Day 92.
Okay! Got the Macguffins photos and should be updating the art and liner notes this weekend and then we should be set. Also starting working on a new 7″! News on that very soon! 2020 has to see some Cloudberry releases!
Now, here are some good finds to check over the weekend.
BMX Bandits: the banditos are re-releasing their “My Chain” album that was originally released many years ago on Rev-Ola on CD. This time around the album will be released on vinyl by Interval from Glasgow, UK. It is coming out on June 5th and it is limited to 400 copies. It comes with an inner sleeve with extensive notes and behind the scene photographs.
No Invierno: Francisco Undurraga from Santiago, Chile, is behind this cool sounding jangly bedroom pop band. Their first release is the “Momentos” EP which is now on Bandcamp comprising of 5 heartfelt songs.
Dead Famous People: this one is a must have for me. It is the return of the classic Auckland band, who released music too while living in the UK back in the late 80s. Dons Savage who fronts this band, was also in the early Saint Etienne. So there’s everything going on here to make this a spacial album. Indeed, “Harry” as the album is titled, will be released on August 9 on vinyl and CD. There are 10 songs and you can preview two of them, “Looking at Girls” and “Dead Bird’s Eye”!
Solina: Lunar Discos from Seville, Spain, has brought back the band Solina to the digital era. The band who released their first EP in 2004 is now on Bandcamp with all four songs that were on that fine release as well as a cover of “Lips Like Sugar” by Echo & the Bunnymen that they had contributed to a 2014 compilation. Oh the memories…
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Feline Jive got together some time in 1985. Barb Wilson (vocals & keyboards), Phil Byford (guitars) and Dave Robson (bass & Guitar) all former members of the Brighton punk band The Lillettes and later April & the Fools, were joined by Karen Dash who supplied vocal harmonies.
After the demise of The Lillettes in 1980, Barb and Phil had continued to write and record together and Phil and Dave regularly got together to jam and trade musical ideas. They played together as April & the Fools with Ken Hogg on drums until morphing into Feline Jive when Ken left the band. Both of these bands featured tracks on the Brighton punk Vaultage albums “Vaultage 78” and “Vaultage 80” on Attrix Records.
Barb wrote most of the lyrics, while Phil and Dave wrote the bulk of the music with Karen helping out on arrangements. The band spent around eight months rehearsing and building a set before doing their first gig in Brighton at the Zap Club. Barb and Karen’s vocal harmonies gave the band a distinctive vocal sound. Barb had always been keen to put out a record independently and in 1986 she put up the money for the band to record an EP at Cherry Studios in Croydon. Geoff Ancell, formed drummer with Eye to Eye and The Piranhas (mk2), learned the drum parts to two songs, “Kiss ‘n Tell” and “Silent Times”, only a few days before the session was due to being. The third track on the EP, “Blue Dawn”, had previously been just a loose jam. But having recorded the first two tracks there was studio time to spare and engineer Andy Dalby liked the song and so it was recorded in more or less one take. In getting the EP out, the band followed the example of their former home-grown Brighton record label Attrix and had 1000 copies pressed at the same Orlake cutting plant. It was mastered at Abbey Road – the closest the band ever came to the big time.
Distribution proved difficult, with local record shops unwilling to take more than a handful of copies at a time but somehow at least 900 made their way into the public domain. In those days it was very hard to get an unsigned band any radio time. One well known BBC Radio 1 DJ, when asked by Barb how an ‘indie’ band could get their record played onhis show, was told “send me a line of coke”.
Desillusioned with this side of the mainstream music business and barely a year after their release of the record, with day jobs and other commutments to honour, Feline Jive called it a day.
This good biography of the Brighton band Feline Jive was writte by Phil Byford, their guitar played, back in 2008. It was included in the bookled that accompanied “The Sound of Leamingon Spa Vol. 7” that came along the Firestation Records’ boxset “Still Mad at Me? (15 years of Firestation Records 1988-2013)” (FST100) released in 2013. The band had contributed the song “Blue Dawn” to this compilation.
The EP they mention was released in 1986, on their own label, Massic Records (MR.1). “Kiss ‘n Tell” was on the A side while “Silent Times” and “Blue Dawn” were on the B side. The artwork is credited to Dave & Phil for the sleeve and to Madeleine for the labels.
Aside from this info other details I found on the web included that Phil Byford also goes by the name Punkdaddy and has appeared on some releases with that name. And lastly Geoff Ansell had also been involved in the alternative country band The Blue Hearts.
Not much more info on the web but I definitely would love to find out at least if they had more recordings. Though you know me, I probably will have many more questions!
Who remembers them?!
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Listen
Feline Jive – Kiss N’ Tell
