1000 Violins

Are you lot still here then? Apologies for slow/few updates recently, long story; can I make it up to you with 1000 Violins?

We're going back in time again to the heady days of 1986 with this one. Blimey, 1986, the NME's C86 tape was to become the yard stick against indie was measured, Maradonna did for England with the 'hand of God' goal and I was still in short pants (albeit about to get a sexy French lady form teacher at school) and still probably listening to Huey Lewis and the News...

Anyway, 1000 Violins were brought to my attention when I was sorting out The Dylans at the end of last year; I made a little note in my book and then forgot all about it until the other day. Turns out you see, that Colin Gregory the guitarist of this lot went on to form the Dylans where he knocked out cracking indie pop in the early 90s.

This lot however were around from the mid-80s [with a line up of Darren Swindells on bass, Colin Gregory on guitar, John Wood singing, David Walmsley on keyboards and guitar and Peter Day on drums] until about 1989, released a load of good jangly singles and an album, recorded a couple of Peel Sessions and snuck into the indie charts with this track (andmy what a scratchy chap it is!):

1000 Violins - Please Don't Sandblast My House (right click, 'save as...' to download)
After the band split they fantastically became big in Japan - the ultimate indie dream; however, by that time they had unfortunately lost David Warmsley to cancer in 1992. Another of those sad losses that I've stumbled across doing this nonsense.

You can of course have more in the All Music Guide and wikipedia pages should you wish. Apparently the internet is helping the band gain latter day popularity, so it's nice to be able to help them along in some little way. The 'Best of...' is occasionally available on (Amazon) and is definitely worth hunting down if you can.