Day 123.
More new music!
The Muldoons: finally the “Made for Each Other” album is available to preview on Bandcamp. The 10 songs are there and they are wonderful jangle pop. Among the best I’ve heard this year. Remember that the album is out now too. I need to get a copy myself of this superb Paisley, Scotland, band’s latest release!
Jaguar Sun: some very nice tunes coming from this project from Ontario, Canada. The latest is called “Keep You Warm” but in the past few months they have been putting out other tracks like “Next Year” or “Those Days”.
Films on Song: now we have to check out the “Too True” EP by this Charlottesville, Viriginia band. What do we discover? 4 songs of classic indiepop with chiming guitars, influenced by who? Flying Nun Records? Could be. They tag themselves as rock, indie and neosoul though. Anyone’s guess then. But the songs sound good especially the opening track “A Place I’d Rather Be”.
Jenny Genius: now we drive north, to New Haven, Connecticut. Here the band formed by Maggie, Chris and Dan have just released a cassette album. it is self-titled and has 7 songs. Okay, maybe a mini-album. The songs are raw, lo-fi, punkish indiepop. So yeah, pretty good.
The Wolfhounds: lastly the legendary band released “Electric Music” just like a week ago, on July 3rd. I missed the announcement so yeah I am probably late, even though many months ago I shared a link to the one song we could preview then. The limited edition 12″ is sold out. But there are other options, the non-limited 12″ and the CD. What matters in the end are the 10 songs that are included which are great. Lots of energy as always.
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Continuing with Australian discoveries here is another band from the great city of Perth, home of so many indiepop bands in the late 80s. I don’t know very much about them to be honest, but I am here to find out any details about them. Let’s start with what I know. They released just one record and then disappeared into obscurity.
This 7″ came out in 1987 on one of the most recognizable labels from that period, Easter Records (MR-7038). This label released bands of the quality of The Summer Suns, The Palisades or The Stolen Picassos among others!
The 7″ the band released came with two songs, “My Husband Beats Me” on the A side and “Coca-Cola is Coke” on the B side. Both songs were recorded at Northlake Studios, which was a recording studio located in the area of Myaree and where bands like Martha’s Vineyard and The Marigolds also recorded. They were engineered and mixed by James Hewgill.
We also know the band members names. And in parenthesis the nicknames they used.
Val Tarin (Pablo) – vocals and guitar
Craig Weighell (John Boy) – vocals and drums
Dan Tarrant (Wally) – bass
Glen White (Tennessee) – lead guitar
Trumpet on the A side was played by Adrian Wood (aka. Huck Walton).
The cool art, the black and white illustration on the front cover, is credited to Fred Gilbert. The photo of the band on the back of the sleeve is credited to David Gerard.
Prior to this 7″ the band had included the A side, “My Husband Beats Me”, on a tape compilation called “The Attic Tapes”. This was actually a live recorded album, where I suppose all of the bands listed played that night. The venue was the Red Parrot and the date was Friday May 16th of 1986.
Then in 1989 the band would appear on an LP compilation called “Hometown Farewell Kiss” released by 6UVS-FM. This was a radio station based also in Perth. Nowadays it is called RTR FM. On this compilation the band contributed the song “Truck Drivin’ Man”. This looks like a terrific compilation, with many favourite bands of mine. I should try to get this record!
Lastly, many years later, in 2003, the band appeared on a CD compilation called “Off the Hip Fanzine 5” which as the name says came alongisde the fifth issue of the Off the Hip fanzine. Here the band contributed the song “Cherry”. Maybe it was an old recording? Or maybe they got together to record it?
Then I stumble upon something cool, The Waltons performing live at the Coronado Hotel in Perth! They are playing “My Husband Beats Me” and it seems this video dates from May 1991. Then there’s another clip of them playing the song “Quando” at the same venue. Then there’s another video of them playing the song “Cactus Jack” at the Shenton Park Hotel in Perth, January 1987. And lastly the song “Cherry” with an accompanying clip! Cool! It seems this song was to be the third single by the band. But then, which was the second?!
According to Last.fm there was a single with two songs, “Coast to Coast” and “We’re the Waltons”. And then that “Cherry” had a B side called “Crawly Man”. I need to find about these! “”Coast to Coast” was also released by Easter.
Then I find a blog called “Something Old, Something New“. Here they mention again that there were two singles. But what interests me is that they say that the songs were put together into a retrospective CD! I would love to find a copy of that. Another interesting detail is that it mentions that the band was active between 1985 and 1992.
It seems that this CD was remastered and compiled by someone called Trevor Hilton. He comments on the blog post. He says that the CD contained all 8 songs recorded in studio plus a gig from 1991 at the Coronado Hotel and a rare song called “Lost in Suburbia”. He also mentions that it was never properly released! What a shame! Would be great to hear these tracks, right?
Ok. So I found some more info about the 2nd single thanks to the blog “History of Australian Music from 1960 until 2010“. Here it mentions that James Hewgill again recorded them in Northlake Studios. This was 1987 and the single was released in March 1989. At this same time the band recorded the song “My Baby Left Me for a Truck Driving Man”. That seems to be the right song title for the song that was included in the radio station compilation LP. Then we know that “Cherry” was actually recorded somewhere else. It was recorded at Planet Studios in 1991 and were co-produced by the band and Dom Mariani from The Stems!
And there’s more. On Souncloud an account by Peter Morse (from Love Pump) has the A side of the first single for everyone to listen, and a rare song called “Superbird“.
Lastly the 5th issue of the Perth-based fanzine Party Fears has an interview with the band! Head to page 20 after clicking this link.
Then I keep googling and googling. I believe Dan Tarrant’s latest band was called Small Motors. Before that he had been in Josephine Killen. Val Tarin had been in Love Pump and Los Locos. Craig Weighell was also in Love Pump.
And that’s it. Quite a lot actually. I wasn’t expecting to find out that there was another single that I want to listen. And that there are more recordings that were once on a CD compilation. It is time to track all of this down. But definitely if you remember them and have extra details let me know. Would love to hear the whole story of the band!
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