Day 345. Today I mailed the first batch of Verandan 7″s to those who have preordered! That’s great! Keep supporting the label for more and more releases 😀
Grrrl Gang: an Indonesian band getting a vinyl release? That’s not too common but it is definitely great news! The Yogyakarta band is releasing a 7″ on July 1st with two songs, “Honey, Baby” and “Ghost to You (Live at Teras Belakang Studio)”. The one track we can preview, the first one, is really good! Perfect pop! 300 copies are made of this 7″ and it is selling for 8 pounds by Damnably Records. Definitely one we can’t miss!
Vary Landers: now we head to Detroit to discover this lo-fi bedroom pop project. There is little information here, but we can definitely enjoy the guitar strums on the two songs we can check out, “Amaryllis” and “Uji”.
UJU: and back to Asia, to Cebu City, Philippines. I discover the label Melt Records, and their latest release, “Dream of Better Days” by UJU. This is a 10 song album which already came out on January 29. It sounds great! Dreamy with female vocals and very nice guitar arrangements. The artwork for the album is nice too! I hope they get to release the album in physical format!
OutControlJoys: wow! a shoegaze band from Pokhara, Nepal! This is really exciting. Never knew there was a scene there. Ris Records is a label that started in 2016 and supports bands from their country. Good idea! Here I’ve discovered the “Division” EP which seems to be a demo. In any case it sounds good! It has 5 songs of very exciting shoegaze sounds. Check it out!
John Myrtle: and to end this week of discoveries here is John Myrtle from where else? London! The place that reigns supreme for indiepop? I am not sure anymore… it used to be and probably is still, but I don’t find that many London bands as of late. So good to see this solo project who have just released a great slice of pop, a digital single called “Get Her Off My Mind”.
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This is actually the first post I write since returning to NYC in January. I’ve been a bit slow researching obscure bands. On my defense I can say that I am up to date with everything else. Also I’ve written many interview questions for many interviews that I hope get published someday. If I get the answers that is.
Now I want to focus on The Wishing Well, an American band, I believe from Atlanta, who released one EP and one album in the late 80s.
Information about them is not easy to come by. Discogs tells us that the band was formed by Kib on vocals, Pat Luckett on guitar, Marion Smith on bass and Scott Snyder on drums. That’s something.
Then their first release was a 12″ vinyl EP released by Token Bird Records (catalog WW-0915). I want to assume that this was a self-release. The only two releases by Token Bird listed on Discogs are by The Wishing Well.
This first EP came out in 1987 and included 5 songs, “Paradise”, “Wish You Away” and “Sweet Caroline” on the A side and “Immaculate” and “Market Rain” on the B side.
Their album “Maybe” came out in 1989 on Token Bird (WW0123). It was released on vinyl, CD and cassette. The songs on the LP were: “Maybe”, “Wide Awake”, “Anything” My Girl”, “Drink Myself to Sleep” and “Ransom” on the A side and “Don’t Try to Change Me”, “My Favorite Song”, “Big White House”, “Bsusa”, “Nobody Cry” and “Letter” on the B side. 12 songs total.
On this record they credit Jeff Stanley for playing fiddle, Bill Turpin for playing Harp and Ed Roland, the producer. Ed Roland was in the well known band Collective Soul as well as in The Living Room and The Sweet Tea Project. From what I understand there’s a song by Collective Soul called “Maybe” which was dedicated to the memory of Kib Browning. It seems he died in 1995 of scoliosis complications, being 26 years old.
That’s not the kind of information I want to find. But sadly I can’t seem to find much more details about the band. So hopefully some of you remember them. Know of more songs, more releases. Or what happened to the other members? There are no compilation appearances listed either. So would be good to know more about them and the Atlanta scene. Maybe there were more cool jangly bands down there?
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Listen
The Wishing Wall – Paradise
