Conflict of interest alert indeed! today we celebrate the reissue of glo-worm’s 1995 singles collection glimmer, featuring the d.c. trio of (chickfactor co-founder) Pam Berry, Terry Banks and Dan Searing. Interview by Gail
“How many times have we folk of a certain age played a record from 30 years ago and found ourselves transported to our youthful days, brimming with daredevil promises and reckless projections? Me, I’m guessing it feels like what my drug-loving friends often describe. Trouble is, the music inevitably stops or the drugs wear off, and we’re flung back into our current bodies in the world as it exists now. This saddening scenario leaves me immeasurably grateful for Glo-Worm and that, even if you shamefully haven’t put on Glimmer in a while, its series of buoyant and winsome two-minute wisdoms have somehow kept pace alongside you this whole time. Somehow, and either by design or providence — doesn’t matter, really — these finely polished bijoux miraculously define and comfort who you are now as much as who you were then. And, irrespective of what your ID says in the birth-date field, or if you found this essential collection in its original 1995 form, its new 2025 incarnation, or however we’ll receive our music in 2055, don’t we all desire that our most beloved ones grow old with us?” —Gaylord Fields
“Black Tambourine had a song on the What Kind of Heaven Do You want? (Slumberland) 7″ 45rpm EP, “Pam’s Tan.” Though Pam Berry’s vocals are not featured prominently (or at all?), I was intrigued. Around this time Pam and I met in the DC area, possibly at a holiday party (see attached photog). I invited Black Tambourine to record a volume in the International Pop Underground series of 7″ releases on K. Pam’s response was “OK but first why don’t you release a rec by my OTHER band, Glo-Worm.” Huh. This Glo-Worm combo features stripped down instrumentation allowing more prominent positioning of the Pam Berry vocalisations. Yes, this could work. ‘Pam Berry vocalisations’ are quite unique, pleasing. If the original question is “What kind of heaven do you want?” the obvious answer is “One where the angels can sing like Pam Berry.” they’re still working on it. Meanwhile, we have an entire album of Pam Berry skillfully accompanied by Terry Banks (guitar) and Dan Searing (percussion), Glimmer [KLP054, which includes the songs on Glo-Worm‘s volume in the International Pop Underground series, Travelogue [IPU063], as well as all the other 7″ releases from Glo-Worm‘s brief time on the planet. Glimmer has steered us towards the ideal world, heaven on earth, of which we all aspire.” —Calvin Johnson, K Records
chickfactor: Tell us the band origin story. Terry Banks: We formed sometime in 1993, but it also could’ve been in ’92. I think I asked Pam if she wanted to write some songs/start a band and we soon drafted in Dan.
Dan Searing: I was really happy to be asked to join Pam and Terry in glo-worm. After my first band, Whorl broke up, I realized how much playing music with other people had become an important part of my life and how much I missed it. Playing in glo-worm led to playing in The Seashell Sea, The Castaway Stones, and The Saturday People for which I am so grateful – all the songs and memories.
How long was glo-worm active? Terry: We went from ‘92/’93-ish up until around the Fall of ’95 — about two and a half years, or maybe a little more than that. During that time, we had three 7” EPs, released by the Somersault, Slumberland and K labels, plus songs on a couple of compilations. Those recordings led up to the Glimmer record, which collected all that stuff.
Dan: Our last show was a 2002 reunion at the “new” 9:30 Club (we played the old one too, opening for Pizzicato Five) as part of Chickfactor’s tenth anniversary celebration on a bill with Future Bible Heroes, The Would-Be-Goods, and Pipas. If you had told me in 1989 that I would one day share a bill with a group was on el records I would have told you to fuck off.
glo-worm by Pat Graham
Please name all other bands you have been in.
It’s pretty labyrinth. In recent years, Pam has sung with Withered Hand and Pete Astor and before glo-worm she was in Black Tambourine. Following glo-worm she had a thing called The Shapiros (and also Belmondo, Bright Colored Lights, Seashell Sea, Castaway Stones, the Pines, and more – Ed.). Then Pam and Dan played together in the Castaway Stones, later followed by Terry and Dan playing together in The Saturday People and Dan in LU. Still later, Terry was in Julie Ocean and is currently in Dot Dash. Earlier, there was also Tree Fort Angst and St. Christopher for Terry and Whorl for Dan.
What was the D.C. pop scene like at that time?
Terry: I remember it being pretty good. A lot of it was centered around Vinyl Ink, the record store on Bonifant Street in Silver Spring run by the amiable George Gelestino and which stocked lots of the 7”s, cassettes and zines that comprised the nascent indiepop thing that was happening.
Dan: it felt like kind of a high point for our community and ethos. The Lotsa Pop Losers two-day festival organized by the Simple Machines, Slumberland, and Teenbeat labels was in October of 1991. Mike and Slumberland moved to California in 1992. But we got to play with a bunch of exciting bands from all over and contribute to keeping that spirit alive for a few more years.
glo-worm by Pat Graham
What was your songwriting process like then?
Terry: I wrote the music, Pam wrote the lyrics, and Dan did the percussion. I was way into Tracey Thorn’s guitar playing and the overall vibe from her Plain Sailing record, that rainy-day, melancholic, slightly jazzy thing she did.
Dan: This is not really relevant to the songwriting in glo-worm but I played a kick drum as a tom, a snare, and a cymbal in Whorl. I can’t remember whose idea it was for me to play only a snare with brushes in glo-worm. I’m sure I had heard that sound/style before I was struck by it on a Miles Davis record I checked out of the library while in high school, Workin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet, but that album sticks in my head. The first song, It Never Entered My Mind, is still one of my favorite recordings. I think Pam and Terry were a terrific songwriting duo. I don’t remember talking about it at the time with Terry but I was a big fan of that Tracey Thorn record, too.
What was it like being on K Records? Terry: It was great. People get tattoos of the K shield logo, that’s got to mean something. Also, I saw Beat Happening at DC Space and they were excellent, Calvin was walking around and going right up to people and singing at them, like Mr. Al Vega from Suicide. I dug it. So, anyway, I knew K from that, before glo-worm happened.
Dan:I saw Beat Happening play twice in DC after Mike from Slumberland turned me on to their first two singles when we were DJs at WMUC at University of MD, College Park and they were really inspiring. To be in a band releasing a single in the International Pop Underground series alongside the likes of bands like Heavenly who were part of the British scene that was also so inspirational to me was a real thrill. Having our three singles compiled on a CD not long after was also really exciting, the first full-length release I had been a part of. I never interacted with Calvin at that time and he remained kind of mysterious to me so I got a kick out of speaking with him on the phone as part of organizing this reissue. I like imagining time is folding and it’s him on the other end of the line in the original glo-worm promo photo where I am holding the phone.
Did glo-worm tour? Terry: Unfortunately, no. We played in New York a few times, and Baltimore; everything else was in D.C. All in all, I think we played about 15 or 16 gigs (i.e., a gig every few months), including ones with the Magnetic Fields, Small Factory, Heavenly, Honeybunch, Would-Be-Goods, Pizzicato Five, Tsunami, Boyracer, Air Miami, the Legendary Jim Ruiz Group, The Ropers, Romania, and Ivy. The closest we got to bigtime rock was opening for Radiohead at the now-razed Washington Convention Center.
Dan: I always envied my friends in bands who went on proper tours (even though I know it can be a slog) but we never got the chance. We played in DC, MD, VA and NY though, and shared the bill with some amazing bands we admired. And we did play in two shows on the Chickfactor tour in the summer of 1995. I have particularly fond memories of the gig in Baltimore at the 14K Cabaret with the Magnetic Fields and Nord Express. Another Chickfactor bill we were on was for the release of issue #6 in New York. Pam also played in Belmondo that night, Terry played a solo set, and it was Ivy’s first show.
glo-worm by Brian Nelson
What do you remember about recording the songs on Glimmer? Terry: The first batch of songs, ‘Holiday,’ ‘Downtown,’ ‘Tilt-a-Whirl,’ ‘Stars Above’ and ‘Crazy Town’ were recorded by Charles Bennington and Geoff Turner at WGNS. ‘I Will Remember You’ comes from a four-track recording done in Pam’s group-house basement during the short-lived (pre-Dan) duo era.
The rest of the songs – ‘Travelogue’, ‘Useless’, ‘Change of Heart’, ‘One Million Rainy Days’, ‘Wishing Well’, ‘April Street’, ‘Beyond the Sea’ and ‘Friday I’m In Love’ — were recorded by Archie Moore in the basement of the group house where he lived. Near the end of the band’s run, we became a quartet with Tina Plottel on violin. You can hear her violin-ing on ‘Useless.’
Dan: I was pretty new to the band when we recorded the first single and I was nervous in the studio. Playing a snare drum with brushes was a new style for me and I looked up to Geoff Turner and Charles Bennington, whose WGNS studio we recorded in, as established musicians in the DC scene. Not that they were intimidating in any way, just the opposite, and I had recorded with Wharton Tiers and Barrett Jones with Whorl, but recording is always intense. When we recorded the second two singles I was more comfortable playing in the group and Archie and I had been close friends for some time so it was easier to enjoy it. I don’t want to sound corny but I liked what Terry and Pam were doing a lot and I was eager to make the right contribution.
How did this reissue come about? Terry: Calvin was up for reissuing the record. (Thank you, Calvin!) Kristin did an entirely new sleeve, which completely makes the record, I love it. (Thank you, Kristin!)
Dan: As someone who has loved listening to, collecting, and making records for so many years, it’s still a thrill to be a part of a new one and it sounds great.
Where do you live now?
Pam has lived in London since 1998. Dan and Terry are still in DC. Everybody has kids. Cats and dogs are also in the mix.
Can you cook? What’s your specialty? What’s in the fridge? Terry: I sometimes cook but I think a lot of people would find my approach to food preparation eccentric. I don’t see why you can’t mix everything together. I’ve been putting avocado on a lot of stuff, so those are in the fridge otherwise they ripen too quickly.
Dan: When I joined glo-worm my kitchen skills were rudimentary at best. I’m happy to say I can now hold my own in the kitchen though I struggle to make everything ready at the same time (I save my timing for the drums). I had just figured out how to make BBQ on my Weber Kettle when my wife and daughter became pescetarian but I managed to make all of us dinner tonight on the grill. Like Terry, I’m having an avocado moment but I like to leave them on the counter (in a lovely bowl that Pam gave me many years ago – is that weird to mention?). My fave late night snack right now is avocado gently smushed on Wasa Multigrain Crispbread, sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning, and drizzled with Graza Spanish Olive Oil.
What are you watching, reading, listening to? Terry: Watching: Rockford Files reruns.
Reading: The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War by Peter Carroll Down at Max’s by Peter Crowley
Listening:
Lou Reed, Why Don’t You Smile Now? Lou Reed at Pickwick Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited Trash Can Sinatras, advance of possible future record
The Limps, Is it Possible? Bad Moves, all three albums
Dan: Watching: I didn’t see it until 2024 (it came out in 2023) but I tell anyone who will listen to watch We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember: The Embarrassment. If you like indie/DIY music I guarantee you will be inspired.
Anything with Jon Bernthal (such as We Run This City, the Bear, or The Accountant 2) or Jeffrey Wright (most recently The Agency) – both DC natives!
Reading: Recently finished: Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain by Jim and William Reid. It tells the story of the band through interwoven interviews with the brothers that are funny, frustrating, and touching.
About to start Laidlaw by William McIlvanney – I’m late to ‘the father of Tartan Noir.”
Listening:
Lightheaded – Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! The Cords – Fabulist Soul Clap, Byron the Aquarius – Tachyon Funk Nick Drake – The Making of Five Leaves Left Jake Xerxes Fussell – When I’m Called Sharp Pins – Radio DDR (looking forward to going with Terry to see them play at Comet Ping Pong in DC in September)
Big Flame – Peel Sessions 84- 86 Pigeon Pit – Crazy Arms
glo-worm by Pat Graham
Records Terry cannot live without The Undertones, Positive Touch The Velvet Underground, Live at Max’s Kansas City The Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man The Clash, London Calling Orange Juice, You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever R.E.M., Reckoning The Go-Betweens, Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express The 13th Floor Elevators, s/t Aztec Camera, High Land, Hard Rain The Bongos, Drums Along the Hudson
Records Dan cannot live without The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico The Modern Lovers – The Modern Lovers Pretenders – Pretenders Echo & The Bunnymen – one of the first four, please don’t make me choose
Rainy Day – Rainy Day C86 Felt – Poem of the River Stereolab – Switched On Chet Baker – Sings and Plays With Bud Shank, Russ Freeman and Strings Reinbert de Leeuw – Satie: Gnossiennes; Gymnopedies; Ogives; etc.
Sometimes I Want to Return: Sensitive Live (Watch now!)
On the evening of February 12, 2025, in a tiny venue deep in the heart of London’s West End, a very special group of people met to celebrate the launch of the album Sensitive – An Indie Pop Anthology. Available today is sometimes i want to return ~ sensitive live, directed by Tim Sidwell, a filmed version of the record release party where a band called the Sensitivities backed up various singers in celebration of the compilation on Needle Mythology. Watch the trailer here.
In the mid-1980s, a new wave of independent music emerged in the UK. Supported by fanzines and DJs such as John Peel and Janice Long, the musicians emerging from this scene were defiantly DIY in their outlook.
Record labels such as Creation, 53rd & 3rd, The Subway Organisation, and Sarah became synonymous with this emerging scene.
Fusing the vernacular of 60s girl groups, psych-pop and the poetic daredevilry of post-punk trailblazers like The Smiths, Altered Images and Orange Juice, these groups helped define the indie zeitgeist.
Forty years later, in central London, a very special concert took place to mark the release of ‘sensitive’ – an anthology celebrating this scene.
Playing with a very special “house band”, singers from these groups travelled from all over the UK to take part.
What ensued was an unforgettable evening. A emotional one-off celebration, featuring classic songs from the era, which can be heard in their original form on the ‘sensitive’ album.
‘sometimes i want to return’ is the film of that evening. (From the film website)
(Editor’s note: Many of us couldn’t be there so thank you Pete Paphides for making it possible to us to watch this now! This music is basically exactly what made Pam Berry and I start this fanzine. Watching the film is both joyous and life-affirming but also a welcome distraction from the pain of living in the U S A in this moment.)
Pete Paphides and Amelia Fletcher. Photo: Ken Copsey
The film features the following artists:
James Knox from The Waltones
Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey from Talulah Gosh
James Roberts from The Sea Urchins
Sean Dickson from The Soup Dragons
Phil Wilson and Frank Sweeney from The June Brides
Beth Arzy (Jetstream Pony) who sang “Somewhere In China” by Shop Assistants
Pete Astor and Andy Strickland from The Loft and The Weather Prophets
Clare Grogan from Altered Images
Convening for one night only were “house” band The Sensitivities:
Amelia Fletcher (vocals, gutar)
Rob Pursey (bass guitar)
Bob Collins (lead guitar)
Ian Button (drums, backing vocals)
Clare Grogan singing the Primitives’ Crash. Photo: Ken Copsey
Ian Button: There was the bit where Sean D was handing over to Clare G at the practice. I think they knew each other but not sure?
We’d just played “Hang Ten” with Sean but we’d done it really fast, and as he was leaving he told Clare, “Watch out for these guys, they’re punk rockers!”
I didn’t pluck up the nerve to ask Clare if it had been her in a beret across the room from me at a dark and quite empty Theatre of Hate gig in 1980/81. I wouldn’t wear my glasses back then, and I’ve often told people it was her. I don’t know if I want that memory confirmed or shattered!
Rob Pursey:One of my favourite memories of the rehearsals was Pete (Paphides) sitting cross-legged on the floor, listening intently as we worked through the songs. He seemed very happy, and serious at the same time, and I suddenly had a very clear idea of what he’d have been like as a teenager. I got glimpses of teenage versions of loads of people that day. Everyone still seemed able to tap into the idealism and the sheer excitement of the music that defined their youth. I think that’s what made the occasion so wonderful.
The gig was a blur, and we had to concentrate really hard on all these songs we’d only just learnt. But when James started singing ‘Pristine Christine’ a shiver went down my spine and I remember thinking ‘try to remember this moment’.
