I found a stack of old September Set fanzines (from the 1999 show featuring Mahogany, Brideshead, Elegant, Brittle Stars, Skywriters and Masters of the Hemisphere). Free with any order, just leave us a note when you check-out in saying you want one.

I think there needs to be more “whistle and whoops” in music today. Actually I’m not even sure what a “whoop” is here, but all members of C-Saim are credited on this single for having provided them… Andy Bennette (on guitar, vocals, piano, whistle, and whoops), Bryn Daniels (on 8 & 4 string bass, whistle, and whoops), and Steve Brown (on drums, congas, additional perc, whoops, and whistles).

Their double A-side 7″ “Night Air” b/w “Give and Take” was released in 1983 on Summit Records (SUM 3T). It’s by all means an over-looked 80s classic and should be hailed with the likes of Haircut One Hundred and… Fun Boy Three (is that a compliment? I’m meaning it as one). “Give and Take” thankfully made an appearance on “The Sound Of Leamington Spa, Vol 3″ compilation, but “Night Air” is still only available on the single.

They had a website some years back through Andy’s publishing company, Night Air Music, but it was taken down. Thanks to web.archive.org, you can visit the site in it’s archived form here (some images are broken, but it’s mostly there). It has a lot of detailed info on the group written by Andy himself, so it’s good it’s not gone forever.

Listen to “Give and Take”

Listen to Night Air”

Copies of this single usually sell in that $30-$50 range, but I got mine for around $10, so it’s possible (but as you can hear from the vinyl rips, it’s it’s pretty poor shape). Octopusmusic.fr currently has some selling for 35,00 euro if you’re willing to pay that.

Liverpool’s Kit formed in 1984 from the ashes of Send No Flowers. They released three 12″s and one LP between 1988 and 1990 on Play Hard Records (a Manchester label run by Dave Haslam and Nathan McGough). “How To Break This” is my favorite track taken from their “Unshakeable Faith” LP. For this recording, Kit featured Lyn Sangster (on guitar and vocals), Michelle Brown (on bass), Nat Smith (on drums), Phil Luckin (on trumpet), and Kenny Manson (also on guitar). Maybe someday a proper Kit reissue will see the light of day, but then again I say that about most bands I post about here. Luckily their releases are still available for a decent price second hand if you look hard enough.

Listen to Kit - How To Break This

Discography:
My Design 12″, Play Hard Records (DEC 10), 1988
Cheatin’ My Heart 12″, Play Hard Records (DEC 20), 1989
Unshakeable Faith LP, Play Hard Records (DEC 32), 1989
Overshadowing Me 12″, Play Hard Records (DEC 34), 1990

And again, here’s that nice review by Neal from The Hellfire Sermons for those who didn’t read it the first time.

St. Vitus Dance were a Liverpool band by way of Belfast. They released their debut album “Love Me Love My Dogma” on Probe Plus in 1987 and it features one of my favorite tracks “Horse Sense.” The band consisted of Noel Burke (vocals), Haydn Boyle (keyboards), Maurice Mulvenna (bass), Philip Freckleton (guitar), Damien Magee (guitar), and Peter Hesketh (drums). You may remember Noel having a brief stint as frontman for Echo and the Bunnymen, replacing Ian McCulloch for the 1990 album, “Reverberation.” Read an interview with Noel Burke here.

In May 2005 a reconstituted St. Vitus Dance reappeared (including most of the original line-up). They played some shows and released a proper cd version of the “Dogma” album (with bonus tracks). A new album “Glypotheque” (also on Probe Plus) was released last year.

Listen to St. Vitus Dance - Horse Sense

Buy “Love Me Love My Dogma” on Amazon.co.uk

www.myspace.com/stvitusdancemusic

Holiday Records is a new label started by Jacob (from the Shelflife band Horse Shoes) along with some friends and family. Their concept is pretty refreshing, every Friday (starting today) they’ll have a new digital release available for download for free! The first one is “Walkin’ Under Trees” by The Acorn Boys, a band Jacob was in prior to Horse Shoes. What I’ve heard is fantastic, so head over and grab it.

