Monthly Archives: August 2008

Great scottish bands #2: Shop Assistants

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Yes, it has been at least a month since I had a Shop Assistants fest here. I’ve long written about my love for this excellent scottish band on 17 Seconds, and for this post I am actually going to focus on the last two singles the band put out.

Having issued four singles between 1983 and 1986, and an album, The Shop Assistants (also known as Will Anything Happen) in 1986. The band then split or went on hiatus when singer Alex Taylor went off to form Motorcycle Boy with members of Meat Whiplash. In 1989 the Shop Assistants reformed/were reactivated and produced two more singles ‘Here It Comes’ and Big ‘E’ Power.’ the line up was now:

Sarah Neale – vocals (previously the bassist), Laura McPhail on bass (previously the drummer), David Keegan (always the guitarist) and Margarita Vasquez-Ponte of Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes on drums. In 1990 David Keegan joined the Pastels full time and the band split for good. The two singles were released on the Avalanche label, set up by Andrew Tully from Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes.

Here It Comes 12″ EP:

Shop Assistants – ‘Here It Comes.’ mp3

Shop Assistants – ‘Too Much Adrenalin.’ mp3 (really, only one E. No gags intended).

Shop Assistants – ‘I’d Rather Be With You.’ mp3

Shop Assistants – ‘Look Out.’ mp3

Big E Power 12″ EP

Shop Assistants – ‘Big E Power.’ mp3

Shop Assistants – ‘She said.’ mp3 (A cover of the Beatles song from Revolver)

Shop Assistants – ‘One More Time.’ mp3

Shop Assistants – ‘Big E Power (live in Manchester).’ mp3 (the label bears the credit ‘Vinnie Drums, Big Flares mix.’ No ideas -any help out there?!)

I have said it before, I’ll say it again: read Tom’s pages on the Shop Assistants here. There is also due to be a compilation of Shop Assistants’ stuff released later this year.

This link will take you to Avalanche records’ ebay site where you can buy many of the records mentioned here.

Album Review: Geoff Soule

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Geoff Soule -‘A Dialogue Between Feminine Wisdom And Masculine Uncertainty.’ (Supermegacorporation)

Geoff Soule, the (probably)self-proclaimed CEO of Supermegacorporation is best known as a member of San Francisco pop-darlings Fuck (follow the link if you don’t want to google the band). Surprisingly, I once heard the band on the radio. Unsurprisingly, it was on John Peel.

This album is lo-fi in extremis, and all the better for it. Like many of the best albums, it grows on you. On the first play, this minimalist, improv-featuring record is hard to get into. I thought this was heading for a rather blunt review. But on repeated plays (I played this three times in one day), I became so intrigued that it started to make sense, and reveal it’s secrets. This is a rather beautiful album that pulls you in bit by bit. Titles like ‘Improv no.9’ and ‘A dirge’ may seem guaranteed to put off people – more fool them. Minimalism and Improv may scare some people, but – and I mean this as a compliment, this is a really god place to start for people who want to investigate more adventurous recordings out there. This writing from the website sums it up:

” A Wild Man has clambered down out of the Swiss alps and made his way across the Italian border. He is without language. Something formless wandering over the structures of civilization. A living breathing phantom. The various conversations, musics and babblings he hears stick to him as metal shavings to a magnet. He hops a cargo ship to Mexico and hides out in broad, bright daylight. He forms alliances, follows trade routes, makes observances. Late nights as he nods off there is the mental jibberjaw taking place between the measured and the unknown. This record was made to fall asleep to.”

Will this storm the charts? As it’s released in a limited edition of 500, probably not in the UK. But this serves as a reminder that below the radar is where the most adventurous, genuinely alternative and most rewarding music is being made.

****

Try these for size:

Geoff Soule – ‘Jolly Times.’ mp3

Geoff Soule – ‘San Diego Winter.’ mp3

A Dialogue Between Feminine Wisdom And Masculine Uncertainty is released on August 18 on Supermegacorporation. It is also available now on iTunes.

Album Review: Unbunny

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Unbunny -‘Snow Tires’ (Affairs Of The Heart)

Snow Tires is Unbunny’s fifth album. It was originally rleased in 2004, but only now gets its’ European issue, through German label Affairs Of The Heart with two extra tracks from a long-ago deleted EP.

As their press release acknowledges, Unbunny flies under the radar, but there is definitely an audience out there for this band. (As to whether the people who ultimately make the decisions about what most of us get to hear or buy will concur may remain to be seen.) It’s rightly described as being music that waits in a corner for people who need it to find it. It is utterly fragile music, some have mentioned Elliott Smith, but to these ears it’s more reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian in the early days, yet more heartbreaking. Comparisons with Neil Young on Harvest are perhaps closest to the mark. This isn’t indie music of the stadium filling variety nor the jangling variety, it’s the whisper who dares variety.

Jarid del Deo writes from the heart and and is unquestionably articulate. Some will pigeonhole this under ‘fey’ or ‘twee’ but it’s beautiful on its’ own terms. It’s perhaps unlikely to convert people who don’t like this sort of music, but for those who do, a treat is in store.

***1/2

Unbunny -‘I Leave Stones Unturned.’ mp3

Unbunny -‘Pink Lemonade.’ mp3

Snow Tires is released on Affairs Of the Heart on September 1.

Unbunny’s mySpace

Album Review: Darren Hayman

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Darren Hayman -‘Great British Holiday EPs’ (Belka Records)

There are some people out there who have a funny habit of making you feel like you’re not working hard enough. Darren Hayman is one of those people. So far in 2008, as well as lots of live gigs with many projects (look, check hefnet alright, ‘cos there are only so many hours in the day), he has this year re-issued Hefner’s second album Fidelity Wars, issued the second album as Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern, entitled Pram Town, played bass as part of the east London bluegrass band that is Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee and their self-titled debut, and has now released this.

Hell, the man even works on holiday – and that’s what this release is about. Between 2005 and 2007 he released four very limited blnk-or-you’ll-miss’em EPs which detail his British holidays. So this re-issue ties together the 16 songs that were released across the Caravan Songs EP, Songs From the North Devon Coast EP, Eastbourne Lights EP and the Minehead EP, as well as three bonus tracks of holiday related covers, a previously unreleased song, and a bonus DVD.

It is perhaps best to approach this album in four parts, because it is sequenced chronologically in order of release and not as an album. Frustratingly, I find that I like the three covers best (‘Margate’ by Chas and Dave, V.A.C.A.T.I.O.N. by Connie Francis and Lyndsey Buckingham’s ‘Holiday Road.’) and the final EP, Minehead. The EPs are very much vignettes, sketches, call them what you will, but I find them extremely sketchy. Not as much as say, Damon Albarn’s Democrazy, but still rather undeveloped. Of course I wasn’t expecting something with the polish of, say, The Neptunes, but this feels like a sidetrack, rather than a soundtrack.

Don’t get me wrong, in the ten years since I first heard Hefner’s brilliant debut LP Breaking God’s Heart, I’ve rated Darren Hayman as a songwriter and lyricist, and that won’t change; I’ll always want to know what he’s up to. But this album is very much one for the completists.

**1/2

Darren Hayman -‘Holiday Road.’ mp3

Darren Hayman -‘Victim Song.’ mp3

There is a mini-site devoted to this release over here, which is part of
Hefner and Darren Hayman’s official website. More mp3s and videos over here.

Great British Holiday EPs is rleased by Belka Records via Cargo on August 4.