I’d never heard of The Groove Farm until I picked up CD86 and it’s actually not been all that easy tracking down the background info. My indie-bible doesn’t have a feature on them, instead referring readers to look up Beatnik Filmstar, a band which formed in 1991 featuring the singer/guitarist and lead guitarist from The Groove Farm and whose bio dismisses his former band a single sentence stating ‘they delivered a plethora of garage-type surf-pop singles from 1996 to late 1990.’
On the evidence of the track on CD86, I thought that was a tad harsh:-
mp3 : The Groove Farm – It Always Rains On Sunday
The track was one of four to be found on debut 7″ EP Sore Heads And Happy Hearts which was a cheaply recorded self-release on Raving Pop Blast. It led to their name being dropped by an increasing number of fanzine writers and in turn lumped in with the C86 movement.
A fan of the band has said elsewhere on t’internet that shambling, anorak and twee are the words most associated with 86 but that The Groove Farm live were never ‘twee’ and they never wore anoraks. They could at times shamble with the best of them but equally they could deliver fantastic and powerful pop with the honest and true spirit of punk.
They got signed by Subway Records on which there were four singles and an LP in the twelve months up to November 1988 after which things turned sour. The band hadn’t ever really been happy at the label feeling the cleaner slick production wasn’t representative of their sound and by 1989 they were back at Raving Pop Blast but after one more single and an album they called it a day.
Not only was it tough getting decent info on the band but the other tracks on the debut single proved elusive for the most part. Here’s one of them:-
mp3 : The Groove Farm – God’s Tears
While here’s an alternative take on another as featured on a flexidisc given away with issue#6 of Whoosh fanzine:-
mp3 : The Groove Farm – Heaven Is Blue
Sorry that I’ve slipped up so late on the b-side front so late on in the series…..
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 