Download The Acorn Boys

Be sure to check their site every Friday for something new. Future releases will include Bonfire Kids, Victory VIII, Winterlish, Canoe, and The Drums.

www.holidayrecords.net
www.myspace.com/holidayrec

That Dearly post got me thinking more about Bryan Hanna and how “Girl Daredevil” by the Bomb Pops is probably the best single in the world.

Read Alistair Fitchett’s write-up on the Bomb Pops on Pique.

Listen to Bomb Pops - Girl Daredevil

Order “Recommended For Diversion Seekers” from Grimsey Records
www.discogs.com/artist/Bryan+Hanna

Here’s another under-rated treasure of a single. “Only Between” b/w “I Don’t Want To Go” from the Minneapolis band Dearly. It was released in 1994 on Grimsey Records and produced by Bomb Pop’s Bryan Hanna (which partly explains why it’s so damn good). The band consisted of Aaron Lundholm (vocalist and bassist for The Hang Ups), Marcel Galang (recorded with The Hang Ups), Matt Gerzema (guitarist for The Autumn Leaves & part-time Legendary Jim Ruiz Group) and David Jarosz (who I assume was the drummer?). “I Don’t Want To Go” is my favorite of the two tracks and you can hear it below. Dearly also had a split 7″ with The Castaway Stones on Brittle Stars Recordings. Was there anything else released?

Listen to Dearly - I Don’t Want To Go

Birmingham’s Surf Drums released their “Black Tambourine” 12″ in 1987 on Joe Foster’s Kaleidoscope Sound label (most famous for releasing “The New Record By My Bloody Valentine”). While the A-side, “Black Tambourine,” is great in that c86 vain, the B-side “All There Is” is really the track that makes this record worth owning. Total Byrds-y perfection.

The Surf Drums were David Kehoe (guitars and vocals), Annie Taylor (organ), Richard Left (guitar), Colin Packwood (bass), and Paul Tibbits (drums). After the Surf Drums split, Annie, Colin and Paul went on to form Korova Milk Bar (Subway/Chapter 22 band). KMB research led me to a post from Nancy’s I’m Not Always So Stupid blog back in 2007. Fun fact: Annie Taylor married Richard March (bassist of PWEI).

Listen to Surf Drums - All There Is

click to enlarge

Today we celebrate the release date of the new Shelflife signing, Thieves Like Us. Their debut album “Play Music” was written, recorded and mixed in the cities of New York, Berlin, Vienna, London, Rio De Janeiro and Stockholm and sounds like an electro-pop soundtrack at a late night discotheque. I first fell in love with their songs from a unreleased demo a few years back. I hadn’t been so impressed with a group of recordings since The Radio Dept’s “Lesser Matters.” After writing to the band merely as a fan, excited that “Play Music” was finally coming out properly in Europe, here we are some four months later releasing their debut LP on Shelflife.

It’s obviously a different vibe than the usual Shelflife artist, but Thieves Like Us are still a pop band at heart. We’re all about releasing records we think are special and this one will not disappoint. The limited vinyl LPs are in shops as of today, while the CD version is coming in April (presale on shelflife.com sooner).

$10.00 + shipping

Listen:

Read a great review from Eardrums.

Here’s the video for “Desire”

Here’s the video for “Fass”

www.myspace.com/thieveslikeus

There are just too many good international pop shows happening in the upcoming months (and not enough vacation days for me)… The Hamburg P!O!P! Weekender, the SF & NY popfests, ATP… The Hamburg Weekender makes me especially sad that I’m missing it. Four nights from April 16-19 featuring amazing bands like Days, Cocoanut Groove, Bricolage, Liechtenstein, Northern Portrait, Manhattan Love Suicides, etc. Maybe you can go and tell me all about it.

