Pretty busy week so far. Not much news from me. But here are some news from around the indiepop world.

Ancient Channels: Definetely Australia is producing top indiepop at the moment, I keep discovering good songs all the time. The latest discovery is this Brisbane band which might be just Kelly Hanlon and friends helping her playing drums and percussion. Impressive. They have just the one song but it is pretty good, it is called “Footprints in the Dark”.

Clan de Venus: really good jangle pop from this León, Mexico, band! They have just released a self-titled album with 7 songs that sound terribly fresh. I highly recommend this one. The band is formed by Ricardo “Manzanas” Gómez, Angel “Amadeus” Tavarez, Norman Orozco and Diego Chávez. Let’s keep an eye on them.

All Romantic Days: This band features band members of the super Sound & Fury band from Chengdu but this time it is not shoegaze but proper indiepop! Sweet and dreamy! Wow, really wow. “May I Waste Your Time” is their debut EP. I hope this gets released properly soon!

Tea Room: another terrific indiepop band with top pop sounds! So far out of 4 bands, 3 are classic indiepop! Cool! That’s a change. Not that I don’t like shoegaze, I do, but you know my heart is very very poppy! This trio hails from Mississauga, Canada, and have a 5 song EP called “Dress Up” which is lots of fun! Another record I hope gets released in physical format. It deserves so.

Cinéma Lumière: the latest project by pop genius Xavier Emas from the Philippines sounds gorgeous. Again proper classic indiepop, chiming guitars, sweet vocals and dreamy melodies. What else can one ask?! This is up my alley, and yours I bet. And there’s even a video for the song “Love”. Ah! I feel nostalgia for the golden days of indiepop!

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Man Friday: a male helper or follower. Friday is one of the main characters of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe names the man Friday, with whom he cannot at first communicate, because they first meet on that day. The character is the source of the expression “Man Friday”, used to describe a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal. Current usage also includes “Girl Friday”. 

It’s been a while since I wrote about an obscure Swedish band. Well it is time to fix that. Let me present you My Man Friday!

I know barely anything about them. I’ve listened to the A side of their one and only release, a 7″ released in 1987, and I thought it sounded superb. Now I am looking to find out more info on them.

The 7″ had just two songs, “On the Other Side of the Atlantic” on the A side and “Autumn Would Mean All Rain” on the B side. The 7″ was released by Watch Out Records (WAR 003) and the sleeve, on the front, features a small photo of the band.

Something that I am curious about is the label. It does look like this was the third release on the label but actually only this 7″ is listed on Discogs. Perhaps 001 and 002 were demo tapes? I’ve seen that happen in the past.

Sadly there are no compilation appearances by the band. I will need to dig deeper.

Then I suddenly stumble upon something unexpected. Another song by the band, not on the 7″ called “Come and Stay“. It is on Youtube and it is really nice! Here I learn that the band was based in Stockholm and was around from 1985 to 1988. And then I follow the trail and I find a total of 16 songs by the band! Wow! Really wow!

Other songs available to listen are “Anything Goes“, “Bodyless“, “Boys in the Backdoor“, “By My Side“, “Cruel“, “Death“, “On the Other Side of the Atlantic“, “I’ve Seen that Face“, “Jealous“, “Knowledge“, “True” and “Walk On By“. This is more than I expected when I started writing the post.

I look at comments see if there is any interesting details. Not really, though they do seem to have a fan called Toni Kaufmann who has commented quite a lot saying they are his favourite band! Then one of the songs, “On the Other Side of the Atlantic” doesn’t have a photo of the band, instead it has the back sleeve of the 7″. Details at last!

Here it says that the band was formed by Pelle Pop (real name Per Nordwall), Mats Johansson, Carlo Kaufman, Peter Touminen and Anders Engström. The sax on the 7″ was played by Thomas Jo Hansson and the female backing vocals were by Maria Olsson. The two songs on the 7″ were recorded at Tom-Tom Studio by Thomas Wretman. Cool!

Then I find that the band actually appeared on the 1987 Swedish film called “Vem är Ansvarig för Detta?” (“Who is Responsible For This?”) where they played the Elvis song “Jailhouse Rock“.

And then even better, a promo video for the song “Anytown“. Det är mycket bra! This is is so good! But this is not the only promo video, the B side of the 7”, “Autumn Would Mean All Rain” also has a video!

Then Pop Fakta, the Swedish rock archive website, would actually give me more answers. To start it has more records listed for Watch Out Records, a release by Rouletto och Kasino and two by The Link.

Other interesting details in which other bands did the band members play. Pelle Pop played on T-Shirts, Taxi and Trance Dance during the 80s. Mats Johansson has played in Sinn Fenn, Claudie, Extra, Avsikt, Moderns, Candy Roxx, Nini, Isildurs Bane, Roland Utbult, Freda, Mao, Quil, and more. He is even listed for A-Teens? Maria Olsson, who did the choruses on the 7″, played in Gospel Voice, Wilner, Åke Bylund & Mörbyligan and The Next.

And even though I couldn’t find info about Carlo Kaufman, the vocalist, on Pop Fakta, I am pretty sure as I found a post about it in Blaskotelet, that he was in a band alongside Monica Hellström called  Maude & Kompani and they recorded a demo sometime in the 80s. I’d love to listen to that!

And that’s all really. I definitely would love to know why didn’t they release any more records. They had the songs. Were these songs released as demo tapes? Did they play lots around Sweden? It is the first time I’m hearing them, I am curious if they shared stage or were friends with other fine pop bands at the time. Would definitely love to know more about them!

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Listen
My Man Friday – On the other side of the Atlantic