Wednesday! It’s just been about a week since I received The County Fathers CDs and I’m trying to think what would be the best retrospective to release next. Any suggestions, any ideas are welcome. In the meantime, I have been preparing several posts and I’ve noticed how far behind I am on recommendations. Especially as I have to cover Indietracks too. Maybe I’ll have to resort to three posts a week to be able to have everything fully reviewed. So let’s go straight to the point:
I Saw You Yesterday: found this cool video by this Japanese guitarpop band. It seems that the crop of Japanese bands into shoegaze, dreampop, is neverending at this point. I wonder why. In any case this is pretty good. The band fromed by Hidemasa Shimoda, Kai Murakami, Kasushige Suzuki and Reiji Shibata will be participating in the new Ano(t)racks compilation that is being put together by that label.
Pale Blue Morning: I learned about this band and their first ever song “Eleanor” through the indiepop-list. Sadly no one has given feedback to the poster. The indiepop-list is quite dead to be honest. I was always a lurker but those who were very active have been quiet for years. Anyhow, this is a very nice lo-fi bedroom pop song! I don’t know much about the band aside that they are from Quezon City in the Philippines, but I will keep an eye if they post anything new in the future!
Nos Miran: I recommended a video by this band some weeks ago. Now their label, Elefant, has uploaded all the songs that will be on their 10″ mini-LP to Bandcamp and I’m really enjoying them! There are 6 songs in total, “Amor Y”, “Humo”, “Dinero Para Nada (Feat. Capitán Sunrise)”, “La Montaña del Amor”, “No Te Veo Enamorado (¿Por Qué Será?)” and “No Puedo Ser Hipster”. The band is actually a duo and it is formed by Sergio Rodríguez and Marta Quintana after they met at a La Bien Querida concert.
Putochinomaricón: when Chenta Tsai Tseng’s song started to appear on Youtube we all loved them. The freshness, the quirkiness and the smart lyrics were easy to like. Maybe we all thought it was a bit of a joke, but we never imagined that Elefant, or anyone in the indiepop world, would pay attention and offer a release to him. Not because it wasn’t good. They are great pop songs. But one imagined Putochinomaricón to sign with a bigger label if he ever signed with a label! In any case Elefant will be releasing a 10″ mini-LP titled “Corazón de Cerdo Con Ginseng al Vapor” on April 20th, and I suppose this will sell out pretty quick. Right now you can stream one of the songs, “Gente de Mierda”, on Bandcamp.
Vamping: the Thessaloniki, Greece, label always delivers the goods. This time they introduce us the band Vamping who are releasing an album with 13 songs titled “Desert Plants”. At the moment there are two songs available to stream on Bandcamp as teasers, “Starling” and “Desert Plants”. The latter is especially really nice, jangly as we all like our songs. Vamping is the solo project of a certain Broderick Adams who records them near the Franklin Mountains in Texas. The album will be released in very limited quantities, 50 tapes and there are two different variations for them!
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I remember when I saw their only release for the first time. It was at Pete Hahndorf’s place, he had a few copies and well, he gave me a copy! My friend Nana also got a copy because he was a fan. And that wasn’t all on my visit to Bremen. Peter gave me a copy of the compilation “Ein Spätsommercocktail” where die Moosblüten appears with the song “Klee Ist Fern”. That was my first encounter with their music and well, here you have me writing about them many years after. 10 years I think!
Kalle Luft, Paule Pop and Ulli “Joe” Frisch were die Moosblüten or, in English, the moss blossoms. As I said they released just one proper release, the first one on Peter Hahndorf’s label, Steinpilz Tonträger (Pilz 1). “Aprilfrische” was the name of this for 4 song EP. All of them recorded at Paul’s living room during the time the band members were taking their secondary school final examinations on April 1991. The record came out that same year.
On the A side of this 7″ that had a colorful mushroom on its cover we find two songs, “Wandertag” and “Strandparty”. On the B side there’s “Huberts Grüne Küche” and “Lückenfüller”. The record comes with an insert of what looks the dictionary definition of Moosblüten and other words that start with “moos”.
That same year, 1991, the band appeared on the pre-Firestation Records label Smuf’s cassette compilation called “It’s All About Love” (SMUF 003). On this compilation die Moosblüten contributed the song “Herbstromantik”. This is a very cool compilation by the way with top tracks from bands like The Aurbisons, the Panda Pops or The Sugargliders.
The next year they were going to appear on another tape compilation, “Wegweiser Durch’s Eiswürfelland”, that was released by Steinpilz Tonträger (Stein 1). It was the golden days of tape compilations in Germany it seems. This label as far as I remember was ran by the people behind Die Busfahrer who I interviewed years ago. Anyhow, on this very fine compilation that had classic German bands like Die Blinzelbeeren or Friends Ahoi, die Moosblüten appears with the song “Lustige Schlittenfahrt”.
The band that hailed from Bremen didn’t stop there. In 1993 they were to work again with Steinpilz Tonträger on a compilation called “Frischer Morgentau” (Stein 1). I remember Pete Hahndorf having copies of it, but me, dumb as I am, didn’t get one while my friend Nana did. I was never into tapes. That is a true thing. But now I regret not having this great document of the time! Their song “Klee Ist Nah” appears on this tape and again they are in very good company, you can see amazing bands like Acid House Kings, Red Sleeping Beauty or Die Fünf Freunde.
1994 will see the last two compilation appearances for the band. First on Eiswürfel Tonträger’s CD compilation “Die Schönste Platte Der Welt” (EIS 7). Again among fantastic bands die Moosblüten appears on the 8th track with “Allein Zu Haus, So Ist Das Leben”. And lastly on a 7″ compilation, which I got from Peter too in Bremen, called “Ein Spätsommercocktail”. The band appears on the B side, as the last track with “Klee Ist Fern”. This 7″ included a copied cocktail recipe and a band sticker, “Mossblüten – Umwelt schützen – Rad benützen”. On the record we also find great bands like Friends Ahoi, Space Kelly and Die Wurzelsepps.
I look for more information on the web. I find an old Myspace page where you can’t stream the songs. I do have a slight hunch, and that is that Ulli from the band is Ulli Hahndorf, Peter’s brother and also the one behind the label Steinpilz Tonträger. That would make sense. But I need confirmation. And I do find it on an interview I did with Peter many years ago on the blog. He says: I am five years older than my brother and I guess you can say I had a strong influence on his musical taste. He was in “Die Moosblüten” and released a few singles and a tape on his label “Steinpilz Tonträger”.
But what happened then to the band? Why no more releases? When did they split? Do they have more unreleased tracks? Did they continue making music with other bands afterwards? Or what about before die Moosblüten? Did they play many gigs? All around Germany? There is not much information on the web sadly, they seem to be forgotten! Do any of you German popkids remember them?
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