Day 172. Now the CD retrospective by the Macguffins is officially out. Expect it too in a few mailorders around the world. Very excited about it and thankful for everyone’s support!

Now working on a 7″ that should be released this year by a Finnish band. More news soon!

Garfields Birthday: formed in 1995, in Weymouth, the band only released their debut album in 2008. This year though they have released a compilation album called “Typically Stereo” that features lots of unreleased and alternate mixes of their songs. And they are quite a nice surprise! The album is available now as a CD.

Philip Paterson: our Scottish friend who once was part of the fantastic Future World Moves band has been recording again during the pandemic. He has 4 new songs as an EP called “Corona 2020” on Soundcloud. The songs are mostly instrumental but with some lyrics with some very nice guitars.

The Alaskas: their EP “My Mind is a Ballroom” was released back in May and thanks to my friend David I have just discovered it. We know the band released this EP digitally on Denizen Records from Massachusetts and that it has 4 songs. The band is also formed by 4 people, Bobby Pin, Theodor Graham, Paul MarioKartney and Jeffery Tree.

Kammahav: the music project of Christian Gustafsson from Victorian Tin and Tony Jenkins from Plume is back with a terrific song called “Visibility Clock”! It is a very nice digital single that features more musician friends like Stenbit, Erik Bergqvist and Britt K. Jardon.

Blueprints: this band features Mia Schoen and Marc Regueiro-McKelvie. I remember loving Mia’s band Sleepy Township very much and never followed what she went to do afterwards. Would be a good interview I reckon. In any cae this is her latest, a 9 song album released digitally by Glass Halo Music from Melbourne!

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I prepare many of my research on bands time ahead. This is the 2nd or 3rd I am writing since I’ve been working from home. Since the self-isolation. Before it many more posts will be published I am sure. So I wonder if this post will be published before or after the quarantine ends.

As I am trying to make fun my posts I want to challenge myself. Last time I was looking into bands that wrote a song about days of the week. Sure that song may have not been the best of their repertoire, but still, it counts. You could make a fun mix with it. Now I want to do the same but with months. And I have to start with January.

The Swedish band The Charade wrote “Stockholm January 2005” in their first album. It is not my favourite song of theirs, but still counts. I remember playing the a lot back then, especially their song “Dressed in Yellow & Blue”, my favourite song of theirs!

The band only released records in the Northampton, Massachusetts, label Skipping Stones Records and always on CD. Their first album was actually the 2nd release on the label (SKIP002). It was called “The Best is Yet to Come” and had 11 songs. These were “Monday Morning” (which I remember being the single), “What do You See in Me?”, “Night Time Confession”, “Stories Remain Untold”, “Lying on the Couch”, “When Trouble Comes Our Way”, “On the Bar”, “The Saddest Story Ever Told”, “The Sun is Gonna Shine On You… And Me”, “It’s Summer Again” and “Stockholm January 2005”. It was released indeed in 2005. And was re-released in Japan by the fine Quince Records (QRSP-05) that same year with no extra tracks! Strange for a Japanese release. It did come with a sticker and liner notes in Japanese though.

I have the Skipping Stones version. Which checking it I see that the songs were recorded at Stockholm Audiophonic Soundlab between 2004 and 2005. “On the Bar” was recorded in 2003 at the Stockholm International School by Joe Algeri and as well as in the Stockholm Audiophonic Soundlab in 2005. Joe Algeri of course of so many great Aussie bands like The Jangle Band these days!

The lyrics for the songs were written by Magnus Karlsson. The music is credited to him and also to Mikael Matsson. Magnus played the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar. Mikael played the piano, synths, organ, glockenspiel and bass. The vocalist was the great Ingela Matsson.

These names may be familiar to many of you. Ingela had been in the amazing The Shermans, Mikael Matsson had been in Red Sleeping Beauty and The Shermans and Magnus Karlsson had been in Happydeadmen. Swedish indiepop royalty.

