Po!

Ok, so more cleaning up of the notes and forgotten bits today with Po!, a lovely jingly-jangly band who plied their trade around Leicester in the late 80s and early 90s; prime indie pop!

It's also time for "Return of the Flexi Disk". Hurray!

So, formed in 1987 by American artist Ruth Miller and featuring Julian Glover (latterly Mary Mills) on bass and Mark Fuccio (later replaced by Jan Frazer) on drums, the band were an opportunity for Miller to write and record songs that would, apparently, drive away and abusive boyfriend.

Initially the band were a threepiece that later in their career swapped between being all female and part male, then expanded to a five- or six-piece towards the end of their career.

The band deatured heavily on what appears to be called the "Leicestershire fanzine scene", which is where the 'Hop-Scotch in the Snow EP' featured here saw its release - on long forgotten fanzine Samantha which made a special feature of finding new bands' demos and releasing them as cover flexis.

The band released a good lot of singles and albums, recorded a Peel Session and toured extensively; releasing and playing some pretty good indie that I'm glad I stumbled upon when looking for something else!

There's a really nice site here that will tell you everything you need to know, the wiki page as all the bits and bobs as usual, and your TweeNet page will give you the full discography.

This is Po! - Appleseed Alley, which is track 2 on the EP. Remember kids, if you swallow an apple pip, a tree will grow out of your mouth.

Loop

An earlier version of The Wikipedia page for Loop sums the band's music up quite nicely for me: "Loop did not fit easily into any category but have variously classified as a shoegazers or indie rock band", but this has been changed to some piffle about "psychedelic/drone rock", which doesn't mean anything and lumps the band in with Spaceman 3, when to my ears they have more than a hint of Mudhoney about them. Still, each to their own.

What we can't deny is that for 5 or so years from the end of the 80s, Loop were turning out pretty decent "alternative" rock at a steady pace, appearing with John Peel and carrying out their indie roles with some aplomb.

Again, the wikipedia page provides some good background and there's a very nice discography here.

Once more I was turned on to this particular recording as it's a giveaway flexi disk from The Catalogue magazine (November/December 1988 for the completists) and I think my love of the flexi is well documented.

Anyway, enjoy Loop - Torched, as it's a cracking bit of dirty indie rock that doesn't really fit in with the jingly-jangly stuff I'd normally put on here, but what the hell; I'll make it up to you with some Catherines stuff soon...

Buy "A Gilded Eternity" by Loop

Galaxie 500

I guess it should be pretty obvious that I'm a big fan of scratchy old indie records by now. What is probably less obvious is jus thow much I love flexi disks. A couple have snuck in already from The Family Cat and A House, and these are absolutely my favouritest things so far. It's pretty fair to say that if I had a load of money and nothing better to do then I'd get completely obsessed with them. Just take a look on ebay and see how much cool stuff there is.

Anyway, suffice to say when I found this combination of Galaxie 500 and top notch 'free off of a magazine' flexi disk I was as happy as happy can be. This particular flexi was given away with a magazine called "The Catalogue" which I have to admit I'm not familiar with and comes with another tune from a New Zealand band called "Straitjacket Fits".

Anyway, I digress. Galaxie 500 were part of the late 80s American shoegazing invasion and owe more than a nod (in this recording at least) to bands like Spaceman 3. For a couple of years the band swirled around the UK, banged out a Peel Session and made a lot of friends, not least Liz Phair who cited them as an influence. Unfortunately Rough Trade, their label, went bust in 1991 and that rather spelled the end of the band in the UK at least.

There's some really good stuff available here and an mp3 of the flexi here in all it's scratchy plasticky wonderousness - Galaxie 500 - Victory Garden.

Sugar Rays

A brief yet invogorating diversion here from vague recollection to absolute obscurity. Ladies and gentleman, I give you The Sugars Rays. Who the hell they were is something I think i'll never know, but they certainly infringe on 'indie pop' by the sounds of the attached mp3.

All I know about this flexi disk (I certainly have no idea where it came from, I'm not even 100% sure it's from 1992) is what's on the insert, a promotional quote that says:

"The Sugar Rays are Nottingham's finest cartoon guitar band. With a garage load of energy they leap and bound the smallconfines of the stage like they actually enjoy the music. And so you can't help liking them because you know they couldn't give a flying one about the number of record companies present. This attitude shows through the music which hooks and winds its way around the three minute song with nonchalant affection and grinning humanity."

And that's it, the one mention on the internet I can find is here: that seems to suggest this flexi is the only thing they ever created.

It seems like a bit of a shame, I've certainly heard an awful lot worse music scraping into the charts, and I'm pretty sure it holds up against some of the other stuff on here fairly well.

So here it is Sugar Rays - Sugar Rush. Surely this can't be the only living memory of the band? Shame. The Sugar Rays, we salute you (and then leave you in the box marked "HX2").

Hang on, it just occurred to me! ebay! Home of all the world's jumble! And there it is £2.99 ONO to you sir!

A House

That's right, it's flexi-disk time once again! This one courtesy of Irish indie funsters A House. formed in the mid-80s, once more this is a tale of not living up to potential; the band never hit the big time as was hoped, with "Endless Art" - an indie disco favourite nonetheless - the only release to even think about possibly trouble the chart compilers.

The band's wikipedia entry suggests that they were signed to some big labels (Parlophone, Setanta, Blanco y Negra, MCA), and also suggests that the band are still going, but there's not a lot of information around. Mind you, that's not why you're here...

The flexi pictured and featured was apparently sent to their fan club members in the Christmas of 1992. I don't remember being a member of the fan club, but there's the flexi with my name and address on, so I must have been. Drinking in Manchester in the early 1990s was a dangerous thing for the impressionable and gullible music fan like myself.

A House - Slang

The Family Cat

Back in the mists of time, people used to play music from big chunks of plastic called "records". These came in various shapes and sizes, although most were round and 7 or 10 inches in diameter. To play them you put them onto a "record player" and they span round while a little needle wiggled merrily in tiny grooves cut into the plastic (commonly called vinyl).

Anyway, as I as rooting through the cupboard we store all our crap that we don't know what to do with I found what is pictured above.

It's a demo flexi-disk sent out to members of the fan club of a band called The Family Cat.

The Family Cat (this link goes to Wikipedia) were an early 1990s indie pop band. They never really made it big, but had a modest and dedicated following of which I was one.

The letter that came with the record says "You have in your hand the first fruits of these labours [recording their new album] "Rockbreaking" was recorded at 3:30am on a tape recorder with a dodgy pause button and it's in this state of the art format that [the record company] have decided to present it to you: Guaranteed one play of passable quality. "Sneaky" Pete Charlton the band's fence advises taping this historic first play for posterity and using the disc to line the cat tray". The envelope is postmarked 23rd April 1993.

Using the miracle of 21st century technology one can, should one wish, convert ancient bits of vinyl to those new-fangled mp3s so that people can listen to them on their "ipods". So, in the spirit of preserving a once 'great' British band (and seeing as nobody 'tapes' music any more, here is the aforementioned flexi-disk in all it's digital glory. Of course, since it's from original plastic there's crackles and in once place a small jump of the needle, but it's here for you to remember the band by, or learn of them afresh.

Right click here to download. Of course, I understand hosting this for download is technically illegal, if any of the band want me to take it down I will; In the meantime, share it with your friends.