Last post this week and I believe I can’t go back to two posts a week after covering all Indietracks this week. It was quite a lot of bands to review, most of them new ones for me. Now it is possible for me to concentrate on news, but also on other festivals that had many new names in their lineup. Like Wales Goes Pop and Cologne Popfest. From now on there will be a mix, new and some from these “pop” festivals. So let me start!
Axolotes Mexicanos: a favourite band of ours has a new album coming out on May 11th in 2018. It will be called “Salu2”. To promote that album the band has put together a video for the song “Doble Check”. I am not sure though how to react to the song, I like it but I’m not sure if I like it. It is a departure of the classic sound of the band. The label says this is pop of the twenty first century. Maybe. It does sound much more produced, much more ambitious, but also a bit plastic if you know what I mean. Maybe I just need to educate my ears to love this. Or maybe not.
Azure Blue: I think an Azure Blue song was recommended on the blog just a week ago. Well, this week the band and Matinée Recordings announced a new CDEP called “Whatever ’18”. There are 6 songs on this CD which are “Whatever ’18”, “Every Ending Story”, “Reflections of Light”, “Tragedy and Changes”, “Justice” and “747”. The opening song will actually be part of the forthcoming new album “Fast Falls the Eventide” which is due in June. On the link you can check out “Whatever ’18” and “Reflections of Light”. As always this is fantastic electronic indie pop!
Río Arga: Met Caballito Records’ founder Santi at Madrid Popfest and told me about this upcoming release. I was very excited already as I had recommended this band a couple of times on the blog as I thought they were brilliant. Sadly when I recommended them there was only a tape, and I’m no fan of tapes. This time around there will be a 10″ with 6 songs! That is definitely very very exciting! The songs on the record are “No Te Puedo Aguantar”, “Desde Que Tú Ya No Estás”, “Clip Con Forma de Corazón”, “Vente Conmigo”, “El Gigante” and “Tienes Tanto Por Hacer”. One of them, “Clip Con Forma de Corazón”, is an adaptation of “Plastic Bird” by Galaxie 500. I was quite surprised earlier today when I saw a photo of the band and noticed one of the members was actually the drummer of the fantastic Melenas. It is indeed a small family that of the Pamplona scene. And it makes sense!
—- Discovering Wales Goes Pop 2018 bands reviews —–
Adwaith: I said that I was going to look at some of the bands I didn’t know that played Wales Goes Pop some weeks ago. This is the first one, and every time I mention one of them, I’ll make sure I also mention Wales Goes Pop! So you know it is not really a piece of news, but more of me discovering new bands thanks to festivals. Anyways. This is some folksy pop, right? Made in Carmarthen, Wales, by two girls and a boy, Heledd Owen, Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony. There are three songs on their SoundCloud and I would say skip the first two, they are a bit too slow for my taste, but their last one “Osian”, is quite enjoyable though not particularly indiepop.
El Goodo: another band from the Wales Goes Pop festival. This time the band hails from Resolven in Wales. The band’s name gives me a bit of annoyance I must say, don’t like much when Spanish is made fun. Might be because of me living in the US (?). Aside from that, the music is very 60s influenced. Garagey sometimes, Beatles-esque some other times. I’m not really interested in this sort of music I have to admit. Hopefully the next batch of Wales Goes Pop bands that I’ll check out will be more of my taste.
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I only became aware of the “From Quebec to Oswego” 7″ by The Autumn Teen Sound a few weeks ago. The name of the band sounded familiar to me, but couldn’t pinpoint where and when I’ve heard them. Or if I actually had heard them before. I thought perhaps I had listened to them on a compilation and then perhaps I had forgotten them.
Well, I just ordered a copy of this record and thought, it is time to investigate. My first question is where is Oswego. I know where Quebec is. I was in Montreal and Quebec City, both located in that Canadian province. But Oswego?
Oswego is a city in Oswego County, New York, United States. The population was 18,142 at the 2010 census. Oswego is located on Lake Ontario in north-central New York and promotes itself as “The Port City of Central New York”. It is the county seat of Oswego County. The city of Oswego is bordered by the towns of Oswego, Minetto, and Scriba to the west, south, and east, respectively, and by Lake Ontario to the north. Oswego Speedway is a nationally known automobile racing facility. The State University of New York at Oswego is located just outside the city on the lake. Oswego is the namesake for communities in Montana, Oregon, Illinois, and Kansas.
I see. It is here in New York state. But I must be honest and say I have never heard about it. Maybe one day I’ll visit? Who knows. The 7″ was released by the very fine label Paris Caramel (Pariscaramel 005) back in 1999. It is important to mention that this label had released the first album by The Fairways. A very important album indeed.
The songs on the record were “Say Something” on the A side and “Talk Dirty to Me” on the B side. The B side is actually a cover of the band Poison. Yes. Really. And it actually is a very good cover. And even though this is not exactly a jangle pop band, it is indiepop thru and thru. It is electropop of course, a style not many are doing these days but by the end of the 90s and the early 2000s there were many bands playing this sort of catchy pop.
