Another week starts. This past weekend I put some of the final touches to the fanzine and also worked on the tracklist for the MacGuffins compilation. That is exciting. Right? So I am hoping to announce new releases soon!

I know you came for new music, so I’ll share some good finds of course!

Katya & Volki: this has to be the first band from the city of Taganrog, Russia, that I have heard. And it is quite a surprise. In their debut EP released digitally by Zooeycat Records we find a cool mix of dreamy and shiny indiepop. The EP is called “В прошлом” and has 4 tracks!

Typical Girls Volume 5: this is the new compilation on the very fine Emotional Response! It is available on white vinyl and also on black vinyl! There are 16 tracks, a mix of punkish stuff that I am not crazy about but then there are amazing songs by the likes of Latitude, Linda Guilala or Patsys Rats and more.

The Oilies: I think a week ago I was recommending a new song by Carly Putnam’s band. Well she has a new one that she recorded “in a bedroom near a boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California”. The song is called “The Part Where demo” and it is a very fine slice of lo-fi pop!

Spectres: we can preview two tracks of the upcoming album “Nostalgia” by this amazing Vancouver band and I am honestly hooked! The album will have 9 tracks and we can check out now “The Head and the Heart” and “Years of Lead”. Both are great, but the latter is a hit I think!The album will be released in vinyl and CD on March 13.

The Day: it has been a while since I found a cool sounding band from the Netherlands. But this time around I see this Utrecht duo covering the song “Tenderfoot” by The Lemonheads/Smudge. And it sounds really really good. Friends in Cologne, they will be playing in your city on March 6th.

—————————————————————–

James King had been in a few bands before being in Fun Patrol. He had been in Fun 4 with Steven Daly who went to play with Orange Juice, in James King and the Lonewolves and also releasing a solo 7″. I am sure if I look for information about those bands I may find many more details. But today I wanted to check Fun Patrol, a band that he was in in the late 80s.

With Fun Patrol only one record was released, a 3 song 12″. It came out in 1987 on Thrush Records (THRUSH 5), the same label that had released The McCluskey Brothers album “Aware of All”.

Fun Patrol’s 12″ catches one’s attention immediately, with that photo of a pink car that blends into another pink car (what sort of model of car is it?). It is a still from the 1967 movie “NY, NY” by Francis Thompson. The back of the sleeve has another photo, two guys and a car, this one taken by Paul Schutter. The sleeve was designed by Allan Campbell.

The A side had the track “The Right to be Wrong”, written by James King and Joe Sullivan. The same two people would write the B1, “No Concern of Mine”, while the 2nd track on the B side, “Meant to Fall” is only credited to King.

The band on the record was formed by James King on vocals and guitar, Mick Slaven on bass, Joe Sullivan on lead guitar, Ian Reid on guitar and harmonica and Steven Gray on drums. The producer on this record was the band and Ali MacKenzie (ex-Apes in Control!, Subs, The Alleged and The Cuban Heels). Kenny McDonald was the engineer. The songs were recorded at Park Lane Studios in Glasgow, the city the band was from.

James King wasn’t the only to have been in important bands. Michael Slaven had been in amazing bands like Bourgie Bourgie, Cowboy Mouth, Del Amitri, Jazzateers, Paul Quinn and the Independent Group and The Leopards, among others.

The band also appeared on a classic indiepop compilation of the 1980s. On the LP comp “On the Dotted Line… (There)” (EE 3531) released by EMI in 1987, the band appeared with the song “Same Old Game” alongside favourite bands of mine like North of Cornwallis, he Brilliant Corners or Episode Four! James King is credited for this song.

I keep looking and find a gig listing on the Edinburgh Archive. Here I find out that the band played on July 29th, 1987, at The Venue. Then another listing where it mentions the band played Town and Country Club alongside The Proclaimers and The La’s on November 1st of 1987. Another hit, The List, on its June 26, 1987, issue reviews the single and says: “The latest project at the legendary James King, alleged hard man at the Glasgow music scene, The Right To Be Wrong is good, hard, old-iasloned rock ’n’ roll with shades oi CGW. Fun Patrol could be Scottish Flamin’ Groovies, but the chorus has a rapturous hint oi The Undertones at their most disarming. Recommended”. An earlier List issue, this one dating from May 30, 1986, mentions Fun Patrol playing live in Glasgow Thursday, June 5 of that year.

Not much more on the web about them. Maybe they were short-lived. Who’d know? And were there more songs? Why weren’t there more releases?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Fun Patrol – The Right to Be Wrong