The Wendys

Apologies for lack of updates recently, I'm building up to a solid few weeks off and need to get my house in order (literally and metaphorically).

In the meantime, let's get back on the horse with The Wendys.

As usual, pop over to the wiki page for a bit more information, but this time we're celebrating not only a great Scottish band, but a gen-u-ine, honest-to-goodness, Factory Records white label as you can see in the picture at the top.

This little rarity has an A4 insert that says:

"The Wendys are the first band to sign to Factory since northside and also share the same producer...Ian Broudie."

The insert also claims, oddly, that this is the band's first release on the label, but as you'll see in the linked Wiki article it's actually their second, although this rather detailed page seems to imply that their "first" EP entitled "More Than Enough" never got a proper release; maybe my reader can help fill in the blanks?

There's some great stuff kicking about the internet about the band, all of which is worth a read; an NME clipping and of course a myspace page (I should really be collecting all these; if only I wasn't such a bloody luddite and understood myspace).

Well, enjoy this: The Wendys - The Sun's Going to Shine for Me Soon, it's a cracking bit of indie pop and far better than Northside any day.

The Dylans

Right, it's Friday, so let's go with a classic sing-a-long, top notch indie classic from The Dylans; and I dare you not to be singing along after the first twenty seconds.

Long before Sheffield was the 'indie' capital of the world, The Dylans were plying their trade out of the grim north, and they might not have been as big as we'd have hoped, but boy weren't they just a great band!

All the history you need is on the wiki page and at Discogs.com and you know you should own at least one of their singles, if not, what the hell were you doing in 1991?

"I hear your tambourines
Inside my head, she says
I hear your tambourines
On Planet Love, she says
On Planet Love..."

Go on, get that baggy t-shirt on, flick what's left of your indie fringe about, go to the nearest pub for a pint of snakebite and dance along to The Dylans - Planet Love; it's what Fridays were made for.

One big question remains mind you, why were all the best indie club nights on a Tuesday, not a Friday?

The Nivens

Wouldn't you know it, I just get sorted with putting The Nivens on here and it turns out that there's two bands called the same thing. Even worse, they could both fit in here quite happily.

What to do? Nuts to it, I'm going with my original Nivens; the lot from Ashington, Northumberland. Mostly because they're the ones I meant to put up, but partially because the next band I get on here will probably be the band that released a split flexi (yay!) with them in 1988. More of that later though.

So, The Nivens, formed in 1987, released the aforementioned flexi and two other proper singles; put out a compilation CD, played loads of gigs and supported indie luminaries like

"The Las, My Bloody Valentine, Cud, Primal Scream, Brilliant Corners, Family Cat, and any indie band who bothered to visit the north"

and then folded.

Their official site is here and has what you need to know.

I also particularly like them because their music is intelligent and catchy and the second track on the double-A sided (I miss double A sides, you wouldn't get Billy Bragg having a secret number one these days) final EP The Dialect Drug is called, rather fantastically I thought, "The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century".

And this is it, The Nivens - The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century; great isn't it. I'd heartily recommend getting hold of the EP as it's genuinely really good.

For the other Nivens, go look at their Myspace page

The Trashcan Sinatras

I'm breaking one of my own unwritten rules again today with The Trashcan Sinatras, because they're still going; and indeed have fairly recently released new material and will be putting out a new single in October 2008. All the guff you really need about the band is on the official site.

Still, it's good to put them up as they're another of the bands that dropped their "The" to sound more rock and roll and they're another band from Scotland; though not Glasgow for a change. For a change, the wikipedia page really does tell you most of the stuff you'll need to know about the band.

I really liked the band when they were in their 90s heyday, and this is one of the few records I've actually had for a while in the cupboard that a) isn't off ebay or from the lovely chaps at Vinyl Tap and b) isn't the only record I own by the band (because of reason a).

Mind you, this particular recording is from a DJ only promo as you can see in the picture. All I can say is: God knows what DJs do to their records. This one is scratched to fuck and took me four attempts, metaphorically balancing 2p coins on the arm of the record player, to get the sodding thing to play and record.

I hope you enjoy the fruits of my needle-knackering exploits: The Trashcan Sinatras - Circling the Circumference; go download the new single from the official site and remember just how good The Trashcan Sinatras were.

Or you can of course buy the band's classic 1990 album Cake here.

The Waltones

We're lumbering towards actually famous today with The Waltones, not least because they may, or may not, have been offered a deal by legendary Manchester DJ and producer Dave Haslam and soon-to-be Happy Mondays Manager Nathan McGough; and of course after the band's eventual split, Mark Collins the guitarist went off to join The Charlatans.

The Waltones were formed in Manchester in 1986, comprised Alex Fyans (Drums), Mark Collins (Guitar), James Knox (Vocals, Harmonica) and Manny Lee (Bass, Backing Vocals), recorded four singles and an album, are alleged on wikipedia to have recorded a Peel Session (although the official Peel pages seem to contradict that and, thanks to the internet we know that:

"...despite gaining much streetcred and selling out their LP, their distributor Red Rhino went bankrupt. The new distributor APT refused to take on Red Rhino's debts and thus no re-press of the album was undertaken. When Medium Cool was taken over by Midnight Music records a fall-out occured between the label and the Waltones ex-manager over ownership of the mastertapes for 'Listen To Your Heart' (the bands 5th unreleased single)."

There are a number of good sites about for the band, including their myspace pages which really covers everything, James, the singer's page - which tells it from his point of view and this nice blog post.

The Waltones are great; they played proper pre-Madchester indie that reminds me of one of my favourite bands, Bob, though which came first I'll leave up to you...

So, this is The Waltones - Everything's just Fine, the first song off the album Deepest, boy, does that take me back...

