As I mentioned last Wednesday, Baby Lemonade retrospective is at the pressing plant. That’s the big news for me! I can’t wait for it to arrive at home. I hope you all love it and pre-order it :p
Here are some great tunes for the weekend!
Able: my friends from Uppsala have a new single out! This is the second one from their upcoming album “Holding On/Letting Go” to be released in the near future. This new digital single has two tracks, “We’ll Figure Out” and “Screaming Heart” and as usual is pure class. Quite impressive to see a band going this strong for decades now!
Night Flowers: the London band will be releasing a new album soon, so to promote it they have come up with a cool idea, a 360 degrees interactive video for their song “Fortune Teller”. Might this be the first indiepop video made this way? I would say yes, but anyone could tell me if there is another like this? In any case, it is not a gimmick, the song is really good!
The Plastic Shoelaces: they say their music is “jankle pop”, what does that mean?! I could make a guess, it is fun, upbeat, ramshackling pop? Their latest is a digital single with two songs, “Hip Happiness” and “Bigger Heads”. On Bandcamp there’s a photo that looks as if there was a physical release, but it doesn’t seem there’s a way to buy it. Anyways, do check this Sacramento band!
They Go Boom!: a true favourite band of mine. They are getting their album “Atlantic” reissued by Sunday Records on CD with a bonus disc, one that includes many favourite TGB! tracks, hand picked by Albert from Sunday Records. Do help me and tell me if any of the songs on the extra CD are unreleased ones or are all previously released?
Say Sue Me: the Busan, SK, band is back with a new 7″ with two tracks, “George & Janice” and “Don’t Follow Our Van”. I am pretty sure you know them already, how they sound, how they play live and all. They have made such an important splash around the world though I still haven’t seen them around in New York! Anyhow, do get this record!
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The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the early 20th century that is best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.
The best known artists working in this style included Robert Henri (1865–1929), George Luks (1867–1933), William Glackens (1870–1938), John Sloan (1871–1951), and Everett Shinn (1876–1953). Some of them met studying together under the renowned realist Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, others met in the newspaper offices of Philadelphia where they worked as illustrators. Theresa Bernstein, who studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, was also a part of the Ash Can School. She was friends with many of its better-known members, including Sloan with whom she co-founded the Society of Independent Artists.
The movement, which took some inspiration from Walt Whitman’s epic poem Leaves of Grass, has been seen as emblematic of the spirit of political rebellion of the period.
The wonderful Ash Can School. Years have gone by since I first heard them and I am still not able to have a copy of their one and only record in my collection. Maybe one day!
I know very little about them. I heard the B side of their 7″, “A Day out of Paris” and I thought it was superb. The A side, I still haven’t heard, it is called “She’s Only Sleeping”. Maybe someone can help me with that?
This 7″ was released in 1986, year 0 when it comes to indiepop for many. It was released by Unit Two Records (TWO 001). Who were behind this label?
Happily the band left some information on the back of the sleeve. That helps. Usually bands this obscure have sleeves with barely any information. For example we get to know that the band was actually a duo formed by Steven Wallace and Keith Unwin, That they played and programmed all instruments. The songs were recorded in Manchester, England. Does this main they hailed from that city?
Funny credits appear too. For example Peter Hayes is credited for hair and makeup. I suppose for the photos on the sleeve. The design and photography is credited to Chris Doyle.
This was the only release that I know. There are not even compilation appearances. But I am pretty sure that there must be more recordings. Can’t just be two songs. There has to be more!
I was going to stumble upon a website for Steve Fairclough. From what I understand Steven Wallace is Steve Fairclough. And here he tells a bit of the story of the band! What a find indeed!
The band started when he was around 19/20. It was a three-piece then, himself, Keith Unwin and Mark Burke. At some point Mark Burke left the band to study classical guitar at the Royal College in London. When that happened Steven’s brother, Neil, joined on bass and Andy Woods joined on keyboards.
Then no more info. But he does share a Bandcamp with his current recordings. It sounds pretty good! I should get in touch! There are some pics though from the time as well as some flyers. Thanks to them I know the band played alongside All Fall Down and Turn To Flowers at the Carlton Club in Salford with Steve Coogan as compere. Another gig they played was at The Boardwalk alongside Mirrors of Kiev and The Mock Turtles. Cool!
Aside from Ash Can School Steve became a demonstrator for Takamine and Parker Guitars in Europe and the US as well as European Ambassador for Fishman who he has with his own range of Fairclough guitars. That’s pretty cool too!
So, my questions are still there. I want to know why only one record? Why only two songs released? What happened with Keith Unwin? Were any of them in any other bands? Who remembers the Ash Can School?!
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