So, on Jessel’s Facebook group ‘Guitarpop and NeoAco Collective’ a member called Steve Hill (who is actually the same Steve Hill from The Marmite Sisters) posted a superb song by a very obscure band called Hallelujah Trail. The song was called “Love Trip” and caught my attention immediately. And I needed to find more about it.

The track was part of a 7-song compilation LP titled “Something’s Happening” (FPL 001) that was released by Flower Power Records in 1990. I couldn’t find this release on Discogs, that’s not great.

We know that other bands included were The Happy Tree People, The Crowd Scene, The Proles. Mother Spiral, Western Colours and Curious Oyster. I don’t think I know these bands.

On the back cover of the record it says that the compilation was compiled by the W.W.V. Crew. Does that name ring a bell? The photography is credited to Lisa Comeau and the cover design to the Funky Dread.

And that’s all info there is on the record itself. Other than it says London on the sleeve. Can I find anything else online?

I do find that the Hallelujah Trail was a 1965 American Western mockumentary spoof directed by John Sturges, with top-billed stars Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin. It was based on the book of the same title (originally released as “The Hallelujah Train”) by Bill Gulick in 1963.

I didn’t know that, haven’t seen it.

That’s it really. I am hoping a miracle happens and we find out more about this obscure band.

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Listen
Hallelujah Trail – Love Trip

I own the “Ceylon” 7″ (MEL 12) released by Meller Welle Produkte in 1995. Pastel Coloured Days sound like a good shoegazy band. But there’s very little info about them. So I start my detective work.

This 7″ was the band’s debut. It had “Ceylon” and “Singing in My Sleep” on the A side and “Fading Fire” on the B side. But I was surprised to see two other releases by this German band on Discogs that I had no clue existed.

One is a demo released as a floppy disk. Remember those? I guess if you find a copy now it would be very difficult to listen to the song in it. I assume it would be just one song. These floppy disks didn’t have that many megabytes to be stored on them…

The other release is an album released in 1996 by the German label Supermodern. The album titled “Dreampool” (SM/B00-002) had 13 songs: “Picnic On Valentine’s Day”, “Red Rain”, “Caroline”, “New Day”, “Away”, “Smash!”, “All By Myself”, “Betranced”, “Clouds for Kai”, “Fading Fire”, “Kerstin”, “On and On” and “Ambient Cat”. The songs were produced by Rallo Barmeler and Wiegbert Pieper (bass player of the band Percy & the Gaolbirds) and mastered by Mario Thaler (owner of Uphon-Tonstudio in Weilheim). Someone mentions that this release came in a very special shaped digipak. What does he mean? What made it special?

I wonder then if the band was close to the area of Weilheim. I think that’s southwest of Munich. Bavaria.

So I keep looking and I hit a good find. A Bandcamp. The “Dreampool” album is there, you can listen to it. On top of it all it tells us the names of the band members. Good!

So it was Steve Bates on guitar and vocals, Mario Krohnen on guitar, Zuzie Marmetshcke on bass and Matthias Reimann on drums.

They also have uploaded a remix of their song “Fading Fire”, a remix titled “Dark Ambient Remix”.

I keep digging. I find a review for a self-titled album by a band called Mindslide. It seems this band hailed from Bielefeld in East Westphalia. This EP dates from 2013 and the band started in 2012. Most interestingly it had members of Pastel Coloured Days in the band. At least we know Steve Bates was in both bands.

Now Bielefeld is far from Weilheim.

I find Matthias Reimann listed as a musician in a German band ccalled S.C.R.I.P.T. This band had released a self-titled tape in 1989. Interestingly there’s a song in this tape that has the name “Pastel Coloured Days”.

Then I find another location. Detmold. A blog called Matthias Poltrock – ART mentions that the band hailed from there. That makes more sense. Detmold is close to Bielefeld. He also links to Mario Krohen’s website. Mario is now a kinetic artist. Very cool!

Zuzie Marmetschke I believe works now on a festival calls Owls’n’Bats that happens in Detmold. It is a festival for darker bands, not indiepop.

And that’s what I could find about them. Figured out where they were from and ended up listening to their album which I didnt know existed! Not bad!

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Listen
Pastel Coloured Days – Picnic on Valentine’s Day

Here’s a good mystery.

There’s a Bandcamp from I guess a digital label called Degree Zero Music based in Los Angeles, California.

This Bandcamp has three releases. An album from 2012 by Magnetone, an album from 1992 by Changeling, and three songs from 1988 by Darling Rougues.

I don’t know if there’s a connection between the bands. I do want to think that all three bands hail from the Los Angeles area. But I can’t say for sure.

The band I’m interested in is the Darling Rougues. Why? Their songs are pretty good, especially “Sixteen Beats”.

According to this Bandcamp the three songs were released on May 1st of 1988. The title for this three song EP was “Pop!” and the songs included were “Girl on the Outside”, “Gravity” and “Sixteen Beats”. We don’t get any other details.

