First of all I want to say that I am going to London in May!! Will be a few days there and I will attend what will probably be my only gig this year, Heavenly at Sheperd’s Bush Hall on May 20th! So just heads up if you want to save on postage and want any of the releases on Cloudberry. Just send me a message and we’ll take it from there! So excited to see the legendary Sarah band as well as seeing many friends. And of course, visiting London after 10 long years, has me beyond excited…
Anyways…
West Runton is a village in North Norfolk, England, on the North Sea coast.
That’s where we are headed today.
Malcolm Birtwell on guitar and vocals, Dave Lewis on bass and Bill Allard were Green Beach, a jangle pop band from the mid-80s clearly influenced by The Smiths.
The band was formed in 1985. Not all of them hailed from West Runton. Only Malcolm did. Dave was from Sheringham and Bill from Southrepps and the band was part of a scene that was called the Cromerzone.
Malcolm has an account on Soundcloud where he has uploaded a bunch of his recordings from different projects. Included there is the debut 1986 cassette EP by Green Beach. This four-song EP was called “Annoying the Neighbours”. He says the EP’s songs were about his increasing frustration with the girlfriend he had at the time.
The songs on the tape were “Caution to the Wind”, “Green Beach (Le Linge)”, “Living Your Life as a Lie” and “Still Waiting”. The art for this tape shows a soldier in green ink.
There is a page with some more stuff about them on N1M. There a song called “Dry Your Tears” is mentioned. This song was written back in 1985 for Green Beach but was later recorded by another band Mal was in, U-Watt.
There is also a mention that in 2015 the band, Green Beach had reunited and was recording new material. Not sure what happened. They did put together a Facebook page.
Then I stumble a page on ReverbNation. There Malcolm tells us about his influences and that he is able to play bass and drums as well. There is another song I hadn’t heard before, “The Eyes Have It”. It sounds very different to Green Beach’s 1986 songs. Maybe this was a new one?
There are a few more to check, “Nightmare”, “I Ain’t Listening”, “Promises” and “Reflections”. Maybe these are from another cassette EP? Doesn’t say.
These days we know that Malcolm plays on a band called Halo’s Edge. Not sure what are the other members up to now.
And that’s all I could gather about this obscure band. Who remembers them? Anyone has any intel on this Cromerzone scene? Were there any other jangle pop bands involved?
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