Various Artists – "Real Time 3 - December 1982" (Unlikely Records) 1982

Trendy Turtles were definitely going for that elusive Cherry Red contract weren't they? Only rarely does one find Twee Indie Pop arse to elbow with a rowdy Oi groop,especially as both forms of music are long dead. The Oi Polloi don't sound very likely to harbor any signs of being women trapped in a Skinheads' body, but then again Gender politics were thankfully absent from the minds of the average Teenager,or Yobbo in those 'simpler' times around Christmas 1982. Gender Dysphoria was just a technical phrase in a psychologists handbook. Nowadays, one would rule out the existence of a Trans Oi combo at one's peril....and get shunned by society as a reward. I actually do have a Hardcore record by a Trans hardcore Punk band called G.L.O.S.S. which is actually rather marvelous. So come on you gender fuck-ups, get that Trans Skinhead Oi band going and I might understand you a bit more.

I don't envy kids these days at all....shit music...and shit post truth information overload.

Dunno how I got onto this subject, just thought it amusing to imagine The Oi Polloi or even better the 4-Skins as transexuals........should I take the knee now or something?,,,,wot a fuck UP!

Which is not what this very good indeed C-90 cassette compilation appears to be.

We're on the cusp of Indie here it seems,with the only remnants of Punk being the unfashionably stupid comprehensive school politics of the Oi Polloi....luckily I love the sound of "stupid".

There's always Lurch after all, and a bag full of time specific Power Pop and Indie Tweeness.

Tracklist:

A1 Trendy Turtles– Hickory Dickory
A2 Trendy Turtles– Instrumental
A3 Trendy Turtles– Bamber
A4 The Genitals– Out Eyes Met
A5 The Genitals– Sound Of The Spa
A6 Sons Of The Electrodes– Bear In Mind
A7 Oi Polloi– Police State
A8 Oi Polloi– Poppy Day
A9 Oi Polloi– No Future
A10 Oi Polloi– Media
A11 Lurch – Hush Little Baby
A12 Yr Anhrefrn – Stwffiwch Y Dolig
A13 Yr Anhrefrn – Ynni O'r Sebon
A14 Terminal Spectators – Another Day/Reach For The Sky
B1 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– Ronny & The Rayguns
B2 The Infamous Zeek & Giz– My Brain Is Infested With Mince
B3 Future Future– 21st Century (Dreams)
B4 Graham Larkbey– You Look So Lovely Tonight
B5 Graham Larkbey– Your Husband Didn't Like It
B6 The Invisible Band– Alazarin's Castle
B7 The Invisible Band– Doin' The Ton
B8 Idid Idid– Moloko Plus
B9 Ron Ferret– Wasps
B10 Ron Ferret– Train Of Thought

DOWNLOAD for a very late christmas pressie HERE!

The Sweetest Ache – "Jaguar" - (Mini Album - Danceteria/Sarah – TUE9207) 1992

Just over the Bristol Channel lies Wales,which, thanks to the Severn Bridge that brings within range,the Bristol area for welsh shoegaze groups to exploit.One of which was The Sweetest Ache;whose suitably bowl cut coiffured awkward indie elegance seemed to fit the bill,all they had to do was sound like every other shoegaze band in the area, and they'd inevitably get signed up to Sarah Records,and unleash that much coveted mini-album on a generation of pasty-faced yoof.

This is that very same Mini-Album,which in fact the very same length as a normal album(uh?),and for any Americans watching incongruously, it's pronounced 'Jag-U-Ah' rather than 'Jag-wah'.Tracklist:

1 Briaris 5
2 Capo 4:48
3 She Believes 5:10
4 More Than This 5:13
5 Jaguar 5:03
6 Bitterness 5:34
7 Climbing 6:15
8 Selfish 3:22

DOWNLOAD some sweet indie cake HERE!

