Seems I’m going to have a very busy week ahead covering Hurricane Irma. When I lived in Florida I was lucky not to have to experience such a dangerous hurricane. I lived through Katrina and Rita, but they were quite “nice” to Florida. This time it seems it is going to be rough. Hope all my Florida friends stay safe.

The Proctors are back with a new song and it is damn glorious. “You and Me and the Sea” is right now streaming on Soundcloud. I believe this will be a new 7″ in the near future on Shelflife. The band has also uploaded another song, I just noticed, titled “Silhouettes” and even though I like the first one best, maybe because of its immediacy, this one is also very good. Wow. They had been quiet for the past year or so, but this is quite a comeback!

It has been a while since I discover a new good Swedish pop band. Well, here is Lilac from Stockholm, with their new digital EP “Sun”. Four dreampop, shoegazy songs, just out of the oven: “Daydreaming”, “Sun”, “07.07.97” and “Toucan”. Which is my favourite? Maybe “07.07.97”, it has some beautiful jangly guitars all over carrying the song. Though be sure to check out “Sun”, that even though it is an instrumental, the guitars chime and chime the way we love.

Also it has been some time since I recommended a Hong Kong band on the blog, maybe since the comeback of Fantastic Day. Today I discovered the band Foster Studio on Bandcamp and even though so far they have only one song on their profile, it is a pretty good one! The song is titled “Houston” and they share the lyrics for it if you want to sing along. Not much information about the band, only that it is a 3 piece and that they try to blend indie dance, guitar and synth pop.

Disney Tabbilos, originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, relocated to Anchorage in Alaska. That must be a first I thought, Alaskan indiepop! Under the name Slow Blink he has recorded 5 lo-fi poppy songs: “Stage 2”, “Cold Hearts of Summer”, “Sense of it All”, “The Wind Never Blows…” and “Take it Slow”. The “Momentary Bliss” EP is a bit of a ramshackling fine mess , and that’s the allure of these songs. Lo-fi in all of its honesty.

And if anyone was feeling some nostalgia for the 90s, Oklahoma City’s The Lamps bring American twee pop from that decade back to live. The band formed by Audrey, Nora and Drake have 5 songs streaming on their Bandcamp and they bring to mind to Pop American Style bands, think of The Receptionists, Sissy Bar or Holiday Flyer. And this is a first one too, first time I hear an Oklahoma indiepop band!

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The world tour continues. Some important countries are still missing in this summer revision of indiepop bands from different countries. The time comes now for the Netherlands and the band Formica or was it Formica 2000 (?!)?

Indiepop bands from The Netherlands are not that common. Maybe even less common is to see an indiepop Dutch band releasing records on English labels. That was the case of Formica in the mid and late 90s.

The mystery about their name has to do with these two releases. On the first one they appear as Formica 2000 (?!). On the second they are just Formica. It made more sense the simpler name. But I’m still curious why the name and why the change?

Both of their releases were 7″ singles. The first one came out in 1996 on the fab label Spirit of ’86. This record had the very good “Johnny & Anita” on the A side and “Wire” on the B side. The catalog number was SOES 7. This label is great by the way if you are not aware of it. Bands like Pastel Collision and Modesty Blaise were part of it!

There are some credits on the back cover. The songs were recorded at Vuurland and Sandwijck. The artwork is credited to Noortje Bergmans who also played guitar and sang. Edske played bass and did backing vocals. Burt played drums. Marjolijn Hoelen played guitar and backing vocals and is also credited for the photography and the art. Tom also is credited for photography. Michel was the producer and the songs were recorded by Guus Van Der Heijden and Hans Blieb. V.D. Woude who is credited for writing the songs alongside Gregory. V.D. must be Van der. That’s a Dutch thing.

I check out Burt, he is one of the few on Discogs that has more information. His real name is Michel Van Der Woude. Strange. He is credited as Burt for drums, Michel for production but his last name for the songs. Why? I notice he has been involved in many bands like International Language (who put out the “Rodney’s English Disco” song that Helen Love would later cover), Avengers, Beatle Hans & The Paisley Perverts, Dangerous Pyjamas, Ron & The Splinters, Sweet Faces, The Daxls, The Kliek and even The Pooh Sticks! Even more amazing I see that he had produced the most brilliant single perhaps to come out from The Netherlands, the “Go Eliza” 7″ by The Nightblooms!!

Then why not check out who Gregory is? Here is a big surprise. It is Steve Gregory, co-founder of the classic label Fierce Recordings. Also he had been involved in The Pooh Sticks, Crash Action Winners and What To Wear as a musician. How did this connection happen, Michel Van Der Woude, Steve Gregory and The Pooh Sticks?

Two years after, in 1998, Formica was to release their second 7″ on Damaged Goods (catalog DAMGOOD 147). This time there were four songs, two on each side. On the A side there was “No Doubt About It” and “Look At Your Game, Boy” while on the B side “Cross My Mind” and “Encore”. I notice now that there are new names on the credits. Hoelen, Van Der Woude and Bergmans are already familiar names but I see that the bassist is new. The first two songs has Hard Cor playing bass, while “Cross My Mind” had Ron and “Encore” had Hanneke. Hard Cor is the alias of Cor Van Ingen, a bassist from Utrecht who had been in bands like Implosions, Speed 78 and more.

The artwork is credited to the band and someone named Yves. The photography on the sleeve was taken by Kathalijne Van Zutphen and the producer was The Inflatable Pill. The songs were recorded by Hans Blieb and Sylvia Vermeulen, who was a producer and engineer at Studio Moskou in Utrecht. Does this confirm my suspicion that Formica hailed from Utrecht?

Utrecht is the capital and most populous city in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation and is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands with a population of 330,772 in 2017. Utrecht’s ancient city centre features many buildings and structures several dating as far back as the High Middle Ages. It has been the religious centre of the Netherlands since the 8th century. It lost the status of prince-bishopric but remains the main religious centre in the country. Utrecht was the most important city in the Netherlands until the Dutch Golden Age, when it was surpassed by Amsterdam as the country’s cultural centre and most populous city. Utrecht is host to Utrecht University, the largest university in the Netherlands, as well as several other institutions of higher education. Due to its central position within the country, it is an important transport hub for both rail and road transport. It has the second highest number of cultural events in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam. 

I look for the rest of the members, I know quite a bit about the bands Michel Van Der Woude was involved with, but what about Noortje or Marjolijn? I find a Noortje Bergmans that is involved with Greenpeace who lives now in Switzerland. Is she the same person as the one in Formica? I can’t be sure. I do think I stumble upon the right Marjolijn, a LinkedIn profile comes up, she is a professional photographer. That makes sense, she was took the photographs for the records.  Then I find her website. This must be her! There is no email though, but a contact form. I never liked those. But maybe it is the only way to find out more about Formica. I’ll give it a try.

I couldn’t find much more about Formica. Strange. They didn’t participate on any compilations? That’s odd. In the 90s there were so many indiepop compilations!! No other releases but the 7″s. Why not an album? Why did they call it a day? Did they play live much? And did they make more music under other names? There’s nothing written about them on the web. No blog posts. Not even in The Netherlands are they remembered or what?

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Listen
Formica – Johnny & Anita

I keep writing posts way ahead. I’m a bit surprised of how organized I’ve become when it comes to keeping a tab on any new find that comes my way. I wasn’t that meticulous months before. I wonder what has changed.

Alvvays album is not out yet but they are making a fuzz. We know that. The promotion for their sophomore effort continues and now the whole album is available for streaming on NPR. I didn’t doubt about buying it, I’m sure you had no doubts either, but if you needed a little push, well you can listen to “Antisocialites” completely now. My verdict?  It is really good and they even dedicate a song to Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain. 10 songs that will make any indiepop lover happy (and probably thousands of hipsters too).

Saint Etienne’s “Home Counties” album is already out and on September 26th I will see them in New York. What else is there? A new video of course for the song “Dive“. The song will also be released on a couple of different singles, it is like we are back in the 90s. It will appear on a four track CD EP (with 3 brand new songs), a three track remix CD and a 4 track 12” single. Wow. The video was filmed in Scarborough. One day I’ll visit I hope!

The Stammer is a Philadelphia band I really like. At one point I think they were going to play NYC and I was going to go, but then they cancelled that show. Or am I dreaming this? At least I remember it that way. The band formed by Brian Brotman on guitar and vocals, Gavin Landesberg on bass, Ted Quann on guitar and Zachary Zimmerman on drums have a bunch of very fine songs! Right now I’m listening to “Over and Over” that wasn’t included in their album that was released earlier this month. Why? I don’t know, it is a fantastic song. The album, “Face in Peril”, still has many good songs,  so don’t worry! It is available in CD format.

It has been a while since I hear some jangly pop from Germany. I found The Catherines randomly on Bandcamp. The one-man band from Hamburg makes sweet simple jangly songs.  His latest is “How Could This Get Any More Complicated?” and before he has uploaded a bunch, one even with a very funny title, “Is Your BigMouth Girlfriend Really So Charming?”, if you get the joke.

Did I ever mention Dayflower on the blog? If I hadn’t I’m very sorry. Please do listen to their latest song, “Sweet Georgia Gazes”, it is hit of swirling jangly guitars, upbeat melodies and catchy chorus! The Leicester band has bene a favourite band of mine for some time, and still is a mystery why they have never played Indietracks and why they haven’t released a proper record!

And lastly, as it seems even though I’m very organized and all I still miss the important news, I found out about Novelle. And this is very important. Novelle is the new project by Paul Stewart and Martin Rose from Feverfew and Blueboy. That means, that even without listening the songs, you know they are going to be good. And of course, you listen to “Boy Oh Boy” and you feel the reward of confirmation. The songs are great. The band is completed with Noelle Vaughn who sings beautiful. On the songs the trio get the help of cellist Hilary Insall and pianist/violinist Andrew Lim. Wow. Really. And then you can listen to “Back to Brighton” their only other song so far on the web. I look forward for more by them! And hopefully it is soon!

Hopefully more indiepop news this week!

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On this pilgrimage through the countries that have produced indiepop in the past decades I had to make a stop in Brazil. Most specifically in the city of Blumenau.

Blumenau is a city in Vale do Itajaí, state of Santa Catarina, in the South Region of Brazil. It is 130 km (81 mi) away from the state capital of Florianópolis. The city was founded on September 2, 1850, by Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau along with seventeen German immigrants. Later arrivals include biologist and early proponent of Darwinian Evolution, Fritz Müller.

There was a band there that I loved in the early 2000s called Soda Caffé. I wanted to sign them to a label I was running with a friend in Peru, Plastilina Records. I believe I discovered the band through Myspace and was immediately in love with one of their songs, “A Grande Fuga E Os Monstos Em Blumenau”.  I had never heard a Brazilian band playing this sort of pop, playful and honest. Maybe no other band in South America sounded like this at the time. It must have been around 2004 or so.

Eventually I convinced my partner, Jalito, to get in touch with the band and offer them an EP. At that time we wanted to be important within Latin America, support bands that were making indiepop, maybe that way, if people saw the support, that there was a label championing indiepop, more bands were going to appear.

As far as I remember the band agreed to do this EP. We had the band listed as one of our artists on the label website. I don’t know what happened, why this EP was never released. I can’t even remember the tracklist, which songs were going to be included. I suppose the song I loved was to be included, it only made sense. I even believe that the artwork was designed.

In 2006 we decided, in Plastilina, to release a CDR to promote our releases and future releases. It was titled “Nice Try, Sunshine!” (PLAST000), a nod to Second-Hand Furniture who we put out a retrospective album. I love this compilation, I think the artwork is one of my favourite of the Plastilina label. It is true that this CD is very rare, that it was only released in Peru. It was just a sampler and came along a music magazine called Freak Out. Here we did include the Soda Caffé and their song. I notice we wrote the band name altogether, Sodacaffé. What was the correct spelling?

