Two Popfests happened last weekend, Madrid and Cologne. Now that I think of it, it is not the best scheduling is it? Or maybe it doesn’t matter. But I’m just thinking, say I would travel to Europe from America. I could, if they were one week apart, be able to attend both Popfests? That could be a cool holiday. Or maybe for a European fan this could also work fine. I wonder… what are your thoughts about that?
Now, let’s see what I’ve found around the web:
She, Sir: the lovely Austin band is back with “Ways A Season”, a 6 song EP that follows their previous releases. That means beautiful dreamy pop. You can stream them all on Bandcamp, “Treasure”, “Torment Operator”, “Fear Pillar”, “What to Do and When to Do It (Endless Crime)”, “Ok Tono Omepo” and “A Ways to Remain” but you can also get a copy of it on vinyl. It is limited to 300 copies.
Anna Burch/Fred Thomas: there is a new 7″ split by these two janglers from Detroit. Fred Thomas contributes the song “Parkways” while Anna has “St. Adalbert” on the B side. There are 500 copies of this record and at the time of writing this post 9 were left. Maybe there are no more by now….
Marble Arch: the Géographie label from Paris are releasing the album “Children of the Slump” on vinyl and CD by this French project helmed by Yann La Razavet. I believe this is the second album by the band though the artist feels this is the first proper, that the previous one was a collection of demos.
Tugboat Captain: the two songs, “be Strong, Smoke Less” and “Oatmilk!”, by this London band reminded me of God Help the Girl. And that is a good thing of course. I don’t think this latest release is available in physical format though they do have a bunch of merch up for sale.
Wild Firth: “Lawn Memory” is my introduction to this Minneapolis band formed by Will, Fez, Ian and Stacey. The album will be released on April 26th on tape and will include 14 songs. Two of them, “Eyes” and “Girls” are available to preview on Bandcamp and they are pretty nice!
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Not sure why I’ve never heard this story before. The most famous band to do it was The Go-Betweens. But it seems they were not the only ones. Tiny Town also moved from Brisbane to London and released some records.
It is clear to everyone that their music didn’t become that popular or reached cult status. I’ve listened a few songs and they sound great. At least, I think, they deserve a bit more recognition. I know very little about them and sadly I don’t own any of their records (yet). So can’t say much aside from look for their music, it is brilliant.
They weren’t called Tiny Town before moving to London at the end of 1982. They were called Antic Frantic. Antic Frantic released a tape in 1982 in Brisbane. Self-released one and called “Pomes Poneyeach”. I haven’t heard any songs, I wonder if they sounded similar to Tiny Town.
So that same year, Peter Loveday (vocals/guitar), Leigh Bradshaw (vocals/keys) and Geoffrey Titley (drums) packed their bags and moved to London. There they would release a string of singles and an album.
Their first release happened to be a single sided flexi disc with two songs, “Back to the Bow” and “Big Fish”. It was released in 1983 and it has no label listed on Discogs. The flexi, where the label should be, has a cool drawing of a fish, a big fish I suppose?
I’m guessing they put together their own label to self-release themselves. It was called Elastic. All of their releases would be put out under this label. The first one though didn’t have a catalog number. It was a tape that was released in 1983 and was named “Tinytown”. The songs on it were “Back to the Bow”, “And I”, “Lacklustre” and “Big Fish”.
The next year the band was to release their first 7″. Released on Elastic (EM 001) the single had the brilliant “Drop by Drop” on the A side and “Know Better” on the B side.
And then another 7″ in 1984. Again it was released by Elastic (EM 002) and had two songs “Living out of Living” on the A side and “Queue Up” on the B side. Colin Bioxsom produced this record. The songs are credited to Peter Loveday and the band.
Afterwards they put out their album “Little Tin God” on Elastic (EM 004). This record had 9 songs. On the A side we find “Inside Fire”, “Anchor Heart”, “Train Lines” and “So Soon”. The B side has “In a Little While”, “Washing Machine”, “Waiting in the Wings”, “Watershed” and “Candy Hymn”. For this record the band had Cameron Allan (founder of the Australian label Regular Records) playing bass and Caroline Bush playing violin and vocals.
Then in 1985 the band released “No Place Like Rome”, a 12″ on another label: Very Mouth (EAT 8). This label released other records too, not just Tiny Town. For example they put out bands like the Stitched-Back Foot Airman or Greeting No. 4.
The four songs that came in this 12″ were recorded at Alvic Studios in West Kensington, London. They were “Found a Cause” and “Six Hundred Candless” on the A side and “Where do they Moor” and “Better Off” on the B side. On this record Allan Rielly played bass and the songs were engineered and mixed by Richard Preston. The photography is credited to Di Van Den Broek.
Peter Loveday has a Wikipedia page where it mentions that he was born in Toowoomba and was also involved in bands like The Supports, The See Bees, Birds of Tin and Mute 44. It looks as if he now resides in Barcelona, Spain, according to his own website where he has released many solo records.
About Geoffrey Titley we know he was involved in The Supports and also on The Reason Why that was the band formed with Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens and fellow Supports Robert Wheeler. There is a story, which you can read on the Go-Betweens biography written by David Nichols, where it mentions about the tour The Go-Betweens did with The Supports were Leigh Bradshaw, then in the Supports, slapped Grant repeatedly!
Not much more information about the band on the web. Which is quite a shame. I see mentions always saying that the band had a “Brisbane sound”, like the Go-Betweens and The Apartments. For some reason they seem much more obscure than these two bands. I would love to know more about them. I have so many questions. I wonder if my Australian and English readers remember them?
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Listen
Tiny Town – Inside Fire