Brighter – "Laurel" (10 inch ep plus singles)" (Sarah Records – sarah 404) 1991

Another ten inches of shoegazing twee-ness from Brighton's Brightest, "Brighter", on Sarah Records, floating like a fluffy mushroom cloud looking down upon the ruined planet that this gentle music is intended to escape from for an hour or so. Once described as 'Deeply Drippy' by a celebrated national music newspaper,their wistful fragile melodies drift as clear as a mountain stream, the perfect whispering soundtrack to break the silence of a morning after a break-up....or a breakdown. These gentle shy folk may just need a hug and the belief that everything's gonna be alright.....when of course it generally isn't...but I have a suspicion that they knew that already.

If you can't identify with these Songs about daydreams,regrets, irrational passions,then you are probably dead....at the very least emotionally.Noticeably,they manage to keep up the Sarah predilection towards months and seasons,revealing another case of Seasonal Affected Disorder(SAD),played out on a couple of guitars.

Nostalgic, childlike and melodically melancholic is what this is,made better for the welcome sparing use of drums and a refreshing lack of effects pedals. Keep it simple ladz'n'lasses.

Tracklist:

1 Christmas
2 Frostbite
3 Summer Becomes Winter
4 Something To Call My Own
5 Ocean Sky
6 Out To Sea
7 Maybe
8 Journey's End

Singles 1989-92:

9 Inside Out 4:03 10 Tinsel Heart 3:24 11 Around The World In 80 Days 4:25 12 Things Will Get Better 3:52 13 Noah's Ark 5:06 14 I Don't Think It Matters 3:01 15 Does Love Last Forever ? 2:32 16 Poppy Day 2:07 17 Half-Hearted 2:44 18 So You Said 5:24 19 Killjoy 4:14 20 British Summertime 2:40 21 Hope Springs Eternal 4:41 22 Never Ever 2:45 23 End 2:30 DOWNLOAD laurel without the hardy HERE!

St. Christopher – "Bacharach" (Sarah Records – SARAH 403) 1990

I've made this joke before, but i like a good ten incher in my hands,so here's another Sarah Mini album which fulfills the current Twee Dreampop remit,yet also manages to pay Tribute to the recently departed genius of one Mr Burt Bacharach. 'Genius' is a word I try and avoid, but i'm afraid there is no other adjective than can describe Burt's lengthy back catalogue of sheer blinding brilliance-ness. Not many achieve genius status,and i'd be challenging myself to name but a few....i'll take a chance.....Dylan(?).....they must always be referred to by family name only....so for Dylan that must be Zimmerman.....or was that Hitlers real name????.....ah...Shciklegruber wasn't it. That's a jolly fine name for a band of gay twee pop playing skin'eads innit?

Ok, reluctantly, I'm adding McCartney to the list,despite the last 40 dreadful years of his work, he did enough by 1971 to warrant a mention. Ray Davies???.....nah...not good enough, and no-one uses just his surname in reference to the great man,so is automatically rejected to the second tier. Maybe Mozart?....sorry, only limited to 20th century and onward genius's (Collective noun alert!)......he used too many notes anyway.

Not particularly a 'fan' of any of these nominations, but one has to be objective doesn't one?

And NO, Jandek is NOT a Genius!

I've used the rear of this Mini-Album by yee olde York in yorkshire based twee pop combo St. Christopher, because the cover is too garish and offensive to the eye to feature here...the rear is acceptable,so I'll use that.

This jangly bunch of earnest young men get the Digital reverb setting stuck on Large Hall,close to saturation levels as the singer croons in a Pete Wylie-esque fashion,fighting for space with the drums,while the sparkly guitars cut through the fog to restore some focus for us cloth eared bastards at the other end of the XLR cables.

They also use the obligatory reference to the Autumn and Winter winter months that Sarah bands seem obsessed with.

Awww they sad.

TrackList:

A1 A Prayer For The Sea 1:56
A2 The Thrill Of The New 3:14
A3 And I Wonder 2:42
A4 Almost December 2:46
B1 She Can Wait Forever 3:41
B2 Who's Next On Cupid's Hit-List ? 2:34
B3 The Love Of A Sister 2:44
B4 Gabriel 3:01

DOWNLOAD 10 inches of bacharach HERE!

