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Sarah Records

the official site

  • Sarah
    • Introduction
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    • Sarah 100
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      • Blueboy
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      • Brighter
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      • Field Mice
      • Forever People
      • Gentle Despite
      • Golden Dawn
      • Harvest Ministers
      • Heavenly
      • Hit Parade
      • Ivy
      • Northern Picture Library
      • Orchids
      • Rosaries
      • Sea Urchins
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      • Talulah Gosh
      • Tramway
      • Wake
    • Sarah
      • General Label Press
      • Sarah Compilations
    • Singles of the Week
    • Before Sarah
      • Are You Scared To Get Happy?
      • Fanzine Culture
      • Sha-la-la
  • And…
    • Popkiss
    • My Secret World
    • Between Hello & Goodbye
    • Shinkansen Recordings
      • Introduction
      • Discography
      • Texts

Tag Archives: Blueboy

(Belated) Popkiss Launch Party, 11th June 2017

Sarah Records Posted on April 26, 2017 by MattApril 26, 2017

Posted on 26th April, 2017

As you may know, Michael couldn’t make it to England for the original launch of Popkiss at Rough Trade… but now, a year-and-a-half later, there’s finally going to be a proper launch party, this time with bands playing and – hurrah! – Michael himself in attendance. You can buy tickets and find out more details here, but the gist is:

THE BETTER-LATE-THAN-NEVER POPKISS LAUNCH PARTY (PART TWO)
Rob Sekula (14 Iced Bears) + Paul Stewart (Blueboy) + Harvey Williams
and a Q&A with Michael White, hosted by Alexis Petridis

Sunday 11th June, 2017 5:30pm
Admission: £5.00

The Lexington
96-98 Pentonville Road
London
N1 9JB

Note the early start! But that also means it should be finished by around nine-ish, if you’re worried about Sunday trains. And there’ll be copies of the book for sale, guest DJs, all that sort of thing…

Posted in 14 Iced Bears, Another Sunny Day, Blueboy, Harvey Williams, Popkiss | Tagged 14 Iced Bears, Another Sunny Day, Blueboy, Harvey Williams, Popkiss

Orchids cheat death, watch Partick Thistle

Sarah Records Posted on February 13, 2016 by MattFebruary 13, 2016

Rock band crash scareIf you were one of those people who used to write and ask why bands on Sarah didn’t do more gigs, here’s a reminder from the (Scottish) Sun of what happened when The Orchids were due to drive 400-odd miles to London to promote Striving For The Lazy Perfection at the Garage in Highbury in the vague hope that someone from NME or Melody Maker might turn up and be drily dismissive. (The handwritten comment is by the band, by the way!)

PartickBut, on a more positive note, here’s the (Glasgow) Evening Times bringing news of what happened two weeks later, and also explaining why Striving For The Lazing Perfection is called what it is. Though I’m not entirely sure they’re right.

Footnote: we obviously didn’t find out about the Orchids’ crash till just before soundcheck, which didn’t give a lot of time to sort out adding anyone else to the bill. But then Harvey suggested he and Bobby did some Field Mice songs, given they were there anyway (Blueboy and Northern Picture Library had been due to support). So they did, including, as Clare says in the There And Back Again Lane booklet, three songs they never played live when the Field Mice were still going: Willow, An Earlier Autumn and A Wrong Turn and Raindrops, the last of those with Harvey on harmonica, which he never played on the record.

Posted in Blueboy, Field Mice, Harvey Williams, Images Other Artefacts, Northern Picture Library, Orchids | Tagged Blueboy, Field Mice, Harvey Williams, Northern Picture Library, Orchids
Sarah Records Posted on September 3, 2015 by MattSeptember 3, 2015

BlueboyFor If Wishes Were Horses, we had the bright idea of taking our own publicity photos in order to save some money. After all, how difficult can it be? Hmmm. Let’s put it this way: we never tried again. This one was taken in the garden behind the studio (White House Studio, Weston-super-Mare) during a break in recording.

l-r: Mark, Gemma, Paul, Keith, Lloyd

Posted in Blueboy, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy

Action Painting!, Classical Music; Blueboy, Meet Johnny Rave (Independent Catalogue)

Sarah Records Posted on August 14, 2015 by MattAugust 14, 2015

Classical Music & Meet Johnny Rave

Posted in Action Painting!, Blueboy, Press Action Painting, Press Blueboy | Tagged Action Painting!, Blueboy

Blueboy, Popkiss (NME)

Sarah Records Posted on August 6, 2015 by MattAugust 6, 2015

Popkiss

Posted in Blueboy, Press Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy
Sarah Records Posted on July 22, 2015 by MattJuly 22, 2015

