While doing a bit of tidying up, I stumbled across a small number of what I had thought were totally lost posts from the old blog that had been deleted back in 2013. This one, posted in October 2011, was written by Comrade Colin as part of an occasional series on Sarah Records.
‘A hundred mile smiles to bannister and bouncer’
This is the rather brilliant jingle-jangle A-Side from Sarah #28, the first single that Action Painting! had out with Sarah Records back in 1990. They released another couple of singles later on for the label (#73 and #87) and a couple of the stronger tracks also appeared on some of the compilation LPs that Sarah put out (for example, ‘Mustard Gas’ featured on ‘There And Back Again Lane’, an album that had the great honour of being Sarah #100). Anyway, the song below is a nice wee slice of classic indie-pop and ‘very Sarah’ if you ask me… meaning trebly guitars, sad boy lyrics and Robert Smith vocals. It still sounds great to me. 🙂
mp3 : Action Painting! – These Things Happen
JC adds……
It really was quite a joy to stumble on this, and the Comrade’s review is, of course, bang on the money. I’ve tracked down the other song on Sarah 28, as it does seem as if it was a Double-A single.
mp3 : Action Painting! – Boy Meets World
As our dear friend Dirk would say…..Enjoy!!!!!
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
I really like this. There is a naivete to it but… in the best possible way. Sarah doesn’t always do it for me – this does!
* An exclamation mark felt appropriate.
Ah, memories. In those days, Comrade Colin’s Sarah series was like manna from heaven. If I remember correctly, it would often pop up on Saturday mornings as this was even before your long-running Scottish series. So much of Sarah has been reissued since your blog’s infancy (as has the works of Action Painting! by fellow Sarah alum Stewart Anderson of Boyracer on his Emotional Response label), but a Colin sighting was a beacon of light in the darkness back then. A very belated thank you to CC for those posts from an old acqaintance in Seattle. So glad you were able to dig this one up, JC.
What a great post! Colin’s write up is perfect. It really was quite a little label, Sarah.
Fun fact: if you sped up the guitars by triple you’d have the music to a perfect Wedding Present song.
It’s been ten years since the old blog was deleted? Where does the time go?