Let’s start a new week then. Waiting for news about Cloudberry projects. And in the meantime I’m trying to set up a proper Bandcamp site for the label, with all of the releases on the catalog available to stream, and with the option to purchase them if they are still available. It may take a while! There are way too many releases in the past 11 years!

Clay Hips: for a long time I thought the Clay Hips songs were going to be released by Matinée. Then there was silence. No news. Nothing. But when I attended Madrid Popfest, Gregorio from Annika Records told me the news. He was to release the debut album of two ex-Fairways, Kenji Kitahama and Andrew Leavitt who now make music under the name Clay Hips. The album will be released on both vinyl and CD, and will be titled “Happily Ever After”. Pre-orders are available now at Annika’s website and we can stream two songs on the band’s Bandcamp, “Failure” and “The Bridge (A Song for Augsburg)”. Actually there’s also a video for this last song which you can check here. Beautiful and fragile, this is one of the records that will be essential this 2018. It is coming out on June 1st.

Gentle Brontosaurus: seems this band has been going since at least 2015. I believe that this is the first time I’m listening to their indiepop thanks to their recently uploaded album “Bees of the Invisible”. It seems that this album by this Madison, Wisconsin, band is only available on digital formats, which is quite a shame. A CD would be nice. There are 12 songs of classic indiepop, influenced by early Camera Obscure I would say (?). The band is formed by Huan-Hua Chye, Nick Davies, Cal Lamore, Paul Marcou and Anneliese Valdes. Really lovely discovery.

Marc Elston: the latest batch of songs by Marc were up on Youtube a month ago. As I am sometimes slow with these things, I’m only listening to them. The “A Box of Letters” EP has three songs, “At Least Try”, “Your Every Thought” and “I Wouldn’t Want To”. They sound timeless, jangly and very early 90s. A bit like Love Parade maybe? I hope they are released physically later, maybe in an album?

No Cars: it says they are based in London, UK, but they are also a self-proclaimed cute Japanese band. The band formed by Haruna, Takaco, Tomoko and Candy, have a Bandcamp and there is an album called “Welcome to Yoko’s Hot Spring” but one can’t stream any of the songs yet. But there are more songs by themselves, for example now I’m really loving this song called “Spring”. Really sweet stuff! Hey Indietracks, here is a band in the UK that would be fantastic at your festival. Just saying!

The Crystal Furs: the great Forth Worth band have a new single out, one that will be part of their new upcoming album to be released this summer. The single is called “In the Mirror” and it is really promising! What does it bring to mind? Maybe early 2000s British indiepop? Tompaulin? Kicker? At least these names come to mind. In any case the band formed by Steph, Kevin and Tanner, is one we should all be following!

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Indiepop from The Netherlands. There’s been a few bands of course, and two of them have been featured on the blog like Formica, Golden Strings or Crockett & Jones. Generally they are not well known. Perhaps the Dutch band most people can think of could be The Nightblooms. But the rest seems to be long forgotten. One band I’m really surprised that has been lost to obscurity is Buy Off the Bar. Why am I surprised? Well, they released two albums but that’s not all. They recorded 4 Peel Sessions. That’s not a small feat!

The Amsterdam band was named after a song by reggae singer Sugar Minott. The band was influenced by British groups like Buzzcocks, Nightingales, The Fall or The Undertones. It is said that the band was related to bands like Golden Strings and the Four One & Only’s. They were formed by Paul Hekkert (Papa Paul) on guitar and vocals, Michel Lemmens (Papa ‘Sjil) on saxophone and vocals, Marcel Van Hoof (Papa ‘Cil) on bass and Loet Schilder (Loetje) on drums.

Their first release was a self-released cassette titled “Billy at The Bar”. This tape had 9 songs. On the A side we find “February 6th”, “Bang Bang Billy”, “Annie Moore”, “The Shout” and “Pig City”. The B side on the other hand had “Einstein in Mineur”, “Wishes”, “Jollywood” and “Whistle Off the Bar”. All songs were recorded in January 1985 at Nickelodeon Studio in Amsterdam with the engineer Erwin Blom. The band thanks two bands on the tape, Golden Strings and Eton Crop. It is important to mention that Erwin Blom was part of Eton Crop, a band that I’ve seen listed on Twee.net but it is not really poppy. It is more of a punkish, rockish band, which actually have a Bandcamp with all of their recordings. The story of the Dutch underground, is there any research on that, I wonder? Anyhow, the art for the tape is credited to a Margrietje. The art is simple, black and white, and we see a cowboy having a drink at the bar. We also see someone who seems has passed out on the bar.

