My sister, who is a few years older than I, went to University in Norwich. Knowing that I was a music fan, she used to tell me, now and then, about what was going on musically in Norwich. Sometimes these stories would involve a band called Passing Clouds, a member of whom was friends with one of my sister’s friends. They seemed to be a big musical fish in the small Norfolkian pond, and I was quietly impressed by this ‘friend-by-proxy’ connection with someone almost an Actual Real Musician.
As this was a pre-internet-taking-over-the-world, let’s-go-indie-pop-through-the-mail kind of time, somehow I came across the postal address for Grant Madden, the aforementioned musician – and Passing Clouds vocalist. Ostensibly to ask if the band might like to contribute to one of the cassette compilations that I was releasing at the time, I dropped him a line. I can’t honestly remember if this led to the band actually being on one of my releases – such information is not on the internet; maybe I should put it there? – but it did result in getting copies of this record and another 12″ by the band. And they were free! And they were, and still are, very good!
Grant Madden moved on to form a band called Half Time Oranges, who released an album called Clive Baker Set Fire To Me, a title that has some kind of humorous football-related meaning, which is completely lost on me. That album was released by Rutland Records – named after Britain’s smallest county, which is a very indie-pop-twee kind of name – and that label also released records by Po! and The Cudgels, both of whom were on some of the compilations that I released. And so the circles-within-circles nature of that indie-pop scene is reinforced once again.
i saw this band at portsmouth pyramids supporting lush and gallon drunk…. , the record was released on bite back , owned by a guy called ian binnington who is now a promotor of live music around portsmouth and the south