C86 Show - Indie Pop

Root Cartwright in conversation with David Eastaugh 

Their first public performance was at an event called "Dance of Words" organised by students (one of whom was Jeremy Ensor) in Portsmouth and hosted by John Peel in May 1968, which also featured Fairport Convention, Free, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Alexis Korner, Gary Farr, Pete Brown's Poetry Band with John McLaughlin on guitar, and poets Brian Patten and Michael Horovitz.

They were signed by Korner's management team and, with Peel's active support, performed at similar events and gigs in London and elsewhere, sharing bills with Pink Floyd, The Fugs, Family, Free, King Crimson, Yes, Deep Purple, Elton John, Ten Years After and others. The group were the first to be signed to Peel's Dandelion Records; though the label's co-founder Clive Selwood later described them as "the most pretentious act I have ever come across", and Peel's radio producer John Walters described them as "incorporating all kinds of arty-farty nonsense"; and performed at the first Bath Festival of Blues in June 1969.

Martin Bisi in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.martinbisi.com/news.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5UpP0xMzMc

https://www.martinbisi.com/

In 1981, he started B.C. Studiowith Bill Laswell and Brian Eno in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, where he recorded much of the No Wave, avant garde, and hip-hop of the early 1980s including Lydia Lunch, Live Skull, Fred Frith and Afrika Bambaataa. In 1982, he recorded the instruments for the first song Whitney Houston recorded as a lead singer, "Memories" off of Material's One Down LP.

Soon after recording Herbie Hancock's "Rockit", Bisi split from Bill Laswell but continued working from BC Studio till present time, with a specialty in loud, dense, often noisy sound, with a focus on local NYC music such as White Hills (band), Clone, Cinema Cinema, and Weeping Icon.

Philip Hogarth & D'Arcy Walsh in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://royalottawa.bandcamp.com/album/here-comes-everybody

https://www.royalottawa.ca/

It all began in 1981 when Philip Hogarth moved to Dublin to study Irish theater for his fourth year of university. “I ended up getting sidetracked because there was such an incredible music scene going on at that time that looked way more attractive than classes.” Hogarth would soon meet Michael Griffin and Aidan McGovern, and feeling like ‘like-minded lost souls watching this amazing music world go by too quickly’, the three got instruments – guitar, bass, and keyboards respectively - and started learning to play them and write songs. When, at the end of the year, Hogarth needed to return to Canada, Griffin and McGovern decided to join him to keep the band going. Back in Ottawa they teamed up with drummer D’Arcy Walsh, who’d cut his teeth playing with The Bureaucrats and The Action. And thus Bugs Harvey Oswald was born. They got a band house, played eight hours a day, and would go on to open for The Ramones, The Fall, and Mission Of Burma. Bugs’ 1982 7”, Bye-Bye, got a lot of airplay, bringing the band to the New York City for gigs at Danceteria,  CBGB’s, and across the river at Maxwell’s. Yet a record deal remained elusive. By 1985 guitarist J.P. Vaucrosson had left the band, and marriage and kids were calling, so Bugs Harvey Oswald called it a day. 

 

Come 1993 the members decided to reform as Royal Ottawa, with The Night Twisters’ Alan Pollock now on guitar, releasing the Heaven mini-album in 1996. Writing prolifically as ever, they also began to construct their own studio and rehearsal room to focus even more on their craft, the space evolving over three iterations in the decades since. The ripest fruit from these years was released on the full-length The World We Know in 2015, mastered at Abbey Road Studios, and the much-lauded Carcosa double album in 2023. The Here Comes Everybody EP was released earlier this year to glowing reviews across the globe.

Matt Devine in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://ventilatorofficial.bandcamp.com/album/reseda-spleen

https://matt-devine.bandcamp.com/album/a-distant-present

Thirty years after its original release, Reseda Spleen, the 1996 debut album from Los Angeles psychedelic rock project Ventilator, is getting a new lease on life through a reissue from Bar/None Records. Led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Matt Devine, Ventilator emerged following his departure from Permanent Green Light, the power-pop band he shared with former Three O’Clock frontman Michael Quercio.

 

Recorded largely in Devine’s North Hollywood apartment using a Tascam 388 eight-track tape recorder, Reseda Spleen blends melodic songwriting with noisy guitars, atmospheric textures, and moments of experimentation. While Devine was the driving creative force behind the project, the album also features contributions from drummer Byron Reynolds (Possum Dixon), lap steel guitarist Jeff Caruana, and Brad Laner of Medicine, who played bass on “Earthquake Song” and mixed “Schadenfreude.” The majority of the album was mixed by Earle Mankey, whose extensive credits include Sparks, the Runaways, and the Beach Boys.

Julie Hair in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://femalegenius.bandcamp.com/album/female-genius

https://www.facebook.com/ftothegenius/

Julie Hair and Marnie Jaffe blasted out of the LES underground rock scene of the 1980’s and are still creating. Julie’s experience in the the art rock band 3 Teens Kill 4 and Marnie’s Live Skull footprint inform their musicality. Nikki D’Agostino is an an avant-garde composer who contributes integral skronk, and lyrical sax lines. LES Artist Janice Sloane's uber minimal guitar adds sonic texture.