C86 Show - Indie Pop

Barry Melton in conversation with David Eastaugh 

http://counterculture.net/thefish/

Co-founder and original lead guitarist of Country Joe and the Fish and Dinosaurs. He appears on all the Country Joe and the Fish recordings and he also wrote some of the songs that the band recorded. He appeared in the films made at Monterey Pop and Woodstock, and also appeared as an outlaw in the neo-Western film Zachariah and other films in which Country Joe and the Fish appear. An attorney and member of the State Bar of California, Melton has maintained a criminal defense practice since 1982.

Anne-Marie Hurst in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.ghost-dance.com/

https://ghost-dance.bandcamp.com/music

Ghost Dance is a British gothic rock band formed in 1985 by Gary Marx (ex-Sisters of Mercy guitarist) and Anne-Marie Hurst (ex-Skeletal Family vocalist) as both were leaving their respective bands. The band were originally signed to Nick Jones' record label, Karbon Records, then were later signed to the major label Chrysalis Records, before splitting up in 1989.

In 2019 the band reformed, with Hurst being joined by new members Tim Walker (guitar), Stephen Derrig (guitar), Phil Noble (bass), and Dave Wood (drums). They began work on new material. Reunion shows followed in the UK and the band signed to Voltage Records for a new album release in 2023

Thomas Leer in conversation with David Eastaugh 

http://thomasleer.co.uk/

Leer played in several local experimental pop groups in the early to mid-1970s, moving to London when the punk rock scene was at its height. He formed the punk band Pressure, but by 1978 had moved on to music influenced by synthpop and Krautrock bands such as Can. That year, he self-financed his debut single, "Private Plane". Although it was recorded in his own flat and was only issued in 650 copies on his own label, it gained significant attention, with NME naming it "Single of the Week". In 1979, he released the album The Bridge in collaboration with Robert Rental. In 1981, he signed to Cherry Red, his first release for the label being the 4 Movements EP. After two further releases on the label, he was signed by Arista Records, releasing three further singles and his debut full-length solo album, The Scale of Ten in late 1985.

Rusty Egan in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://rustyeganpresents1.bandcamp.com/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rusty-Egan-Autobiography/dp/0857162934

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZAM6TFMvAc

https://www.mixcloud.com/rustyegan/

Egan was the drummer of British new wave band Rich Kids, from its inception in March 1977, until its disbandment in December 1978, along with former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock (bass and vocals), Steve New (guitar and vocals), and Midge Ure (guitar, vocals, and keyboards).

Egan continued working with Ure, and later collaborated with The Misfits, Skids and Shock, and well as being a founding member of Visage. He played drums on a remixed version of Phil Lynott's song "Yellow Pearl", which the BBC used as the Top of the Pops theme tune from 1981 to 1986.

Berni Armstrong in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.youtube.com/c/berniarmstrong

https://thesaturdaybluesproject.bandcamp.com/

Chris Payne in conversation with David Eastaugh 

http://chrispaynemusic.com/

Known as a member of Gary Numan's backing band, Tubeway Army and for being the co-writer of Visage's 1981 synthpop hit single "Fade to Grey". Payne plays keyboards and viola and also a number of medieval instruments. He formed the band Dramatis with other members of Numan's backing-band in the early 1980s. Payne has composed music for television and films and formed the band Celtic Legend. He has composed, scored, recorded and conducted his orchestral and choral works in London and Prague.

Larry Stabbins in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.larrystabbins.com/

Played in the cult pop group Weekend and started writing with its guitarist Simon Booth. This later evolved into Working Week, a band that took a mix of Latin, soul, jazz and funk into the pop charts. From the Latin Jazz Dance scene in London clubs, the band mixed jazz with Latin dance rhythms and vocals by singers such as Juliet Roberts, Julie Tippetts, Robert Wyatt and Tracy Thorn.

The band toured extensively in Europe and Japan, performing at most of Europe's major Jazz Festivals and recording five albums for Virgin Records. Following the breakup of Working Week he formed 'QRZ?' a fusion of jazz and rap which also recorded for Virgin Records and for the German label Loud Minority.

Zaine Griff in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.zainegriff.com/#home

In 1979 Griff started his solo career. He released two albums, Ashes and Diamonds (recorded in 1979, released in 1980), produced by Tony Visconti, and Figvres (1982), on which he collaborated with future successful film composer Hans Zimmer, and many colleagues from the new wave and new romantic era including Kate Bush, Warren Cann of Ultravox and Yukihiro Takahashi, of Japanese electronic band YMO.

