This is a short week for the blog as there will be posts today and Wednesday. Then on Thursday I am going on holidays to Spain. I will be back on Tuesday the 16th, so Wednesday the 17th will be the day posts will resume.

This also means, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I can bring records to Spain if anyone is interested. Just let me know.

And secondly orders for Den Baron have already started shipping. The release date is June 30 as the insert in the 7″ has it, but as it is a Sunday we have agreed to “officially” say it is July 1st. Though it is a June release for sure.

Anyways, here are some new tracks from over the weekend.

Blush Response/Warm: there is this new digital split by the Adelaide, Australia, band Blush Response and the New Paltz, NY, band Warm on Bandcamp. This is catered to the shoegazing fans here. There are two songs by each band, Blush Response contributes “Weightless” and “Sweet Respite” (this one being the best of the split) and Warm has “Moonweed” and “OUTLAW69”.

LIPS: the Falmouth, UK, band is back with a summer song just in time to get prepared for their debut at Indietracks. How exciting! The song is aptly titled “In Summer” and it is pure indiepop bliss.

Miedo: the band from Madrid has just published a promo video for their song “Pánico Por Nada”. The video is very DIY, maybe even done by the band. Where was it filmed? Somewhere close to the Spanish capital? What I like the best is the song itself, it is just a sweet little song. Maybe I can find some record of theirs while I am Spain?

Marcos y Molduras: this is my first time listening to this Spanish band who has put together a promo video for their song “La de Parks” which sounds great! I wonder if the song is about the TV series “Parks and Recreation”? Could it be? In any case I hope this gets released in physical format. And when are they playing live? You know I’ll be in Madrid on the 13th, could be cool to catch a band that day.

The Buildings: here is a tape album called “Cell-O-Phane” from this band from the Philippines, I believe. I think this is a reissue, but I could be wrong. The album is being released by a Singapore record label called Middle Class Cigars who in the past released the very fine band Sobs. There are 12 songs that sound very nice, with female vocals, that remind me a lot of the bands Shelflife used to release back in the day. Cool!

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Here’s another record I’m after, Shame’s “Real Tears” 7″. I have to say -once again- that I know barely anything about it. I know I love the song “Real Tears” and should be enough for anyone, but I want to know more. I wonder if I’ll be able to find any interesting details. Googling for “shame” won’t be easy.

The 7″ was released in 1985 by the Welsh indie label Fierce Recordings, well known for putting out the Pooh Sticks. This label was based in Swansea and started releasing records that same year, 1985. That is interesting. Aside from a Charles Manson album and a couple of unofficial 7″s by The Jesus and Mary Chain, the only other band released that year was Shame, which was the third release on the label (FRIGHT 003), even though on the matrix it is etched “004”. Maybe it was a mistake at the pressing plant.

The songs were “Real Tears” as the A side and “40 Hanover Street” as the A2 side. Yes, it was single-sided. Discogs mentions that the record came with a small sample of “Dylan Sweat”. What does that mean? I believe it was a postcard but hopefully someone can confirm.

The back sleeve says that the songs were recorded on September 11th 1985 at The Bunker. The songs were produced and engineered by Michael Powles. We know that the band was formed by Patricia “Trish” Griffiths on bass and vocals, Andrew “Griff” Griffiths on drums and Stephen “Haggis” Harris on guitar and vocals. A temporary recruit called Dano played extra piano on the re-recorded “Real Tears”.

I say re-recorded because the band had recorded 3 songs in a Cardiff studio. One of them was “Real Tears”. This must have been sort of a demo to send to labels, I’m assuming. “40 Hanover Street” was recorded in this session. The re-recorded version of “Real Tears” was actually recorded in Swansea. Now it is pretty obvious they were from Wales. Where in Wales? That I couldn’t say. I thought perhaps “40 Hanover Street” was a clue, but I could only find that address in Liverpool. But no, I find out they hailed from Swansea.

After the release of the 7″ Stephen would leave the band to join Zodiac & Mindwarp. But then in 1987 the band would reappear with Andrew and Patricia (were they siblings?). Joining them would be Steve Mitchell from Fierce Recordings and also the Pooh Sticks and Paul Leigh. Not sure if this lineup recorded anything.

But that’s not all as it turns out the band appears on the compilation “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 8” that Firestation Records (FST155) released last year, 2018. They contributed the song “Real Tears”. But the good thing here is that there is a small bio on the booklet! Great I’ll find out some more info about them?

Swansea, Wales: Haggis (vocals/guitar) and Griff (drums) had fought the punk wars together as 13-year olds in local sensation The Autonomes, and both continued to be central to anything and everything happening on the post-punk scene. In 1985, with the addition of Trish (bass/vocals), they formed Shame. Immediately, the trio recorded three songs in Cardiff, though from that session only the instrumental “40 Hanover Street” survived to make it onto the single released later that year. The song intended as the A-side, “Real Tears”, subsequently re-recorded for the single in a basement studio in Swansea (with extra piano played by temporary recruit Dano), was a product of Haggis’ obsession with the movie “Christane F”: in his head, the song was a doomed version of heroin inBerlin, but the reality was surely more out of-control Gee’s Linctus in the doledrum that was Swansea’s bleak Portmead estate. The third song recorded by the group, “Emily Jayne’, is presumed lost. Shame effectively split by the end of the year when Haggis left Swansea for the an international A-list life in the rock’n’roll fast lane (look him up!); Griff and Trish played in a revised no-Haggis version of Shame which existed briefly in 1987. Since then, Trish has sadly died, but Griff continues to wear a tall, purple, mirrored pilgrim hat around town: if you see him ask him about those months when Prefab Sprout’s “Steve McQueen” and a blue powder-blu Hofner Verithin promised to be the key to everything.

And that’s all. I wonder if they had more recordings? I would also love to hear the third song, “Emily Jayne”, that was on that cassette demo. Who remembers them?

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Listen
Shame – Rea Tears