Day 230.

The Crystal Furs: the great Portland trio are back with two songs on a digital split EP titled “Emptiness So Near” with New Charms, also from Portland. The songs seem to be Halloween themed and sound really ace! The Chrystal Furs tracks are “Werewolf of Love” and “Haunted Space”. Very very good!

Axolotes Mexicanos: the Madrid by way of Asturias, Spanish band have a new video for their song “Cara de Idiota”! This song should be included in the band’s new album that will be released next year on Elefant Records.

The Midnight Greetings: here is a lovely song called “Youth” from the bedroom project The Midnight Greetings from Manila, Philippines. The song has been put out by Lilystars Records and it sounds soothing, sweet, and melancholic. The person behind this song is Kurt Kyle Maraton. Good work!

The Legendary House Cats: the ex-Aberdeen, John Girgus, has a new track called “A Hollow Room”. It is a dreamy pop song, with electronic touches, that feels classic as well as modern.

Corduroy: lastly a new band from Norrköping in Sweden. They do have a sound I really like. And they have two songs, “Blomster” and “Blasé”. Would they make a nice 7″? I think so. The songs are very good and from some photos I found online, they seem to be 3 guys and a girl who like a beer or two. They also consider themselves Sweden’s handsomest band. Super.

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Elephant Noise appeared on the “Still Mad At Me? (15 Years Firestation Records 1998-2013)” 4CD compilation released by Firestation Records in 2013 (FST 100). Of course they were on the CD titled “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 7”. On it they contributed the song “New Town Tom”. And that’s how I discovered them.

The booklet had some info about them. And I was very grateful for that.
Elephant Noise wanted to change the world. When singer/songwriter Neil Barber met bass player Neil Tayler in Edinburgh Scotland’s capital in the mid eighties they were drawn together through a love of seventies art-rock bands like Roxy Music. Neil Tayler, a seasoned rocker from Guernsey in the channel islands had moved to Scotland to form a serious band. Neil Barber had a classical musical background and had been playing Scottish folk music for several years. It was onky when they met flamboyant lead guitarist Stuart Allardyce (a school friend of drummer Crum Hall) that the romantic guitar band Elephant Noise was born. Stuart’s mastery of feedback and inventive post-modern guitar style combined with Neil’s achingly melodic writing made up  a sound that was huge on the Scottish music scene for almost a decade. All with university degrees in philosophy and English, the band, critically acclaimed by a national music scene weary of Stock Aitken and Waterman was very popular on the student circuit. Neil’s lyrics celebrated a visionary atheist spirituality and melodies were both light and dark.
There are few bands where each member is uniquely individually talented and though they had three drummers over the course of their career, Elephant Noise were a happy band with a good musical rapport and all founding members are still close friends to this day. Some fans like the band’s earlier more experimental if rougher sound. Others prefer their later more crafted song writing. Although they were one of Scotland’s most influential bands at the time enjoying a cult following and airplay on local and national radio, Elephant Noise never quite made the really big time. Maybe they were too brave, too fragile, too earnest, but they changed the world just a little bit.

During their time the band only would release a record, the “Elephant Noise” EP. It was released in 1991 on RUB Records (RUB001). This is the only release listed by this label so I would assume that it was a self-release. It included 4 songs, two on each side.

The A side had “This Song is Our Friend” and “Halloween Day” while the B side had “Remember the Big Time” and “Cactus Talk”. They were recorded at Pier House Studios in Edinburgh. The producers were Pete Haigh, Neil Tayler and also the band. The cover art was created by Carolyn Burchell. Neil Barber wrote the songs, played rhythm guitar, violin and sang. Neil Tayler played bass, Stuart Allardyce lead guitar, Tom Heaney played drums and keyboards and Dave Patrick played keyboards on the B side. Raymond Albeson is credited for the photos of the band members on the back cover.

The only other info that Discogs has is that Stuart Allardyce played on a few records by Rosie Nimmo in the 2000s. We know one of the drummers that was in Elephant Noise was John Gurney, he would play in the band Nectar 3 in the 90s. But about the rest of the band members, we don’t know much more.

Firestation would continue their relationship with the band and would release in 2017 a compilation album called “Remember the Big Time”. This compilation would have 13 songs. Are they everything they recorded? I don’t know, but this is a great comp. It had the following tracklist: “This Song is Our Friend”, “in Secret Dreaming”, “Remember the Big Time”, “Hearsay”, “In my Room”, “Halloween Day”, “Cactus Talk”, “The Motorway Song”, “Lost to the World”, “Wallpaper Tour”, “New Town Tom”, “Indian Summer” and “She’s an Aeroplane”. Sadly the compilation’s liner notes are the same as the Leamington Spa compilation so we can’t learn any more details through it. It does have lots of great photos of the band though!

I found that on The List, on its March 13, 1992, edition, they featured the band. Here they describe the band as a mad clash between The Monkees, The Smiths and King Crimson. We know through The List that the band played ad Music Box and the Pelican in Edinburgh,

And that’s it really. Then they disappear into obscurity.

I would love to know more about these Scottish band and its members. Any other details to add, please use the comments section!

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Listen
Elephant Noise – New Town Tom