The next year, in 1986, they put out a split 7″ with Golden Strings. I have written about Golden Strings many years ago on the blog. Sadly I haven’t been in touch with any of the members ever. So can’t tell you much about them or their relationship with Buy Off the Bar. The truth is that this “Untitled” 7″, released by Bang Bang Records (BILLY 1) and Deng Deng Deng Records (DENG 002), had two songs by Buy Off the Bar on the A side: “February 6th” and “Silence”. The songs were once again recorded at Nickelodeon Studio in Amsterdam. On the A side, there is a runout etching that says “Bring Back the Buzzcocks”. Yeah, it is clear the band was a fan of them. But also we find something that was to become a trademark by Buy Off the Bar: comparing the length of their songs to other songs lengths. For example here “February 6th” length is compared to the Undertones’ “The Way Girls Talk”, The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated”, Protex’s “I Can Only Dream” and Yeah Yeah Noh’s “1901”. Then for “Silence” they compare the length to the Buzzcocks’ “Orgasm Addict”, the June Brides’ “Sick Tired and Drunk”, Liliput’s “Split”, Jasmine Minks’ “Black n’ Blue” and The Clash’s “White Riot”. Yup, instead of showing the tracklength, the band was to always write down some of their favourite songs with the same tracklength instead.

Don’t know how their split 7″ or tape found its way to the UK, specifically to Ediesta Records. That story would be interesting to know. In 1987 they were releasing with this label their first album, “It’s Up to Billy” (CALC LP 18). Yes, by now I’m also wondering who Billy was. It is mentioned time and time again. 9 songs again, just like the tape. On the A side: “It’s Up To You”, “Peanut Butter Boy”, “Papa’s Music”, “Too Shy To Die”, “Commie Come Back”. On the B side there’s “Amuse Yourself”, “Guitar Maffia”, “I Belong” and “Wishes (Live)”. This time the producers for the record were Alex Roelofs and Corné Bos. Roelofs had been in a band called The Nits while Bos was in Eton Crop. All songs were recorded at P.P.M. Studios in Amsterdam during several days in January 1987 but “Wishes (Live)” which was recorded live at “De Pieter” in Amsterdam on December 10, 1986. The record included a picture collage sheet and only for The Netherlands an info sheet on Megadisc, their distributer in their homeland. The runout grooves now say on the A side “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” and on the B side “Ooh – Hoo – Ohoo – Ohoo”. And again we are going to find that instead of track times, they mention other songs by other bands with the same time:
A1: The Wedding Present – Living And Learning
A2: The June Brides – I Fall
A3: The Undertones – My Perfect Cousin
A4: The Soup Dragons – Whole Wide World
A5: Marc Riley with The Creepers – Shirt Scene
B1: Buzzcocks – Love Battery
B2: Serious Drinking – Hangover
B3: Bog-Shed – Mechanical Nun

Their second album was to be titled “Parboiled” (Bi-Joop 23) and it wasn’t going to be on one of the big indies, like Ediesta, but on the much smaller Bi-Joopiter Records. A label that deserves to be rediscovered. I would suggest to start reading a fantastic article Daniel from So Tough So Cute!  from Malmö, Sweden, put together with all the discography by this very fine label founded by Paul Rixon and Gillian Elam in 1983. This record had once again 9 songs. They loved that number it seems. On the A side there was “Stretch Out”, “One Of These Days”, “No Money for the Lavatory”, “Illegal Shed” and “Shot By Both Sides”. The B side included “Shopdropping Emergency”, “World of Camera”, “Empty Theory” and “Fade Away”. The producer this time was Dolf Planteijdt who was the owner of the recording studio Koeienverhuurbedrijf which was also known as Rent-a-cow sutdio or Soundbound Rent a Cow Studio. Anyhow on the runout grooves the band had on the A side “Egbert Sousé (Accent Grave Over Thee)” and on the B side “Mr. Muckle”. I did a bit of research about these names. Turns out Egbert Sousé was a character on the 1940 English comedy “The Bank Detective”. Sousé is played by W.C. Fields and as you can imagine the character was a hard-drinking man. From another movie by W.C. Fields, one called “It’s A Gift”, there’s a character called Mr. Muckle who was played by Charles Sellon.

I have ordered both LPs last week from Discogs. I’m hoping to see to which songs they compare the length of theirs on “Parboiled”.

