A brief hiatus

Hello, you may have noticed a drop off in postings recently, I have an excuse mum promise!

I'm still going to update this - I've got a Sarah Records special planned at some point and Land of Barbara are coming soon - but I've been up to my arse in work and November is going to be a bit sparse as I'm getting married today/tomorrow so it's going to be a bit tricky do this for a few weeks; what wih honeymooning and ebay's draconinan payment rules.

In the meantime, thank you for all your contributions and visits, click an advert and come join the facebook group, I'm only still doing this because of youse lot.

Pele

I'm pretty sure that Pele aren't the band I thought they were when I started looking into them, but now I can't remember who I was thinking of. Not that it matters, because they're a great band who released some really cracking jaunty country-fused indie in the early 90s and are a hitherto terrible omission from this place.

I now know that, thanks to the official site that's the source of the wiki page and is nicely added to by the ubiquitous myspace page that the band were formed on Merseyside in 1990, gigged around the North West of England, signed a record deal and within a matter of months had released their debut album. Aiming to capitalise on the album, their debut single was released in no time flat and featured on heavy rotation on Radio 1 before record company mistakes robbed them of a proper chart hit. It's ok though, their second single went to number 1 in South Africa.

A number of pretty major indie hits followed before some long-winded and painful legal shenanigans with their record company left the band heavily in debt with no rights to their songs until the record company in turn went bust. Phew.

Anyway, whoever I was thinking of before setting out on this excursion, I bet they weren't as good (on record or live; when they were apparently fantastic). Have a listen to the 'destined-to-not-chart' first release, Pele - Raid The Palace and right from the first bits twangy guitar and fiddle you know you'll be tapping your feet along. Then you'll go back for a few more listens, it's great.

The Siddeleys

Now I've broken some of my unwritten rules to myself I feel a lot better, not least because it allows me to put The Siddeleys on here; it's a CD again I'm afraid, but try finding some of their vinyl, if you can, you're a better man than I. Besides, hunting down the best of I got this off was enough bloody trouble.

The Siddeleys have been floating around my notebook for a while, but it was only reading the excellent Dusty Sevens blog that my hand was forced.

So, in essence, formed in 1986, released their debut single "What Went Wrong This Time?" in 1987, replaced the drummer with Dean Legget out of...wait for it, wait for it... pre-Carter USM funsters Jamie Wednesday! (amazing how often these bands get a link back to Carter), recorded a Peel Session and then got stiffed by their record label going bust before they could release much more. In 2001 or 2002 a compilation called Slum Clearance was released and this is where today's featured track comes from.

You can read more at the rarely updated but excellent 'official' site, or at Indie MP3 or the Wiki page, that I swear wasn't there when I first looked into the band several months ago.

I can heartily recommend this song, The Siddeleys - Sunshine Thuggery, it's a belting bit of indie pop with a really catchy tune, try listening a couple of times without humming along.

I'm normally pretty dedicated when it comes to hunting something down, but for some reason this one broke me. I finally got hold of the CD from Rough Trade, now I've listened to it a few times, I'd suggest you do too, it's marvellous.

The Moonflowers

Following in the great "you can't be indie unless your band name has a 'The' at the start..." theme of recent times, it's The Moonflowers today; proudly ploughing the same furrow as Flowered Up and knocking out some of that old fashioned trippy indie that was oh so popular in the early 90s.

There's a whole site dedicated to them here and more myspace gubbins for me to regurgitate; but basically:

"Formed in December 1987 for a few parties: [the band] made records until 1997...Following the success of indie hit 'Get Higher' in 1990, they were transported to a national, then international platform beseeching their audience and followers to hold hands while they watched the group cavort and leap about in an effort to obtain world peace by the year 1999."

Got to set your sights high I guess...

Unfortunately The Moonflowers are another of the bands (like The Chesterfields and Lush) who have an ex-member who died early; in this case drummer Toby Pascoe who died aged 32.

Well, on that cheery note, here's The Moonflowers - Fire; try not to hum Weeee-kender as you're listening.

Just a note as well, the 7" this is copied off doesn't appear to be on their "official" discography, it certainly looks kind of promo, maybe my reader can offer some sort of extra information?

The Corn Dollies

To London now with sadly short-lived twangy/jingly-jangly The Corn Dollies. You'll like this lot, they're fantastic and produce really top notch singalong music that's absolutely the sort of stuff I was thinking of when I start this madness 18 months ago.

There's a good little biog/discography here and tweenet and wikipedia have the usual. Unfortunately as Wilfully Obscure points out, there's not a lot else kicking around about the band, which seems a shame as from what I can hear they were great. Sadly I guess you can add them to the ever-growing list of indie bands that were killed by grunge.

Having said that, they did feature on the anti-poll tax/indie masterpiece that is Alvin Lives in Leeds

I don't know why but this song, The Corn Dollies - Be Small Again reminds me of Billy Bragg for some reason, I think the opening twangy-singy bits sounds a but like Accident Waiting to Happen, or maybe that's just me.

The Wendys

Apologies for lack of updates recently, I'm building up to a solid few weeks off and need to get my house in order (literally and metaphorically).

In the meantime, let's get back on the horse with The Wendys.

As usual, pop over to the wiki page for a bit more information, but this time we're celebrating not only a great Scottish band, but a gen-u-ine, honest-to-goodness, Factory Records white label as you can see in the picture at the top.

