Another week goes by. A few days ago I met Roy from the superb Portsmouth 80s band Three Little Piggies. Went for a couple of beers and that was great. Love talking about music and bands from that period. I just wish I had been around that time in the UK!
Today I will be going to a gig after a month or so? Last time was in Madrid. Quite crazy I think. Not many indiepop gigs here in NYC sadly. Today I’ll be heading to see Amelia Fletcher’s The Catenary Wires. I’ve seen them before, but I don’t mind. I like them. I am also curious about the Jeanines. I don’t have their album yet, maybe they have copies at their gig. I should see if I can buy a CD (or is it only available on LP?). Pale Lights are also playing this gig and even though I’ve seen them many times it is always a treat. So should be a good evening out!
Some finds of course, you came for that, not for my stories!
Queue Dance: I did write about Queue Dance some time ago. Would have been great to get in touch and interview them. Would have been fantastic really. I still would love to do that. Now they are going to get a bit more attention as there are good news, Firestaiton Records will be releasing a retrospective compilation called “Full Stop” next month. You can preview the song “Fringe of the Affair” which is AMAZING. Really looking forward to this.
Aster More: from Philadelphia comes 5-piece formed by Devin, Kristine, Carolym, Ariel and Rachel. They have just released a 9-track album that is a bit shoegaze and a bit indiepop. The album is called “Dog-Eared” and seems to be available digitally for now. The best song for me is “Bought It”. Check them out.
Gaarden: Library Group Records from Sydney are releasing an album called “The Fall” by the band Gaarden. First time I am listening to this band from Russia and Estonia that was founded last year by Ian Sakharov, Dima Kozyritsky, Vlad Semenov and Yareek. Sadly it seems Yareek passed away and the band members have continued with the project and have created this pretty song we can preview called “Shiny Day”, and hopefully an album as pretty!
Well Whale: “She’s a Punk” is the debut song by this indiepop band from Jatinangor in Indonesia. It is great! I am so happy to see that indiepop of this quality is still produced there! Can’t wait to hear more by them.
Cool Sounds: Lastly a Melbourne band that will be playing in two days in Berlin! Wow. The band will be releasing on September 20th their album “More to Enjoy” on vinyl and we can preview two tracks from it, “More to Enjoy” and “Around and Down”. Some nice jangly guitars here!
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I just noticed I had Fragile Friends waiting to be featured on the blog since 2014. I had a bunch of links with information about them saved. I wonder why I didn’t end up finishing the post. Well, it is better late than never, right?
“For-Play” was according to Discogs their first release. It was actually a tape album. I wonder how many copies of these were pressed and how was it distributed. It was released in 1983 and the label was Traditional Music Productions but has no catalog number. There were 5 songs on each side, on the A side we find “Emotional Tennis”, “Moments”, “Creatures of Habit”, “April Fool” and “Smack!”. The B side had “Happy Together”, “Gift Horse”, “November in the Rain”, “I’ll Say It For You” and “Creatures of Habit (inst.)”. “Happy Together” being a cover of The Turtles’ famous song. All songs on the tape were composed by Mike King and Chas Cole.
The band at this point was formed by them two, Mike King on vocals and accordion and Chas Cole on guitar, keyboards and trumpet. They had the help on this tape of three friends, David Bathe on drums, Steve Travis on bass and Steve Rimmer on keys. The songs were recorded at Shoestring Studios and were produced and engineered by Chas Cole. The address on the tape shows that the band was from the area of Southport in Merseyside.
Southport is a large seaside town in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Irish Sea coast and is fringed to the north by the Ribble estuary. The town is 26.9 km north of Liverpool and 23.8 km southwest of Preston.
The year after, 1984, would see the release of their first vinyl record. It was the “Paper Doll” 7″ (KC001) that was released by KC Records. This seems to have been the band’s own label. Maybe KC meant King and Cole? The A side had “Paper Doll” while the B side had “What I Call Beautiful”. This time around both of the band members produced the tracks and it is important to note that they got help on these two recordings by Cliff Ray on trumpet, Dave Bathe on drums and Paul Fisher on bass. The photo on the back cover is credited to Michael Daks while the cover design to John Evans.
Their last release is the classic 12″ EP “The Novelty Wears Off” (KCT1). There were four songs on it. The A side has just one of them, “The Novelty Wears Off”, while on the B side we find “Caught on the Hop”, “No Good in Our Goodbye” and “A Walk in the Sunshine”. Now the two friends got help from Maurice Cheetham on drums, Steve Greenmantle on bass, Phil Johnston on sax, Gary Joynson on trumpet. Pete Coleman was the engineer.
The band also appeared on one compilation, “Son of Jobs for the Boys”. This classic compilation featured bands like The Style Council, Stephen Duffy or The Persuaders among others. It was compiled by Roger Bannister and Ronnie Flood for Natalie Records (LIE 2). Fragile Friends contributed the song “Caught on the Hoop”.
The website Link2Wales has some more information about the band. Here it says that the band was formed in October 1981. Mike King and Chas Cole had been previously in a band called Tradition. Then it mentions that in 1983 the band became a five piece when they added Steve Travis (bass) (ex Debonaires, later Six), Steve Rimmer (keys), David Bathe (drums) (later Return of The Toreador) to the line-up. Paul Fisher (bass) joined briefly, until Mike and Chas changed the line-up in 1984 with Neil Brighouse (bass) (later Chance), Cliff Ray (trumpet), Denise D’Arcy (sax) (ex Walkie Talkies, Zale Out), Steve Eastwood (drums). Neil and Denise left in 1985 and Mike Keane (guitar) (ex Royal Family & The Poor) joined briefly. By mid 1985 Mike and Chas had again changed the line-up, Steve Greenmantle (bass), Gary Johnson (trumpet), Phil Johnston (sax), Maurice Cheetham (drums) joined them.
Then I stumble upon an interview with Michael Weston King by the website Triste. On it it talks about Fragile Friends a bit, talking about influences, about their gigs as a duo with backing tapes in places like Leyland, Preston and Chorley. It also mentions that he joined the band Stormkeepers and toured all Europe. And then how did Fragile Friends came to an end. He says: “I felt I’ve just had enough of this, this is just what you hear happens when you’re forced into something you don’t want to do.”
Michael King actually has a Wikipedia page where his career is documented. His latest work was a country soul album called “Still Testifiying” released by his band My Darling Clementine. He had also been in other bands like With the Good Sons as well as a prolific solo work.
What about Chas Cole though? What happened with him afterwards?
Sadly I can’t seem to find more info about the Fragile Friends. Many questions remain unanswered.
It would be great to know more about the Fragile Friends period. I especially would love to hear that tape they released early. Why was it released on tape too. And it did look like they were going to have a break, but why didn’t it happen? Were they approached by big labels? Who remembers them?
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