Happy to end the week after booking a flight to Mexico City next month. Just around the time for the World Cup finals. I will have to watch it there. Hopefully it is fun. I remember watching some games from the last World Cup in Montreal, the Colombia vs Uruguay and some others that I can’t recall now. But there wasn’t much of a good vibe and wasn’t easy to find places to watch it. I’m sure Mexicans are more football-crazy than Canadians.
I will just be for around 10 days and I believe I will be doing a little tour visiting some new towns I’ve never been to like Queretaro, San Miguel de Allende, Peña del Bernal and Guanajuato. Any tips will be appreciated. If not my Lonely Planet guide will be used for the third time in Mexico(!).
Then I still have just 7 days left for more vacations later this year. Was looking for flights in August, but everything seems complicated. For example, when I find a cheap flight, I can’t find good deals for places to stay.
Anyways, according to Mobineko they are sending the records for Salt Lake Alley next week… should I trust them? When they arrive home I’ll let everyone know.
In the meantime, here is some new indiepop items worth checking out!
Sobs: seems to be a new crop of pop bands from Singapore. The latest one I’ve discovered is called Sobs which is formed by Celine Autumn, Jared Lim and Raphael Ong. They have put out a tape album with 8 songs that has lovely artwork by Mich Cervantes. I don’t know if the whole album sounds great, I have only been able to stream one of the songs, the last one, “Telltale Signs” which I recommend to everyone who loves female vocals and pop melodies. Even better, this song has a video on Youtube. The only bad news here is that the tape is sold out. Hope there’s a CD version soon. Or vinyl.
El Sonido del Río Hablador: Impermeable Records from Peru is doing their sort of Leamington Spa compilation. Yes, they are doing a retrospective compilation of indiepop bands from that country for the period of 2000 to 2009. And there are 20 songs in total! It is definitely a fantastic compendium of the sounds and bands that were part of the fractured scene of Lima and other Peruvian cities. The CD comes with a booklet with information about every single band on it. And you’ll learn that barely a few of these bands really have proper releases, most of these songs are demos in true DIY spirit. So giving a new life to these songs is a superb job by Joel, who compiled this soon to be cult object.
Davey Woodward: I wasn’t aware Davey from The Brilliant Corners has a Bandcamp page. On it he has many things available for one to order and also to have a listen. There are records by The Experimental Pop Band, there’s a download EP by the band Karen, the single by Davey Woodward and The Winter Orphans (which I believe will soon be releasing an album), and also Davey’s solo album from 2010.
Masonieria: Sonia from the Barcelona band Papa Topo, who had contributed a few songs to a soundtrack some months ago, now has uploaded 5 great demo tracks to Bandcamp. There are 5 catchy and fun songs for everyone to stream: “El Mal Hermano”, “Tengo Tu Número Apuntado en un Folio”, “Pin de Arquero”, “Cançó per a Tu (plata i forma)” and “Falloppio”. Lovely bedroom casio pop.
Rik Rak: those of us who love great jangle pop can rejoice because Firestation will be releasing a retrospective compilation by the Blackpool band Rik Rak this August 3rd. The album will be titled “Illuminated” and I can’t wait for it to be out. An interview with the band would be nice too as I don’t know much about them. I hope so! For the time being, for those who don’t know them check out their video for the song “It’s Not Easy”.
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Killing time, the act of being idle
The Killing Time, a period in late 17th century Scottish history
I wonder how to start a blog post about a band that there is nothing at all written on the web. That has only one known song in their repertoire. That their band name is not easy to search on the web and that there are many bands sharing the same name. It is indeed complicated. But I hope, that by writing this post someone will remember them or maybe the band itself will get in touch, and maybe, we will learn their story. That would be the ideal scenario, right?
As many indiepop fans know, the “Corrupt Postman” tape is one of the most famous cassette compilations from the 80s. I have in the past featured more than a few bands that appeared on it like Nine Steps to Ugly, The Felicitys, The Apple Moths, Steamtown and more. I sadly don’t own this tape comp, but I believe there wasn’t much information about the bands on the sleeve. I do have MP3s for all the songs on the tape, and Killing Time’s “Perishing Flowers” has always been a favourite. I wonder why? Perhaps it starts sounding a bit like “Teenage Kicks”, and then it has a very simple structure, it is direct, and has a catchy chorus. I don’t think there’s much mystery why one would like this song. It is 3 minutes and a half of pop effervescence, with a punk attitude.
The “Corrupt Postman” tape was released by Windmill Records in 1988 and had no catalog number. It had 28 songs in total, 14 on each side. Most of it is proper indiepop though there are some strange tracks. Killing Time appears halfway on the B side. It is the 7th song there.
Windmill Records was based in Cheshire and released another tape compilation that is quite legendary, the “Are You Ready?” one also in 1998. Aside from these two there were two flexis, both of them compilations as well, “Four Bands Four Songs” that included The Fat Tulips, The Applicants, The Haywains and Paintbox and “Three Bands Three Songs” that had “They Go Boom!!, The Dreamscape and Strawberry Story. The people behind this label were called Chris and Neil. I don’t know their last names, but I figure that it would be super interesting to do a Windmill Records interview at some point. Learn the story of the label, how they worked, if there were more releases, etc, etc. Someone can put me in touch? And maybe they remember who Killing Time were!
I have the suspicion though that Chris was Chris Mabbs who did Popstar Records. And that Neil was the person behind Caramel Records who released the first Bouquet 7”. Could someone confirm this?
Killing Time contributed the same song to the Elefant Records tape “Hacia la Luz” (ER-5) in 1990. Two years later. This tape includes many of the bands that were on “Corrupt Postman” and I was surprised to see a comment on Discogs calling the tape as a cheap rip-off of “Corrupt Postman”. Don’t know why the animosity! On this tape Killing Time also appear on the B side, but now they are the tenth song. This tape actually had one more song, there were 29 songs in total. But again, I don’t own this tape, so there might be a chance that Elefant had some info about the bands on the tape artwork. Anyone would know?
But that’s all there is really. I’m just curious about this one little song and would love to know more. And in general, would also learn more about Windmill Records. And even if it is not the same Neil or Chris, it would also be great to do a Bouquet interview on the blog, right? So any help is much appreciated.
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