First offering of the my new blog challenge today. Covering all letters of the alphabet. Today we’ll start with the letter A and then for the next 25 posts I’ll feature the rest of the letters, in order.

But let’s start with some nice finds for the weekend.

The Hannah Barberas: I like this band a lot. I’ve featured them quite a few times. Today many of the songs I’ve recommended are finally available in physical format, on a CD release by the Subjangle label. The compilation album is called “The Hannah Barberas Get Physical”, an aptly name for it. There are 11 songs in it and will be available on May 3rd.

Space Daze: Danny Rowland used to be in that wonderful band that Seapony was. These days he has a bedroom pop project called Space Daze which I have featured in the past too. The good news this time is that he released a tape album of 9 songs on the Seattle based label Lost Sound Tapes last February titled “Too Mystical”. All songs are available to stream on Bandcamp.

Flying Fish Cove: another release to keep an eye on Lost Sound Tapes is the tape album by this Seattle band whose music is inspired by Heavenly and The Pastels. Three of the songs are available to stream on Bandcamp, “Johnny Paper”, “Sleight of Hand” and “Blow a Candle” and I must say they sound superb!

The Memory Fades: Stephen Maughan from Kosmonaut, Denver and Bulldozer Crash has asked many friends to contribute in  this new project that has a new CDEP titled “She Loves the Birds” that has just been released by Sunday Records. On these four songs he has the help of Marc Elston from Bulldozer Crash, Chris Morgan from the Deddingtons, Graeme Elston of Love Parade and Jyoti Mishra from White Town!

Almost Charlotte & Bluff: many years ago I interviewed the fab Almost Charlotte. At that time I got a CDR copy of all of the recordings by the band. Now all of these songs are available to stream on Bandcamp including the band that came after Almost Charlotte, Bluff. A terrific retrospective compilation album that includes 15 songs recorded in Brighton between 1988 and 1992.

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So, repeating myself now. Just like last year I challenged to cover bands from as many countries possible, now I want to try going through all the letters of the alphabet. It sounds like an easier task, but bear in mind that I’m not repeating any bands that I have featured in the past. So maybe some letters will prove harder than others! We’ll see. So today for A I want to find out more information about The Almanacs, a band that left us one 7″ single, a split tape and many compilation appearances through the 90s. Oh! And a video for their song “Living on Another World” too.

The band hailed from Derby and they paid homage to their hometown by appearing on “The Derby Tape” a 1992 split cassette with the band Iris that came along the Greek fanzine “The World of Suzie Wong”. How did this connection with Greece happen? That’s a good question. Why release in Greece and not in the UK first? I am guessing here that the band had demo tapes already and that these songs on “The Derby Tape” are actually songs from these demos. Which songs were they? Well, the A side was for The Almanacs, on it they included “Peeg Sex”, “No Difference”, “I Might Miss It”, “I Sure Do” and “Got to Wait”.

That same year they appeared on three compilation tapes. The first is the classic and legendary “C92” that was put out by Rainbow. They had the song “Yours Hopefully” in it. Then that same song was included in the Elefant Records tape “Around the World Again” (ER-020). Lastly on Anorak Records’ “Teeny Poppers” (SHOUBIDOUWA 01) tape they had the song “No Difference”. This last release would be important as they were to release their one and only 7″ later on Anorak.

1993 was a pretty busy year for the band it seems. Four songs, “I Like the Water”, “Morbid Interest”, “I’d Think I Was Dreaming” and “A Job Worth Doing”, were included in the LP + 7″ “From the Derwent to the Garonne, a Derbian Compilation” (Alien ζ), that Aliénor Records from France put out that year where they appear alongside other Derby bands like Antiseptic Beauty, White Town and Iris.

Their song “Taken Too Long” appears that same year on the tape “Astral Plane” that was released by Glidge Records (Glidge 002) in the UK. That same song was to appear on “Polythene Star” yet another UK tape this time released by Flaming Katy (fk001). On “Green Oranges” (BLISS 001) released by Bliss Aquamarine they had two songs “I Might Miss It” and “Got to Wait”. Lastly, for 1993, on the German compilation “Frischer Morgentau” (Stein 1) released by Steinpilz Tonträger (a compilation I’ve mentioned many times on the blog), they had the song “Sunburnt Skin”.

1994 would see the release of their 7″, the “Another World EP”. It was the first vinyl release of the French label Anorak Records (ANORAK 001) which I have interviewed in the past. Four songs were included, “Living on Another World” and “Taken Too Long” on the A side and “I Might Miss It” and “I Sure Do!” on the B side. Rob Fleay played bass, vocals and guitar, Ian Turner guitar and vocals and Paul Stewart wrote the songs, sang and played guitar. All four songs were recorded by Jyoti Mishra of White Town.

That same year, 1994, they had the song “Louise” on a compilation called “Quality Sweet” released by the French “Pâte A Modeler”. Later on, in 1995, their song “I Sure Do”, appears on the tape “Death of an Anorak” released by Doest This Work (DTW 02).

Discogs lists 4 more compilations but doesn’t have the release date which is of course inconvenient. One of these was actually on Anorak. The tape compilation called “Anorak Demos” had 5 songs by them, “I Might Miss it”, “Taken Too Long”, “I Can Live With That”, “I Sure Do!” and “Confession Time”.

Then the tape “A Taste of Tea” released by Tea Tapes & Records (TEA08) has their song “Makes No Difference”. “When Things Get Wet” appears on the superb Rutland Records tape “Shiver Me Timbers Two” (RUTT32), and on “Deep in Space” released by Meg Records (MEG 002) they had the songs “I Sure Do”, “When Things Get too Much” and “Confession Time”.

So quite a lot. Let’s count how many songs they had then? I do know at least another song, one called “To the Garonne” that Sumire put on a tape compilation called “Germs of Youth (Mix by Sumire)” that was released under her own Violet and Claire (V&C-010) label in Japan in 2012. Including that one it would be, 16 songs! So, why no album? Why no retrospective compilation? Well, I’ve only heard the songs on the 7″… the rest of their songs must be as good, right?

On Discogs I look at the band members and notice that Rob Fleay has been involved with many bands, White Town, Airport Girl, The Blue Smarties, The Chemistry Experiment, Plans & Apologies, Johny Domino and more. Now, Paul Stewart, it is the same Paul Stewart as in Blueboy, Feverfew, Arabesque, Beaumont? Is that right?

Ed from Shelflife dedicated a post to them when he was running his blog. On it he mentions that the band started as a duo with Ian and Paul and calling themselves The Hairgods. Are there recordings by them? Then he says,T he Almanacs called it quits in the mid-90s as members left to go to different universities. Other projects emerged in the late 90s (mainly from Ian and Rob) such as Motorcade, Evil Jukebox, SBD Project, Frankie Machine (brilliant!), and Everyone. Ian Turner is now doing some solo stuff and film soundtracks (as of 2007).

There is another song I found on Youtube called “I’m Not Violent“. It seems it was taken from a Myspace account the band used to have.

Well, and that’s all I could find online. Quite a bit of info, right? I mostly want to listen to all of the songs that weren’t on the 7”. I’m curious. Who remembers then?

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Listen
The Almanacs – Living on Another World