Andy Strickland and “silver fox of indiepop” Pete Astor from The Loft and The Weather Prophets. Photo: Ken Copsey
Amelia Fletcher: My main memory is trying to carry on doing backing vocals and playing guitar correctly while my childhood hero, Clare Grogan, leant against me and shared my mic, in a rock n roll manner.
I was shocked at how everyone on the stage, and in the audience, looked exactly the same as they did in 1987. The lighting may have been favourable.
The house band in their natural habitat: rehearsal space
Bob Collins: For me, some highlights
1. Also on Clare G entering the room and going from extremely nervous to her immediately putting us at our ease, laughing and joking and not being precious about anything. In particular a great snapshot memory for me is Clare and Amelia doing a quiet practice of the Crash harmonies while i accompanied on guitar. That was a real ‘pinch yourself’ moment.
2. Sean also being super friendly and giving us the long version of the story he tells on the film (it was worth it!)
3. James from the Sea Urchins appearing hugely nervous at first in rehearsal (hope he won’t mind me saying that) but then carrying it off just perfectly. His singing (as evidenced on the film) is fantastic. And the gasp from the room as he took the stage from people who knew who he was, the second gasp from the people that didn’t when he introduced himself, and the third gasp when we actually started the song! This was a song I didn’t really know before we started rehearsing but it became possibly my favourite one of all and, by the time we’d performed, it felt for me like the all time classic that other people already knew it was!
Courtesy of Bob Collins
I’ve attached two images – one is obviously the notes for the chords and structure of “Pristine Christine,” and the other is my annotated list of songs. I thought this would give a tantalising glimpse into a couple of songs we didn’t perform (and one one we did but isn’t on the film), but I also thought it might work as a fun competition for chickfactor readers to see who can work out what the annotations next to each song mean (not entirely sure I can remember myself!)
Pete Paphides, Needle Mythology: Rob Pursey was kind of joking when he said that this is the indiepop Last Waltz. In fact, I know he was joking a bit. But I don’t think that’s too far off the mark really because it really dawned on us in the rehearsal room as we saw all the singers coming and going one by one to do their vocals for the only time prior to the concert which was happening that evening that this had turned into something really unique and special and possibly unrepeatable and certainly on the evening that absolute magic, that absolute fizz in the air that you really were watching something you were going to remember for the rest of your life. I’m so glad that for once in my life I had the foresight to ask a camera crew to come along and film it—and a really good one by the way—and there’s an absolute magic in the air.
Pete Paphides. Photo: Ken Copsey
Everything was a highlight really. It was wonderful to see James Knox give such a charismatic performance of “She Looked Right Through Me.” Beth Arzy really did justice and more to “Somewhere in China” – I think she really got the fragile beauty of that song. The house band were just amazing, they were at it for more than an hour, just incredible, turning their hands to the peculiarities and brilliant detail in every single song. James Roberts from the Sea Urchins just comes strolling into that room like it was only the day before since we’s last seen him and not 30 years ago His voice sounded so beautiful on ”Pristine Christine.” Phil Wilson unleashing his inner rock and roll star, a complete change of personality in stepping on to that stage, it was incredible. Pete Astor, the silver fox of indie pop now, just really imperiously locking into the brilliance of those songs and Andy next to him. Sean Dickson who relived the riotous, carefree energy of Hang Ten, so charismatic. And then of course Clare Grogan, the pure starburst of brilliance and charisma and loveliness, she just charmed everyone around her as you can see in the film. And then that emotional climax, Amelia stepping forward to do “Sensitive,” really doing the song justice, just fantastic, and of course the version of “Talulah Gosh” was just as moving for all of us who were there.
Earlier this autumn, the Bay Area pop group Chime School flew over the ocean for a tour of the United Kingdom and France and they documented it all for chickfactor and you can read it here.
Bandleader Andy Pastalaniec writes: From the moment “Chime School” transformed from a bedroom-pop solo project to a debut LP on Slumberland Records with a fully formed backing band, it’s been a goal of mine to take the project across the pond to the land where so much of its “formative jangle” originated.
The opportunity arrives on New Year’s Day, 2024, when we’re invited to play the Paris Popfest in September. My sophomore album, “The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel” is slated for release in August on Slumberland. Paris Popfest is exactly the anchor we need to build a tour around.
I’ve always done pretty good booking DIY tours, but I have no idea how to book a tour in the UK. Luckily, I don’t have to, as I’ve convinced Reuben Miles-Tyghe, of UK tour agency Outsider Artists, to add us to his roster. OA have been leading a sort of reverse “British Invasion” of California indie groups to the UK and Europe, booking tours for many of the contemporary indie cognoscenti: Cindy, The Umbrellas, The Reds, Pinks & Purples, Kelley Stoltz, and others. I am a bit nervous that we are not as big as those groups (our second album hasn’t even been announced yet) so this whole thing could flop in a most-embarrassing fashion. But I resolve to do what I can to make it a success.
So, over the next 9 months I’ll spend many hours making videos, posters, flyers and other promo materials for the upcoming album, and what has become an 11-show France/UK tour, beginning September 27 in Paris, and concluding October 7 in the legendary indie pop city of Bristol!
France & UK Tour Poster
Travel Day: September 25-26 – San Francisco to London to Paris
Andy: We have about 20 hours of travel ahead of us, flying first to London, then lugging our bags and instruments from Heathrow on the tube to St Pancras station where we’ll take the Eurostar to Paris. Josh: Our travel day starts off with an important victory: we’re able to convince the people at Virgin Atlantic to let us carry on our guitars, so they can be stored in the cabin for our flight instead of having to be checked (and maybe lost). So this puts us at ease for the journey right away. Andy: Pro-tip, if you’re touring overseas, avoid connecting flights and take your instruments straight to the gate. Play dumb, and be very very polite.
Leaving SFO! Photo by Holly Coley
Andy: We arrive in Paris on September 26 in the evening, exhausted, to a Haussman-era flat overlooking Porte Saint-Denis where Emmanuel and Joanny, our gracious hosts from Paris Popfest, have arranged for us to stay. It’s under construction (which is why it’s available) but it’s unlike anyplace we’ve stayed in Paris, so we’re totally energized as we head to night one of the Popfest.
DIY popfests are one of my favorite events to play and attend. Night one doesn’t disappoint, we’d been looking forward to catching Blue Orchids, and they are great. We are tired but the best way to beat jet lag is to stay out as late as possible, and then sleep as long as possible. We succeed on both.
Paris Balcony
Porte Saint Denis – the view from our balcony
Day 1: Paris Pop Fest w/ Gentle Spring, Les Freluquets, The Orchids
Andy: We have only one full day in Paris (and we sleep through most of it), but three of us have been before. We spend our limited time wandering around some cafes, eating as many pastries, bread, meats and cheeses as we can before it’s time to head to sound check. The fest is at Le Hasard Ludique, a venue built on a decommissioned Metro station with an outdoor terrace on the former train platform, overlooking the former Metro tracks, which have been transformed into a makeshift park. Josh: After our soundcheck, the fest’s official photographer asks us to take some photos outside. It’s the platonic ideal of band photo backdrops (the ne plus ultra, even). You literally could not take a bad looking picture back there. So much so that after the photographer is done, we start taking some of our own, which gets him started again.
Official Paris Popfest portrait by Philippe Dufour
Andy: It’s definitely surreal to be on a bill with indie pop legends the Orchids, and The Gentle Spring, they are both great. The Orchids are incredibly friendly and we really hit it off. Les Freluquets are a more obscure French indie pop group from the 1980s who have reunited for the fest, and they are fantastic as well. Josh: Everyone is great, especially The Orchids. James Hackett’s voice sounds pretty much identical to the records, and the band sounds fantastic. One of the guitars has a “Within Your Reach” level of flange on it for the entire set, which is really working for me. Late in the set they go into “It’s Only Obvious” and the crowd goes as nuts as an indie pop crowd can go, singing along. Andy: Chatting with organizers Emmanuel and Joanny before our set, they ask if we speak any French. We do not. They kind of goad me into giving an introduction in French when we take the stage. Why not? I write out something very simple on a handbill. At least the most stressful part of the tour will be over fast. I approach the mic, “Bonsoir, nous somme Chime School de San Francisco…” applause and cheers of “ouais!” erupt from the crowd as I continue my little speech, and we are off!
My “speech”
Andy: Our set is supercharged by the excitement of finally starting the tour, and the experience of being an “exotic” group to a foreign audience– something our friends in other California bands had told us about. We make a bunch of new friends, sell all the merch we’ve brought (the rest is waiting for us in the UK) and think, if the rest of the shows are even half as fun as this, we are going to have a great tour.
Live at Paris Popfest – they love the dramatic lighting!
Day 2 – Cambridge, UK at NCI Centre w/ The Lord Mayor’s Horticultural Society, Garden Centre
Andy: We wake up somewhat early in Paris as we have another long travel day back to the UK on the Eurostar, then on the train from London to Cambridge. Josh: Gary, Phil and I are waiting downstairs while Andy goes back up for a final idiot check. It’s starting to rain, Phil goes out a bit into the thoroughfare to smoke. With his all black outfit, watchman’s cap and cigarette, Phil seems to fit right into this Parisian street scene. Just as Gary remarks on this, we watch as someone passing by tries to ask Phil for directions. Andy: Phil definitely looks natural, which makes sense as this is his third or fourth Euro tour. The first he did in his early 20s, in a hardcore band that toured Europe for like a month straight staying in squats and the like. In short he’s a total pro and pretty much goes with the flow the entire time. Josh: As we finally get on the train to Cambridge I start to relax a bit. I look out the window and watch England going by, looking quite a bit just like it does in movies and teevee. The band is in a state of semi-delirious giddiness. I think we’ve skipped right to being on “tour-time,” where you can’t really tell what time of day or even what day it is, you just keep moving. We arrive in Cambridge and start looking around for the tour van. We catch sight of a tall and burly dude with a wiry mane of sandy blond hair, wearing a sleeveless cutoff denim jacket over a flannel shirt. That’s our guy, Charlie Fitzgerald, aka “Fitz.” He’s recently driven our friends The Reds, Pinks & Purples, and Kelley Stoltz on their UK tours, and we’ve heard nothing but good things. Fitz leads us to his van, a large Euro-style conversion. In the back there’s four seats arranged around a wooden table, behind which is a loft with a mattress. Below the loft, a secure gear-hold. This will be our second home for the next 10 days.
With Fitz and his vanJosh and Gary – Sleeping loft!Our home for ten days!
Andy: The first UK show is at NCI Centre in Cambridge, a historic neighborhood social club/pub that is occasionally transformed into a DIY music space. Setting up on the stage in the back of the well-lit social hall, I’m reminded of famous photos I’ve seen of Shop Assistants, and other legendary indie groups who played similar places in the 1980s. We’re set to play two shows with Garden Centre, one of the many groups with shared members from the prolific London-based “Gob Nation” scene (The Tubs, Ex-Void, Suep, others). I read a profile about them in the Guardian that made me feel a bit intimidated, like they might beat us up and steal our lunch money. Then a small car pulls up to the venue and the band tumble out and introduce themselves. They’re all very nice and honestly, hanging with them we feel totally at home like any DIY show we’d play in SF or Oakland. Josh: You may have never guessed they all knew each other, it’s only when you notice their interactions have the quality of an endless comedy sketch built on a deep foundation of inside jokes and running bits that this was, in fact, a band. I had done no research whatsoever into any of the bands we’d be playing with, preferring to experience them fresh at the shows. Andy had told me some things about Garden Centre – Owen from The Tubs plays guitar; they’re affiliated with a scene called “Gob Nation,” which sounds not unlike our corner of the current SF music scene, which Gary describes as “13 people playing in 35 bands.” Being in around five bands myself, I’m in no position to argue. Andy: Opening the show are The Lord Mayor’s Horticultural Society, a gentle acoustic duo composed of a classical guitarist/vocalist and cello player. Their set is beautiful and I can imagine our friends back home loving it. I’m not sure what to expect from Garden Centre live. Their records are abstract and eccentric, mostly featuring Max, the lead songwriter. They set up and start playing and the live group is a fully formed powerhouse. Seriously one of the best groups any of us had seen in years! Josh: Their mix of folkish melodies and anthemic indie pop knocked me out right away. Max has a unique voice and uses it to great effect – with great pitch and a convincingly forceful delivery. Great songwriter too, with the kind of lyrics that seamlessly transmute everyday humdrum into high drama. The band is fantastic – a perfect combination of disparate musical personalities and charming stage presence. The between-song banter is a continuation of their off-stage humor. Midway through the set Max starts a bit about how he’s against Horticultural Societies, and he particularly doesn’t like the Lord-Mayor either. Then someone from the audience shouts, “I’ll kill you!” Hecklers don’t fuck around in Cambridge! When we hit the stage and Andy gives his standard introduction: “Hi, we’re Chime School from San Francisco” I have to add “Please don’t kill us.” Andy: We apologize for being the only non-plant band on the bill.
Garden Centre at The Victoria in London
Day 3 – London, UK at The Victoria w/ Dignan Porch, Garden Centre
Andy: In the van, Gary starts talking about how we need to get a “Sunday Roast,” this English tradition where you go to the pub on Sunday and get a huge plate of meat, potatoes, gravy, etc. It’s a Sunday as we arrive in London and we have a bit of time, let’s give it a shot. We spend about an hour wandering around Dalston, trying to find one, but we fail, every pub is sold out! I guess it’s really a thing? Instead we head to The Duke of Wellington, a “classic old boozer” where Garden Centre have invited us to have a few pints and watch some footie. Our drummer Phil, is a huge football fan (we refer to him as our “English translator” on tour) so we certainly don’t have to twist his arm. The show is at The Victoria, a cozy bar with a dark, dank venue hidden behind a secret-passage bookshelf door. Josh: It’s adorable. Layout, and size-wise it’s comparable to the legendary SF venue The Hemlock Tavern. I amuse myself for the rest of the evening by privately referring to it as the “Harry Potter Hemlock.” Andy: Opening are Dignan Porch, who are on the Safe Suburban Home label, which we are fans of. They are friendly and their performance mesmerizing. Garden Centre totally rule again, and we are sad that we won’t be playing with them more on the tour. Josh: Garden Centre play basically the same set as the night before, so I’m prepared and perfectly situated to take a video of my favorite song from their set, “Chicken.” I’m fairly certain it was this video – which I posted later in the night – that led directly to a purchase of a Garden Centre album by Kevin Linn aka “Kevin Paisley” of Paisley Shirt Records, back home. Andy: That’s right! Garden Center are totally up Kevin’s alley!
Live at The Victoria in London
Andy: At the show I finally meet Fran Carolyn, music writer and radio show host, a huge supporter of the SF Bay Area groups for the last few years.
Fran and Andy in London
Andy: Also in attendance is Peter Momtchiloff of Heavenly/Talulah Gosh, etc. which makes me really nervous as we play, since his playing was so influential when I was learning to write songs on the guitar. He’s a really nice guy and he digs our set so we’re feeling chuffed. We also meet Beth Arzy who says she loves the painting of the tabby cat on the cover of the new Chime School album. She asks if it’s a portrait of my cat. I tell her it’s not, but that I do have a tabby cat that my partner named Aberdeen!
Day 4 – Nottingham at JT Soar w/ Plum Jr., AHCB
Andy: It’s cold and rainy when we pull into Nottingham. First stop is “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem,” recommended by Garden Centre as it’s “thee oldest inn in England.” We spend a couple hours there, eat some steak & ale pies and have a few pints. Josh: It’s entirely possible the place is a tourist trap but it’s still pretty damn cool. Built into the side of a rock hillside, the walls in some of the rooms are actually walls of caves within the larger rock. As it rained on into the afternoon some of these walls started sweating and dripping with authentic English damp. Andy: mmm… authentic damp.
Outside the oldest pub in EnglandJosh, Gary and Phil paying homage to everyone’s favorite proto-marxist redistributor of feudal wealth, Robin Hood.
Andy: We split the pub and head to JT Soar, a DIY space that kind of feels like our practice space back home. They throw tons of shows and we see flyers for some friends’ bands on the wall. The rain is pouring, but it doesn’t stop folks from coming out, and it’s a very welcoming crowd. Josh: The space is full when we go on. “We went to the oldest pub in England today” Andy says during a mid-set tuning break. “Which one?” a few people in the crowd shout out. “The one named after a Mekons song,” I add.
