A short and sweet post this week. Because I’m terribly busy. A good kind of busy. I’m not complaining. Have been having guests and international friends around. There’s been gigs and parties. And to my surprise I’m not tired. Lots of energy on me. Though I admit that I’m stressing a bit as I only have one day off, Sunday, before my trip to Europe. I hope I prepare and plan accordingly for this trip in the amount of time I have left. I haven’t figured out so many things yet, so I really need to get on the top of my game asap!

The BIG thing, the THING I want to tell everyone, but most especially those in Stockholm, is that I will be celebrating my birthday there and I have all the details now. So, I hope to see some of you there. It’d be great. I haven’t really celebrated my birthday in such a way ever, so I kind of have some expectations this time. This is the Facebook event link. https://www.facebook.com/events/431360733609198/?ref=ts&fref=ts

For those of you without Facebook, this event will be happening on March 16th (actually a day after my birthday), at Southside Pub. The address is: Hornsg. 104, 117 26 Stockholm. It will cost 70 KR to get in and things will start at 8pm. It’s an over 21 event and it’s hosted by the So Unbelievable girls. That’s Emelie and Christin, two of my dearest Swedish friends. Emelie actually designed a cute flyer too that you can see here.

As you can see, there will be two fantastic bands playing that night. Two that I have been lucky to work with in some releases: The Garlands and Alpaca Sports. I believe it’s Alpaca Sports first show in Stockholm too! If you like indiepop,  you can’t miss this gig. And there will be some DJing too. And hopefully some dancing. Oh! I can’t wait!

Do say hi if you come!

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The Garden of Eden (Hebrew גַּן עֵדֶן, Gan ʿEdhen) is the biblical “garden of God”, described most notably in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2-3), but also mentioned, directly or indirectly, in Ezekiel, Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament. In the past, the favoured derivation of the name “Eden” was from the Akkadian edinnu, itself derived from a Sumerian word meaning “plain” or “steppe”, but it is now believed to be more closely related to an Aramaic root meaning “fruitful, well-watered.”  The Eden of Genesis has been variously located at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates in northern Iraq, in Africa, and in the Persian Gulf. The Eden in Ezekiel, however, is unequivocally located in Lebanon. For many medieval writers, the image of the Garden of Eden also creates a location for human love and sexuality, often associated with the classic and medieval trope of the locus amoenus.

And if my party in Stockholm, a city I love and brings great memories, might be my Garden of Eden (oh dear, that was terribly cheesy), then I want to present you a very obscure band called Eden!

I can’t seem to stop associating the name with a character of this anime I’ve been watching every weekend, Saint Seiya Omega. There’s a character called Eden of course. That’s why. Thing is, I grew up watching the original Saint Seiya back in the 90s, I can’t stop watching this new series even though many people say it’s not as good. Well, I don’t care. For nostalgia purposes it’s fantastic.

Anyhow, enough of rambling. Who were these so obscure Eden that don’t have anything written about on the internet. I even see Rupert at Turntable Revolution wondering the same thing. For me they are kind of new on my radar. I have no clue about their existence until some six or so months ago. Again it was the fabulous CD-R Rupert shared with me that would open my eyes to this gem of a band. The song “Confusion” would convert me into an Eden fan, even if I only had listening to this one song and nothing more.

After you listen to it, you’ll understand what I’m saying. This is proper indiepop. Great indiepop. Some crunchy guitars, then some fantastic jangle and is that a trumpet? Great vocals. Catchy melodies. Just all the ingredients to make us all fall for it. This song appeared as a B side on one of their “Form Follows Function” 7″ EP. On the A side the song was “Taxi Cab” and on the B side “Joni” and “Confusion” were included.

This record was released in 1987, catalog being Den 3. The label for all their releases was Den Records. Pretty obvious that it was their own label. They just dropped the E from Eden, simple arithmetic. It seems they might have been from Norfolk, but I cant be 100% sure.

There was another 7″ release. This time it was “Glisten” on the A side and “Glorious” on the reverse. The catalog is Den 4.

The other known release by them was their album “Celeste”. It was released in 1988 and it included the songs “Glorious”, “Sugar”, “Blue News”, “Die Lonely”, “Flowers”, “Glisten”, “It’s  for Good”, “The Twist” and “Ophelia”.

Some curious thing about their releases is what seems to be their logo: an Apple. It makes sense though? Eve, the snake, the apple, the Garden of Eden…

And here is the interesting and mysterious thing about them. The back cover of Eden’s “Glisten” single lists many band members: Christ Wyatt, Jeff Powell, Nick Hardy, Sara Dimmer and Jeff Arbuckle. The thing is that four of these members, Wyatt, Dimmer, Hardy and Powell, were part of Lawrence and the Comfortable Society who I wrote about some time ago!

But that’s about all I could figure out about this mysterious band. I sadly don’t have their releases, and these are not listed on Discogs I’m afraid. So I don’t have a clue about band member names, or any of the recording details. But, now I rely on you. Do you know anything about this fantastic band? Did they have any other releases? Did they play gigs often? If anyone has spare copies of their records? Or perhaps MP3s of their other songs? I’d love to listen to them!

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Listen
Eden – Confusion