Discogs has a bunch of compilation appearances listed. And I see where I must have heard them for the first time, on the “Seven Summers International Pop Volume 2” CD compilation that Tweenet and Kindercore (Tweenettwo & KC023) released in 1998. In that classic comp the band appears with the song “Number One”. ‘
But their first compilation appearances date from 1997. Remember the legendary comp “Pop American Style”? Well, I didn’t know, but it seems there was a Japanese version with extra songs that was released by Flavour of Sound. On it, and not in the American version, the band appears with the song “Sagittarius”. Oddly enough on the notes section on Discogs it says that: Track 23 is listed on the sleeves as “Orange Cake Mix / Feel Your Love”, but it was changed to “The Autumn Teen Sound / Sagittarius” in the final stage of manufacturing.
The other compilation from 1997 was the “Christmas in Stereo” comp that was released by Kindercore in the US and Philter Records (PRPH-2012) in Japan (this one in 1999). It is The Autumn Teen Sound who open the CD with the song “Christmas Wish”.
1998 will see them appear with the song “What Can I Do?” on the CD compilation “Dreams Are Free (With Purchase) (Sympathy for Count Pococurante, Vol. 3)” released by Dark Beloved Cloud (DBC 214). Also they would show up on “The Family Twee” double CD compilation. This compilation was actually not for sale. It was a compilation made by participating members of the indiepop-list. So you can see bands like for example Zapato who was Mario from Shoestrings or Laura Watling, among others. Those were the times when the indiepop-list was really relevant.
In 2000 the band was to appear on 3 compilations. The first was on “Millefeuille” that was released by the Japanese Beikoku-Ongaku (BDBO-E0014). The song they contributed for this one was “Submarine”. Also on another Japanese label, Motorway, the band appears with the song “My Computer Dream”. That on the 7″ compilation “Thru Spray Colored Glasses”(MOTOR-046) that was part of the “Carafate Roads” series. This was volume 8. Lastly they had the song “Winter” on the “Paris Caramel 2000” CD maxi .
Lastly, in 2001, on Shelflife Records compilation of OMD covers called “Pretending to See the Future: A Tribute to OMD” (LIFE 030), the band did a fine cover of “Telegraph”.
So who were The Autumn Teen Sound? Twee.net immediately clears the mystery. It was Skippy McFadden, just him. Who was he? Maybe the name sounds familiar. He ran the label March Records. Thanks to that I start finding some more information about the band on the web.
First an interview with him in an unknown site. Here when asked about the band name he says: It didn’t occur rather it allured. It was taken from a collection of psych pop records in the 60’s. Apparently, there was a ‘scene’ and a ‘sound’ called the autumn teen sound. If I ever figure out what it is, I’ll let you know. I like autumn. I like sounds. I guess I don’t care much for teens. (ed. HEY!) At least that’s what I’m told to say here. I’m a big fan of really long band names as opposed to monosyllabic ones.
Then when asked when he sees the band in 5 years time: The Autumn Teen Sound will be franchised out and there will be a 4 piece (2 boys & 2 girls or maybe a boy, a girl, and 2 robots) synthesizer only group in every major U.S. town playing Silicon Teens inspired pop songs, for your enjoyment. The ‘sound’ will sweep the nation and there will be a dance called the Autumn Teen Dance. Of course, all the fans will be drinking March brand red wine.
Funny. I keep looking and find a review of the 7″ on the website Furia. It is a good review, saying “A far more ambitious cover, however, is the b-side of this single by March Records operator Skippy McFadden’s own recording project The Autumn Teen Sound (which I will insist on believing is named after the Slingbacks’ song), who turn Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” into spiky synth-pop on the order of “Electric Avenue” performed by the Dead Milkmen. After playing it twice I feel like I’ve extracted all the humor I’m going to, but the a-side is proving more durable, a self-effacing synth-collector’s soliloquy called “Say Something” that’s about equidistant from Barcelona and Wolfie.”
And that’s about it about the band. Not much more. I have only heard a few of the songs the band released. I am mostly missing the ones on different compilations. I know the band played in an Athens Summer Music Extravaganza festival back in 1998 alongside The Push Kings, Bunnygrunt, Tullycraft and more. But then, I can’t seem to find much more about them even though the band was around during internet times. What do you remember about The Autumn Teen Sound?
Edit: the 7″ arrived home and noticed that Skippy credits himself on the 7″ as Lord Butterscotch. He played vocals, green farfisa compact combo, behemoth farfisa professional 88, roland jx3p +pg200, elka rhapsody 490, roland tr505, dr. sample sp202, korg delta, siel or400, casiotone 310, the egg, sequential circuits tom, wurlitzer student piano, alesis sr16 and casio sk5.
Other people credited are:
Queen Josephine – backing vocals, yamaha portasound, synsonic drums, tambourine
Leo Con Brio – yamaha cs-5, korg poly 800, speak & spell, casio pt30, magnus chord organ
DJ French Toast – loops, samples & beats, iMac bondi blue
The songs were recorded at The Tiger Trap on the DMT8 unit.
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