I lost touch with the band. But Jalito continued in contact and in 2009 he included the song again on yet another compilation. “Has My Heart Gone to Sleep?” (PLAST014) was released that year and most of the songs were from records we had already released.There were two exceptions to the rule, Soda Caffé and Kawaii. Jalito compiled the songs through many months and I did the artwork. I remember this compilation was dedicated to Jalito’s aunt, who was a big supporter of the label, even letting Jalito to borrow her offices (a medical export/import business) for Plastilina.

Maybe still in 2009 we were hoping to release Soda Caffé? I would like to think so.

Now I’m trying to back track, trying to remember the band, who were they, what songs did they record. I hope the internet helps me.

The band was born in 2003 and was formed by Marcelo Luz on guitars and vocals, Bruno Beckmann on keyboards, Leandro Pimentel on bass and Diogo Micheluzzi on drums. They listed Yo La Tengo, Club 8 and Harper Lee as their influences.

A good find was that the band put together a Soundcloud page 4 years ago. On it I could find many more songs by the band. Were these the ones that were going to be on the EP? I can’t remember. I listen one by one, “Guerra de Botões”, “O Astronauta Em – O Reencontro”, “Batlha Entre Herois”, “O Robo e a Rainha”, “A Grande Fuga e os Monstros de Blumenau” and “Bomba Colorida”.

I find on the blog Mofo Novo that the band disbanded in 2009. Then I see that the band played a festival called Tschumistock in 2007.

Also on September 8th of 2007 they played a mini-festival at the Curupira Rock Club and a gig at the Old Music Bar in Joinville.

I could see many hits on Fotolog. Remember that? Sadly I can’t open those addresses. Maybe there were some gig photos?

I can’t recall much more. I don’t know what happened to the band members. Did they continue making music under another name? Maybe with other bands? Were the songs on Soundcloud all their recordings? And how come there were no physical releases in the end? They were pretty good, much better than many Brazilian bands at the time who did release some CDs. Maybe our Brazilian readers have a clue? Whatever happened to Soda Caffé?

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Listen
Soda Caffé – A Grande Fuga E Os Monstros Em Blumenau

A long weekend ahead, and that’s going to be great! even though most of it will be dedicated to box my records for the upcoming move. The rest of time, I look forward seeing Thomas from Pale Spectres as he will be in town and discuss music and the state of indiepop, he always has interesting views.  And rest. Relax and rest. That is a good idea too. But before the weekend ends, as there is no stopping on the blog, here are more songs for you to listen.

One of the bands I’ve discovered lately that I have enjoyed quite a lot is No Middle Name. I have recommended them before too. And now they have a new perfect slice of pop, featuring Samatha Whates on vocals, and it is their new digital single, “Saturday Girl Sunday Boy“, will be part of an upcoming release on the label Entes Anomicos from Frankfurt, Germany. This is brilliant! Just the sort of indiepop I’m a sucker for.

“Show Me to the Sun” is the name of the new album by Melbourne’s Tam Vantage, and it will be released on September 8th. On Bandcamp you can check out two songs from it, “Song From a Black Hole” and  “Grey Skies”, and because of them I’m already very curious and eager to hear the remaining 8 songs that make up the record. This is the first time I hear the band but they had already released an album in 2015, “Life in High Definition”, which I’ll have to check out. The record is going to be released in a very limited run of 30 CDs and 200 LPs.

Another Melbourne band worth checking out are The Stroppies. Sadly their only release to date was a tape and I missed it. Why, why, why. I want these good records at least on CD. Not tapes. I’ve missed many fantastic records because they are being released on tape. CDRs are cheaper. Better sound and easier to play. Ah! Anyways. In the meantime, while I make my complains, I find myself enjoying the 7 songs that formed part of this mini-album (?) on Hobbies Galore. The band is formed by Angus Lord, Claudia Serfaty, Rory Heane and Steph Hughes. A superb discovery, I need to keep them in my eyesight, see what they put out next!

Who are The Life Absurd from San Diego, California? Three guys, Raif G on vocals, Gregory Cerwonka on guitars and bass and Alex Alvaron drums, and one song “Dark Fuss”. Only one song on their Bandcamp and they already deserve to be recommended. The lyrics are also there if you want to sing along.

A release that came early this year and I missed was the split tape with the Indonesian band Brilliant at Breakfast and the Japanese band The Natsuyasumi Band. The cassette tape is now in its 2nd pressing and it includes 4 songs by each band. The release has some lovely artwork and has been released by the label Gerpfast Koleftif from Malang in Indonesia. The songs by Brilliant at Breakfast have already appeared in their excellent 2011 album “Being Verbose is Easy, Being Verbose Ain’t Easy” and I believe the songs by The Natsuyasumi Band are all exclusive to this release, though in all honesty I only like their last song “Majic Journey”.

Dan Weltman, Anna Kissell, Holly McIntosh, Steve Dixon and Matt Cheney are Bristol band Snails. This year they released the “Starting with Mine EP” 7″ on Undergrowth Records and they didn’t play Indietracks. I’m not familiar with the band but their first song kind of hooked me, it sounded a bit like The Hermit Crabs. And yes, that is a good thing in my book. This one is by no means their first release, they have many more songs on Bandcamp, including an album titled “Safe in Silence” that has a song called “Winter Hearts” that I’m enjoying while I write these lines. I definitely need to listen their work in its entirety.

And that’s a wrap!

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One more stop in this indiepop world tour. Back to the antipodes after checking out The Honeys from Australia, now onto New Zealand, to Flying Nun, Birkenhead, Auckland for The Exploding Budgies. Brace yourselves, this might be a long post!

Birkenhead is a suburb of Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on the north shore of the Waitemata Harbour, four kilometres northwest of the Auckland city centre. Birkenhead was described as “wild and bleak” by the New Zealand Herald in 1883, as it was isolated from the city of Auckland by the harbour, and was little occupied. However, in 1882 it was chosen as the site of New Zealand’s only sugar refinery, and in 1883 work began on what was later known as the Chelsea Sugar Refinery. The company built houses for its many new workers and thus the suburb of Birkenhead began. The Refinery was the main source of work for the area for many years, and still operates today.

After covering our geography and history lesson, now into what matters, the music of The Exploding Budgies. We know, from the site Audio Culture, that the band formed in 1984, and that it was one of a cluster of bands that shared a practice room in Birkenhead. On this small bio written by Russell Brown, we also get to know that The Exploding Budgies was a three-piece whose leader was David Mitchell. They released just one EP when they were around and later Mitchell was to join the band Goblin Mix. Afterwards Mitchell was to gain international fame with The 3Ds but that’s another story.

The other members of the band were Glenn Eisenhut on bass and James Murray on drums. Needless to say Mitchell was on guitar.

There are some gig flyers here which are really cool. I love the design. On one we see that the band played alongside Marie and the Atom and Children’s Hour at Windsor Castle. On another we see the band supporting The Chills and The Expendables at Mainstreet, Auckland in 1984.

The band’s only EP came out in 1985, it was titled “The Grotesque Singers” and was released by Flying Nun Records (FN033). The songs on it were, on the A side, “Thorn:Field” and “Kenneth Anger” while on the B side there was “Hank Marvin”, “See You Around the Stones” and “Sunflower”.

So you don’t know who Kenneth Anger is, well, let’s do some more Wikipedia digging then,
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the “Magick Lantern Cycle”. His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing “elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle”. Anger himself has been described as “one of America’s first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner”, and his “role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise, is impossible to overestimate”, with several being released prior to the legalization of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the English poet and mystic Aleister Crowley, and is an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.

There is even a cool story about the song “Kenneth Anger”.  It goes like this according to Russel Brown: “When he was in New Zealand in 1993 (making a film about the infamous “witch” Rosaleen Norton), writer and director Kenneth Anger became aware of Mitchell’s song ‘Kenneth Anger’. The story goes that Anger stormed up to the Flying Nun office and demanded to hear the song. On having it played to him, Anger declared he loved it and left a message on a copy of the band’s CD: “Love the song. Lots of love, Kenneth Anger.” I then found the whole story in the Second Sight (Film Diary) blog.

What about Hank Marvin? Hank Brian Marvin is an English multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist for the Shadows, a group which primarily performed instrumentals and was the backing band for Cliff Richard and subsequently for Marvin, Welch & Farrar. Many leading British and Canadian rock guitarists cite Marvin as an influence on them.

Most of the record was recorded at Lab Studios with Doug Hood and Bill. “Kenneth Anger” was recorded at Progressive Studios with Terry King. And “Sunflower” was recorded at The Practice Room with Peter Denniston. This song had the vocals of Linda and the word are credited to W. Blake. That means of course that this song is an adaptation of the famous poet William Blake.

This record must have been quite popular at the time. It was re-released in 1988. This time the jacket was glossy and the vinyl labels were standard Flying Nun ones instead of the original ones of the first release.

In 1991 these songs were to be re-released again, this time on CD and tape. A compilation titled “The Complete Goblin Mix & The Exploding Budgies” was released by Flying Nun in these two formats (FN 193). As I mentioned before these were David Mitchell bands. Other bands Mitchell had been involved were Plagal Grind, Chug, The Ghost Club and the Magick Heads.

The band appeared in a few compilations. The first time they appeared on a compilation was on the “The Last Rumba” (RUM 001) released by Flying Nun in 1983. On it they appear with the song “Paul Song”. This is interesting, this song doesn’t appear on the EP or on the re-releases.

Two other songs, “See You Around the Stones” and “Been There Once Before Once”, appear on the tape compilation “A Spanner in the Works” released by Industrial Tapes (IND 012) in 1984. I’m curious about this compilation, I don’t know any of the other bands that appear, were they jangly as well? I do think Papakura Post Office and Sheila and the Bankers are good band names.

I’ve never heard those three songs. Their third compilation appearance was to be in 2006 on the “Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set” (FNCD500). On it they were going to show up with their most known song, their classic “Kenneth Anger”.

Lastly don’t forget to check the Extended Play special from 2012 about Exploding Budgies and Goblin Mix on Radio New Zealand where David Mitchell is interviewed.

A few questions remain. the first is of course if there are any more recordings by the band. The second is why were the songs that appeared on the different compilations weren’t included in the compilation they had with Goblin Mix. Also why did they call it a day?

Maybe some of you remember them? Maybe saw them play live?

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Listen
The Exploding Budgies – Thornfield

Thanks so much again to Andrea Croft for this interview! I wrote about Catherine Wheel many many years ago on the blog, I think it was one of the first bands I featured. Then I got in touch with Andrea and we did an interview about her previous band, The Honeys, which no one should miss. Now it is time to talk about Catherine Wheel, a brilliant Sydney band that released 2 7″s and one CD EP in the 90s. Try to track these releases down, they are fantastic!

++ Thanks again Andrea for being up to answer a bunch of my questions, this time about Catherine Wheel! I must say I know much less about Catherine Wheel than The Honeys even though I do have the three releases. I do know that the band started after The Honeys split. But how did the band start as such? You already knew Grant from The Honeys of course, but what about Brett and Biff? Had they been in other bands?

Grant and Brett were both members of the Honeys and Biff came on board as lead guitarist. Biff had played before yes, not sure which bands though..

++ Was there a different sort of music direction in Catherine Wheel compared to The Honeys? Or would you say it was more of a continuation of the sound of The Honeys?

It was more pop based than the country rock sound of the Honeys. Bruce’s songwriting style gave the Honeys its country flavour.

++ And you were still in Sydney, right? Still living at the house in Chippendale? Where did you rehearse?

