them is if they took their name from an American TV show called The Ropers…

The Ropers is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from March 13, 1979, to May 22, 1980. It is a spin-off of Three’s Company and loosely based on the British sitcom George and Mildred, which was itself a spin-off of Man About the House, on which Three’s Company was based.It was taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood, California, where its parent series, Three’s Company, was taping at the time, from February to April 1979 (Season 1) and from July 1979 to February 1980 (Season 2).

There are a few blogs that have dedicated some lines to the band, sadly all repeat the same information, adding nothing new. I read that the band disbanded shortly after the Teenbeat release. I wonder why. I also wonder if the band left any other recordings, recordings that remain unreleased to this day.

I’m sure many  of you remember them. They even played not long ago a reunion gig at the Slumberland 20th Anniversary Festival in 2009 at the Bell House in Brooklyn on November 14th 2009. I missed that, I wasn’t living in New York then.

I hope you can fill in the blanks this time around.

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Listen
The Ropers – Revolver