Day 151.

Lunchbox: the Oakland based duo of Tim and Donna have a new song called “Every Time I Go Away”. It is a nice digital single with boy/girl vocals. it was posted on Friday when all proceeds of this single were to be donated to the People’s Breakfast Oakland, a grassroots socialist organization.

NewCastle: the fine Uruguayan band has just posted 6 new songs which are labeled as B sides that haven’t been released. Released where? I don’t know of any releases by the band! In any case, here are 6 lovely poppy songs by our new favourite band from the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

Phantom Handshakes: this duo from New York is totally new to me. How cool. Federica and Matt are Phantom Handshakes and it seems they’ve been around since 2014. Interesting. Why didn’t they play NYC Popfest when it was going on? I had no clue they existed. Maybe the organizers didn’t then. Their latest is a 7 song mini-album called “Be Estranged” that is a superb collection of dreamy and jangly songs. Very nice.

Fowl Science: now this project from Toronto that makes some psychedelic dreampop that sounds really good. Their latest track is called “Samsara”  and from what I understand it is just one person behind this project, Stephen Kerr, who records at home. Looking forward to more songs by him!

Falling Sugar: lastly from Tokyo this new band that just formed! They are Mikko, Pako, Brono and Toyozo and they published their first ever song, “Thank You Boys”, last April! And it is really good. They have to record more!

—————————————————————–

Another top band that I discovered when “The Sound of Leamington Spa Volume 5” was released back in 2005 was The Honeymooners. They had contributed the song “Untitled” which many will agree is not a great song title. But it is a very good song. So that’s what matters.

So on this compilation CD co-released by Firestation Records (FST065), Bilberry Records (BILB 09) and Clarendon Records (W6 7CD), there was a booklet that has some small bios for each band. That is one thing one has to be very grateful as online it proves hard to find any information on these bands. For The Honeymooners we find the following info:

The Honeymooners – formed in spring 1984 from the nucleus of Yeah Yeah – were Jean McClure (voice), Stewart Reid (drums), David Russell (bass) with Keith Dunn and Martin Connelly on guitars. Part of the (at the time) flourishing Glasgow indie scene, they released only one 7″ single: “Another Fit of Laughter/There They Were” on their own Mr Ridiculous label before disintegrating amicably in 1988. Their music was described at the time by some like a “cross between Burt Bacharach and The Buzzcocks”. Stewart, David and Keith went on to form Jailhouse with former Yeah Yeah collaborator Joe White until David’s tragic death from cancer in 1990. Meanwhile, Martin had moved to London and joined The Ginger Bottles, teaming up with two ex-Glasgow-scene stalwarts Martin Muir (The Original Mixed Up Kid) and Steve (Sam) Davis (Playing Soldiers). Jean had reinvented herself as DJ Jean Honeymoon and to the day runs her own funky house club night in Glasgow – The Honeytrap. Finally, Jean and MArtin have recently hooked-up again and are working on some new material with Steve Boyle under the name Honey (are you noticing a certain connection here?). Their first 12″ single release on Water Glass records is scheduled for July 2004.

it is not surprise that I got their one and only 7″ when I visited the Firestation headquarters years later of the release of the compilation. The 7″ with its black and white sleeve has a photo of a woman in the front cover. Who is she? Is it Jean? The record that had “Another Fit of Laughter” on the A side and “…And there They Were” on the B side, had the catalog number Mr. Ridiculous 1001. Some interesting details is that the A had a matrix runout that said “A Taste of Good Things”  while the B side said “Again……”.

On the 7″ there was some help from Seamus Corr who played the sax. He had also been part of a band called Basss Bassa.

Aside from the bands listed on the Firestation booklet, we know that David Russell and Stewart Reid had been in the band End Result who contributed a song to the 7″ compilation “Backlash!” in 1981.

On the blog The New Vinyl Villain we learn that the band hailed from Airdrie, a small town to the east of Glasgow.

Then there s a post by Alistair Fitchett about them on the Backed With blog. Here it mentions that there were three demo tapes. At least. It mentions a few songs from these tapes,  “Apple of My Eye” (which he shared a box link!), “Pulsebeat” and “What Pleasure”. Also it mentions the song “Untitled” that was on the Leamington Spa CD. He says that this was the best song the band recorded. He also mentions that Jean had a Myspace at some point were she had some songs were she provided vocals. These are long lost though. The Myspace is no more. But she does have a website these days. And a Soundcloud.

I keep digging and on Discogs commented that there was an August 1984 demo tape that included three tracks, “Fate”, “Wild Woman” and “Fun Machine”. Would be great to find these songs, how they sounded like. And definitely if there are more songs and demo tapes it’d be great to find out!

I’d definitely would love to hear to all their songs. If there are good enough songs as “Untitled” or “Another Fit of Laughter”, that would be thrilling. Any other information will be appreciated!

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

Listen
The Honeymooners – Untitled