C86 Show - Indie Pop

Mark Brend in conversation with David Eastaugh

http://jawbonepress.com/down-river/

Down River: In Search Of David Ackles is an illuminating study of mythmaking, the popular music industry, and a forgotten enigma of the 1970s.

In 1972, David Ackles’s third album, American Gothic, was released to a flurry of press plaudits declaring it to be ‘the Sgt Pepper of folk’ and one of the greatest records ever made. Yet the album, like its two predecessors, failed to sell, and after one more record, its creator simply vanished. He found work, raised a family, and died a couple of decades later, having never made another record.

Today, Ackles’s music is largely consigned to the streaming netherworld. It is yet to be properly repackaged and reappraised, and he remains largely unknown. But there is no middle ground. You either love him or you’ve never heard of him. His admirers range from Black Flag’s Greg Ginn to indie polymath Jim O’Rourke to Genesis drummer turned platinum-selling solo artist Phil Collins.

In 2003, when Elvis Costello interviewed Elton John for the first episode of his television show Spectacle, the two spoke at some length, and with palpable respect, about Ackles’s great talent, before performing a duet of his ‘Down River’—the same song Collins had selected for Desert Island Discs a decade earlier.

Paul Da Vinci in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://pauldavinci.com/home

https://www.pauldavinci.net/

Paul Da Vinci is best known as the "incredible" voice on the Rubettes' number one selling single "Sugar Baby Love", which sold over 8 million copies world-wide featuring his three and a half octave voice.  Paul sang all the lead vocals on the record, including the high falsetto, and was also lead vocalist on  the B side of the record "You could have told me".  Recorded at 1.30am Lansdowne Studios, Holland Park, London in 1973.

He had several other chart successes over the 70's and 80's as a solo artist with his own compositions "Your Baby Ain't Your Baby Anymore" and "If You Get Hurt" which he also produced, and as featured lead vocalist on the  Tight Fit single "Back to the Sixties part II" . 

Jamie James in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://shop.bandwear.com/collections/oglio-records-shop/products/ogl048

James was initially known as the leader and founder of the rockabilly trio The Kingbees, active between 1978 and 1982. The group included drummer Rex Roberts and bassist Michael Rummans. The Kingbees recorded two albums with David J. Holman, producing on RSO. The first, titled The Kingbees, (released March 1980) featured the James-penned hit "My Mistake".

The second album, titled The Big Rock, was released in March 1981 and also spawned national touring, a performance on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and a cameo role in the movie The Idolmaker. Shortly thereafter the band split up.

In 1983 James released a solo EP with Vanity Records titled The Big One. In the late 1980s, James hooked up with noted actor Harry Dean Stanton to form a unique musical ensemble which performed until the year 2000.

In 2000 James went on to form the rock and roll band "DQ and The Sharks" featuring actor/musician Dennis Quaid.

In 1993 James had also released a solo LP on Schoolkids Records titled Cruel World. In 2000 he released his latest solo LP on Oglio Records, titled Crossroads. Oglio also released a two-album CD issue of the Kingbees first and second LPs.

Terry Reid in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.terryreid.com/

Joe Boyd in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.joeboyd.co.uk/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roots-Rhythm-Remain-Journey-Through

Chris Stamey in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.chrisstamey.com/

https://chrisstamey.bandcamp.com/

Anything Is Possible, the latest collection of original material (and one affectionate cover) from North Carolina songwriter / vocalist / guitarist / producer Chris Stamey, an indie rock icon with a long and illustrious history that’s encompassed co-founding seminal avant-pop band the dBs, playing with Alex Chilton in the 70s and more recently with Jody Stephens's Big Star Quintet, and recording with the all-star smart-pop outfit the Salt Collective. The new album features special guests such as the Lemon Twigs, Pat Sansone (Wilco), Probyn Gregory (Brian Wilson band), and Marshall Crenshaw among others. The album was produced by Stamey at Modern Recording in Chapel Hill, NC. Anything Is Possible is being released by Label 51 Recordings on 1digital download and streaming platforms today and 12” LP vinyl, CD, August 8.

Gerard Langley & Chris Sharp in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.theblueaeroplanes.com/

The Blue Aeroplanes first performed under that name at the King Street Art Gallery in Bristol in 1981. They consisted mainly of former members of Art Objects, with the addition of Nick Jacobs, former guitarist and vocalist of Southampton band the Exploding Seagulls.

