There are two qestions people often ask me; "who are you favourite 90s band named after a 1980s hat-wearing fruit-based advertising front man?" and "have you got any really scratchy 12 inch singles?". The answer to these questions is The Man From Del Monte and "yes, coincidentally I have a copy of The Man From Del Monte EP right here that's scratched to buggery, want to hear it?". Of course you do, so here it is:
The Man From Del Monte - Australia Fair (right click, save as to download, you know the drill)
The band in question are a great forgotten Manchester four piece; formed around 1987 mand consisting of Mike West on singing and guitar, Martin Vincent on guitar, Sheila Seal on bass and Howard Goody on drums (now, it's probably my mind playing tricks on me, but these names sound awfully familiar, did they go on to other things?) the first bit of excitement I had was discovering that the band were managed by Jon Ronson; yes, that Jon Ronson, him off the telly.
There's a nice little biog here and the usual wikipedia page.
Apart from that, if you can get pass the hissing and popping on the mp3 above you can get some idea of how different TMFDM (as I'm sure the NME would have called them) were from other 1989 Manchester bands. Not for them the ludicrous baggy of the Stone Roses or the shuffling miserableness of bloody Morrissey, no, these were a jolly jangly indie pop band, and one that I'm glad to have been pointed at; this is what we want.
Ah, yes, The Man From Del Monte. I remember the likes of "Water In My Eyes" and "Will Nobody Save Louise" being played at indie nights.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite song of theirs was the excellent "My Love Is Like A Gift You Can't Return" which popped up on the Indie Top 20 Volume 7 CD compilation, well worth getting hold of just for that!!
Great name and lovely'n'scratchy :-)
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