We were still in Sydney, yes. We’d moved on to different homes by then and mainly rehearsed in a rehearsal studio. Too loud for lounge rooms!

++ Was the creative process similar to the one in The Honeys or not?

A bit different in as much as Grant and I would present songs that were pretty complete, lyrically and melodically. Of course suggestions and tweaks were made during rehearsals and we’d all flesh out the song until it became something we all liked.

++ What’s the story behind the name of the band? And were you aware of the UK band with the same name?

We just came up with it among other suggestions and only learned of the UK band after our first release from memory. Didn’t really affect us in Australia but would of course have limited UK releases of our songs.

++ Your first release was the “Blue Avenue” 7″ and it was released by Big Wheel Records. Who were Big Wheel Records? Was it your own label perhaps?

Wow, testing my memory now…I think they may have been affiliated with the publishing company Grant was signed to at the time. Don’t quote me on that though and interestingly, there’s a label of the same name these days that seem to specialise in Hip Hop so there you go! Thanks google.

++ Something that surprised me was that “Blue Avenue” had a saxophone in it. How was the recording process for this single? Any anecdotes you could share?

Yep, I dabbled in a bit of saxophone for awhile there. Not the most complex sax line but something different. The only anecdote I can share which is more of a suggestion…Don’t ever try to play the saxophone or harmonica for that matter after it’s been sitting in full sun at a lunch time Uni gig. Unless of course, the sound you’re going for is a strangled goose. In mating season…not a comforting sound.

++ I love the song “Last Explanation” and was wondering if you could tell me the story behind it?

Glad you like it. I wrote that one on a road trip, bumping along on a gravel road in the back of the panel van. I had been listening to Falling Joys on my Sony Walkman (remember those? Back in the Stone Age!) and felt inspired to write it. It may or may not have been about someone I knew, ok it was!

++ And where was the back cover photo of the band taken?

Tony Mott took that pic, again testing my memory but I’m pretty sure that one was taken outside a Church as the door was cool.

++ Speaking of photos, I always wondered who is the kid on the front cover of your second single “Almost Blind”?

Well I had a bit of a thing for op shops, charity stores and I still do. I found a bunch of old photos at one of these shops one day and a few featured on the inside sleeve of the Honeys Goddess album. I thought it a bit sad and unkind that these images of people were discarded like that and I was drawn to buy them as they were so old and black and white. Very stark images therefore.  I wondered who these people were. The cover of Almost Blind may have been one of those photos.

++ On this single you there are thank yous on the back, to Look at Her, Falling Joys, Wedding Parties Anything, Joe Breen at Sound Level Drums and the men from Waterfront. I know you had a good relationship with The Falling Joys, another fantastic band, and I suppose you got some help from the Waterfront label for this release? But who were the other people? bands?

++ Something that struck me as well is that the songs are credited to you and also to Warner Chappell. How did that happen?

Well Grant was signed to that publishing company for a while there so they are credited as such. 

++ “Self-Portraits” was your last release, a 5 song CD EP. From what I gather it was released in 1992. I thought you split in 1991. Am I right with the dates? And it was released by Shock, quite an important label in Australia. How did that happen?

Don’t ask me, time lines aren’t my forte! Sorry, been a long time since. Some of our mates in other bands were affiliated with Shock so we went with them too.

++ On this CD EP there were some changes in the band, Matt Handley replaced Biff Smith. How did you recruit Matt? Had he been in other bands?

Let me begin by saying that both Biff and Matt were and are extraordinary guitarists. Terrific vocalists too. Matt was already very gifted on the guitar so he had had some experience, yes.

++ This EP has a fab song, “Reach”. I wonder what inspired you to write this song?

Well thank you, as a non prolific song writer, this one came to me in a rush. Chords, lyrics, the lot. I never really worked hard at songwriting and good songwriters will tell you it is work. And discipline. Something I lack, but with this song, I got lucky and had that inspiration from nowhere and there it was. To be honest, it was mostly about me and challenging myself to ‘Reach’. I loved singing it live, it’s different when you sing songs you’ve penned yourself. Like you’re sharing something personal. It’s nice.

++ There were only two songs as far as I know where Grant sings, “Blackest World” and “Blue Avenue”. Why did he sing so little?

think Grant would agree when I say he was happy playing and singing harmonies and the odd song…personally though, I loved it when I could take a breather and watch him sing. He’s so energetic onstage and Blackest World was always a big hit live. People would yell it out after our set as a desired encore. It’s such a great song and he writes amazingly well constructed melodies. Gone Away is one such song, it’s just perfect!

++ How come there were no more releases, no album?

We just broke up, it was a great thing for a while, then it wasn’t. That’s bands for you..

++ Are there any unreleased songs? Any other recordings? Perhaps demo tapes?

Not that I’m aware of. Perhaps Grant has some bootlegs hidden away?

++ And how were gigs for Catherine Wheel? Did you play many? Someone commented on my blog about a gig at Lansdowne Hotel. Do you remember it?

The gigs were so much fun. We played quite a lot actually. We were lucky enough to score a few tours including a Hoodoo Gurus one and a Crowded House tour in Queensland. The Hoodoos guys were lovely and the boys from Crowded House? Well, we didn’t get to meet them but still, a great opportunity to play in front of a big crowd. The Landsdowne, ahhh I loved that venue. Both Catherine Wheel and Honeys played there several times. It’s probably a car park now, bring back the smelly, beer soaked carpet pubs!

++ Did Catherine Wheel get more or less attention from the music press and radio compared to The Honeys?

I think a bit more music press and about the same support from radio. Radio supported and played new bands back then, harder now to be selected on a playlist.

++ How come there were no promo videos of Catherine Wheel songs?

It wasn’t something that was a focus for us at the time. Playing was and that’s what we did.

++ When and why did the band split?

++ Have there ever been a reunion gig? Or have you ever considered it?

Never has been, and I never say never! Would be cool.

++ When it comes to Catherine Wheel, what were your highlights being part of the band?

Playing guitar was fun, I could’ve done it in the Honeys more but we had it covered so playing an instrument was fun. Also, the Almost Blind single. I was really proud of that. I thought then and still do that it’s a great pop song. Touring in big vans with boys I loved, that was a highlight. Laughing and listening to dodgy mixed tapes, yes tapes were still a thing wayyyy back then in the Pliocene. Driving to the next gig and singing along to very dodgy music, that stuff is what I think of when I’m asked about highlights. Happy faces in a crowd singing along, that’s a highlight for sure.

++ And if you were to choose your favourite Catherine Wheel song, which one would it be and why?

I’d choose Reach simply because I wrote it and I was going through some growing up stuff at the time. Close second, and I mean super close is Almost Blind because it’s chorus is killer. Try not to sing along! I dare ya!

++ One last question, you told me that Perth has a very limited music scene these days, and that’s a shame. But I would love to visit one day still, wonder what would you suggest one should check out in your city? What are the sights not to be missed? Or any traditional food from town?

There are some good venues still Roque, the Rosemount Hotel hosts many live bands and is really supportive of local music. Little Creatures pub in Fremantle have a few bands on as does several other venues in Fremantle. Northbridge is an inner city suburb in Perth and some live music pops up there too. Food wise? I have several suggestions that I shall PM you when you’re in town. 

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Listen
Catherine Wheel – Last Explanation

I was told not to slow down with the blog posts. Well, it was just one vote against none. I do think that a good thing about posting more often is that more often I’ll get in touch with the bands I want to hear their stories. That is perhaps my main drive for running the blog. Mind you, it’s been almost 9 years!

But at the same time, I think giving new bands the spotlight, featuring the better ones I find on my forays on the world wide web is as important. So here are some of my latest findings:

Following the announcement that The Marteens will be releasing a retrospective with Firestation Records, now Twelve Angry Men, a band that I have interviewed on the blog and who I got in touch with the German label, announce the same thing, this time with a release date, October 21st. It is coming out on CD. And I look forward to it a lot!

The Raft, the band from Neston, UK, that I reviewed some time ago have a new digital EP out on Bandcamp.  The band formed by Phil Wilson and JPedro have three new and sweet dreampop tunes as part of the “A Lullaby EP“. The songs are “I’m So High”, “No She’s Alone” and “A Lullaby/Nobody’s Daughter”. Which is my favourite? Perhaps the jangly “No She’s Alone”.

Last week I was recommending the Norwegian band The Age of Colored Lizards. A week after they release another digital EP. Bands are not slowing down either. The “Summer Rain EP” is available to stream from the band’s Bandcamp and it has four shoegazy songs, “See You”, “Wake Up”, “Hold Your Hand” and “Summer Rain”.

La Otra Cara de la Nada is an Argentinean band from Posada, Misiones Province. That’s an area sandwiched between Paraguay and Brazil, not the usual area to find guitar pop. I have just discovered them through the Facebook page Latin American Twee. I first check the band’s Facebook page and I find out they are formed by 5 guys, Germán, Ignacio, Ariel, Nicolas and Bruno. I find it funny that they name el Coco Basile, an old Argentinean coach, as an artist they like. With the voice of el Coco, I wonder what sort of band that’d be! On Bandcamp the band has a 9 song album titled “Sobre Permios y Tormentas” There are some songs though on the second half of the album that are downbeat which I’m not a fan of, but the first half is pretty good! That half sounds summery even in the instrumentals like “Alegoría”. And you know, I’m not a fan of instrumentals.

Another band Latin American Twee has recommended in the last few days is La Llamada de Héctor. I don’t know much about this band, I know they come from Chile, and their songs are a jangle explosion! When I listen to their latest song, “Mañanitas” I know this is upbeat and fun, think of The Chesterf!elds maybe, in Spanish. The vocals take some time to get used to, but in general, I’d say this sounds very promising! There are more songs in their Youtube channel.

Continuing with the Latin American invasion it is time to check the band Sway from Costa Rica. The band only has one song on Bandcamp and its name is “Medio”. As soon as I hit play I acknowledge the guitars and the effects. I like them. But why just one song? I want more. The band is formed by Allan on bass, Cordero on drums, José on guitars and Kevyn on guitars and vocals. Sure there are no more songs, but one has to cheer that there seems to be a growing guitar pop scene in the Central American country. On the Bandcamp I notice that the band will play Glasgow in September. That is big news too!

And lastly, time to check out the last release by the Lima, Peru, band Suerte Campeón. The band has just released the “Este es el Comienzo de Todo lo que No Quieres EP” on the label La Flor from Peru too. I’m not sure in what format the record is available. I only know you can stream it all on Bandcamp and Youtube. Definitely it isn’t the most convenient way to listen to it. But that’s how it is. The EP has 7 songs, “Andrés”, “Días Más Cortos, Noches Más Largas”, “Asmáticos que Fuman”, “Elena”, “Lluvia de Verano”, “Problemas Emocinales” and “Vacaciones de Verano del 2004”. This jingle jangly band is formed by Santino Amigo on vocals and guitar, Santiago Aragón on bass, Bruno Bardo on vocals and keyboard, Andrés Gutiérrez on drums and Angel Mejía on guitars. I had reviewed one song by the band before on the blog I think, and I don’t think I was that impressed then. Or maybe my mind is playing me tricks In any case I think this EP is much much better. Looking forward to see what they do next, and hopefully the EP gets a physical release.

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One more stop in this indiepop world tour. Now a country whose bands I’ve featured more and more this year, Ireland. And yet again, my main source of information is the most important blog The Fanning Sessions Archive.

On the blog there are a few details about the band, perhaps the only details I am going to find on the web. I’m thankful for that. The band was formed in 1987, in Dublin, by Anto Healy on drums, Brian King on bass and Pat O’Sullivan on vocals and guitar. So She Said were formed from the ashes of The Delegates.