Blueboy backstageBackstage somewhere, possibly in Japan judging by Gemma’s lanyard. The walls were completely blank half an hour earlier, you know.

l-r: Paul, Harvey, Lloyd, Gemma

Posted in Blueboy, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy
Sarah Records Posted on June 10, 2015 by MattJune 10, 2015

Keith and Paul, HarlowA photo of Keith and Paul watching Heavenly at the Harlow Square in July 1992 – I know it was at the Harlow Square because, if you look closely, you can see the T-shirt stall, on which I’ve stuck a rather forlorn note offering a free poster to anyone who can give me a lift back to either Epping or Loughton station afterwards. I presume somebody must have obliged, otherwise I’d have had to spend the night in Harlow, and if I’d done that I’d now be twice divorced with three kids and living in… Harlow. The poster would have been the one we did for Heavenly’s Le Jardin… tour. Though this one here advertises the gig itself.

Posted in Blueboy, Heavenly, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy, Heavenly

French tour leaflet, May 1994

Sarah Records Posted on June 1, 2015 by MattJune 1, 2015
French tour leaflet, May 1994

Click here for 4-page pdf

A typically whimsical French tour; we’d been assured that the gig at the Cafe de le Plage was a Paris showcase, despite no one in Paris having heard of the venue… not surprising, in retrospect, as it was in Maurepas, a small town 20 miles west with no station (it’s twinned with Waterlooville; say no more). The Orchids were supposed to headline, but singer James had broken his foot playing football – this only months after the London launch of Striving For The Lazy Perfection had had to be cancelled after their van fell off the M6 near Carlisle. But Harvey stepped in, and we seem to have given away free cassette copies of Epicurean, which sounds ridiculously generous. If you’ve always wondered why Blueboy’s Toulouse was called “Toulouse”, by the way, it’s because it was written outside Le Bikini in Toulouse.

Posted in Blueboy, Harvey Williams, Images Other Artefacts, Northern Picture Library, Orchids | Tagged Blueboy, Harvey Williams, Northern Picture Library, Orchids

Blueboy, Brighter, Boyracer @ The Royal Park, Leeds (poster)

Sarah Records Posted on April 24, 2015 by MattApril 24, 2015

Blueboy, Brighter & Boyracer at the Royal Park, LeedsA poster from what people later referred to as our alliterative period, which lasted for much of October 1992. The Royal Park was in Headingley rather than central Leeds, and my main memory is of someone trying to sell me drugs within five minutes of arriving for soundcheck that afternoon. That’s actually my only memory, to be honest, but that has nothing to do with the drugs. The cat is Jessica, and that’s our fence (again: garden, not drugs).

Posted in Blueboy, Boyracer, Brighter, Images Posters | Tagged Blueboy, Boyracer, Brighter

Even As We Speak, Blueboy, Secret Shine @ Camden Falcon poster

Sarah Records Posted on April 15, 2015 by MattApril 15, 2015

EAWS, Blueboy, Secret Shine @ Camden Falcon posterA poster from January 1992 for a gig at the Falcon in Camden Town. Design by Sarah Records based on an original by E.H. Shepard.

Posted in Blueboy, Even As We Speak, Images Posters, Secret Shine | Tagged Blueboy, Even As We Speak, Secret Shine

Sarah Christmas Party programme

Sarah Records Posted on March 24, 2015 by MattMarch 24, 2015

Sarah Christmas Party programmeThis is the handout that we handed out – that being the thing to do with handouts – at the end of the Thekla’s gangplank before the 1993 Sarah Christmas Party in order to let everyone know what they couldn’t expect. Having gone inside and read it, one person did (genuinely!) ask if he could be allowed back out again as a wet boxer short competition judged by Stewart Boyracer wasn’t really his sort of thing, but we just told him he should count himself lucky, as it wasn’t Stewart’s sort of thing either, and he’d be a lot closer. People are weird.

(NB this image is a bit bigger than most so you can read it – click more than once to bring it to maximum size!)