Live in Nottingham at JT Soar
Day 5 – York at The Fulford Arms w/ Vehicle, Speedreaders
Andy: We are excited to play York, as it’s home to Safe Suburban Home, a great record label. With our spare time before the show, we head into town and check out The Shambles, a street in the city center that dates back to the medieval period. Someone suggests we try something called a “Yorkie Pud” which is apparently a yorkshire pudding in wrap form. We find the place that sells them, and eventually realize the recommendation may have been sarcastic… but it gives us some fun between-song banter during the show. “Eews” abound as we share what we ate. The show is a great time and Vehicle and Speedreaders are both excellent. Josh: Between sets I meet Jim Quinn, who aside from helping to promote the show was also the proprietor of Safe Suburban Home records, who co-released the recent R.E. Seraphin record that I played on. Nice guy! We talk a bit and I get a pic with him to send to Ray and the boys back home. Andy: Perhaps my favorite part of the show is this teenage kid who dances like crazy during our set. After the show he chats me up at the merch table about how he’s getting into indie pop. He’s got no money to buy merch so I just give him a copy of everything we have.
The Shambles in YorkTrembling Madness Apartments
Day 6 – Manchester at Gulliver’s w/ Autocamper, Severe Girls
Andy: Manchester is one of the shows we’re most looking forward to. We’re playing with Autocamper, one of the more exciting new indie pop groups in the UK (and new SLR labelmates!). I met Jack and Arthur two years ago when seablite and the Umbrellas played Manchester. As we catch up I learn Jack and Arthur met that night as well, and that was the night they started Autocamper!
Autocamper at Gullivers in Manchester
Andy: Autocamper do not disappoint! Jack’s guitar is trebly and noisy, a great counterpart to Niamh’s gentler organ. The show is great and afterwards, they take us to Peer Hat, a low-key bar near the venue that for some reason feels like the English version of the late Cafe Pergolesi in Santa Cruz. Josh: The show is great – in my opinion the best crowd of the tour. It’s also the loudest show of the trip – I like the sound guy a lot but by the end of the night he seems almost comically gacked. Autocamper are great though – cool kids through and through, and fun to hang with. There was a cool couple who stayed upfront and danced like mad throughout the entire show – I can’t tell you how much this helps when you’re well into a tour and your energy is always in danger of flagging.
Chime School at Gullivers in Manchester
Andy: No tour of the UK is complete without a stop at Bernie’s, a Manchester institution. Part of the music scene for decades, she started hosting bands in the basement of her house about 20 years ago. Gary has stayed there a number of times over the years, and I’ve stayed there once before as well. We are lucky, as Outsider Artists have arranged our tour in such a way that we’ll be staying at Bernie’s on three separate occasions, which probably accounts for the excellent health we remain in for most of the tour. Bernie is very politically active, and it’s comforting to get the hell out of the U.S. and talk with some fellow leftists. We have some great chats and even watch a bit of footie one morning.
Hanging your poster on the wall in Bernie’s basement is a rite of passage.Chime School with BernieHad to do it…
Josh: We didn’t make it to Syd Barret’s house in Cambridge, and we couldn’t stop by Mark E. Smith’s house in Prestwich (it’s for sale if anyone’s interested), but we did make it to Salford Lads Club and took the obligatory band picture outside the front door. Gary’s been here and done this before, sharing that they never let people inside and generally seemed suspicious of any interest people had in the place. But it’s been a while since his last visit and things have changed. As we’re milling about, a nice older man pops his head out the door, sweeps us up and takes us to see “The Smiths Room” inside the building. Clearly a pet project of his, it’s covered from floor to ceiling in Smiths and other UK punk and indie memorabilia– and lots of pictures that tourists had taken of themselves out front. Andy: Morrissey is a reprehensible nativist shitheel, but it’s cool the Salford Lads Club is able to sell memorabilia and leverage their Smiths association to fund childrens’ programs. There’s probably a bunch of working class immigrant kids who benefit from them, and I bet that makes Morrissey really mad! So that’s worthy of my support.
Day 7 – Glasgow at Mono w/ The Cords, U.S. Highball
Andy: The typical motorway stop in the UK is ten times better than most of what you’ll find in the US, with actual nutritious food options that are so incredibly crucial when you’re staying up late, getting very little sleep, and drinking more alcohol than you probably should. On the drive from Manchester to Glasgow, Gary insists we stop at Tebay, which he says is one of thee top roadside stops in the country. He’s not joking, the place is full of snacks, beers, and all kinds of fun tchotchkies. None of us are vegetarian or vegan, but throughout the trip we’re kind of obsessed with finding the craziest— err, most “authentic” local fare. Tebay has a massive assortment of Scotch Eggs, a hard-boiled egg deep fried in a sausage and breadcrumb casing. In California parlance, gnarly cuisine. We get a few of them for the van, and some meat pies. I’m glad we have plenty of spicy mustard to go along with them.
Sunny day in Northern England.Making our selections
Andy: We arrive at Mono in Glasgow, load in, and hit up Monorail. Glasgow has always been such a welcoming place every time I’ve visited, Mono especially. We’re all very grateful for the work Monorail puts in to help promote DIY music and culture. It’s nice to catch up with Stephen and Dep at the counter. The show that night is terrific, one of the best of the tour. I’m nervous because there’s some indie pop icons at that show as well. After our set, friend Kenji introduces us to Katrina Mitchell, and I meet Tim Vass from the Razorcuts, who were supremely influential for Chime School.
Live at Mono in Glasgow – photo by Stuart Reidman
Andy: We’ve been hearing so much about The Cords, and they are indeed great fun. I realize I have a Kitchenettes badge on my tote bag from the last time I saw them in SF. Knowing what fans The Cords are of Morgan (Kitchenettes, Umbrellas), I offer it to them and they are stoked!
Andy & The Cords
Andy: It’s also fantastic meeting James and Calvin from U.S. Highball. They play a beautiful set and I really hope we can see them again someday. James is wearing a jumbo Tiger Trap badge, and I ask him about it, he says he just made it up on a button machine he bought, and offers it to me. Pin badge gifts all around! Josh: Like Manchester, Glasgow looms large in the music nerd imagination. So it was extremely gratifying to have such great shows in both places.
U.S. Highball Live at MonoImpromptu selfie with Tim Vass (Razorcuts) and Vanessa Vass (The Melons).
Day 8 – Halifax at The Grayston Unity
Andy: Halifax is the last of the smaller towns we’re playing on this tour. It’s nestled in a valley, along a river, cold and green, with a bit of a Pacific Northwest feel to it. Marc Dobson, who runs Prefect Records (and was also in the Field Mice and Northern Picture Library) says he’ll be coming out for the show. He doesn’t live in Halifax. I thought we might see him in Manchester, but he says “I’m saving my support for when you really need it.” We might need it tonight. The Grayston Unity is a small venue located in a dank basement beneath a bar. We have no idea what to expect, maybe this will be one of those shows that’s more like band practice? Josh: The owner of the bar and venue is super friendly and seems genuinely excited to be hosting bands – which is not as common as you’d hope. He’s been holding it down in Halifax for years, his claim to fame having brought Pulp there in the 90s, with several posters to prove it! Andy: We wander a bit before the show, eat some pizza with Marc and his daughter and head back to the venue to find the opener is already playing, and the show is packed! Where did all the indie pop fans in Halifax come from? It’s about time for our set to start. I walk backstage to find Gary and Phil sipping from a giant bottle of Buckfast ….uh oh! Everyone in Glasgow warned us not to drink Buckfast, a fortified wine supercharged with caffeine, so obviously Phil bought a huge bottle. We all take a big swig before we hit the stage. After a song or two, I start feeling super loose and chilled out, yet totally energized! This stuff is great! It becomes a bit of a pre-show ritual for the remainder of the tour. Everything in moderation, I guess. Halifax is a great town, and a sleeper candidate for funnest show of the tour.
Phil with the Bucky.Andy outside the Piece Hall in Halifax
Day 9 – Liverpool at The District w/ Yee Loi, Irene & The Disappointments
Andy: Our time in Liverpool is somewhat limited, but number one on Phil’s list is finding somewhere to watch the Everton F.C. match. Phil is a huge Everton fan. I don’t know anything about football, but everyone we meet seems bewildered that an American has even heard of Everton, let alone is a supporter. We had hopes of catching the match in person, but time won’t allow it. The venue is located near the Mersey river in a former industrial area. There’s a kind of outdoor market, beer garden sort of place nearby, where we can take some goofy pictures at a Beatle-bar, and find a place to watch the match and eat.
Peace and Love, No Autographs…
Andy: The District is one of the larger venues we’re playing on the tour, and the sound is really good. I think it’s one of our best sets of the tour. It’s good to catch up with Ade Burke who runs Carnival Brewing, a local brewery who have been making signature brews for Glas Goes Pop fest for the last few years, and also booked a seablite/Umbrellas show at the brewery back in 2022.
Andy and Ade from Carnival Brewing, after the show, in the club lighting.
Andy: We also meet Ann Nazario, who does a podcast called “Ask a Drummer” (which is great, as drummers tend to be so underappreciated). She says she recently interviewed Keith from The Umbrellas and asks if I could introduce her to Phil. When I tell her there happen to be three drummers in Chime School, she lights up and we hatch a plan to do an interview with all three, so look out for that in the future.
Day 10 – Coventry at Just Dropped in Records w/ Lande Hekt
Andy: We’re thrilled to cap off the tour playing two shows with Lande Hekt and her band, and that the first show happens to be at a record shop. For the most part, we’ve been moderating our record buying for fear of spending too much money and having to lug a bunch of records around, with the exception of Josh, who we regularly lose for hours at a time to whatever record shops might be in walking distance. Josh: It’s certainly true, but I’m pretty certain I spend less money than the rest of the group, since I mainly live in the bargain bins these days – after all what’s the fun of paying today’s prices for a record you already know is going to be good, when you can buy a small stack of weird looking records you’ve never seen before for the same price? Andy: Fair point, but now that we’re close to the end, we all indulge. The folks at the shop warn us that The Umbrellas recently tore through and cleaned them out, so of course now I’m feeling competitive! We look through just about everything and find lots of really great records. I snag a bunch of Sarah, Creation, and Factory stuff, and lots more. They give us a nice “artist discount” as well, so we’re all very happy. Lande’s band is even better live than on record and they’re all lovely people, we have a great chat about the Bristol and UK DIY scene and comparisons with the US.
Lande Hekt having a laugh during soundcheck.
Andy: Our set is super fun and there’s a great crowd. I really can’t say enough about Just Dropped In and the people there. Super kind, fostering a wonderful DIY music space and also running a top-notch record shop. We are super grateful to play here and hope to come back! Josh: After the show, Joe, the promoter who runs Sink or Swim Promotions, takes us around the corner and treats us to an incredible Indian feast. I had been wanting to get some Indian food for the entire trip. Lande Hekt told us the Midlands was the best region in England for Indian food, and I don’t doubt it. Andy: It’s more of a Northern Indian style of cuisine, and the first time any of us try Parotta bread, which is very different than Naan you typically find in the states. Incredible stuff.
With the crew at Just Dropped In…
Day 11 – Bristol at The Cube Microplex w/ Lande Hekt, Silk Cuts
Andy: It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the last day of the tour. I’m super excited to visit Bristol, home of the Subway Organization and of course Sarah Records. Our route has us crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and even though it’s pouring rain, I insist we pull off the road and have a look. Whether you’re a Sarah nerd or not, the view from the Clifton Observatory is breathtaking.
Rain at the Clifton Observatory.Clifton Suspension Bridge
Andy: I’m hoping to check out Temple Meads Station, but it’s clear across town, and I’m told it’s also under renovation; the whole thing covered in scaffolding. We’ll have to skip it. I suppose public spending on transit infrastructure is a fitting reason to miss a Sarah Records landmark. The Cube Microplex is a DIY venue in an old movie theater. Lande and the group were telling us about it in Coventry and we’re all really excited, as it sounds like the Bristol version of the 4-Star Theater back home.
Phil at soundcheck in an empty Cube.
Andy: At this point we all admit to being a bit tired. I’ve done a couple long-ish tours as a drummer, but I’ve never fronted a band playing hour-long sets every night for eleven straight days. It’s a lot of singing! I’m not sure how my voice still works, but I think I’ve got one more show in me.
Silk Cuts and Lande Hekt are both fantastic. Reuben from Outsider Artists (our booking agent), lives near Bristol so he’s come out to the show. It’s great to finally meet him in person, after we both put so much work into the tour. Of course there’s a part of me that thinks “oh shit, I hope he likes the live group.”
Lande Hekt at The Cube – photo by Wendy @Stardream_GirlLive at The Cube in Bristol – photo by Wendy @Stardream_Girl
Andy: Backstage, Phil, Gary, Josh and I pass the bottle of Buckfast around and toast to one final show. I start to get a bit nervous as we begin our set; the venue is nearly full, everyone is politely seated far from us, and the stage is extremely well lit with no dark or dramatic lighting to hide behind. Josh: It’s always psychologically tricky to play high-energy music to a seated audience, But it’s also nice to look out at a full house, seated or not! Andy: After our third or fourth song a San Francisco sports heckler makes himself known, trying to ask us about the 49ers or something, but giving us some fun barbs to exchange and break the ice a bit. Our Bristol set goes off without a hitch, and the tour is done! We’ve done so well on this tour that we basically have nothing left to sell, which is a major relief, as hauling a box of merch home always feels like a sign of defeat. We exchange hugs with Fitz and Reuben, and go our separate ways. Noah from Lande’s band kindly hosts us for our last night in the UK. Walking to his flat from the venue, with all of our luggage and instruments, the sky completely opens up, and we get completely drenched. All of our stuff is totally soaked mere hours before a long travel day. We kind of can’t help but laugh but hey it’s ok, things dry really fast in England, right??
Backstage at The Cube
Andy: After another 20-hour travel day on a bus from Bristol to London and a flight back to San Francisco we’re finally home.
Thanks so much to everyone who made our first UK tour so memorable: the promoters, bands, venues, all the people who came to see us and walked away with a T-shirt or record, especially the folks who saw us on more than one occasion! We hope to visit you all again someday!
Wendy Pickles from the Popguns There are not that many songs that make me stop working and start lipsyncing and playing air drums like a crazy person: “Bye Bye Baby” is such a song. Brighton’s Popguns were on our radar back when our zine started back in the early ’90s and the fact that they’ve never played a chickfactor party is a massive oversight. I’m pretty sure it was Mike Schulman who put a Popguns record in my hand at Vinyl Ink Records in Silver Spring, Maryland, around 1990! The band formed in 1988 and are still making very good music and playing shows. At long last we are thrilled to share this new interview with Popguns singer Wendy Pickles! Interview by big fans Gail O’Hara & Gaylord Fields
Wendy on drums at their Christmas gig last year; photo courtesy of the Popguns
chickfactor: What are you up to today? Does the country feel different post-election? Did you watch the Euro final? Wendy Pickles: Trying to stay cool today—hottest day of the year so far in the UK! Sadly, I have no ice cream in the freezer.
I haven’t noticed a particularly different feel post-election among people I talk to—it feels as though everyone has been slowly ground down by 14 years of Tory reign so that cynicism and distrust prevail. I hope Labour can come good on some of their promises, but it’s all about the power and the money, the money and the power
I did watch the Euros final, at home with family and a tonne of snacks. I was on the Amaretto, which sweetened the blow a little.
What were you like as a child? A teen? I was incredibly shy and self-conscious, studious, law-abiding. I spent a lot of time reading and listening to/playing music. I reinvented myself in the summer between school and sixth form, ditched my glasses in favour of contact lenses and moved from incredibly square and uncool to incredibly square and a little less uncool.
What kind of rituals does the band have (on tour, in the studio, in general)? We have an unwritten rule that whenever we make a stop in the van everyone has to go and come back one by one, just to be as inefficient as possible with our time. Greg & I invented “soundcheckercise” – we do squats/lunges/jumps to the beat while Ken is whacking his drums during the soundcheck. We like to have a sing on the way home from a gig – “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” is one of our faves, along with “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”. We play studio bingo – phrases include “less is more” and “that was perfect … let’s just try one more”. We have plenty of sayings and in-jokes gathered throughout the years – some wouldn’t stand the woke test and many, naturally, are taken from This Is Spinal Tap. Simon & I watched it just the other week and it really is the funniest film ever made.
