Day 325.

I said I was going to share the Bandcamp for the new Verandan release, so here it is. Enjoy, and order the record of course!!

La Merienda: La Merienda is a great pop radio show from Extremadura, Spain. Agustín, who is behind the show, has put together a compilation of different intros for the show that many pop bands have recorded through the years including Cariño, Guatafan, Cristina Quesada and Marcos y Molduras among others.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples: Slumberland announced the album “Uncommon Weather” by their neighbours (both label and band based in the Bay Area) and seems to be doing well! It will be released on April 9th, and the limited version of the release that includes a 7″ single and photo zine is already sold out. But don’t despair, the CD and regular vinyl versions are available. There are 13 songs in the album and the opening track, “Don’t Ever Pray in the Church of My Street” is available to preview.

Fine.: one of my favourite bands from the last months is this Boston, UK, combo formed by James Marsh and Alice Kat. It is jangly, upbeat, with great vocal melodies. I find it perfect. Great band and it seems they are working on an album. That’s very good news. I’d buy that album for sure. A 7″ would be nice wouldn’t it?

Telepathic Traffic: just discovered this Los Angeles dreampop band thanks to their cover of The Specials song “You’re Wondering Now”. It is an interesting twist. The band is formed by Harris Pittman, just him.

No Suits in Miami: before 2020 ended the great Lund, Sweden, band released “I’ll Never Lie Again (Just to Get a Synth from You)”. The band, who I have featured a few times, makes wonderful pop music, with classy arrangements and lovely melodies. Listening to this song of course I feel like I need a physical record of theirs… they don’t exist sadly, just a tape from back in 2018…

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So a few weeks ago I created an Instagram account to post photos of my records. Yeah, I know, not very original, but it is fun for me. There are so many good records I have that a little promotion doesn’t hurt anyone. And maybe I get to learn some stories people will share. Who knows.

Actually when I posted a photo of Oh Sweet Music!’s CDR (their one and only) that was released in 2004 by the great Smashing Time (SMT008), a few friends commented. One of them telling me he would pay good money for a copy of it! Another telling me he has been looking for it for ages with no luck. I wouldn’t have known!

You see, I was lucky. I got a copy of this CDR thanks to the great Martin Cannert from The Javelins/The Faintest Ideas, last time I met with him in Gothenburg. That was really great of course. Those days, traveling, having fun, new cities, seeing friends. He gave me a bunch of CDRs from the 2000s, a time where indiepop seemed to reign supreme in Sweden. A time that I tried to capture in a compilation called The Sound of Starke Adolf. I planned to do more volumes of these series of compilations, but it turned out a bit more difficult when trying to put together the 2nd volume, the bands seemed so uninterested that it was hard to get tracks and the CD booklet together. You know, you need photo and bio of a band for a proper release of this kind.

I don’t think I reached to Oh Sweet Music! then. I had this very long list of bands I had to contact, enough bands for 5 or 6 volumes. They were on that list of course.

So going back to this CD, we know that there were five songs on it, “Let’s Go to War”, “Reconsider Peace”, “Long Time Since Bedtime”, “The Astronaut” and “You Can’t Hug Your Children With Nuclear Arms Pt II”. The CDR came in a plastic sleeve. Taped to the sleeve was the tracklist and written down the URL to a website which doesn’t exist anymore.. And there was also a cloth sleeve, single sided, with the name of the band.

The band did appear on two compilations later on, so we know they had more songs. There are four songs by the band on the 2007 “Series Two Compilation Vol. 1” CDR that were “For Long Years”, “Song to Iraq”, “My Trip to Asia” and “Long Time Since Bedtime”. The year after on the “Series Two Compilation Vol. 12” they had just one song, “Oh, Daniel” which I believe was a Tafra cover.

On Last.fm it seems there were more songs by the band like “Oh Sweet Christmas!”, “I Can Win it Back”, “Poor Man’s Heaven”, “I’ve Lost Track of the World”, “(Fly Away For) Christmas”, “Berlin”, “Winter in Stockholm” and “Midsummer”

Sadly there’s not much more info on the web. I did find something interesting, I think Oh Sweet Music! performed in Buenos Aires in 2011. There’s a video of Oh Sweet Music! performing “Long Time Since Bedtime” at Zorzal-Mané in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. The light on the video is quite dark, so it is hard to see. But still, it is quite a treasure to find!

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Listen
Oh Sweet Music! – Let’s Go to War