The Driscolls – "Complete Recordings 1988-1991" (Jigsaw – PZL056) 2014

 Also on Tea-Time Records were The Driscolls, whose complete recordings have been so kindly reissued by an American Label, doing that American thing of looking after the UK's culture even if we don't do it ourselves.They owe us big-time anyway as The UK saved Rock'n'Roll for them to enjoy in perpetuity,just as they are saving some of the United Kingdom's Indie heritage....a decidedly untrendy concept in the modern British Isles.

If The Driscolls were transported back in time to The Cavern Club, and The Beatles didn't exist, rather like in that next in a long line of truly terrible Danny Boyle films called "Yesterday", we would know all the words to Driscolls songs nowadays,instead of "Love Me Do". Although they ain't as cute as the Fab Four,so maybe the girlies wouldn't have wet their pants so much when confronted with the wimpy looking Driscolls.....but The Beatles did exist, and The Driscolls are nothing more that a skid mark in history.

The Fab Three....enough to turn a young lady ON...to lesbianism.

What is laid bare the most when listening to these Indie Pop sub-classics, is the glaringly obvious worshiping at the alter of 60's UK Freakbeat and Psych,with a splash of the U.S. Paisley Underground.

Like the Postcard records lot all walked around in public carrying a Dostoevsky Novel for effect, this lot plainly had a trove of Bam- Caruso compilations under their arms at all times in the hostelry's of Bristol and the west country where all these groups seemed to emerge from.

This influence is far from hidden,in fact its flaunted,as their self-financed debut 7" testifies, a cover of The Fire's Psych Pop classic "My Father's Name Was Dad" from '68 rather than '88.....is included here as a vinyl rip.The master tapes long gone.

To cap it all there's a clear Status Quo matchstickable lead guitar riff going on here,alongside a valiant attempt at Beatlesque harmonies.....or maybe it was those bizarre harmonies that The Clash used to insert into their early tunes in between Strummer growling on about Riots and Cheating to win.Silly stuff,but quaint in its own way.

One has to say the dirty clean but chunky yet jangley Guitar sounds on these recordings are rather lovely...that Rickenbacker on the cover may explain this? Although I've yet to receive an explanation as to how groups like this managed to afford a Rickenbacker, or a Fender for that matter? Have you seen how much they are recently....for the disenfranchised kid on the dole they are not!?

PS:

Anyone interested in a movie i'm writing where Gary Numan didn't exist, and i get to come up with "Are Friends Electric"?....that drummer's haircut would have to go though.

Tracklisting:

Disc One:
1-01 Father's Name Is Dad 2:19
1-02 Girl I Want You Back 2:07
1-03 Groovy Little Town 2:15
1-04 Andrew 2:56
1-05 Julie Christie 2:18
1-06 I Heard A Rumour 2:43
1-07 Doctor Good And His Incredible Life Saving Soap 2:28
1-08 If Only 1:54
1-09 Mrs. Jones 2:17
1-10 You Must Be Mad 1:57
1-11 Something To Learn 2:01
1-12 Groovy Little Town (acoustically revisited) 2:18
1-13 This Is A Different Song 2:45
1-14 Bang Goes Another Cloud 1:22
1-15 Out Of My Head 2:58
1-16 How Does It Feel? 4:47
1-17 Superman 3:50
1-18 Sky High 3:53
1-19 The Return Of Lord Kitchener 2:11
1-20 Coloured Windows 3:54
1-21 Brittle Beautiful 3:27
1-22 Green Tambourine 4:01
1-23 Another Day (Little Pill) 4:41

Disc Two:
2-01 P.C. Roberts 1:58
2-02 Call Me Anything 2:13
2-03 Time For Change 2:30
2-04 It's Your Daughter 2:26
2-05 Circles 3:03
2-06 Here It Comes Again 2:53
2-07 These Things 2:59
2-08 Shame About The Rain 3:22
2-09 She Said She Said 3:27
2-10 Coloured Windows (alternate version) 3:51
2-11 X-Ray Eyes (live) 3:40
2-12 radio interview 4:05

DOWNLOAD a group of driscolls with not one driscoll in the line up HERE!

