Not many news this Wednesday, just preparing myself for the World Cup, to start tomorrow with what may be one of the most uninteresting games, Russia vs. Saudi Arabia. But as it is the WC, one has to try to watch them all, right?

Alpaca Sports: this September our very good friends from Gothenburg, Sweden, are releasing their second album, “From Paris With Love”. To start promoting it the band has unveiled a video for the song “Nobody Cares But Me”. And it is lovely, and brilliant, and cute, and all things Alpaca Sports. According to the description the song explores the disillusionment of discovering life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect it to, and the struggles of trying to reclaim our youthful idealism. The video was directed by the great Calle Jirestedt.

The Legendary Hearts: the classic Scottish band has released a new CD EP titled “The Caledonian Scars ‘n Bars” and one of the songs, “Ten Thousand Miles Away”, is available to stream on SoundCloud. The EP has 4 songs, the aforementioned “Ten Thousand Miles Away”, “Blue Eyed Soul”, “Shouting at the Sea” and “Into the Woods” and it is released by the band’s own Surfin’ Pict label. It is great to know that this legendary Edinburgh band continues making music!

Linda Guilala: a very cool video by the Vigo band where on the background we see LPs falling and falling, LPs that I assume come from their collection, LPs that are influences for the band. That is the new video for the song “Mucho Mejor” which is the newest digital single by the band. Don’t know much more about this track, which sounds great, though I do hope it gets released in physical format soon!

Red Red Eyes: I believe I’ve recommended the “Horology” album before on the blog, but it was only a few days ago that I stumbled upon a video for “Low Light”, one of the songs on that album. Maybe I thought you also missed it, so thought sharing it with everyone. Why not?

The Essex Green: the classic US band is back with a new album out later this month that will be titled “Electronic”. It will be released by Merge Records and of course there’s a video for one of the songs. The chosen song, to be the first single out of this album is “Don’t Leave It In Our Hands”, and hey, it sounds great. You know I’m a sucker for boy/girl vocals. And here there’s a song that does it very well!

——————————————————————————

Time to return to Sweden and try to dig any information I can find about one of the many fantastic bands that country has given us. This time around I wanted to find who were Pleasurehouse, a band whose records I don’t own yet but I’m trying to catch up now, having ordered their CDEP from eBay just a few hours ago. Now I’m missing the mini-album and their split flexi but maybe that will take some time, I can’t just buy all the records in the world. Not enough money, not enough space at home!

The first release was actually the mini-album “Marseille” (WeCD042) that was released by the legendary A West Side Fabrication label in 1992. Remember that this label was based in the northern city of Skellefteå and that it was founded in 1987. They had released so many classic bands, from This Perfect Day or The Wannadies to Mary-Go-Round who have been interviewed on the blog. It is interesting that they named the album after that French city. I wonder why?

Marseille, is the second-largest city of France and the largest city of the Provence historical region. The capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur administrative region, it is located on France’s south coast and had a population of 852,516 in 2012, and an area of 241 km2 , the third-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris and Lyon. Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Massalia, Marseille was the most important trading centre in the region and the main commercial port of the French Republic. Marseille is now France’s largest city on the Mediterranean coast and the largest port for commerce, freight and cruise ships. The city was European Capital of Culture, together with Košice, Slovakia, in 2013. It hosted the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2016, and it was the European Capital of Sport in 2017. The city is home to several campuses of Aix-Marseille University and part of one of the largest metropolitan conurbations in France, the Metropolis of Aix-Marseille-Provence.

The CD had 6 songs, “Breathe”, “Summer”, “Blind”, “Happy When You Leave”, “Regrets” and “This is How it Feels”.

That last song, “This is How it Feels”, was to give name to their next release, a CDEP on Snap Records. This was released the next year, 1993 by this label that in the year 1994 had to change names to Soap Records because some legal complaints from a German disco band called Snap!. The label had only been around for a year when they put this CDEP out. They had started in 1992 when Lars Tengroth and Jonas Sjöström, who were part of the label MNW Records, decided to start a new label to put out indiepop. They signed Pleasurehouse of course but also had Eggstone, Easy and more. Something that was interesting about this label was the very particular graphic design and look of the releases thanks to designer Lars Sundh. Though in the case of this CDEP I believe the art is credited to Camilla Blom who also was a musician and released records on Soap Records under the name Cam. Anyways, “This is How it Feels” (SNAPC 19) EP had 4 songs, “Cindy”, “This is How it Feels”, “Perfect Summer” and “Happy When You Leave”.

The CDEP was recorded by Stefan Pettersson at KM Studio in Norrköping in Sweden. Did the band hail from that city?

