How to start a new week? With indiepop of course.

If last week I shared teaser songs for The Primitives and BMX Bandits new releases, now they have new videos to promote them. The Primitives have released a video for the song “I’ll Trust the Wind” that is part of the “New Thrills” single out on Elefant on May 5th. It sounds like classic Primitives, so no complains on my part! Great stuff!

The BMX Bandits new video is for the song “How Not to Care” which will be part of their new album “Forever”. This record will be released on May 19th also on Elefant. It’s not one of the poppier BMX Bandits song that everyone loves, but a nice introspective song.

And lastly, another new Elefant Records thanks to Lia Pamina. The song that gets the video treatment is “Better Off Without You” that was included in her debut album “Love Is Enough”. A lovely song, and an evocative video too. It seems it is summer already in Spain.

Another favourite artist of mine, Rose Elinor Dougall, also has a new video out taken from their wonderful last album. The song that gets the video is “Space to Be” and I recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.

Again today I found out about a new download compilation of Latin American pop bands on the Facebook page “Latin American Twee!”. I haven’t yet listened to the songs but hopefully many of them will be good discoveries for next post. What do you say?

Also the not so very nice label Cherry Red has announced a 3CD compilation titled “C88”. It is already up for pre-orders and it continues the trend they started when they reissued C86 with extras as a boxset in 2014, and then later they continued with the C87 boxset. I don’t understand why the write the song first on the tracklist and the artist second, but here is the tracklist for this release:

DISC 1
1. ON TAPE The Pooh Sticks
2. ELEPHANT STONE (7” Version) The Stone Roses
3. WHERE DO YOU GO (Flexi Version) The Popguns
4. (WILL NOBODY SAVE) LOUISE The Man From Delmonte
5. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? (Molesworth Version) The Charlottes
6. THE THINGS YOU WANT The Snapdragons
7. A SHELTERED LIFE Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
8. ONE SUMMER Moss Poles
9. LIES Bridewell Taxis
10. DEFY THE LAW The Orchids
11. HAPPY LIKE YESTERDAY The Groovy Little Numbers
12. JULIE CHRISTIE The Driscolls
13. HIGH – Choo Choo Train
14. CREMATION TOWN The Poppyheads
15. TATTERED, TANGLED AND TORN Bradford
16. SO HAPPY TO BE ALIVE Thrilled Skinny
17. SISTER GOODBYE The Prayers
18. ANORAK CITY Another Sunny Day
19. SHE’S GONE The Train Set
20. BARNOON HILL Pacific
21. FOREVER HOLIDAY (Ediesta Version) Blow-Up
22. MARY’S GARDEN The Mock Turtles
23. THE PENNINE SPITTER King Of The Slums
24. COLOURS AND SHAPES (Demo) Pale Saints
25. THE BALLAD OF JET HARRIS Apple Boutique

DISC 2
1. THE HILL The House Of Love
2. DYING FOR IT The Vaselines
3. KIRSTY Bob
4. SLACK TIME Cud
5. PLEASE RAIN FALL The Sea Urchins
6. SHAME ON YOU The Darling Buds
7. PRIZE Kitchens Of Distinction
8. TOO MANY SHADOWS The Heart Throbs
9. DO IT FOR FUN The Bachelor Pad
10. THEY FELL FOR WORDS LIKE LOVE Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters
11. GIVING WAY TO TRAINS Murrumbidgee Whalers
12. WHAT’S GOING DOWN The Shamen
13. HEAVEN KNOWS The Flatmates
14. SPELL IT OUT The Waltones
15. MRS SUSAN SPENCE The Wilderness Children
16. YESTERDAY – The Nivens
17. REAL WORLD Baby Lemonade
18. VILLAGE GREEN The Clouds
19. FIRE ESCAPE Rote Kapelle
20. MAD DOGS Emily
21. THE 18:10 TO YEOVIL JUNCTION Bubblegum Splash
22. MICHAEL FUREY Metro Trinity
23. THEME FROM COW Inspiral Carpets

DISC 3
1. SUN, SEA, SAND The Revolving Paint Dream
2. SURFAROUND The Fizzbombs
3. PLASTER SAINT The Church Grims
4. CRUSH THE FLOWERS (Demo) The Wake
5. SUNSHINE THUGGERY The Siddeleys
6. CLEAR Whirl
7. A MILLION ZILLION MILES Annie & The Aeroplanes
8. YOU OPENED UP MY EYES Fat Tulips
9. CINCINNATI Holidaymakers
10. THE CAMERA LOVES ME Would-Be-Goods
11. ANYWHERE BUT HOME The Caretaker Race
12. WHO WORKS THE WEATHER The Great Leap Forward
13. CUBANS IN THE BLUEFIELDS East Village
14. BYTHESEA ROAD The Haywains
15. THE OLD ROAD OUT OF TOWN The Wishing Stones
16. SHAKE The Corn Dollies
17. LAND OF GOLD Bluetrain
18. THE SUN SLID DOWN BEHIND THE TOWER Reserve
19. APPLE OF MY EYE Remember Fun
20. MORNING O’GRADY Yeah Jazz
21. DON’T BURY ME YET The Raw Herbs
22. CURRY CRAZY Bad Dream Fancy Dress
23. ON MY WAY The Claim
24. GLASTONBURY Rodney Allen

A few cool songs that are not too popular like the ones by Annie & The Aeroplanes, The Wilderness Children or Murrumbidgee Whalers on the compilation. That is cool, definitely, to introduce some obscure gems to the casual fan. Then there are a bunch of good choices like The Fat Tulips’ “You Opened Up My Eyes”, definitely, it is great to see especially CD #3. I think that one is pretty strong.