Posted in Action Painting!, Blueboy, Boyracer, Heavenly, Images Other Artefacts, Orchids, Secret Shine | Tagged Action Painting!, Blueboy, Boyracer, Heavenly, Orchids, Secret Shine
Sarah Records Posted on March 20, 2015 by MattMarch 20, 2015

Keith Girdler, Blueboy

Keith,
Narita Airport, Japan

Posted in Blueboy, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy

Blueboy: Clearer & other singles, 1991-1995

Sarah Records Posted on February 20, 2015 by MattFebruary 20, 2015

Clearer & Other Singles sleeve

Although both Blueboy’s Sarah albums were put online some time ago, and tracks from their singles were included on our label compilations, that still left quite a few holes. Alison, for instance, the dreamy, shimmering, rainwashed B-side of their debut 7″ (“… there’s rain on the window, rain from the black sky, and England looks pretty to me…”). Or twisting, tumbling, cello-driven, two-and-a-half-minute guitar-pop classic Meet Johnny Rave (“… there must be more to life than just getting by… so much more…”) – technically the A-side of SARAH 74 but, when we came to compile Gaol Ferry Bridge, we chose instead to include the haunting, hushed melancholy of Air France (“… smile me into bed and take my innocence… smash my little head and drag me far away, away, away…”). Or Hit, B-side to River, with its electronic rhythms and echoing piano (“… fame startled you… hit the booze, hit your dad…”). And, of course, the majestic River itself was never included on one of the band’s own albums – Sarah singles never were – so it was easy to miss this “swooning near-epic made infinitely more tearful by oceans of creamy orchestra” (NME) with its “gloriously overblown orchestral synths that echo the Pet Shop Boys at their most grandiose” (Melody Maker). And the same goes for the “delicately fluttering acoustic confection made from rice paper and sheer fresh air” (NME) that is Try Happiness (“… holy summertime, sleepless nights spent hugging desperation, lead-lined windows like my heart wide open…”). Or the taut, confrontational, electric anger of Popkiss (“… they’ve given me a colour, a symbol for freedom – so tell me now that you like me…”). Or, of course, Toulouse, the last song ever released on Sarah, with that simply stated final line: “I don’t want to change the world any more…” So, we’ve collected them all together under the title Blueboy: Clearer & other singles, 1991-1995, and they’re now available for streaming and download via the usual suspects.

Posted in Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy

Blueboy tour poster, July 1992

Sarah Records Posted on February 8, 2015 by MattFebruary 19, 2015

Blueboy Tour poster

A poster designed by the band to advertise a short tour in July ’92 promoting the release of If Wishes Were Horses. In those days, it was generally thought that if you didn’t have time to do a full-length tour, you should at least try to play (a) London, (b) your home town and (c) Harlow.

Posted in Blueboy, Heavenly, Images Posters | Tagged Blueboy, Even As We Speak

Blueboy, River (Simon Williams, NME)

Sarah Records Posted on January 28, 2015 by MattJanuary 28, 2015

Blueboy, River, Simon Williams NME review

Posted in Blueboy, Press Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy

Popkiss press release

Sarah Records Posted on January 19, 2015 by MattJanuary 19, 2015

Popkiss press release artwork

Original paste-up artwork for the press release for Blueboy’s second single, Popkiss. Underlying typewritten text is from their first single, Clearer.

Posted in Blueboy, Images Other Artefacts | Tagged Blueboy
Sarah Records Posted on January 12, 2015 by MattJanuary 12, 2015

Blueboy, Planet X, Liverpool

Paul, Keith and Gemma onstage at Planet X, Liverpool, 1993; it was cold, the ceiling was leaking, there was rainwater on the floor.

Posted in Blueboy, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy
Sarah Records Posted on January 12, 2015 by MattJanuary 15, 2015

Blueboy

l-r: Keith, Paul, Mark, Harvey, Gemma

Posted in Blueboy, Images Blueboy | Tagged Blueboy

Heavenly & Blueboy @ Fleece & Firkin, Bristol

Sarah Records Posted on January 7, 2015 by MattJanuary 8, 2015

Heavenly & Blueboy at Fleece & Firkin, Bristol (poster)

Poster for a gig in July 1992 at Bristol’s Fleece & Firkin to promote Le Jardin de Heavenly. Blueboy at this point had only released one single for us.

Posted in Blueboy, Heavenly, Images Posters | Tagged Blueboy, Heavenly

Sarah Records Christmas Party, 1991

Sarah Records Posted on December 11, 2013 by MattJanuary 8, 2015

Sarah Records Christmas Party poster

Poster for the 1991 Sarah Christmas Party on board the Thekla in Bristol.

Posted in Another Sunny Day, Blueboy, Brighter, Heavenly, Hit Parade, Images Posters, Secret Shine, Tramway | Tagged Another Sunny Day, Blueboy, Brighter, Heavenly, Hit Parade, Secret Shine, Tramway

Sarah was a Bristol-based independent record label, active between November 1987 and August 1995. This site was launched in 2015 to archive photos, press, posters and other artefacts; it’s a work in progress.

September 2021

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Words and Pictures

My Secret World
a film about Sarah

Popkiss
a book about Sarah

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