Happy Monday. Today let’s go straight to some good recommendations!
Comet Gain: another wonderful set of unheard, forgotten 23 songs. “The Misfit Jukebox Vol – Somewhere to Belong” is the new collection of Comet Gain on Bandcamp. Included is a 1997 of the classic cover of “Pinstriped Rebel” as well as a bunch of terrific tracks going back as far as 1993.
The Hazmats: Static Shock Records from London is releasing a 7″ by The Hazmats. Limited to 300 copies the single includes two songs, “Empty Rooms” and “Today”. We can preview the A side and it is really good! They mention The Clouds as their big influence and you can see a similar typeface on their sleeve as that one of The Clouds one and only 7″… on purpose? Good stuff.
Humdrum: this band is a true favourite and would be great to see them release something in physical format. The solo project of Loren from Star Tropics has a new song called “Superbloom” that is a rush of chiming and jangling guitars. Essential listening and if you are making a mixtape or CD, a must to include!
The Holiday Crowd: a true surprise to see the comeback of the Toronto band that dazzled all of us many many years ago! A new 7″ with the songs “Party Favours” and “Bullet Train” will be released in May by Shelflife Records. Pre-orders are up now and I need to do that. Hopefully they return to NYC soon too.
Ducks Ltd.: and I end this round of recommendations with another Toronto band. Here there is a great cover of the JAMC’s classicc “Head On”. On this track it says thee Illuminati Hotties are featured. Not sure who they are, but that’s cool. It is a one off digital single.
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I was very sad to hear about two weeks ago that Vince Keenan from One Thousand Violins passed away. Probably you’ve heard this on social media and already paid tribute…
I am slow with these things as you might have seen in many posts I’ve written about of many of our heroes that have left us. But I still needed to write this. My own little tribute.
One Thousand Violins is a favourite band of mine. Songs like “Like One Thousand Violins”, “Halcyon Days”, “Please Don’t Sandblast My House”, “If I Were a Bullet” or “If Only Words” are indiepop classics, legendary!
Kevin wasn’t part of the first incarnation of the Sheffield band. He joined sometime in 1988, replacing John Wood on vocals. With Vince the band released the band last album “Hey Man That’s Beautiful”.
After the demise of One Thousand Violins Vince continued making music with the wonderful Splendid Fellows. Even though I never wrote about One Thousand Violins (I don’t know why, probably as they are one of the ‘bigger’ indiepop bands I thought I was going to interview someday…) I did dedicate a post to Splendid Fellows. On that post I say:
“Field of Corn” was written by Vince Keenan and only saw the day of light a demo tape. Splendid Fellows was formed in March 1990 and split in 1992. No records were released but gigs were well attended. In July 1994 Vince Keenan returned to play Leeds Heineken Festival under the name The Haze Office with the drummer of Splendid Fellows, Gordon Leather. He already had used this name in the early 80s before becoming the later singer of 1000 Violins. Now he is performing acoustic gigs under the name of Spigott. And it is only a question of time before he is getting a new band together again.”
And that’s one interesting bit of information, The Haze Office. Did you know though that before being in One Thousand Violins he was in a band called The Hays Office?
I don’t know much about this band or about Spigott, the band he was in in the early 2000s. With Spigott he did release something. He covered “Salvador Dali’s Garden Party” on a tribute to the TVPs that our friend Wally put together back in 2005 for his label The Beautiful Music. That’s really cool. I didn’t know about this until today.
Same with The Hays Office. I am listening to a song called “All the Colour” that is available on the Sheffield Tape Archive Bandcamp as part of a compilation called “The Hard Stuff Presents”. This tape was produced by Radio Sheffield’s The Right Stuff program. I don’t know when this tape was released, according to Bandcamp in 2018. The tape features bands from 1985, from Sheffield.
It is interesting when you start to dig, to find more information about our heroes. Other projects, other recordings, collaborations… for example here they thank Vince for providing the insert of the cassette to the people behind this Bandcamp. That’s why I think this tape was actually released in the 80s. Discogs doeesn’t list it, only the MP3 compilation.
As you continue looking, you find Vince had a Soundcloud page. I start to wonder why I never got in touch. Would have been fantastic to do an interview. There are more songs by The Hays Office here including “Dressed in White” and “Curled Up“. We know now that this project was around from 1984 to 1987.
He also left us some thoughts about the song “Dressed in White” on the One Thousand Violins facebook:
“Excusive…the hays office..vince keenan pre ..1000 violins..1986….and soundyshitty clowd banned it…..I loved doing this track…dressed in white…about a reimagining of a ghostly spirit…or mood we take….I’d just acquired a 60s red watkins guitar and pre dylans..Q jennings was kicking in on trumpet and hammond…noone did anything close to us at that time..they were a mass of ramones and jesus and mary chain clones. …when we were more..jazz…meets ..new wave..60s…and retro robots..guitars/amps….and hashish!…felt good for a short while…then judas always kicks in!..but bigger than 1000 violins in Sheffield on cred scene…..but I even told Q to buy hammond on joining when we went looking…but he did fall in love with the korg hammond himself. ..but at that time only james taylor quartet were doing instrumentals on the indie scene. …so we perservered and I wasn’t one to write normal songs being an art student…but…did want weird sounding pop!…and textured tracks!…track from an unreleased cd of demos I did called the stoned age….”
