Day 385
Helen McCookerybook: the ex-Chefs Helen McCookerybook is back with a new EP recorded with Robert Rotifer. This EP titled “Equal Parts” is available now on vinyl. I believe it is a 12″ because of the price. But it doesn’t specify. There are 6 songs with great melodies and the trademark vocals of both. Very jangly and lovely. I recommended this for sure.
Grids and Dots: the Sydney band is back now with a 7 song mini-album titled “What Happens to Friendships?” that sounds really good. Shame it is not released on any physical format. The 7 songs are on Bandcamp to listen and I am hooked by the boy/girl vocals. Thumbs up!
Grazer: now we just head to Melbourne, very close by, to listen to the new song by Grazer, the duo formed by Matt and Mollie. This new track is called “Nostalgia” and sounds like a fresh breeze of air. It is dreamy and fragile but at the same type upbeat and poppy. It’s a great combination, works really well I think!
For Tracy Hyde: been a fan of the Japanese band For Tracy Hyde for a while, they are terrific. They have released just a few days ago a new video for their song “Sister Carrie” and it looks and sounds just how any indiepop would love it to be. So yeah, I am happy. I need to get their latest album “Ethernity” where this song is included.
Small Imperfections: wow! this is a great find. Magnus Karlsson from The Happydeadmen has a new project with Daniel Westlund, Stefan Johansson, Christian Granquist and Tove Hellerup. I didn’t know! They had been going since 2015 it seems! I have only discovered them now thanks to their latest song, “Let’s Have Fun in ’21”, which is a very positive song! The other song that they have put up on Soundcloud as of late is called “Godsend (She Said So)”, both of them from 2021. Really sweet jangly pop.
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A jangle pop from Iowa City. That’s quite something I think. I wasn’t aware of any scene there, even less dating from the early 90s. Well, on Bandcamp I stumbled upon the band These Days who have a few releases to stream. Let’s discover them together!
The band was actually formed in 1990, in Washington DC. Then I am not sure if all members or the founding member moved to Iowa City in 1991. The band would last until 1996. In between, the band played in different US states like Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Maryland, Virginia, Tennesse and DC. No New York though. No California. I don’t know if in those times you needed to make a splash in these states, in their big cities, to get a record deal or something. I wonder…
The first release the band shares on Bandcamp is a four song promo tape but they’ve only uploaded 3 songs. Which would be the fourth song? It was called “Dare”. We know that “Original”, “I Call Your Name” and “The Circle” are also in the tape. This tape was recorded in January 8, 1991, and was produced by Marco Delmar and engineered and mixed by Marco as well at Bebop Studios, Rockville, MD.
There is a band lineup here too, Paul Elliott on vocals, H on guitars and vocals, Fred on bass and Chris Gibbs on drums. Interesting that some of the band members don’t appear with last names while others do.
I think when the band recorded this tape they were still in the Washington, DC, area. They have an address on the tape of College Park, in Maryland. Close enough to the White House.
The second release we find on Bandcamp dates from June 14 of 1991. It doesn’t have any information. We know that Marco Delmar engineered the songs again, and so I think they were still in DC. The image they share which could be a sleeve of the release shows inside the NYC subway station of 86th street. The songs here are 6, “Down & Out”, “Out of Our Hands”, “Softly as We Lie”, “I Wonder”, “Blood Dripping” and “Wedding Song”. Oh! And now the band added Guy Morgan in the lineup playing guitars.
Well I find this release on Discogs, it is self-titled. And it came out on tape. There is a photo of the release but it is quite tiny and can’t read the information. There is a band photo on the back.
