Happy New Year! Happy 2019! I’m hoping this will be a better year for everyone and for indiepop too of course! Shipping prices are what hurts us the most these days. I dream of them being lowered in the future but I feel that might be just wishful thinking. They may just go up again and again. But that’s what I hope for. I think that would all of us involved in releasing, listening and collecting beautiful records.

As I mentioned in my previous post I was away on holidays. It was nice to disconnect for a while of course. There was no indiepop involved at all in this trip, it was just mostly relaxing in the Mexican Caribbean and visiting a couple of Mayan ruins.

Now I’m back since very early today and I haven’t had time to investigate and find new music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Youtube, etc. But for Friday I promise you that. For tomorrow I have an interview to post too, so it will be a 3-post week, not bad to start this year.

Also keep an eye on the blog and the label Facebook because we have a few releases in the pipeline set to be released in 2019! It is going to be great!

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Nick Garrard, an English writer, designer, band manager, etc, started Upright Records in the mid-80s. Among the bands he released there are a few that interest me: The Doctor’s Children, Yeah Jazz and the Weeping Messerchmitts among others. I surely should feature them three at some point on the blog. But I’ll start with the Weeping Messerchmitts today!

They only released one record mind you. A 12″ maxi single with three songs, “Nothing Yet” on the A side” and “Say Goodbye” and “Panthera Parvos” on the B side. It was on Uptight Records of course (UPT 17) and came out in the year we all like, 1986.

All songs are credited to Alexander, Jeavons, Oliver and Webb on the labels. Aside from that there is really not any other worthy piece of information on the record. True, I don’t own it yet, I should try to track a nice copy for myself in the next couple of weeks. But little by little my friends, step by step.

There is something strange about this release. You know, in 1994 it was reissued. But not in the UK but in Spain by the label Old Gold (OLD GOLD-015-MX). I wonder how much interest there was on this band in Spain at the time. What I do know is that this label used to reissue cool records by bands like The Mighty Lemon Drops or The Raw Herbs.

Now, this Spanish label was a sublabel of a bigger one called Contraseña Records. This bigger label had, in 1997, included “Nothing Yet” by the Weeping Messerchmitts in a CD compilation called “Lo Mejor de los Ochenta” (CON 101 CD). The best of the 80s. Not sure if it was really the best of the 80s what was included in here, but I definitely like this song.

So, what was a Messerchmitt? It looks like it was a German aircraft manufacturing company, thus a messerchmitt was an airplane and they did come in various modles, BF 109, KR200, Me 262. etc.

Through Discogs I end up on Youtube. There is a promo video for “Panthera Parvos“. It was filmed by Martin Webb on location at the British Federal Tipton and JBs in Dudley. The song was written about Donald Neilson the notorious Black Panther who prowled the streets of Tipton and the Black Country during his infamous period striking fear into and terror into that community. Something odd though. The first screen of the video says The Railway Children “Panthera Parvos”. What?!

On Youtube I find another song, one not on the 12″. It is called “Will They Ever Believe Me“. Then another called “Just To Hold You“. And lastly one called “Fashionable Smile” that it is said to be the last written by the Alexander Jeavons and Oliver Webb partnership. I believe these songs were uploaded by David Webb, the vocalist of the band. Where does these songs come from? A demo? A live recording? There are few other live videos on this Youtube account. There’s one for “Your Heart” from their last gig at JB’s in Dudley in 1987. And then there’s “Say Goodbye” also live at JB’s, and probably from that same gig.

So yes, the band members full names. So we’ve mentioned that Dave Webb was the vocalist and guitarist. Then we know that Gary Oliver played guitar, Mark Alexander bass, Mark Jeavons guitar and Gary Odea played drums. Oh! And the band hailed from Wolverhampton!

A cool find, even though I’ve never been a fan of Terry Malts, is that they covered “Nothing Yet“. You can check their version on Soundcloud.

I try to look for the band members, what they are up to these days. There is a Mark Jeavons in the Midlands that works as a script writer. Could that be the same one? Then I find a Mark Alexander that is a writer and has a poet friend called Gary Oliver. It sounds like they might be the ones from the band, right? If that was the case, our Mark Alexander wrote a book called “Meandering & Muses” that was published last year, 2017.

Sadly there is not much more information about them, nor the band. No gigs listed. No other bands they might have been involved with. Why? Their 12″ sounds great, influenced by The Smiths and The Wild Swans. Why not more love to them? Anyone remember them?

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Listen
Weeping Messerschmitts – Nothing Yet