Day 255.
Fred Fredburger: two songs from this great Spanish band! “Tardes de Sol” which was included in the self-titled mini-LP and a brand new one called “Esto No es Serie” are now up on Elefant’s Bandcamp. Fun naive pop!
Po!: the classic Leicester band has a Bandcamp now (I should interview Ruth I think, wouldn’t that be great?) featuring some new tracks by Ruth Po! The latest is “You Never Get the Life You Choose (acoustic version)” and as usual it has amazing lyrics and her unique vocals. How can one not love Po!?
A Homey Little In(n): this is the new compilation coming out from Testcard Records from Japan. It features art by our friend Ray Kimura as well our friend Katsuya from Caucus appears on it covering an Elliot Smith song. And that’s not all, in this CDR that will be released on December 24 we find many important Japanese indiepopsters, including our friends from H-Shallows or Cattle. Right now we can preview one of the songs, Naoya Hinuma’s cover of Cattle’s “Sherbet”. It sounds nice!
Orchid Mantis: this Atlanta project is releasing their album “Far From this World” on November 20th. It is coming out on Z Tapes label from Slovakia, on cassette and vinyl. The album will include 14 songs and right now we can preview 4 of them, “Within and Apart”, “Can’t See the Sun Anymore”, “Never Know Why” and “Light Beyond (Right Now)”.
Lavender Blush: Shelflife Records should be releasing this single by San Francisco’s premier noisepop band. IT is called “Oh Anna” and this digital single comes with two remixes, the Sweet Trip remix and Desario remix.
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Who were the German band Shelby? That’s what we should try to find out today.
I do own a wonderful CD album by them called “Sofa Safari” released by the legendary Marsh-Marigold Records from Hamburg back in 1996. This CD had the catalog number MARI 12, and must have been released towards the end of that year.
The album is a great indiepop records with boy/girl vocals and jangly guitars. There are 12 songs in it, “Sleeping Cliché”, “I Thought that I”, “Mental Harvest”, “To Mum”, “In a Milky Mood”, “Fragmentary Love”, “Fake Fur”, “Fred”, “Just a Friend”, “Sonic Sound”, “Pale” and “Sally’s Home”.
Aside from this release we only know that the song “Fake Fur” was included in a tape compilation in the US in 1997. This tape compilation was called “Trestle Set” and was released by Low Voltage. This label was put together by the people behind the band Chuzzlewit and released mainly their own music and a couple of compilations.
Luckily the CD album insert does give me a few important details that may help track the band down.
The band was formed by:
Jantje Steigemann – vocals
Björn Becker – guitars, vocals
Wiebke Wegerish – bass, percussion
Ronny Hohn – drums
Most of the bands songs were written by Björn, “To Mum” was written by Jantje. The album was recorded and mixed by Clemens Kinder at two addresses, one in Peutestraße and another Brookstaße, in Hamburg. I feel it is safe to assume the band hailed from this great city. We know that Clemens Kinder also contributed cello on “Mental Harvest” and Steffi Nohr played flute on “Sleeping Cliché”.
The obvious question is, are there more songs? how come there were no more releases?
I wonder if the band had a good following. When people think of Marsh-Marigold normally they think of other bands like Red Letter Day, Die Fünf Freunde, Busch or The Legendary Bang (who have been interviewed on the blog). But of course this label had many great bands.
I am not sure what the band members are up to. Linkedin shows a Jantje Steigemann from Hamburg working as a psychologist for children I think. I am not 100% sure it is the same Jantje but there is a good chance. The other members I really don’t know. Perhaps Ronny Hohn is still making music. I believe he has been in a band called Fondermann and another called GODZ.
So yes, we need help to know more about Shelby. Who remembers them?
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Listen
Shelby – Sally’s Home
