Remember Mexican friends, next Saturday I’ll be in Mexico City and I can bring some records. I’ll be attending an event where our friends of Okama Flannel Boy will be playing. It is at Terminal Juárez and it is supposed to start 8pm. If you want to bring any records let me know and I’ll happily do so for you to save on postage.

The Royal Landscaping Society: Matinée Recordings has a lot of news in their Soundcloud and I will start with the band I am most excited about, The RLS from Seville, Spain! They have a song available to stream called “Goodbye” which is a gem. A piece of perfection. This song is taken from a 2-track single where “A To Fade In” would be its B side.

Azure Blue: then the Santa Barbara label is releasing an 11-track album by the Swedish band led by Tobias Isaksson called “Images of You”. We can preview two tracks from the album, “Millions of Stars” and “Shine On” and both are gorgeous dreamy pop. Definitely one not to miss!

The Perfect English Weather: Then there is a new 4 song EP by the band that sprung out of C86 legends The Popguns. I believe it is only available digitally, so you know I don’t buy these sort of releases, but I can enjoy the free two tracks that are available to stream on Soundcloud, “Call Me When the Rain Comes” and “She Isn’t Counting on a Miracle”. The other two songs included in this digital EP are “How Could I Ever?” and “Carry Me”. Come on, release it as a CDEP!

Bubblegum Lemonade: a few months ago I was talking about a digital EP by the Glasgow band called “Our Mother’s House”. Now the band has announced an album called “Desperately Seeking Sunshine” (is it a nod to The Haywains’ “Desperately Seeking Something”?) that will include 11 tracks! The album is out now on CD and as you know, when it comes to songs made by the master Laz McCluskey, we have lots of hooks and top melodies!

Coming Up Roses: this Singapore shoegaze band has become a favourite of the blog so even if it is just the one new song they have, I have the need to recommend it! This time though there are 5 tracks! Yes, there is a new EP called “Waters” which sounds terrific. The only bummer is that it is only available digitally… hoping someone puts it out on vinyl or CD!

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Now it is the turn for the letter T. We are getting closer to complete this challenge. Today I wanted to bring back to a song and a band that I was thrilled to discover through the compilation The Sound of Leamington Spa vol. 3: Thin Gypsy Thieves’ “Perfection”.

That was indeed my introduction to the band. On a 2003 compilation released by Firestation Records (FST050),  eleven years after the band had released their one and only record, the “Perfection EP”.

On that Firestation compilation, as it is usual, a bio was included in the booklet. This is by far the most complete piece of information I’ve ever found about them:

Thin Gipsy Thieves have had 4 different incarnations, the only thing to remain was me Nick Hubbard and Leo Carlile. We were the song writing and creative engine in all 4 line-ups. The 1st incarnation was in the early 80s we were a 4 piece outfit, gigged, never recorded anything unfortunately. The 2nd line-up was down to a 3 piece combo we made a home demo tape gigged around again but not much else. The 3rd creation had us back up to a 4 member state and finally we got to make a half decent demo tape, in fact I think 2 of our best songs “Lost Souls” and “Satisfy My Energy” were featured on it.
The 4th and final was now 5 geezers trying to live the dream. This was arguably our most successful period thanks largely to Richard Murrill [god bless him] as he put up the money for the Perfection 12″. I suppose this record led to our biggest acclaim to fame in as much as it got played on prime time BBC Radio 1. “Steve Wright in the afternoon” had a slot on his show  when he would play unsigned bands and choose to play Perfection which was a bit of a buzz for us. Even better was the fact that they then talked about the song and seemed to like it [I wasn’t too happy to have my vocal compared to Billy Bragg though]. Anyway this piece of exposure still did not get the major record companies kicking our door down to sign us up [obviously didn’t know where we lived] and eventually Thin Gypsy Thieves came to a natural end.
But that might not be the end of the story as me and Leo are still creating musically, and who knows the phoenix might still have time to rise from the ashes of pop obscurity, to once more be launched into the musical stratosphere.

Interesting. What do we know then of their one and only release? It came out in 1992 on the Yellow Moon Records label (YME 3003). I guess this label was created by Richard Murrill just for releasing this one record.  That if I understood the bio correctly. Or maybe he just paid for the recordings?

The 12″ included 4 songs, 2 on each side. The A side had “Perfection” and “Maps” while the B side had “Every Movement” and “Garden of Eden”. I can’t say when were they recorded or where. Though I do know the band hailed from Folkestone in Kent.

Folkestone is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.

On these recordings we know that Nick Hubbard was on vocals and lead guitar, Leo Carlile on bass, Tim Denman on drums and vocals, Richard Calille on keyboards and vocals and Nicky Sievers on rhythm guitar.

The record doesn’t have much more information but it does come with a strange insert where they tell a very strange “story” of how the band started and became what it was then with some strange illustrations.

On Discogs the only band member to be listed on another record is Tim Denman who did backing vocals on the Jim Leverton & Geoffrey Richardson album “Poor Man’s Rich Man”.

Sadly I can’t seem to find any of the music Nick Hubbard and Leo Carlile were working on afterwards. Nor any mentions to the older incarnations of Thin Gypsy Thieves. I would love to hear those demos. There is nothing about the band on the web. But I really love the 12″, so I would really would like to find out any information in regards to them!

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Listen
Thin Gypsy Thieves – Perfection