The Blue Aeroplanes' first album, Bop Art was released on their own Party Records in 1984, and was rapidly picked up by the Abstract (US) and Fire (UK) labels. It contained material that had been considered as a follow-up to Art Objects' only album, Bagpipe Music. Gerard Langley's largely spoken poetic lyrics were combined with a heavily guitar-centric band that went on to release Tolerance (1985) and Spitting Out Miracles (1987) and several singles and EPs whose B-sides were brought together in the compilation FriendLoverPlane (1988), all on the Fire label.

Cara Tivey in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://dagoogie.bandcamp.com/album/the-golden-thread

https://www.carativey.com/

https://carativey.bandcamp.com

Cara Tivey joined Birmingham band Au Pairs as keyboard player in 1983. In 1985, Tivey got her first recording break with Everything But the Girl on Baby the Stars Shine Bright.

In 1988, she started working with Billy Bragg on the Workers Playtime album, singing vocals on "Must I Paint You a Picture". She shared the bill with Bragg on the song "She's Leaving Home", which they recorded for the Beatles tribute Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father compilation. 

Tivey performed on Bragg's 1990 album The Internationale and on 1991's Don't Try This at Home, before he took a five-year break in recording. Also in 1990 and 1991, Tivey contributed to the Lilac Time's & Love for All and Astronauts albums.

During Bragg's hiatus, Tivey contributed to the Music in Colors album by Stephen Duffy in 1993. She also became Blur's live keyboardist during their Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife era.

Alan Williams in conversation with David Eastaugh

The Rubettes' first and biggest hit was "Sugar Baby Love" (1974) which was a number one in the United Kingdom, going on to sell around 500,000 copies in the UK and three million copies globally. With three more songs, "Sugar Baby Love" was recorded  in October 1973 at Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, London. "Sugar Baby Love" was their only UK No. 1 and sole US Top 40 entry.

Brixton Key

https://brixtonkey.com/

Brixton Key was born in 1950’s London to a party-loving mum and an errant scallywag dad.  As a small boy, he fell in love with the sound of his elder brother’s Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf’s Chess records, Charles Dickens novels, Edith Sitwell poems. causing continual mischief and on the bombsites surrounding his parents central London pub.  

Now longhaired and Kings Road dressed, Brixton copped a gig at the British music weekly Melody Maker.  Writing under the name of Mark Plummer, Brixton wrote features about the likes of Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Hawkwind, Rory Gallagher and The Who.  Tossing away his raincoat and California dreaming, he jetted to San Francisco where he discovered Chris Isaak, managing the pop idol to his hit record, Wicked Game.

Martin Porter & David Goggin in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Buzz-Me-Inside-Record-studios/dp/0500028699

Strap yourself in and take a helter-skelter ride through more than a decade’s worth of high drama, hedonism, high tech and musical genius as told by the insiders at the heart of Record Plant studios, one of the most prolific recording factories of all time, founded in 1968 by charismatic audio engineer Gary Kellgren and ace businessman Chris Stone.

In the 1970s, Record Plant was everywhere there was music. In 1976 alone, the studios produced three No. 1 albums: Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life, The Eagles’ Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Based on the memoirs and archives of Chris Stone, as well as interviews with over 100 studio employees, music producers and recording artists, Buzz Me In tells the incredible story of Record Plant’s evolution and the making of more than a decade’s worth of Gold and Platinum albums, tape by tape.

Illustrated throughout with behind-the-scenes images, archive photos of artists recording and performing live and album cover art, this revelatory and extensively researched book explores and celebrates the way the studios were designed to cater to every rock’n’roller’s fancy. From the living-room-style studio in New York, where Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland was recorded and where John Lennon later encamped, to the VIP clubhouse studio in Los Angeles where Stevie Wonder produced his classic hits, and the destination recording venue in Sausalito where Sly Stone, Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac holed up, each studio location had its own inherent character – but all showcased the founders’ proven formula of combining state-of-the-art audio, fantasy bedrooms and group Jacuzzis with sex, drugs and celebrity jams.

Was Record Plant ‘the real Hotel California’?

Rolf Brendel in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://rolfbrendel.de/

The band was formed in 1981 when vocalist Gabriele Kerner (Nena) came to West Berlin with drummer Rolf Brendel, her boyfriend at the time. 

