Last post for this week. A very busy week indeed, that actually had posts every single day, from Monday to Friday. And if you go back, even all the way to last Friday, every day I added a new post. It is a time where bands are actually answering my interviews which is amazing. Back in the day I was writing so many interviews and half of them were actually answered. Now the few last weeks, all interviews I’ve done have got answers, and I’m happy about it. Maybe the bands have more time in their hands? Or they trust the blog a little bit more? Or what could it be?

My finds for this week!

The Goon Sax: the marvelous Brisbane band whose first album was heavily played at home are releasing a new album on September 14 on Whichita Recordgins and Chapter Music. It will be called “We’re Not Talking” and one of the songs is available to listen now and it is brilliant. Check out “She Knows”! And that is actually not all the news I want to share. If you are in Chicago, New York or LA you will be able to see them for the first time this June. I have bought tickets for their Knitting Factory gig, but they will also be playing at Union Pool. In any case, I really look forward to seeing them for the first time and listening to their new album!

Those Unfortunates: I’ve recommended this London band time and time again and still they don’t get to play Indietracks. Tough luck. Well, what can you do? They do have a limited edition tape with booklet plus a free Hornsey Automatic badge for their two newest songs: “Hornsey Automatic FC” and “King of the Lane”. Both songs being about the best sport ever, football. You can’t listen to them on Bandcamp but there’s a video for “Hornsey Automatic FC” on Youtube!

Dream Rimmy: a shoegaze band from Perth, Australia. It seems there is a good crop of shoegaze bands now in that country, right? This one have just released a 5 song EP on 12″ vinyl called “Heavy”. I know little by this band but they seem kind of big, they have lots of fans on Facebook and have booking agents. They must be dealing with bigger leagues than most of the bands on this blog! They are formed by Ali Flintoff, Jack Gaby, George Foster, Vin Buchanan, Ben McDonald and Jennifer Aslett. The songs are driven by female vocals and lots of guitar effects. I think my favourite song out of the 5 is “I Know What’s Wrong With You” which is the poppiest of them all!

Cosmic Child: more shoegaze, now from Singapore. This band formed by Bo, Daniel, Joanne, Zhe Ren and Genevieve, have just released their new album on CD and on tape. It is called “Blue” and it includes 10 songs. This is actually their second album after the first, “untitled” one. It is out now on Middle Class Cigars Records. The CD version seems like a special one, it comes wrapped in cloth each one meticulously hand-sewn with a unique design.

The Regrets: an old find, dating from March 2016. “The Regrets EP” with 5 songs by this Seattle band. They are “Lie to Me”, “On the Stage”, “Make it Right”, “What Can I Say?” and “Always, Never Again”. Before that they had covered The Smiths’ “These Things Take Time”.  It looks as this was their last release but the band keeps going, I see some gigs listed for the next month. They are a quartet, formed by Joel, Todd, Jake and Brockton.

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A few weeks ago I heard from my good friend Nikola from Belgrade. He had some ideas of bands that would be interesting to find out more, do some archaeology on them, find what they left behind, if any. One of them were The Marigolds. At first I thought he was talking to me of the Australian bands with the same name who would also make a great post on the blog, but no, he was talking to me of the UK band.

I must say that up until that moment I knew very little about them. I had the split flexi they put out alongside Weasel on my wishlist but I haven’t ever heard one of their songs. Well, until Nikola pointed me out to “Sherbet Girl” which turns out was uploaded to Youtube by another friend, Heinz. And then a second song, “If Ever There Was Paradise” and later a third song “For All Time”, I was going to find on Heinz’s channel.

On Discogs it shows that the band didn’t release any proper records. The closest to it is the flexi I was mentioning. Then there are many compilation appearances. But on the strength of “Sherbet Girl”, and the other two songs, I know the rest must be great, I would love to listen to them!

The split flexi with Weasel was released by the label Mindgasm Records (9110007882) in 1992. It is the only release by this label, so must be just a one-off? Or maybe a self-release by both bands? The Marigolds appear second. First there’s Weasel with their song “Look Into Tomorrow” and then The Marigolds appear doing a cover of Syd Barrett’s “Two of a Kind”. This cover was produced by someone called Neil. There is more information on the sleeve. It says that the record features Skyflower on vocals and Stewart Marigold on guitars plus additional vocals by Rachel. Their song is dedicated to Syd Barrett and Weasel. And then I notice and address in Norfolk, in the town of Watton. Did they come from that market town?

