It’s nice when you can make new discoveries in your own record collection. This single by The Maps is exactly that. I purchased it about 5 years ago at a record swap meet based entirely on the artwork and hadn’t played it in years. So when I was looking through the collection for things to post about, I thought I’d give it a shot (yes, thanks to this blog I’m actually listening to my records). Wow, “I’m Talking to You” is surprisingly great! Not sure I even knew what I had when I bought it.

The Maps were a Boston post-punk band featuring Judy Grunwald (later in Salem 66) on vocals, Robert C. Valentine on guitar and backing vocals, Daniel Salzmann on bass guitar, and James Clements on drums. The “I’m Talking to You”/”My Eyes Are Burning” 7″ was self-released by the band in 1979 and remains their only single.

Listen to The Maps – I’m Talking To You
[dewplayer:http://www.shelflife.com/mp3-bin/b_maps.mp3]

More written on the band can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/m/maps.htm

The Thieves Like Us “Play Music” LPs just arrived and I’m super excited. We’ll put these on presale on shelflife.com sometime next week, official release date is March 10. I must admit the album sounds utterly fantastic on vinyl! We’re also now doing the cd version for North America to be released sometime in April and a new 4 track 12″ EP will be coming towards the end of May.

I just saw that the video for “Lonely Boulevard” by Celestial was posted via Music Is My Girlfriend. It’s my favorite song from the album. A video for “Try to Understand” is also up.

www.myspace.com/ourcelestialmusic

I’m flying to New York tonight. It’s my 11th (or 12th? – lost count) year I’ll be working on the web site for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Stress and long hours aside, I’m really looking forward to be back in the city for a few days — get to visit my old “haunts” (man, what’s up with Etherea closing? sucks!), check out some new veggie restaurants (like blossom), and catch up with friends. It’s also Laura’s first trip east, so it should be a lot of fun.

I’m really most excited at the fact that we get to see The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Depreciation Guild, and caUSE-co-MOTION! show on Saturday night! New York friends I’ll see you at the show! I’ll bring some new Shelflife badges to hand out.

If all goes well with the weather, I’m back in the office on Thursday next week and my regular blog posts will resume soon after. In the meantime you can follow me on Twitter if you’re really bored (or if you want to hear about the dog show).

I leave you with… The Sound Movement – A Million Lost Dogs
[dewplayer:http://www.shelflife.com/mp3-bin/b_thesoundmoment2.mp3]

Autumn Parade are a band I’ve loved since the 90s, but have always been a big mystery to me. They have that Manchester/Creation Records sound falling somewhere between early Primal Scream and The Stone Roses (or maybe The La’s and The Lightning Seeds? The singer totally reminds me of someone, but I can’t place it). Their only output (that I know of) was two songs on a Beachwood comp cd/lp called “Expo 1” in 1992. Songs are credited to (John) Hamlin… and that’s all I know.

A few years ago I got in the habit of making my own “fake” releases for my iTunes library. Mainly for bands that never had proper records come out. The artwork you see above is from that, my own “Julia Blue EP”. So I thought I’d share these songs in this format and we can pretend that this is one fantastic 12″ release.

Autumn Parade – Julia Blue
Autumn Parade – White Sand
(requested to be removed by artist)

So now questions…
1) Does anyone know anything else about Autumn Parade?
2) Were there more releases or songs that never got released? I’d love to hear more from them.

UPDATE:
There’s now an official Autumn Parade myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/autumnparade

The two tracks from above are available there plus two other unreleased songs, “Phased” and “Skylight.” Both are excellent!! Their myspace page also answers my two questions. Pity their LP “Indian Summer” was never released.

p.s. Those interested in tracking down the “Expo 1” comp, more info can be found here!

We’re getting ready for more eBay auctions (most likely to happen in March, I’ll keep you posted). This 7″ by Grover was pulled as a “let’s see if we still like it” single and one spin later was put right back in the collection. “Prospect Street” totally brings me back to 1994 when I listened to mainly Versus, Hood, Henry’s Dress, Boyracer, Beatnik Filmstars, etc.

Grover were from Bellingham, WA and featured Chi-hui Yang on vocals and guitar, Chris Wolf on bass and vocals, and Brian Bressler on drums. Their debut 4 track 7″ “Dave Approaches Infinity EP” was released on Gritty Kitty records in ’94. They also had a split 7″ with Crayon also on Gritty Kitty. Remember Crayon?

Listen to Grover – Prospect Street
[dewplayer:http://www.shelflife.com/mp3-bin/b_grover.mp3]

Homer released their debut single “Lucky Thirteen” in 1995 on Platform Records. The song was produced by the legendary Hugh Jones (who produced all of the great early Liverpool singles from The Teardrop Explodes, Echo & The Bunnymen, Icicle Works, etc).

For this single the band consisted of Tim Keegan (started Departure Lounge, collaborated with Robyn Hitchcock, Kid Loco, Tahiti 80, Blue Aeroplanes, etc) on vocals and guitar, Andrew Claridge (from Garageland) on guitars and vocals, Patrick Hannan (from The Sundays) on drums, and Jake Kyle (also Departure Lounge) on bass. The band released another single called “Superkeen” in 1997 and the acoustic album “Grow Your Own” in 1988. Homer was also the back-up band for Robyn Hitchcock from 1995-1997.

The band split in 1998 when Departure Lounge formed. Keegan is still writing excellent pop songs (think Lloyd Cole and Robert Forster) and touring with Robyn Hitchcock.

Listen to Homer – Lucky Thirteen
[dewplayer:http://www.shelflife.com/mp3-bin/b_homer.mp3]

Copies of this single can be found here for various prices.

www.myspace.com/timkeeganmusic