Let’s start the week straight to the point, let’s discover some new music and then of course let’s try to find out whatever happened to one of the great bands from the indiepop halcyon days.

Physical Media: a band from Queens, New York. You know I love that. Where in Queens I wonder? Do they play in Queens at all? Or maybe they are in Ridgewood. I have started to think that doesn’t count like Queens anymore. That’s more like the appendix of Brooklyn, of Williamsburg and Bushwick. I don’t really know much, but I’m listening to a superb tune now called “The Ethicist”. Who are they? Where did they come from? Well, it doesn’t look too new. March 2016 is their latest release.  It is a digital album called “Towers in the Park”. Would be interesting to know more about this band formed by Mike, Ed, Rob and Brian.

Harry Teardrop: another New York band. Well actually it seems just one guy, Harrison Li, who is 18 and attends NYU. There is this one song that sounds lovely called “Sleeping Cutie”. It is not THAT new, he had uploaded it back in December, on Christmas day. His latest song on the other hand is “Chinatown” that he published last February. But it is not as good as “Sleeping Cutie”. Though if you go further back you’ll find a 7 song mini-album called “June gloOm” that has some very nice jangly and quirky guitars!

Poppel: a jangly Belgian band? From a place called Turnhout? Thanks to the label Gazer Tapes I have found out about this album called “Hit It” that was released last December. For the time being it looks like it is only available digitally which is quite a shame. But well, it is better than nothing of course. There are 10 fine guitar pop songs in total by the quartet formed by Fik, Driesos, Bram and Lars. According to Facebook they are influenced by some not very good bands but well, hasn’t that happened many times before? Let’s just try to ignore that.

Roadie: a guitar pop band from San Miguel de Tucuman in Argentina. Might be a first? I’m looking at the 7 songs from their mini-album “El Arte de las Decisiones” and notice the last song is called “Smiths”. I wonder why? The band formed by Franco Días González, Fausto Masucci, Facundo David Roig and Julio Goitia, have several releases on their Bandcamp that I will duly check out but right now I’m starting with their latest which they published on January 8th.

Herbario: the latest from this Santiago, Chile, band is a song called “Resonancias” and it sounds really really good. It was published on Bandcamp as a digital single on February 2nd and it is quite a surprise. It seems it actually is a one-man band, one by Ricardo Valdés. He says that these songs are a sort of a diary of his free time. Aside from this song he also has a 4 song demo available to stream.

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Time again to go back to the ol’ UK for some good ol’ indiepop. And even though I don’t own all their discography yet, I must say that I’m on the mission to complete it. I do love the two singles I own. So that must account for something.

When you search for Vicarage Garden the first result is that of the East Ruston Old Vicarage Gardens, in Norfolk. These gardens were established in 1973 and are privately owned. Did the band take their name from this special place? Did the band hail from Norfolk? These are my first questions.

It was 1991 when they released their first record and it happened to be on one of my favourite labels, Heaven Records. The Nottingham based Heaven Records of course was run by Mark Randall and Matt Johnson from The Fat Tulips and this label released not only The Fat Tulips but other amazing bands like Confetti, The Rosehips or The Melons. Well, The Vicarage Garden was going to be part of this brilliant roster with their “Oh! Dawn” (HV03) 7″. The record only had two songs, “Oh! Dawn” on the A side and “You That Is” on the B side. And what’s interesting about this 7″ is that there are two versions. One with a printed sleeve and another one that was limited to 500 copies that is sort of an “action painting” hand-painted sleeve. I have this last version.

Discogs lists 3 7″s, but according to 45cat there was another 7″. One that was released in 1995 by Heaven Records. This one had catalog number HV14 and included two songs, “Victoria Euphoria” and “Good Heaven”. To be honest, I haven’t sen a copy of this record ever. Wasn’t aware it existed. If anyone has any more information about it, that’d be great!

Their next 7″ came out in 1997 on the French label Cavalcade. This label released also the wonderful album “The Start of Our Affair” by The Cherry Orchard. I actually sent interview questions to The Cherry Orchard many years ago, when they put out a compilation on Firestation. Never heard from them. A shame really. Maybe they would have told me more about this label. In any case, let’s get back to The Vicarage Garden.

