So the next post will start the new challenge and I’m already thinking of future ideas to have some fun while documenting the music we all love, indiepop.

Now let’s just find out some new music on the web!

Kung Fu Girl: “Anorak” is the preview single for the debut self-titled album by this Japanese girl-fronted band that will be released on May 15th on Testcard Records. This song is also the opening track. There are 11 songs on it and it seems they are packed with top fun punky indiepop!

Tullycraft: I got my CD of “The Railway Prince Hotel”, the newest album by the Seattle band, last week. It is great obviously. But I was curious if Tullycraft had some fight or something with The Cat’s Miaow. You see there is a song on the album called “The Cats Miaow in a Spacesuit”. But then a new video was posted on Youtube and someone asked the same question, and Tullycraft confirmed that there was no issue at all with the Aussie band!

Big Quiet: the New York band that some years ago surprised me with a lovely single will be back on May 3rd with their debut album “Interesting Times”. The record will be released by Unbliking Ear Records on vinyl and will include 10 songs. There of them, “Interesting Times”, “Birdwatching” and “Fields” are available to preview. Good stuff!

Бадди Психолли: I love Russian pop. The latest by this band is a tape album consisting of 8 songs called “Нойз-поп для начинающих “. It is out now on the Pow! Pop Kids label and it includes two cover versions translated to Russian of The Surfaris and The Ramones.

Aeropod: the Lima, Peru, based band has 3 new songs that were released on a CDR by the label La Flor Records. The songs are “Los Jardines”, “Vuelas” and “Obsequio” which sound lovely. Not sure where to get a copy of the CDR but you can stream the 3 songs on Bandcamp.

—————————————————————–

After interviewing Tim Alborn from Harriet Records I ended up more curious about some of the bands he put out in the 90s. I should actually go over many of them this year, but thought to start with Shy Camp.

When I asked Tim about the band he told me:
“And Shy Camp was Dave Rapp, who did record quite a lot besides the five songs on Harriet (I have the tape to prove it) but moved on in life before he found anyone to release them (Harriet had ceased to exist by then, or I would have). His main claim to fame is that his father was the main songwriter for the 60s band Pearls Before Swine; Shy Camp contributed a song to a PBS tribute album called “For The Dead in Space.”

Interesting, right? It is true that only 3 songs were properly released by Harriet. They were on a 7″ single that came out in 1997 with the catalog number Harriet 044. The songs on it were, “Call in Sick” and “Flowers Every Hour” on the A side and “Best Friend” on the B side.

Actually there were two songs on the “For the Dead in Space” compilation that Tim mentioned. Shy Camp contributed “Love/Sex” and “Another Time” to that 1997 compilation that Magic Eye Singles released on CD and LP (MES 012). Other known bands on this comp are the Kitchen Cynics and Flying Saucer Attack.

This same label would release a tape compilation that same year called “Magazines Sell Sex” (MES 007) were the band contributed the song “Lesson”. This tape came along the debut issue of the “Sex Sells Magazines” magazine and it was a label sampler for Magic Eye Singles.

Their last appearance dates from 1998 on the Harriet CD comp “Friendly Society” (SPY 10) were they put out the songs “Spinster” and “Alison Song #4”.

David Rapp has also contributed his guitar playing to tracks credited to his father Tom Rapp on compilations like “This Note’s For You Too! A Tribute to Neil Young” or albums like “A Journal of the Plague Year”.

Last.fm has an interesting biography of Shy Camp with many details. For example thanks to it we know that Shy Camp was active between 1996 and 2000. That it was a solo project but there was an EP  worth of tracks (“History’s On Your Side”, “The Biggest Secret in the World”, “You’ll Never Be a Star” and “A Happy Life”) featured guitarist Nate Shumaker (Everdown, On Fire)  and guitarist/drummer Joel Thibodeau (Death Vessel, String Builder). Also Myke Weiskopf (Science Park) contributed accordion, keyboards and engineering expertise. Also it mentions that the song “The Biggest Secret in the World” appeared on the “Starring Nao” compilation released by Rover Records in 2000. I didn’t know about this one!

I find an article about the Magic Eye Party that happened at the Luna Kafé in New York City on September 3rd 1997. This evening was a shindig in honor of Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine. Dave Rapp performed with Shy Camp that evening. The writer compares them to Velocity Girl.

Sadly last year, in February, Dave’s dad passed away. The Washington Post has an article about this sad event. On it it mentions that Tom Rapp played with his son on Shy Camp at the Terrastock music festival in Providence, Rhode Island. in 1997. That must have been pretty cool to see.

Not much more about Shy Camp on the web sadly. But many of the songs are available in Youtube. I would definitely like to find out what happened to all of the songs they recorded. Would love to listen to them. Why no one released them then. If they played many gigs and who were part of the live lineup. Who remembers them

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

Listen
Shy Camp – Call in Sick