Day 548

Crabber: the German band is back and will be releasing a new album, their second, on November 5th on Jisgaw Records. To give us a little tasted of what’s coming up they’ve unveiled the song “Katherine / Waves”, a fine slice of classic indiepop!

Tears to Go: our friend Elena from Vigo, the ex-When Nalda Became Punk, has a wonderful new project called Tears to Go. On October 15 she will be releasing her debut album “Patronizing Self-Help” ! The album is coming out on vinyl and will include 10 songs. Right now we can preview two of the songs, both really really good! Check them out, “Electronics” and “Patronizing Self-Help”.

The Big However: now we head to Bristol to check out the album “Las Vegas Amusements” by this collective of indie art folk garage etc. The album is being released on CD on September 23 and three of their songs are up for preview, “I’m Yuri Gagarin”, “Brand New Kind of Fool” and “I Cannot Carry Your Watermelon Home”. The album will include 12 songs total and I got hooked immediately by the melodies of “I’m Yuri Gagarin”. So yeah, I had to recommend it.

The Hepburns feat. Estella Rosa: a release I am very excited about is this collaboration between one of my favourite bands, The Hepburns, and Estella Rosa from Nah..! How cool! The band has just released a single online, on Elefant Records, with the songs “The Other Side of Grey” and “Midnight Guy”. This is just a little preview to be honest. Later on they will be releasing “Architecture of the Ages”, but more on that next post.

Snag Breac: and we end up this week with a band from India! Oh that’s not common! Their “Notes EP” is a lovely jangly 4-song digital release on Bandcamp. I am not sure if it is a full band or a single person project. We see in the credits that all music and lyrics are by Rina Khawlhring. Maybe it is just himself! In any case, it sounds good!

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Just stumbled upon The Way from Mexborough in the UK. I’ve never heard of Mexborough. I like the name. Sort of like Mexico? But yeah nothing to do with the North American country….

Mexborough is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. Situated between Manvers and Denaby Main, it lies on the River Don close to where it joins the River Dearne, and the A6023 road runs through the town. The name Mexborough combines the Old English suffix burh, meaning a fortified place, with an Old English or Old Norse personal name, which may be Meke, Muik, Meoc or Mjukr.

The band has a Soundcloud where 3 years ago they uploaded a bunch of songs. That’s how I found them. There is also a bio that is worth reading.

‘The Way’ came into existence as a garage band in 1983, had a year long stint as a Mod-Revival band in 1985, but then went on to become one of the major Left-Wing political bands of the 1980s, featuring Tracie Young (formerly of The Jam and The Style Council), often assisted by ‘The Brasstards’. The definitive line-up of Tel Sutton, Jonathan White and Ian Deakin would later go on to play with bands such as Groove Armada, Faithless, The Special Guest Stars and The On. Their first ‘manager’ was the legendary Peter Jenner and during this period they would go on to support classic British artists such as Joe Strummer, New Model Army and John Cooper Clarke, gaining a reputation as one of the best live bands in the UK. Although they were offered record deals by labels such as EMI, they never took the bait, and the only recording that now exist are a handful of demos and live recordings, as well as three television appearances. They disbanded in January 1990 and never looked back.

So no recordings. A connection with The Jam. EMI was interested in them, but no releases. Complicated. This is not ideal. But we have the songs on Soundcloud, and I am listening one by one. We find “Train of Revolution”, “I Just Don’t Know”, “Religion”, “Homelands”, “Upper Class England”, “It’s Up to You!” and a 1988 version of “Train of Revolution”.

It is not very clear from which demo tapes each song comes from. We do know that there were three demo EPs. These were “Strike to Win” from 1986, “Official Dispute” form 1987 and “All Thy Might” from 1988.

As mentioned the band appeared on TV playing the song “Inspiration”. I wonder if it is the song I found on this footage from a documentary called “A Vote of No Confidence“. This documentary focused on Sheffield band Diz Giz Drill’s Ogy McGrath but towards the end of it the band The Way makes their appearance.

On the description it mentions the venue Take Two in Aftercliffe. It seems the band didn’t get a chance to play in other classic Sheffield venues like The Leadmill, Limit or Uni according to this. These venues were for within the cliques it says! At Take Two the band played six times, including a gig with The Stone Roses.

Then I find a comment on Facebook by Tel Sutton, the lead person of The Way. Here he remembers another venue, The Leadmill! This is what he says: “Okay, so I’m 18 (1987) and I’ve managed to blag my way (as frontman with ‘The Way’ – my first ever Leadmill gig was seeing Tracie Young, who would go on to join us in 88!) into the dressing rooms at Big Audio Dynamite’s show, supported by The Chiefs of Relief. I’m sat on the floor, very drunk, in the support band’s room, talking to Tim Roth about ‘King of the Ghetto’ when Matthew Ashman – in the presence of Paul Cook – asks me, ‘Who was better, The Pistols or The Clash?’ Knowing it’s BAD’s gig, and Tim is with them, I say ‘Well, for me, it’s got to be The Clash’, at which point they start lobbing every pint pot they can get their hands on at me. Roth quickly steps in and calms them down, and I scurry off covered in lager and tab ends to talk to Don Letts – and have my first ever spliff. I have another fifty stories like that, and I’m glad to say I got to play there three times. Happy 40th Birthday Leadmill..!”

And lastly another good find, an old interview with Tel Sutton. Here wee learn that he was in bands like Electrascope or The Special Guest Stars, Flash, Scope and Stars.

And that’s it! I think it was a good find. Who remembers them?!

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Listen
The Way – Homelands