The post on The Fanning Session Archive has 3 songs available for streaming, “So Happy”, “Let Me Out” and “At Home in June”. The first two appeared on the compilation “Swimming Out of the Pool” that was released in 1988 by Danceline Records (DLP 1001). I had mentioned this compilation before, when I wrote about another Irish band, The Outpatients. Then I asked if anyone had a spare copy,  I must say I’m still looking for this record.

The third song, “At Home in June”, won Hot Press/Murphy’s song of the month in 1989. The band split right after. I wonder though if this song was released in any way? Even if it was as a demo tape? And if there were more recordings done when they recorded this song. There must have been more songs by this band. I’m sure of it.

I couldn’t find any other information about the band. Nor I could find anything about The Delegates. I decide to just look for the band members, see if I could find any other music they must have made.

I look first for Anto Healy. I don’t know how common the name might be. I suppose it is the less common of the band members. I first find a Soundcloud for a band called Cabin. Was this the same Anto? The music is quite eclectic and the last song was uploaded four years ago.

Looking for Brian King was quite difficult, there is a famous Irish sculptor by the same name. So that was a dead end.

With Pat O’Sullivan it wasn’t easy either, finding several people with the same name in Limerich, Dublin, Galway and of course, Dublin. Dead ends.

It has been a while since I decide to track down a band and I find so little information. The songs sound great though and that only adds to my interest and curiosity. Whatever happened to them? Why didn’t they get a proper release? I would love to get in touch with them and ask them a few questions!

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Listen
So She Said – So Happy

Saw Ed Shelflife the other day and went to have Indian food, talked about this and that, future projects, indiepop, and footie. It was a good time. It seems he has a busy schedule up ahead, and now I know that he secretly updates his catalogue page without making any announcements. That’s the best way perhaps to know what he is planning to release on his label.

Sadly I’m still stuck with this moving process and I’m not moving until the end of September. This situation has made me postpone the release of the My Light Shines for You 7″ and other projects. This is a complicated situation for the label in a way as I can’t move forward at the moment. Of course, after the move things will run smoother, but right now I feel a bit caged, not being able to work on our next releases. Hope you understand the delay, I’m very sorry about it! I think the release date for the 7″ will be pushed until December.

I have never heard Seal Pillow before, and was quite unsure what to expect. I noticed that their song/video “Fanclub” was posted on the Twee Lovers Club Facebook page and decided to give it a listen. The video is lovely really, made me feel young again, made me nostalgic. The song is very nice too, very 90s indiepop, you know when there was influence of softer styles like bossanova? I know very very little about the band, I know they are from Bangkok (why wasn’t I aware of them when I visited last year?) and that they started as a band in 2012. The band is formed by Aaron on guitar, Pakorn on bass, Chalerm on vocals, Araya on drums and Mumza on guitar. I’m not sure if they have any proper releases, but they do have a Soundcloud page full of good songs!

My friend Jennifer was surprised that I was writing more after changing jobs, the thing is, I don’t have many distractions here. Everytime I have a little break from any project I’m working, I write a paragraph or two. And so these posts are built over days. I find a new band on Bandcamp and I write immediately about them. That way I don’t forget about it. And then it becomes a bit of a cut and paste adventure, some paragraphs I write for a post end up on another post and so on. It is the same case when it comes to the obscure band part of the post, I find a website or any important detail, then I write about it. Then I close the post and get to work. I hope that by doing this I’m not losing the flow of the posts, the thread! You let me know. Also would be good to know if you feel I’m writing too much and I should slow the pace!

Another Bandcamp discovery has been Huntington Beach, California, band Black Sea. The band seems to be a one-man project run by Cole Devine. The past August 1st Cole put out a digital album on Bandcamp titled “Dissapointing Sunset”. There are 11 dreampop songs in the album, and they are really good. The song “Apprehension Review” even has a video. This is not their first release, it seems back in 2014 there was the “Keep Smiling/Optimistic Sigh EP” tape on Burger Records.

Two bands I’ve been praising and following the past few weeks are Stars in Coma and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Both bands that at some point were part of Cloudberry. And that is a good thing of course! The last few weeks they’ve been sharing advances of their new albums and now finally they are available to listen to the in their entirety. “Escapist Partisans” by Stars in Coma is now streaming at their Bandcamp and it is also available as a cassette. On the other hand, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s album “The Echo of Pleasure” is now available to stream exclusively at NPR. Check it out, it is a very fine comeback!

On Thursday September 14th Native Records is throwing a release party for Raintree County‘s 3CD retrospective album “Sweet Everything”. I’m not sure if this is the release date, but I’m assuming copies will be available. The Native Records website has no information about this release, but I hope the important details become available to those not living in the UK. You know I want a copy!

I’ve recommended the Moscow band Verbludes before. They are fantastic, and if only they didn’t release their records on tape I would have made the impossible to get their releases. I do understand though that many of you like tapes, so I will tell you that the band is releasing a limited edition cassette of a live gig on the label Pow! Pop Kids. The gig was played in a venue called Dig in 2016. There are 20 copies available, so act fast! Only one of the songs is available to preview on the Bandcamp.

I remember Loons released an album on Elefant in 1997. That was 20 year ago. In 2001 they released an album on Galaxy Train titled “Dim Movies”. Up until now I hadn’t heard it. The label has this album now streaming on Bandcamp and you can also order a copy of the CD album. It is up my street, I wonder why I missed it. The label likes them to Holiday Flyer, Watoo Watoo and La Buena Vida. I feel Loons is more fragile than them, but having the same sweetness in their sound. Nowadays the band members of the Parisian band are playing music on Flowers from the Man Who Shot Your Cousin and Cowbird.

And that’s it for today. More coming soon!

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Continuing the indiepop world tour, it is time now to head back to Europe, to Denmark in particular. There’s been some good Danish indiepop bands in the last decade like Northern Portrait and Champagne Riot, and aside from the immense Gangway, most indiepop fans are not familiar with Danish indiepop. Time then to rediscover a band that has been forgotten, Embellish.

Embellish: make (something) more attractive by the addition of decorative details or features.

I know very little about Embellish. I do own their one and only album, “Wake Up”, released in 2000 by March Records in the US (catalog MAR057). That CD has 10 songs, “Water Lung”, “Super Cool Girl”, “You”, “Drug Dealer”, “Sunshine”, “Wake Me Up!!!”, “I Don’t Know”, “Ambivalence”, “One” and “Sea Monster”. The first song, “Water Lung”, being my favourite of the album.

The CD includes credits. And that is always a good thing. From it we know that the band was:
Claus Hansen on vocals and guitar
Tora Thisen on backing vocals
Julie Wellejus on backing vocals
Anders Hansen on drums
Martin Sorensen on bass
Jens Pape on guitars

Were Claus and Anders brothers? Other people credited in this release were Thomas Jensen for additional guitars, Mikkel Christiansen for percussion, Fran Ashcroft for producing and mixing the album and Tue Madsen for engineering the album. The album was recorded at Borsing Recording in Århus and mastered at Birdland.

When it comes to compilations the band appeared in a few. In 1995 they contributed the song “Trigger Happy” to the CD compilation “DM I Rock ’95” released by the Start label. This song doesn’t appear on the album, so I’m quite curious about how they sounded at this time. Were they poppier? Punkier? Rockier? Did the band have the same members? I look at the rest of the bands on this CD and I really don’t know any, they must be Danish as well. The label was. The label Start was based in Århus and was founded by A&R producer and manager Poul Martin Bonde. The label was later bought by Sony.

In 1997 the band appears on a promotional CD compilation titled “Starsearch 4”. They have the song “Wake Me Up!!!” in it. The label that put out this CD, Fajabefa, seems to have released a series of compilations under the name Starsearch, at least up to volume 9.

In 1999 they start a relationship with March Records. On the classic compilation “Moshi Moshi: Pop International Style” (MAR 050) they appear with the song “I Don’t Know”. This record was released as 3 LPs or 2 CDs. It is highly recommendable, there are songs by bands from all over the world. You will find songs by The Pearlfishers, B’ehl, The Secret Goldfish, The Leslies and a lot more!

The next year, 2000, the band has the song “You” on the March Records compilation “Little Molly Has a Treat For You” (SLICK 001). This was another fantastic compilation, with songs by Vacaciones, Barcelona, Waltz for Debbie, Club 8, etc.

Now time to leave Discos and dive into the unknown. It wasn’t going to be difficult to start getting hits, finding some pages on the web about Embellish.There are many reviews of the album. This is the case with many bands from that period, from the late 90s, early 2000s. Nowadays that is hard to find, websites or webzines dedicated to reviewing albums, back then it was common. On the other hand getting in touch with bands was a bit more difficult, there was no Facebook, no Bandcamp or Myspace. No way to share your music easily. I guess there are pros and cons then and now. Though of course, back then people were buying more records.

My first stop seems to have been a Geocities page called Pop Palace. There the writer, Mike Bennett, compares the band to The Beautiful South and The Dentists. But not many meaty details. Then I stop at another review dating from 2001 on the website Drawer B. Eric G., the reviewer, really likes the band, he again compares them to The Beautiful South. I try to find any details about the band, like if they had been in any other bands or not, but there’s nothing. Just a lot of adjectives, crystalline, funny, melodramatic and more. I’m trying to find out whatever happened to the band.

On Popmatters there is harsh review by Geoff Stahl. He doesn’t like the band at all. He says it was the least appealing record he heard in 2000. Then, on another review, Ned Raggett on Allmusic.com compares them to The Field Mice or early Cardigans. Lastly I found another review on the web-zine Furia. Here the reviewer is right on saying that the band sounds more Swedish than Danish. That might be true if you think of bands like The Leslies or even Eggstone. Here at last I found some interesting detail.

That detail was important. The album “Wake Up wasn’t actually new in 2000. It had already been released in 1998 in the UK by the label Sunflower. It came out under a different title, “Long Live the Bald People” (BELLYCD 001) and even had different artwork. It has the same tracklisting.

The band played the SPOT 02 festival that was held, I believe, in Århus in January 18 to the 20th of 1996. It seems the people from Fajabefa, that label that had them on a compilation, was one of the organizers. How do I know this? I found an ISSUU document where Embellish is mentioned as part of the lineup. Here there’s an address for the band and it seems they were based in Hobro.

Hobro is an old market and railway town in Region Nordjylland on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. It has a population of 11,736. The town is situated in a hilly terrain at the head of Mariager Fjord, close to the former Viking fortress of Fyrkat. It is the seat of Mariagerfjord municipality.

Looking for the band members I find an article where Anders Hansen is mentioned. It is from the Nordjyske newspaper and it dates from February 24, 2003. It seems the municipality of Hobro had built a rehearsal studio for bands to practice. The municipality was to pay the rent of the house while the group Crescendo, who Anders is part of, will take care of the daily operations. I wonder how this project did, if it still works today. Also according to Discogs Anders had been involved in some more music. He was involved with The Marsmen, Small Talk, The Collins, Bent Fabric, Bonnie, and more.

I couldn’t find any other information about the band members. Nor about Embellish. It is strange, the band only released one album and that was it. No singles. Then they disappeared. It doesn’t seem like most of the band continued making music. I wonder why. Most of the reviews I found were favourable. What happened with them? Anyone out there remember them?

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Listen
Embellish – Water Lung

Finally Chickfactor announced the dates for the New York shows of their 25th Anniversary. Some days ago they announced the Portland dates (Dec. 9 and 10th) but I didn’t cover them because to be honest I wasn’t that keen on the lineup. Sure, I like Rocketship and Rose Melberg a lot, but I’ve seen them before so not that special for me, and anyhow I wasn’t going to fly to Portland. And when it comes to New York I must say I am not that impressed by the lineup again. I think the previous Chickfactor events set the bar way too high and so this is not criticism, topping that was going to be impossible! The good thing though is that the show on November 2nd at Union Pool will have the fantastic 90s band Honeybunch!! The rest of the lineup makes me a bit lazy to go, I don’t think I’ll make it to the 2nd night, but I’ll definitely make an effort to check Honeybunch. See you there?

