Day 286
Breakfast Clouds: oh!! what a nice discovery this band from Manila, Philippines! Their latest was the “Treehouse” EP that was released last August and it is really a beauty. How did it go under my radar. The three songs that make up the EP are just dreamy and perfectly crafted. This is truly good, deserves a physical release!
A Zu La: the latest release on the very good Shiny Happy Records is a digital single by this new project by Guntur. The song is titled “Go Out” and it is a fine slice of bedroom pop (actually recorded at Guntur’s room). There’s not much more info about it, but hopefully there are more songs soon.
Oeil: after a long silence these Japanese shoegazers are back with a fuzzy and warm song called “Perfect”. It is catchy, very MBV, too. There are also t-shirts on sale if that’s your thing!
The Reds, Pinks & Purples: and of course, there had to be some Christmas songs by the most prolific indiepop artist around. The two new songs are titled “We Won’t Come Home at Christmas Time” and “Holiday Cheer (In Spite of it All”, and of course they are jingle jangly!
EggS: the French fuzzy band is back with a song called “Old Fashion Virtue” that seems to be released in a cassette. Is it just the one song in the cassette called “An Unexpected Christmas Gift”? It is not 100% clear to me. Seems a bit bad to just include one song on a tape, right? But then it is a very nice song.
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There are still a bunch of superb obscure bands that were on The Sound of Leamington Spa series released by Firestation Records that need to be featured on the blog. I don’t know how many, but I do feel most of them deserve a mention here as they were important to me in discovering indiepop!
So for example from the first ever CD of the series, “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 1” (FST 008) we need to cover so many bands! So far on the blog I’ve had features/interviews with Episode 4, Where Gardens Fall, The Anyways, The Hepburns, The Siddeleys, The Desert Wolves, The Clamheads, Sister Rain, The Wishing Stones and The Aurbisons. That’s about half of the bands! So we are missing still a bunch, but today I want to revisit one that was a nice surprise when I first heard this CD as it was a band I had never heard before, not even their name, Asia Fields from Manchester.
By now they must be familiar with everyone. The compilation came out in the year 2000. And even in 2017 Firestation Records released a compilation album called “Goodbye Frank” (FST 146) on both LP and CD that is a must have for any serious indiepop fan.
I must say they were quite mysterious to me too because on the Leamington Spa booklet, every band had some info about them, but for Asia Fields there was nothing. Just a short discography! I was able though to find a copy of their first release, the “Burst” 12″ on eBay I think. For a good price probably. I don’t like paying crazy prices.
The “Burst” 12″ is really good, it includes the song that was on the Leamington Spa compilation, “Dazed”, on the B side. The other two songs were “Save Me” on the A side and “Ain’t That Just What Love Is” as the 2nd song on the B side. This record came out on Frank Records (12 FRANK 001) and I believe this label was the band’s own. The A side was engineered at Spirit Studios (Manchester) while the B side at Square One Studios (Bury). Graham Massey (from 808state) was the engineer. The credits are a bit extensive on this one, so we know that Graham Maley played guitar and sang as well as wrote the songs, Mark Finch played guitar, David Jones the bass, Paul Hewitt played bongos, percussion, backing vocals, David Keane played congas and percussion, Eamonn Sheehe played drums and percussion and Andy Preston played keyboards. The record came out in 1990 and the artwork is credited to Rob Taylor with help by Pete Rogers on the typography.
The band would release two more records during their time. Frank 02 was a 12″ white label for “Friction” on the A side and “Jackknifed” on the B side. It seems this record came with a band photo and a press sheet where it mentions that the band hailed from Oldham and was formed in 1989. The songs in this single were produced by Chris Nagle and it says that these songs were taken from the band’s forthcoming album that was to be released on vinyl and CD. This album never happened sadly.
One thing to notice too is that the records had some runout etchings. They are quite strange. For example in the “Friction” 12″ it says on the A side “BAKAWITHAFRAKATHATAMAKEYAHANDACLAPPAANOTHERAPORKAPRIMACUTA” while on the B side “ITTUKALIDDLEWYLABUD WE BAK TO MAKE YA SMILA YERRANUTHAPRIMACUTA”. The “Burst” 12″ is less mysterious, “MIKE’S-THE EXCHANGE MPO” on the A side and “MPO” on the B side.
Lastly in 1998 the band released a CD single with two songs, “Crazy Caroline” and “Stabilize” on Long Jump Records (AFCD 001). There’s really no info for this CD.
