Day 525

Astral Brain: the best news in a while is that the project by Einar Ekström (Le Futur Pompiste, The Garlands) and Siri af Burén (Testbild!, Band in Box) will be releasing their album “The Bewildered Mind” on October 15! Wow!  10 songs of perfect pop is what I expect. The album is coming out on Shelflife Records, only on vinyl (oh… I wanted a CD!). You can preview one track now, “Five Thousand Miles”, which is the song I included in the latest Cloudberry fanzine. A killer song!

This is My Secret Garden: on October 8 this essential compilation by the Gothenburg based label My Secret Garden Recordings will be released. You can preview one of the tracks now, Strawberry Fair’s “Attack”, which is wonderful. Other bands included are favourites of mine like Everyday Sensations, Fibi Frap, Evergreen Days and more!

Sweet Season: Phoenix, Arizona, band Sweet Season sounds good to me. A trio formed by Mella Barnes, Dan Radel and Monte Ewert, they will be releasing on September 1st their “Ever” EP. It will have 6 songs and we are able to preview two of them, “For You My Friend” and “Really Really (Love Someone)”. They are nice slices of jangle pop, especially the second track, which I recommend!

The Age of Colored Lizards: the Oslo band is usually featured on the blog. They make some very good pop songs you know. It’s been a while though, I think last time we heard from them was back in January. Now they have just one new song, “The Other Side”, which is a bit different to previous recordings. This time we find a more introspective, acoustic, band.

Michelle & Sebastian: and we end today’s recommendations with this quirky band from Chile. Released as a digital single by the label Gemelo Parásito Records from the southern country, we find here two members of the band Paracaídistas, Joaquín and Mari. Together they have written “Libre al Fin”, a fun twee song!

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Today we head to Wellington, New Zealand.

I discovered a Soundcloud page for The Jonahs with a trove of songs by this 80s band and one wonders why it took so long to find this. The songs here have been uploaded 9 years ago!

It seems that they considered themselves an alt country band?

I don’t know anything about them, I just know they played some nice guitar pop tunes. But here are a bunch of songs and that helps me get an idea.

Four of their songs they tag them as demos that were recorded sometime around 1986. These songs are “Stranger in his Own Home Toungue”, “History of the Rock’nr’Roll Revival Club”, “Short Letter, Long Farewell” and “So Leisurely”.

Then there are 10 songs that were recorded live at the Clyde Quay Tavern in Wellington also in 1986. These were “Bills of Happiness”, “Tour Spiel”, “Short Letter, Long Farewell”, “Stranger in his Own Home Toungue”, “Gone Callin'”, “Halfway to Heaven”, “History of the Rock’nr’Roll Revival Club”, “Unknown”, “Vegas Kings” and “So Leisurely”.

Then I find that the band actually put out a record! Yeah! In 1987 the band released a 12″ mini-album. It was a co-release by Burnt Offerings Music (LIS001) and Lost in Space Records (LIS001). This EP had 5 songs. The A side had “Short Letter, Long Farewell”, “Bills of Happiness” and “Doctoring”. The B side had “So Leisurely” and “History of the Rock & Roll Revival”. The title of the record was “Bills of Happiness”.

On the back of the sleeve we find that Grant Guillosson played bass, Laurence Tyler guitar and vocals, Damien Wilkins guitar and vocals and Victor Foon drums. The songs were recorded in December 1986 and January 1987 at Frontier Recording Studio in Wellington. They were engineered by Nick Roughen (from the bands Dimmer, Go Cats and Skeptics) and Brent McLaughlin (who produced the wonderful “The Law of Things” by The Bats). They were mixed by Brent. The front cover photo is credited to James Gilberd while the band members photos on the back to Evelyn Baden. The design of the sleeve to Margie Mouat.

I read that the record came with a colored insert with song lyrics and more credits. But I haven’t seen this.

We also know that Laurence Tyler was in Cattlebirds, The Gardening Angels and Pit Pony. And we also know the band appeared on a 12″ vinyl compilation called “When the Wind Blows” released in 1987 by Skank Records (SKANK 001). On this compilation the band contributed the song “Stranger Speaks in his Own Tongue”. I have never heard of this comp, but I do see a familiar name in it, The Wild Poppies.

In 1989 the band appears on another comp, compiled by Trevor Reekie. This compilation was called “Positive Vibrations” and was released by Pagan Records (PAL 1052) on both cassette and vinyl. The band contributed the song “Throwaway”.

The website Wellington Music interviewed Damien Wilkins back in 2017. He was at the time in the band The Close Readers. It mentions that he is an award building novelist and Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters. In this interview he mentions the band started in the garage of the Guillosson family in Wainuiomata. Victor was working in Grant’s father’s milk truck! And he become the drummer! Wow.

Places the band played included The Cricketer Arms and Clyde Quay Tavern. They supported The Chills at Victoria University in January 1987. The band played for about a year and then Damien left to London. The band continued for another year  and then broke up. Bands he mentions as influences include R.E.M. and The Go-Betweens.

Then I stumble upon a blog by Damien where he tells a bit of the story of the band. Good find! Read it, it’s very interesting.

And that’s it. Damien mentions in his blog the band is a footnote of The Chills history and nothing more, as they supported them. I would like to disagree! Here there are some terrific songs. And I am going to try to find myself a copy of the record soon. So yeah, good stuff. Who remembers them? Any other detail that you’d like to add?

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Listen
The Jonahs – So Leisurely