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.