The single "Tonight" peaked at No. 54 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1980, whilst "Ashes and Diamonds" reached No. 68 in the same listing in June that year.

Debsey Wykes in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Daydream-Girls-Play-Band/dp/1917923090

Debsey Wykes was the bass playing singer in the first all girl punk group Dolly Mixture. Thrown into the musky, misogynistic, male dominated world of the UK music industry in the late 1970s, they enjoyed unlikely #1 success alongside Captain Sensible of The Damned on1982’s even unlikelier cover version of ‘Happy Talk’, whilst fame and success on their own individual terms alluded them.

Debsey went onto greater prominence with Saint Etienne with who she has performed since 1992, whilst in 2025, desirable Dolly Mixture reissues sell out around the world as quickly as they are printed.

Featuring a cast of contemporary post-punk heroes – rom Paul Weller and the Jam (their first record label boss) to Madness and the Pogues – Teenage Daydream is a unique coming of age story of youthful ambition, enterprising DIY musical ethics and how an unlikely bunch of school-girl friends ended up on Top of the Pops in home made hula skirts.

Micko Westmoreland in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://landlinerecords.com

https://www.facebook.com/MickoMellotronic/

The Mellotronics formed in 2017 with the intention of turning Micko Westmoreland’s songwriting skills into a dynamic live prospect. Expanding from their initial three piece to the current four strong line up, the band sees Micko’s rabble rousing vocals and spiky, agitational guitar work augmented perfectly by the crack squad of drummer Nick Mackay of hotly tipped rock duo Barricades, Owls of Now’s Vicky Carroll providing immovable bassline solidity and the intricate, effects-soaked fretwork of Jon Klein (Siouxsie & The Banshees, Specimen).
Since then they’ve been busy cutting their teeth with a series of shows around the capital and beyond, making return visits to the 100 Club in Oxford Street and earning multiple requests for support slots from acts as established as Evan Dando (Lemonheads), David Devant & His Spirit Wife, Blue Orchids, Sheep on Drugs, The Television Personalities and The Monochrome Set.

Bringing a new dimension of sharp and economic post-punk/new wave attitude to the diverse Westmoreland songbook, they’ve been already been favourably compared to The Jam, Pil and Wire as well as the mean, lean but undeniably powerful sound of young bucks like Idles or Shame.

Double Dee & Steinski in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://ddski.com/

Double Dee and Steinski is a duo of hip hop producers, composed of Doug "Double Dee" DiFranco and Steven "Steinski" Stein. They achieved notoriety in the early 1980s for a series of underground hip-hop sample-based collages known as the "Lessons".

Their contest entry, "Lesson 1 – The Payoff Mix", was packed with sampled appropriations from other records—not only from early hip-hop records and from Funk and Disco records that were popular with hip-hop DJs, but with short snippets of older songs by Little Richard and The Supremes, along with vocal samples from sources as diverse as instructional tap-dancing records and Humphrey Bogart films.

The record was pieced together in DiFranco's studio in 12–14 hours over two days and was critically praised

Boz Boorer in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://westhampsteadarts.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ThePolecats/?locale=en_GB

English guitarist and producer. He founded the new wave rockabilly group the Polecats, and starting in 1991 had a 30-year collaboration with singer Morrissey as co-writer, guitarist and musical director.

Steven Seibold in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://hatedept.bandcamp.com/

Seibold is a multi-instrumentalist who writes, records and releases Hate Dept. albums with minimal outside help. He formed Hate Dept. in 1991 in reaction to fickle 'electro' audiences and antipathy towards live electronic bands, taking his sound in a more punk direction.

Moritz R in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://derplan.bandcamp.com/album/save-your-software

https://chakchak.de/

https://gerireig.blogspot.com/

Der Plan was founded in 1979 by Frank Fenstermacher, Moritz R, Robert Görl & Chrislo Haas. Görl and Haas left after the first release, and were replaced by Kurt Dahlke. This trio remained constant until the group disbanded in 1993.
In 2004, Moritz R reformed the band with new members Achim Treu & J.J. Jones, but due to disagreements with old band members with the slightly changed bandname: Der Plan V. 4.0
For the 50th birthday parties of Andreas Dorau in Hamburg and Berlin in January 2014 Der Plan was reformed again for two short sets by Frank Fenstermacher, Moritz R and Kurt Dahlke.
In May 2017 a new single "Lass die Katze stehn" had been released and in June the album "Unkapitulierbar" came to light.