A year later the band would release their second album, “A Real Life Drama” (SKIP006). Now there will be 10 songs, “My Song to You”, “A Tough Decision”, “Dressed in Yellow & Blue” (their song for the Swedish football team that was to play the Germany World Cup that year), “September”, “Music Makes Me Sick”, “Stockholm July 2005”, “Rain on Your Parade”, “Sunny Winter Afternoon”, “Love Always Happens so Fast (A Real Life Drama)” and “Faith”. Sure, I could have written this post for my July or September entries. Yes, I noticed. But this is just a small challenge. It doesn’t really matter. In the end what matters are that I really like the bands and that I am curious about finding out more information about them.

Here on this album Ingela and Magnus share the duties writing lyrics. The songs were again recorded at Stockholm Audiophonic Soundlab between 2005 and 2006.

Lastly in 2008 the band would release their third and last album, “Keeping Up Appearances” (SKIP015). Here we find 11 fantastic popsongs, “Keeping Up Appearances”, “The World is Going Under”, “I Used to Live in the 80s”, “What’s a Normal Person?”, “Ballad of Uneasy Rider (I’m a Loaded Gun)”, “Heroes and Villains”, “The Perfect Shade of Grey”, “You Don’t Wanna Know”, “Springtime Fever”, “140bpm Misery Love Song” and “Stockholm April 2007”. Again the lyrics are written by Magnus on some songs and Ingela on others.

This record was produced by Mikael and was recorded at Bodal, Danviksklippan and Nacka Strand between January and December 2007. They were mixed at Stockholm Audiophonic Soundlab in January 2008. The photographs that appear on the CD were credited to Nolan Pelletier, while the design to Christine Jewell from Skipping Stones. The mastering was done by William Knapp also from the label. Oh! and Jan Thornstein Hedin played bank in the song “Ballad of Uneasy Rider (I’m a Loaded Gun)”.

According to Discogs there was a promo CDR that was made in 2005, to promote the first album with three songs, “Monday Morning”, “Nighttime Confession” and “Stories Remain Untold”.

Aside from these releases the band would contribute a few songs to compilations.

In 2005 their song “Monday Morning” appeared on the CD comp “Strom Und Gitarre Folge 1 (Let’s Go Away for a While)” released by Popappeal (PAPP-001). That same year on the Skipping Stones sampler “2005 Sampler” they would contribute “The Sun is Gonna Shine on You… and Me” and “Monday Morning”.

The next year, 2006, the band would have “Stories Remain Untold” on the Book Club Records CD comp “Pop the Question (BCR 2006). Then in 2007 their song “A Tough Decision” is featured on “November Rain” CD released by Filter (FILTER CD 15) and also their song “Music Makes Me Sick” appeared on the “Club King Kong: Med Musiken I Mitten Vol.2 Säsongen 06-07” that was released by Donkeyboys Recordings (DNKYBYS002).

So no, all songs that were on compilations had previously appeared on the albums. I am wondering of course if there are more songs. Unreleased tracks. And I ask myself too what happened to the band members? Did they continue making music? What are they up to? Was the band Small Imperfections the last one that Magnus Karlsson was involved with?

They sort of stopped releasing records the year that indiepop became sort of cool, that there was a bigger scene, more labels, more bands, bigger and better festivals. I wish I had seen them live. Did they play live? Probably, if they were featured on a Club King Kong CD, they must have at least played there.

One thing not to miss is that the band made a video for “Dressed in Yellow and Blue“. What a lovely song!

What I find on the web is many reviews to their records. I guess Skipping Stones and the band did their job in spreading the word. But there are not many details about the band members. Yes we know Ingela and Mikael are married. But aside from that it doesn’t give me more interesting bits. Comparing them to other bands is not interesting to me. One thing though that I find was an interview for Red Sleeping Beauty were Mikael is asked if it was a dream come true to be in a band alongside Magnus from Happydeadmen, and he says it wasn’t! They were friends and wanted to contribute and make some music together!

I am sure many remember them. So do tell, did they play live? Do they have more songs? What are they up to these days? And where can I hear more Ingela’s vocals? I have all The Shermans and The Charade CDs. I miss her voice a lot!

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Listen
The Charade – Dressed in Yellow and Blue