For me the most exciting thing I saw this week was The Hummingbirds special on Rage on the ABC TV channel of Australia. The Hummingbirds wrote a little about this special on their Facebook and I think it is the best way to introduce you to the video that is now on Youtube. I really would love to interview The Hummingbirds at some point…
Before JJ going national and before the internet there was (and still is) Rage on the ABC. Rage had nationwide exposure and Rage would play, amongst the international hits, small indie bands from anywhere… if their music was half decent. Seeing bands at the local pub and then again on Rage when you got home was kinda cool. Our indie/phantom singles were self funded and our friends helped us shoot and edit the videos – for nothing more than the cost of the film (if that?). Big thanks to Susie Dene, Paul Clarke and ‘crew’ for making those happen. Whilst at rooArt we had a chequered history of making some good and some tragic videos. We can only laugh (sometimes with resignation) at some of the choices we made or were cajoled into accepting by those who simply did not get it. Anyways it looks like a bunch of these will again be on Rage. Once more unto the breach my friends…
Check the special HERE.

It is no secret that I love any project Patrik Lindgren has been involved with. I’m a big fan. And I miss him making music. Kalligrammofon Recordings is a label from Malmö and they’ve just put out a new Ring Snuten EP on Bandcamp. I don’t think this is available in any other format (shame!) but at least you can stream four songs for free, “Ett Vykort Från 2004”, “Dumsnäll Säl”, “Planlös bilfärd på Öland” and “Ta Det Lugnt”.  . They were performed by Patrik, Douglas Holmquist, Petter Samuelsson, Mathias Engwall and Rickard Haberling and were recorded at Sonores Studios. I hope more Ring Snuten songs become available in one way or another.

If you like The Darling Buds or The Primitives, then you will definitely love Seafang’s new single “Solid Gold” The band from St. Petersburg in Florida have just unveiled the promo video for this song and it is a classic slice of indiepop! This song and its B side “Stardust” have been released as a 7″ by the label Emotional Response.

A very sweet discovery has been Party Jacket from Winthrop Harbor in Illinois, the solo project of Joshua Grimes. There’s only one song on their Bandcamp, “Company”, but it is terribly good that you cannot ignore it. On the small blurb it mentions that this song will be the first single from the forthcoming album “Weekend Exotic” that is set for release sometime this summer.

If  on my last post I was featuring an old Norwegian band now I stumbled upon a contemporary band named The Age of Colored Lizards. I’m curious about them being European using the American way to spell colored. But that is not that important I guess. The band hails from Oslo and I see they’ve been putting out their brand of shoegaze/dreampop since 2016. Their latest song is titled “Nothing to Say” and it is a pretty pretty pop song. It doesn’t seem like the trio has released any proper physical records though, all of them are available to stream on Bandcamp.

Peruvian band Verano del 83 have already been recommended on the blog. This time around though they have bigger news, an 8-song EP is to be released on Mexican label Emma’s House Records. The EP has the title of their most known song, “Llévame a Casa”, and it will be released physically sometime soon on CD in a limited run of 25 copies. At the moment all songs are available to stream on the band’s Bandcamp and they are a very nice surprise.

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So it seems a lot of people are enjoying this little adventure/project of going through bands from the most prominent countries in the world of indiepop. In the last few weeks, and not counting the interviews, I’ve featured music from forgotten bands from England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Japan, Greece and Norway. Now it is time to head back to Asia, time to feature the first Filipino band on the blog. It was about time too.

My knowledge of Pinoy pop revolves mainly around the bands the brothers Ryan and Dale Marquez have been involved with. Of course they are not all, there are plenty of great bands that hail from that south-east Asian country, think of Fantasy Lights (who had a 3″CD on Cloudberry) or Balloon Farm. Or what about the most brilliant Moscow Olympics? Yeah, there are a bunch of good ones. There’s plenty to write about. But I decided to investigate a band I’m not familiar with at. Before this post, I must admit, my only knowledge of Daydream Cycle was through the song “Lousy Judge of Character” that appeared in a Shelflife Records compilation back in 2oo3. And that was a cover version.

The compilation “You’re Still Young at Heart” (LIFE 050) is definitely a classic indiepop compilation, one which the bands appearing paid tribute to the Shelflife bands by performing and interpreting songs from its back catalogue. Well regarded and all. You could find in it bands like Free Loan Investments, Brideshead or California Snow Story. Important bands in my book. But it seems Ed Shelflife wanted to show how indiepop was a worldwide scene, and he included a bunch of Filipino bands in it. There was Carnival Park and Soft Pillow Kisses. And then of course was Daydream Cycle covering The Shermans.

From the small bio on Discogs I find out that the band formed in the year 2000 in Parañaque City and Las Piñas City.

Parañaque, officially the City of Parañaque, is one of the cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila in the Philippines. It is bordered to the north by Pasay, to the northeast by Taguig, to the southeast by Muntinlupa, to the southwest by Las Piñas, and to the west by Manila Bay. There are several accounts as to how Parañaque got its name. One such story stated that long ago, at the mouth of what is now known as the Parañaque River, there stood a balete tree that, when viewed from afar, looked like a majestic ship. This earned it the name Palanyag, taken from the term “palayag”, which means “point of navigation”.

Las Piñas, is a city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 588,894. Las Pinas was established as a small fishing port and became a major sea salt-producing municipality, through the use of salt evaporation ponds, dating back to the Spanish Era, the city has grown into an important residential, commercial and industrial suburb of Metro Manila. The story about the true origin of the city’s name, “Las Piñas”, varies. One version mentioned, that traders from the province of Cavite and Batangas shipped their first piñas (Spanish for pineapples) for sale to this town, before they were distributed to nearby markets.

Two towns next to each other then. It all sounds exotic to me at this point. But I will definitely visit the Philippines in my lifetime. I have to.

The band released two albums, Daydream Cycle in 2001 and Underwater Kite in 2005. The band was formed by Kathy Meneses on vocals, Andrew “Dok” Sergio on bass guitar, Jerome Velasco on guitar, Japs Sergio on guitar and Boga “Bogs” Jugo on beats. Were Andrew and Japs brothers or family?

On Discogs they only have their first album listed and it has the same name as the band, “DaydreamCycle”. Notice though that at this point it seems the band’s name had no space between the words Daydream and Cycle.

Daydreaming is a short-term detachment from one’s immediate surroundings, during which a person’s contact with reality is blurred and partially substituted by a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake. There are many types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition amongst psychologists, however the characteristic that is common to all forms of daydreaming meets the criteria for mild dissociation.

Cycle, a series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order.

The album was recorded by Japs, Bogs and Kathy at their home, B.F. Homes, in Paranque in Metro Manila during the months of May 2000 and May 2001. A whole year. The album came out on the label Metronome Recordings which I assume was their own. The art direction for the album is credited to Andrew Sergio.

The CD has 12 songs, in this order, “My Luscious Star”, “Fabuloso”, “Slow Return”, High Five”, “More Than Okay”, “Dreamland”, “Indica”, “Basic”, “Sunday Surreal”, “Sundowner”, “In the Flow” and “Light it Up”.

I read on a blog that this CD is quite rare. That the band doesn’t even had copies of it. There seems there was some issue with the master copy of it. I wonder what happened. This blog mentions a rare reunion gig by the band in 2013, when they played at the launch of the vinyl record of Ang Nawawala OST at Heima Three Brixton, I believe a popular venue in Manila.

It has been hard to find information of their 2nd album, “Underwater Kite” on their own Metronome Recordings label. I found a blog where it has the tracklist though, hopefully it is correct: “Roses and Cadillacs”, “Over the Windshield”, “Midnight Eyes”, “Avenue”, “Sky Interchange”, “Daisy Tongues”, “Winters Gone”, “In the Corners of Mine”, “When the World Stops”, “Girl I Know”, “Our Mind Wanders”, “Nightowls”, “Otla Xas”, “Nothing With You”, “A Beautiful Morning”, “Luna”, “Lousy Judge of Character (Dcc version)”, “Daisy Tongues (SQUID9 remix)”, “Roses and Cadillacs (SQUID9 remix)”, “Lousy Judge of Character”.

On Youtube I was going to find promo videos for two of the songs on this album, “Roses and Cadillacs” and “Avenue“. There are also live recordings from venues like The Fort, Saguijo, Heima Brixton, Route 196. So we know the band was pretty active in the Filipino scene at the time. Then there’s a video for the song “Christmas is Here“. I wonder when or how was this one released? It feels more like a one-off.

My next stop is the blog Under Blue Skies from our friend Jun Eric. There is a post about Daydream Cycle there. There is some interesting information on this 2005 post, for example that the band played regularly at Buzznite, a monthly gig organized by Allan Montero of Soft Pillow Kisses. He even says that Shelflife had signed the band at this point. Is this true? Even Laura Watling from The Autocollants had praise for them.

I continue the search, and stumble upon the website Bakitwhy. There’s an interview with the band at the time of the reunion gig of 2013.

Time to look for the members. To my surprise I find a whole Wikipedia page for John Paul “Japs” Ricafranca Sergio. He had been involved with other bands like Rivermaya and Peso Movement. His brother, Dok Sergio doesn’t have a whole page but he has a little section on the band Pupil’s page. In it he is mentioned to have played for Purple Playground, God’s Era, Prominence of Cathedrals, The Teeth, Imago, and Pupil. Jerome Velasco on the other hand had been also on Pupil and The Teeth as well as The Mongols, Aspirin, The Slave Drum and Candyaudioline. Bogs Jugo, whose real name is Ricardo Nicholas Bañaga Jugo, also played in Pupil, The Mongols, Us-2 Evil-0 and She Hates Ballet.

My last stop is their Facebook page which hasn’t been updated since March of this year. It says that they actually recorded a 3rd album in 2008 but it seems it was never released. What happened to it? One of the songs on that album was titled “Pieces of You”. I wonder if they will finish it and release it some day. Would be great to hear it.

I couldn’t find much more information about Daydream Cycle. There were a few blogs in tagalog which I can’t understand. But it didn’t seem they had many interesting details. I could understand their classy dreampop though. I wonder what they are up to now, if they continue making pop music or not. I would definitely like to track those two CDs and have them in my collection. I don’t think I own that many Filipino releases and that is a shame, there has been great pop coming from there for decades now and they continue to do so thanks to bands like Outerhope or The Camerawalls. I definitely have to make a note to myself to pay more attention to what’s cooking there, and I’m not talking about adobo!

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Listen
Daydream Cycle – Roses and Cadillacs

Thanks so much to Masahiro, Darelle and Wendy for this brilliant interview! I interviewed Masahiro a week ago about his solo-project Tricycle Popstar and by doing so I learned that he was also involved in the mysterious The Love Mushrooms who released just one CD-single with the label A Trumpet Trumpet Records in 1992. That single has 3 poptastic songs, that sound timeless today, with jingle jangly guitars and catchy female vocals. A perfect pop record to my ears! The band didn’t last long. They played live once. And their story was quite forgotten. But it is now time for all of us to rediscover this gem of a record!

++ Hi again! How are you? Thanks a lot for being up for a second interview. How is the Australian winter treating you? Do you have any plans for going back to Japan soon?

Masa: Melbourne winter is not that cold compared to my hometown. No plans to go back to Japan at the moment. But I’d love to go anytime:)

Darelle: I live in Hobart, Tasmania – it is a little cold, but I like that!

