Started working on the fanzine this weekend. At least planning it. I will email today the bands I hope to interview and hopefully there will be news soon about that early in the next year. Then of course there are many projects for releases in the coming year, so yeah, should be a good one. This is the last post before Christmas too, so I do hope you all have a merry merry Christmas, and I’ll see you on Wednesday, right? Lots of indiepop presents I hope everyone gets!

No Middle Name: the Saint Leonards, UK, band is back with a two part single called “Meet the Folks”. Yeah, a single that is broken apart as “Meet the Folks Part 1” and “Meet the Folks Part 2”. Interesting idea! The two songs are really lovely as usual. No Middle Name never disappoints.

Grids and Dots: always looking and checking what’s happening in Australia. That country, alongside Japan and Indonesia, are the places where more indiepop I see been made in the last few years. And quality indiepop that is. The latest is this Sydney band that only has one song on Bandcamp, “Never Change”. But it is great. It seems there will be more songs recorded in the near future, so we should bookmark their site!

The Groove Farm: the Bristol classic band is also back with a new album called “Groovy Pharmacy”. It is now available to pre-order on their Bandcamp on vinyl. It does look like there are only a few copies left though. So be quick! The record is being put out by their own Raving Pop Blast! Recordings and it sounds like everyone expects, catchy garagey noisy pop! Cool!

The Perfect English Weather: the ex-Popguns have recorded four acoustic tracks live at Sunny Studios in Hove. These are part of a new live EP they have available on Bandcamp that includes acoustic versions of “English Weather”, “Rockin’ to the Beat”, “Under My Feet” and “Christmas Single”.

Lia Pamina e Os Peregrinos: “It’s Gonna Be a Cold Christmas (Unas Navidades tan Frías)” is only available digitally on Bandcamp and I suppose other digital platforms. Lia who recorded one of my favourite 7″s some years ago has teamed up with Os Peregrinos, the band of Charlie Mysterio and Roger de Flor, and with them they have covered the original 1975 song by Dana and adapted it to Spanish. It is a good one to add it to your Christmas playlist.

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Time to fly to Japan! To the early 90s and to one of my favourite bands from the period, the Tip Top Planets. What a name! I love it. So poppy, so colorful and sounds like fun. And indeed this band made among the best anorak-pop to ever come from the land of the rising sun!

The band’s first release dates from 1992, a 7-song mini-album called “We Can Stay in Paradise For Ever”. It was released by the label Chocolat Art Records (CA002) and had the following songs “We Can Stay in Paradise for Ever”, “I Don’t Care”, “Wake”, “Every Time”, “Paranoia”, “Tell Me Why” and “Thunderstom”. On this record we see that Naomi Funakoshi sang and played tambourine and maracas, Koji Isaka played guitar and sang, Kazutoshi Ohno played bass and Kaname Banba played drums on the first and last song while Takehide Fukasawa played drums on the rest of tracks.

The names are not too familiar to me. Maybe Kaname Banba is a bit more known as he had also played in bands like Luminous Orange, Lucy Van Pelt, Littlestone and Advantage Lucy. And Kazutoshi played in the very fine Jenka. The rest seem to have only been part of Tip Top Planets.

In 1993 the band released their debut album called “Bomb” on the superb label Pushbike Records (UFPB-003). As you know I love this label, so I must get this record in my collection! The 12 songs on it are superb, “Speak Your Mind”, “To the Shining Sea”, “Cosmic Panic”, “Silent”, “Pearl”, “Scarlet”, “Blue Boat”, “Until You Come”, “Sun Dress”, “Bomb Bomb Planet’s Hour”, “Sunday Everyday” and “In the Time Casket”. Here the drummer changed, we know see Shigeto Morohara. Also it is worth mentioning that Seiko Ishiguro (from Sunshower and Jenka) played accordion in “In the Time Casket”.

Lastly in 1995, on Vinyl Japan, the band would release the “Go Go Pepper EP” (TASKCD32). This is the one release I have of theirs. And I love it of course. It only has four songs, but what songs! “Go Go Pepper”, “Sunshine Babies”, “Rain” and “Rady Made Boy – Dear Violet”.

Aside from these three releases the band appeared on many compilations.

There was a 7″  that was given for free at the Japanese tour of the Television Personalities and The Chesterfields. Not sure what year it was. But it was released by the Pop Anarchy Label. On it we find three bands, Sunnychar, Tip Top Planets and Melcles. Tip Top Planets appear with the songs “My Day Star” as the A2 and “Give Me L” on B1.

In 1992 the band appeared on the first ever release of Chocolat Art Records, a comp tape called “Story Under Fun” (CA001). On it they appear first and last with the songs “My Day Star” and “Brand New Morning” . That same year they appeared on another comp, “The Reality of Flowers” (FLOWER-002), that was released by Under Flower Records. Here the band contributed the song “Holiday”.

Pushbike Records would include them on the CD comps “See-See-You, Tomorrow!” (UFPB-001) with the songs “Rosy Moon Knows” and “Big Boy And Little Girl” and “Happy Day, Happy Time! Pushbike Compilation Vol. 2” (UFPB-004) with the song “He has the White Dream”. Both came out in 1993.

That same year they contribute the song “Give Me L” on the tape “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (HAAR002) on the Japanese label Haarnadel.

Then Vinyl Japan included their song “Wake” on the compilation “What Do You Want a Japanese To Do Again?” (ASKCD 36) in 1994. Then they had the song “Brand New Morning (Dry Breeze Version)” on the Giant-Robot Records comp “Here We Go ‘Round Giant-Robot Compilation Vol. 1” (ROBOT-002). And afterwards, to close 1994, they appeared on yet another Pusbike comp, “Into Somethin’ Pushbike Compilation Vol. 3” (UFPB 006) with the song “in the Time Casket” and on the comp “The Cacaous Go Like Hotcakes” released by Chocolat Art (CA-010) and Pushbike (UFPB 005) with the songs “Let Me Fly to the Brightest Star” and “Cherry Red Guitar Girl”.

Lastly, in 1995, the band appeared on the CD compilation “Cloudy Records Compilation Vol.1 / Cloud6” released by Cloudy Records (CRCD001) with the song “Rainbow Way”.

Lots of songs in compilations, they may have been able to put out another CD I think!

Something curious I stumbled upon was that the UK band The Hannah Barberas covered the song “Go Go Pepper” in September 2018.

Sadly as it is the case with many Japanese bands the information is scarce. I wonder what happened to the band members afterwards. What did they do? Were they in other bands? Where are they now? Who remembers them? Such a fun band, I hope I can find more information about them!

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Listen
Tip Top Planets – Speak Your Mind