Day 274.

Sodastream: have always been a fan of the Melbourne duo formed by Karl Smith and Pete Cohen. They have been terribly quiet as of late, but suddenly there’s a new song by them called “Letter from Melbourne”. It is classic Sodastream if you know what I mean. It is a song the band have recorded during the lockdown. I hope this means they are working on a new album too!

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: two new songs by the San Francisco band. I’ve written so much about them that don’t think they need an introduction. The two new songs are “Dahlias and Rain” and “Bed of Roses”, this second one a cover of Screaming Trees.

Kissamatic Lovebubbles: the Greek label Old Bad Habits has put together a digital compilation of all the songs by the classic Athens band. Included are the songs from their 7″ on This Happy Feeling as well as many live recordings. This is really good and essential!

Sissy Space Echo & the Invisible Collaborators: another new release coming out on the Greek label Old Bad Habits is a 7″ by this superb English band whose previous release was a favourite of mine. This new 7″ will include two songs, “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” and “They’ll Fix You (They Fix Everything)”.

The Bachelor Pad: a 10″ vinyl with the songs “Meet the Lovely Jenny Brown”, “Eeek!”, “Albert Hoffman”, “Do It for Fun (12inch version)” and “Meet the Lovely Jenny Brown (vocal mix)” is going to be released by Emotional Response Records! How cool! It is the perfect accompaniment to the recent Best Of compilation the band and label put out. Great news!

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Let me start a new challenge. This one will be much shorter, but may help anyone doing their mix tapes or CDs. What about a challenge of the four seasons? Let me write a post about bands who wrote songs about summer, fall, winter and spring. Sounds good? I’ll start with summer today!

I believe I only have two records by the French project River, two albums one from 2002 and 2003. These seem to be their last releases. Dear dear. I need go go back and check all the previous releases. And they are quite a few!

But first why did I pick this band? Well, they wrote a lovely song “Happy Summer Nights”. So that gives summer a check mark in my challenge.

According to a bio on AllMusic the band was actually the solo project of Fabrice Hervé from Nantes, France. The project started in 1997 and that year it says the band released a CD called “Happiness & Smiles”. I haven’t been able to find any info about this CD sadly. Was it an album? A single?

The year after, 1998, the band would release “The Hairdresser” (Plastic Pancake 004) 7″ single on the fine French label Plastic Pancake. This 7″ included three songs, “The Hairdresser” and “Happy Summer Nights” on the A side and “Parisian Girl” on the B side. The female vocals on “Happy Summer Nights” are by Sophie.

That same year a single sided tape called “Venus” was released by the US based label In a Lighthouse Cassettes. This tape included 8 songs, “Imaginary Friend”, “Country Man”, “Bright Nights”, “Fishes in a Berlin Garden”, “A Night with Tres Hansen”, “Madoka”, “The Forbidden Wall” and “Juliette”.

In 1999 the band would release another tape, this time on the Italian label Best Kept Secret. The tape was titled “Once Upon a Time” (LIE 027) and included 22 songs! Quite a lot! The A side had “Stories of Love”, “Beach Song”, “Family (Techno Mix)”, “Suicide”, “Inside Your Arms”, “Bye Bye 2”, “From You to Me”, “Mary’s Street”, “Tu As Beau”, “Sometimes” and “Rainbow”. The B side had “Family (Noisy Mix)”, “Suddenly”, “Down”, “Love”, “Waiting”, “25-10-95”, “Little Girl”, “Eric’s Trip”, “Ici Ce Soir”, “A Night with Naomi” and “A Night with Inès”.

That same year, 1999, the band would release a second 7″ on Plastic Pancake (009). Three songs again, “Spiderman” on the A side and “It’s Me!” and “Kitty Cat” on the B side. But that wouldn’t be all. The band would start a relationship with the US based Shelflife Records, releasing first a 7″ EP called “Poseidon’s Girlfriend” (LIFE 022). This 7″ had “Queen” on the A side and “Gentle Land” and “Mister Jocker” on the B side.