Are you from a musical family? No trained musicians, but plenty of singing and a little guitar playing on my mum’s side of the family. They liked to sing old London music hall songs at family gatherings – “On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep”, “My Baby Has Gone Down the Plughole”, that kind of thing. Music was on all the time when I was growing up—either on the radio (always Radio 1) or on the turntable (mostly Elton John!).
The Popguns in Nottingham, 1990. Photo: Jim Bethell (sent by Wendy)
Did it seem like the Popguns got their due back in the day? I’d say no, because I think if more people had had a chance to hear our music they would’ve liked it. Is that too obvious a thing to say? We fell into a bit of a guitar-based music gap between C86 and Britpop—baggy and rave were the in thing, and we were neither! The songs are strong, even if the production wasn’t always up to scratch
Was the band treated well in the press? What was the weirdest thing someone wrote about you? Some people liked us, some didn’t. I was just looking through some old reviews and many of them were quite flattering (eg “Come in Debbie Harry, your time is up” in Sounds 1991 – pretty good, eh?). At least we GOT reviewed and were given a few inches of interview space. I think the weirdest was Robert Yates in the Melody Maker, who said in a live review “To chance upon her in a back-street Brixton pub is to catch Cleopatra buying half-fat milk in Tesco’s”. Can’t decide whether it’s flattering or creepy!! Of course they didn’t just write about me, but inevitably a female frontwoman in an otherwise male band becomes a focus.
Who is the comedian in the band? Greg is the wittiest. Pat is the silliest and loves wordplay. Simon does funny things (not always intentionally!). Once during a power cut, he came out of the loo with his trousers on back to front (I promise, it was hilarious at the time!). Ken has a slew of bad jokes, best not repeated. I have a wicked tongue, but I try to hide it.
The Popguns in Nottingham, 2023. Courtesy of the band
Do you have any band rules about stagewear and banter? Never let Simon near the mic. We’re always trying to persuade (drummer) Ken to wear a vest. Once Simon accidentally pocket-dialled Pat during a song, so I guess we should really ban phones onstage.
If we came to Brighton for a day, what should we definitely do? Pick up a Happy Maki sushi wrap and eat it in Pav Gav (young person’s speak for Pavilion Gardens). Wander through the North Laines, being sure to visit Resident Music and to buy something colourful from Lucy & Yak (dungarees recommended). Play ‘Toad’ at The Hole In The Wall pub (toad table custom made by our friend and some time driver Garold). You should probably get some squishy donuts from the pier and sit on the beach with the thousands of other tourists. Finish off with a rock ‘n’ roll pint at The Albert (home of our annual Christmas shindig).
If you could choose any well-known musician from Brighton, past or present, to join the Popguns, who would it be, and why? Dave Gilmour would be fun! And not at all intimidating. I like to sing a little Leo Sayer at karaoke, though strictly speaking he’s from Shoreham, just along the coast.
It’s fascinating (to me, at least) when a group records two unrelated songs with the same title. What inspired the Popguns to do an original called “Bye Bye Baby” as well as cover the identically named Four Seasons song? I was a huge Bay City Rollers fan, so I loved that song. We actually had a Four Seasons album on cassette when I was growing up and I loved their music – but it didn’t have that song on it, so I didn’t know at the time that it was a cover. We were invited to contribute a track to an album of ’70s Number 1s for an Anti-Poll Tax album put together by a friend, and it seemed a fun idea to cover a song with the same name as one of ours – we ilke to confuse!!
Simon, your husband and bandmate, writes the songs that you then give voice to. How autobiographical are the songs when it comes to either your life or his? Annoyingly autobiographical – what am I going to write about for my solo project?
How did you both determine which songs would be Popguns songs and which would you and Simon record for your other shared musical project, the Perfect English Weather? It’s usually obvious: one, there is a distinction between indie rock and indie pop and TPEW definitely falls in the latter category, so they tend to be the lighter songs; two, TPEW songs are on the whole more personal to us as a couple; three, the Popguns reject it!
What advice would you give groups that contain a creative partner who is also a romantic partner so they don’t end up like Fleetwood Mac? Or perhaps they’d do well by following Fleetwood Mac’s example? It’s not always a recipe for a successful relationship, is it? Weirdly, we don’t spend a lot of time working on music together at home. Simon writes the songs, then the rest of us contribute in the rehearsal room and studio – that goes for The Popguns and The Perfect English Weather. Maybe that’s why it works?
How did you get on with the other acts who recorded for your early ’90s label Midnight Music, or did you not interact much? We didn’t really know any Midnight labelmates, but we got on great with The Waltones, who were on Medium Cool with us.
Who came up with calling the group the Popguns, and were you all surprised that no other band seemed to have come up with a name so basic yet essential before you did? Well we’ve never been happy with it, we just couldn’t agree on anything else – it was a case of picking a name that no-one was happy with! Glad you think it works!
The group took a break lasting more than a decade before forming again. What have you found to be the biggest adjustment in making music in the 2020s, for better or for worse? The studio is so much easier to use – not that I ever need it ;), but dodgy notes can be straightened out in seconds! And all those sounds at your fingertips – fun, but also potentially extremely timewasting. And so much can be done at home, which I think is a good thing, though Simon does have a habit of spending days locked away in his room doing remixes. The music making side is great, the social media side not so – not a natural world for us boomers/Gen Xers.
Has the Popguns’ musical catalogue been featured in any adverts, films, or TV shows? Do you have any problems with the concept of “selling out,” whatever that means to you? It has! A highlight for me was “Second Time Around” on BBC’s “Homes Under The Hammer”. We also featured in a 2018 Netflix series (“Everything Sucks!” – sadly didn’t get past Season 1) and a 2020 film, “Pink Skies Ahead”, which rather excitingly had Henry Winkler and Michael McKean in its cast. There must’ve been a late ’80s/early ’90s indie revival! No ads that I’m aware of, and I would definitely want to have a say in that respect. I am a VERY ethical person!
Let’s say for some odd reason you found yourself in the need to recruit someone to impersonate your singing voice (please don’t ask why, just play along, if you may). Which singer do you think would be able to do the job? Natalie Merchant please!
How has existing in older bodies changed how you go about touring, as opposed to 30 years ago? Oh my God, it’s knackering!! Definitely no more than two nights in a row. And much lighter on the booze. And Greg now brings salad as a snack
The Popguns often perform A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It.” When and how did you realize that you had the mad flow needed to rap credibly? Haha! I trained by learning the intro to “The Lone Ranger” by Quantum Jump. That and “Cool for Cats” by Squeeze
Which one Popguns song would your fans express strong unhappiness if you were to leave it off your live set list? And, in general, how accommodating are you to playing fan favorites when planning what to perform at shows? Is it a “one for you, one for me” situation? You’d have to ask them, but I’m guessing “Bye Bye Baby” or “Waiting for The Winter” – they’re the biggest singalong songs. We make occasional exceptions, but as some of us (me included) are quite bad at remembering the songs we mostly have to stick to the set we’ve been practising. We do try to mix it up though!
What are some memorable live shows you played in the old days and recently? Plymouth Cooperage 1990? 91? is a fond favourite for its stage invasion. Shelly Arms in Nutley (similar time?) for its bonkersness. More recently, Hamburg in 2016 and Athens in 2019 due to the unexpectedly large and enthusiastic crowds. Every Prince Albert ‘home’ Christmas gig is lovely—so many familiar faces in the audience. Last year’s Albert gig was fun as Ken & I switched places for one song – me on drums, him on vocals. And earlier this year we played at the wedding of two of our biggest fans, which was incredibly special and moving. Oh, not forgetting Mike Joyce playing “Rebel Rebel” as our intro music at the 100 Club in London – pretty cool!
Do you have any horror stories? Can’t really top Greg falling from a second floor window in Plymouth and breaking his wrist (a lucky escape). I don’t know, I tend to get shielded from all of the bad stuff – I’m still that square and not-very-cool girl at heart!
Have you ever played in the US? Yes! We played New York Popfest in 2014. It was an odd one—we loved being there, but we had a late (headline) slot on the Sunday night and not everyone stuck around to see us. Of course we had to use other people’s gear and Pat borrowed a bass guitar from a very generous but very small person. The bass was a perfect fit for its owner, but hilariously tiny on our Pat (who is not a very small person!). Much chuckling ensued!
OG Popguns, courtesy of the band
Favorite place to play? It has to be The Albert. Be nice to play Brighton Dome though. Or Glastonbury!
Do you have day jobs, pets, kids? I was teaching pop singing to teenagers, which I loved, but stopped when the pandemic hit. Currently trying to do my bit to combat the climate crisis. I’ve started a climate choir, which is lots of fun. I completed a Masters in Songwriting last year and am now considering doing a PhD in something environment and music related. Dr Wendy! Simon still works part-time as a computer programmer. Pat and Ken are proper businessmen with their own companies. Greg works in IT at Brighton & Hove council. That’s not very rock ‘n’ roll is it, maybe scrap that answer!!!
Simon & I have two children, both now graduated from Uni. Anna is living and working in London and is a committed environmental champion, Thomas has only just graduated and is figuring out what to do next. They are of course wonderful human beings, are both very musical and have impeccable taste! We have two young, adorable cats – one ginger, one black. Not great for my environmental credentials as we feed them meat and they bring in many, many little dead bodies 🙁
Wendy says: “The Mean Fiddler poster is a bittersweet memory as it proves Pulp supported us back in the day, which is fun, but of course our careers took wildly different paths!!”
What are you reading, watching, cooking, eating? I have a stack of environment related books to get to, but I’ve been distracted in the last week or so by the discovery that I can successfully complete a difficult killer sudoku. Maths was never my strong point, so it is a big surprise! I prefer baking to cooking – my signature dish is vegan almond macaroons. We get a weekly organic veg box so I’m often trying to work out what to do with kohlrabi or padron peppers – any ideas?
Anything else you’d like to add? News, shows, new releases? We’re looking forward to playing with The Frank & Walters at 229 in London on 28 September. Apart from our usual Christmas gig at the Albert that’s it for the current tour schedule. Very soon we will be returning to the studio, so new material will be out in 2025.
Records Wendy cannot live without There are a handful of oldies I always go back to –
“Swoon” by Prefab Sprout
“Liberty Belle ..” by The Go-Betweens
“Captain Fantastic …” by Elton John
any Smiths/Beatles/Jam/REM
“Young Americans” by Bowie
“Behaviour” and “Very” by Pet Shop Boys
“The Clock Comes Down The Stairs” by Microdisney
“Nilsson Schmilsson”
Mostly quite predictable. Currently though, my go-tos are the upcoming Fontaines DC album (“Favourite” is an instant indie classic!), also “A Hero’s Death” by Fontaines, “If My Wife New I’d Be Dead” by CMAT (she is AMAZING!), “2020” and “The Hermit” by Richard Dawson (almost my favourite artist in the world), “Illinois” by Sufjan Stevens, “Seeking New Gods” by Gruff Rhys. “American Dream” by LCD Soundsystem. I realise there is a distinct lack of female musicians in that list – oops! I love Laura Marling and Pearl Charles!
Popguns set list from Nottingham, 1990.Popguns set list from Nottingham, 2023The Popguns in Lego made by a fan. Wendy says: “I’m in the middle with short brown hair (before I grew out the grey) and our sometime backing singer Kate is the blond singer on the left. Pat’s permanent grin is well represented and then-drummer Tony has drumsticks large enough to cause injury! They also caught Simon in his (now thankfully passed) trilby-wearing phase ;D”
Freshly reissued on vinyl by K Records, out Sept. 6Freshly reissued on vinyl by K Records, out July 26Freshly reissued on vinyl by K Records, available now
We caught up with Alicia Vanden Heuvel and Linton from the Aislers Set and Nick from Precious Recordings of London (the label putting out the EP) to find out more about their 2001 Peel Session! Images courtesy of the band
How did the Peel Session come about? Linton: Sean Price of Fortuna Pop arranged it. I’m pretty certain of that.
How did it feel to record a session? Linton: Was wild. I’d never recorded Aislers out of the garage before—given up studio control, mixing, etc. The engineers were kind and very attentive. They even tuned Yoshi’s drums and let us do some forbidden overdubs when the singing was terrible. It was amazing to be in that studio, with its history, obviously, and it was interesting to just play and not be at the helm using the studio tools creatively. cool experience and a complete honor, of course. I still feel incredibly lucky to have had that opportunity.
What do you remember about the man himself? Linton: I only met him once and many years before. He wasn’t there for the session, which I think is typical? I met him in a bar in Leeds around ’94 and we talked about our shared experience of living in the desert. I recall him talking about having lived in Texas as an insurance salesman and travelling the southwest in the ’60s. I wrote a few lines about that on the back of the record sleeve.
The Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
What was the studio like? Alicia: The fact that we would be in a studio where all of these legendary, great bands had recorded was mind blowing. Arriving in London and taking the Tube to the studio that morning, we were all full of nerves and excitement. We had been rehearsing intensely and Linton had written a new song just for the session, “Mission Bells.” We get there, coffees in hand, and enter the studio. Linton, Wyatt, and I had recording equipment at home and we couldn’t wait to see the studio and gear… the Aislers Set had never recorded in a studio, before or since…. were just in awe at the mixing console, the beautiful room. The real jaw-dropping moment was when the engineers showed us the Microphone Closet, showing us various ones that were literally invented and built by engineers at the BBC. And WE got to have them mic’d on our drums, on our equipment. It was literally one of the best days of our lives as a band. BBC engineers, a huge Hammond organ for Jen to play, the welcome from John Peel. In this magic and sacred musical space. The day spent laying down those songs was joyful, the engineers were so kind, we just felt on top of the world.
Linton: Equipped!
The Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
What are you guys up to these days, music or otherwise? Alicia: I’m still recording bands and playing in bands. I have a record label/ recording studio called Speakeasy Studios SF. It’s still the same Otari 8 track and Soundcraft board that we used for The Red Door and a few other songs back in the day, and both Poundsign records. Now I can mix into digital though, which saves a lot of sleepless nights. I’m currently recording the new Telephone Numbers record and working with my husband Tony Molina on his next record. I still work my day job (that I’ve had since 1997) at La Med restaurant in SF, because life as a musician just doesn’t pay the bills, ha ha. But I love my work, feeding people and being around people is my jam. My daughter is graduating from high school now and life goes on!
Linton: I’m not playing music. very rarely, anyway, but i do think about it. I do make some noise now and again but I wouldn’t call it music—more collage/feedback/harmonic control and texture experiments with zero melody. Mostly I’m making visual art and furniture as well as teaching sculpture and “sonic” arts at CalArts in southern california. Pretty nourishing gig.
The Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
Will the Aislers Set play at CF35 (should it happen)? Alicia: I would like to very much, yes!
Linton: Only if an entirely new batch of songs is written. I can’t physically sing most of the old ones anymore and I’m not writing music at the moment… so… I am hoping to write performable music sometime, eventually. dunno if it would be Aislers music or in time for CF35 but keep you posted!
Linton from the Aislers Set on CF13, Y2K (lower right). Photo: Gail O’Hara with design help from LD BeghtolThe Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
How did this come together? Any particular challenges or hurdles?
Nick from Precious Recordings of London: The Aislers Set were one of the artists I thought of when I started Precious Recordings of London a few years ago during COVID. As I hunkered down in Putney, West London, I looked through an old box of cassettes I’d retrieved when my mum died a couple of years earlier and found all these bootlegs and sessions I had taped from BBC Radio 1‑John Peel and Janice Long, none of them ever released.
So I just asked the few friends I knew if they’d be willing to let me loose releasing their sessions on vinyl. You can get them on YouTube but, well, I wanted it to be special.
Somehow I found the right person to pay for a licence from the BBC and off we went. But as I say, these were old friends like Jim from the Jasmine Minks, Duglas from BMX Bandits and Amelia from Heavenly–from the late 1980s, the C86-era, when I was more active!
Of course, I did not know anybody from The Aislers Set, added to which they were on the other side of the Atlantic. And they did not hail from the late ’80s music scene. So why would they want me to release a prized session?
