I feel next week I’ll be able to share some news on future releases. It is taking a long time to be able to get these releases together, but they are coming soon.

As you know I’m also working on an Australian compilation and it is not as easy as I thought it’d be. I have contacted many bands and they seem interested, but it is taking time to get all the assets together. I just need to be patient I suppose. I hope this first volume gets released this year.

Anyhow, finds. New finds. Here they are:

Battery Point: one of the best bands these days have a new song on their Bandcamp titled “Desire”. The Chula Vista, California, band formed by Erick, Sergio, Jessica, Ray, Peter, Alex and Oscar, continue creating haunting indiepop. I hope to see a record released on physical format someday!

Lavender Blush: is a San Francisco bedroom noisepop band who have a tape called “Beauty is What Beauty Does To You” scheduled to be released on April 15th though it seems it will be sold out pretty soon through pre-orders. These are tapes that are handmade by the band. It seems later on a label called Sensitive wil re-release it. There are 6 songs on this tape and just one, “Fire”, is available to stream.

Leathers: Shannon Hemett is behind this interesting post-punk poppy sounding band from Vancouver, Canada. My introduction to her music is through her latest song “Phantom Heart” which sounds great! Dark but luminous at the same time. I look forward to more songs by her for sure.

Astragal: another favourite band is this Houston ensemble. I really would like to see a record of theirs. Do they have one? I wouldn’t mind a 7″. “Moderne Luxury” is their latest effort, a galloping single of guitars that sound great. Maybe the vocals are a bit low in the mix to me, but who cares, it  is a pretty strong track!

Cápsula del tiempo: is the name of the compilation the Spanish label Jabalina Records will release as a celebration of their 25th anniversary! This amazing compilation that includes great bands like Iluminados, Ama, Apenino, Portonovo or Dar Ful Ful among others will be released this March 15 on vinyl LP. Essential!

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There’s been more than a few good releases on Native Records. Some of them are quite obscure for some reason. Others aren’t, like The Darling Buds for example. But let’s say The Kennedy Pill, not much is known about them, right? But we can have a look of course in the depths of the web, see if there’s any worthy information.

Native Records was a small British indie label that was based in Sheffield. It was founded by Kevin Donoghue in 1985 after leaving RCA. They released all sorts of music, all sorts of genres. Happily there were some fine indiepop moments like Treebound Story or Raintree County. And The Kennedy Pill of course, who released a 12″ in 1990.

The “Beside the Sea” 12 (12NTV 57) included three songs. The A side had “Beside the Sea” and “All the Way Down” while the B side had “More than You Ever Know”. Aside from that Discogs only gives us two compilation appearances in 1991. Little really.

The band appeared then on the “Guitars and Drums” comp that was released on CD and vinyl on Native Records (NATVCD 55 / NATVLP 55). The band contributed their B side “More Than You’ll Ever Know”.

The other comp was “Knowing Where it all Leeds” that was released on CD and vinyl (BLAG) by Stolen Sounds. The band contributed the baggy song “Fizz Pop”. It looks like this compilation only featured bands from Leeds, as we see The Wedding Present, Pale Saints, Greenhouse, Bridewell Taxis and more. Safe to assume that The Kennedy Pill hailed from that city then? The

Wikipedia confirms this on an article about the band The Flying Hendersons. Here it mentions taht Steve Whitfield, their bassist, and Julian Coultas, guitar, went to join The Kennedy Pill in 1989.

Looking through the archive of the blog Madchester Rave On there is a post about The Kennedy Pill. In it it is mentioned that the band used to have a Myspace page and on it they had 5 unreleased tracks that I hope to listen one day. They were “Wednesday”, “Sian”, “Please Don’t Go”, “Timothy Leary” and “Me Me You”.

Thanks to this blog, as I dig deeper through their archives, I see a comment by a fellow Flying Hendersons called Rob. He mentions that the final lineup of the band was Pete, Jules, Mike, Aggi and Phil and that they started as a four piece called Wickerman.

Looking through the web I find out that THe Kennedy Pill supported the great band Bob on January 23rd of 1991 at The Duchess in Leeds. On November 5th 1988 and January 24th 1989 they played at the University of Leeds according to this superb PDF that I found.

Then a great find, a Twitter account. An account that mentions that the band supported The Stone Roses. A Pete Gibson appears many times. It must be the Pete that was mentioned in the blog comment. Going through the few tweets I noticed that the band had made red t-shirts with the band logo back in the day.

Not much more. Don’t know if the members went to play in other bands. How did Wickerman sound like? What about those unreleased tracks? Is there a chance for me to listen to them? Why just the one release? Who else did they support? Would be great to find out more about them! Anyone remembers them?

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Listen
The Kennedy Pill – Beside the Sea