Hello! Just want to take a little bit of time to all the friends that help me finding and getting in touch with the many obscure bands I share on the blog. Many of the interviews happen through friends that know the bands or know someone that knows the band, and have helped find more information about these bands that we don’t want forgotten. Thanks for that and please continue doing this. It’s great!
Los Waldners: it’s being a long time since we heard from our favourite Costa Rican indiepopsters… years! Happily here is a new song, a new digital single the band just published. It is called “Quisiera Que Fueras Mi Novia” which means ‘I’d like you to be my girlfriend’. As usual the band formed by Luis, Daniel, Gustavo and Iskander, delivers.
Ataúdes Merche: here is the second demo by this band from Spain. Self-produced, and available digitally on the label Inifinite Pain DIY from Castellón, “DEMO II” has four songs. They sound like demos from the 80s. Lo-fi and fuzzy. I particularly like the opening track, “Yo No Puedo Odiarte”.
Impossible Tymes: another must-have. Now thanks to Shelflife and Make Me Happy we’ll be getting a compilation album for the Greek supergroup Impossible Tymes! “Popadelic” will have 12 songs, all their recorded output they did in the 90s. For those who love Next Time Passions and One Night Suzan this is an essential record!
The Very Most: Boise’s best (and only?) indiepop band has put together a digital compilation called “It’s Nothing New”. This is an odds-and-ends comp they say. Songs mostly from compilations and blogs that are now hard to track down. Lovely.
The Catherines: and the latest from Hamburg’s duo is a covers EP. “A Cover-Comp-EP” is the name of the 6 song digital EP that Heiko and Sandra has put together, where they cover 6 songs that had been big influences in their music taste. Have a listen!
—————————————————————–
We head to London. Where exactly not sure. Maybe we’ll find out.
There we find a trio called Rendezvous in Black. On their Soundcloud they have 9 tracks, all recorded in the 80s. These are “The Last Deadly Secret”, “National Exhibition Day”, “One More Charade”, “Saving Grace”, “The Man with the Sunset Eyes”, “That’s How I Am”, “The Prowler”, “Rendezvous in Black” and “Winter Warmer”.
Happily the band has added info for each of these songs that were uploaded 10 years ago.
“The Last Deadly Secret” was recorded in Simon Townsend’s Home Studio in Ealing, West London, in 1988. Did the band hail from Ealing? I stayed once or twice in Ealing, I liked the area. This song was written by Colin Carey who was the bassist of the band.
The other band members were Chris Oakes on vocals and guitar and Graham Oakes on drums. Were they related? Most probably, right?
“Rendezvous in Black” was recorded at RAM Studios in West London in 1986. This theme song of the band was inspired by the Cornel Woolrich story of the same name… wow, okay, so now we know where they took their name from!
“National Exhibition Day” was also recorded at Simon Townsend’s House Studio in 1988. Probably the same session as “The Last Deadly Secret”. Here they mention that Simon was Pete Townsend’s brother. Do they mean Pete Townshend? I wonder. They write the last name as Townsend. Four songs were recorded that time.
“Saving Grace” is the third recording from Simon’s House session. And “One More Charade” the fourth.
“The Prowler”, “That’s How I Am”, “The Man with the Sunset Eyes” were recorded at RAM Studios in Hayes.
And lastly “Winter Warmer” was an old song from 1983 that they had written for their previous band called Private Desires. In 1989 the band returned to Simon Townsend’s home studio to record this song. Simon added guitars, tablas, cowbells and he even played the piano in this track. Wonder if they recorded anything else that time.
Another interesting detail is that the band used to share rehearsal space with The Boomtown Rats and Peter Green in Ginger Baker’s old studio.
Then I find a page on ReverbNation where there’s a bio of the band.
Here we learn that the band indeed hailed from West London. That originally they wanted to form a jazz trio.
The 1986 session in RAM Studios was their first experience at a recording studio. The 1988 studio session at Pete’s home was different. It was a small studio and they ended up using sampled drums. Now we see that they write the name Simon Townshend. So now it makes sense. It is indeed Pete Townshend’s brother.
The band played gigs at important and well known places like The Rock Gardenm The Mean Fiddler and The Brentford Red Lion.
Sometime around 2011 the band got together to do a reunion gig at The Manor Inn in Croyde, North Devon, and were also thinking of undertaking new musicala projects. Not sure what happened
One thing I do notice in the ReverbNation page is that there is a song called “Joy Revision”. It seems like a rehearsal?
Then a good find! A Facebook page! Here we find some good photos of the band and also that there was a reunion gig for Graham’s 50th birthday on 17 October 2015. Again in Croyde. Maybe that’s where he was living then?
And lastly I find a Soundcloud for The Strummer Room Project. This is Chris Oakes, now living in Oxfordshire. There we see that in 2015 he recorded 3 songs by his old bandmate Colin Cary.
Now who remembers Rendezvous in Black? Or what about their previous incarnation Private Desires? Would be good to know what happened after the demise of the band? Did they continue making music in other projects? Are there more recordings?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
