Dart

Bit of an odd one today with Dart, a band I know very little about, but came up in my digging around because the B side to this single is a cover of an album track by Sarah stalwarts the Field Mice.

The internet doesn't know much about Dart so I thought it would be nice if you lot heard them as well, they're a rather nice swooping indie band from, apparently, San Francisco - making them only the third non-British band I've done on here I think.

So, what do we know? Well, the band contained at the very least three chaps called Rick Stone, Lauren Axelrod and John Stefan (the drummer), they seem to have been active from 1994 to 1995 and released three or four singles and an album on Che Records which is described as

"Just dramatic enough, just artistic enough, Dart created an understated treasure with 36 Cents an Hour, steering clear of most independent music trends in America and the U.K. of the early to mid-'90s to create something that couldn't quite easily be boxed up. Guitar pop? Shoegazing? Strings and piano? Indie rock? All of the above, with often striking results"

by the All music Guide; rather nicely I thought.

A myspace fan page gives a bit more background, but that really seems to be it, so if you know anything, please pop a comment below after having a listen to this:


Dart - Sleepless (right click etc...)
Excitingly the single is on red vinyl and this song contains either the longest false ending I've heard on a song for ages, or it's a very short song twice on one side. It's also a 33rpm 7", which is bound to lead to some Peel-esque wrong speed hilarity; I know it did for me the first time I tried to copy it...

Spitfire

Back into one-word band names again today with Spitfire. Coming out of the indie wastelands of Crawley, the band were another band formed by two brothers (Jeff and Nick Pritcher) and bulked up to the standard five-piece by Steve White, Scott Kenny and Matt Wise. Membership changes later in the band's life saw white replaced by Simon Walker (who latterly joined The Auteurs) and Kenny leaving the drum stool which was filled by Justin Welch (later a member of Elastica).

Formed in 1990, Spitfire released a good half dozen singles; leaving their shoegazing beginnings behind to go more indie pop/rock, a couple of albums (much delayed debut Fever eventually surfacing in 1993) and recorded a Peel Session in 1991. It's also suggested in a number of places that the band took the rock and roll lifestyle a bit too seriously with reports of less than subtle banging on in the NME and the like and freely handing out backstage passes to groupies; neither being particularly popular traits with their record companies needless to say!

This track "Rubber Rosie" is a bit of an odd one though. It's undeniably Spitfire (it appears on their 'official' site, but it doesn't get a mention in either of the places I usually look for background; discogs and in Martin Strong's Big Boys Book of Indie), so what we're supposed to believe I'm not sure. Maybe it's the rarest thing in the world ever? More likely it's just one of those things. This particular copy comes in a nice cardboard sleeve with Dickie Davies' World of Sport-esque "S" logo.

Right click, 'Save as...' to download
And of course, there's a wikipedia page as well. At some point I'm going to have to go through Wiki and update all these pages that are just bits and pieces memories and speculation. After all, this place must be all true by now...

Boo Radleys

Bit of an odd one this time, it's the Boo Radleys, but not really what you'd think of first when you heard the name; oh, and I've cheated a bit because this isn't on vinyl, it's on a bloody tape. A cover tape no less.

Cover tapes are an entirely different genre of music blog, so I'm only using it to illustrate a point (and show how much crap I carry around from house to house over the years; there's all kinds of rubbish in a box in the cupboard, if you're particularly unlucky I'll drag them out too).

This particular song is "Blues for George Michael" from the tape stuck to the 12 February 1994 edition of the NME. Here you can insert your reminiscences about how the NME was much better in our day and how we looked forward to cover tapes...

Apparently it's supposed to sound like this as well. Not what you'd expect from the band that brought you the singalong masterpiece of 'Wake Up Boo', or the swirling wonders of 'Lazarus', but there you go. It was the B-side to 'Wake Up Boo' though but the NME it came from was out in the shops a whole year before their massive hit, about the same time as the infinitely preferable Lazarus.

Right click, 'Save As...' to download

The Boo Radleys are one of those bands that hung around for ages before making it big. They were formed in 1988 by baldy singer Simon Rowbottom, his Liverpudlian chum Martin Carr, Tim Brown and Steve Hewitt. They recorded for a few years, recieving lots of indie love, recorded Peel Sessions and were darlings of the music press. Then suddenly in 1995 they exploded into popularity with a massive hit.

