Sonia is a feminine given name in many areas of the world including the West, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India. The name is derived from “Sophia”, a Greek name meaning wisdom. Sonia and its variant spellings Sonja and Sonya are Russian variations on Sophia. The name was popularised by a 1917 bestselling novel, Sonia by Stephen McKenna.  In Hindi, the name means ‘golden’, derived from सोना sonā ‘gold’, from Sanskrit सुवर्ण suvarṇa (su- ‘good’ + varṇa ‘color’).  Sonya and its variations are occasionally found as surnames in England and the American eastern seaboard.

Of course, the Sonya I remember, the Sonya I know, is Sonya Blade from the Mortal Kombat games…

Can’t say yet that it’s been a great start of the year. Today I waited forever for the internet guy to come home and do a brand new installation. He never showed up. Had to call and reschedule with the company. They say they can’t track him down, that I could only wait or reschedule. Even though I paid already, Time Warner seems to feel they are entitled to treat their customers like this. As they have my money, now I can only play by their rules. Even the operator, this woman called Tiffany, said that I have to have a positive attitude, that I can’t be thinking they won’t call me on Thursday, the new date when the technician is supposed to come. How dare her tell me that when I’ve been waiting for a phone call for four hours. But what was I going to do? fight?

On Saturday, another argument at the post office. I’m sending a new parcel to Jigsaw Records, full of replacements. The woman asks me if I want to do Media Mail. I say no. I explain to her that I sent Media Mail last time and my 4 lbs parcel arrived as a 1.2 lbs parcel. That most of the stuff went missing. She must be quite slow because she asked me where is the rest of the stuff. I said, probably at some postman’s house. Perhaps I should have been more polite, as it wasn’t her fault really, but it pissed me. It was a big parcel, with lots of records and most especially some sold out fanzines which I really don’t have anymore to replace. In the end I paid 3 times more for shipping, I sent it as Parcel Post.

And another package I sent back in October went missing. It makes me wonder, because the United States Postal Service is raising the prices on January 27th, if they plan to keep being so clumsy and losing people’s packages. Sadly this new raise of prices will affect Cloudberry prices. I will appreciate everyone’s understanding.

Of course, it’s not that terrible, there are plenty of different scenarios that can be worst than this early 2013 start. But you know, I was very positive and thinking it will be a smooth year. The last couple of months of 2012 haven’t been that easy. So it’s definitely a bit of a letdown. But, and there’s a big but, my traveling adventures are just around the corner and they will lift my spirits. Definitely.

In two weekends I’m heading to San Diego, just as a tourist, with a heavy agenda in sightseeing. Looking forward especially to the famous San Diego Zoo. I’ve never been a fan of pets, but I love animals and their little story, their background, what they eat, where they live and one or two curiosities about them. You know, like how many hearts a squid has? That kind of thing. Also I love spotting animals that come from Peru. It’s a bit random, but it makes me proud when for example I see a bunch of llamas. Which reminded me of that one time, when in a high school field trip, one llama decided to spit, on a perfect parabola, a big clot onto one of the hip classmates eye. Those were the days.

And speaking to “the days”, then of course there is my trip to Europe in March. Not many news on that front aside that I bought my Madrid Popfest ticket yesterday. Still waiting for the remaining announcements as I believe there are two or three bands left to be added to the bill.

In general, that should be a fantastic birthday trip. The first time I try to celebrate my birthday properly. I’ve always liked it to have a quiet day, even I preferred going to work every Ides of March. The only time I recall having an out of the ordinary birthday was probably when I turned six years old. My dad took me to the racetrack. And we bet on the horses. I bet on number six for obvious reasons. And “Karateka”, that was the name of the horse, won with honors. With the money won, we went to the market and spend it in new G.I. Joes.

The past couple of days I’ve been doing something I love though, I’ve been reordering my whole 7″ vinyl record collection. In alphabetical order. It’s taking me hours and hours and I’m still not done. I bought these special boxes for 45s they sell at Bags Unlimited. They are quite nice, and most importantly, you can stack them. This is perfect for me, because I need more space in my spare room. I hope to fit at some point my sofa bed and also a twin size inflatable mattress. Always thinking in my guests comfort. Anyhow, I also bought these separators and I noticed I wasted one in letter “O”. So little indiepop bands that start with the letter O. I should have combined it with the letter N as I did Q with R. In any case, I have many more hours of ordering them. And in the not so distant future some CD furniture will be arriving home too and then it will be the turn of the CDs.

And after a very odd weekend at karaokes, lunching Trinidad and Tobago’s cuisine, devouring delicious roti and shark sandwiches, and later drinking Miller High Life at Mondo while I danced to The Primitives on my own, I rested. I played some computer games and found out that there’s a new Sim City coming out soon. And that’s quite exciting. Oh and that there’s a new movie coming up, “Before Midnight”, that I’m also looking forward as I enjoyed the prequels very much. Now, the question is, are there any indiepop albums coming up that I should be on the lookout? If so, enlighten me. I find myself so out of the loop these days.

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I keep going through the amazing CD that Rupert from A Turntable Revolution gave me months ago. As some of you might be aware a bunch of the latest posts on the blog are covering bands that appear on this CD he kindly made for me. Perhaps next week I’ll investigate about some band not featured here as I have got a couple of requests (oddly enough!). But for now, let me stick to it as only by blogging I do end up finding and taming this curiosity of mine.

Track number 16 on this nameless white CD-R. On the tracklist, black ink and handwritten, it says ‘Splash with Sonya – Surf Song’. To my surprise this song has been already uploaded to Youtube. The comments there don’t say much, someone remembers the good times when the band was around, another remembers that they were around the same time as the Shop Assistants, Soup Dragons and more. The only clue and potential information is in the description of the video: “Coventry indie band from the late 1980’s”

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 12th largest UK city overall. It is also the second largest city in the West Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 318,600 at the 2011 UK census. Coventry was the world’s first twin city when it formed a twinning relationship with the Russian city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) during World War II. The relationship developed through ordinary people in Coventry who wanted to show their support for the Soviet Red Army during the Battle of Stalingrad.

When I think of Coventry, I always think of The Primitives. I’ve never been there mind you.

As far as I could figure out, there was only one release by Splash with Sonya. It was a 12″ released by Gemma GR Records in 1990 (catalog GR 100) and included the songs “Surf Song”, “Talk To Much”, “Once In A Lifetime (Again)” and “Watchtower”. I’ve only listened to the opening track. If anyone could help me listen the rest of the EP, that’d be very nice!

The band was formed by Niall Carson, Jamie Deas and Simon Wagstaff. It seems they were from an area called Stoke Park, and from what I found online, after the little success of Splash with Sonya they started a covers band in 1992, actually a Beatles tribute band. And they called themselves The Swains. You can read their story here.

About the name of the band, according to The Swains official page, Splash with Sonya  was “a name culled from the title of a film surely no-one would want to see.”

The only other mention I found was actually about Marion, Simon’s mother. It’s a bit odd, but perhaps it would end up as a clue to know whatever happened to the band. It seems she moved to a place called Criccieth where she takes care of her garden and of course her son, who happened to be the drummer of Splash with Sonya visits her often.

From my deductive powers, if Simon was the drummer, Niall must have been the vocalist and guitarist and Jamie the bassist.

And that’s all about I could find about them. It seems that their records don’t show up much on eBay, but then I can’t say I have been following and searching for them for a long time. I’ve only discovered them through this CD. So if anyone has any more information about them, please share! And if anyone has a spare copy of the record that would be happy to part with, please consider me!

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Listen
Splash with Sonya – Surf Song