Day 29. How is this working out for everyone? The only good news is that I have the fanzine and next week I’ll start mailing them to all of you who have supported this new release! It is very exciting!

For this weekend I will share some new music of course. That’s what we have to do to keep us entertained!

City Rockdown EP: Week III: the third installment of these EPs that Kolibri Rekords from Jakarta is putting together during the pandemic is another top release. The four songs this time are Circarama’s “No Tomorrow”, Low Pink’s “Alien”, Jogn’s “Social Club” and Liminal’s “Muted Chaos”.

Blessed Isles: Nolan Thies from Brookly and Aaron Closson from Dallas contribute together to make some very pretty music. Their first ever song, at least on Bandcamp, is called “Gone” and sounds amazing. It is catchy, dreamy, and heartfelt. This song should be part of their “The Havoc” EP that will be released this spring.

Control Room: first time I feature a band from the state of Mississippi. Pretty sure of that. This post-punk/shoegaze combo hails from the city of Hattiesburg and their latest release is a CD album called “Scenery” that will be released on April 30th. You can preview 3 of the tracks on Bandcamp now, “I Woke Up and Everything Was Moving”, “Crushed” and “Back to Zero”

The Hidden Shelf: the Philadelphia band is back with a low-key, lo-fi, mini-album called “RE:”. It is bedroom pop at its finest. There are 7 songs on this lovely effort, were my favourite song might be “So Much Better”

Rilev: and lastly a new track from this Mexico City project. The new song is called “Mar” and it is a good, very good, shoegaze song. The lyrics are simple but work in the wall of sound made by Manuel Grados, the person behind this one-man project!

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It’s kind of funny to write about Company of Cowards when I am trying to cover “Saturday” on my challenge. You see the retrospective compilation they released back in 2007 on Firestation Records was called “A Mouthful of Tuesdays” (FST 074). So yeah, I guess Tuesday would have made more sense. But then they didn’t record any songs with Tuesday in their name. But they did write a song called “Saturday Night”. So it is all fair, right?

Interestingly enough this retrospective has very little info about them. There is no proper booklet. But I have to give credit to the Firestation guys that they did include a bio in the compilation “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 6” (FST 075). It was actually through this compilation that I discovered them as they had contributed the song “Summer Story” in it. So yeah what does it say?

The beginning of the end for Company of Cowards arrived when singer Nick Ager announced to a packed Astoria in London’s Charing Cross Road that the next song would be the Cowards’ last of the evening. The unanimous cheer that greeted this news was the first cheer of the evening and was very loud.
The Cowards were the opening act for a Blues Brothers tribute act and it was obvious that the porkpie hatted, sunglassed wearing audience had not been seduced by the Cowards’ gentle musings. After a desultory final song, the Cowards trudged off the stage with their oxblood Dr. Marten shoes feeling heavier than ever. After the gig, the band’s dynamic young management duo were noticeably distant… eye contact was being avoided and backs remained unslapped. This had been a chance for the Cowards to impress on a large stage and to win over a big crowd with their witty couplets and fetching facial hair. The chance was blown, the Cowards never really regained their composure and the management’s post-gig shiftiness soon turned into full scale phone call avoidance. Up to that defining moment, things had gone pretty well for the Cowards.
They formed in 1987 without  too much difficulty – a marriage of convenience between the songwriting duo of Nick Ager (vocals and guitar) and Ian Montague (guitar), and a between-bands rhythm section of Glen Street (bass) and Lisa Newsome (drums). Gigs were aplenty at polythecnic Student Union bar within driving distance from London, an agent and management team were secured, A&R men started appearing at gigs, their “18 Again” EP was receiving airplay, favourable reviews in the music press appeared, their demos were being produced by name-record producers… surely stardom was just a formality, Then the Astoria ‘incident’ happened. Shortly after, the Cowards were playing at the Bull and Gate in London’s glittering Kentish Town. The gig promoter was a large man with a shoulder bag full of cheese filled bread rolls that he steadily worked his way through the course of the evening. Whenever he saw a loitering Coward, he sidled up to them – surprisingly nimbly for a man of his size – and whispered ‘Company of Cowards… great band’. What he meant, it was clear, was ‘Company of Cowards’ are vile and are only playing in my venue because I owe someone a favour. It was another disheartening piece of unpleasantness, this time flecked with stray particles of Red Leicested cheese.
Company of Cowards played their final gig at a little known college in Acton in late 1988., As a farewell it had moments of poignancy although the quiet passages were rendered inaudible by the college rugby team who were having a pre-match bonding session at the bar. Company of Cowards left only their “18 Again” EP for posterity.

That EP, was self-released by the band in 1987. It had four songs. “18 Again” and “Party Talk” on the A side and “What About Me?” and “Thoughts to Flowing Ink” on the B side. The front cover has a photo of a record collection. The back cover has a photo of each one of the members and some details about the record. We know that they had Jeff Easton playing banjo, Downs Thompson on violin and Laurence Diana on keyabords. Laurence Diana would also produce the record. The songs had been recorded at Raven Studios in London.

After that release I find on Discogs a demo tape from 1989 that came with two songs, “Waste of a Skin” and “Stay Where You Are”. There must have been more demo tapes like this. These two songs were produced by Bernie Clark at Ezee Studios in London. I say that because the compilation they would release later on, “A Mouthful of Tuesdays”, had 15 songs!

These 15 songs were “18 Again”, “Party Talk”, “Waste of a Skin”, “Summer Story”, “Crushing Wit”, “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (acoustic version)”, “What About Me?”, “Undeniably Blue”, “Mouthful of Foot”, “Buzzard Creek”, “Cool to be Miniscule”, “Saturday Night”, “Stay Where You Are”, “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (elektric version)” and “Let Her Dream”.

The very first recorded songs by the band were “Mouthful of Foot” and “From Thoughts to Flowing Ink (elektric version)”. The band doesnt’ recall where they were recorded.

“Summer Story” and “Saturday Night” were recorded by a guy called Nick at a school in Tottenham in 1988. Gavin Mackillop produced the songs “Crushing Wit”, “Undeniably Blue”, “Buzzard Creek” and “Cool to be Miniscule” at Cold Storage Studios in London in 1988,

Then “Let Her Dream” was recorded by someone called Rob. The interesting bit is that it was recorded by Nick and Ian after the band had already disbanded.

As usual I don’t stop there and look for more info. First thing I find was that Nicky Ager had been in a band in 1980 called Twig and the Kicks. They released a single with the songs “I Won’t Apologize” and “The Boy Who Sold His Dreams”. He would later be in a band called The Whole Wide World and this band would eventually become Company of Cowards. Ian Montague in the other hand had been in the band Thin Yoghurts according to this blog post. I can’t seem to confirm or deny this.

What I did find what that Nicky and his wife had written the original songs and score for the Christmas films “Nativity!”, “Nativity 2 ‘Danger in the Manger'” and “Nativity 3 ‘Dude, Where’s My Donkey?'”. He has worked on many other television shows and commercials.

Sadly no more info about them or the band on the web. I would love to find out more about The Whole Wide World for example. Did they record anything? Released anything? And what happened after Company of Cowards. No more music? No more bands? Any info would be appreciated!

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Listen
Company of Cowards – Party Talk