Anyway, you know the rest, and if you don't read the official site, the wiki, Martin Carr's page or this handy page from the Archived Music Press blog.

In a nutshell, the music press loved them, they signed to the Creation label, they had their massive hit which has been used time and time again on breakfast TV and radio and goodness knows where else, they hung around until a rather disappointing final album (1998's Kingsize) and split up.

You can buy "The Best of the Boo Radleys" here

Land of Barbara

When I was clearing up the mess of notes I've got for this place, I remembered that I'd been pointed towards Land of Barbara by Mark from The Nilon Bombers way back when and I'd forgotten that they're rather good; there's a sort of Flowered Up vibe about the keyboards and cowbells, coupled with something I can't quite put my finger on, but still makes for a nice bit of indie-dance-rock.

We're a bit sparse on information about the band unfortunately, but some good internetting provides us with the knowledge that the band released at least three singles; "Silence is the Virtue" in 1992, "Alcohol" in 1993 and the featured-below "Kid Whiskey/Limited" double A-side in 1994 and I had a brief email conversation with Martin from the band last year - it's taken a while to get round to doing this - where he suggested they had loads of unreleased stuff, recorded at Toe Rag Studios, that he'd like to get released at some point.

The band played the Phoenix Festival in 1994 and had previously been scheduled to record a session of Mark Radcliffe's legendary Radio 5 programme "Hit the North" in 1993 but "their van broke down on the way to the session and they couldn't make it so Wonky Alice came in at very short notice and did a session instead".

But that's about it. The band members listed on the 7" are Martin Yelswel (vocals, guitar, flageolet), Tom King (guitar and backing vocals), Jon Skin (bass), Dr NJ Tudman (organs, grunts) and John Clube (drums); so there we go and here you go, it's Land of Barbara - Kid Whiskey. Enjoy.

Gigolo Aunts

A bit of an odd one this, the Gigolo Aunts are American, but couldn't sound more indie if they tried. Well, if they tried any harder to sound like Teenage Fanclub anyway.

It's a bit of a shame really, as a band they were pretty good and they knocked out some cracking indie pop; unfortunately they never really took off over here and were kind of swamped by all the other American bands doing bloody grunge, just as they started to make their name.

They did of course have a massive hit in "Where I Find My Heaven" which featured in "comedy" film Dumb and Dumber and in the late-but-not-really-lamented sitcom "Game On" which featured the comedy stylings of Samantha "let's just forget Eurovision, please!" Janus, the ginger chap who does the adverts and the hilarious bloke who wouldn't leave the flat.

I went to see them in a comeback gig in what must have been 1998 or 1999 at The Garage in Highbury; all the way through you just knew the audience were waiting for them to do the song. To their credit they did; they saved it for a show-stopper at the end. I remember them doing it twice, but I may be wrong.

Anyway, they deserved better, they produced some lovely indie pop and if they'd made it big(gish) 3 years earlier we'd still be talking about them.

Here for your listening pleasure, copied from the coloured vinyl 7", here's Gigolo Aunts - Mrs Washington, complete with scratches and a skip or two. just so you can see that they had more than one song.

You can buy the Gigolo Aunts "Best of"here.

And ok, here's THE SONG. Sorry lads. Still, that's some mighty fine indie hair.

The Orchids

The Orchids are an odd band. Sarah Records stalwarts and creators of swooping melodies and electronica-influenced pop.

Formed in Glasgow in the mid 1980s and lasting until around 1993/1994 the band were moderately popular and certainly had fans at the NME (when that still counted for something); but they never made it really, really big. There we reissues of all the old material in 2004 and they've reformed recently.

Check out the official site for all you Orchids needs and, again, the wiki has a lot of the information you need and this: The Orchids - Striving for Lazy Perfection is a lovely bit of cool, relaxed indie pop. Enjoy.

Oh, and again, you can buy loads of their stuff here.

Eugenius

Another of your legendary Scottish indie bands today (Glasgow and Berkshire, the hotbeds of indie, you wouldn't bet on that would you?); with the wonderful and latterly-renamed Eugenius (due apparently to Marvel Comics being a tad miffed that the band were originally called "Captain America".

