Kaleidoscope Sounds
Surf Drums from 1987 with the 12" Walk Away
Fast paced, up tempo with catchy guitar riff and lyrics, a really solid track. Would have loved to have seen them perform this live. According to the info sources mentioned later in this post they did a pretty mean cover of The Undertones 'You Got My Number' as well!
This 12" was released on the Kaleidoscope Sound Label, an indie label from UK founded in 1986 by Joe Foster who was co-founder of Creation Records and also co-founder of punk band The Television Personalities.
Track List
- Walk Away
- She's Not Giving
- Tell The World
- Untitled Instrumental
The Band Were:
- Ann-Marie Taylor - Organ
- Colin Packwood - Bass
- David Kehoe - Guitar/Vocals
- Michael Laffoley - Drums
- Richard Left - Guitar
- Paul Tibetts - Drums (1987)
Birmingham Indie Labels
Surf Drums released their first 12" called 'Take It With Me This Seven Years' in 1985 on the Swordfish Record label, a Birmingham Indie Label set up in 1979, it was originally set up by two fellas who decided to open a Record Shop called 'Rockers' on Hurst Street in Birmingham in '79 mostly selling punk and post-punk records and evidently being a bit of a hangout for music lovers and also bands from the area, they later progressed into starting up their own label as well! That label is still going today and their website is at:
Swordfish Records. They had other acts on their books such as 'The Lilac Time' featuring Stephen Duffy (also founding member of Duran Duran) and 'The Ecstasy Club' with 'Jesus Loves The Acid' (if you remember the whole acid house scene).🙂
The band had one more release in 1987 called 'Black Tambourine'. The A Side punchy whilst the B Side 'All There Is' sounding very much 60's inspired. As it turns out according to the newspaper clipping on the video David Kehoe was a big fan of 60's band The Byrds and evidently got to meet his hero Roger McGuinn whilst Surf Drums were playing a gig in London, Mr McGuinn was impressed with the band's sound. Catch the tracks at the link:
Black Tambourine.
Korova Milk Bar
They eventually split and Ann-Marie Taylor and several other members went on to form UK band Korova Milk Bar (of which there are several bands in other countries which also use the same name). They made their first release on Smashing Records and were then signed to the Bristol based Indie label Subway Organization run by Martin Whitehead from the band
The Flatmates (also on this site at the link), finally they settled at another indie label Chapter 22. Catch their 1990 release on that label called 'Twisted' below:
The image on the video taken from the 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrik 'A Clockwork Orange', the name Korova actually meaning 'Cow' and was also used on another independent record label Korova Records who had bands such as
Echo & The Bunnymen on their books.
Ann-Marie Taylor would later marry Richard March who was part of West Midlands based Alt Rock band PWEI and would later go on to form electronic duo Bentley Rhythm Ace in the mid 1990's.
PWEI are still knocking around and have tour dates set around the UK this year. You can catch their cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik's
Love Missile F1-11 at the link. Evidently the two bands are playing a venue in London in December 2022. The tour dates for the UK if you wanted to catch them play are here:
tour-dates/pop-will-eat-itself.😉Info Sources & Pictures
Catch Surf Drums on Facebook at facebook.com/thesurfdrums/
Also some really good background on them thanks to Mark Pyskoty at YouTube
And some wonderful pictures of the band at:
birminghammusicarchive.com
Video Sources Thanks To
Mark Pyskoty at YouTube
Indiedancepop at YouTube
Header Picture Thanks To
Photo by Nicholas Jeffries on Unsplash