There’s a blog too, I think it was his where he comments movies. Last updated in January. This would make sense, see Hays Office is a term that has to do with the motion Picture Production Code, was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945.
There’s very little information about this project. If it had more band members or if it was just Vince. He seems to have been an important part of the Sheffield scene back then. I still haven’t visited Sheffield but one thing that is true is that their music history is amazing. A city that produced quality music. One Thousand Violins one of their best for me.
I never met, never chatted, with them. One thing that kept me a bit far away was also their relationship with Cherry Red. I mean, they didn’t need promotion from this humble blog. They were in a different league. But at the same time, when you listen to their wonderful songs you feel they could be your friends, that they were a down-to-earth band. I suppose if Cherry Red offers you something it is hard to say no. It is true though that I first heard them on Vinyl Japan and also on the Leamington Spa compilation series.
One thing that could have happened is that of a One Thousand Violins gig. A reunion gig. And that won’t be happening anymore. That would have been a dream for me. I would have traveled to Sheffield. To London. To wherever they were to be booked. How much I would have loved that!
It’s time to say goodbye. We didn’t cross paths, but the music you made was important to me. I played your songs many times. I want to say a big THANK YOU for that
EDIT April 5th, 2022: My friend Richard had interviewed Vine for his Facebook blog Scratch the Surface. Here Vince shares more of the story of The Hays Office! Thanks to Richard for letting me share these lines:
In the summer of 1984 me and bassist Dave Jewell rented a house and the three of us moved to Sheffield, adding 18 year old Sheffielder Joe Simpson on drums. We were now The Hays Office and we played our first gig in Nov 84 at Sheffield Uni Maze bar with The Farm.
A local BBC radio DJ was impressed enough to do an interview and play two of our mixing desk tapes.
By the way that gig turned out to be promoted by SJM’s Simon Moran with his first ever promotion.
He’s now one of biggest promoters in Europe.
They were great youthful days for us bringing along many fellow students for the ride.
We then headlined The Maze Bar two more times, one with later Dylans keyboardist Q Jennings.
Dave was working at The Leadmill so pulled us a first gig there in 1985 supporting James.
We also supported The Redskins and Julian Cope there, played an all dayer and did backing music for a few alternative comedy nights.
Soon we’d played dozens of gigs one of which was the Brighton escape club with Richard Hawley’s band Treebound Story.
We shared a 12 seater mini-bus whilst the gear was in another van and driving back the same night was a nightmare journey – a taster of long gigging journeys in the dark if no hotels are booked!
We also did two all night parties for Yorkshire art space…first with comedian Henry Normal supporting us.
By December 1986 an artist friend called Pete built a set for us with spiral opening venetian blinds…a light show..pyrotechnics and even exploding cabbages!-I still have this gig on video.
In 1987 there was a gig with Pulp and we also started our own late bar venue on Friday nights called the cavern surreal club.
Crispin Hunt, later singer of the Longpigs had been around and was sharing our lock up rehearsal room.
The end of The Hays Office came when I realised our door takings were down considerably from the till float.
This led to a scuffle and the other three members taking me to an underground rehearsal room they had secretly been painting behind my back with the intention of forming The Happening Men with Crispin Hunt.
They accused my songwriting of being “too indie” when they wanted a more Hothouse Flowers sound so all of this lead to me walking out completely on the band and the club which had been my idea, although Dave had initially found the venue.
However in Xmas 1987 I saw an ad in a music shop as I was walking home drunk which said:
“Singer wanted for band – influences..Beatles..60s..Doris day”
I copied the ad but at home threw it on an unlit kitchen coal fire.
Three days later my ex girlfriend Jane said “ohh..you look bored just ring that band advert up”…luckily the fire hadn’t been lit…I rang and soon Dave Walmsley arrived smiling at my door.
I went to their house and joined 1000 violins in January 1988.
There was an album deal already planned but I still had to audition for the record company boss and two producers in our rehearsal room.
They seemed pretty happy and relieved that the band had sorted the problem of John Wood suddenly leaving in December 1987.
The Hays Office for me personally was longer than 1000 violins had been together but I kept changing the name and lineup in the early days.
Afterwards I visualised a band with a more upbeat humour and miraculously 1000 violins ticked most of the boxes for me so I don’t think a more suitable band would have appeared like that in the whole country never mind just in Sheffield.
So it was an act of great fate for a short while anyhow!
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Listen
The Hays Office – Dressed in White