But I am a big fan, which is the ultimate criteria when I want to release a record, and this particular session has legendary status among The Aislers Set cognoscenti. Moreover, the esteemed editor of this august organ put me in touch with Alicia. (You’re welcome! –Editor)
But the thing is that was maybe three or four years ago, and The Aislers Set were originally down with a catalogue number PRE 008. Through nobody’s fault, really, it is finally seeing the light of day as PRE 038–and even that is a little misleading, as we’re up to PRE 042!
Precious started out releasing gatefold 7-inch singles of BBC sessions on vinyl with a set of postcards included in the package. Now we’re doing ten-inchers–a 60% rise in manufacturing costs during COVID forced that change, but I love the tens anyway–and even the postcards have been replaced by printed inners!
The Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
Frankly, I don’t know why it has been so long. Getting pictures and sleeve notes always takes a while–and everybody is so busy. But we kept in touch via email … things kept bobbling along quietly until I heard from Linton, and they were happy with the idea.
Sean Price of their UK LP Fortuna Pop! is a good friend of mine, and Mike at Slumberland also gave his blessing–and I had both scurrying about looking for images. Plus, Alicia had some great pics of the day of recording itself at the famed BBC Studios – Sean was there, it turned out.
So slowly, slowly, we got there, and I am so excited about this session. It’s everything I wanted when I started this project–not only do I love the band, of course, and this is a FAB session–but also the holy grail of a previously unreleased session with a totally song on there–the cover of Joy Division’s ‘Walked in Line’, and Linton actually wrote ‘Mission Bells’ specifically for the session recording.
I always hoped to release sessions that had never been out before in any form, or at least not on vinyl … as it happens, both these ideals have, er, been compromised, but at least I hope I am keeping up the standard of releasing records that I would want to buy myself as a fan, with all the extras, unseen pics etc.
The cherry on the cake with The Aislers Set came when I found out how much the session meant to them. Of course, John Peel is a legendary figure over here and I’ve lost count of the number of people who tell me they prefer the session version of various songs, often because they feel ‘fresher’ than overproduced later versions. Not that that was a problem with The Aislers Set, of course, but Alicia told me the session was “literally the highlight of our career as a band”.
Linton has also supplied some wonderful sleeve notes–the band heard the first broadcast in a Glasgow pub on a tinny transistor radio alongside their friends from Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura! What a great story.
I’m so happy–can I say ‘privileged’ without sounding too ‘gushy’?–to be able to release this session. It means a lot. I also think it means a lot to The Aislers Set, so I’m so grateful they’ve trusted me not to mess things up. Let’s hope I haven’t!
The Aislers Set Peel Session / Photos by Alicia Vanden Heuvel
Back in Y2K (the year 2000 for you youngsters), I rolled into Fez in NYC after work one evening and tried to interview BIRDIE on the spot. Not always a good plan! Even though I have interviewed each of the primary band members, Paul Kelly and Debsey Wykes from Birdie (and East Village, Dolly Mixture and Saint Etienne), I had not interviewed them together until summer/fall 2023 when I was enlisted to write liner notes for the reissue of Some Dusty. We are all happy to share the interview with you now and announce the global international pop news of Slumberland Records reissuing this most excellent and under-appreciated album!
Gail O’Hara: You met each other when you were both part of Saint Etienne’s live setup in 1992–1993? Paul Kelly: We met at a Saint Etienne rehearsal in Kentish Town December 1992. Following the demise of my band East Village in 1991, Bob (Stanley) and Pete (Wiggs) had asked Spencer (Smith, East Village drummer) and me to join the Saint Etienne live set-up. For the first few shows we had Siobhan Brookes of Denim singing backing vocals but I don’t think Lawrence was happy with her playing in another band and so she left and Debsey was drafted in, and that’s when we first met, at a rehearsal room in Leighton Place, Kentish Town. Bob and Pete had been big Dolly Mixture fans and had just recorded Debsey singing “Who Do You Think You Are” for a proposed single on their Ice Rink label. I think McGee or Jeff Barrett heard it and felt that it could be a big hit and so it ended up being a Saint Etienne single instead. The record did end up as a duet with Debsey and Sarah of course but she never ended up releasing anything on Ice Rink which is a shame, I thought that was a great little label. Debsey Wykes: I had joined St. Etienne on backing vocals for their fan club Christmas party in London in 1992. At the rehearsals I met Paul along with the others in the live band. I thought he was very funny. I ended up doing backing vocals on their tours and festival dates over the next couple of years, playing the UK, America, Europe and Iceland. We were also the first band televised live from Glastonbury in 1994. We became best friends and would wander around places all night ending up with a breakfast beer and being called the terrible twins by Sarah.
And then you got together as a couple after forming Birdie? Paul: We had become very good friends over the two years we had been with Saint Etienne and had been talking about doing a band together. Saint Etienne stopped playing live at the end of 1994 and so we began recording songs on a little Fostex 4-track at Debsey’s flat. I think a lot of people thought our talk of a band was just a cover so that we could hang out together and I think it was a bit of a shock to our friends when we actually started making records together. Debsey: We had come up with the idea of doing a band together in the summer of 1994 as we started to get a bit frustrated about not doing our own music and so Paul would heave his guitar amp up to London to my flat every so often and we would go over bits and pieces of music that we’d both made up—and then go to the pub. By the beginning of 1995 we had borrowed a Portastudio from Bob and recorded a handful of songs on cassette. We got together as a couple in the March, we just wanted to be together all the time.
Photo: Paul Kelly
What pubs were your regular haunts during this time period? Paul: When we were first together, we were both signing on the dole and our (fortnightly) payments were on alternate weeks. We would head down to the post office together, cash the relevant cheque and head straight to the Old Red Lion theatre pub at the Angel for a quick lunchtime half. This would inevitably end up with us both falling out of the pub smashed and penniless by closing time. I don’t know how we survived to be honest, we had so little money. When we eventually got our record deal we felt like millionaires and the first thing we did was buy a car. We spent a lot of time in pubs when we first got together, we were still relatively young and having a laugh, it was a good time to be in London then. I have very fond memories of touring the pubs of Islington during our courtship and into the mid ’90s. Debsey: When we were first together, we went to The Old Red Lion in Islington which is very old with a small theatre upstairs. There was a strange mix in the bar with the pool players, locals and the theatre crowd which is a great thing. We frequented most pubs in the vicinity of the flat and I have a memory of ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles and ‘Venus as a Boy’ by Bjork stalking us on juke boxes wherever we went. We would often head into the west end and see who was in The Ship in Wardour St. as it was the haunt of the Heavenly Records entourage.
What was the idea behind Birdie? Paul: It was great fun playing with Saint Etienne but we obviously had little creative input. We were really lucky to get the chance to tour the world and play the main stage at Glastonbury and things like that but we still wanted to make our own music, after all, that’s why we started playing in bands in the first place. We used to sit on the tour bus and imagine what our band could be like, so we had a lot of time to think about how it would work and what it would sound like. I think we generally liked the same music and it was obviously going to be based around Debsey’s singing and so it just came about very naturally. Debsey: I don’t remember there being a particular idea behind Birdie at first. It was just me and Paul being us, I imagined it would be sixties orientated and hoped that it would be quite ‘cool’. The important thing was to write great songs first. We must have thought our combined force would produce something special!
Birdie. Photo: Aude Prieur
The late ’90s seemed like a golden time when things were pretty great in both the US and the UK, internet bubble hadn’t burst yet, end of the century energy. What do you recall about that time when you were writing and recording Some Dusty? Paul: We started making records with Birdie in the aftermath of Britpop, things in the UK had stagnated and so it certainly didn’t feel like a golden period at the time. I think we were too hung up on the UK NME music scene and I can see looking back that was pointless as we were never going to connect with the UK music press at that point. I wish we had been more aware of what was happening overseas, particularly in Spain,Japan and the US. Debsey: There was still a lot of energy in London, in 1995 we went out a lot especially to Heavenly related events where I danced a lot to soul music, hip hop, house, big beat, every kind of wonderful tuneful groovy track. We decided to have a child in ’96 and so I started to stay in a bit more. Paul had started a company making films and designing artwork with a friend of ours to make a living and be a responsible father to be—and was out quite a lot, probably in pubs!
Photo courtesy of Birdie
How was Some Dusty received by the fans and press? Paul: I was so pleased with the LP. It was the first time I had been involved in a record that I could actually enjoy listening to. I thought it was perfect and sounded exactly as we had envisaged it. It’s such a great feeling to make music that you really love. Looking back, I can now listen to other things I had recorded before that point and appreciate them but with Birdie I knew it was good as we were making it.
We had Mick Houghton as our press agent and Scott Piering was our radio plugger. Mick had worked with Echo and the Bunnymen and the KLF and Scott had worked with Pulp and the Smiths. I think Scott genuinely loved the record but I’m not sure that Mick did. We did get played on the radio quite a lot but the UK music press were not interested at all. Despite this, I think the record sold quite well because we had our option to make a second LP picked up straight away, but the only fan mail we got was from the US and Japan. I think the record made a connection there, but in the UK we could barely get a gig or review. We never had an agent or a manager and couldn’t really make any progress with the live side of things. There was talk of a Japanese tour which would have been great. We had been there with St Etienne in the early ’90s and I think we would have been well received, but there was a financial crash in Japan around that time which scuppered the trip.
Photo: Paul Kelly
How did Birdie’s songwriting process work? Paul: One of us will generally start a song, me on guitar or Debsey on a piano. Maybe just a few chords and a melody and then we would both develop it together. Whoever starts the song will usually write the words but that’s not always the case—but the words always come last and always late.
Debsey: We wrote separately a lot and then would add things to each other’s ‘creations’. Neither of us particularly liked writing words but we persevered, sometimes if you were lucky the words just happened. Sometimes I would give up and hand over a tune and Paul would fit words to it. He wrote a lot of the words to his own tunes, I never knew what they were about and just made up my own meaning.
What music was inspiring you back then? Paul: I think we were mainly listening to older records, Acid Folk stuff, and Soft Rock or Sunshine Pop. We were going out clubbing but not really listening to so much dance music at home. We loved Stereolab and Broadcast and I guess they had a big influence on the kind of records we listened to even if it’s not apparent. Laura Nyro was a big influence on the LP and we went to see one of her last shows together at the Union Chapel in Islington which was incredible.
Debsey: I loved St. Etienne of course. My inspiration came from the sixties songs that I had always loved and all the sixties music that Paul introduced to me that I’d never heard. I also heard a lot of great music hanging out with Saint Etienne and everyone around Heavenly Records and the Social, not any particular group.
Image courtesy of Birdie
Jason Reynolds put out your first single, yes? Paul: Jason had released an LP of East Village B-Sides and out-takes on his Summershine label in Australia in about 1990 and I think we had even had a minor radio hit over there. By the mid ’90s he was at working at Sub Pop in the US but still putting out the odd thing on his own label. He was visiting London and staying at the Holiday Inn in Clerkenwell near us when I met up with him and asked if he would put out a couple of songs that we had recorded at Bark Studios with Brian O’Shaughnessy. One side was a demo we had done for Creation and the other side a demo for Heavenly. I don’t think Jeff or Alan McGee were really interested in the band, but they had funded some studio time—probably to get me off their backs. Anyway, we had these two songs and Jason put them out as a single and that’s how we eventually got the deal with Tris Penna at It Records. I think Jason was winding down the label and so there was never any talk of doing an album for Summershine.
How did having children impact your work with Birdie? Paul: At that time the band was just Debsey and me, we did manage to get our friend (and neighbour) Wildcat Will to play drums on the record but everything else apart from the strings we played ourselves. Will had been the drummer in the Sandals and was by that time playing with Beth Orton. When we began recording Some Dusty, our daughter Sadie was about 18 months old and we had to take her to the studio with us most days as we couldn’t afford a babysitter. We had periods where she would sleep for a couple of hours but when she woke up either Debsey or me would have to wheel her around Walthamstow in her push chair. There was a sweet factory nearby the studio and all I can remember is this really sickly sweet smell outside that was so strong that it would give you a headache. I think the record only took about ten days to make and that was mainly due to the fact that we had to work so quickly. We did all the backing tracks in two days. It was great, no time to overthink what we were doing. I went in a couple of times on my own to do guitar parts and mixing while Debsey stayed at home looking after Sadie but we were generally there together, baby and all. I don’t think she’s ever listened to the finished record though, definitely not her bag. When we actually signed the recording contract at the label offices in Covent Garden, the only people there were Debsey, Me, Bob, Tris (our label manager) and bizarrely, Vicki Wickham (producer of Ready Steady Go) and Nona Hendryx! It was amazing and we celebrated by cracking open a bottle of Champagne from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wine vault, amazing! Debsey: We only played a handful of gigs before we had our daughter. One was in Covent Garden and we went to it on the bus, it was just Paul on guitar and me singing. The same for our second in Camden, an afternoon affair when I was about six months pregnant. Later on in the year I heard from Paul that Jason Reynolds was interested in putting out a single which was great, I still think of that single (Spiral Staircase) as being very precious and having the purest Birdie sound. When we got to the point where we were talking about a record deal and going for meetings, we always had to find a babysitter and that wasn’t easy.
Paul told chickfactor “I think Sadie our daughter saw the guitar as competition and would inevitably start crying as soon as either of us picked it up. Debs would have to hide away in another room to write on the piano whenever Sadie was asleep. It was really rare for us to be able to sit together and play as we had done when we first started.”
Debsey: It’s all true. She was obviously very attached to me and was used to me answering her every need which I wanted to do, but it did make it difficult to write and to rehearse ideas. She was part of it though as well and Birdie ultimately wouldn’t have been the same without having had her.
Describe the feeling, the vibe, the scene at Bark Studios in the summer 1998. What do you remember about the sessions? Paul: It was all done very quickly, ten days, but it was very enjoyable, I loved taking home the rough mixes and listening to what we had done. It was really exciting to have a deal and to actually be making a record. We would sit up late at night and work out the parts we needed to record the next day. Debsey: I remember feeling very lucky and excited to have the chance to record our songs properly. Our drummer on Some Dusty was Will Blanchard (Wildcat Will as everyone knows him) and he was around for as long as it took to record all the drums, maybe two or three days. He was exceedingly relaxed, lovely to be with and quietly witty. It was when I got closer to Brian as well and I found him very easy to be with, to chat and laugh with, he was very individual but it totally worked between us all.
We must have got a babysitter for some of the recording part of it, although I may be wrong, maybe Sadie was asleep a lot of the time, she was only one and a half, still needing naps. We were almost recording it as demos because the agreement seemed to be that if Tris Penna at It Records (they were paying for this) liked the album’s worth of songs he would put it out. It was a good approach because we didn’t take too long to do anything, saving us deliberating for too long. Paul stayed on extra days to mix it with Brian and would come home with mixes and I loved it.
Image courtesy of Birdie
How did you end up working with Brian O’Shaughnessy? He seems to be the go-to for many of my favorite bands. What is it about him? Paul: When East Village split up 1991, we had an unfinished LP that we had recorded the previous year with Ian Caple at The Stone Room in Acton, West London. It was all recorded but not mixed. Jeff at Heavenly suggested that we finish the record and release it. He felt it would be good to mix it with Brian O’Shaughnessy at Bark Studios. Jeff knew Brian through working with Andrew Weatherall and Primal Scream who had recently recorded Loaded there. A couple of other Heavenly bands and My Bloody Valentine had also worked at Bark. Anyway, the mixing went really well, I loved the sound Brian was able to get and when we came to do our demos that’s where we wanted to go. Making the LP was the obvious next step as the demos sounded so good. It’s a really small tatty looking studio with an old MCI desk just like the one Abba used. You would never believe how many great records have come out that place if you saw it. The Clientele and Lawrence still make records there and it looks exactly the same as it did when we recorded Some Dusty.
Sean O’Hagan seems like an ideal fit for Birdie. What was it like working with him? Paul: I didn’t know Sean at all but I really liked Microdisney and the High Llamas and he was also working with Stereolab which swung it. We had finished the bulk of the recording and wanted to add some strings. I sent him all of the songs to listen to and make some suggestions for string arrangements. He picked out three songs he liked and we said, great, whatever you reckon. I went down to the session which took only about an hour or so and that was it, job done! The next time I saw him was when we played in Madrid for an Elefant records event a few months later. I went over to say hello but don’t think he knew who I was to be honest.
