Day 148.
Charlie Darling: “A Radio Romance” is a 16 song album by Charlie that is up now on the Bandcamp of his other project Les Bicyclettes de Belsize. There is not much info about this album, not sure if these are recordings from before he started calling himself Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, but it doesn’t matter really, the thing is that these are very lovely songs! Makes you happy and tap your feet!
The Violent Hearts: from Birmingham two songs recorded during the great lockdown of 2020. The names of these songs are “Porcelain World (Acoustic)” and “Strange Powers” and they are great indiepop songs, classic sounding!
The Leave Me Alones: now to Oakland, California, to check out the “Be Alone EP” by this four-piece formed by Marc, Damian, Dasha and Hayley. So far we can only preview one of the songs, “Choices”, and it sounds terrific. It does remind me of the Canadian band Sleuth. Cool!
Mañana el Espacio: the Caracas, Venezuela, band is back with a new single called “Estrellas Fugaces”. It is a charming lo-fi bedroom pop song with a happy-go-lucky feel. Check it out.
Midpoint Union: not very common to feature a Portuguese band but happy to do it today. This solo project by Pedro R from somewhere in Portugal sounds interesting. He released last January a dreamy album called “New Turn” which is worth giving a listen. I wonder if there are more indiepop influenced bands there these days…
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Wow! What a discovery! Just stumbled upon a whole rip of a tape called “Mop Up Before You Leave” on Youtube. And guess what, there are tons of great bands and music here that are totally new to me. I will share my favourites with you in this and in following posts. So let’s start with the first band on the tape, Little Engine.
One thing that is worth mentioning is that this tape was released in 1989 and from what I understand it was put together by Matt Allison. The songs were recorded at his place at 4th and White in Champaign, Illinois. I know there is a 7″ by Matt Allison on the Bus Stop Label and I always assumed he was more of a musician, but it seems he is best known as an audio engineer who has mostly worked at Atlas Studios in Chicago.
Ok, so he put this tape together in 1989 with bands from that period. AMong the names that are more familiar I can think of Paul Chastain and Uncle Tupelo. The rest are all new to me. Little Engine is definitely new and sounds great. The song that was included in this tape was called “Good Day, Sad Girl” and was recorded in August 1989.
I continue googling and I find that the band hailed from the city of Urbana, which is just next door to Champaign.
Then I find a name that was involved in the band, Rob McColley. Then I put two and two together and it is Rob McColley who had uploaded the Matt Allison tape! Everything starts making sense. Then I find in his account another tape by Little Engine one called “Here’s a Cookie from Other Side of Reality” which dates form 1988. This was was also recorded by Matt Allison and the songs included in this EP were “Watch Me”, “I Think I Can Manage”, “Colors of the Broom”, “(Gorilla Shit)”, “Empty Room”, “Through the Wall” and “Two Times”. The first three were on the A side called (Side Burns) while the last three on the B side (Side Winders).
We also find the band members names:
Matt Pearson – drums, tambourine
Ed Schaller – bass, tambourine
Rob McColley – vocals
Jon Beck – guitar
The video includes some tidbits about the songs which is really cool. For example each tape used to cost 2 dollars and they were usually sold at the Urbana High School cafeteria!
The second song on this tape, “I Think I Can Manage” was included in Trashcan Records compilation tape “Lubricant” that was released in 1988. Another interesting thing mentioned here is that they named their “publishing company” Strawberry in the Prairie. Why? They have no clue. They weren’t affiliated to any organization. They didn’t get any money for their songs.
Lastly there is another video uploaded. This one is their unreleased and never finished album from 1990. It was also recorded by Matt Allison but this time it was at Windy City Recorders in Chicago during the winter and spring of 1990. It seems at this point the band members had changed. Matt Pearson had left and was replaced by Pat Hawley. Sadly this time around there are no song titles for these songs.
And this seems to be the end of this great sounding band that reminds us of the great Rick Menck and Paul Chastain bands. They should have released at least a 7″! They had good songs as you will see!
Whatever happened to Little Engine? Where are they now? Were they involved with any other bands?!
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