Wendy: I live in Melbourne – it is wet and cold but I like the contrast to our dry hot summers. I hope to go back to Japan in two years with my family for my 50th birthday – it has been 20 years!!

++ We talked last time about Tricycle Popstar, your solo project. But just before you had started Tricycle Popstar and the label Behaviour Savior you were for a short time in the band The Love Mushrooms, is that right? How long did The Love Mushrooms really last as a band?

Masa: About half a year ~ one year??

++ And why the name The Love Mushrooms?

Masa: I like those 60’s girl groups like The Supremes, The Ronettes, The Shangri Las etc.  The image of the name came from there.
Also The Love Mushrooms sounds erotic.

++ This is a silly question perhaps, but as you wrote songs about food, I wonder are there any particular mushrooms you really like?

Masa: I like any mushrooms. My favourite are Matsutake, Maitake.

Darelle: I am the same as you, Masa. I could eat mushrooms everyday – especially morels

++ So you had been living in Akita and then moved to Tokyo, but before moving to Tokyo you used to visit the city quite a bit. How often did you go? And how did you meet Akiko Masuda who would prove important to get your music out there?

Masa: In my Akita days, I haven’t been there, even once. After graduate high school went to Tokyo. That was my first time.

When I was a high school student, I had a message on a music magazine classified section: “Looking for friends who likes The Housemartins, The Flipper’s Guitar”. And one girl sends me a letter. Her name is Akiko Masuda. She was living near Tokyo and she teach me a lots of news of Tokyo indie scene, UK & US indie scene, and sends me a lots of music video recordings from TV program (*Tokyo area has lot more TV station and they had lots of interesting music programs too. Akita had just 2 local broadcasting stations back then). When I came to Tokyo I often meet her. She was doing a club event called ”Smiths Night” back then. (The event was playing only The Smiths records all night long!)

And through her, I was into those UK & US & Tokyo indie scene more. I was young, and I thought “I want to release my music out there!”

++ How were those Smiths nights by the way? What was the crowd favourite Smiths song when everyone went crazy on the dancefloor? And what about yours?

Masa: My favourite is “This charming man”

There are many hard core The Smiths fans there.
Any songs could those people went crazy on the dancefloor.

Darelle: I love “Cemetery Gates”.

Wendy: I met my husband by quoting from the song ASK and him replying with the next line..so that is certainly one of my favourites but I have also always liked Girlfriend in a Coma

++ That first demo you handed to Keisuke Hatsuda from Motorway Records, what did it contain? And how come he didn’t sign you?

Masa: He hadn’t started Motorway Records yet then, He was the guitarist of a band called “Budgie Jacket”. He is a great man and had great knowledge of those UK & US indie scene, it amazed me. And I can’t remember what songs were in the demo tape.

++ The demo was to end in Masashi Naka who ran A Trumpet Trumpet Records and he was going to offer you a release. But he wanted sort of a girl band sound, why was that? What reasons did he give you and did you feel comfortable about it?

Masa: I always do it on my own. And I know my vocals  aren’t that good. So I thought that was good idea. He’s got a sense. He knows what kind of music appeal to people.

++ And this is the point when The Love Mushrooms really form, when you get Wendy and Darelle in the band. How did you meet them and you convince them to join?

Masa: Wendy & Darelle, whom I also met through Mark. (also from Tasmania too). And I just ask them Like “Let’s do it! It’s gonna be fun!!”

Darelle: I had met Mark when I was 15 years old, so we already knew each other when I moved to work in Tokyo in 1992, and he introduced me to Masa. Wendy and I were both from Hobart, but had not met until we worked together in Japan. Wendy, Mark, Masa and I spent a lot of time hanging out together and when Masa asked us to sing we just thought it was something fun to do!

Wendy:  I knew Mark vaguely from Hobart as we worked at the same hotel on the front desk. The rest is history as Darelle tells it. We were all very close and spent a lot of fun times together.

++ The first incarnation of The Love Mushrooms was you and your friend Hiroshi Kudo back in Akita, is that right? Are the recordings from the split tapes with Tricycle Popstar, Dynamic Pops for the 90’s Vol 1 and 2, and The Best Of, from this period? Where do you usually record with him?

Masa: Me & Hiroshi were playing together my original songs in Akita back then, and some of songs were used as Love Mushrooms songs. I just changed the lyrics. And we recorded at my apartment usually.

Darelle: We would all squash in at your apartment – it was so tiny! Fun times!

++ Were Hiroshi, Wendy and Darelle into indiepop? Which of bands would you say inspired the music of The Love Mushrooms?

Masa: Hiroshi wasn’t much interested in indie music, But he likes music in general. Wendy & Darelle were big music fans. Wendy was into indie music and I know she collected some 7”s & records. Darelle loved 4AD type of music. What inspired the music of The Love Mushrooms?, mmm… maybe Talulah Gosh, Hevenly, Nelories.

Darelle: I loved anything on 4AD at that time, especially Cocteau Twins, Lush – still do! I was really into The Smiths and The Cure, New Order. I have loved all types of music for my whole life. I find it a great escape from the real world.

Wendy: I enjoyed alternative music from a young age. The Cure, Blur, Ride, The Smiths, The Go-Betweens….a lot of their music is still so relevant today. When I was in Tokyo, discovered the Sarah Label and collected quite a few singles – The Sea Urchins, Another Sunny Day… I can hear that kind of music in a lot of Melbourne bands nowadays.

++ So in 1992 A Trumpet Trumpet was to release your one and only release, the 3″ CD single “Wait and See What Happens”. It included 3 songs, all sounding gloriously, I can’t believe I’ve only discovered the songs as of late. I was wondering if you could tell me just in a few lines what each song is about, “Funny Sunny Day”, “You Make Me Feel” and “Satisfy Me”.

Masa: “Funny Sunny Day” – I think this song is “The Love mushrooms”. “You Make Me Feel” – My favourite track on this EP. “Satisfy Me” – I wanted to add more sounds on this track actually.

Darelle: I remember “Funny Sunny Day” was about a day Wendy and I spent in Tokyo with a friend from Canada. “You make me feel” and “Satisfy Me” – I love both of those songs. Masa always writes great melodies. He was the brains behind the whole band. I just happened to sing as I was there. Wendy and I would contribute to the lyrics. It was a lot of fun.

Wendy:  Yep I agree with Darelle, thanks D!

++ And how did the creative process work for The Love Mushrooms? Was it the same as for Tricycle Popstar?

Masa: Yes, It was quite same. Sometimes, I need to have harmony vocal tracks, I requested them. Darelle was great on those harmony vocals, She created those harmony parts by herself.

Darelle: Oh Masa! I really enjoyed doing the harmonies. I have always loved to sing, even though I am not that great. It was the most exciting, fun time. For me, it was about friendship. And an awakening to the big world.

Wendy: Yes, Darelle was amazing…I never really had the confidence and am not a great singer, so was more comfortable being in the background….but it was such a great experience recording and practising. We really had fun and that was the main thing, and we had such strong ties then.

Masa: I think Wendy’s vocal is very cute!! I remember we were very very nervous at the recording studio.

++ This single has a girl photograph in the cover? Who is she? Is she Wendy or Darelle? I hear this covert art also was featured on a magazine at the time?

Masa: A girl photograph in the cover isn’t Wendy or Darelle. The designer took the photo from somewhere. Our CD jacket was on i-D Japan magazine, that was thrilled me.

Darelle: I loved the cover!

Wendy:  Me too!

++ What do you remember about recording these songs? Any anecdotes you could share?

Masa: Mr. Naka paid for recordings. We recorded in a small recording studio. We recorded 3 songs in one day.

I didn’t bring keyboard with me on the recording day (I thought they have some keys in the studio), but there was none, only a small toy keyboard was there. So I played all key parts with the toy keyboard.

Soon after that recordings (maybe not soon, I can’t remember), the songs were mixed by Tatsuhiko Mori at his studio, he is a professional mix engineer / programmer, he collaborated with many major & indie artists.
[He also owned record label called “Hammer Label” that label reissued albums of Danish band called ”Gangway”, I love Gangway very much and Mr. Mori let me hear a song of them before releasing.]

I was there when Mr.Mori did the final mix on the songs. That was amazing!! Especially “You Make Me Feel”. After his magical treatment, that song turn into a great pop song!!
Also he changed drum tracks into better drum sounds (programmed by him) on “Funny Sunny Day” & “You Make Me Feel”.

Listening music in a studio environment & see the professionals work in real time was really a great experience for me.

Darelle: I remember being very nervous, as I am really not the best singer! I love singing but in the shower only! So it was so nerve wracking. It was a really fun day. Mori did a great job with the mixing and especially my vocals on “You make me feel”. I remember loving the result.

Masa: Yeah, That was a “WOW” experience.

Darelle: You wrote a really great song, Masa!

Wendy:  As I wrote before, it was a great day and an experience I will never have again….and I love Masa’s music…I often play his music to my friends because I am very proud of how much he has achieved as a solo artist.

++ You did mention that The Love Mushrooms appeared on the Auto Guide’s First Triangle compilation. That was the only compilation appearance of the band?

Masa: I remember!
The Love Mushrooms appeared on The Birth Of The Untruth ‎(Cassette tape – Compilation) tt003 1992 from A Trumpet Trumpet Records, before releasing CD ep. Those recordings are from my 8 track recorder. There are 2 songs on it. Love Is Just A Game & Satisfy Me.

Love Is Just A Game is a cute song. There were 3 of us on vocals. (Masa, Wendy & Darelle) & Mark too (for a second).

Satisfy Me is more raw/lo-fi ish recording (can’t remember).

https://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Birth-Of-The-Untruth/release/8254949

++ And did the band get any reaction by the press or radio?

Masa: The Love Mushrooms were played on College Radio Chart show (FM). Few fanzines were interested in The Love Mushrooms/Tricycle Popstar. Some record stores made beautiful pop up displays for us.

However, The Love Mushrooms is kind of a secret / recording project, we didn’t appear in public / we didn’t play live on stage (only once). So actually people didn’t recognize us as musicians.

Darelle: I remember we were mentioned on TV once – that was a big thrill for me.

Masa: Oh, yeah.

++ You played just one gig with The Love Mushrooms, supporting Nelories and Venus Peter at Meiji University Campus. How was that experience? How did you get the support slot? And how did you like Venus Peter and Nelories?

Masa: I remember KAMATA TETSUJI (Dr) from Budgie Jacket asked me to do the support slot at Meiji University Campus Music Festival… I like Venus Peter and Nelories, I have their CDs. However, we didn’t talk much at the backstage. We are not familiar with those scene.

KAMATA TETSUJI (Dr), HIROSHI KUDO (Bass), and I think another Guitar player Mr.KATO from my hometown were helping to play at the gig.

However, that gig was terrible. We didn’t have much time to rehearse.

Darelle: I think the gig was terrible because I really was so nervous and had never sung in front of an audience before (except in a choir at school). Wendy and I were nervous as hell! It was awful! But I remember it with fondness.

Wendy:  Oh yes, SO nervous and I was sick so my voice sounded worse than normal – I am not a singer at all, so I think that it was really hard for me to stand up and perform.

++ After that gig did you decide not to play more gigs? It wasn’t for you?

Masa: No. It wasn’t for me. I prefered just making music, not play music on stage.

Darelle: My daughter Isobel plays and sings in a two piece. I actually went to see a gig last night, She doesn’t show any sign of nerves! Wish I could have had her confidence when we played all those years ago.

Masa: What’s your daughter’s band called? DO they have Soundcloud or anything??

