Category: Popguns

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#076: The Popguns – ‘Still A World Away’ (Midnight Music ’91)

Hello friends,

I have to be rather careful here, because strong parts of my love for The Popguns were always based on my never-ending love for Wendy Morgan, the singer. The problem is that Wendy is no longer Wendy Morgan, she is Wendy Pickles for quite some time now, wife of Simon Pickles, guitarist, pictured above in the middle. And Simon, lucky him, has visited The Vinyl Villain in the past and left comments (this was years ago, yes, but still I’m quite jealous of him (not so jealous like I am of that midget of The Jesus & Mary Chain for having stolen the one and only Hope Sandoval from me, but jealous enough, believe me)), so I’d better watch out and don’t praise Wendy too much!

But I digress, as usual. In the late 80’s, as you know, there was a flood of great indie bands from the UK, basically heading towards more accessible music than their precursors from four or five years ago. The list of those bands would be endless, but in the long run The Popguns always kind of led it, as far as I’m concerned. And it was a well deserved leadership, because they came up with five wonderful singles between ’88 and ’91, each one of them a true masterpiece!

So it would have been rather hard to pick a favourite if it weren’t for the video that accompanied their fifth single, today’s choice. I mean, obviously the song itself is stunning enough, but watching Wendy in its video makes it even more special!

To me it was never a question that something from The Popguns had to be included in the 111-singles-box. It could easily have been a different 7“, ‘Waiting For The Winter’ for example, because of its B-Side, ‘Because He Wanted To’ or, for that matter, their take on ‘Harley Davidson’ from a few years later. But no, it turned out to be this gem:

mp3: The Popguns – Still A World Away

Bloody brilliant, isn’t it? ‘They don’t make ’em like that no more’, as my mother says. And with this I certainly don’t mean The Popguns, but today’s music per se, because The Popguns, mind you, are still going strong: they released a single last year for example, which is worth listening to, the same is true for their recent album(s).

If you liked the song above as much as I do, check out their other stuff: as well their early work as their recent releases – you could spend your time a good deal worse!

Take care,

Dirk

The Popguns provided one of the real live delights in 2023, with an excellent show at the  Hug and Pint in Glasgow, an evening when I was in the rather wonderful company of strangeways.

The Popguns first recording, in 1988, took the form of one side of a flexidisc that was released on La-Di-Da Productions, a DIY label that was based in Hove, just outside their home town of Brighton.  The other half of the flexidisc was courtesy of the strangely-named How Many Beans Make Five?

The actual debut single appeared the following year on the London-based Medium Cool, a label that was home to a number of excellent indie-bands of the era such as The Corn Dollies, The Raw Herbs, The Waltones and The Siddeleys.    It proved to be an excellent way to introduce yourselves to the wider world

mp3: The Popguns – Landslide

A song that was voted in at #46 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty of 1989.

Five musicians were involved in the making of the proper debut single –  Wendy Morgan (vocals), Simon Pickles (guitar), Greg Dixon (guitar), Pat Walkington (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums) – the last named being the one you should recognise as being  the original drummer with The Wedding Present prior to him leaving in 1988.  The current line-up of the Popguns is almost identical to that from the debut single, with Ken Brotherston now on drums.

Here’s the two other songs you’ll find on the 12″ of Landslide.

mp3 : The Popguns – Down On Your Knees
mp3 : The Popguns – Leave It Alone

There was also a different mix of the single offered up:-

mp3: The Popguns – Landslide (alt mix)

Their newest 45, Caesar, was one of my favourite songs of last year.  One of its b-sides, Indie Rock Goddess, has inspired the band to produce a new t-shirt, and I’m proud to say that Mrs TVV (aka Rachel) has been sporting hers at various gigs in recent months.

If you fancy owning one of these, then here’s a link to where you can make an order.

JC

….but it’s not showing up in the index, nor is it among the files I’ve fired over to box.com to enable mp3s to be accessed.  It’s certainly been part of at least one of the mix tapes in by gone days, and I can’t understand why it’s not showing up.

Never mind…..gives me the perfect excuse to post it today.

mp3: The Popguns – Waiting For The Winter

Five musicians were involved in the making of the perfect piece of indie-pop back in 1989.  Wendy Morgan (vocals), Simon Pickles (guitar), Greg Dixon (guitar), Pat Walkington (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums) – the last named having previously the original drummer with The Wedding Present prior to him leaving in 1988.

The Popguns had actually formed in 1986 in Brighton, but didn’t get round to releasing a 45 of their own until Landslide, a track voted in at #46 in Peel’s Festive Fifty of 1989.  Waiting For The Winter was the follow-up, their first release on 12″ vinyl, on Midnight Music. It was later followed up with four further 45s and two albums – Eugenie (1990) and Snog (1991) – neither of which brought any commercial success.

The demise of their label saw The Popguns shift to 3rd Stone Records for the release of Love Junky in 1995, but again to almost complete indifference from the record-buying public.

Here’s the two b-sides to the single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Because He Wanted To
mp3: The Popguns – Every Dream

The four original members of the band reformed to play live shows in 2012 – by now the singer was known as Wendy Pickles; they soon returned to the studio where they were augmented by Tony Bryant on drums and Kate Mander on vocals, to record and release, on Matinee Recordings, the album Pop Fiction in 2014, which included another excellent single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Lovejunky

As with a quite a number of the indie bands from the 80s/90s who came round to reforming 20+ years later, there was a great deal of love and affection for what was happening, and while the sales figures were never high, the critical acclaim was always there (and rightly so!!!!!).

Before too long, there was more new material, including what could be described as a postscript to the 1989 single:-

mp3: The Popguns – Still Waiting For The Winter

The band then took another short break, during which time Wendy and Simon Pickles formed a new side project called The Perfect English Weather, who were the subject of this TVV post back in March 2019.

The Popguns are still very much on the go, and just last month gave a digital release to a new and rather excellent song, Caesar, as a taster for a new EP.

More info and product can be found at this bandcamp page.

JC