Mogwai Fear Satan

The Heart Throbs - Dreamtime

The Heart Throbs were an indie-rock band from Reading, UK. Based around twin sisters Rose and Rachel (sisters of Echo & the Bunnymen drummer Pete DeFreitas), the initial lineup was:

• Rose Carlotti – Lead vocals/Guitar
• Rachel DeFreitas – Bass/Backing vocals
• Mark Slide – Drums
• Stephen Ward – Guitar

The Heart Throbs formed in early 1987, and reached their height in the early 1990s. They helped create a new scene of female-fronted, melodic, swirly guitar-based indie music, often (as in their case) with deep or dark lyrics. Several of the poppier of these bands were lumped into a 'blonde pop' label. Similar UK female fronted groups of this era include Lush, The Darling Buds, Transvision Vamp and The Primitives.

After releasing a series of singles on Rough Trade and their own label, Profumo (a reference to John Profumo), The Heart Throbs were signed by the UK record label One Little Indian Records. Guitarist Alan Barclay joined at this time, allowing original guitarist Ward to move to keyboards. Their first album, Cleopatra Grip, was distributed in the US by Elektra Records, after which they were signed by A&M Records, who released Jubilee Twist in the US. After disappointing sales, however, A&M elected not to distribute their third and final album, Vertical Smile. All three albums were named for euphemisms for female genitalia.

The Heart Throbs single "Dreamtime" reached a peak position of number 2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in 1990, and their single "She's In A Trance" reached number 21 in the same year.

Following the Cleopatra Grip tour, the rhythm section left the band, and were replaced by Noko (ex-Luxuria) on bass and Steve Monti (ex-Blockheads) on drums. By the third album, the band had switched to a third rhythm section of Colleen Browne, who later joined the Pale Saints, on bass and Steve Beswick on drums.

After The Heart Throbs split up in 1993, Rose Carlotti and Steve Beswick formed the group Angora, who then changed their name to Tom Patrol before eventually disbanding.

Discography

Singles & EPs

• "Toy" (1987, In Tape)
• "Bang" (1988, Rough Trade)
• "Too Many Shadows" (1988, Rough Trade)
• "Here I Hide" (1988, Profumo)
• "Blood From A Stone" (1989, Profumo)
• I Wonder Why (1990, One Little Indian)
• "Dreamtime" (1990, One Little Indian)
• Total Abandon EP (1991, One Little Indian)
• Spongy Thing EP (1992, One Little Indian)
• She's In A Trance-Mutations EP (1992, One Little Indian)
• "She's In A Trance" (1992, One Little Indian)
• Worser (1993, One Little Indian)

Albums

• Cleopatra Grip (1990, One Little Indian/Elektra)
• Jubilee Twist (1992, One Little Indian/A&M)
• Vertical Smile (1993, One Little Indian)

Bang Bang Machine - Geek Love

waltz around her, waltz around her
crystal mystery my dreamlets
midnight gardener and the rose garden
designer children papas roses
janice, maple, clifford, fist
apple and leona the lizard girl
to love, but never to be in love
never to be in love
to be in love
love

Bang Bang Machine were a cult indie band from Evesham, Worcestershire in England. They formed in 1989 and split up in 1996 after record company troubles.

The band experimented with different styles of music, for which reason the media found them hard to categorise. Musically they covered alternative rock, Goth, pop, ambient and dance. They were sometimes classed as a Shoegaze band, but musically fell between the Britpop and Grunge camps.

Their most famous song, the dark epic "Geek Love," was inspired by the book by Katherine Dunn about a family of freaks in a travelling circus. The artist David Hughes, who drew the Geek Love book cover, also illustrated the band's Eternal Happiness album cover. "Geek Love" also uses audio samples from the controversial Tod Browning film Freaks. "Geek Love" on CD regularly sells for £25-£35 on www.ebay.co.uk. In 2007 Geek Love was voted number 16 on the cult radio station B92s "Top 20 best singles ever" on www.firerecords.com.

"Geek Love" was championed by BBC Radio One DJ John Peel as a perfect example of a band self-financing their debut single; he famously stated, "Even if they never made another record, they'll have achieved more than most of us do in our entire lives." It was voted number one in his Festive Fifty in 1992. The band also recorded a Peel session, but this has never been released.

The band were known for creating moving songs about unusual topics. Their song "16 Years" was about the Stefan Kiszko case, where an innocent man was jailed for a crime he didn't commit.

They appeared on the Channel 4 programme The Word doing a live version of their song "Technologica" in 1993. They were also featured in Deadline comic and Volume magazine. They did cover versions of T-REX's "Life's a Gas" and Psychic TV's "Godstar."

Steve Eagles now plays with the jazz-psycho-funk-poetic-punk band Blurt and teaches guitar. Lamp is a DJ in Brighton and qualified as a sound engineer. Stan Lee married Elizabeth Freeth in 2005; in 2007 their baby son was born. Stan Lee A.K.A. Marc Angel now plays with Psychowrath, a new incarnation of Wrathchild. In 2007 articles appeared in The Evesham Journal and The Worcester News about possible future one-off gigs.

Band personnel

• Steve Eagles: Guitar
• Elizabeth Freeth: Vocals
• Stan Lee: Bass
• Lamp: Drums

Discography

Bang Bang Machine released a total of 8 singles and 2 albums.

Albums

• 1994 - Eternal Happiness, (Ultimate Records)
  
• 1995 - Amphibian, (Ultimate Records)

Singles

• 1991 - The 'Geek' EP
• 1992 - Evil Circus EP
• 1993 - Technologica EP
• 1993 - Geek Love EP
• 1994 - Give You Anything
• 1992 - Breathless
• 1995 - Love It Bleeds
• 1996 - Show me Your Pain

Retro Deux

Retro Deux - RUN (1996)

A video single from Retro Deux's album Artoodeetoo (ep) released in 1996. Retro Deux are Andrej Acin (vocals and keyboards) and Sergio Babovic (keyboards and programming), featuring Dalija Acin in the video. Video was shot by Dusan Joksimovic as director of photography, Vuk Velickovic as art director and Andrej Acin as director, on incredible location in Belgrade's "underground" found at the basement of Dom sindikata in the center of the city. Svetlana and Jelena Prokovic did the costumes design, with the support of Danijela Dacha Rajovic and Mr Bobo as make-up and hairstyling artists.
Andrej Acin started as a frontman of the rock band BAAL in 1990.

http://www.andrejacin.com/