As you know this label attitudes and ways are not of my liking. It is hard to support them or give them a recommendation. But I can’t pretend that this isn’t a fine compilation. It is. I just hope they treated all bands right, and that they were duly informed that they were included in this record.

Mostly I buy these compilations because of their booklets, to see what extra information about the bands is available. Hopefully there’s some good biographies on this one. Still nothing like the good old The Sound of Leamington Spa compilations, with these sort of compilations I miss them more and more.

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Last week while I was doing my investigation of Feargal is the Applejack I ended up discovering a band I had never heard before, The Skips.

My introduction came through the “Dostoevesky lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?” compilation tape that was uploaded to Youtube by the Disques Fridge account, which is of course the label Mickey Rourke’s Fridge from Dublin, Ireland. The second song, after “Limbo Police” by Freres Jackman, and just before the fab “Talking to Yourself” by Feargal is the Applejack, is a sweet pop tune called “My Silver Cloud” by The Skips. I fell for it immediately.

As I mentioned before, this compilation was a tape released in 1992 and was the fourth release in this label (catalog MRF 004). Where else to find information about them? I tried Irish Rock.org but there was absolutely nothing there. Thankfully our friends from The Fanning Sessions Archive had two posts about them, each with two songs!

All four songs are from the same 1988 Fanning Session. On the first post, you can stream the songs “What do You Mean” and “You’re in Love”. On the second post the ones that you could listen are “Scream From Within” and “Forever Free”. There is also a bit of information about the band and thanks to that we can say that the lineup was:
Amanda Claxton on vocals
Derrick Dalton on guitars
Pete Corrigan on bass
Darren Nolan on drums

The Fanning Session was produced by Ian Wilson.

Ian Wilson was one of the founding producers of RTÉ 2FM. He produced Dave Fanning’s rock show for 11 years; began the Fanning Sessions in 1980; organised the ‘Lark in the Park’ outdoor concerts all over Ireland and also kicked off the country’s first free outdoor dance shows, ‘The Beat on the Street’.In the meantime he launched 2FM live, for 16 years now the main live broadcast and recording operation on the island, with over 1,000 acts recorded and broadcast at every major festival and live event. He founded and was chair for six years of the EBU’s Eurosonic group, co-ordinating the activities of Europe’s main 67 music/rock/ young radio stations, and started the Eurodance cross Europe live dance shows. He also brought the 2FM Dance sessions live from clubs all over Ireland with a full video stream on the Internet. At the moment Ian is in charge of alternative music and music production on RTÉ 2FM. In past lives he worked on pirate radio, for In Dublin magazine, was president and vice-president of the student bodies in TCD, following on from being Ents officer for two years. He is married to ‘Morning Ireland’ presenter, Aine Lawlor.

Sadly on these same posts it says that Derrick Dalton passed away in 2008.

And then I decide to turn to Google and see what else I can dig. Sadly what I was to find were mostly news of Derrick’s passing away. Probably the most interesting article is the one by Hot Press. On it many musicians remember the late Derrick Dalton. Among them, the vocalist of The Skips, Amanda Claxton, leaves some words:

I first met Derrick when I was 17 and singing in a band called The Skips. He was the guitarist with Hey Paulette. We had no guitarist at the time and they had no drummer, so a fair swap was made and we traded Darren for Derrick! It was an arrangement that worked very well for many years, as we played music together and became firm friends. Derrick once told me that he would quite happily play guitar in his bedroom and didn’t care if no-one ever heard his music, so long as he was happy with it. That was Derrick to the core; it was just about the music. I’m the better for having been his friend and he will be greatly missed.

So Derrick had also been in the most amazing band Hey Paulette and then left for The Skips.

Another article I found was the one on The Irish Times. On it Derrick’s wife, Laura James, remembers her late husband. IT also mentions some other bands he was in like Crumb, The Deportees, and Aeromodeller. This last band I remember very much as I loved this album released by Yes Boy Icecream in 2010. I suppose then posthumously. I didn’t know then that was the case.

The last newspaper article I found comes from The Independent. It dates from 2010 and it says that then, for the two year anniversary of Derrick’s passing away, there was a special tribute gig with The Dinah Brand, Thread Pulls, Richer Than Astronauts and Little Beauties. It was also the release gig for the Aeromodeller album.

I believe The Little Beauties is the band Amanda and Darren have now. They have released an album titled “A Rude Awakening”.

I found then an Irish Music Database website where there are some family trees. That way I could find out that Derrick Dalton had been in so many bands. Aside from the ones I mentioned already he was in The Bus Pigs, Mexican Pets, $1000 Wedding, Melba and Villa R. I have never heard these bands. Would love to see if I can find any MP3s or releases by them. I’m very curious now.

I tried then googling the rest of the band members, but I couldn’t find anything else music-related. Possibly they went to other bands. I hope so. I couldn’t find if the band had any proper releases or perhaps other compilation appearances. So far I only know these 5 songs. But I would love to hear more. So far with the Irish bands I posted lately I haven’t had much luck finding out more about them, perhaps because I only posted Irish bands now and then before, mostly they were English and so perhaps the Irish didn’t pay much attention to the blog? Who knows. But I definitely want to learn more. It seems there was a fabulous scene in the late 80s in Dublin. I want to hear more jangle pop from it.

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Listen
The Skips – My Silver Cloud