What else do we know about the band members? We know that Graham Maley was in a band afterwards called The Homelys. Eamonn Sheehe has played with Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks) and supported some big names. He has been a drum teacher for some time. David Keane guested in the song “Caravan” by the Inspiral Carpets.
But as I said, luckily Firestation Records released “Goodbye Frank”, a compilation that included the songs from their first 2 records and more. I wonder why not the CD single? In any case this was the tracklist “Dazed”, “Save Me”, “Ain’t That Just What Love Is”, “There is No-One to Save You”, “God Only Knows”, “Friction”, “Jackknifed”, “Know Who You Are”, “Chances”, “Waking Up”, “Sneakin”, “That Feeling”, “Hummingbird”, “Bluke”, “You’re Not Even Born (Live)”.
Another question, so there is that live song last. Where was this one played? Somewhere in Manchester? Would be nice to know where. The good thing is that Graham Maley wrote for the accompanying booklet.
Here it changes the timeline. It says now that the band was formed in 1985 by Graham Maley and Tony Welsh. The city is still the same, Oldham. They got a room to practice at the Guide Bridge Mill. Clint Boon owned this room. One day liking what he heard he asked to record a demo of the band. Here we see that the band grows, but we see some different names. This first lineup included Chris Goodwin on drums, David and Alan Keane on bongos, congas and percussion, David Jones on bass and two backing singers, Viv Hughes and Louise Butterworth. So, what songs were recorded with this lineup? What songs were on that first demo recorded by Boon?
The lineup I mentioned earlier was actually the 1987/1988 lineup. That lineup is the one that did most of the band’s recorded output. Aside from the two studios and engineers I mentioned earlier they also used Noise Box where Steve Lloyd engineered. On their later recordings Dave Wells is on drums and Christian Butterworth (family of Louise?) on bongos.
The band would support the Inspiral Carpets in 1989 at The International. After that the band gained a following. They mention that they turned down offers from big labels, interviews from the music papers and magazines. They wanted to remain indie. That’s quite interesting.
Then Graham tells a bit about his creative process, how the band was ahead of the wave, mixing dance grooves before Madchester exploded.
We can also mention that the song “Dazed” was included in the Cherry Red boxset “Manchester North of England – A Story of Independent Music Greater Manchester 1977-1993” that came out in 2017.
But there’s more. There is a Facebook page for the band. The band is actually selling t-shirts of their original iconic design of the “Burst” 12″. Very cool. But let’s see what else we can learn.
One thing I find almost immediately is that while in Oldham College Graham and Tony Welsh had a few bands. The first one was called Jazmedia and lasted until 1982. Afterwards they had a project called Aldo in Arcadia which it says that there were some recordings made. Would be good to listen to these! Then after Asia Fields, they reunited to form the band Go Cosmic around 2002.
Then I find that in 2017 the band put together a digital album. It was released by Cherry Red. It turns out that this record is actually the unreleased album of the band from 1999. The story tells the band went into the Noise Box Studio to record the album, and when the album was ready the call from the label person never came. The album was then stored in a garage, then in a loft, and then after many years rediscovered. The songs on it were “Switch”, “Crackpot”, “I Will Not Follow”, “Bluff”, “Jackknifed”, “Drive Us Away”, “Stabilise”, “You’re Not Even Born” and “The Good Goodbye”.
Another great thing about the page is that there are lots of photos of the band Among the photos there is a photo of a demo tape dating from 1997 with three songs at least, “Know Who You Are”, “Chances” and “Waking Up”. It seems the band doesn’t remember much about this one! Though it does look they were planning to release these songs as a CD single at some point, they even made posters for it!
Other photos tell us that the band played alongside The Ambitious Beggars on May 11, 1990. Another gig we know they played was at The Ritz on July 17 that same year (or 1989?). Or what about them playing in the Hop & Grape with The Mock Turtles on December 9th on again 89 or 1990?
And if you care, there’s a promo video for the song “Friction” on Youtube!
I wasn’t expecting much on the web but there actually is quite some good amount of info. I find an interview by Louder than War with Graham Maley. Here they ask many questions I would ask!
A blog called Even the Stars reviews the “Goodbye Frank” compilation and adds one detail I wasnt aware, Graham Maley latest band was actually called Aluna Pop Ups. He is also the author of two books, “The Difference We Make” and “We are Waking Up”.
And that’s it for today. Quite a good amount of information. I feel I know even more about the band now. How cool. Who remembers them?
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Listen
Asia Fields – Dazed