Darelle: They are called “Bert Shirt”. I don’t think the have anything up on Soundcloud at the moment, but they are working on it. They are a two piece – Isobel sings and plays keys. They have written some great originals and the also did a cover the other night – Alvvays, “Archie, Marry Me”. It is such a sweet song.

Wendy: I am certainly not a performer and don’t feel at all comfortable up onstage, so was thankful we didn’t do any more.

++ I do wonder why did you stop The Love Mushrooms?

Masa: On the later days of my Tokyo era, Darelle went back to Tasmania, and I was planning to go to Australia. It was busy time. I think that’s why we released cassettes only around that time. Because we could make copies by ourselves. If we made CD or 7”, we have to sell them and keep the stock with us.

Darelle: That year in Tokyo was one of my best! It was great to have such wonderful friends.

++ Wendy and Darelle were from Tasmania. I wonder, have you ever been there? How did you like it? Do you know any good indiepop music from there?

Masa: YES. Few times. Tasmania is beautiful place. We spend time at Wendy’s parents house on New years eve long time ago. And had Wendy’s dad’s homemade rhubarb wine there, was very very nice!!

Darelle: Yes! His rhubarb wine is the best! I live in Tasmania now. It has become a really vibrant, artsy place, especially since the advent of MONA [https://mona.net.au] – an amazing museum/gallery that many travel to come and see.

++ And did Hiroshi, Wendy and Darelle continue making music afterwards or not? Do you know what they are up to?

Masa: I’m not sure what Hiroshi is doing now….

Darelle: I went back to Japan for 2 years in the early 2000’s with my (then) husband and 2 little girls. It really is the most beautiful place. We lived in Melbourne for some time, but I have returned to Hobart. I sing everyday – to myself! I am so passionate about music and how it makes you feel. I can put on one of my favorite songs and instantly my mood lifts.
I am thrilled my daughter finds such pleasure in her band.
I am now a nurse and work with the elderly. We are about to implement a program which involves providing our residents with ipods filled with music that they love. I am so passionate about this because I know how much music can evoke emotions and memories.

Masa: Oh, that’s great job, Darelle!! You should get a big speaker for them to dance!!

Darelle: That’s a great idea! I love dancing myself – it really lifts my mood!

Wendy:  No, no more music for me but I love seeing live bands and Melbourne is the best city to do that. There are gigs all over the town every night. I have lived here for almost 20 years (since I left Tokyo) and love it. I’m looking forward to visiting Japan when I turn 50 in a couple of years.

++ Looking back, what would you say was your favourite Love Mushroom song you made and why?

Masa: My favourite Love Mushroom song is “You make me feel”, because that song had a great professional treatment and turned out really great!!

Darelle: I love that song too! Masa wrote a great melody.

Wendy:  I liked Satisfy Me as it was a bit ‘grungy’ but also You Make Me Feel. Masa is very clever!!

++ Thanks again, I’m going to do my best to track this single, it is amazing how much it sounds to many popular Swedish girl-fronted indiepop bands from the early 2000s, I’d say you were ahead of your time! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Masa: It was fun time for us too. Great memories.

Darelle: When I think back to that time I remember fun and being young! It really was great!

Wendy: I miss those days, but have great memories and even though we don’t see each other so much now, I believe we will always be friends and I am thankful for our time together there.

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Listen
The Love Mushrooms – Satisfy Me

I want to thank everyone that has taken the opportunity to help us with our move. I hope more people continue taking advantage of our moving offers at the Cloudberry site. It is a win-win situation, you are going to get records you like for a very reasonable price and we will have to carry less boxes to our new place. Remember this offer will be available only 3 more weeks. Then it’s over, we’ll move all the boxes left.

Because of this move there will be a wee delay in the our next 7″, My Light Shines for You!, as we needed to get the pressing plant the right address. It is a bit of a headache but everything will be all right. Just bear with us. It is a bit of a hectic time, a time that needs a lot of planning, but I’m doing my best to keep it as it was.

After The Jaywalkers post last week there hasn’t been too many items that I’ve written down. But let’s see what we have:

I only heard the band Noirless some days ago. I feel I’m a bit late to the party as I notice The Blog That Celebrates Itself has already recommended it. I’m a bit slow with finding new music, that’s true. I depend on what my friends share normally, or when by a miracle a Facebook page post does get through to my wall. The thing about Noirless is that I only know one song of theirs, “Indecisive“, and it is quite brilliant. The band formed in Bandung at least a year ago (that’s when the song was uploaded to Soundcloud) by Rama Mazaya on guitar and vocals, Aryandra Kareem on guitar and Bayu Arifianto on bass. So many great bands from Indonesia these days. Someone must do a proper compilation with the greatest hits!

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart continue promoting their new album “The Echo of Pleasure” that will be out on September 1st on their own Painbow Records. Now they have unveiled a new song on Soundcloud, “My Only“, and it is actually lovely. Maybe it is the most introspective Pains song to date? I wonder. Also announced was the tracklist for the album, and “My Only” is the opening track. Cool!

Again time for recommending a new Alvvays song. The audio for the song “Plimsoll Punks” was uploaded last week to Youtube and already has gotten more than 37 thousand listens. A lot really. Wonder if a Cloudberry release would get that someday. I hope so! The song is really good as usual, not much more to say, it is better to listen. The song will be included in the album “Antisocialites” that is coming out on September 8th.

I really like the band Fever Dream but aside from seeing them once at Indietracks years ago I haven’t been really in touch with their music. Their records are not easily available in the US, not even on sale at Jigsaw Records. And that’s a shame of course. Now the band will be releasing a second album, “Squid”, on September 29th on the label Club AC30. So of course the band needs to promote it and they chose the song “Youth (Is Wasted on the Old)“, and even though I haven’t heard the rest of the album, I think it is a great choice. This is a top song! And there’s a video for it made out of a collage of different video footage of the band, from gigs and more fun personal stuff!

Now a Melbourne, Australia, band called Backyard. I discover them through Bandcamp. I check out their latest song, “Reality Television”, and it is up my street! It is the first time I hear this band, so I need to check out some more information about them. This song is only available to stream. But back in 2015 they did release a 7″ for the song “Young & Old” and I should try to get a copy after I move. The band is formed by Adnan Kadric on vocals and guitar, Thomas Barlow on drums, Joe Daly on bass and Leon Andrews on guitar and vocals. Something that I found interesting in their small bio is that Adnan hails from Bosnia. It is definitely the first time I hear a Bosnian making indiepop. That is a good thing in my book!

And last discovery this week comes from Bloomington, Indiana. I think that is another first. I checked the latest songs by the band Nice Try and they sound great, they remind me to 90s American indiepop in the vein of the bands you’d find on Blackbean and Placenta compilations. Their latest, “Restart”, is sugary-coated and was released as part of The Le Sigh Volume III fanzine. Their previous effort “Glow” is equally good. If you go further back on their catalog you’ll notice that they were rougher, more of a punk pop band. But in these two last songs, dating from 2016 and 2017, we notice a change, a change for good if I can say that. The band is formed by Madeline Robinson on guitar and vocals, Kahler Willits on drums and Steve Schuster on bass.

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I continue with this “world tour”, stopping at different countries that have produced indiepop bands and doing some archaeology there. So far the record is quite good, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Japan, and last time, Greece. Today I’ll check out some obscure music from Norway, a country I visited a couple of years ago and I really liked it even though it was very expensive!

There’s this conundrum that keeps me awake. So you know, I’m moving. And I want to order records. Like the Astroburger/Masters of Doom split album. But then, can I? What if whoever I buy it from posts it late? What if it never arrives? What if my old landlord receives it and he is mad with me because I left and he just throws this record to the garbage? So many doubts. To be sure I should wait until some days before I move, or even better when I’m already settled. But what if I see a very good price, irresistible price, NOW? These are serious questions, aren’t they?

I suppose I should wait. There’s also the fact that if I order more records, then there will be more stuff to carry, things might get heavier. I’m already moving so many boxes of records, that I should be a bit more reasonable about it.

I had heard some Monsters of Doom songs on the “Holiday at Wobbledef Grunch” album by The Tables. There are 7 songs at the end of the CD, song 15 to 21, that are credited to The Monsters of Doom. Them being “Who Am I To Say?”, “Whisky Dreams”, “Green Bubbles”, “The Tabletop Surfer”, “Old Lady Mugged by Drunken Popstar”, “Pneumonia Ceilings” and “Simon & Garfunkel”.

On the credits of this CD released by the most important indiepop label from Norway Perfect Pop (POP 17), we learn that actually The Monsters of Doom were an earlier incarnation of The Tables. And that these 7 songs were originally released as the B side of a split LP released with Astroburger. These songs date from 1991 and they were recorded at Endless Sound Studio in Oslo.

I admit I’m not 100% familiar with the whole discography of the Oslo label. I own a bunch of their records and I especially love the ones by The Tables, The Time Lodgers, The Blind Bats and later of Je Suis Animal. Actually the Je Suis Animal wanted to take me to the Perfect Pop warehouse when I visited Oslo, but I can’t remember why we didn’t go! Would have been great!

Anyways, I went to check out that split LP that I wasn’t aware of. And I see it listed on Discogs and my eyes light up. I want to order it. But then the questions I was asking myself earlier invade me. Also it is true that I already have all those songs on The Tables CD. Well, not all. There’s an “Intro” song here opening the B side and also there’s another song titled “Mad”.

The album “Venus Beach/Lost on Venus” was released in 1991 by Perfect Pop (POP 4), 1000 copies were pressed. 640 of those copies came in black vinyl whereas the rest in orange. The record came with a poster and booklet. The runout etching on the B side, the Monsters of Doom side, says “Audiodisc 910910 TLK MAYBE THE MADMAN WAS RIGHT”.

There are credits for the songs and indeed we see that most of the band members were going to form The Tables. Bartleby was on vocals, Reg Trademark was on guitar, Mike Mushroom on bass, Robert Birdeye on drums, Sandy Shore on organ and Josefa Resztada on tambourine and maracas. The producer was the band and Richard B. Marshall while the engineer was Eystein Hopland.

Waldemar Hepstein did the cover for the lyric book that was included and Marius Moonfish the artwork for the cover of the Monsters of Doom side. I haven’t seen the booklet, I wonder what’s in it? Perfect Pop always had cool designs, very DIY influenced by the cut and paste of fanzines. I’d love to see it.

We check out some of the band members. Of course we know that Bartleby, Tore Sørensen, was part of The Tables. It is the same case of Steinar Buholm, aka. Robert Birdeye, who also released a couple of solo 7″s and not so long ago was in The Vacuum Dreamers. I knew those two names. Mike Mushroom, Mikkel Bay Vold,  also was involved with The Tables and Astroburger. Ståle Caspersen, aka. Reg Trademark, was also in The Tables and in the brilliant The Time Lodgers.

Sandy Shore, whose real name is Kjersti Gravklev, wasn’t involved in The Vacuum Dreamers and before on Willy B. I have no clue about Willy B but it seems is a Norwegian music journalist. Josefa Resztada only appears listed as part of Monsters of Doom, no other bands.

There are at least two compilation appearances by the band. In 1992 they contributed the song “Tabletop Surfer” to the LP compilation “Penguins and Bondage (That’s Entertainment Sampler Vol.2)” that was released by That’s Entertainment Records and DogJob Records (THEN 018). I don’t know any of the bands on this album but The Monsters of Doom and Astroburger. I checked some out on Youtube, like the Kung Fu Girls, and well, they weren’t indiepop to be honest.

Their second compilation appearance would be at the home label, Perfect Pop. In 1995 they were to have the song “Who Am I To Say?” on the CD compilation “A Perfect Pop Compilation 1991-1994”.

