Chapterhouse

I'm afraid I've not got any snow-related pop to hand, so in the meantime, how about some Chapterhouse?

Sneaking in (and often lumped in) with the shoegazing boys, Chapterhouse were much more than just another raggle taggle bunch of floppy-haired chaps, these Reading-based boys knew how to put together a swooping bit of indie dance-cum-pop that is vaguely reminiscent of the mid-90s MegaDog-style world dance nonsense that I'll admit I had a brief flirtation with; but again, they're much more than that.

As usual there's a wikipedia page but there's actually a dearth of fansites about, which is pretty unusual for a band that made a fair impact in their time. But the background is that half a dozen fellas from Reading put together a band and, instead of just banging out a demo tape and disappearing, toured extensivly with such luminaries as Spaceman 3 until they were good enough to release records - not something you could really imagine happening these days!

Most of the band's releases came out in 1990 and 1991, but they hung around until 1993 at least, still touring, still putting out a bit here and there, then finally splitting and shuffling off to join other bands. Later on Cherry Red re-released some of their stuff and there was a brief reformation at the 2008 Truck Festival.

So, how would you like to hear Chapterhouse - She's a Vision? I thought as much.



And you can buy the reissued debut album Whirlpoolhere, should you so wish.

The Servants

The fame of this place is spreading. If you're the young lady who was talking to my mate Dan at the weekend about music and mentioned this place out of the blue, this one's for you! Also, if anyone wants signed photos or me to open their local Spar, let me know. My rates are very reasonable.

But I digress. Today for your delight and delectation it's The Servants. A cracking C86 band, featured on the tape of the same name and immortalised in Peel Session, The Servants came out of the indie heartland that is Hayes in Middlesex, the band were fronted by David Westlake and Auteurs stalwart Luke Haines (with whom there's an interesting interview here) and Phil King, latterly out of Lush - I don't just throw this crap together you know!

There's a nice biog on the Cherry Red site here and here's the usual wiki link, plus a little review of the Best of... album.

Here you go then: The Servants - It's my turn, that there is some fine jingly-jangly! And they use the phrase "the light at the end of a tunnel is a train", which is kind of used by Half Man Half Biscuit, so that's nice; and coincidentally they are right before HMHB on the C86 tape. Coincidence?



ps. Don't worry, it's not your eyes, I've just realised how blurry the photo of the sleeve is, I'll sort that out at some point.

You can buy Reserved - The Best of The Servants here

The Passmore Sisters

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that I'm never exactly regular or consistent with putting these things up; normally it's a case of when I've got 10 minutes to kill at work, although in this case it's because I'm listening to last night's Gideon Coe show on the 6music iPlayer thing (incidentally, if by some chance you don't listen to this regularly you really should, it's the best show on the radio anywhere) and he played a BBC Session recording that reminded me that I've not put up The Passmore Sisters. So here you go.

Continuing the West Yorkshire theme, The Passmore Sisters were from Bradford, formed in 1983 or 1984 and snuck into the indie charts in 1985 with their debut single 'Three Love Songs'. The band put out half a dozen cracking singles and an album before splitting in 1987. The also, importantly, recorded two Peel Sessions; and if you can get hold of "Story Of A Working Man" from the first session in 1985 I'd highly recommend it (Gideon plays it on the Monday 19th January show, so you've got a week to hear it at least).

So, as usual here are the links you'll want. There's a TweeNet page, a myspace, this post on the excellent Take The Pills blog and a really good write up on the Foxdude page. The myspace page also offers you a link to download the first album First Love, Last Rites which I'd also heartily recommend.

And finally, your aural delight, here's The Passmore Sisters - Safe Place to Hide, which is a cracking bit of indie pop.

The Parachute Men

I've been looking forward to doing this one since I became aware of its existence. It's The Parachute Men. I think mostly because the track in question is this one:

The Parachute Men - Leeds Station.

(Right click, 'save as' to download
When I was a lad living in the arse end of West Yorkshire, Leeds seemed like a mythical, exciting, forbidden location that promised all the wonders of the big city that you couldn't get in Huddersfield, the closest proper town, and certainly wasn't available in Holmfirth; where the only thrill you might get was seeing the filming of Last of the Summer Wine or an underage pint in The Nook. Leeds Station after all was the gateway to the Duchess of York, that weird shop that sold goth clothes and Jumbo Records. And it was where David Gedge was from.

Anyway, The Parachute Men. Formed in 1985, released two albums and half a dozen singles and had what I've previously called the most indie of things: A lady lead singer. For all your actual information there's a Wiki page, some guff on the Fire Records page and this short interview.

The track above is great, it's a swooping homage (oooh, get him!) to that wonderful feeling you get arriving home when you get to that bit you recognise and know you're almost there. We've all got one, the wife likes the "Welcome to Essex" sign on the M11 for some reason, I've got the "Welcome to Kirklees, Home of Longley Farm" sign on the road over the tops from the M1 into Holmfirth, I used to know a bloke who swore by the "Oldham - Home of the tubular bandage" thing painted on the railway bridge on the way into town from wherever it was. Everyone's got something that tells you you're almost there and you're almost safe. You'll have to excuse me, I'm getting a bit tearful and emotional.

So, enjoy the track, have a good old reminisce about home, and with the wonders of new mp3ery you can buy the band's first single Sometimes In Vain here! Isn't living in the future great?

Oh, and I've just remembered, the vinyl this is taken from is a white label 12", how indie is that!

The Holidaymakers

Happy New Year all, let's see what Santa's got in his sack for me shall well? Why, it's only The Holidaymakers! What a lovely way to start 2009.

The song in question is The Holidaymakers - Everyday; the first few chords really remind me of Midway Still's Better Than Before, which is kind of why I put this up as the welcome back post, but also because that jolly old fat man in red was very nice and provided it to me on a flexi disk; a shared flexi with The Nivens no less. Bearing in mind it's a 20 year old bit of PVC will also explain why the middle bit of the recording is so scratchy.

The big problem we have here is, I'm afraid, a lack of any useful information about the band. I'm 99% sure they're from Scotland (thanks to the Tweenet page) and from the bit of plastic you can see that at least one member of the band was called Adrian Smith, but let's face it, that's a pretty hard name to get any useful information on from google.

We also know that there was a follow-up to the flexi featured called Skyrider, but that's it I'm afraid, bit of a rubbish start to the year but I'm breaking myself back in slowly!

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.