Photo: Tom Sheehan
How does the record sound to you now? Paul: For this release we went back to the original masters. We had the tapes baked and transferred for re-mastering and when I first listened back I nearly cried, I couldn’t believe that we had made this record. How did we do it? It’s far more complex than I had ever realised. I guess we were just brimming with ideas and enthusiasm at the time. We were also fairly young still and very much in love and I can really hear that when I listen to the record. Debsey: I think the record sounds better now than it did then, in fact I’m surprised by it, pleasantly surprised that we had it in us!
Is there anything else you’d like to share about making the album? Paul: I think Debsey and I are both good at coming up with melodies and harmonies but neither of us like writing lyrics. That was always the hard bit, staying up all night trying to finish the words because we had to record the vocals the next day. Debsey: I played a Mellotron for the first time, it was very challenging but satisfying because it sounded so wonderful. It was a huge thing that took three guys to bring it into Brian’s control room. We also had another Stevie Wonder sounding keyboard (Clavinet) that I played on, I loved coming up with those extra bits and pieces on any strange instruments we could get hold of, I even played the harmonica I’d got for my 19th birthday which had been waiting another 19 years for this moment. For me the album was quite inward looking. I don’t know if Paul would say the same, but we spent so much time together and had started a family so for me it’s not so surprising that I feel it was about us.
Image courtesy of BirdieImage courtesy of BirdieBirdie’s set list from CF30 at the Lexington in London, 2022.Image courtesy of Birdie
We are here to inform you that—OH HELL YEAH!—legendary UK indiepop band Heavenly and indie supergroup Swansea Sound are coming to play shows in the USA! So we asked the band members to come up with lists of their favorite West Coast things and memories. (Photos courtesy of the bands)
Heavenly + Swansea Sound in NYC:
May 31-June 1 in Brooklyn: shows are sold out
June 1: Heavenly daytime event
What Heavenly and Swansea Sound Love About the West Coast
Cathy Rogers (Heavenly, Marine Research, Gilroy)
1. Driving through trees for hours and hours between Portland and SF or is it Oly and Portland? America does everything on a scale so big for us Brits 2. The Original Pantry in LA, my first experience of a cafe open 365 and 24/7, the door constantly swinging 3. The unbelievable smell of Gilroy. Everyone says oh you’ll smell it miles before you get there and you think they’re exaggerating then you smell that they’re not 4. Monterey aquarium and the whole feeling of Monterey and canning and those pummelling words 5. Swap meets in San Luis Obispo, getting up in the middle of the night to rummage around in other people’s drawers of kitchen utensils to find just the right shaped thing you don’t know what to do with 6. Lovely Olympia people. The indie punk memories of the US all centre around or connect in some way with Olympia 7. Snorkelling in kelp off Catalina island. A 90degree change in the angle of your head is all it takes to enter a parallel universe 8. Staying in an airstream by the river in Kernville. I co-owned an airstream when I lived in LA and went up to stay in it at weekends and float in giant tractor tyres down the river 9. Jumping kangaroo rats and cactuses in Joshua Tree National Park. Shame U2 appropriated its name. 10. Pie. The whole west coast. And east coast, and middle. Whole shops, whole restaurants, whole lives committed to pie.
Amelia and Hue, image courtesy of the artists
Hue Williams (Swansea Sound, the Pooh Sticks) 1. City Lights bookstore
2. Meeting Johnny Guitar Watson the first time I visited LA who invited me to swim in his guitar shaped pool
3. Sky Saxon and the Seeds
4. The Griffith Observatory
5. Meeting Brian May at Universal Studios
6. San Francisco 49ers
7. Arthur Lee and Love
8. Linda Perhacs
9. Attending the world premiere of the Beavis and Butthead movie at the Chinese theatre and the aftershow party with Tarantino where Issac Hayes was the star guest
10. The Six Million Dollar Man
Photograph by Yvonne Chen
Amelia Fletcher (Heavenly, Swansea Sound, the Catenary Wires, Marine Research, Tender Trap, Talulah Gosh, Skep Wax Records) 1. Olympia: Our US home from home.
2. Riot grrrl: A global phenomenon but Olympia was where it started and also where we first discovered it. Heavenly weren’t exactly a riot grrrl band, but it had a big influence on us.
3. Heavenly’s show with Tiger Trap in Sacramento: One of my all time favourite shows. I seem to remember it was in someone’s basement without their parents’ knowing. Tiger Trap were on roller skates. It was everything a show should be.
4. The competition between K Records and Kill Rock Stars to be the best label in Olympia/the world at that time. They both won.
5. Slumberland Records: So good for such a prolonged period. Current faves include The Umbrellas and Lightheaded.
6. Gidget: Both the book and the film. I have no idea why I love this, as I have zero interest in surfing; it just got to me.
7. The long-time liberal attitudes to sexuality and gender on the West Coast. Yep, had to say it. Important.
8. Silicon Valley: For giving Swansea Sound so much lyrical source material.
9. The Aislers Set: Such an amazing way with a tune. Linton = ❤️.
10. Beat Happening: The music I want played at my funeral. The music we did play at my brother’s.
Ian recording with Thrashing Doves at Rumbo Recorders in LA ‘86
Ian Button (Heavenly, Swansea Sound, Death In Vegas) 1. Little Richard winding down his limo window to say hello in the car park of the Hyatt.
2. Anthony Perkins stepping out of the lift at The Hollywood Roosevelt.
3. Seeing The Replacements at Santa Barbara ’87.
4. Waking up from an earth tremor.
5. A strawberry next to your eggs and bacon.
6. “What are grits, please?” “You English? You won’t like ’em!”
7. Death In Vegas @ Bimbos 365 SF ’97.
8. Surplus store near Ripley’s Odditorium – proper raw denim Levi’s
9. Hearing Todd R. ‘Hello It’s Me’ for the first time, on the radio, driving along Sunset Blvd., top down.
10. Hot apple cider in Seattle in November.
Peter in the Capitol Theatre, Olympia
Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly, the Would-Be-Goods, Tufthunter, Marine Research, Talulah Gosh, many more) North to South:
1. Sylvia Hotel, Stanley Park, Vancouver
2. Bellingham summer philosophy conference
3. Anacortes IPA
4. Roasted Olympia oysters
5. All Freakin’ Night at Olympia film fest
6. Olympia pet parade
7. The decor at the Brotherhood Lounge, Oly
8. Dumpster Values, Oly
9. Sprung dance floor at the Crystal Ballroom, Portland
10. Chez Panisse
11. Hummingbirds in Golden Gate Park
12. Midnight tour of historic downtown LA
Rob and Calvin (“P.U.N.K. Girl” video shoot)
Rob Pursey (Heavenly, Swansea Sound, The Catenary Wires, Skep Wax Records, Talulah Gosh, Marine Research) 1. Filming a video for “P.U.N.K. Girl” in the Capitol Theatre, Olympia
2. ‘Would you like that covered and smothered?’
3. Cinnamon-scented garbage
4. ‘That sounded totally SWEDISH’ (San Diego promoter, of our soundcheck, approvingly)
5. Vaginal Davis hosting the Marine Research show in LA
6. Tiger Trap
7. Hanging with Candice and Calvin at K Records HQ
8. Visiting Kill Rock Stars HQ, just down the street from K. (I just realised that this list is very Olympia-centric)
9. The Microphones
10. Driving for 8 hours and nothing happening
Swansea Sound (Bob in center)
Bob Collins (Swansea Sound, the Treasures of Mexico, the Dentists) 1. Monterey Pop
2. Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass
3. Laurel and Hardy driving in LA with a record player under the hood
4. Ray Manzarek’s almost certainly made-up story about meeting Jim Morrison on Venice Beach and forming the Doors
5. The geographical absurdity of Point Roberts
6. The fact that the members of Love all lived in a house called The Castle.
7. The day that Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark went to the movies in LA to see A Hard Day’s Night 8. Mulholland Drive
LA show is October 23, 2024!!!From the archiveEddie Vedder and Cathy Heavenly (she didn’t know who he was!)“P.U.N.K. Girl” video shootCathy watching Lois in San Jose
Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian (with her pal Beryl)
Of course we interviewed the smart, wonderful, luminous Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian in Glasgow in 1997 when the band rarely did interviews and barely even shared photos of themselves! She is on the cover of CF11 along with Isobel Campbell. But we wanted to check in with her as she makes her way across the U.S. while on tour about the band, dogs, food, and her other life as someone who works on the Revelator! Interview by Gail / Photographs courtesy of Sarah
chickfactor: What are you up to today? Where are you? Sarah Martin: I’m in Brooklyn, on a bus, moving at a fraction of walking pace towards today’s venue.
And now I’m in Chicago in an unusually comfortable backstage situation, listening to the rain, with our call to the stage coming in a couple of minutes. The sky looked pretty Glasgow-ish earlier, a downpour was brewing.
What are the best things about touring the U.S.? And the most unpleasant things? One of my favourite things is getting to see friends who I never do the rest of the time. Getting to sit in kitchens across America, especially if the kitchen comes with a dog I can roll about with. Even cats will do. I had high hopes of meeting a pet squirrel in New York, but it didn’t quite happen.
The unpleasant things … well I’m relieved this time to be avoiding the stretch of absurdly high temperatures we had a couple of summers ago, from Pioneertown through Phoenix, Austin, Oklahoma City, Santa Fe. I went to Taliesin West on the day off in Phoenix which was incredible—definitely a highlight of all my visits to North America—but it makes much more sense in the context of being Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter residence—I’m sure it’s lovelier then.
Favorite places to eat or visit while on tour? Sweetgreen, Tender Greens, Tacombi
What are some of your most memorable shows? There was one at the zoo in Portland which I remember you were at; the elephants were having a wander around watching the primates and the lights – I loved it.
The first Coachella, the second Benicassim. Iceland in 2006 was amazing.
Photograph by Stephen Skrynka
Tell us about the Revelator. What is it? How did you get involved? What do you do there? Is it a job? A hobby? The Revelator is my magical, otherworldly other world. It takes the form of a Wall of Death (a wooden cylinder for a motorbike riding display) but it is so much more besides: a theatre, cinema, art space, and an artwork in its own right. When I first saw pictures, it was a wooden skeleton and I knew I had to touch it. By the time I met it in real life, late in 2021, it was a big drum. There was still a lot of work to do, but Stephen Skrynka, the artist whose idea it all was, had already held a group art show inside, and was showing a series of films over one of the weekends during COP26. I went along for a short film called Lambing, and I was the only person who showed up; by the time I left I had offered to help with the build for a couple of weeks over Christmas and new year before touring geared up. But then Covid laid waste to the tours, so I stuck around. It became like another band, seven people with a common purpose. It became a home.
It’s not a job, and it’s not a hobby. It’s work but it’s also play. It can be anything we want it to be. We have built it tucked in the corner of a huge shipyard building on Red Clydeside, in the great tradition of the work-in, the sense of purpose is our reward.
As for the work itself, it can be anything. The build is more or less finished, but my first task was grinding sharp corners and excess weld off steel brackets. There’s been lots of woodwork, obviously. Being the projectionist, singing, getting a meal on the table, entertaining the dog. Sometimes the jobs are menial, but sometimes they are matters of life and death.
Two Sarahs and a Stephen, fitting the balustrades / artwork by Annabel Wright
Tell us about the community you found there, and how that is different from your musical one. Soon after I became a part of it, I realised there are more similarities with the band than differences really. It is a creative endeavour after all, and we solve problems together and generally do what we can to make things happen. Having been a part of both is a privilege I don’t take for granted.
The Revelator-in-Chief is Stephen (pictured below), an artist, who built the wall having learned to ride it the hard way. I do music and sewing; there is an oncologist, a theatre designer, a production manager from a local music venue, a property developer in the core team, and various others who come and go. Half of us aren’t even into motorbikes. We really are a community though, far greater than the sum of our parts.
The other day before the show in Royal Oak, MI, we accepted an invitation to have a tour of the pressing plant at Third Man Records in Detroit, and obviously that was quite an amazing place, but I also recognised the same sort of collective pride that we have at the Revelator, and ways that it is symbolised in the space the machines inhabit. It felt like a functional work of art, which is a familiar thing. That can go down as another memorable highlight from touring in the US.
The late Lottie and Stephen / Photograph by Sarah Martin
You seem like a dog person. Are there any special mutts in your life right now? If I never had to go on tour again I think I would have a special dog of my own again, but for now there’s a young poodle called Beryl who calls the Revelator one of her homes – she’s about 7 months old, and I miss having her bouncing round the neighbourhood with me at the other end of her lead. The original Revelator dog Lottie was a very special girl; she died last September and is much missed. And Frank the lurcher who is getting on a bit is another wonderful dog friend.
What’s a typical day like in the B&S recording studio or rehearsal space? In late 2020 / throughout 2021 it was unpredictable but brilliant, while we were recording the last couple of albums – often there would only be Stuart, Chris and me around, but we’d get the others in to do their parts on songs when they could fit it in. Since we set the rehearsal space up for recording, we’ve tended to record songs as they come together, rather than rehearsing them in advance.
When we’re rehearsing for tour, I must admit it’s fairly workmanlike! We come in at 10ish usually, try to remember a couple of songs, then we form a line at the microwave with our tubs of ready meals and leftovers from home. Lunch always stretches out longer than planned, and most of the dads head off to collect their offspring from school so we don’t go too late into the afternoon.
Work in progress quilt, on show with others in the set, in June at the Revelator / Photograph by Stephen Skrynka
If I come to Glasgow this summer, what should I do there? If you come in August, come to the B&S weekender at SWG3 – we’ll be playing in the yard, both nights, watching the trains go over the viaduct – it’s such a great place, some other great bands playing too, including the Tenementals who I will also be singing with. If you come in June, come to the Revelator’s salon des refusés “Feed The Hand That Bites You” – I’ll be showing a series of quilts I’m making as part of that, but each day there’ll be something different from an artist or group whose proposal was rejected by Glasgow International. Eat at Sugo and Ka Pao! Maybe we could go to the seaside, chips and ice cream? Visit the Alasdair Gray Archive. Go for a sunset swim at Gourock Pool on a Wednesday night.
Who is the comedian in the band? Bob’s the funniest
Does everyone meditate on the road? No! Only Stuart, I think.
The Tenementals (Sarah on far right) / Photo by Stephen Skrynka
How did the pandemic change the band? I think it has left most of us more firmly rooted to home, to be honest. I feel sure the effects are still emerging, so we’ll see what else…
For a couple of us, the fact that being a working band became more difficult, opened up space in our lives for other creative projects which have become equally important, so there are competing demands on our attention.
What was it like being on The Simpsons?
Being asked to do a song for The Simpsons was a real shot in the arm for the band, to be honest – and to have been animated into the episode was particularly special. On my birthday everyone wore pin badges of my Simpsons character… it was a bit like Being John Malkovich at the go-karting!
What are you eating, cooking, reading, watching these days? I binged Ripley with Andrew Scott the other week, which was amazing. Rewatched Fleabag series 2 after that… I also started rewatching Humans, which was on Channel 4 in the UK maybe 10 years ago, and it is very good. I don’t watch much telly though really. I saw – and loved – Poor Things, at the cinema.
A friend gave me Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn for my birthday which I’ve been reading on tour.
Cooking—it’s been a while, for one reason or another, but a while ago I was regularly making Ukrainian stuffed cabbage rolls, with veggie haggis, mushrooms, rice and lots of herbs. Really good! If I’m at home, and eating out, it’ll often be at Sugo, or Ka Pao, or Lotus in Scotstoun for Lebanese food as good as any I’ve ever had, or Suissi for vegan Asian food.
16mm film screening at the Revelator / Photograph by Sarah Martin
Records Sarah cannot live without
The Partisan – Leonard Cohen
Come ‘Round Here (I’m The One You Need) by the Miracles, in mono on a 7”. It just isn’t the same on any other format I have heard.