You can buy You've Gotta Hand It To 'Em the re-released Best of... here.

The Rosehips

The Rosehips are one of your great should-have-been-bigger twee bands. Formed near Stoke in 1986, the band are another with an indie-lady singer in a line up of:

"Yoland (vocals), Glenn (guitar), Ant (bass) and Mark 1 (drums). The [band's] first release was "The Last Light" on the Subway Records compilation LP "Take The Subway To Your Suburb". Two further singles - "Room In Your Heart" and "I Shouldn't Have To Say" - were released on Subway and the band gigged alongside Talulah Gosh, The Flatmates, The Clouds and The Groove Farm."

Again, I don't want to just copy and paste too much of the already full internet, so the "official" history is here and there is, of course, a lot on the band's myspace page. Oh, and believe it or not, there's a Rosehips tribute band!

The best thing about the internet is that people record such minute details as who the band played with, including such indie legends as the Darling Buds, Mega City Four and The Wedding Present!

So, here you go, this is The Rosehips - Room in Your Heart, it's a great bit of late 80s indie pop.

The Soup Dragons

Before reinventing themselves as some sort of baggy/indie crossover stars with 1990's Lovegod album, The Soup Dragons were one more band off the indie production line that comes out of Glasgow and has produced such luminaries as the BMX Bandits and Teenage Fanclub.

In the mid- to late-1980s The Soup Dragons were knocking out Peel-friendly indie of the sort featured here - Soup Dragons - The Majestic Head (and I think I'm right in saying this is the first picture disc featured). It was only with the release of their third album that they went all I'm Free; at much the same time that Scottish chums Primal Scream were also leaving their rock roots behind and experimenting with ecstacy-fuelled indie dance.

And in the same way that the Happy Mondays "covered" Step On, I'm Free, a danced-up cover of a 1965 Rolling Stones song, brought the Soup Dragons fame and fortune.

Anyway, today's post is to celebrate the 'original' Soup Dragons, the band that recorded Peel Sessions and made it into the 1986 Festive Fifty. Twice.

For more detail, the Trouser Press biography is the page you want to read and This Is Our Art, the album of the mp3 above, was recently re-released for you to enjoy the first incarnation of the band, before digging out the flares and the hooded Inspiral Carpets tops and shuffling around the house like it was 1990 all over again..

The Prudes

For the second offering of double-request-post Wednesday, we're going to go with a band that again I'm a bit short of information about: The Prudes.

From Last.fm we know they were formed by Bradleigh Smith and Pete Ellis in 1987. They recorded 5 singles and an album (Designer Karma) on Imaginary Records and from the bit my chum Gareth remembers, Bradleigh and Terry Bickers from the House of Love covered the Velvet Underground's "I'm set free" on the early 90s compilation album "Heaven & Hell". They also may have recorded a Peel Session.

So, once more it's a call for information, know anything about The Prudes?

While you rummage through the loft of memory, have a listen to The Prudes - Glad, it's really rather good.

Salad

It's double-request-post Wednesday today. Starting off with Salad, another band with that indiest of things, an attractive lady singer.

Formed in 1992, the band consisted of Dutch vocalist/keyboardist Marijne van der Vlugt, bassist Pete Brown, drummer Rob Wakeman (not Rick Wakeman as it took me three goes to work out) and guitarist Paul Kennedy. The band were bulked up for live outings by Charley Stone (latterly of Gay Dad).

Again, I'll keep it short as there's a load of information on wikipedia and a nice little collection of rareities and B-sides on myspace which tells us that the band...

"released three full-length [albums] - 1995's Drink Me, the same year's Singles Bar, and 1997's Icecream - before breaking up in the late '90s. Despite being part of the Britpop scene in terms of sound, they never quite received the same amount of attention given to their peers."

And they certainly don't; this offering Salad - Kent is a cracking bit of swirly-waily indie pop. And it's a great addition to this place.

Mega City Four

First off, an apology, it's been a busy few weeks at Because Midway Still... towers and I've got a backlog of stuff to put on. And to be honest, I'm more than happy that I can finally get round to putting Mega City Four on; they've been a glaring omission for a long time now.

I don't think I'd be alone in saying that I loved Mega City Four. They were a fantstic band and part of indie royalty. They released huge amounts of music and toured extensively and continuously with Midway Still, Ned's, Carter, Senseless Things and countless other indie bands that we all know and love.

Part of the reason I do this is to link together all the bands that, although they may not have had massive financial and popular success in the hit parade and on Radio 1, they really did influence so many of us to grow our hair stupidly and wear ridiculous shorts. Oh, and to really, really love music.

For a biography I'm once again lifting lock, stock from the All Music Guide:

"The long-running alternative rock band the Mega City Four had been together for over a decade when they broke up in early 1996. Formed in the mid-'80s in Farmborough, England, the band consisted of guitarist/vocalist Wiz, bassist/vocalist Gerry Bryant, rhythm guitarist/vocalist Danny Brown, and drummer Chris Jones. Aside from the studio LPs Tranzophobia (1989), Who Cares Wins (1990), Terribly Sorry Bob (1991), Sebastopol Rd. (1992), Magic Bullets (1994), and Soulscraper (1996), the band also tallied a live LP, a Peel Sessions disc, and an impressive number of singles"

Of course, we know that Wiz sadly died in December 2006; the official Mega City Four page, although not as up to date as some fan pages, will keep you abreast of any news and there's a good myspace page for the band and as a tribute to Wiz as well.

For the mp3, why not enjoy 1988's second single Mega City Four - Clear Blue Sky, it's a cracking bit of early indie rock and roll and should hopefully more than make up for leaving them out until now.

You can still buy loads of their stuff, I'd forgotten how good Sebastopol Road was...