The Keatons

Now, I'll be honest, I can't remember when I came across The Keatons, I'm assuming it was during looking up the S*M*A*S*H stuff from before as the band are also from Welwyn Garden City (sort of, two of the band live there) and I remember an email conversation with a chap about them, but I'm buggered if I can find it, sorry if it was you!

Anyway, The Keatons. Most of what you need to know, including the recording of the spectacularly names debut LP "Ex Vide Betamaxi In Honda Cotopaxi" in the Czech Republic, the members of the band and all the history is covered in the Myspace page and on Rhodri Marsden's (who got in the band by eating an orange, writes for the Independent and the Radio Times and is in Scritti Politti!) blog.

In short, the band formed in London in 1986, recorded some great singles, got played by John Peel, toured long and hard, released the album (which is great, try and get hold of a copy), and toured even more. Read the myspace page, it's worth it and has a few other tracks on that are just as good as this: The Keatons - Gold Vane; it's track 1 on the album which would be a lazy bit of recording and mp3ing, but it captures the spirit.

I can only apologise for forgetting everything I was going to say, none of my notes to myself make any sense...

Top

Another entry in the "fuck me, that was hard to Google" stakes today with Top.

As requested by Kirtsy and Steve in Facebook group of this here page, Top were a Liverpudlian three-piece who kicked around for a couple of years at the start of the 1990s.

Clinging onto the coat-tails of Madchester and the Liverpool scene that gave us The Las and their ilk, Alan Wills, Joe Fearon and Paul Cavanagh knocked out a few cracking singles and an album (Emotion Lotion) and even recorded a Peel Session before going the way of so many other of their contemporaries.

The internet knows very little of Top - possibly due to the aforementioned Googling problems - so any more detail is again welcome.

You can listen to Top - Buzzin' here and should you wish buy a copy of "Emotion Lotion" here, for as little as 89p!

The Chesterfields

I was all ready to launch into a dreamy reminiscence about the lovely catherdral city here, then I found out The Chesterfields are from Yeovil, not the Derbyshire city with the wonky spire. Ah well, maybe next time.

Formed in Yeovil in the summer of 1984 by David Goldsworthy (guitar/vocals), Simon Barber (bass/vocals) and Dominic Manns (drums) and then supplemented by guitarist Brendan Holden in 1985, The Chesterfields were another of the great under rated indie bands that this page is all about.

The band were prolific in the late 80s and produced some pretty fine indie pop, releasing loads of really good singles and at least one album. Their debut LP was named "Kettle" as, and I'm quoting Tweenet here,

"The story goes that they chose this title for the LP after watching 'Coronation Street' and listening to the characters at frequent points during the show telling each other, in their best northern accents, to 'put kettle on luv'. "

The Tweenet entry is full and interesting, as is this Geocities page, so get it while it's hot.

On a sad note, David Goldsworthy was killed in a hit and run accident in 2004.

This is The Chesterfields - Blame. There's not enough trombone work in indie pop is there? Good brass band work at the end as well.

You can buy their best of "Electric Guitars in Their Hearts" here.

The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men were first brought to my attention by a nice lady called Mandy, who emailed me way back in March. She'd been after a copy of an EP called The Drowning Man. Sadly I can't help with that particular request, but I can help with a lovely 12" called "What To Look For In Summer".

So, The Hollow Men. Coming out of Leeds in the mid-1980s, the band were at least a six-piece and released numerous albums and singles (according to their myspace page anyway). The band were lumped in with the Madchester groups of the time, unfairly really as they do sound a bit like the Stone Roses et al, but once more there's far more depth to the music that you'd expect; compare them with Northside and you'll see how much better they were.

The Last FM page has a pretty good discography and background (and, for Mandy has The Drowning Man for you listening pleasure).

Anyway, Madchester aside, you'll like this, it's The Hollow Men - November Comes; and it features some of that great wah-wah pedal-created wacka-wacka noise that was so popular in 1990.

Oh, and according to my chum Gareth, one of their first press photos had them all brushing their teeth. Crazy!

Amazingly, Cresta, their album is available for as little as 50p on Amazon!

Hang on! Youtube comes up trumps again...