Somebody – Depeche Mode
The Story of a Soldier – Ennio Morricone
On Battleship Hill – PJ Harvey
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – Them
Stoned Love – the Supremes
That Summer Feeling – Jonathan Richman
Tip Toe – Sault
They Don’t Know – Kirsty MacColl
Photograph by Sarah MartinPhotograph by Sarah Martin
This is the second part of a two-part chat between longtime friends Jennifer and Hilarie Sidney (the High Water Marks, the Apples in Stereo), who talk about everything from skinnydipping in Sweden and living in the moment to the comforts of recording at home with friends and family. Jennifer was having her morning coffee in Pittsburgh and Hilarie was at home in Grøa, Norway. (Images courtesy of Jennifer) (Read part one)
The Ladybug Transistor at The Andy Warhol Museum in the early 2000s. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: What bands have you been in then and now? Jennifer: Past: Saturnine, Frock, The New Alcindors
Now: The Garment District, The Ladybug Transistor
Hilarie: Was music a big part of your upbringing? Jennifer: You already know my brother Jeff because we play in Ladybug Transistor together. When we were growing up, we would make up our own radio shows. We would record on Maxell cassettes, play the part of DJs, act out commercials and select music from our parents’ vinyl collection. Our household was filled with records, especially the Beach Boys and Beatles. We would just lie around and stare at record covers. Those records were some of our favorite toys. Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan. We weren’t raised with religion, so I always joke that Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young was our cultural trinity growing up. My first concert was Peter, Paul and Mary. We started going to concerts together early as a family: Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, U2, the Replacements. And then as teens were fortunate to have seen so many incredible bands (RIP the Syria Mosque!), like the Smiths, the Cure, R.E.M., New Order, the Three O’Clock, Hüsker Dü, Modern English, the Ramones, the Kinks, Camper Van Beethoven—that was absolutely pivotal for me. More recently as a family we saw Bert Jansch in a church, not long before he passed away. Music was always on around the house and in the car. We had 45s and the Fisher Price turntable so music has been a constant. My mom grew up with Bonnie McLean’s (RIP) half-sister in Philadelphia; she was one of the most amazing Fillmore poster designers. She made some of the most beautiful posters from that era. She would mail them to my mom and her friends at Penn State to decorate their dorm room and we had them framed on our walls growing up. Music (and album covers) created a place of joy and comfort for us and that created the essential foundation for me.
Jeff was always playing in bands (in what is now Pittsburgh show legend, his high school band opened for Nirvana very early on, at The Sonic Temple, which was a short-lived all ages venue inside a Masonic Temple), but then I was like, I want to play guitar too! Did you ever have that feeling where you’re like, I’m not just a music fan and you’re learning by listening and going to shows, constantly paying attention. That’s a way of learning music too. I took piano from a woman down the street when I was a child. When I was at Mount Holyoke College, I took lessons from a guy in Amherst here and there, which was kind of awkward because I had my binder of songs I wanted to learn, and he wanted me to strum along to his songs. So I really learned to play by joining a band. I first started playing guitar in Saturnine in Brooklyn. When we were forming Ladybug, Sportsguitar invited us to go on tour with them in Switzerland around 1995-1996, so that’s when I also started playing bass.
Jennifer leads the Garment District / Photo by John Colombo
Hilarie: That’s how you do it. It’s like, I want to be part of this. And maybe I can’t do this, but I will do this because I want to. Jennifer: You learn from being with others and from listening and doing. It teaches you to really listen and learn to play with other people.
Hilarie: Tell us what you’ve been up to in Pittsburgh. Jennifer: Before creating music at The Garment District, I was focusing my creative energies in other realms. First, I worked as education director at the Mattress Factory, an incredible contemporary art museum here, and created educational programming, including for our James Turrell retrospective exhibition. That was a huge draw for me to take the job when I moved here and worked with artists from Cuba at a time where there was political turmoil with Bush as far as Cuban artists not being able to come to the U.S. So there was a long-distance collaboration, long before the times of lockdown. In that position, I worked with incredible contemporary living artists and created educational and public programs and materials. So, it was very much a creative job. I had worked in museums in New York, including the Brooklyn Museum, and also worked here at SLB Radio Productions, which produces a public radio show and radio-based programs for kids and families based out of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. I was also was one of the longtime co-organizers of Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh, the city’s first independent craft fair. I had cofounded an online craft business with Christine Lee and Danielle Fee when I lived in New York, just at the beginning of websites. We were vendors the first Renegade Craft fairs at McCarren Park in Brooklyn and Wicker Park in Chicago. After moving back to Pittsburgh, I remember seeing a flyer announcing Handmade Arcade applications. It was the first event, with like 30 vendors and 1,000 attendees in a small gallery space. I became one of the organizers and a longtime vendor and then the marketing director. We ran that for 15 years and it grew to 200 vendors and 10,000 attendees.
So, I was working creatively in those realms and also I co-published the Pittsburgh Signs Project photography book. We received a grant from the Sprout Fund, which we had applied for. It was a competitive process, and it was during the city of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary. There were projects that were funded that involved the community and this was the early days of crowdsourcing. It’s a 200-page color book, so we had 250 signs from all over Western Pennsylvania, not just from Pittsburgh and photographers were children all the way up to people in their 80s. Professionals, hobbyists, amateurs, designers, a whole range. Being on tour in the ’90s, I was always one of the ones who had a camera, and I was always taking photos and I’d get teased. I would always say stop the van, stop the van, let’s jump out. I was taking photos of these cool neon signs mainly out west. A lot of them are still there out west because the weather’s so much drier. Our book had a limited boutique run through Carnegie Mellon University Press and sold out quickly, so I’ve always daydreamed about doing a second printing because most of the things in the book are either destroyed, demolished, ended up in dumpsters in gentrified neighborhoods, etc. and it’s a visual recording of the built environment of Pittsburgh. It’s available online and in some bookstores still. We created an exhibition, posters and postcards and it was great to have people submit their images to us from all over Western PA and to curate that book. It was two couples working together and we all lived near each other. So it was kind of like a band but for a book.
Jennifer Baron with her Pittsburgh Signs Project book. Photo courtesy of Keith Srakocic / AP
Hilarie: Tell us about the origins of the Garment District. Jennifer: We were talking about how starting a new project can happen organically. While I was working on the PSP book, I started getting back into writing music. You know, you can’t not do it. I started recording demos at home using our digital Boss 8-track with my laptop and phone. I have a lot of vintage instruments, including a Hammond M3 organ we got for $40 at Goodwill. One of the keys is still chipped, which is frustrating. One night I went to see this amazing band Wet Hair … at the time Shawn Reed lived in Iowa City and had run an experimental/noise label before that (Raccoo-oo-oon). He’s also an incredible printmaker and visual artist. When you go see a band you’ve never heard of and you’re inspired and excited, I need that in my life. It doesn’t happen as often now because of social media and finding out about things too much before you experience them. So I saw Wet Hair and was blown away by the merch table: all handmade silk-screens, collages, cassettes, 45s. I struck up a friendship with Shawn, who was running Night People (label). I sent him some of my Garment District demos and he wrote back in the middle of the night asking, “do you want to do a cassette?” And I was like, “of course!” It just started taking off organically. There was the motivation and there was an investment where I was like, OK, now this is real.
I was also starting to play live with friends in Pittsburgh. My cousin Lucy Blehar was in high school at the time, and I’d always go to see her musicals. I felt that her voice would be a great addition to the music I was writing. I was always in theater company growing up. I don’t sing, but I write all the music and the lyrics. We started recording with my friend Kevin Smith in his attic studio, which led to the cassette Melody Elder on Night People. Then Shawn asked me if I wanted to do a vinyl release. He didn’t do full-length vinyl that often, but my next album, If You Take Your Magic Slow, also came out on Night People. I really thank Shawn, and felt so encouraged and supported, that brought my music into this whole scene of more contemporary underground stuff in the world of the releases he was doing. Check out Wet Hair, they remind me of Spacemen 3 meets New Order combined, plus their own sound. He loves a lot of the same bands we love from Australia and New Zealand and has also done some reissues. So I continued the concept I had for The Garment District and played a few shows with some women in Pittsburgh. We did a Nuggets Night ’60s covers. If we lived in the same city, I’d be like, “Hilarie has to be our drummer.”
Jennifer and Lucy = the Garment District
Hilarie: I would love that. Jennifer: I always wanted to make music with more women and that just was part of that as well.
Hilarie: I didn’t know that and I don’t think I knew that that first album is on cassette. Jennifer: Yes, my first Garment District release Melody Elder came out on cassette and I always daydreamed about it coming out on vinyl. I love recording in houses like Ladybug has always done with Marlborough Farms. That was my beginning in music. I love recording in home environments and taking time and just that whole vibe. And Melody Elder is named after my favorite childhood babysitter.
Hilarie: That’s her actual name? How cool is that? Jennifer: If I have a side project, I want to name it that. I don’t even know where she lives now. But like being aGeneration X latch-key kid, typical, we had tons of babysitters and we loved them.
Hilarie: Me too. We kind of raised ourselves but we had babysitters, and our parents went out. My parents were really into partying, so I was left to my own devices quite a bit. Jennifer: There were a lot of parties. There were Steak-umms for dinner.
The Ladybug Transistor on a ferry while on tour in Canada, 1990s (Image courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: How was the Ladybug reunion last fall? Jennifer: I picked up Derek (Almstead) in Bedford, PA and we all met up in advance, coming from four different states, in Brooklyn to rehearse at Marlborough Farms, where several of us used to live. It was incredibly special to spend that focused quality time in the house and the neighborhood for about one week before the tour. The first show was in Brooklyn, which was fantastic—it was like a wedding reception with so many old and new friends and people I’d been connecting with for the Garment District and old-school Ladybug fans. It was just amazing to see everyone in one place. I love that venue Public Records in Brooklyn, which is close to our old house. The tour was a dreamy magical whirlwind on a lot of different levels, and for me, I felt instantly back in the on tour mode the second I jumped in the van. We have a lot going on with our live sets, with instrument switches, and being in Norway last July helped prepare us. I can’t wait to do it again! It all clicked back into place and it went really well, especially the show at Public Records in New York and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and being back at Schubas in Chicago. And Kalamazoo, the Bells Brewery, they have this massive space, a huge outdoor garden, a home brewing market and beautiful venue. The sound system was probably one of the best, most professional sound systems we’ve ever played in. Wow, this sounds the sound person with such a sweetheart. The way they treated the band, it felt like being in Europe. I highly recommend that venue.
Hilarie: Who is the biggest comedian in Ladybug? Jennifer: Really, all of us in our own individual ways. A regular traveling comedy troupe in the van. Party of 6—audience of 6. If pressured to select one, I would probably say my brother Jeff.
Hilarie: Who is the coolest in a crisis? Jennifer: Gary. However, our forever drummer San met both criteria, cool in a crisis, plus a hilarious and biting and sharp wit. Rest in power forever to the best drummer ever and an incredible human.
Hilarie: If Ladybug Transistor had a theme song, what would it be? Non Ladybug song: “Joy of a Toy Continued,” Kevin Ayers
“Jackson,” Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra
Ladybug: “The Great British Spring”
The Ladybug Transistor on tour with the Lucksmiths and the Aislers Set, SF, circa 1999-2000
Hilarie: Do you have any funny/odd tour stories? Jennifer: When Ladybug Transistor was on tour in Spain (Barcelona), it was like a typical Spanish night. We played the show, and you have dinner at midnight and we were sitting outside with Unai, he was our amazing booking agent and tour manager and also drove our van. Mike Galinsky has a documentary film about him, Radiation. I love Spain, it was one of my favorite places to tour. Barcelona is probably my favorite city I’ve been to. And every place you play is such a different geography, different architecture, just so much to do there and we had an incredible time in Barcelona like we climbed to the top of Sagrada Familia, went to the beach; it was just fantastic. We went to the Alhambra, southern Spain, northern Spain. So, we’re in Barcelona, having dinner after the show at this huge round table, all sitting together. The band, other bands, promoter, it was a big group. In the center of the table Jeff and Sasha had their passports, cards and money in a cross-body bag. It was late. Well, someone grabbed their bag, just reached right through all the people around the table, snatched it, and ran off into the night. Everyone started running after this person screaming. My brother Jeff ended up barefoot, I don’t know if he was wearing sandals or flipflops. Everyone was yelling after the person, and they dropped the pack somewhere in the middle of the street.
The Ladybug Transistor live at The Andy Warhol Museum November 9, 2023. Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Another logistical craziness story was around the time of The Albemarle Sound tour. We were doing a U.S. tour with Of Montreal when we were also playing the Bowlie Weekender in England, Belle and Sebastian invited us to play, which is which is hands-down one of my favorite experiences ever performing live. This is the day of message boards and pre social media, so it was just so incredible to arrive there. When you’re seeing people, you’re seeing them for the first time. It’s so direct. Yeah, you just arrived, and you experience everything firsthand as it’s happening, which is it’s hard to explain to people who don’t have that and why that’s so important.
So, we already knew we were doing like a monthlong tour with Of Montreal, but we were then invited to do the Bowlie and this was in April 1999. At that point in the tour, we were playing in Norman (OK), so we had to figure out the logistics. So basically, we’re on the tour, but we then had to fly to London and take the train to Camber Sands, to play Bowlie. So Of Montreal agreed to drive our van for us with all of our stuff. We played the show in Norman and then Anne Cunningham and Ron, the amazing original guitar player for The Flaming Lips, had some all-night party BBQ. I love his guitar playing. You probably went to one of those parties or stayed in those big old houses near Oklahoma City. We played that show, stayed up all night, drove the van to the Dallas airport, and left handwritten notes for Of Montreal. I don’t even know if we had cell phones. Everything was like you made a plan and you stuck to it. It wasn’t like you text everyone “I’m almost there. I’m parking. I’m here.” You just made a plan, wrote notes. We made an extra set of keys for them. We flew to London mid-tour and wanted to stay for the festival, so we were gone for a couple of days, and had to miss a few U.S. shows. And then we flew back to rejoin them in San Diego. But it was such an amazing experience, showing up at Bowlie, everyone waiting in line. Meeting these bands, some of them for the first time. You might not even have any idea of who they are. It was such an incredible time being able to play on the same night with Belle and Sebastian. We were so grateful to that Of Montreal was willing to do that.
The Ladybug Transistor at the Emmaboda Festival in Sweden with Ulf Ekerot, 1999. (photo courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: Tell us about some other memorable live experiences. Jennifer: The first time we played Emmaboda in Sweden with the Lucksmiths was magical. The Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel regaled us with tales about their experiences playing there. They even gave us a handwritten note containing advice about “breaking into” the Hotel Amigo pool and something about a “mystery drink.” Sure enough, one night in the woods, the pool was, um, populated. Immediately most Swedes naturally started skinnydipping and well, many but not all the Americans joined in. Also, the Ladybug Transistor performing with Mayo Thompson and Ghost at Spaceland in L.A.; seeing Lee Perry and Oasis (diva helicopter arrival) in Sweden; playing at our friends’ wedding at a biker bar in Flekkefjord, Norway; in 2019, staying at the Vibberodden Lighthouse during the Egersund Visefestival in Norway; getting to play live with Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey’s the No Ones, when we returned to Egersund in 2023. With the Garment District, opening for Julia Holter at the VIA New Music & Media Festival; opening for Parquet Courts; filming a Silver Studio Session for the Andy Warhol Museum; performing at the Carrie Furnaces Rivers of Steel National Historic Landmark (giant steel mill remnants along the Monongahela River); participating in artist Doug Aitken’s Station-to-Station video project; and performing in an abandoned 1900s-era Czech Church on the Allegheny River for the SYNC’D film and music series.
Hilarie: What is the best food you’ve ever eaten on tour? Jennifer: Tacos, burritos and brunch in the Mission District in San Francisco. The vegan Uchepo Tamal at Public Records in Brooklyn during our recent Ladybug Transistor tour. The first time we tasted (devoured) Brunost, brown Norwegian cheese. Addicting. Hilarie might chuckle since it’s so common there! Breakfasts at the Grand Hotel in Egersund, Norway during the Visefestival, with the sublime simplicity of bread, yogurt and granola … everything leads back to Norway which is appropriate for this interview.
The Garment District filming the “Left on Coast” video. Photo by Nicole Czapinski. Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Hilarie: What’s in your fridge? Jennifer: Vegan contents. Seltzer, hummus, leftovers, almond milk, garlic, ginger, pickles, carrots, tempeh, all manner of hot sauces, Fly By Jing Sichuan chili sauce, tahini, lots of fruit, Earth Balance.
Hilarie: What is the last thing you cooked at home? Jennifer: Recently: Vegan chili and banana bread
Hilarie: What’s on your nightstand? Jennifer: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young; Jane by Maggie Nelson; The Modern Utopian by Richard Fairfield; Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswold; Dog Songs by Mary Oliver; the new issue of Maggot Brain.
