Well, well, I have started working on the fanzine now and it is looking great! I can give you heads up that the fanzine will feature The BV’s, Dayflower, Okama Flannel Boy, Salt Lake Alley, The Seashells, Stephen’s Shore and Den Baron. And maybe more! The CD that will accompany is slowly taking shape too and will let you know when I have more info on that too!

Now here are this weekend’s good finds!!

Náufragos Permanentes: my friend Cris, from Sevilla, shared this with me the other day and I was WOW! How haven’t I heard this band before. The band formed by José Luis Maestro on guitar, Pedro Ortega on bass Goyo Campos on drums and Emilio Carmona on guitar and vocals have recorded a classy EP called “Naranja Miel”. It has 5 songs and looks to be available only on digital format. I do hope a Spanish label picks them up as here’s lots of sweet jangle!

Violet Cheri: I got an email a few days ago about the newest single “I’m Fine” by this Stockholm based band. I am always skeptical about emails I get about bands, they are usually quite bad. But this one sounded pretty neat. Formed in 2015 the band is now working on their debut album which should be released this year.

Gaarden: the video for the Ruso-Estonian band’s “Shiny Day” was released 5 months ago! But I missed it and now I am re-discovering it. The band signed to the Australian label Library Records sounds ace. They are a very promising band and I hope I get to see them play live someday. The guitars are terrific and the melodies make are too.

Mint Julep: and finally the whole album by the Portland duo is up to listen! “Stray Fantasies” is so far the best album released this year. Now the question is where are the CDs, the vinyls? It only seems to be available online. There are 12 songs of perfectly crafted popsongs with electronic beats, dreamy pop melodies and smart lyrics. Don’t miss this one.

Mumrunner: Shelflife Records is back with a few superb releases. The latest is by this shoegaze band called Mumrunner, I believe from Portland, who had already made a splash touring Europe and Japan. They will be releasing an 8 song album called “Valeriana” on CD and vinyl. We can preview one of the tracks, “Foe”, which is truly fantastic. Is the rest of the album as good? I hope so!

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What would be an average prophecy? I think it is an interesting question.

I wonder where this English 5-piece got their name from. I know very little about them (I still don’t own their records) so I am now digging the web, see what I can find.

The band was around the early nineties. Perhaps during the late 80s too. I know they put out two records in 1990. That’s why. Both of them were released by Dream Discs. It seems that this label was the band’s own. There are no other records listed for this label. Or maybe not? It is always hard to be sure 100%.

The first release was a 7″ (DREAM 0017) with two songs: “Was She the One?” on the A side and “Tie Me to the Railway Line”. The sleeve art shows a baby being carried, a black and white photo. The labels tell us that the songs were composed by Ben Gunstone and that they were produced and engineered by Pete Lamb.

The back of the sleeve tells us that the band was based in Melksham, Wiltshire. It is the first time I hear of this town to be honest.

Melksham is a town on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England, about 7 km northeast of Trowbridge and 10 km south of Chippenham. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 19,357, making it Wiltshire’s fifth-largest town after Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge. Melksham developed at a ford across the River Avon and the name is presumed to derive from “meolc”, the Old English for milk, and “ham”, a village. On John Speed’s map of Wiltshire (1611), the name is spelt both Melkesam (for the hundred) and Milsham (for the town itself). Melksham was a royal estate at the time of the Norman Conquest. Melksham is also the name of the Royal forest that occupied the surrounding of the area in the Middle Ages.

That same year, 1990, they put out a 3-song 12″ (DREAM 0212). The A side featured the fine “Goodnight England” while the B side had “This is My Land” and “Still Life”.  All three songs were produced and engineered by Steve Evans.

At this point we know the band was formed by:
Justin Daniell on bass
Daniel Tayler on drums
Andy Tilley on keys
Wendy Laws on vocals
Ben Gunstone on vocals, guitar and effects.

We know that “Goodnight England” was written by Ben Gunstone while the music is credited to himself and also Steve Evans. The two other songs are solely credited to Gunstone.

In 1991 the band would record a demo tape with three songs. The songs on it were “Bible Song”, “Over” and “V.H”. It was a white tape that was distributed by PowerPlay. It doesn’t seem as the tape had any paper inserts.

No compilation appearances are listed. So I look into what other bands were the band members involved with. It looks like 15 years after, in 2015, Andy Tilley was involved in a project called Real Deep. Ben Gunstone, in the other hand, released two solo records: “Merchant Venturer” (2000) and “Songs from the Corner of the Room” (2004). I believe too he was in a band called Johnny Panic during the Britpop era.

I dug and dug for more information about the band but I couldn’t really find much. I wonder what years were they active, if they had more demo tapes, and what happened them… many questions which I hope to get answers some time!

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Listen
Some Average Prophecy – Goodnight England