Day 158. We have received the MacGuffins CDs! Exciting! Our 2nd release this year after the fanzine. Yeah, we’ve been slow this year, but that’s cool still. It is good to release records! So we have set the official release date as for August 30th, but any pre-orders will start shipping RIGHT NOW! Remember you can order the CD by itself or as a combo with a 3″CDR that includes the MacGuffins first demo!
Hannah Barberas: this favourite UK band of the blog is back with a new EP titled “Fallow Days”. It is already out and all proceeds of it will be donated to the Lewisham Foodbank. Oh! I once stayed in Lewisham. I get nostalgic. The four songs sound great, so there’s no doubt you all will like it! Check it out now!
Fantasy Postcards: the 2nd song of the combo formed by Johan Gille (ex-Able) and Mattias Jonsson (ex-Seashells) sounds great! It is called “Polaroid Epitaph” and it features some great guitars and fine melodies. The question that arises is when will their third, fourth, fifth, song will be released? I feel the band is slowly gathering material for something bigger. These two tunes are already promising good things to come, and this last one is very very good.
Davey Woodward & the Winter Orphans: wow! the great Davey Woodward who fronted The Brilliant Corners is back with an album called “Love & Optimism”. The album will be released on vinyl and CD on October 2nd and at this point we can preview two of the tracks, “Warm Hands” and “Occupy this Space”. Good stuff!
Candy Opera: the Liverpool band that remained obscure for years until Firestation Records rediscovered them will be releasing a new album on November 6th. It will be available on CD and vinyl and from the one song we can preview “These Days are Ours” this record called “The Patron Saint of Heartache” seems to be one we can’t miss this year!
Smokescreens: lastly we should check out LA band Smokescreens who are releasing a new album called “A Strange Dream” on October 30th on Slumberland Records. Here we can also only preview one of the songs, “Fork in the Road” which is great. The album will be out on vinyl and CD!
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One of the bands I had slated to appear on the second volume of The Sound of Starke Adolf was Handsome Train. From what I remember I was in touch with Mårten Andersson from the band and he sent me a song called “Last Sunday”. He promised to send a hi-res photo and a bio for the booklet but that never came to my mailbox. This happened with many bands back then, in 2009, and sadly couldn’t get enough songs to release this compilation. I wonder if one day I’ll be able to retake it. The first volume, now long sold out, is one of my favourite projects I ever put together.
I had known of the band through my days in Soulseek, back in those early 2000s. Swedish pop bands were releasing CDRs and sharing Mp3s of their songs all over the place. It was a great time for sure. Handsome Train was no exception with their trademark boy/girl vocals and catchy songs. I really liked them.
Their first release I believe was a demo CDR with three songs, “We’d Have Time”, “That Girl” and “September”. I can’t remember much about, and I can’t even remember if I ever heard these songs. Maybe.
There was another demo CD with 6 songs. This one again I don’t know much but we know thanks to Popfakta that the songs were “Last Sunday”, “Budapest”, “Holiday”, “Lovely”, “Morrissey” and “Farmen”.
Then a 7″ was released on Tommy Gunnarsson’s label Heavenly Pop Hits (POPH02). This 7″ EP was called “Pop” and included 5 songs: “Pop”, “I Want You to Know” and “Everyone Says Hi” on the A side and “Riot Girls” and “In this Time” on the B side. It is worth noting that Mårten was in The Gentle Smiles with Tommy too at some point. People with good music taste, making good music. The songs for this EP were recorded in 2002 at Studio Stäpelston, except track 3, side A, which was recorded in John’s basement. The technician at the studio was Lars Claesson.
I do remember very much their 2004 CDR EP “This Engine Should Do” released by the great Popkonst Recordings (POPK07). This EP I played over and over. It had four songs, “You Might Not Believe”, “Horse, Boy, Girl”, “Watching the Sky” and “When I Work I Cry”. I really loved “Horse, Boy, Girl”. Played it a thousand times.
This CDR tells us that the band was formed by Mårten Andersson on bass, Sara Ericsson on vocals, flute and keyboards, Linnea Karlsson on vocals and guitars, John on vocals, keyboards and guitars. That all songs were recorded in the summer of 2004 and all of the songs were written by John except “Watching the Sky” that was by Sara. On the front cover, there is a photo of a guy on a Levi’s t-shirt. This guy was called Bartek Machaj. A friend of the band?
Lastly the band would appear on there compilations. The first is on the classic Heavenly Pop Hits comp “Hit Music Only” (POPH1) released in 2002. Here they appear with the track “September”. In 2004 they appear on two Popkonst CD comps, “Rundgång – Skinkmacka På Teckenspråk” (POPK01) with the song “I Want You to Know” and on “This is Popkonst And We Love You” (POPK02) with the song “When I Work I Cry”.
We also know a few more facts. First the band hailed from Halmstad. They would play the festival Mitt Nästa Liv in Kalmar in 2003 and also Rundgång festival in 2004 in Karlskrona.
After the band split Sara was involved with the Malmö band Birds on Clouds while Mårten played with Full Effekt. I believe John became a diplomat. What about Linnea?
Then there is a blog post about the 7″ release. It is on a blog written by Tommy in memory of his Heavenly Pop Hits Label. Here he mentions how he was blown away by the band and surprised an indiepop band could appear out of nowhere in Halmstad, which is mostly known for giving the world Roxette. So he immediately approached the band and offered a release, a 7″. They had organized a release party at Rockstugan in Halmstad but sadly by the time of the party the vinyl records had been delayed. Anyways the band played and a week later the records arrived. The 7″s when mailed came with a badge. That’s cool. According to the blog the band left lots of unreleased tracks.
For those who know Swedish there is a fanzine called En Garde by Anton Gustavson from Södertälje which is available to read on Dropbox. On it there is an interview with Handsome Train!
Another thing I found online is that the band played with Pipas at Blekingska Nationen in 2004.
And that’s it really. Now it is time to find out what happened to them and to those unreleased songs they had. Everything they put out was quality. So definitely we need to know more!
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