Watton is a market town in the district of Breckland within the English county of Norfolk. The A1075 Dereham-Thetford road and the B1108 Brandon-Norwich Road meet at a crossroads here, where the town developed, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Norwich. The civil parish covers an area of 7.2 km2 (2.8 sq mi) with about 6,800 inhabitants in 3,000 households, increasing to a population of 7,202 in 3,226 at the 2011 Census. The Domesday Book recorded that Watton (or Wadetuna) featured a church, manor house and Anglo-Saxon settlement.

So “Sherbet Girl” doesn’t appear on the flexi, but it does appear on compilations. The first one I check out is the tape comp “The Secret of Confident Dressing” (KAW 2) that was released by Kaw Tapes in 1991. Mark Ritchie from The Librarians used to run this label. This tape came with a booklet. It would be interesting to find out if there’s any information about the band on that booklet. On this tape the band appears with two songs, “Forever Sad” and “Sherbet Girl”. Other great bands on this tape are The Siddeleys, The Cudgels and BMX Bandits. And some bands I’ve never heard before like Grrr!, The Bass Turds or Rentboy?

On the 1992 tape “C92”, a classic comp released by Rainbow, the band contributes the song “For All Time“. On this tape we see them in great company, bands I’ve interviewed in the blog like The Marmite Sisters, Peru, Bulldozer Crash and more.

This same song was to appear that same year on the 7” compilation “Searching for the Blake Hall” (POST 4) released by the very fine Pillarbox Red label. Now, I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be great to interview Andrew Austin who ran this label? If anyone has contact information please let me know!

As I said the band did appear on many compilations. That same year, 1992, their first international one. On the tape “Around The World” (ER-016) that Elefant Records from Spain put out they contribute once again “For All Time”. But that wasn’t the only song they contributed to Elefant, on the “Around the World Again” (ER-020) they appear with the song “Sherbet Girl”.

Now a tape I’ve mentioned before, “Polythene Star”, released by Flaming Katy (FK001). Here a different song at last, “The Daisy Song”.

We skip 1994, and get to 1995. That year a tape compilation called “Death of an Anorak” (DTW 02) is released by Does This Work?. Don’t know much about this label but looking at their releases they all look great! Lots of indiepop in there! Anyhow, The Marigolds contribute the song “Someone”. There are many bands I’ve never heard on this tape too, like the Village Idiots or The Bright Young Things. Would be nice to hear this label’s comps sometime. If anyone have Mp3s of them please think of me?

Lastly there is a tape compilation that has no release date. One called “Deep in Space” where they appear alongside many of the bands they’ve shared compilations already like The Almanacs, The Kensingtons or The Millers. On this tape the band contributes the song “If Ever There Was Paradise“. The tape was released by Meg Records (MEG 002). And that’s all.

It is funny, I was to stumble upon a Norfolk band called Marigolds. But they are contemporary to our days. I keep looking for any other information but there is nothing really. Without the band members names it is hard to find anything. Would love to hear the rest of their songs, find a flexi, and maybe, hopefully, interview the band in the future!

Edit May 18th: Stewart from The Kensingtons has shared some information about The Marigolds! He tells me he used to be in touch with Stewart from the band. He tells me Stewart used to do a fanzine called Cherry Fizz Pop. He has scanned me some fanzines were there are is more information about The Marigolds!
– They were formed in the summer of 1991 when two local bands, The Rosemarys and The Chocolate Mopeds, decided to join forces in order to record the “Yeah” EP cassette.
– A drummer, Carl, and a bass player, Phil,  were eventually found to help out for the debut live performance at John’s Birthday Party
– Carl and Phil didn’t last long in the band, Carl was to join the Spinning Jennys
– Later Liam joined on stand up drums and Paul on bass, plus Stewart on guitars and Mark on vocals. They were hoping to record their first album at that time.
– There’s a cool fanzine spread with lyrics for “Sherbet Girl” too!
– There is a tape called “Doing the Washing Up with The Marigolds” with this tracklist: “Forever Sad”, “For All Time”, “Sherbet Girl”, “How Could You?”, “Under Sunbeams”, “Monsterpussy”, “Someone”, “Sherbet Girl (live)” and “How Could You? (live)”.

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Listen
The Marigolds – Sherbet Girl