www.myspace.com/popweekender

Good news! The Wild Swans have a new single out now called “English Electric Lightning.” It’s released on 10″ vinyl on the Occultation label in a limited edition of 900 individually-numbered copies. The sleeve artwork was done by keyboardist Ged Quinn and is a little, um… interesting. The current line-up includes only two original members, Paul Simpson and Ged Quinn — unfortunately no Jerry Kelly. You can preview both tracks on their site: English Electric Lightning / The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years and order the release here. I’m loving “English Electric Lightning!”

thewildswans.co.uk
www.myspace.com/thewildswans

I recently discovered the fantastic 80s band, Endless Bob Brown, thanks to Stephen Walsall’s fantastic Please Rain Fall blog. Their song “Take Your Time” is so amazingly good (!!) and has been playing in the office here on repeat. I so want this on vinyl, but unfortunately none of their material was properly released. Such a shame.

Stephen recently posted more tracks from the band on the blog, including a song called “It’s Harder” - WOW! Where have they been all my life?

Listen to Endless Bob Brown - Take Your Time

Head over to the ‘Please Rain Fall’ blog and download the rest!

www.myspace.com/endlessbobbrown

I just received my copy of the Magic Marker 10th anniversary 7″ collection in the mail. Super impressed with the packaging (designed by Todd at Pencrush)! Being a packaging “nerd” myself I can really appreciate the time and energy that went into this. The release features five 7″s in a lovely hand-screened sleeve, pressed in a limited edition of just 200 copies. Magic Marker bands covering the songs of other Magic Marker artists. All for $20. Well done! Definitely pick one up while you still can!

(Sorry my amateur-ish photography doesn’t do the sleeve justice.)

Release details:

7″ #1
The Owls “Springtime Fall” (Dear Nora)
Walker Kong “Bells” (The Bats)

7″ #2
The Manhattan Love Suicides “Superboy & Supergirl” (Tullycraft)
Dear Nora “Air” (The Owls)

7″ #3
BOAT “Nosebleeders on the Track” (The Faintest Ideas)
Galactic Heroes “Former Hero” (Heikki)

7″#4
Tullycraft “Welcome to the Big Ten Conference” (Vehicle Flips)
Birds of California (Lunchbox) “Kick It back” (The Manhattan Love Suicides)

7″” #5
The Gazetteers “Ordinary Day” (Lunchbox)
Kissing Book “Any Kind of Pain” (The Best Friends Group)

Order a copy here

www.magicmarkerrecords.com

We’ve started listing round 2 of our cd eBay auctions. We’ll be posting some each day (at least that’s the plan). Loads of compilation cds coming up and then we’re onto selling more dupe 7″s… about 200 or so that we ended up with when Laura and I combined our collections. Come help fund some upcoming Shelflife projects and hopefully get a few nice records at the same time!

Check out our eBay auctions

The Swedish Fish were an 80s pop group from Toronto, Canada. I’ve read that they sounded like Talulah Gosh or Friends Of The Family, but I don’t hear it. The vocals are more Pauline Murray than Amelia Fletcher, and at times even “Morrissey-esque,” reminding me of The Siddeleys (but of course, not in the same league).

I recently tracked down their second 7″ EP “How Can You Sleep At Night?” You can preview my favorite track “Clever Girl” below. I believe for this release the band’s line-up included Simon Bedford-James (on guitar), Martha Bouchier (on vocals), Saverio Schembri (on guitar), Austin (on bass), John McMahon (on drums), and Chonghye So (on organ). The single was released on Jaimie Vernon and Simon Bedford-James’ label Bullseye Records (SW-006) in 1986. They released another single prior called “She’d Rather Die” which I’m still looking for.

In 1987, the band split and formed a new group called Daughaus, releasing an album “Something I Stepped In” (I swear I’m not making that up!). Then in 2006, the Swedish Fish reformed with two original members (Bedford-James and Bouchier) and played some reunion shows. They released a new album called “Dark Light” on Bullseye Records (incredible that label was still around 20 years later). Check out their Myspace for details. I also see that they’re working on releasing a remastered compilation of all the older stuff. I hope it’s still in the works.

Listen to Swedish Fish - Clever Girl

www.myspace.com/originalswedishfish
www.bullseyecanada.com