Day 41.

This week started with sad news. Don’t know if you are aware but Andy Wake, who ran the legendary label Medium Cool Records passed away. I never met him or talked to him, but I can’t deny that his label has been important to me and to indiepop in general, releasing the likes of The Siddeleys, The Waltones, The Corn Dollies, The Popguns, The Enormous Room and The Raw Herbs. All very influential and important bands in the late 80s and beyond.

I’ve been lucky to interview The Siddeleys and The Raw Herbs in the past. Have written about The Enormous Room. Have seen The Popguns play live. So yeah, I am a fan. And I am sure in the future I’ll be featuring The Corn Dollies and The Waltones. Rest in peace Andy and thanks for the music!

It is hard to change topics after telling this news, so I won’t be recommending any music today. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’ll share the writeup I did for the Swedish band Neil Armstrong, which was written a few months back and was waiting to be posted.

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Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.

Why would a Swedish band call themselves Neil Armstrong? Why not Arne Christer Fuglesang, the first Swedish citizen in space? Well, the band was around before the time Christer was in space (2006). So that may be why. But still it is an interesting choice to call themselves Neil Armstrong, right?

The band was around in the late 90s and early 2000s and only released one CDR single. That was it. But we can try to find out more information about them, right?

The band hailed from Hagersten in Stockholm. They were formed by Levi Orebjörk on vocals, Stefan Eriksson on guitar, Pontus Nilsson on guitar, Fredrik Danielsson on bass and Martin Gustafsson on drums.

The CDR they released came out on Tuff Tuff Musik (TTM001) in the year 2000. Most probably it was a self-release as there are no other records listed on this label? Don’t know, as there is an address for the label locating them in Karlstad, not Stockholm. So it might be someone else other than the band that put them out. It included just two songs, “We All Knew” and “Fleetwood Mac”. A tribute to the ultra famous band? It’d be interesting to know what inspired them.

Sure they didn’t release any other records but they did appear on quite a bunch of compilations.

Starting in 1997 when they had their song “The Swing” on the “True To You. A Dorian Compilation” released by Dorian Records (Dorian04). The year after, 1998, their song “I’m So Happy” appeared on the comp “Hitta Mitten -98” on Absurd Records (ABSURD 5), while their track “Fastest Girl” would appear on the 7″ compilation “A Single Bite” released by Labrador (LAB002). The fine magazine Benno would put them on a 7″ compilation called “Benno Presents Volume 1” (Benno 1) with their song “I’m So Happy” too. Keep in mind that the first two were CD compilations, and the last two were vinyl one of course. And all of them on Swedish labels.

In 1999 the band contributed “Mr. Bus” to the CDR compilation “19 Ways to Get Back Home” released by Jetboy Records (JR002). This is truly a fine compilation I didn’t know about. I see lots of great bands and many I’ve never heard that I should try to discover!

Firestation from Germany would pick them up to include their song “So Long” in the compilation “You Thought it was the End of the World when the Rain Ruined Your Hair” (FST016) in the year 2000, and lastly another German label, Apricot Records, would include them in “Airpop Terminal 2” with two tracks, “Going For Gold” and “We All Knew”, in 2001.

The fine webzine Popviminns compares the band to The Brilliant Corners and The Housemartins. Then on Blaskoteket I find a mention of them again after the first 7″ Benno release where they were included. Here we learn that the band had even more recordings. They mention that there was a demo cassette from 1996 called “Feeling Alright”, and another two from 1997 called “One Crazy Weekend” and “It Is Good”. What about afterwards? Did they continue recording? Would be great to listen to the songs included in these tapes and any other unreleased material.

There’s more. The blog The Finest Kiss wrote about them in 2006. What’s interesting here is the comments section. Stefan Eriksson comments here and mentions that he is/was in a band called Braxen. He says that most of the band members were in this band. Can’t seem to find their music even though there used to be an old Myspace page for this band.

And that’s it really. We know then that there are more songs other than the ones on compilations. That they were involved in at least another band. But can we hear these tracks now? And how come they didn’t release more records? Would be great to find out!

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Listen
Neil Armstrong – Mr. Bus