Sadly that’s all I have to offer. I couldn’t find any other info about the band. I would think this “Pop!” EP was actually a demo tape. But without any information about band members or recording studio, or anything at all is quite difficult to even google about it.

So I have to resort on my good readers. Anyone have any idea about this Darling Rougues?

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Listen
Darling Rougues – Sixteen Beats

Hi again! I want to remind everyone that I’ll be in London for the Heavenly gig on the 20th (and then in Hamburg) in a couple of weeks. I can bring records with me to save on postage. Send me a message if you’d like me to bring some records!

++ The other record that surprised me very much was the Suffering from a Hangover 7″ “Note: It’s Open, Push and Go EP”. It’s great, pure indiepop! I’ve never heard anything about them before. Care to tell me a bit about the background of this band?

Actually I knew the band for some time and they passed around demo tapes. After agreeing to release the Forsakes 7″ (the singer of which is brother to the guitar player of Suffering..) we also talked about doing a 7″ with them. I didnt like the early tapes too much but the band improved a lot and they grew on me, so we ended up doing the single. They later got a support slot for a Throw That Beat tour. There are still tons of tapes and unreleased songs, some ended up on a Fan Club only 7″ in a tiny edition of 50. Some members of the band I still see from time, I am thinking of doing a 3-CD retrospective with them hahaha…

That is from an old interview I did with Blue Records’ Michael Wille. I was curious about this 7″ he had released in 1992 on his label.

Yeah, today I want to find out more about Hanau, Germany, band Suffering from a Hangover.

The “Note: It’s Open, Push and Go EP” (SHADE 003) was the first record I heard from them and it sounded great. It had “It’s Over” and “Girl” on the A side (also called Hangside) and “Dog Named Jack” and “Wonderful” on the B side (called Overside). Some of these records included a six-sided booklet on green paper. My copy doesn’t have it though. The songs had been recorded and mixed between August and September of 1992 by Nobby.

The band was formed by Robert Piesenecker on bass. Jens Helk on drums. Andreea Zimmermann on vocals and guitar. Michael Müller on guitar. Robert was on the band On before being on Suffering from a Hangover and Michael, Jens and Robert were together on the band Panama Red afterwards.

As mentioned by Michael Wille, there was a very limited 7″. 50 copies in a hand made sleeve for the Fan Club of the band. There were 10 more test pressings in picture sleeve released in 2004. This one was the “Whole Wide World” 7″ (SHADE 007) that was released in 1993. It included “Whole Wide World” on the A side and “Very Next Day” and “Boy Who’s Shyer” on the B side.

An interesting fact about this record is that there’s a review by Luis Calvo from Elefant on one of the labels of the previous record. There Luis mentions that he loves the song “Dog Named Jack”.

Michael also said that there were many tapes by the band. Two of them are on Discogs.

“Out of Reach” dates from 1992 and inccluded 9 songs, “Song Dedicated to Someone Who Ever Teases Me”, “It’s Over”, “I Wait for You”, a cover of Throw That Beat in the Garbagecan’s classic “Little Red Go-Cart”, “Your Mind” written by Claus Sterneck from the Hanau band Schulcore, “Epidemic On the Collective Farm”, “Begonia”, “Dreams” and “Time to Go”. From what I understand there was a first edition of 50 copies and that 32 of them came in a sausage tin can. It was recorded March 7 of 1992 and mixed by Matze Gruber from Forsakes and Mayflower Madam on the 12th of that same month. The photography is credited to Teeni. The second edition was mixed by Tvuzk and was released as a limited edition of 59 copies on July 3rd of 1992. This edition included the track “Your Mind” which wasn’t included in the first edition. This track had been recorded live at Metzergerstrasse in Hanau on April 17 1992.

The second tape listed is a 1993 tape titled “Still No Sign of Land”. This one was also self-released and included 10 songs: “Very Next Day”, “Boy Who’s Shyer”, “Why Baby”, “Final End”, “Whole Wide World”, “The Only Way I Know”, “Valerie’s Garden”, “Feeling So Blue”, “It’s Time” and “Dreams”. Tracks were recorded at mixed in April/May of 1993 with the exception of “Dreams” that was recorded live on October 18, 1992, at Exil in Trier.

I keep searching for more info about them and I stumbled upon a blog post by my friend Alex from 7iete Pulgadas. He beat me to it, writing about the band. There’s not much more info but it is a nice detail about how he discovered the band, again mentioning Luis Calvo and how he compared the track “Dog Named Jack” to Talulah Gosh.

And that’s what I could find. Sadly no more. Where are the members now? Still making music? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Suffering from a Hangover – It’s Over

Revisiting my Bus Stop Label’s singles, I pick up today the superb 7″ that Engine No. 9 released in 1991. A 7″ that had two top songs, “Sleep” on the A side and “Waterfall” on the B side.

The catalog number for this record was BUS008 and had a nice cartoon train on a front cover that had just three colors, red, black and white. The artwork is credited to Brian Reedy who had been in bands like Lonely Trailer, Signalmeen, The Falbonauts and Water Between Continents.

