Not much going on today. Quite tired as I have to wake up early to get a new State ID. No fun. Anyhow, I hope to bring some good news later this week. In the meantime here are a few finds from over the weekend!

L I P S: this superb Falmouth, Cornwall, band has find a good home at Sunday Records. With them they are releasing a self-titled EP with four songs. You can preview the opening track, “Apartment”, on the label’s Bandcamp and I feel that should be enough for anyone to like this band!

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: Glenn Donaldson’s band is already a favourite band on the blog, every single demo he releases gets featured here. It must be good, right? Well he has two new ones, “I’m Worried about the New Wave” and a cover of 999, “Boys in the Gang”. These are demos, but they sound great to me.

Lo Siento: I remember featuring this band some time ago as they were great. This girl group from St John’s in Canada sing in Spanish and are great fun. They have just released their debut album “Brujas” on Bandcamp and it is a great ride of poppy tunes. Hope I see them live someday!

The Claim: I knew the legendary The Claim were back playing some gigs and re-releasing their classic album “Boomy Tella”. But are they releasing a new record with brand new songs? It looks like that! The Rochester band will be putting out “The New Industrial Ballads” on May 24th! Fourteen tracks!! One of them you can preview now and I must say it is superb and timeless, “Journey”!

The Room Upstairs: two new songs, “The Reckoning” and “Nothing’s Beautiful” by this UK based band that is inspired by 60s and 70s sounds. Sounds lovely for a rainy Sunday afternoon… staying indoors. Cozy.

—————————————————————–

Returning to Norwich, to find out more about another Farmers Boys related band. Why not? If the songs are great, I always want to know more.

I heard the 1986 song “Lies Behind a Smile” on Youtube some time ago. It sounds great, jangly, a proper c86 song in my book. On that Youtube I notice that one of The Nivens was the engineer of the song. He reminisces that he was a few years into his engineering career then when he recorded the song and that those sessions were very special which in turn resulted in many gigs with both The Nivens and The Avons, even switching personnel!

So we know Baz and Mark from the Farmers Boys were involved in The Avons. What else do we know?

Discogs lists two releases by the band. An album and a 12″ EP. Let’s look at them, let’s start by the latter.

The “Four Songs” 12″ was released by Létharge Records (Arge 11) in 1986. The four songs on it were “Seeing Things” and “You Don’t Know Do You” on the A side while the B side had “Trapped” and “What I Want”. They were recorded at Raven Recording Studios, a studio run by Howard Turner, who produced the record, in Horstead, Norwich. The photos on the artwork are credited to Michael McCracken. The record also lists the band members, Mark Kingston on bass, Ed Street on drums, Hal Jordan on guitar and vocals and Barry McGuilty on lead vocals.

On the sleeve I notice that at the time the EP was released the album was already available. Another interesting thing is that the band was managed by John Létharge. He must be the owner of the label if he has the same name, right? We also find out that Barry sings in “Seeing Things” and “What I Want”, songs he co-wrote with Hal Jordan while Hal sings the other two which as it happens were written by himself.

The album “Music from Three Rivers Reach”, also released in 1986 by Létharge (Leth LP 1), had 7 songs total. A mini-album. The A side had “Facial”, “Everythings Going Right” and “Beautiful World, Beautiful People”. The B side had “Is Billy There”, “The Big Maybe”, “Lies Behind the Smile” and “In My Time”. On this record I notice that now the band members were more involved with the songs, for example “Lies Behind the Smile” was written by Mark Kingston and he also sings it.

The record was once again produced by the band and Howard Turner. Mark Kingston did the artwork for the jacket with photography by Michael McCracken.

The Avons contribute a song to the “Weh Aye Cocker No. 3″ released by Weh Aye Cocker (COCK 3) compilation 7”. The song being “Is Billy There?”. On this compilation they appear alongside Cary Grant’s Wedding, The Elephants and The Kaiser’s Advisers.

Much later, in 2014, their song “Everything’s Going Right” in the Cherry Red “C86″ box set.

About other bands the members had been involved, we know that Baz McGuilty was in The Farmer’s Boys of course and also in in The Great Outdoors, Uncle Romeo, Uncle Rodeo, Dissolute Youth, Heigham Sounds, The Ordinaires, Dr. Fondle, The Avons, The Farmers Boys, The Nivens and Blues Machine. Ed had been in Polish Corridor, The Teddybears, Falling Men, The Stumps, 16 Yellow Roses, Dissolute Youth and Job Lot of Parasols. Mark had been in The Farmer’s Boys, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Romeo, Uncle Rodeo, Dissolute Youth, The Ordinaires, Heigham Sounds, Dr Fondle, The Nivens, Ronnie Can You Hear Me, Blues Machine.

Music from the Eastzone, the East Anglian Music Archive, lists another 7” called “Dirty And” but from what it seems, it also has the same catalog as the Four Songs 12″. Maybe it was a 7″ version of that record? Anyone would know about it?

There’s not much information on the web about The Avons. Would be great to find out more about them, as I’ve tried with the previous Norwich bands I’ve featured. In the meantime I’ll try to get a copy of both of the records, as I really enjoy what I’ve heard so far! Who remembers them?

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

Listen
The Avons – Lies Behind the Smile