There are a bunch of compilation appearances too. Chronologically:

1987 – Their song “Free Beer” appears on the tape compilation “Zelfkrant Fanzine Cassette 1” (Zelfkrant 5) that was put together by this Belgian fanzine. There seems to be info about the bands on the tape insert but the scan is too little for me to read. I do notice the Dutch bands I’ve mentioned in this post, Golden Strings and Eton Crop appear here as well. This same year they start their relationship with Bi-Joopiter. How? Well they contribute the song “Cracked-Up” to the tape “Pluralism D” (Bijoop 017). The tape in this compilation came in a heavy cardboard, folded to an envelope with inserts and used stamps glued on the inside. All very DIY. Lastly, “Free Beer” also appears on the terrific compilation “13 Great Bands from The Low Lands”. This compilation released by Noet Lachten Records (NOET 4). On this LP, we see familiar faces again, Golden Strings, Crocket & Jones and more.

1988 – They were to appear on one of the legendary C86 sort of tape compilations, “Something’s Burning in Paradise” (Subtle 001) released by Subtle. On this poppy tape that included the likes of Another Sunny Day, James Dean Driving Experience or The Mayfields, the Dutch band contributed the song “There’s No Fridge On the Bristol Bridge (Live)”. Where was this recorded live? It doesn’t say. Then on yet another tape, this time one from Germany called “I Hope We Die Before We Get Old” (F.A.T.2) that was released by F.A.T., they opened the tape with their song “Too Shy To Die / That Man”. I don’t know any of the other bands that appear on this cassette.

1990 – Lastly on the Dutch label Noet Lachten Records’ double LP compilation “Let’s Have a Picnic and Barbecue Some Corrupt Not Self-Programming Dee-Jays” (NOET 10) they had a song titled “Hi America”. This compilation had bands from various countries, like Belgium, Germany, England and of course The Netherlands. The other contribution this year was on the UK compilation LP “Own Goal” (GOAL 1) that was released by Goalpoast. They had a song called “Big Sleep”.

I click now on the band members, see if they are listed on any other bands or projects. But it doesn’t look like it. How come?

Then we do know that out of their 4 Peel Sessions, one of them was actually released. “The 2nd Peel Session” came out in The Netherlands as a 10″ vinyl in 1987. The songs they recorded were, on the A side, “There’s No Fridge On the Bristol Bridge” and “No Progression”, and on the B side, “Keyword Control” and “In the Back”. It was released by Bang Bang Bang Records (Billy 2). I have the suspicion this label was their own label. The engineer for the session happened to be Mike Engles while Dale Griffin was the producer. The 4 songs on it were recorded at Maida Vale Studios in London on July 5th 1987. Again some funny runout grooves. On the A side “Jo en Willy”. On the B side “Ajax – PSV 9-0”. Clearly they were from Amsterdam and not Eindhoven. Also another fun fact is that they called the A side as HEADS, and the B side as TAILS. And here once again, instead of track times they mention songs by other bands that had the same tracklength:
A1: ‘Heart Of Song’ by Josef K
A2: ‘Psycho Maffia’ by The Fall
B1: ‘Legs Can Be Sturdy’ by A Witness
B2: ‘Lower Than Ever’ by The Nightingales

There are two other blog posts I found on the web. The first is from the blog XPQWRTZ that used to be written by Crayola from the band Sarandon. Here he tells the story of him supporting Buy Off the Bar at a Birmingham gig in 1988 when the Dutch band was touring the UK. Another support band for that gig was The McTells. Which was Crayola’s band name at that time? He mentions that only 20 people came to that gig.

The other blog that wrote about them is one called Maggot Caviar. Here we get the tracklist for all the Peel Sessions! That is quite important.

1st 28/10/1986 – uploaded to Youtube by the great Dave Driscoll from The Aurbisons!
“Peanut Butter Boy”
“Commie Come Back”
“To Shy To Die/That Man”
“Papa’s Music”

“That Man” is a cover of The Fall.

2nd 07/05/1987
“There’s No Fridge On The Bristol Bridge”
“No Progression”
“Keyword Control”
“In The Back”

“In The Back” is a cover of Flag of Convenience.

3rd 03/07/1988 – Uploaded by Dave Driscoll too!
“No Money For The Lavatory”
“Euroburger”
“Illegal Shed”
“Go Away”

4th 30/07/1989
“Pleasure Machine”
“Big Sleep”
“Hi America”

From another blog, Kill Your Pet Puppy, I found out that the McTells toured Holland alongside Buy Off the Bar.

I couldn’t find much more about this Dutch band on the web. It is strange, a band that recorded 4 Peel Sessions should have more of a web presence I think. It might be that only one of these sessions was later released. The other three didn’t get a physical release. I wonder if they played any other countries aside England and Netherlands. Where in the UK did they play too? And what happened to them after the band was over? They must surely have continued making music, right?

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Listen
Buy Off the Bar – Papa’s Music