This little rarity has an A4 insert that says:

"The Wendys are the first band to sign to Factory since northside and also share the same producer...Ian Broudie."

The insert also claims, oddly, that this is the band's first release on the label, but as you'll see in the linked Wiki article it's actually their second, although this rather detailed page seems to imply that their "first" EP entitled "More Than Enough" never got a proper release; maybe my reader can help fill in the blanks?

There's some great stuff kicking about the internet about the band, all of which is worth a read; an NME clipping and of course a myspace page (I should really be collecting all these; if only I wasn't such a bloody luddite and understood myspace).

Well, enjoy this: The Wendys - The Sun's Going to Shine for Me Soon, it's a cracking bit of indie pop and far better than Northside any day.

The Dylans

Right, it's Friday, so let's go with a classic sing-a-long, top notch indie classic from The Dylans; and I dare you not to be singing along after the first twenty seconds.

Long before Sheffield was the 'indie' capital of the world, The Dylans were plying their trade out of the grim north, and they might not have been as big as we'd have hoped, but boy weren't they just a great band!

All the history you need is on the wiki page and at Discogs.com and you know you should own at least one of their singles, if not, what the hell were you doing in 1991?

"I hear your tambourines
Inside my head, she says
I hear your tambourines
On Planet Love, she says
On Planet Love..."

Go on, get that baggy t-shirt on, flick what's left of your indie fringe about, go to the nearest pub for a pint of snakebite and dance along to The Dylans - Planet Love; it's what Fridays were made for.

One big question remains mind you, why were all the best indie club nights on a Tuesday, not a Friday?

The Nivens

Wouldn't you know it, I just get sorted with putting The Nivens on here and it turns out that there's two bands called the same thing. Even worse, they could both fit in here quite happily.

What to do? Nuts to it, I'm going with my original Nivens; the lot from Ashington, Northumberland. Mostly because they're the ones I meant to put up, but partially because the next band I get on here will probably be the band that released a split flexi (yay!) with them in 1988. More of that later though.

So, The Nivens, formed in 1987, released the aforementioned flexi and two other proper singles; put out a compilation CD, played loads of gigs and supported indie luminaries like

"The Las, My Bloody Valentine, Cud, Primal Scream, Brilliant Corners, Family Cat, and any indie band who bothered to visit the north"

and then folded.

Their official site is here and has what you need to know.

I also particularly like them because their music is intelligent and catchy and the second track on the double-A sided (I miss double A sides, you wouldn't get Billy Bragg having a secret number one these days) final EP The Dialect Drug is called, rather fantastically I thought, "The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century".

And this is it, The Nivens - The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century; great isn't it. I'd heartily recommend getting hold of the EP as it's genuinely really good.

For the other Nivens, go look at their Myspace page

The Trashcan Sinatras

I'm breaking one of my own unwritten rules again today with The Trashcan Sinatras, because they're still going; and indeed have fairly recently released new material and will be putting out a new single in October 2008. All the guff you really need about the band is on the official site.

Still, it's good to put them up as they're another of the bands that dropped their "The" to sound more rock and roll and they're another band from Scotland; though not Glasgow for a change. For a change, the wikipedia page really does tell you most of the stuff you'll need to know about the band.

I really liked the band when they were in their 90s heyday, and this is one of the few records I've actually had for a while in the cupboard that a) isn't off ebay or from the lovely chaps at Vinyl Tap and b) isn't the only record I own by the band (because of reason a).

Mind you, this particular recording is from a DJ only promo as you can see in the picture. All I can say is: God knows what DJs do to their records. This one is scratched to fuck and took me four attempts, metaphorically balancing 2p coins on the arm of the record player, to get the sodding thing to play and record.

I hope you enjoy the fruits of my needle-knackering exploits: The Trashcan Sinatras - Circling the Circumference; go download the new single from the official site and remember just how good The Trashcan Sinatras were.

Or you can of course buy the band's classic 1990 album Cake here.

The Waltones

We're lumbering towards actually famous today with The Waltones, not least because they may, or may not, have been offered a deal by legendary Manchester DJ and producer Dave Haslam and soon-to-be Happy Mondays Manager Nathan McGough; and of course after the band's eventual split, Mark Collins the guitarist went off to join The Charlatans.

The Waltones were formed in Manchester in 1986, comprised Alex Fyans (Drums), Mark Collins (Guitar), James Knox (Vocals, Harmonica) and Manny Lee (Bass, Backing Vocals), recorded four singles and an album, are alleged on wikipedia to have recorded a Peel Session (although the official Peel pages seem to contradict that and, thanks to the internet we know that:

"...despite gaining much streetcred and selling out their LP, their distributor Red Rhino went bankrupt. The new distributor APT refused to take on Red Rhino's debts and thus no re-press of the album was undertaken. When Medium Cool was taken over by Midnight Music records a fall-out occured between the label and the Waltones ex-manager over ownership of the mastertapes for 'Listen To Your Heart' (the bands 5th unreleased single)."

There are a number of good sites about for the band, including their myspace pages which really covers everything, James, the singer's page - which tells it from his point of view and this nice blog post.

The Waltones are great; they played proper pre-Madchester indie that reminds me of one of my favourite bands, Bob, though which came first I'll leave up to you...

So, this is The Waltones - Everything's just Fine, the first song off the album Deepest, boy, does that take me back...

You can buy You've Gotta Hand It To 'Em the re-released Best of... here.