The June Brides - There are Eight Million Stories, c.1985

I only ever owned one June Brides record, which I think was No Place Called Home, but alas that's long gone in what was a somewhat over enthusiastic clear out several years ago. I'm very pleased to say that I managed to pick up up a copy of their album There Are Eight Million Stories a couple of weeks ago whilst crate digging in a London record shop ... and what a delight it is to behold. It's quite a short album, and in fact probably qualifies as a mini-album, with just 8 tracks, but what great tracks they are.

Side one kicks off with The Instrumental which is a lovely, slightly lo-fi, indie pop tune, with guitar and trumpet, and vocals, so not instrumental as the title would suggest, and reminiscent of early Orange Juice and Josef K. Track two I Fall  and the third track on side one, Sunday to Saturday, are both near perfect, jangley, catchy, indie pop tunes. And finally on side one we have Sick, Tired and Drunk, which is quite the indie masterpiece with its fast strum guitars and once again the trumpet, reminding me just a little bit of The Teardrop Explodes.

Side two starts with Every Conversation which follows on from where side one left off. Track two, Comfort, has a rockier feel to it that the other tracks and reminds me a little of Tom Verlaine's Television. Track three Heard You Whisper returns back to the indie groove, with its infectious guitar riffs. The final track on this wonderful album is listed on the label but not on the sleeve. When it started playing I thought I recognised it, and sure enough it was a cover version of the Radiators From Space track Enemies, and a pretty darned good cover too.

The version of this wonderful album I found, of which I've shared a couple of pictures below, is the blue sleeve version. It was also released in a red sleeve.

The June Brides - There Are Eight Million Stories

The June Brides - There Are Eight Million Stories

Every track is a winner.

Henry Cow

The upside of lastfm is that I can discover new music daily ... the downside is that I have nowhere near enough time to listen to it all. Recent discoveries include a genre of music completely new to me called Zeuhl (basically late 60's/early 70's French avant garde), Art Zoyd, Henry Cow, Egg, and Giles, Giles and Fripp. I was very pleased to discover the latter as I knew Robert Fripp had been in a band before King Crimson but had never heard any of the material. So this album is definitely one to track down, and also the King Crimson back catalogue, which I have only on vinyl and haven't listened to for years ... so a bit of a prog rock/avant garde revival coming to an iPod near me soon.

By way of contrast I've also been re-discovering US indie/lo-fi material recently, particularly Matthew Sweet, Preston School of Industry, Tobin Sprout, and Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. Some of these bands are new to me whereas others are those I listened to at the time but had long forgotten.

And having had my apetite for live music reignited when I saw The Damned a few weeks ago, I'm off to see Public Image later this month, and also Billy Bragg and the Doves.

Sebadoh, Lou Barlow

The great things about internet music sites is that I can just type in the name of a band (or several bands) or a genre tag that I feel like listening to and it will serve back to me the sort of music that I'm in the mood for. Much of it is recognisable. Some that I still listen to on a regular basis, and some that I've not heard for years, and some that I've never heard before.

One of today's selections was Sebadoh. I think I first heard Sebadoh on the John Peel show back in the early 1990's. I have most of the albums from around that period, but I also recall they did am amazing Peel session which I've never been able to find anywhere.

I was fortunate enough to get to see Sebadoh once. It was at the Glastonbury Festival, again some time in the early 1990's, at around the time they released their excellent Bubble and Scrape album. They were playing on one of the smaller stages and attracted a modest crowd. I recall Lou Barlow not being too impressed with the sound quality and suggesting to the crowd that they come and see Sebadoh somewhere better. He then quickly qualified that by stating that Glastonbury was cool, but that their performance would perhaps be better elsewhere. I thought it was just fine though.

I was of course aware that Sebadoh had spawned several side projects, solo outings and various other collaborations, but had no idea of just how many albums they had made between them all.

Over the years I have amassed far too many records and CDs for my own good. Now that we've entered the digital age I have uploaded the majority to iTunes. My CDs and records for sale can be found on my web site.