Half-time Round-up

Whilst I've not exactly been setting the world of speed-blogging alive, I am still on the case and have a couple of new posts planned this week. Honest I do.

Big excitement for me personally on the blog front though when I received a comment on my Better Beatles post from a "JeanpSmith" - who it turns out was the original vocalist from The Better Beatles and she hints that the full Better Beatles session (they recorded an albums-worth) getting a release soon!

As I said at the time, info on the band was scarce (YOU try googling them..) but armed with a name I quickly found a great post on Crud Crud which contains a little more of the history and a longer comment from Jean explaining the origins of the band.

I never really intended to just blog old stuff, but I'm a sucker for reminiscing - and I don't like passing judgement on new stuff until I have the benefit of hindsight. Baggy has served me well in that respect. Nonetheless it seems that I've had a pretty good hit rate when it comes to digging up the past.

A comment on my inaugural Seymores post alerted me to Dave Fera's new band Big Blue Marble. Great stuff that retains a lot of the melody and melancholy of The Seymores

Since my first Ted Chippington post, he's come out of retirement, done a load of gigs, been on TV and released a boxset of his work! Last week I got a nice package through from Ted with recordings of a couple of the latest gigs and a little note signed "cheers chief"...priceless

Dave Howard Singers have also apparently just re-released their back catalogue (including various mixes of Yon Yonson) and Dave is still recording new music. Check his Myspace and snazzy new official site

A kindly soul sent me a copy of some more amazing stuff by Those Naughty Corinithians after my post thereof. It's just served to make me wish I knew a bit more about them though..

And finally since I posted the BOB Peel Session, Richard from the band contacted me to say they were also resurrecting plans to release a BOB retrospective due to renewed interest from the weird wide web. Official website on the way and some unreleased tunes on their new BOB Myspace. Richard also has some great solo stuff on his own Captain Black Myspace which is well worth a listen if you loved BOB.

Thanks to everyone who has left comments and got in touch so far, it really does make it all worthwhile! Keep it coming..

The Seymores

So here we have The Seymores - a band I know almost NOTHING about.

The first time I heard their album "Treat Her Like A Showcat" I was sleeping on the floor of a one room apartment in the Mexican neighbourhood of West Hollywood, Los Angeles. That doesn't sound even slightly true but I assure you it is. The songs were poppy enough to catch my attention yet weird enough to keep me interested and I managed to take home with me a bad quality cassette copy.

I listened to it non-stop for weeks and I still maintain that there isn't a bad song on the album. I eventually got a copy on CD along with the "1000lb Grr'lla EP" (which duplicates some of the tracks from this album and includes a forgettable Joy Division cover). I've still never heard their debut album "Piedmont", but the reviews I've read talk about it being over-produced and not altogether that good. I'm pretty sure they split up not long after "Treat Her Like A Showcat" came out.

The real struggle for me is to decide which tracks to post. They are all great - and they could have been huge. Most bands operating in similar sounds these days seem to think it's enough to have a couple of good songs and then an album full of mediocre filler. The Seymores shit great songs when they go to the toilet.

Seymores - Buses Are Running
Seymores - First Lady of Delaware
Seymores - Sicker Than You

The Seymores - Treat Her Like A Showcat at Amazon