There's a really good Eugenius fansite here (again, it's Geocities, so get it while it's hot!) that gives us a really nice history of the band.

In 1987 Eugene along with Frances McKee joined to form the Vaselines in Edinburgh. The band also consisted of Eugene's brother, Charles, on drums and James Seenan on bass. The Vaselines dissolved in 1989 with the release of their first LP. In 1990, Eugene formed Captain America but was forced to change the name due to a possible copyright infringement suit by Marvel comics. Thereafter the band would become known as Eugenius. In Addition to Raymond Boyle and Roy Lawrence, Kelly borrowed Gordon Keen from the Bmx Bandits and Francis MacDonald from Teenage Fanclub to form the Eugenius line up. In 1994 Eugenius released their second album, Mary Queen of Scots. Following the Eugenius releases Eugene co-wrote "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" with Evan Dando and has appeared on several compilations and other collaborations. Eugene has now completed a solo album tentatively scheduled for release sometime in 2003.

So there's not much point in me going over old ground again, but suffice to say, the band were one of the great unfancied indie bands that, despite Kurt Cobain - out of Nirvana (you never hear about them any more do you!) - being a fan, they never really lived up to the expectations of the indie kids.

Still, Eugene Kelly was still banging out the tunes until pretty recently so at least some good came of it all. And here you are, the crux of the matter (well done for getting to the bottom of this) Eugenius - Easter Bunny. Enjoy. I did, I'd forgotten how good the band were.

Buy Oomalama by Eugenius

Thrum

The internet is an amazing thing. You can find all kinds of long lost and barely needed information (and photos) about Headmen gigs, but try and find out when the mighty Thrum were formed and you'll be searching in vain.

What we do know is that they were Glaswegian (probably), had a female lead singer called Monica Queen who, as you'll hear on the attached mp3, has a haunting voice that deserved greater success and that courtesy of the Ready Steady Go website, that if you

...imagine a band with Tammy Wynette on vocals and Neil Young on guitar. That’s the deal with Glasgow’s country rockers, Thrum.

All I can remember about Thrum is that I saw them in early 1994 - and I've pinned this down courtesy of a Manchester Academy website and a bit of good, honest, hard thinking.

I remember that me and a bunch of friends won two pairs of tickets to any gig at the Manchester University Student Union or Academy; a big prize in those days. I went to see Thrum support somebody - and there's a good chance it was the Sultans of Ping - with my mate Daisy, and my other mate Stu went to a Megadog (proto-rave-hippy-bollocks club nights, you took loads of cheap speed and danced to Transglobal Underground and the like; they were great).

The only other thing I've managed to glean about the band is that Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley were big fans. I have this on good authority; specifically a genuine sighting of Ms Hurley and Mr Grant standing at the side of the stage as the band played at the 1994 Phoenix festival (now, whatever happened to that festival?)

So here you go, the wonderful Thrum - So Glad for your delight and delectation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy some cheap amphetamines and dig out my Drum Club - "Live in Iceland" CD.

Madder Rose

"Do you really need anymore of this shit?" asked the good lady wife as a Madder Rose 10" maxi-single dropped through the letter box courtesy of Mr eBay.

Fighting back the urge to say "Yes, I need all of this 'shit' as you so delicately put it; because if I don't remember Madder Rose then who will?" I simply put the kettle on and began to explain at length how important proper indie pop was before Blur got all wanky and invented "BritPop". That soon sent here to sleep.

So, Madder Rose then. Turns out they were an American band. It also turns out that the word "twee" is used an awful lot when describing them. They've got a brief page on Wikipedia and John Peel let them do a session (presumably whilst high on ether) and Rolling Stone magazine of all publications says:

As rock & roll teeters on the edge of the millennium, dream pop has swirled onto the music scene. It's as if the global psyche were dividing: the brutality of grunge or the buttercup sighs of the Cranberries, the Sundays, Frente! and Slowdive. But the alloy of the two sounds is most compelling...

Which tells you nothing. Still, it's very nice and in the interests of archiving the early 90s, here it is:

Madder Rose - Panic On