Brilliant Corners week! part two

The Brilliant Corners - Oh!
The Brilliant Corners - Trust Me
The Brilliant Corners - Can't Wait That Long

*NB: the links are fixed, if you were having problems.

Brilliant Corners week! part one

They came from under blackest Avonmouth skies with some faintly ropey rockabilly-tinged singles, suddenly became very good on the Fruit Machine EP, then made a classic album of kitchen sink indie with the best trumpet lines since The Pale Fountains. Here's three songs.

The Brilliant Corners - Trudy is a Squeel
The Brilliant Corners - Delilah Sands
The Brilliant Corners - Friday Saturday Sunday Monday

Love

The other weekend I found two Love albums in a Lomita thrift store: Forever Changes (70s edition, butterfly label) and Reel to Real. The latter has a cover of such sublime ugliness it tips over into coolness. $6 for both. The asian lady behind the counter asked me if they sounded like the Beatles. I said maybe a little, but with more mariachi horns.

So here's three songs about Love, or alluding to Love, or seemingly unrelated to Love beyond the title.

The Anyways were from Oxford. They're The Relationships now. Their song title seems rather prescient, although I think they're singing about his wilderness years.

The Strands were Shack, pretty much, and Shack were Arthur Lee's pick up band in the UK. The castle reference makes me think this is about Arthur. He's sporting a kung fu look in the picture above, or maybe concealing premature baldness.

Hopkirk and Lee were...well, who knows.

The Anyways - The Ghost of Arthur Lee
Michael Head and the Strands - And Luna
Hopkirk and Lee - Free Arthur Lee!

Stephen (David Kilgour)

My laptop was poorly, now its pallid plastic bosom is heaving with vitality. Anyway, onwards.

Stephen was David Kilgour in disguise, pretty much. 'Featuring future members of Chug', as it might say on a cover sticker with very limited marketing potential. David Kilgour was meant to be playing at the Silent Movie Theatre this Thursday. Now he's not, but there's still a film about him.

Stephen - Loved by You
Stephen - Little Audrey
Stephen - Don't Now Why

PF Sloan

Ace Records have just brought out a new PF Sloan comp, gathering together the bulk of his first two albums and some rare single cuts. Sloan wrote a bunch of tracks for bands like The Turtles, Jan and Dean and The Grass Roots - in fact, he pretty much was The Grass Roots on their first single. He could seemingly turn his hand to anything, from harmony pop to the surfin' sounds of The Fantastic Baggys. His first two albums under his own name are mainly in the folk-rock vein, and while some of it hasn't aged well (I've never particularly cared for 'Eve of Destruction'), there are some great songs...particularly the later single sides, two of which are here.

PF Sloan - A Melody for You
Philip Sloan - I Can't Help But Wonder, Elizabeth

Girls Will Be Girls

...is the title of a 1999 girl group compilation put together by Mick Patrick and Malcolm Baumgart (also responsible for a bunch of excellent Ace Records comps). It's one of my favourite girl group discs, running the gamut from purest fromage to the rather soulful. 'Jet Set' by The Jet Set definitely falls into the former category ('discoteque go-go-go', indeed). Jessica James and the Outlaws is Peggy from The Angels in disguise. And Bernadette Castro lays down some promising groundwork for her career as, um, NY's State Commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The Jet Set - Jet Set
Jessica James and the Outlaws - Give Her Up (Baby)
Bernadette Castro - A Girl in Love Forgives

The Bachelor Pad

From Tales of Hofmann. It took me a long time to realize they meant Albert, rather than ETA - I figured they were just poor spellers. The Bachelor Pad were from Scotland. They sound as if they're on the verge of falling apart, drifting in and out of synch (and perhaps consciousness) but cohering just enough to establish the hook in your mind. An album's worth is slightly queasiness-inducing, but they made some cracking records.

The Bachelor Pad - Country Pancake
The Bachelor Pad - I Want to Hold Your Head
The Bachelor Pad - Girl of your Dreams

Able Tasmans Week! (part four)

From The Shape of Dolls EP and Store in a Cool Place.

The Able Tasmans - The Shape of Dolls
The Able Tasmans - My Name is Peter Keen
The Able Tasmans - Mary Tyler Moore

Surf Bunny (slight return)

While I'm thinking of gloriously inept female-fronted surf pop, here's Trudy Van and the Realm, from Teen Blast Vol 2; they're from New York, apparently.

Trudy Van and the Realm - Do the Surf

Able Tasmans week! (part three)

Three from Hey Spinner.

The Able Tasmans - Dileen
The Able Tasmans - Wednesday (She's Coming 'Round)
The Able Tasmans - Theory of Continual Disappointment

Girlfrendo

Two songs from the Japanese version of Surprise! Surprise! It's Girlfrendo, including their cover of Ginny Arnell's 'Dumb Head'. And 'First Kiss Feelings...', just because it's a fine pop song.

I saw them play the Garage a while before the album emerged. Could Comet Gain have been supporting? It seems possible. I don't remember much about it. They played 'The Wee Wee Song' (inevitably - Peel had been playing it lots). Golden Boy was very blonde. I bought 'Friday Nite Lovebite', perhaps the last 7" single I bought at a gig.

Girlfrendo - Photosession in a Photobooth
Girlfrendo - Dumb Head
Girlfrendo - First Kiss Feelings vs Everyday Sensations

Able Tasmans week! (part two)

More from A Cuppa Tea and a Lie Down.

The Able Tasmans - Sour Queen
The Able Tasmans - Fa Fa Fa Fa
The Able Tasmans - Virtues Asunder

Surf Bunnies

Two tracks from the girl group comp Surf Bunnies and Hot Rod Honeys. The Westwoods track is an answer record to The Trade Winds' 'New York's a Lonely Town'; it's a Jack Nitzsche arrangement with Gracia Nitzsche on lead vocals and Marilyn Wilson on backing vocals. It sounds a little muffled, but I think this gives it a strangely appealing quality. I know nothing about D.D. Hope, but she sounds splendidly bratty.

The Westwoods - I Miss My Surfer Boy Too
D.D. Hope - California Surfer

Able Tasmans week! (part one)

From A Cuppa Tea and a Lie Down (out of print, like the rest of their stuff). Mystifyingly perceived as a second-tier Flying Nun band when they are, perhaps, the best.

The Able Tasmans - What Was That Thing You Said?
The Able Tasmans - I See Now Where
The Able Tasmans - And We Swam the Magic Bay

The Crayon Fields

...are from Melbourne. You can buy their album here.

The Crayon Fields - Would It Be So Strange?
The Crayon Fields - Living So Well