Time to explore the depths of the web. Almost immediately I struck gold. I find the blog Kuriositetskabinettet that Bartleby sometimes seem to update. I see a post dating from November 3rd 2014 about Monsters of Doom. Through this post Bartleby shares a rare bootleg live recording of Monsters of Doom! Wow! There are 12 songs in total, “The Tabletop Surfer”, “I Like My Toys”, “Mad”, “Pictures of Matchstick Sun”, “Pneumonia Ceilings”, “War or Hands of Time”, “Penelope Tree”, “My Friend Jack”, “Green Bubbles”, “Minstrel Radio Yoghurt”, “I Wanna Destroy You” and “Halo in My Hair”. These recordings come from a walkman! They were recorded at RockAll, a small pub in Oslo on October 10th of 1990. Bartleby also gives some background info about the band and the gig. He mentions that this was the one and only gig ever played by the Monsters of Doom and that the band split just after. There are only 4 original songs. The rest being covers, “I Like My Toys” is an original by Idle Race (and this song was actually going to be covered by The Table on a 7″ many years later), “Pictures of Matchstick Sun” is by The Status Quo (well, the original is Matchstick Men, but here Bartleby makes the note that at the time there was a band in Norway with the name Matchstick Sun), “War or Hands of Time” is by The Master’s Apprentices, “Penelope Tree” we all know is by Felt, “My Friend Jack” is by The Smoke, “Minstrel Radio Yoghurt” is by Deep Freeze Mice, “I Wanna Destroy You” is by The Soft Boys and “Halo in My Hair” was by Bulldog Breed.

I couldn’t find much more about this period of the The Tables, when they were known as Masters of Doom. I believe Monsters of Doom were also called The Tables before and not only afterwards. I wonder why they changed names. What was the intention with Monsters of Doom, and why they lasted so little under that name. I’m sure the answers are out there, and maybe some of you know them. But it was pretty interesting exploring this period of Norway’s indiepop scene, Perfect Pop and the always brilliant The Tables.

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Listen
Monsters of Doom – Pneumonia Ceilings

Now it is for sure. Cloudberry HQ is moving. We will still be in Astoria, far away from the hipsters, but a few subway stops closer to the city. Because of that, and seeing that we many boxes of Cloudberry stock, and we want to make it an easy move, we decided it was a good idea for our fans to help us and help them back too. We don’t want to carry so many boxes, I think that’s what everyone thinks when they have to move, so we have decided to bring back the popular 10 random 7″ offer deal we had back in March when we were celebrating our 10th anniversary. Also we have put together a new deal, this time for CDs, where you can get 5 random ones also for a fair price. These two offers will be available until September 14th when we will be getting a moving truck and taking all of our stuff to the new place. You can check both packs at our website, www.cloudberryrecords.com, and we already thank you in advance!

Also if we move less stuff that means that we’ll have more space for new releases. So that’s always a good thing, right?

Since the last update on the blog on Monday there have been a few indiepop news worth checking out. If I’m missing something, better let me know in the comments section.

It seems Shelflife is on fire. What else can I say? Every week there’s some new video or new song that I want to have in my record collection. Just a couple of days ago the label and the band Airiel unveiled a new video for the brilliant “This is Permanent“. This song will be included in the upcoming double LP album “Molten Young Lovers” that will be released this October. Will there be a CD release for it? I hope. I’m happy though that Shelflife doesn’t release tapes. I also hope the Chicago band comes to play to NYC. I only saw once, 5 years ago at Cake Shop, and it was great!

The Granite Shore will be releasing a new album also in October. It is titled “Suspended Second” and will be out on the always trustworthy Occultation Recordings. It has 9 songs and for those of you who are not familiar with this band I must say that Phil June Brides plays acoustic guitar in it. That matters, right? The band also has Arash Torabi on bass, Ian Henderson on drums, Steve Perrin on electric guitar, John Howard on piano and Nick Halliwell from The Distractions on vocals. If you want to check out some of the music, why not start with the song “Where Does the Sadness Come From?” that has a video made by Mr Phil Wilson.

I’ve also been sharing the past few weeks the singles Stars in Coma has been publishing on Soundcloud and Youtube. Singles that are promoting his new album “Escapist Partisans” that will be released in August 25th. Now it the time for the 3rd and final single “Subtraction Exercises“. André says that this one is the jangliest and the most guitar-driven track of the album. He might be right, as once again it is a winner.

I got a message last week by the Japanese band Shinowa. I had never heard them, and had no clue who they were. Kaori, the lead vocalist, told me that they had released a 7″ last June. The A side had the song “Snow, Moon, Flowers” and the B side was “Almost Certain”. For the first one there is a very cool video that you can check on Youtube.  The band is formed by Kaori Yamauchi on vocals, guitar and keyboards, Hajime Hirata on guitar and programming, Yoshino Uchi on bass and Gen-Yu Nou on drums. The band define themselves as 60s psychedelic meets 80s and 90s indiepop. They really have very nice guitars I must say, and their songs do sound modern and classic at the same time. I enjoy the atmospheres I could hear throughout their new album that will be released by LEIM Records sometime soon I hope! A very cool discovery indeed.

“Ideal ist Nichts” is the song the German band Zimt is using now to promote their new album “Glückstiraden” that is coming out on the 2th of August on Tapete Records. Of course for me it is kind of sad when a band changes labels, they were in the very lovable Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten of my friend Ronny, but with a bigger label like Tapete maybe they get more attention? Who knows. The good thing is that they have been able to record a a video for “Ideal Ist Nichts” and I’m loving the song even though I understand so very little but melodies can speak to me too. It is a very interesting video, the band having fun in what seems to be a farm, with pigs and all! Can’t wait for the album!

And I’ll wrap it there. More news, next week!

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I had various options for Greek bands to be honest. It was hard to pick one for the blog. In the end I decided to try to find out more information about The Jaywalkers, perhaps the band many of us indiepop lovers seek their record the most. We know it is almost impossible to ever own it. We know. We accept that situation. And for me it has been like that since the first time I heard their classic “(You Can’t Be) Happy All the Time”. I’ve played that song so many times, I’ve DJed it too, and I’ve danced to it when other people have played it. It is an indiepop classic anyway you see it. But at the same time I noticed I know nothing about them.

For me it was always a surprise when I discovered there was an indiepop scene in Greece. How come I thought. I met Greek friends that were very much into indiepop. Christos and Marianthi even showed me Greek fanzines from back in the day when I visited their home. I was thrilled and curious. Who were these people making these sounds there? How were they connected to the bigger indiepop scene in the 80s? As years passed by I noticed that Greek stores used to carry indiepop records, they sold Sarah and Creation and more. eBay sellers from Greece would sell obscure records. There was definitely people very much into it. So it couldn’t be just a random thing that there was Greek indiepop.

The thing about The Jaywalkers is that their mini LP wasn’t released on an indiepop label, not even an indie label. It was released by Virgin Hellas in Greece (VG 2085 Z). It was 1987 and the 12″ had four songs, on the A side the legendary “(You Can’t Be) Happy all the Time” and “Good Day Sunshine”. The B side had “I Had a Dream” and a Beatles cover of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. The songs were recorded at In Recording Studios and the engineer was Manolis Vlachos.

Discogs won’t be easy for me. The credits are of course written in Greek. Sometimes though when you rollover over the name you get the name in latin alphabet. I noticed then that the vocals and guitars, as well as the first two songs on the record, are credited to Giorgos Mouchtaridis. That’s my first hint. Also who is the boy on the front cover? On Last.fm it says that it is the song of a well-known Greek singer, not a pop singer. Who then?

On Discogs too there is a small bio by the band. I use Google translate to find out what it says. It says that the band was founded by Mouchtaridis and Paschalis Plissis who were before in the punk band “Migraine” (Ημικρανία, in Greek I think). Also it is mentioned to my surprise that the record was a commercial failure when it come out. What happened there? The label didn’t support the band? I don’t understand!

There is other member credited on that first page of Discogs, Vassilis Divolis. I could see that Vassilis had been involved in other bands like Supermarket or with Kristi Stassinopoulou. Paschalis in the other hand had played with Panayotis Kalantzopoulos, and other solo artists. While Giorgos is mostly credited for working in production. But Last.fm has a bio where I get to know what each one played:

Paschalis Plissis-guitar, voice, piano, backing vocals)
Giorgos Mouchtarides-(guitar, voice, backing vocals)
Giannis Divolis-violin, harmonium, greek laouto, vocals
Vassilis Divolis-kettle drums, percussion, goblet drum
Giorgos Manos-bass, piano, Chinese violin

There are a few compilation appearances by the band. The one I’m mostly interested in is the 1989 tape “Straight to Hellas”. I noticed that the label that put it out back in the day, Lazy Dog (Lazy 05), has now it available for download on a blogspot page. I don’t support full album downloads you know, but this is the label uploading it, so it is different. The Jaywalkers appear with the last track, “Pale Blue Eyes”. It is quite different to the sound of their classic song, but it is enjoyable in its “lo-finess”. I don’t know any of the other bands, but I’ll have a listen. Maybe there I’ll discover some cool jangly sounds? But no, no jangle in here.

Their later appearances on compilations are much newer. I think it was thanks to their appearance on the influential and important CD compilation “Try a Little Sunshine”, which was a taster and introduction for many of us to the Greek scene, they started getting the recognition they deserved. This compilation came out in 1999 and was released by Pop Art Records (Pop-99). So many good bands in it like The Crooner, Impossible Tymes or Next Time Passions. I actually think I have two copies of it. On the notes of the CD it says that the song from The Jaywalkers come from their deleted mini LP. Was it really deleted?

In 2010 they were to appear with the song “Good Day Sunshine” on the tape compilation “Velvet D.I.Y. – A Velvet Compilation” released by the Velvet magazine (Velvet 02). I notice that this tape came with a 120 page pocket size booklet inside a printed bag. Wow! Maybe there was more information about The Jaywalkers written there? Maybe our Greek friends can help me. The version of “Good Day Sunshine” on this tape is actually an earlier, alternate and unreleased version of the song that was on the miniLP. How did it sound?!

Their last appearance dates of this year, 2017. This time it is an LP compilation titled “A Sparkle from the Past” released by the label Make Me Happy (MMH 001) that has a bunch of Greek indiepop bands like Kissamatic Lovebubbles, One Night Suzan and Pillow, as well as the classics Next Time Passions. The artwork for it is very Sarah-esque. Looks great. But where do I get this record? I can’t find any information.

I keep digging. I find that Giorgos Mouchtaridis is the founder of Radio Pepper 96.6. I also think that at some point he was the director of Kosmos FM of the Hellenic National Radio. About Paschalis Plissis I found some artwork credited to him on the Useum site. Sadly I couldn’t find if they made any more indiepop songs after The Jaywalkers or actually some more information of the band, like why did they split? And what they did after?

I end up on Youtube. First I find videos from 2010, when they opened The Triffids show ‘A Secret In The Shape Of A Song / The Triffids and Friends play the songs of David McComb’ in Athens at the Gagarin 205 venue on April 23rd. Also they played a gig on September 24 of 2010 at the venue BIOS. Then I find that the band played again in 2013. Not sure how many gigs they played, but there are videos of this time again at Gagarin 205, dating from June 1st of that year. And if that’s not enough, there are two videos for the band rehearsing. There’s “Get Out of My Life” and “Good Day Sunshine” at a rehearsal room.

Also I was to find the Next Time Passions covering The Jaywalkers at the Tiki Bar in 2009! That was cool!

Also another question that remains central to my query is about their recordings, if they only had these 5 songs I’ve mentioned. Or if there were more? How come from being in a punk band they evolved into the sound one hears in their mini LP? There are many questions that I would love to ask them, I hope I can interview them sometime soon!

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Listen
The Jaywalkers – (You Can’t Be) Happy all the Time