Day 239.

River: I have actually a post coming up by this French band! Well this might be good news. So the 7″ the band released in the year 2000 with the songs “Strawberry Lipstick” and “Madoka” is available to purchase on Bandcamp on Safari Records.

The Sea at Midnight: here is a self-titled mini-album consisting of 8 songs. We can preview the first 6 on Bandcamp and it looks like this release is only available in digital format. The band hails from Los Angeles and they do play some very nice guitars!

Bootchy Temple: this French band is totally new to me. They have a cassette coming out on November 27 on Safe in the Rain Records from Paris. This tape is their album “Consummated Bloom” that will include 12 songs. At the moment we can only preview one of the tracks, “Nowhere Else”, which I like a lot. If the rest of songs are similar, then we are in for a treat!

Afternoon Naps: one of my favourite US bands from the time I started Cloudberry (and no wonder we did a 3″CD together) was the Afternoon Naps from Cleveland, Ohio. Well it seems they are now on Bandcamp and have a few copies left of their “Summer Gang” 7″ which is really nice. So run and get it!

My Raining Stars: the French project by Thierry Haliniak is back with a new  EP called “Obvious Reasons”! It is up now on Bandcamp and it includes 6 poptastic tracks. I am hoping this gets properly released as it is really good! Don’t miss it.

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Another great band I discovered thanks to the WokingSoundscene Soundcloud were the Aldershot based combo West One.

I am assuming I will find very little information about them. But we can start with the song that was uploaded to Soundcloud called “House of Cards”. This song had appeared on the “Son of Farnborough Groove Vol.2” in 1992, a compilation tape released by Farnborough Groove Music. This was not the only song that got released in these series of compilations. In 1995 they would have their song “Dreaming on My Feet” on the fifth volume that was called “Farnborough Groove Strikes Back!”

We also know who the band members were:
Patrick James Sullivan (vocals/guitar)
Paul ‘Moggy’ Morris (vocals/guitar)
Mick Goddard (bass)
Vince Southey (drums)

According to the bio on the Woking Soundscene Facebook page we learn that the band was around between 1985 and 1988. They were influenced by The Alarm, The Ruts, The Jam, and more. They mention that their name may come from The Ruts’ “West One (Shine on me)” song. The band was formed in May of 1985 and yb December of that year they were supporting Squeals of Delight at Farnborough Tech. Then in 1986 they played many gigs at the legendary Buzz Club that our friend Jo used to run. There they supported Steel Bill and the Buffalos, Second Balcony Jump and the most amazing The Jeremiahs. In February 1987 they supported Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band at the West End Centre in Aldershot.

In 1987 the band was supposed to release a 7″. It was to be released by Robot Records and the songs to be included were “Dreaming on my Feet” and “New Town”. For some reason it was never released.

In 1988 the band participated in the Battle for the Limelight held at Princes Hall.

Other gigs we know of were at the Lion Brewery, The Fox & Hounds Fleet, The Royal Oak, Fulham’s King’s Head in London, The Robin Hood Stanford, The Subway at South Hill Park in Bracknell, alongside The Body Politic and The Shift at The Riverside Club in Fetcham, The Majestic in Reading, The Tunnel Club in Greenwich, The Mean Fiddler in Harlsden, The Royal Standard in Walthamstow, Aldermoor School in Southampton, Princes Hall with Ministry of Sound and the superb Blue Train, another gig at Princes Hall with Java, at the Beehive and The Crimea. In many cases they played at same venues. If you want to check the dates you can do so by clicking on the images on the Facebook page.

It also looks like at least they recorded a demo tape in 1986, but can’t say which songs were included in it. We also know that they made t-shirts with the band’s logo.

Other information in this Facebook page is that Paul Morris was in the band The Perfect Circles after West One. Patrick James went to perform as a singer/songwriter. And sadly Vince Southey has passed away.

A fan of the band has put together a Facebook page with more stuff about the band. Here we find something amazing, the sleeve of the single that never got released. It even has the designs for the center labels of the vinyl. Other stuff to look for in this page are the amount of great photos of the band and their crowd.

And that’s it for West One. It is interesting that they shared gigs with many favourite bands of mine but somehow I’ve never heard about them before. Well, now I know a little more, hopefully we’ll get to know more soon!

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Listen
West One – House of Cards