Well, well, there are many new releases that I want to feature but let’s stick to the Indietracks announcements for now, figure out which are the bands one has to see for sure.  If it was me I would totally see Kero Kero Bonito, The Orielles, Tracyanne & Danny, The Spook School, The Catenary Wires, Holy Now, Seazoo, L I P S, Foundlings, Jetstream Pony and The BV’s. There are a bunch of bands that I don’t know of course and last week I reviewed 5 of them. I thought Jacqui and Geoff was fine. But let’s see who else is worth checking out. Here are another 5 that are totally new to me.

Common or Garden: the latest song by this London band is called “Big Conversations in Bad Hotels (Uh oh)” and dates from last month. Before that the band recorded the song “Bought” and a cover of David Byrne’s “Bullet”. Three songs. That’s all they have so far? Maybe.  In this case the synth-driven “Big Conversations…” song is really nice and poppy. “Bought” is not as great, but still I think this is the first unknown Indietracks band that I’m enjoying. Add it to the list.

Squiggles: this is Niall from The Spook School. So that means that this is probably a good band to check out. I can’t seem to find any recordings though.

Grawl!x: a local band, from Derby, very close to Indietracks grounds. Their latest is an EP called “Minutiae” that was released on January 1st this year. Sadly I don’t think this is the kind of music I enjoy. I don’t see any indiepop in it. Indie sure, but it lacks the pop part.

Solution Hours: a London duo formed by Charlotte on vocals and drums and Andrew on guitar. They released a tape called “Try Again” last year in May. This is not indiepop either, it is more of an emo, post-hardcore, sort of band. It is good for what it is, but if I was to cross the Atlantic for indiepop, you know I won’t be at their stage.

Owls of Now: thought it was cool that their EP was called “Episode Four”. That’s one of my favourite bands. This Glasgow band is quite a nice surprise I think. The four songs of their EP are pretty good! As far as I know the songs were released on tape last August. Now, why not on 7″? I think they are pretty promising. The band is formed by Caz, J. Bell, Kate & Vicky.  I would totally see them if I was to attend Indietracks!

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The 2002 compilation “These are the Songs We Always Wanted to Hear” (FST045) that Firestation Records released introduced me to a few bands. One of them was The Blue Chairs. I thought of course that their song “Ask Me Tomorrow”, which appears in the compilation, was the only song they ever released. I thought it was a shame. It was a wonderful song. Only today I found out that it was actually self-released on a CD with another song accompanying it.

I don’t know much about this CD release. I found a review on the web on a page called I-94 Bar. Just a few lines long. The website looks old. Early days of the web. But here it mentions that there was a CD with this wonderful song, “Ask Me Tomorrow”, and another one called “Show Me Your Love”. The reviewer likens both songs to The Go-Betweens and The Bats. And that is always a good thing, isn’t it?

It seems that The Blue Chairs was a one-man band. The person behind it was Jürgen Felder from Germany. The reviewer does mention that the CD is not easy to obtain, that you could only get it directly from Jürgen. I wonder if Jürgen still has copies. I’d love one.

Only now too I’m putting two and two together. I do own a release by The Blue Chairs. One dating from 2009. It was a mini-CD that was released by Vollwert Records in their Edition59 series (EDI018). It included three songs, “It’s Written”, “A New Day” and “Since I Know You”. I should play this again.

Looking for any information on it on the web I find the 2008 Twee.net poll. Here I find Jürgen’s votes. He voted for himself and his songs as the best of that year. Fair enough.

Last.fm has a biography, written by The Blue Chairs themselves. It adds a new character to the story, Erich Hartig. So it seems Jürgen and Erich started the band in the early 90s as The Chairs, recording in Jürgen’s bedroom. When they noticed some other band had the same name, they changed to The Blue Chairs. They knew each other since school and actually had started playing together in the early 80s!

By the time they started The Blue Chairs they had already recorded a few hundred of demos! And then the information I was looking for, the CD with the two songs was released in 2002 on Casino Records. Perhaps, their own label?

Then it mentions that they got together in 2008 to record their first album. At this time they weren’t living in the same city. Thanks to this line I conclude that it was a duo. Not a full-band, not a one-man band, but a duo. Jürgen and Erich.

And lastly, I find the bounty. A Soundcloud page with their latest recordings. There are two albums! It seems they were only released digitally, though I couldn’t tell. They’ve only been uploaded a month ago. The interesting thing is that both albums are dated 2010! Two albums in a single year?!

“Noizeflash” had thirteen songs, “I Don’t Wanna Be Like You”, “Keep the Fire Burning”, “You Know”, “Take Me”, “It’s Just a Lie”, “Too Late”, “In the Street”, “Luck”, “Turn Around”, “On Your Way Down”, “Escape to Silence”, “The Time I Spent” and “Hang’em High in Tupelo”.

The other album is called “Art Effects” and has 14 songs: “When I Meet You”, “If I Could Hold You”, “This Way has End”, “Another Day Goes By”, “Won’t Let Her Go”, “Thank You”, “No No No”, “Square Dance”, “Dream On”, “I Am the One”, “Everytime”, “You Keep Me Waiting”, “Eighteen Three” and “Polarbeat”.

Well, well, there’s a lot of new music then to listen! But it would be great to know about their 80s and 90s projects. About the other song on their limited CD on Casino, if there is a way to find a copy of it, and if they had been involved in other bands. That and many other questions. For example, where in Germany where they based?! Who knows?!

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Listen
The Blue Chairs – Ask Me Tomorrow