Another week goes by, isn’t that nice? I am preparing new interviews and I am quite excited about that, learning about bands, them telling their story in their own words, is pretty great. How I wish I could organize a bunch of it as a book or something some day. I am scared that one day I’ll lose the blog, that someone would hack it or the drive of the hosting company goes bust, who knows. Something physical for all these stories would be good. Hopefully one day.

Horsebeach: back in May I think I posted about the Manchester band working on a new album to be titled “The Unforgiving Current”. They had just released a video for the song “Dreaming”. Well, the new album should be out today, August 23rd! And on Bandcamp you can preview three songs, “Dreaming”, “Mourning Thoughts” and “Trust”. As always, they are excellent.

Papa Topo: the Spanish band is back and this is very exciting! They have just released a new song/video called “Sirenear” which kind of translates as “To Mermaid”. As far as I know this is a digital single and doesn’t seem to be plans to be part of an album, at least not yet. Well, we will have to enjoy this very 80s summer hit on Youtube.

Cozy Slippers: the latest release from the very fine Augsburg label Kleine Untergrund Schallplaten is a 7″ by the Seattle jangle pop band that I’ve featured many times in the past! This, new 7″ comes with two songs, “A Million Pieces” and “Will You Disappear?” and is limited to 210 copies. So hurry up and don’t miss it! You can preview the A side on the label’s Soundcloud!

Las Perdón: now a new Spanish band from Madrid. There is just one song on Bandcamp called “Asco Total” which sounds like lots of fun and it looks like that it will be part of an EP. That EP is said to be released this October and will be called “Melón y Sandía”. How many more songs will it have? I hope it gets released on physical format too!

EggS: this French band who have also been featured in the blog have a new release, a 7″ out on Hellzapoppin Records. The 7″ comes with two songs of fine guitar pop, “A Certain Smile” on the A side and “Picture Book” on the B side. And at a fair price, 5 euros. Really nice I’d say.

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A classic tape compilation from the good old days was the “Something’s Burning in Paradise” cassette that was released in 1988 by Subtle. I guess this tape was a success then because the label would release a second part called “Something’s Burning in Paradise Again…” the year after. I was listening to the songs that appeared on the tape (on Mp3, I don’t own the tape) and was struck by a song called “Not Fair” by the band The Purple Tulips. It appears on the A side, it is the tenth and last song on that side.

I must say I didn’t know much about them. And after researching for this post I was quite surprised of the connections the band had with two big names, The Field Mice and Sarah Records.

How you mean? Well, Anne Mari Davis, vocalist of The Field Mice, was in The Purple Tulips before.

There is a good interview with Anne Mari on the website Everything Indie Over 40. Here Anne Mari talks about the band and gives some details about the time she was in The Purple Tulips.

• The band was formed by Anne Mari, Chris Cox, Andrew and Sarah. Anne Mari and Sarah played guitar and keyboards while Chris wrote the songs.
• They were sixth former at the time when they started the band.
• They were into the c86 bands and The Purple Tulips lasted for a couple of years.
• The band made at least one demo tape that included the songs “Children in Ancials” (maybe I have a typo here, can’t understand the writing!), “Changes from Today”, “Not Fair”, “With You” and “Take Me Far Away”. There may be more recordings.
• They were based in Poynton. Poynton is a town in Cheshire, England, on the easternmost fringe of the Cheshire Plain 18 km southeast of Manchester, 11 km north of Macclesfield, and 8 km south of Stockport. In 2011, it had a population of 14,260.

Then on the Sarah Records page, when they talk about the “Shadow Factory” compilation, it mentions that the sleeve of the record was dedicated to Chris from The Purple Tulips because he had said he would stop buying Sarah’s releases if they ever had barcodes on them. This comp had a barcode, though if you remember it is pink and so it doesn’t work. He also mailed the label a demo tape of his band.

The story that followed, according to the Popkiss book, says that Chris Cox went to see The Field Mice play at Sheffield University. Chris gave Bobby Wratten from The Field Mice a demo tape accompanied by a letter of Anne Mari where she mentioned that she was aware of The Field Mice looking for a vocalist because someone called Violet or M once passed through the Sarah headquarters and heard about it. So Anne Mari joined The Field Mice. And I suppose The Purple Tulips were no more? Or what happened to them? Did the other band members continue to make music?

There is not much information about the band on the web, that is nothing strange as it was pre-internet days. I would love to listen to the rest of the songs. I really like “Not Fair”. I also wonder how come no one has released these tracks to this day. Did they ever play live?  Or what were the last names of the other band member? Maybe I could find some info that way. There are so many questions I have. Hopefully someone remembers them and can fill in the blanks?!

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Listen
The Purple Tulips – Not Fair