Norrköping is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm. The city has a population of 95,618 inhabitants in 2016,[2] out of a municipal total of 130,050, making it Sweden’s tenth largest city and eighth largest municipality. The city is situated by the mouth of the river Motala ström, at Bråviken, an inlet of the Baltic Sea. Water power from the Motala ström and the good harbour were factors that facilitated the rapid growth of this once industrial city, known for its textile industry. It has several nicknames such as: “Sweden’s Manchester”, “Peking” and “Surbullestan” (Surbulle [sour bun] was a local nickname for the textile workers, and stan is short for Staden, which means The City or The Town in Swedish).

“This is How it Feels” and “Perfect Summer” were mixed by Daniel Gese while the other two were mixed by Michael J. Herrström.

Lastly, there was a split flexi released that year. Not on a label and not for sale. It  came for free with the legendary Sound Affects Music Magazine, on its 19th volume. It was only available for subscribers. This flexi had catalog number SAFPD 012 and Pleasurehouse appears second on this single sided flexi with the song “Cindy”. The band that shares the flexi and appears first was the classic band Easy (who have reformed and have a reissue on A Turntable Friend – I need to get that) who contributed the song “Marinelove (Demo)”.

The band has a few compilation appearances listed. The first one dating from 1990 and these might as well be the first recordings by the band. It would be good to find out if that was the case. Also on this compilation titled “SND Records Vol. 1” released by SND Records (SND 009) the band’s name appears as Pleasure House. The band had the first song on the A side which was “Fall On Me” and the last song on the B side “She’s All I Want”. Again all songs were recorded at KM in Norrköping.  A familiar name appears on this compilation too, the brilliant Saturday Kids who have been interviewed in the blog many years ago. This compilation was released in 1990.

Next was the “Pet Sounds Vol. 4” compilation tape that was released by the Pet Sounds Fanzine in 1991. This was the 4th volume out of 5 that was issued by the people behind the Gothenburg based zine. From what I know these tapes are very rare, only 80 to 100 copies were usually made and these tapes didn’t come as a bundle with the fanzine normally, you had to acquire them separately. On this compilation the band contributes “Fall On Me” and at this time the band’s name appears now as Pleasurehouse. No space.

A West Side Fabrication was to include them on a compilation named “West Side. Strikes Back Vol IV” (WeCD 46) in 1993. On this comp the band has the song “You Will Never Know”. This comp was a collection of previously unreleased songs.

There was one more compilation on A West Side Fabrication in 1994 that saw Pleasurehouse having a song. Their track “Candyfloss Summer” appears on the CD compilation “We’re All Part of a Family” (WeCD 073) alongside other classic Swedish bands as Puffin, Cod Lovers (interviewed on the blog), Popundret and more.

Something that surprised me was that I was going to find information about the band on another label’s website, another legendary Swedish label, Ceilidh Productions. Why? I don’t know. Maybe someone can explain me the connection between labels? That I don’t know. In any case the band was actually formed in 1986 (!) by Niklas Larsson on guitar and Joakim Nordqvist on vocals and guitar. Are there any recordings from this period? When they were a duo?

In 1989 the band expanded and added Björn Brunnberg on bass and vocals, Torbjörn Gustavsson on keyboards and Stefan Nilsson on drums. In 1990 Torbjörn leaves and the band adds a second guitar player with Johan Skaneby. In 1993 Skaneby leaves and Per Sparf replaces him.

Some of these names are familiar. For example, from the top of my head, I remember Johan Skaneby had been involved in Cod Lovers. I believe Torbjörn had been involved in a punk band in the 80s called Klunk’s Klan. And hen Bjorn had been in a band called Tivoli who released  a couple of 7″s. Not sure about the rest of the band members. Maybe someone can help me with that?

Afterwards I find an interview on the mailing list Scandinavian Indie conducted by Erik Söderström. The interview seems to have happened in Linköping at a venue called Herrgårn after a gig they played in that city. What do I learn from it? Well that one of the guitar players, probably Skaneby or Sparf, played before in a band called My Favorite Martian. Then that some of the songs on “Marseille” were kind of old, like “This is How it Feels” and “Happy When You Leave”, that date from the first period of the band, 1986.

The album “Marseille” was to be released in October 1991 but was released in March 1992. The band had some more songs that weren’t included in the records like “Vals”, “September” and “Six Eyes”. These were played live, but who knows if they were ever recorded.

And at last we get confirmation that the band hailed from Norrköping. All of them were originally from there but the drummer who was from Småland. And their favourite drink were Carlsberg beer and gin/tonic. That is important information indeed.

Another good find is the one article from Sound Affects I stumbled upon. Here it mentions that early on the band was mostly influenced by The Cure and later they were more into the Go-Betweens. If you understand Swedish you can check out this profile the zine did with the band at what was then the only Indian restaurant in Norrköping. if not, well, you can use Google Translate?

But that’s all I really could find. I start to wonder how many pop bands have come from Norrköping. I think quite a few. I do wonder if the band members continued involved in music, and in which projects? And if so, did they continue making indiepop? And why no more releases? Why no album? Also what about more recordings? I mean they were around as a band for many years but we only know a few songs. Does anyone remember them?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Pleasurehouse – Cindy