Mousefolk – "Mousefolk" (Tea Time Records – tea time tape 1) 1989

The mouse seems to be the rodent of choice for many an indie Lo-Fi twee shoegaze group.Firstly we had The Field Mice,but this time it's the turn of "Mousefolk" ,a Bristolian quintet on the obscure Shoegaze orientated label,the very quaint Tea Time Records(hear a radio interview here!);also from Bristol I wager?

A compilation of older recordings,released on Cassette in 1989.

They seem to have nurtured the analogue fuzz very nicely,drowning out the vocals adequately enough to invoke images of these pale young boys surfing on waves of cotton wool with the pre-axelrod Electric Prunes in the fog of the Bristol channel.

This is how music sounds when you're off yer titz on Scrumpy.

Scrumpadelic?

Tracklist:

A1 Sleepwalk
A2 Just Can't Stay
A3 Cut Me Down To Size
A4 Fire Engine
A5 Greatest Thing
A6 Acid-Trip-Out!
A7 Will Anyone Ever Remember You?
A8 Fly (live - 19/11/87)
A9 Don't Let Me Slip Away
A10 Spinning Round
B1 Pictures Of You (live - 28/2/88)
B2 Autumn (live - 28/2/88)
B3 Grannies Cake Crisis
B4 I Don't Love You
B5 Tonight
B6 End Of The World
B7 Wishing The Summer Away
B8 Motorcycle Boy
B9 Joyce McKinney's Boyfriend

DOWNLOAD in time for tea HERE!

The Field Mice – "Snowball 10" + Singles" (Sarah Records – SARAH 402) 1989

The original Snowflakes and Twee giants The Field Mice,could have been The Stone Roses if they came from some northern ghetto and walked like a bunch of monkey's.

Of course The Stone Roses were obviously Twee shoegazing wannabe's on drugs,rather than sensitive young men and ladie(s) from the stockbroker belt running light on mental issues.

You all know I like a nice mauve ten incher in my hand every now and again,and this one is a classic of the Twee genre,with the occasional rocker tucked in there for good measure.

Even better than this mini-album would have to be the 5 or so singles that came out around the same time,including the rather groovy "Sensitive",which i guess is their signature tune Stone Roses album ender on 45.

Blissfully oblivious of the Madchester nonsense that would eventually kill The Field Mice and shoegaze off,of which,there was a lot about in '89 ,unfortunately;these nice young snowflakes, stuck stubbornly to their post C-86 indie pop and made a bucket full of sweet tunes for us,from a much better time to be alive.....No Internet full of nutjobs,True Patriots,Critical Race Theorists, or impending Facist takeovers or failed coup's back then. Maybe send a copy of this to mark the first anniversary of the Ukraine WAR,(packed with explosives?), to Mad Vlad....he really does need to relax a bit and calm the fuck down!? I'm really worried about the Cunts mental health....Honest.

"Snowball 10"er):

1.Let's Kiss And Make Up 6:12

2.You're Kidding Aren't You? 2:30

3.End Of The Affair 4:14

4.Couldn't Feel Safer 3:47

5.This Love Is Not Wrong 3:21

6.Everything About You 2:30

7.White 4:48

8.Letting Go 6:33

Singles:

9.Sensitive 5:04

10.When Morning Comes To Town 5:14

11.Emma's House 3:37

12.When You Sleep 3:32

13.Fabulous Friend 2:53

14..The Last Letter 2:46

15.I Can See Myself Alone Forever 5:20

16.Everything About You 2:21

17.That's All This Is 3:16

DOWNLOAD and bring the mice inside for the winter HERE!

Jody And The Creams – "A Big Dog.n" (Cordelia Records Ericat 028) 1990

 

That's NOT Dennis Nilsen bottom right by the way!