The band wrote all of their songs themselves, typically working in pairs. They became overnight sensations in Germany when they performed their debut single "Nur geträumt" on German TV in August 1982

The single reached number 2 in the German charts, a position it occupied for 6 weeks, and also climbed high in the Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss charts.^[ In early 1983 the follow-up single "99 Luftballons" spent a further 7 weeks at number 2 before finally reaching the top slot, a position the debut album matched.

Philip Sanderson in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://snatchtapes.bandcamp.com/

Storm Bugs are a post-punk band formed in 1978 in Deptford, London, by Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball who had met in the Medway Towns, England. The band have been linked to a number of genres including: cassette culture, industrial music and DIY. Storm Bugs were initially active between 1978–82 and defying gravity reformed in 2001.

After moving to London in late 1978 Sanderson wangled out of hours access to the electronic music studio at Goldsmiths College and also purchased a valve Revox reel to reel tape recorder setting up a DIY home studio to annoy the neighbours. Using both these faculties Sanderson recorded much of the Storm Bugs output from 1878 to 1980 with Ball designing the artwork for the releases.

The first Storm Bugs release was as part of Snatch 1 - on the Snatch Tapes cassette label. Snatch Tapes was part of the cassette culture scene and also released tapes by David Jackman (later of Organum), and Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey as well as tracks by the Lemon Kittens, Alien Brains, Cultural Amnesia and the Beach Surgeons (led by a young Graham Massey, later of 808 State).

Storm Bugs went on to release three cassettes albums on Snatch Tapes: A Safe Substitute (1980), Storm Bugs (1980) and Gift (1981). In 1980 the band released their first vinyl record the Table Matters EP on Loop Records (UK) featuring Cash Wash and Eat Good Beans. In 1981 Storm Bugs released their second single an industrial rockabilly 7-inch called "Metamorphose", on the French L'invitation au Suicide label with this time Ball providing lead vocals. Further recordings were made in 1981/1982 but not released with the band effectively going into hibernation for 20 years. Sanderson and Ball however continued to collaborate on other projects including a short-lived pop experimental band called Swoon Baboon and in 1988 the film Green on the Horizon.

Storm Bugs were rediscovered in 2000 when they were included on the bootleg LP I Hate the Pop Group, on Vertical Slum Records. In an attempt to cash in a year later Snatch Tapes reactivated and released a compilation of some of the bands finer moments from the past, entitled Let's Go Outside And Get It Over, this was the start of a re-issue programme that saw much of Storm Bugs original material being rereleased on vinyl.

The following year, 2002 rare and previously unreleased recordings were collected by the Fusetron label, and released on an LP called Up The Middle Down The Sides. In the same year the band also released a 4-track EP of new material called The Bugs Are Back on the Austrian label Klanggalerie. In 2006 the German label Vinyl On Demand issued a Snatch Tapes compilation called Snatch Paste and this was followed in 2007 by a Storm Bugs LP entitled Supplementary benefit featuring the two 7 inch singles as well as tracks from the early cassette releases. 2008 saw Car Situations (Nasal Passage) included on the Messthetics Greatest Hiss compilation whilst in 2011 the A Safe Substitute cassette on Snatch Tapes was reissued on red vinyl by Harbinger records. In 2013 the track Cash Wash/Eat Good Beans was included on the 7th and final Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music compilation on Sub Rosa.

In 2013 Storm Bugs made their back catalogue available digitally on Bandcamp and released their first new material in ten years the digital single No Nothingness/Triangulation with an accompanying video.

Storm Bugs live appearances have been rare. An unadvertised performance was given at Maidstone Art college in 1979 and a further performance in the summer of 1980 in Brenchley Gardens Maidstone, Kent. On that occasion the band included David Jackman on esraj. In 2012 Storm Bugs performed live for the first time in 30 years at the Rammel Weekender in Nottingham alongside other acts such as the New Blockaders and Cheapmachines. Reviewing the Weekender in the Wire Magazine, Storm Bugs's contribution was judged by Derek Walmsley to be "everything that's right about the weekend"

Mark Flunder in conversation with David Eastaugh 

The McTells - Formed in 1985 in Hertford, UK. Initially a 4 piece comprising Paul Rixon on guitar and vocal, Bill on guitar, Stuart on bass, Mark Flunder from the Television Personalities on stand up drums. Bill later left to form The Big Paintings but the rest of the band continued as a three piece releasing records on Pauls own Bi-Joopiter label and on Frank, K, Little Teddy Recordings and Vinyl Japan.