But there’s a little detail that’s interesting about this record. It was released posthumously. The band didn’t exist anymore at the time of the release, they had changed their name to Fudge.

I haven’t written yet about Fudge. There’s so many bands to write about, but hopefully at some point I will do. There are other details though that we can add about Engine No. 9.

We know that this single was recorded at Studio Nico in the fall of 1990 and that the band was formed by Dani Siciliano on bass, Mike Savage on drums, David Jones on guitar and Tony Ammendolla on vocals and guitar. Two Italian last names I notice.

The blog Did Not Chart has scans from a Fudge Interview on 1991’s Waterbomb! fanzine. There they are asked about a short history of Engine No. 9. This is what they say:

Can You give us a short history of Engine No. 9?

David: Tony (vocals & guitar) and myself have been playing together since we were 17 or 18. We came to Richmond to go to school and to get into its music scene. We’ve been trying to put together a solid band for about two years. Fudge (Engine No. 9 ) is that band!

Where does the strange name come from (Engine No. 9)? It sounds R.E.M. ish?

David: “Engine, engine, number nine, comen down Chicago line, if that train should jump the tracks, do you want your money back?”
It comes from this rhyme that wee did as little kids, a lot of the time in addition to a really neat hand game.
No! REM no! Sit! Bad dog! in the USA if it doesn’t sound like Bon Jovi or Janet Jackson then it must be that weird “Progressive rock” like REM. I’ve always liked REM, but NEVER want any connection to them. (Sorry for the mild hostility).

How did the single with Bus Stop come about?

David: I sent a tape to Brian and one to Calvin at K. Brian liked us, Calvin, well he sent me some neat Beat Happening flyers, but he lost my tape.

Your whole sound, sounds as though you have a large British ‘indie’ influence, do you?

David: a small “indie influence”. I like all the C86 stuff and got into some of the well known indie bands i.e. The Sea Urchins, Shop Assistants, Talulah Gosh, Pooh Sticks. We really love Noise/Melody – My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr. And big grooves.

Were there any other releases before “Sleep / Waterfall”?

David: Only local demo stuff.

Are there any other good bands from the Richmond area?

David: Thank you for asking about Richmond bands. Yes!! Richmond has a thriving scene. Very few.none are of the indiepop kind of thing, but all are great. My partial list of favourites – Jive Farmer, Anse, Eggs, Coral, Alter-natives, Burma Jam, Kal Kan, Mystery Machine

What’s “Sleep” and “Waterfall” about?

David: “Sleep” = Youth, love, poetry and other sappy shit. Lyrics written by an x-bass player. “Waterfall” = “I believe in you and your waterfall, me and my divining rod, lending me to yo, showing me what to do…” = Mother nature & instinct. The hows and why’s.

Are Bus Stop going to release an LP” What would you call it?

David: Jeez! I hope! Maybe if Brian knew he could sell them. We have quite a lot of material but we want to go slow. It would be called “I Wish I Were a Fish’

Where you aware of all the other Bus Stop bands before you joined the label?

David: I had heard of Bus Stop and some of the bands, but never the music. Well, Springfields, but I thought they were on Sarah.

Do you think the American music press does enough to promote bands like yourselves?

David: No! It’s kind of hip to have different/weird bands on major labels now, but they don’t really care about anything but the money.

What do you all do for your day jobs?

David: I go to school at Virginia Commonwealth Uni and I work at a survey lab doing yucky computer stuff. Tony is a security guard at a residence hall for the university and take classes. Mike works at the Art Market. VCU is an Art School.

There’s a comment on the post by David Jones. He mentions that Dani Siciliano never played bass with them but that she was a high school friend that was moving away and it seemed like a good way to have pictures of her taken before she left time. That sorts of make sense now that I think about it. When I see her name on Discogs she was a key collaborator of the Matthew Herbert Big Band and had played in jazz combos and djed in San Francisco clubs.

Looking at other bands they were involved with, other than Fudge, I see Tony and David were on Twitch Hazel and The Seymores. Mike was in Death Vessel, The ‘Mericans, Cherry 2000, The Count Me Outs, and Shepherdess.

The band contributed two tracks to the classic compilation CD “Peppermint Stick Parade” (BUS1001) released by The Bus Stop Label in 1995. These songs were “Waterfall” and “Sleep” of course.

One interesting thing that I can’t figure out is that the two songs on the 7″ are credited to two last names that are not the band’s. “Sleep” is credited to Tolk. From the interview I understand it was an ex-bassist of the band. But what about “Waterfall”. It says Moore.

Then Discogs lists a 12″ titled “Engine, Engine No. 9”. That is not a release by this band. This actually dates from 1966 so an error to include it in the band’s discography.

And that’s all I could find about them. The one thing that caught my attention was that there were demo tapes with more songs that were released locally. Has anyone seen them?

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Listen
Engine No. 9 – Sleep