Yet another LP with ever widening Deep Freeze Mice connectivity, featuring Ruth (Po!) without her refrigerator on singy duties, another appearance of Blodwyn P. Teabag, (She's the one who looks like Green in his squatting days but as a Lady) and a debut for Ariadne Metal-Cream Pie; the latter two wrote nearly all the tchoons.

Don't be afraid, the Dennis Nilsen-a-like is the prolific Alan Jenkins(Deep Freeze Mouse number one) himself, if you've never seen him before? Here pictured in the Producer's role.I suppose this was intended as a 'Girl Group' project?

It all starts off with a bang,with the best anti-monarchy song I've probably ever heard.It alone, is the best reason why the Monarchy should remain exactly as it is or we would have one less thing to moan about,and no more anti-monarchy songs as clever as this.....Monarchy for the UK.

There are a few more charmingly witty indie pop numbers,or to paraphrase blodwyn or Ariadne.... 'lo-fi vintage english agit-pop'.There's also a side long sound collage like a more listenable but twee-er version of the side of Tago Mago no-one plays called "N.",or 'Lumpy Gravy', and there's another inevitable Frank Zappa homage with a couple of Suzy Creamcheese moments as if the GTO's came from an English suburb.....in Shropshire(?).

"Margery is Dead" reveals a possible Joe Meek obsession by someone in the room, like the theme to an unmade Gerry Anderson pilot from 1961.....can't go wrong there methinks.

Absolutely one of the better releases on Cordelia Records by a yard or two, in Imperial measurements.Don't ask me what that is in Metric!

That's something you can thank the Royals for,that and Lsd ?!.....For those born after decimalisation,that stands for Pounds Shillings and Pence,the single most absurd money system ever thought up by one of God's relatives on Earth.

Tracklisting:

1 The Queen #1 1:34
2 Margery Is Dead 1:27
3 Moulted Fur From A Labrador 2:27
4 Tree Rings 4:38
5 Appleseed Alley
Written-By – Ruth* 3:07
6 Hi Felicity 1:40
7 Shropshire 4:18
8 N. 31:35
9 The Queen #2 1:41
10 Blue Moon 2:04

DOWNLOAD some vintage creamcheese HERE!

Po! – "Bedroom Tapes vol.1" - (self-released) 1989

Ruth, last seen as the 'Ruth' from Ruth's Refrigerator , otherwise known as Ruth Miller of Indie Twee Pop Leicester legends PO! Had her own label called Rutland Records. Named after the disputed part of Leicestershire that regained its independence sometime in the naughties I think , and better known as the fictional home of The Rutles,but absolutely NOT The Ruts. 

One never ,wittingly saw PO!...the more mischievous amongst us would misspell it as POO!... live,who seemed to be in the Leicester Mercury  entertainment section every friday night during 1989 and beyond. Oh No,I thought, not more of that bloody student indie-pop nonsense. Not brutal or aggressive enough for me at the time...of course. I now know better don't I?

There are lots of PO! albums on Bandcamp, but this is a bunch of demo's recorded in Ruth's Bedroom I guess?There are three more volumes i am assured.

Its a kind of poundshop Tracy Thorn's "A Distant Shore";she being the Godmother's second cousin twice removed's best friends sister of "Twee".

Ruth is sufficiently Twee enough on these intimate recordings to qualify as The Indie Oberleutnant for a good part of the East Midlands.

PO! weren't eccentric enough to adequately fill the void left by the demise of Yeah Yeah Noh! in the local scene,but Ruth was indeed a prolific writer of charming pop tunes,of which we have a few examples on this cassette.

Ruth in fact turned up in the Guardian last week,promoting her Older Womens Punk Collective called the Unglamorous Music project. I suppose another Ruth's Refrigerator LP is out of the question? 

Tracklist:

1 Danny's Girl
2 Fay
3 These Days
4 The Ice Cream Dream (Tina)
5 She Lies In State
6 Every Night
7 Look For The Holes
8 Sunday Never Comes Around

DOWNLOAD like shit off a sheet HERE!