Hilarie: What are some of your hobbies? Jennifer: Observing the world around me through photography; sewing and crafting; swimming laps; gardening (work in progress!); adventures with our Black Lab Casper; thrift shopping; record shopping; museums; watching documentaries.
Hilarie: Do you collect anything? Jennifer: I am a lifer when it comes to thrift shopping and hand-me-downs, and I prefer the organic discovery process of physically going out into the world to discover things, especially when visiting new places or having special pieces passed down from family members or shared between friends. Vintage dishware, housewares and design, paint by numbers, found ephemera, records.
Shivika Asthana recording with The Garment District at Madeleine Campbell’s Accessible Recording Studio.
Hilarie: Do you have any favorite stagewear or stage design? Jennifer: Vintage clothing and thrift scores from over the many years; something given to me by my Grammy Kay. I love finding gems from my friend’s fabulous new shop, Jackie Whoa Vintage and my other friend’s event, the Pittsburgh Vintage Mixer. On our recent Ladybug Transistor tour, we brought along our original handmade paintings from “The Albemarle Sound” as stage decor. In December, The Garment District performed as part of a SYNC’D Presents showcase, which featured a live liquid light show by SOS Lightshow from Dayton, Ohio, and it was so fantastic. Very comforting to be bathed in that kind of warm light, shape and texture. So much the opposite of the ubiquitous artificial LED lighting we see all around us now that I find to be so harsh. Last month we opened for William Tyler & The Impossible Truth and the show featured DIY visuals from Michi Tapes, including live projection manipulation, VHS/8mm videos and found footage, and I cannot wait to have them at our next show.
Hilarie: What musician would you love to interview? Jennifer: Robert Wyatt.
What is your sign?
Jennifer: Leo
Rehearsing at Marlborough Farms in November 2023 / Photo courtesy of The Ladybug Transistor
Hilarie: What musical collaborations have really impacted you? Jennifer: With The Ladybug Transistor, we had the remarkable opportunity to work with Kevin Ayers. We recorded a cover of his song, “Puis-Je?” for the Pop Romantique: French Pop Classics compilation (Emperor Norton), and he added the vocals remotely from a studio in London. All organized initially via phone! The Garment District collaborated with artist Nicole Czapinski on the music video she made for “Left on Coast,’ which we filmed at an abandoned Nike Missile Site in Western Pennsylvania. Composing original music for the Pittsburgh-based SYNC’D series, which pairs musicians with filmmakers and video artists.
Spending time together in the studio and sharing a creative process with my cousin Lucy Blehar, who sings on the Garment District record. I’ve always been drawn to the concept of family bands (I play in The Ladybug Transistor with my brother Jeff) and what exists between relatives who collaborate on creative endeavors. We sing backups and harmonies and double certain melody lines together. It’s a very close bond, and an organic way of enjoying the studio environment together, extremely rewarding and such a blast. This continues my family’s music-making heritage, as my grandfather, great-aunt and great-uncles performed in tamburitza orchestra family bands in the Monongahela Valley towns Braddock and Rankin, and in Benwood, West Virginia, often for boarders who worked in area steel mills. Also, “Nature-Nurture,” from Melody Elder, was remixed by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum). “Bird or Bat” features bass guitar by Jowe Head (Swell Maps, Television Personalities), who I recorded with years ago in Brooklyn when we were stuck inside at our house Marlborough Farms during an epic NYC blizzard (look for those to resurface soon!). Last year I DJed at the opening celebration of “The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions” exhibition at The Andy Warhol Museum. What a dream.
Hilarie: Tell us about your latest album. How did it come together? Jennifer: I’m ecstatic to have my brand-new full-length album, Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World, out now on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records after knowing Mike Turner through Athens, Georgia and Elephant 6 bands, for many years. It’s been wonderful to reconnect with Mike on a personal level too, and a deep honor to be label mates with bands I admire like the Primitives, the Wedding Present, Great Lakes, Fred Schneider, Outer World, Swansea Sound, Katie Lass, and many others. He is so supportive and thoughtful and I’m so grateful for that support and for his enthusiasm. When he said, “What color vinyl do you want to do?”, that was meaningful (orange, of course!), because there is nothing like the tactile and visceral experience of listening to an album on vinyl from start to finish over a space of time. And it was a dream come true to get to talk to Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive), who cut the lacquers for my new LP at Third Man in Detroit, and have his expertise at the pressing plant.
Before this new album, I put out an all solo, all instrumental album called Luminous Toxin, released on Bill Shute’s Kendra Steiner Editions label. I wanted to do something more in the realm of sound collage, found sounds and field recordings and ambient music. I love instrumental music, and I found myself with this body of material that fit together. It’s liberating to sometimes do it all myself, record at home, have all instrumental, interstitial, soundtracky type music that I’m drawn to for a cohesive release. I was able to do like some final mixing at my friend’s basement studio called Yellow Couch Studio. I also did a 45 that has a remix that Sonic Boom did of one of my songs. That was all long distance like you’ve done sending files back and forth. I rerecorded a few of the synth parts at the end, but I love that his remix is very respectful of the original. Pete Kember’s way of making physical space out of sound is how I describe it.
The Ladybug Transistor on tour in Paris, late 1990s
After that I started creating new demos at home that would become my new album and I started working with my friend David Klug at his studio in Mount Washington here in Pittsburgh. Dave’s studio is very close to where we live so it is convenient and flexible if I want to try something new, add more layers, redo a part. There is a comfort level there and it has been an empowering space for creativity and experimentation and where I have been able to challenge myself and grow musically. I already had a lot of the new songs almost fully ready as far as arrangements. But other times I was able to keep that process open and flexible because I was working in his home studio and it’s a laidback, comfortable setting to be in. I still have some other things started waiting for a future release. I used a lot of great vintage synthesizers, including my own: I have a Roland JX3P I love. The Vox Super Continental and also my Wurlitzer electric piano I’ve had for years. And then for certain songs like “Left on Coast” and “Following Me,” I was really going for a specific fuzz guitar sound that you can’t get from some of the digital plug-ins … I mean, there are so many amazing people are making cool pedals now, including our friend Åke Strömer in Brooklyn. I got to borrow a bunch of ’60s and ’70s guitar pedals from Gregg Kostelich of the Cynics, they’re a fantastic garage rock band from Pittsburgh. And again, he was generous with them, basically he gave me this box of his vintage pedals, really rare ones. He was like you can borrow them for like a year. I love vintage pedals that have like 1 button or one knob.
Hilarie: That’s the best. I’m not super hung up about stuff, but I just want two buttons. Jennifer: All the digital displays and things that are programmed, I’m not oriented that way either. It’s like how can this equipment be in service to the song? It can’t make you have a great song. It can’t make you have the final piece of music. But it can bring things out and highlight things and it’s part of the language of whatever that song is. I felt so lucky to be able to have these great vintage and analog instruments because that’s part of my sound, to be able to see them and feel them and touch them, it’s very visceral. During the pandemic, there were obstacles and interruptions. I could do the mixing in person but we also did zoom, we did online. Lots of back and forth because being very involved in that process from the very beginning, from writing the demos, arranging everything through the mixing and the mastering, I was constantly there.
I’ve always been fascinated by bands made up of siblings or family members or couples and being in The Ladybug Transistor with my brother and two couples. Working with Lucy is so organic because she’s my first cousin. We’re really close and we love being in the studio together and just being around each other, so it was just an added layer to our personal bonding to be able to share that. I’m not a singer, but I sing a lot of backups, and I can do it with her because we’re related. And there’s something about voices that are related that like merge and overlap, where they kind of come together in that way. It’s also just a positive environment. The story of the new album includes this incredible group of friends, who all contributed their talents, several of whom perform live as part of The Garment District. You know Shivika (Asthana) from Papas Fritas.
Hilarie: I was going to ask you about her because I always admired her so much. We played a lot with Papas Fritas. Jennifer: I kind of get goosebumps. We reconnected after she moved here with her family from Charleston. Coincidentally, she had applied to Handmade Arcade, the event I was running. This is how we became reunited. I’m in love with her drumming. She has an amazing feel.
The Garment District live at Spirit, December 14, 2023
Hilarie: And a pretty voice too. Jennifer: She has a great voice, and we have played shows together. She has two kids, is really busy, makes her own jewelry and has a full-time job. I love that she’s on the new album. She should be playing music all the time. She’s got this natural touch. Sean Finn is the other drummer who plays on the new album and live with me, and he’s also incredible. Then Dave, who recorded the new album, plays on “Seldom Seen Arch” and he’s also an amazing drummer. He’s mainly been in metal bands, but if you tell him what you’re going for, he’s like a metronome with a cool feel. With arranging and producing the music and thinking about who’s the best person to play on a particular song, which are the best instruments to use, and the flow of things, I feel so fortunate to work in Dave’s studio and with friends and relatives on the album.
Hilarie: What are some of your favorite instruments and gear you used on the latest album? Jennifer: Two beloved instruments I always use that have been with me during my entire music-making journey are my Fender Vibrolux Reverb amp (beloved amp I got years ago from a friend I worked with at The Brooklyn Museum before there were things called eBay and Reverb.com!)—and my Rickenbacker 360 Fireglo, a generous gift from my parents years ago. Right now I am in love with a 1970 dark red Guild Polara electric guitar that a dear friend of mine is generously sharing with me. I got to use it on the Ladybug tour in November and I cannot wait to get to know it better and use it on new recordings! I am inspired by analog instruments and the characteristics of their physicality, and I love having them around the house to encourage the writing and demo process to be spontaneous in terms of where an instrument might lead you. Not in the sense of viewing equipment and gear as precious but as elements that are part of a song or piece of music to inform the creative process. Some of my favorite instruments that help give the new Garment District album its sound include our 1960s Vox Super Continental organ, Wurlitzer electric piano, Korg CX-3 organ, 1980s Casios.
Jennifer recording the new album at David Klug Studio
For the new album, I am so fortunate that I could borrow several synthesizers I consider to be the holy grail in terms of the golden age of the analog synth universe: a 1970s Roland 505 Paraphonic, Roland System 100, Farfisa Syntorchestra and a Sequential Pro One—along with effects like a Roland Dimension D. In terms of achieving specific guitar sounds, I loved experimenting with a few 1960s and early 1970s fuzz pedals I borrowed from my friend Gregg Kostelich (of the iconic Pittsburgh garage band the Cynics and Get Hip Records), including a UMI Buzz Tone & Volume Expander and Foxx Fuzz & Wa & Volume, plus my own Fuzz Face.
I love the story behind one of the drum kits we used for a few of the new songs—a beautiful-sounding 1966 Slingerland kit belonging to Laura Rogers (The Rogers Sisters). Our first bands played shows together in NYC (Ruby Falls and Saturnine) in the 1990s. Though its provenance has not been confirmed, Laura was told that the kit, which she bought from a collector in Detroit, was used on the Nirvana Unplugged recordings. Woven into this story is the fact that the brilliant Shivika played Laura’s kit on “The Starfish Song” and “The Instrument That Plays Itself.” I love the intuitive feel of Shiv’s playing, sometimes slightly behind the beat, perfect for the groove needed. She has performed live with us a few times and I think those two songs highlight her style. Papas Fritas and the Ladybug Transistor also used to play shows together, including at the Knitting Factory in NYC. Not long ago, we reconnected here in Pittsburgh (through another mutual friend!) and it has been such a joy to reconnect through both music and crafting. It was incredibly special having my longtime friend and Ladybug mate Gary Olson on trumpet along with and Kyle Forester on saxophone. And having Nathan Musser, who I hope to work with again, on violin and cello. I also really enjoyed playing melodica and glockenspiel on the album as well. These seemingly minor details are the kinds of experiences I love about the recording process and making a permanent document in sound. They help tell the story of an album and I love that our lives have intersected in these ways.
Jennifer and Casper on the Panhandle Trail
Hilarie: When we come to Pittsburgh, what should we do? Jennifer: I’d love to take you to the Mattress Factory museum, where I used to work. You could see permanent installations by Yayoi Kusama, Greer Lankton, James Turrell, Ann Hamilton, so many remarkable artists. Also the Andy Warhol Museum of course, and the Teenie Harris photography collection at Carnegie Museum of Art. Andy Warhol’s grave is right near where we grew up—people love to leave gifts at the site. We would walk through the Troy Hill Art Houses, which are installations in row houses that have been transformed as public art. The best vegan food ever is at Apteka (plant-based Eastern European), where we would go to eat and drink often. Las Palmas for street tacos and Udipi for Indian food. We would visit the birthplaces of August Wilson and Gertrude Stein and ride the incline up to Mount Washington (very Scandinavian!). We have good vintage shopping and some of the best record stores in the country. We’d go to Jerrys, the Attic and the Government Center. And nature is a huge part of Western Pennsylvania. When people come to Pittsburgh, they are shocked by how green it is. You can go hiking within 10 or 15 minutes in the city for the Rails to Trails program. The Gap Trail goes all the way to D.C. and there are so many great state parks all across Pennsylvania and rivers and streams.
Hilarie: You’ve made me homesick. Now I want to go to record stores and eat good food and I’m here in the middle of nowhere. Jennifer: You have the astounding nature and the Pagan culture and the fascinating traditions that go way, way back, plus a society that actually cares about taking care of people. Pittsburgh has a history of innovation and resilience. There’s still a lot of issues here, a lot of struggles and challenges, like with every city, especially with affordable housing. It’s a crisis all across the U.S.
Hilarie: What are you watching these days? Jennifer: We’re pretty addicted to documentaries. 1970s British television and horror films. Night Gallery. I love the soundtracks to them too. Always revisiting I’m Alan Partridge. One of my favorite new shows is Beef.
Jennifer at Marlborough Farms in Brooklyn where she lived in the 1990s with Steve Keene painting / Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Hilarie: What newish and current music you are loving? Jennifer: New and slightly newish music that’s often on my turntable and in my ears: Surface to Air Missive, Carl Didur, Zacht Automaat, The Frowning Clouds, Traffik Island, ORB, Locate S,1, Gloria, Etran de L’Air, Paint, Large Plants, Emma Anderson, Heather Trost, flypaper, Colored Lights, Cindy Lee, Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network, The Murlocs, Cindy, Jacco Gardner, Tim Presley, The Cromagnon Band, Licorice Root Orchestra, Bong Wish, The Orange Alabaster Mushroom, Cut Worms, Hot Apple Band, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Liam Hayes, Belbury Poly, Samantha Glass, Jackie McDowell, Golden Apples, The David Tattersall Group, Mike Donovan, Flash Hits, False Tracks …
Hilarie: What are you looking forward to this year? Jennifer: Performing live more and celebrating the new LP and hope to tour. DJing at the grand opening of The Government Center Outpost record shop in my neighborhood on March 9. We are organizing a show on April 19 with our friends in Pittsburgh, Chariot Fade, DJ BusCrates and Jackson Scott, plus live visuals by Michi Tapes. On April 28, I am so excited to participate in the Maxo Vanka Community Block Party. I will be playing 78s from my grandparents’ collection of tamburitza music surrounded by the magnificent murals of Croatian artist Maxo Vanka at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Vanka painted the murals in 1937 and 1941 and his subject matter explores a combination of religious imagery and iconography and progressive social themes including the horrors of war, injustice and the exploitation of workers. I have some new demos started and hope to be back in the studio soon! Working on new music videos in collaboration with several artists (Johnny Arlett, Sandy Loaf, Michi Tapes, Peter Speer, Cosmo Graff).
Records Jennifer cannot live without John Cale, Paris 1919
Mayo Thompson, Corky’s Debt to His Father
New Order, Power Corruption & Lies
Donovan, A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
Kaleidoscope, Tangerine Dream
Kevin Ayers, Joy of a Toy
Soft Machine, The Soft Machine
Love, Forever Changes
Lee Hazlewood, Cowboy in Sweden
Alice Coltrane, Journey in Satchidananda
King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown
Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Jardin Au Fou
Brian Eno, Here Come the Warm Jets Ethiopiques, Vol. 3-4: Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music
The Ladybug Transistor on tour with Superchunk with Laura Ballance in FloridaSaturnine at The Middle East in Boston / Photo by Michael GalinskyThe Ladybug Transistor in Prospect Park Brooklyn / Photo by Erick Schonfeld