The “Please Do It Again EP” (GALLY 1) had three songs. On the A side we find the superb “Linda Lovejuice”, which I’ve seen has been a favourite of several Japanese indiepop discos, and on the B side the songs “Please Do It Again” and “More or Less”. This record actually includes some credits, and we can know determine the band members. Jason Kester played guitars and sang, Andy Leek did backing vocals and keyboards, Jerome Bannigan played drums and Steve Hibbert the bass. All songs are credited to Matthew Leake and Jason with Andy produced them. They were engineered at The Haze Studios in Wolverhampton.

Okay, Wolverhampton is not close to Norfolk. Not close to Nottingham. So were they from this town then? And who is Matthew Leake? Did he only write the lyrics for the band?

Two years later, in 1999, the band was to release their last 7″ on the Japanese label Harmony Label (H004). It was a four song EP titled “I Feel Alright Today EP” and the songs on it were: “I Feel Alright Today” and “Will You Always” on the A side and “Down Goes The Sun” and “What You Do” on the B side. Something that caught my attention is that the first song on each side was written by Griffis, Hough and Kester. While the two other songs by Kester and Leake. I don’t understand. Who are Griffis and Hough? Were they part of the band or were they like Leake, writing lyrics for the band?

The four songs were mastered at Greg Lee Processing. The art was created by Daisy and we see that there are liner notes written, I suppose in Japanese, by Hiromi Aki who had written many liner notes, especially for Quince Records releases. This 7″ is the one I’m missing in my collection.

Now here is something that confuses me. Discogs lists Andy Leek as one that had been part of the Dexy’s Midnight Runners and The Blue Ox Babes. Is it the same Andy Leek?

There are 4 compilation appearances listed on Discogs. Let’s check them out.

On the CD compilation “A Tribute to Felt” that was released by Elefant Records (ER-101) in 1995, The Vicarage Garden appears covering Felt’s “Sandman’s On the Rise Again”. This was the first CD release by Elefant and it includes so many classic bands, from Los Planetas to Acid House Kings.

It also seems lately I’ve mentioned many times the compilation “Pop Machine” that was released by Cowly Owl (Calf 7997). I mentioned on The Imaginary Friend last. On this 1998 compilation The Vicarage Garden appears with the song “Now You’re Gone”.

A French tape compilation with no release date called “Sassy” sees the band contribute the song “Zoe Knows”. First time I’m aware of this compilation. A few bands I’ve never heard appear here like Quatre, Calamine, Autumn Sky or Polar Bear. Would be interesting to explore and find out more about them.

Lastly their song “Zoe Knows” appears on yet another French compilation tape. It came along the fanzine Plouf! that was put together by the label Les Tartines. The curious thing here is that the song by Vicarage Garden credits Jason Bronfeld as a performer. I’m more than confused! Now who is he?

My friend Alex wrote about them on his blog 7iete Pulgadas back in 2010. He doesn’t give any more information though he does make the distinction that the B side of the “Oh! Dawn” single is much better than the A side. For me it is hard to decide which one I like best!

I look for the band members. I believe I found that Jerome Bannigan plays drums for the David K band and has contributed drums to the musician Paul Bond. Then I think I’ve stumbled upon Jason Kester. I find a website for a band called Jason Kester & The Believers. Is it the same Jason Kester? It might be. You see many years ago I got a comment on the blog by someone called Dom Vicarage Garden. Sure, there is no Dom as far as I know in the band but he mentioned he was tracking down all Stoke On Trent bands. Now I find that Jason Kester had played in a band called Goya that was based in Stoke. So this would mean that it wasn’t Wolverhampton, nor Norfolk, nor Nottingham, but Stoke-On-Trent the place where The Vicarage Garden came from.

I think that might be a certainty, but we don’t know much more about the band. Like how come they didn’t release an album? What about that 2nd Heaven 7″ that doesn’t show up anywhere. Were they involved with any other bands? Was Andy Leek the same Andy Leek from the Dexy’s? What happened after they split? How come they release records in France and Japan? Did they ever go there? Are there more unreleased songs? Do you remember them?

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Listen
The Vicarage Garden – Oh! Dawn