Ruth's Refrigerator – "Suddenly A Disfigured Head Parachuted" (Cordelia Records – CD072) 1990

Ruth and her Refigerator...note the standard indie bowl-cuts extreme left and right.

Escaping the the Twee-Dream pop minority of Leeds to the civilised end of the M1 motorway;leaving behind the last vestiges of the "North", lies the naturally Twee city of Leicester.....which,as if you didn't know, is my home town.Akin to an empty rugby players bath,it has nothing in the center ans a ring of scum around the outside.

No, it wasn't quite that empty in the center,it wasn't Coventry after all;but i did grow up amongst the ring of scum,of which i am proudly one.One has very hazy memories of seeing lots of these Twee Dream pop Shoegazer groups at the various venues on offer, a case of if you remember the earl 90's you weren't there,unlike Britpop,which if you remember that you definitely were there and trying to forget it.

of course, the leicster had our own Twee Pop combo's,the most celebrated of which being peel fav, Yeah Yeah Noh!

A Sense of humour certainly required The rather zany Ruth's Refrigerator,being a fine example.

Including various members DIY legends Deep Freeze Mice and, Po! and other indie hangers-on.

The lyrics are of the too clever by 'arf variety as preferred by such tiresome smart arses as Morrissy and Cocker, but as i have mellowed in the past decade i'll say, what's wrong with that? I fact they are pretty funny.Like the opening couplet of Dear Prudence re-write "Red Queen" for example:

"There Was A Girl,

She Was a Raving Psychopathic Killer.......in my eyes."

Of course you had to be there,but you get the gist.

As top Deep Freeze Mouse Alan Jenkins is in the group, you're gonna get mad cap song titles and surreal university life sentence humour in droves,all backed up with jangly twee indie psych Wimsey.

I have been less than kind to the voice of Me Jenkins during my angry years;bracketing him with such of the likes of Steve Solomar of Spherical Objects......i now know this to be plain wrong,as do I the Deep Freeze Mice, whom I have reassessed as rather good,and i even like Alan's voice too now.....but not as much as Ruth's.

So my previous reviews of DFM albums are but a window of time in which i was obviously very pissed off.....Ruth-less....haha..see what i did? (Smart arse!) 

Tracklist:

1 She Lies In State 2:16
2 Your Dog Is Rich And Your Cat Is Good Looking 2:40
3 Alan's Refrigerator 2:12
4 He Needs A Dog 2:19
5 Picasso's Problem 1:56
6 The Red Queen 2:49
7 Mind The Paprica, Joe
8 Gro Harlem Brundtland Wants Some Fish 1:57
9 On A Western Shore 2:58
10 Innocent Boy 2:26
11 Hello Anne Of Green Poplars 3:47
12 Examine The Insects And Hit Them 1:02
13 Hi Felicity 1:42
14 Fish In The Air / Birds In The Sea 7:31
15 Spot The Bear Theme 1:01
16 Hello Anne (With A Better Guitar Solo) 3:13
17 The Red Queen (With Robyn Singing) 3:12
18 I Am Big Chief Radio Luxembourg 5:15
19 She's Not There 2:02

DOWNLOAD from the deep freeze to the fridge HERE!

Pale Saints – "Some New Songs By Pale Saints" (Self-Released) 1988

Some 35 year old songs by Pale saints,who were 3 pale young boys (+ later pale young lady addition) from Leeds in Yorkshire, which is,basically, the UK's version of Australia,overflowing with undiluted toxic masculinity,prison tattoo's, and fat footy hooligans;but not too many mullets in evidence as the hairstyle of choice is the number two, in non-toilet terms. These increasingly common,cow bellied throwbacks can be seen on away matchdays, unleashing minor tributary's of dark yellow piss, like objectionable ambassadors from the home of the missing link,stumbling through the streets of their rival conurbation, whilst lobbing stale and partly chewed pukka pies in the general direction of the repulsed local woke tribe of new men.

Only Millwall fans have unleashed my inner snob more quickly.