The year 2000 would continue being prolific for the band. 2 songs were to be released as a 7″ on the French label Safari (Safari 0002), “Strawberry Lipstick” on the A side and “Madoka” on the B side. And then came another album, “…Is the Postman” released on the US label Blackbean and Placenta Tape Club (BBPTC 194). And yes it was released on CD not on tape. This album had 11 songs, “Boys and Girls”, “Let me Stay”, “The Four Princesses”, “Juliette”, “River’s Song”, “A Night With You”, “Am I So Silly to Believe?”, “Art Students”, “Brasilia”, “Tea for Cats” and “Go in a Tree”.

In 2002 we’d see a the “Street of Desire” 7″ on Plastic Pancake (015) with the title song on the A side and “Strange Friends” on the B side and the self-titled album on Shelflife Records (LIFE 023) with another whopping 20 songs: “Better than You”, “At Home”, “Happy Summer Nights”, “Harold the Wonder Boy”, “Writing”, “Le Top Model”, Les Volets Verts”, “Street of Desire”, “Will You Marry Me?”, “The Recital of My Life”, “The Hairdresser”, “Let’s Climb to the Moon”, “Switch On”, “Miss Dolly”, “The Bridge”, “Pet’s Field”, “Un Diner Sur l’Herbe”, “Me and Naomi”, “Dream On” and “Thank You’.

Aside from this, even though Discogs doesn’t list it, I know, because I also have it, a CD album called “Music for Top Models” released by the German label Meller Welle Produkte (MEL 33) in 2003. This album had 14 songs, “Heavenly Voices (intro)”, “She Lives Under a Rainbow”, “Living in a City”, “American’s Bedroom”, “English Party”, “The Green Hoan”, “The Little Pink Town”, “Like a Dream”, “German Girl”, “Emma’s Song”, “Merry Go Round”, “Mum Had a Lover”, “Diamond Girl” and “I See Nothing in Your Eyes”. One thing I have to say about this record is that the design is not very pretty, not sure why. The other releases have very sober and interesting art, this one not really. It is a fine album though.

Aside from the releases the band did appear on many compilations. The first one actually dates from 1995, so ok, the band was around much earlier than the bio we found. In 1995 the band contributed the song “Bye Bye” to “Palazzo” a compilation tape released in France by Pâte a Modeler (PAM 005). The year after, on the same label they had three songs on the compilation “Imbroglio” (PAM 008), “The Hairdresser”, “Will You Marry Me?” and “Notre Rencontre”.

Then there’s a gap of 4 years. In the year 2000 they have the song “End of a Story” on the Japanese comp “Voyage Romanesque” on Bambini Records (BAM 5). That same year we find “Queen” on “You Make me Smile” a CD comp on Shelflife (LIFE 10) and “Art Students” on the “Blackbean and Placenta CD Compilation #4, Autumn 2000” released by Blackbean and Placenta (BBPTC 144).

In 2002 the song “German Girl” is on “We Are Not Alone (Songs for the Lo-fi Generation) Volume 6” tape comp released by Best Kept Secret (LIE 043). Then in 2003, they cover The Arrogants’ song “Lovesick” on the “You’re Still Young at Heart” CD compilation on Shelflife (LIFE 050) and the song “Two for a Night” appears on the compilation CDR “Dashboard Teddy Version 1.0” on Dorothy Records from the Philippines.

And that seems to be it when it comes to releases.

But I can google right? And I find he was doing a project called Moon & River about 4 years ago. 11 songs are on Bandcamp. This is a collaboration between Fabrice and Jean-Charles Queffélect from the band To the Moon and Back.

One thing that I do find on the web is that River played San Francisco on July 25 of 2002 with support of Laura Watling! Wow! That must have been a cool gig, and all just for $5!

I don’t seem to find much more information on River, especially curious to know if Fabrice was involved with any other bands. But hey, we’ve shared a lot of info here, some that is not on Discogs even. I have many questions still but hopefully they’ll get answered in the near future!

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Listen
River – Happy Summer Nights