There was news yesterday that made us all sad. RIP Winston Forbes, extraordinaire guitarist from The Brilliant Corners. The band posted on Facebook a heartfelt message which I like to share with you all.
It’s with a heavy heart and immense sadness that I have to tell you that our friend Winston passed away this morning after losing his fight against cancer.
Winston played guitar like no one else. He perfected a clean melodic lead style that influenced many indie bands of the 80s. At the time Winston did not get the credit he deserved for his innovative style of playing.
Winston originally played percussion in the band but taught himself guitar in a few months, developing his original style on the way. What also made him different was that he was a black guitarist in a predominantly white indie scene.
When the band reformed to play a handful of gigs some years back everyone was trying to remember their parts but Winston knew every single note!
When Winston left the band he threw his energies into art and illustration. One of his early works can be seen at The M shed, in Bristol.
Today we have lost a friend who had a big heart, a lot joy and the ability to make all of us laugh. Winston we are going to miss you X
The music must go on.
Auto-Vélo: this is really amazing, beautiful, classy, superb, whatever positive adjectives you can think of, then Graeme Elston’s new project is exactly that. The ex-Love Parade frontman is back with 4 songs that constitute his “Copernica EP”, a bliss of synth driven indiepop! Listen especially the opening track “Copernica” and the closing one, “Boy: Freeze Frame”, which are my favourites.
In Space: the Singapore one-man band has a new self-titled EP that sounds ace. Packed with jangly guitars and great melodies, this is definitely a great surprise. It looks like a small burgeoning good pop scene is happening in the city-state! This is a long EP by the way, more like a mini-album, it packs 7 songs total!
Lisa Prank: a 13-track album called “Perfect Love Song” and produced by Rose Melberg is the perfect introduction for this band! Formed by Robin Edwards on guitar and vocals, Bree McKenna on bass, Tom Fitzgibbon on drums and Rose Melberg doing backing vocals, the band’s album will be released on CD and vinyl!
Spring Winds: from Saint Petersburg, Russia, comes this shoegazey band with a new EP titled “Sway”. 6 tracks of superb songs. I don’t know much about the band I must say, they had a single back in April and that’s it. I definitely want to listen to more by them!
The Hannah Barberas: and lastly, some favourites! We are big fans of the UK band formed by Damien, Lucy, Doug and Matthew, and we are very happy to know they have just released on CD their mini-album “Dial H for Hannah Barberas”! The Catford band is releasing these six songs on the fine Subjangle label, and I suggest everyone to get a copy, or at least discover their wonderful music!
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This might prove difficult, finding more information about a band called The Family. That is not an easy name to google. But I’ll try.
I am guessing the band had some connection with The Groove Farm. Not sure in what way. I think this was the case as they released a flexi on The Groove Farm’s label Raving Pop Blast! Records (RAVE 11FX) in 1990. Maybe they also hailed from Bristol. This said flexi included just one song, “What Frank Said”.
This song is credited on the flexi itself to a last name, Howard. Or is it a first name? Also it is worth mentioning that the song is dedicated to Denis Hopper. I wonder too if the song’s title, “What Frank Said” has anything to do with the photo on the sleeve. I don’t know exactly who is pictured in it. Maybe it is someone called Frank? Maybe someone would know. It looks like a well known person, maybe an actor?
Aside from this flexi the band appeared on a split flexi that same year. It was on a flexi that I have already talked about in the past (that’s why I decided to write about The Family in the first place, to close the circle). This was a flexi released by Fabulous Records (FAB002) and had two songs, the first was “Irresistable” by The Felicitys (a band I wrote about in the past) and the second was The Family’s “Polanskis Dream”. Clearly a song dedicated to Roman Polanski?
I look on the web for more information. I notice my friend Alex wrote about this flexi on his 7iete Pulgadas blog but sadly he has no more information other than what I’ve already found.
Aside from this post I can’t seem to find anything else about them. A very obscure band indeed. But as I have many friends from Bristol I think someone may help!
Edit August 10, 2019: Andrew Jarrett from the Groove Farm has given some more insight about the band. It turns out the band appeared on the classic compilation “Airspace II” on Breaking Down Records (BREAK LP3). The band contributed the song “Shine a Light”. And there was actually a release by the band in 1990. It was a mini-LP titled “Wildebeest” and was released on Pop God Records (PGLP002). This is the same label that released the album “Propeller” by Quinton, which I have been wanting to listen for a long while. This mini-LP had six songs, “Shine a Light”, “Slow Road” “Overboard”, “Bad Man”, “Polanski’s Dream” and “Love it to Death”. The songs were recorded at PIJ Studios and were engineered by Fat Paul.
Having the name The Family hasn’t helped them as everyone has tagged them differently on Discogs, every release belongs to a different The Family band!
After Andrew’s information I heard from Rocker, from The Rosehips. He said: I played keyboards for The Family for a while in 1988-9 while I was also a member of The Rosehips. They were indeed a Bristol band, featuring Howard Purse and Mark McDowell, both of whom had been in Animal Magic, who had recorded a Peel session earlier. Mark went on to form Spectrasonic, and then later the band McDowell, who have recorded three sessions for my Dandelion Radio show. Howard went out with Debbie Haynes, and after The Flatmates broke up they formed Cake – another band hard to google – but their album which came out years later is one of the best albums to come out of Bristol.
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Listen
The Family – What Frank Said