Therefore,one must applaud the often overlooked pasty faced Twee/Shoegaze combo Pale Saints,for existing in such an environment.They seemed sensitive types,and sang in a girly way that would have yer average Yorkshire-man demanding that they make him a meal immediately,with gravy that you could stand yer bloody spoon up in.

Naturally, 4AD snapped these delicate chaps up within three seconds of the first track of this demo,and the rest is history....especially the bit where The Pale Saints are nothing less than forgotten in the annals of Twee indie Shoegaze music;but at least it got them away from Leeds United Football fans eh?

Tracklist:

1.Wasting My Time 2:16

2.Children Break 2:46

3.The Way The World Is 2:04

4.Sea Of Sound 5:15
 

DOWNLOAD these pale strangers to elland road HERE!

Trixie's Big Red Motorbike - "All Day Long In Bliss (Singles, Demos And Peel Sessions)" 1981-85

The fairy prince and princess of twee has to be brother and sister Mark and Melanie Litten who,like many of their Twee contemporaries never got to release an album in their lifetimes.

Haling from a pre-Wet Leg Isle Of Wight ,they released their sparkly gentle pre-teen ditties on their own Lobby Ludd label....which is how my father, strangely, used to refer to Robin Hood?...I blame those Nazi's  and their prison camps and stuff i do.

Amazingly,according to Discogs, Mark Litten was something of a sound tech for Def Leppard!?.....I wonder what those clueless oafs thought of  Trixie's Big Red Motorbike,if they ever got to hear it; as the sole purpose of all this Twee stuff was to distance the wimps who made it as far away from the spotty testosterone fueled nonsense of NWOBHM as possible. I'd like to think that Lemmy would have got it,but not necessarily actually liking it....maybe not?

Where did this stuff evolve from? 

I guess the earliest roots would have to be Syd Barrett's solo work,the more whimsical end of UK Psych, and Velvet Underground's third album.Then the proto-punk nerd-chic of Johnathan Richman and Talking Heads,a bit later the TV Personalities,The Raincoats,and Subway Sect, making rejection of Rock music fashionable in 1978 leading to wimps like Orange Juice,Altered Images,Marine Girls (a marine Girl,Jane Fox, actually appears on a few of these tracks),Young Marble Giants,Dolly Mixture and so-forth.

It all gets quite confusing, with a venn diagram of Twee,overlapping ShoeGaze and Dream Pop.You can find Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine, and The Cocteau Twins all in the same space.

However, undoubtedly,Trixie's Big Red Motorbike is firmly entrenched within the Twee area of the diagram, alongside many of the forthcoming entities we shall be visiting making music for Wimps by Wimps.

I may have spent most of my time going to Godflesh and Napalm Death gigs in 1986/7,but nearly every other band on the circuit were Twee befringed Indie pop shoegaze dreamers,which i now realise was rather good,and refreshing......then came the second summer of bloody fucking Love,and the Shoegazers picked up a tambourine and started enjoying themselves,dancing and the like!?.Tut TUT TUT!  

  
 Tracklist:

1 A Splash Of Red 4:16
2 Invisible Boyfriend 3:19
3 Hold Me (Demo) 1:42
4 You Took Him Away From Me (Demo) 3:27
5 Hold Me 1:41
6 Trixie's Groove 2:34
7 One Nation Under A Brolly 0:46
8 Whatever Happened To The Treetops? 2:18
9 You Took Him Away From Me 2:56
10 One Nation Under A Brolly (Demo) 2:23
11 Norman And Narcissus 2:33
12 In Timbuktu 2:00
13 That's The End Of That 1:44
14 I'm In Love With You 2:06
15 When He's By My Side 2:03
16 Fairytales 2:15
17 That's Quite A Lot 2:52
18 What Was In The Loft 7:01

Bonus Tracks:

Peel Session 25/08/1983:

1 That's The End Of That
2 One Nation Under A Brolly
3 Norman & Narcissus
4 In Timbuktu
5 White Horses

Peel Session 28/07/1982:

1 Invisible Boyfriend
2 Splash Of Red

3 Whatever Happened To The Treetops
4 You Took Him Away From Me

DOWNLOAD music for wimps by wimps for you HERE!

