Day 539

Smudge: the classic Sydney band is on Bandcamp. They have just uploaded a full live set of 9 songs when they played in Adelaide on February 1993. This is good! Included is their classic “Don’t Want to be Grant McLennan”, it is the first time I hear this track live! I wish I could interview them, I reached them many times in the past on Facebook with no luck… but who knows!

3 A.M. Again: it is great news to hear new songs by this project from Gloucester, Massachusetts. They always treat us with sweetness for our ears. Their latest release is the “How the Leaves Lie EP”, a 6 song EP that is quite precious! Very recommended.

The Day: time to discover this band formeed by Laura Loeters from Antwerp and Gregor Sonnenberg from Hamburg. They have a few songs released on their Bandcamp but I have just discovered them, so I am starting by their latest track, “Empty”. Wow! It is a fine jangly song, catchy and upbeat. Definitely I’ll keep an eye on them.

We the North: this band seems like a mystery to me. It says they are based in Hong Kong. But then the latest song, “Exil”, is sung in perfect Swedish. Could it be a swede living in Hong Kong? I wonder. We the North describes their music as Nordic Noir and that sounds on point!

A Estas Alturas: I had recommended Daniel Vicente’s project some time ago. Back then the Puerto Rican artist, based in Dallas, had loose songs on Bandcamp. It seems that now he has put them together as an EP which is titled “EP I”. This EP consists of 5 songs, of melancholic and sweet pop music in Spanish.

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I think I need to reorder my CD collection. I can’t seem to find Red Money’s “A Kind of Retrospective 1990-1995” (FST 093) that Firestation Records released in 2012.

I know it is somewhere. I haven’t lost it. This compilation CD came  out in 2012 before the German label had included Red Money on “Still Mad at Me? (15 Years Firestation Records 1998-2013)” boxset. But they weren’t included in the seventh volume of The Sound of Leamington Spa series, but on the second CD of the boxset. On this compilation the band appears with “Come On and Find Me” and “Take Care of Me”. Both songs are on the 2nd CD.

“A Kind of Retrospective 1990-1995” came together after Uwe discovered the record at the Utrecht Record fair. Shortly after he was able to track down the band members and well, voila! the compilation was done. It included 14 songs, “My Erstwhile Companion”, “The Crying Shame”, “Blaming Himself”, “Swerve”, “Me and My Big Mouth”, “Thicker than Thieves”, “No Questions”, “Tangled Up in Her”, “Heaven”, “Now (it seems) They’re Here”, “A Kind of Loving”, “Options”, “Swerve (Adventure Club Mix)” and “My Erstwhile Companion (Version with 2nd guitar)”. It was limited to 300 copies.

Let me give some context. The band as the title of the compilation was around the first half of the 90s. In 1990 the band released their one proper release, a 7″ released by P.F. & G. Records (PFG 001). This was probably the band’s own label. Three songs were on the record, “My Erstwhile Companion”, “Tangled Up in Her” and “No Questions”.

While I look for my CD, (I’ve already spent 30 minutes, and losing my patience) I find that the band has a website that is still working.

As usual I am interested in the biography part. What do we learn here?

That the band’s first gig was at the Fulham Greyhound in London in 1990. Originally it was going to be a full line-up, many members, but they dropped out. In the end Richard and Jules decided to go as a duo accompanied this time by Roz Bateman on sax. Roz would also appear on the 7″.

This stripped down lineup worked. People enjoyed it. So the band went to record their 7″ in Croydon and got cut at Abbey Road. Some gigs followed at the Acoustic Room, Mean Fiddler, The Aztec Room, The Moonlight Club, The Fresh Club, The Orange, Café de Piaf and the 100 Club.

In 1991 Roz moved to the north of England and didn’t continue playing sax with Jules and Richard. That didn’t matter for the duo as they went to the studio to record more songs. Pre-production was done with Woodie Taylor (Morrissey, Comet Gain) and Paul Simm engineered the session as well as playing trumpet and piano. The song “Swerve” was to be the next single but was put on hold.

The band continued gigging. Yvonne Wembley would accompany the band on backing vocals and they also got a new saxophone player (they don’t say the name!)

The band continued recording in 1994, this time working with David Levy on bass and Richard Newman on drums. And it was around this time that an indie label approached them to release the debut album. Sadly that never happened.

Jules would later move to Cornwall with his family and that made it impossible for the band to continue.

And one last thing I found. There seems to be a 2015 EP titled “Hard to Believe”. It doesn’t look like it was properly released but seems available on digital platforms. There are four songs in this release, “Hard to Believe”, “I Left a Note”, “I Tried Not to Care (Can’t Settle Now)” and “I Left a Note – Acoustic & Strings”. Would be nice to know more about this release. There is no info whatsoever on the web.

That’s right, I couldn’t find more info about them, but I think this was worthy. I haven’t heard their music in years I feel. It was a good way to remind me of their elegant jangle pop.

Anyone saw them in London when they were around?

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Listen
Red Money – Thicker than Thieves