We hate it when our friends become successful

Back in the day when Morrissey’s every word was lapped up by the music press he would regularly tell the world about his current favorite band. This was enough to get said band splashed all over numerous music mag covers, and great things were expected…Then one or two albums later, the band had split up with no success. Today I bring you just three of these bands that received the Morrissey kiss of death.

Easterhouse hear that Morrissey likes them

Easterhouse featured the brothers Andy and Ivor Perrry, and came from Manchester and their first album Contenders showed them wearing their socialist beliefs proudly on their sleeves at a time in the UK when political music was in a brief renaissance period. After glowing reviews and less glowing sales, the band imploded with vocalist Andy Perry taking the name and producing a wildly over-produced album Waiting For The Redbird. The rest of the band changed their name and that was pretty much it until The Smiths suddenly found themselves without a guitarist when Marr left and Ivor Perry was briefly considered as a replacement. Here is probably the most well know song “Whistling In The Dark”



Buy the Easterhouse Contenders CD here.



Bradford’s whole career, and I use the term very loosely, seemed to be entirely based on their Morrissey connection. They were signed to producer Stephen Street’s label at a time he was co-writing Morrissey’s Vauxhall And I album and Morrissey actually covered their song “Skin Storm” as a b-side. Their solitary album had a few highpoints including this song “Gang Of One”.





Out of these three bands, The Woodentops were the ones who really should have made a bigger dent. Their three albums, two studio and one live, are brimming over with hyped up dance beat driven songs which sound like a skiffle band who have been introduced to the joys of samplers. In fact, if there is a band that was around before their time it could be The Woodentops.



Buy all three expanded Woodentops CDs here.

Best Kept Secret

Of all the bands that released records on Sarah my personal favorites were The Orchids, Sugargliders and Even As We Speak. I’m sure at some point I’ll get back to the former two bands but for now I wanted to share some Even As We Speak with you. Hailing from Australia, where they released a handful of 7” and one 12” EP some of these songs turned up on their debut Sarah 7” featuring FIVE songs. This was good but the follow up to this “One Step Forward” was a big progression and even that didn’t prepare you for their one, and sadly only, album “Feral Pop Frenzy” an eclectic mix of pop songs, spoken word interludes and Barry White samples which somehow all fitted together perfectly. Around this time the band moved to the UK living together as if starring in an indiepop reality series. After another excellent single “Blue Eyes Deceiving Me” and a John Peel session hinting at the down-tempo direction they may have been heading in they returned to Australia and split up. A couple of years ago there was talk of a radio sessions album being released, alongside a re-release of “Feral Pop Frenzy” but alas once again all has gone quiet. So with fingers crossed it might still happen here is “Blue Eyes Deceiving Me” and from their final Peel session broadcast in October 93 the unreleased song “Suddenly”.

Deep Down Inside, We're All Punk Rockers At Heart

Hurrah! If one band was the reason I originally wrote a fanzine way back in the day (evidence) it was Hurrah! If one band was the indirectly responsible for THE fanzine Are You Scared To Get Happy? It was Hurrah! So using the same fuzzy logic if one band was responsible for the launch of Sarah records it was Hurrah! That might be stretching the point a bit but something I can definitely tell you is a fact is that Hurrah! produced a string of absolutely classic singles, got swallowed up by a major label, had the wonderful demos for their debut album Tell God I’m Here turned into a nowhere as good LP. Their second album The Beautiful improved on the first but for a true portrait of what I’m talking about try your damndest to find The Sound Of Philadelphia CD released by Rev-ola. Of course it appears to be deleted as even the expensive Japanese import, yes it is worth it, is out of stock on amazon.com.

Taking you up to date a couple of the band members formed Bronze and if you check out the website for the Bus Stop label you can at least buy their CD.


Bus Stop label

Does The Fish Have Chips?

There I was minding my own business when it suddenly came out the ether of my mind, the immortal line “How much is the fish? How much is the chips? Does the fish have chips?” Which for the unaware comes from the song “Buffalo” by Stump. This was one of two things I could remember about Stump, the other being the video for their song “Charlton Heston” featuring the band and hundreds of frogs to tie in with the biblical references of the song and its frog backing vocals. Of course, their albums on CD are long since deleted and fetching crazy money online. However, I found both singles via ebay and here briefly for your listening pleasure you can check them out.
One of the band members, Kev Hopper, has a history of the band you can read here.

ON and ON

First up we have a wonderful blast of Australian pop from 1990 by Club Hoy. Club Hoy were a female duo who produced an infectuous blend of sun-drenched pop of which this was their first release. This led to a deal with an Australian major label and one album, Thursday's Fortune, on which they were aided and abetted by Grant Mclennan of The Go-Betweens, after which they sadly split up leaving a bunch of wonderful songs as a legacy.

Greetings

Welcome to Tuquoise Days, yet another one of those new-fangled blogs you've heard so much about. In the coming weeks I'll be dusting off my collection of vinyl, turning selected songs into MP3s and here, for limited periods of time, you'll be able to sample the fruits of these labors.