Here’s another obscure 7″ in my collection. On the A side there’s “Carnival (Live is a Carnival)” and on the B side there’s “Time (Time is Passing Along)”. The band is called SOS Bikini and they hailed from Belgium. And that’s about all I know (other than the songs are pretty good).
I know the record is from the 80s. So I look on Discogs to find out that the exact year is 1985. The label that put it out was Micronesia Records (MICRON 025-01). This was the band’s own label I think. Other than releases by SOS Bikini there’s another one by a band called Marcou who I have never heard.
The sleeve shows two of the band members on the front, and two other on the back. On the labels we get their last names and first initial, A. Reefs, Ch. Nyssen, G. Roggemans and M. Nettersheim. We’ll have to do some detective work to find out their first names?
The producer of the record is Christian Willems. We get his full name. He had been in a few bands including Abbey Road, Maljean Willems, Smoky Mokes and Transfert.
I would have thought that was the band’s sole release but it seems that in 1996 the band released “Bon Voyage” a CD album on their label Micronesia Records (025-02). This CD has 12 songs, and they are listed from the A to L instead of 1-12. The songs were “Magie”, “Si Jamais”, “L’Étoile Enchantée”, “Belle”, “Dans la Jungle”, “Vous”, “Reste”, “Voyage”, “Elle”, “Ailleurs”, “Des Melodies” and “L’Aventure”. It seems they had switched to French.
There’s another record listed, “The Mysterious Tube”. This one dates from 2008 and was released on CD, same label (025-04). From A to F the songs are “Paradis”, Flying Saucers”, “Crazy World”, “I Remember You”, “Cyber One” and “Rivage”. This CD seem to have been a sampler, but not sure what the intention was. A sampler for radios? For fans? For blogs and music websites? It has never been sold on Discogs, and only the front cover of the record is available.
But here is a great find, a promo video of the song “Time”! It is on Youtube and it tells us that it was made by André Chandelle in 1986.
This video was uploaded by Charles Nyssen. Alright, now we know one of the band members full name. In his account there are two videos (1, 2) called “Yvy Califice Halifax SOS Bikini hommage”. These are live at an event alled Spirit of 66 in Verviers in Belgium. The date? January 1st 2014. Worth checking out. Are the band members all from SOS Bikini?I can see three guys and one girl, could be then! Would be good to know if the band reunited especially for this gig in 2014!
Then I find some sad news. I see that Charly was in a band called The Man Who. They had a Facebook page. There I learn that Charly passed away on June 10, 2018. There’s a post commemorating this date here.
Then I think I find something that may be good for my research. I think it is some sort of compendium or extracts from the Limburgs Dagblad, the newspaper of the province of Limburg I think. Well. it used to be called like that until it merged with De Limburger in 2017. Not it is called as the latter.
There I find a few interesting bits and the names of the band members. I read that the band toured the South of France. The translation I get form Google translate is wonky. I think The Comsat Angels praised them (I also saw one of the band members of SOS Bikini wanting to get in touch with the Comsat Angels in a forum) and they appeared on KRO Rock Temple. Was that a TV programme?
But yeah, the important bit is that SOS Bikini was formed by Allee Reefs on keyboards and vocals, Guy Roggemans on guitar and vocals, Charles Nyssen on bass and vocals and Mare Nettersheim on drums and percussion.
And this is what I found. Quite interesting. Wonder if anyone has more info about them, if the band members were involved in other bands and where are they now.
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Listen
SOS Bikini – Carnival