In 1993 the band released “Carnival”. This one was released also on tape but I believe there is a CD version of it. The songs included on this album were “Only What You Need”, “Daddy’s Car”, “Sydney”, “See You Face”, “Sorry”, “RB (Hang On)”, “Do You Wanna Be”, “Concrete”, “Bluest Eye”, “Rain Song”, “Dare” and “Live Everlasting”. The songs were recorded at Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls in Iowa as well as in Studio 300 in Chicago. Another important detail is that the songs were released by two labels, Life Minor Music (MM004) and Happy Tails Records. The engineers were Tom Tatman, John Thomson and Ken Sluiter. Tom Tatman and Ken Sluiter also produced. Tatman mixed the songs and they were mastered by David Glasser. The photos on the sleeve are credited to Carl Bonnett and Feather Lunders.
Here I noticed that Guy Morgan wasn’t part of the lineup. He is listed as an additional musician. Andy Payne on guitars, John Thomson and Sandy Nordahl on keyboards are credited too as additional musicians.
Bandcamp has more stuff to discover. There are 9 songs recorded in a single take and live at Bebop Studios in Rockville, Maryland. They date from January 1992. These songs would be part of the “Live 92” release. Actually it seems there were 13 songs recorded that day. Here we only find 9, “I Don’t Care”, “Season of Light”, “Summertime”, “Kill the H”, “Winter’s Day”, “Say You’ll Wait”, “All I’ve Had”, “Em w/Solo” and “What is it Worth”.
Lastly we find “Live in Studio 1991 05 07”. Here the band says that the songs included here have big mistakes and embarrassing moments. That these songs were from the first time the band went into studio. That day the band recorded 26 songs in Bebop Studios, but here they have shared 10 of them, “California Life”, “Always Something”, “Suicide”, “Bagpipes”, “Arizona”, “Falling”, “Take My Time”, “T for 2”, “Rim Shot” and “Lock the Doors”. None of these songs ended up being properly released but they were part of their live sets.
With the band name These Days it is hard to google them of course. But I did find a trove of videos on Youtube. Quite a surprise.
First there’s a video filmed by Chris Karsten in 1992 where the band is playing the song “Blood Dripping“. The second video I find is a “rockumentary” of the band titled “These Days: Worst Band in Iowa City History?”. There is very cool footage here, with the band talking to the camera, playing, doing their own sound, quite interesting!
More live videos. We find them playing “Get Closer” at Cabaret Metro, Chicago on May 1993. Then “New New Song” being played at Connie’s in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1994.
It is hard to keep this in chronological order. But here they are playing “I’m Going out of my Mind” and “Give” at Cabaret Metro, Chicago in 1992. That same year they played “Pretty Things” at the University of Iowa. There is “Daddy’s Car” too but doesn’t say where it was recorded.
“I Held Her in My Arms” has some live footage from Carnaby Street venue in Iowa City.
The band appeared on a TV show called Paula Sands. There’s a song of the band’s soundcheck of them playing the song “April Song” but the video is from them playing in Phyllis’ Musical Inn in Chicago. In Chicago too they played the song “In White Satin“.
There is band footage from 1992 on this video, for “Kick In“. The curious thing it says that this song was recorded in 1996 for an album called “Columbia House”. I haven’t been able yet to find info on this album. You see Columbia House was this company that would make you join sort of music-club, where you’d get CDs in the mail. Maybe many of you signed to it? From that same album here’s “What’s the Big Deal“.
For some reason they do this a lot, audio from a place, video from a different place. Here they are playing “Down & Out” at Peoples but the video is from Carnaby Street.
There’s a very good live video of the band playing “Strummin’ Song (Comes Out Right)“. This was recorded at People’s in Ames, Iowa.
And probably my favourite song of their so far, “Sydney“, got a video! It was produced by Deb Phalen and was aired on Iowa Public Access TV in 1992.
Aside from all these, there are some songs that are not on Bandcamp like and appeared on the “Columbia House” album like “Jackie“, “Even Now” or “Pure“. And others that never got released like “Dance With Me“, “All My Life“, “Ordinary Girl” and “Don’t Mind If I Do“.
Wow! That was quite a lot of info I could find! Who remembers them? Would be great to know more about them!
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Listen
These Days – Original