Emma Pollock in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://emmapollock.com/

https://emmapollock.bandcamp.com/

A founding member of Glasgow band The Delgados, Emma Pollock has been a solo artist since 2006, releasing 4 solo albums on 4AD and Chemikal Underground. Her new album Begging The Night To Take Hold is out now.

Andrew Perer in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Head-Into-Sound-Valentine/dp/1916829147

Turn My Head Into Sound: A history of Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine tells the story of one of the great sonic innovators of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. My Bloody Valentine have released only three albums in their forty-year career, but each of them has made a seismic impact. Isn’t Anything (1988) is often cited as one of the Ur-texts of shoegaze and dream rock; Loveless (1991) is an undisputed masterpiece heralded by many as the best album of the 1990s; m b v (2013) is one of the best-loved comeback albums in recent memory.

For those who know Kevin Shields and his work already, he is an indie-rock icon, but by other measures he’s still a relatively obscure figure in the musical mainstream, and to date there has been no full-length appraisal of his work or his band’s career. Until now. Shields is truly a one-of-a-kind musician, and this book—which fills in the gaps, corrects errors, and takes an objective look at the band’s entire career, warts and all—paints the full picture of one of the most revolutionary sonic artists of our time.

Turn My Head Into Sound is based on numerous interviews with people who were there (some of them speaking on the record for the first time) as well as an exhaustive archive of band-related material that the author has been assembling since 1990. Longtime fans of the band will find plenty of new information here, including the full story of the tumultuous period at Island Records following the release of Loveless. The lost years that followed would see Shields employed as engineer, producer, and remixer while also becoming an auxiliary member of Primal Scream. This book’s analysis of this diverse but lesser-known work offers reader a much fuller picture of the relentless creativity and perfectionism at the center of his process.

Steve Boltz in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.steveboltz.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/920848814634353/

In 1971 he was recruited into the band Atomic Rooster, part of a new line-up for a tour supporting the band's third album In Hearing of Atomic Rooster and their No. 4 charting single "The Devil's Answer". The band was also recording their fourth LP Made in England which was released in 1972 with a more funky sound replacing their original progressive rock leanings. Bolton also appeared on Devil's Answer: Live on the BBC released in 1998, and on the release of In Satan's Name: The Definitive Collection.

Barrence Whitfield in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.facebook.com/BarrenceWhitfieldSavages

White adopted the stage name Barrence Whitfield to avoid being mistaken for superstar Barry White and began performing as Barrence Whitfield & the Savages.

The band garnered a strong reputation for explosive stage performances, described as "raucous and rough, in high gear from the moment they hit the stage." Whitfield himself was described as "a soul screamer in the spirit of Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, and early Don Covay." In 1984, the band released their self-titled debut album, mostly comprising cover versions of obscure soul and R&B songs. It received good critical reviews. The following year, they released a second album, Dig Yourself, on Rounder Records. Their music was heard by English radio DJ Andy Kershaw, who taped a Boston performance for airplay in Britain, and brought them to the UK for a tour.

David Miller, Simon McGlynn & Chris Connelly in conversation with David Eastaugh

THE SHEER ACTION OF FINI TRIBE is the first retrospective of the band, curated and designed by the band. It includes a wealth of archival photographs, an essay by original member ANDY MCGREGOR, who also designed the sleeve, and essays by longtime friend SHIRLEY MANSON and author ALASTAIR MCKAY, an early champion of the band.

The release features the first legendary JOHN PEEL SESSION produced by DALE GRIFFIN and originally broadcast in May 1985.

FINI TRIBE was born into the cash-poor but culturally-wealthy environs of post-punk Edinburgh in the very early 80s – 1980 to be almost precise. A tiny three piece with no drummer would soon swell into a muscular six piece with inherited or cheaply-purchased instruments. Band members CHRIS CONNELLY, SIMON MCGLYNN, ANDY MCGREGOR, DAVIE MILLER, PHILIP PINSKY, and JOHN VICK haunted the cold, damp warrens of the Niddry Street and Blair Street rehearsal rooms, just off the high street in Old Town Edinburgh.

Audrey Golden in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/shouting-out-loud

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shouting-Out-Loud-Lives-Raincoats/dp/1399624865

Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva formed The Raincoats in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the 'godmothers of grunge' have been revered by punk, queer, feminist and indie pop artists alike. The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians.

Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats tells their astonishing story in three extraordinary lives. In The Raincoats' first life, they recorded three full-length albums now regarded as classics and were the first punk band to play behind the Iron Curtain in Warsaw. Nearly a decade later in 1992, the band's second life took off when Kurt Cobain's love of the band catalysed their renaissance.