Jane And Barton – "Jane And Barton" (Cherry Red – MRED 53) 1983

The Otway and Barrett of Twee has to be Jane (Lancaster) and Edward Barton who,like Otway and Willy scored a minor chart hit across several continents.Especially when "It's a Fine Day" got used on several TV adverts,including a very bizarre one in Japan advertising Kleenex Tissues......they're bloody weird over there!?

In the grand folk tradition of unaccompanied singing,Jane and Barton,but mainly Jane,dare to be minimal,and alone, in an unforgiving world.

A gentler Indie Pop version of Folk legend, Ann Briggs if you want?

Its like being sung to sleep by your mother.And just like the death of your maternal parent,they never return to do it again when you are a fucked up adult.

So we need records like this,where someone called Jane is your mother replacement for a very short 20 minutes,which is probably in proportion with the average lifespan to childhood ratio that we are saddled with.

So we leave the mercifully short Edward Barton vocal parts to remind us of being forcibly pulled out of the womb into this horrific existence,then......well....you know what comes next.

Thanks for that Edward!? 

Tracklist:

1.There Is A Man
2.It's A Fine Day
3.You Are Over There (Part 1)
4.Mmmm

5.Of All
6.I Want To Be With You
7.You Are Over There(part 2)
8.Ha Bloody Ha

9.Leaves were falling

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Marine Girls ‎– "Beach Party" (In Phaze Records ‎– 002 1/2) 1981

Once upon a time,back at the Birth of the Indie Sound,which was specific to the British Commonwealth only. We find four sixth formers from Essex taking Young Marble Giants' minimal de-butched rock and putting it through the mangle, squeezing out everylast piece of alpha-male rubbish and flushing it.Also obviously influenced by the Raincoats' demasculated post-punk they were spotted by Indie group numero uno The Television Personalities,who released this on their own Whaam records as a proper LP.

Ok, so Tracey Thorn went on to adorn the coffee tables of the Thatcher 'loadsamoney' generation, but this was one big v-sign,middle finger, to all those butch punkers who,instead of destroying that uber macho Rock nonsense,carried it on,but with a sillier haircut. The Marine Girls were the unwitting pre-cursors of an indie pop future,you can't get Twee-er than this,but,oh, how they tried!

Kurt Cobain was a fan,as he allegedly was of Young Marble Giants also........again.....was he actually listening?

It's not his fault,just another victim of the American need to 'Rock Out Maaan'.This is also why the american Indie route led directly back to where it all came from.....Rock,but this time renamed 'Grunge' for some unfathomable reason.Long hair was back and feet on monitors,calls for seeing hands in the air were heard. In the beginning of the post-punk period,as Punk never really happened in the USA, all the groups wanted to be Devo before they reverted to type,so all the American groups were herky jerky Devo-a-likes,before eventually mutating ,maybe via hardcore, into Dinosaur Jr....which was thee proto-grunge band or what(?); or The Jesus Lizard,who were still Devo really,but Rocked Up and dressed down.

Meanwhile there were no Grunge groups in the UK,post-punk had gone pop,and all that was left were just twee indie bands,and nothing else until Ecstacy hit in '88....and we all know what happened then don't we.Stll living with the consequences today. Just thousands of types of 'Metal' and 'Hip Hop' are the dreadful result of all this chaos.

Recorded at the In-Phaze garden shed.

Tracklist:

A1 In Love
A2 Fridays
A3 Tonight?
A4 Times We Used To Spend
A5 Flying Over Russia
A6 Tutti Lo Sanno
A7 All Dressed Up
A8 Honey
B1 Holiday Song
B2 He Got The Girl
B3 Day Night Dreams
B4 Promises
B5 Silent Red
B6 Dishonesty
B7 20,000 Leagues
B8 Marine Girls

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