Kavus Torabi in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://kavustorabi.bandcamp.com/album/the-banishing

https://www.planetgong.co.uk/

https://theutopiastrong.bandcamp.com/album/the-utopia-strong

Musician, composer, record label owner and radio broadcaster. A multi-instrumentalist, he is known for his work in the psychedelic, avant-garde rock field (primarily as a guitarist). Torabi was one of the founding members of the Monsoon Bassoon (as singer, guitarist and one of the two primary composers), was a member of the cult rock band Cardiacs, and fronts and plays guitar for the current lineup of legendary psychedelic band Gong.

Torabi also leads his own group Knifeworld and is a member of Guapo and the Utopia Strong.

Deb Googe in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://dagoogie.bandcamp.com/album/the-golden-thread

https://www.dagoogie.com/

English musician, who achieved international fame as the bassist for the band My Bloody Valentine. Their studio albums Isn't Anything (1988) and Loveless (1991) established Googe as a pioneering figure in the shoegaze genre. She has also worked with Snowpony, Primal Scream and Thurston Moore.

Nick Hobbs in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://soundcloud.com/nikolaigalen

https://www.youtube.com/user/nikolaigalen/featured

The Shrubs were an English rock music group, formed in 1985, releasing three albums before splitting up in 1989.

Shrubs contributed Bullfighters Bones to the NME's famous C86 album.

A further 12", Blackmailer followed towards the end of the year, with debut album Take Me Aside for a Midnight Harangue hitting the shops in July 1987. With the collapse of the Ron Johnson label and the indie distribution network The Cartel, several hundred copies of "Harangue" were incinerated, much to Hobbs' annoyance. Shrubs signed with the Hertfordshire-based Public Domain label for a studio/live 12", Another Age, and second and final album Vessels of the Heart, both in 1988, after which the band split.

Hobbs went on to form Mecca, who toured the former Soviet Union with Nitzer Ebb and others, and subsequently Infidel, along with current Pere Ubu guitarist Keith Moliné and Nico's former drummer Graham Dowdall (a.k.a. Dids), at the same time carrying on in artist management. He carries on making music solo and with different groups under the name of Nikolai Galen.

Mike Howlett in conversation with David Eastaugh

Howlett was the bassist in Sydney pop band the Affair, which included vocalist Kerrie Biddell. The group travelled to England after winning a prize in the Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds band competition. Howlett settled in London and in 1973 joined renowned British progressive rock group Gong, which had been founded by an Australian Daevid Allen. He remained with Gong until 1977, recording several albums with them and co-writing much of their material later in this period with drummer Pierre Moerlen.

After leaving Gong, Howlett formed the short-lived band Strontium 90, which consisted of himself, Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers.

Michael Kerr in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://preciousrecordingsoflondon.bandcamp.com/album/pre-052-the-motorcycle-boy-john-peel-session-140987

The band consisted of Alex Taylor (vocals, formerly of Shop Assistants), Paul McDermott (drums), Michael Kerr (guitar), and Eddy Connelly (bass) (all formerly of Meat Whiplash), and David "Scottie" Scott (guitar). They were signed by Rough Trade Records, who issued their debut single, "Big Rock Candy Mountain", which reached number 2 in the UK Independent Chart. The band were then signed by Chrysalis Records, with two singles, but failed to achieve great success despite considerable press attention. Their debut album Scarlet (which had additional drumming by Anthony Cooper and keyboards from former Jesse Garon and The Desperadoes guitarist Stuart Clarke) was never released. The band then split with Chrysalis, with two further singles released on the Nymphaea Pink Sensation label in 1990, before the band themselves split up

Zander Schloss in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.facebook.com/zander.schloss

http://www.circlejerks.net/Home/

https://www.blindowlsd.com/zander-schloss

American musician, actor and composer. He is known as bass player for the Circle Jerks, the Weirdos, his many collaborations with Joe Strummer musically and in film and for his contributions to independent feature films.

His first screen appearance was as "Kevin the Nerd" in Repo Man. He went on to appear in a number of Alex Cox films as well as to make significant musical contributions in other Cox features such as Sid and Nancy (1986), Straight to Hell (1987)