Now my moogs are in the loft (again)

After a flurry of activity when I re-launched the Saloon website as this blog, it has been fairly quiet on here for a while. The reason has really been because of too much musical activity in our lives rather than too little.

Matt and Alison’s projects go from strength to strength. Matt’s band The Leaf Library have released three albums in two years and Alison and her husband mark, as well as a flood of activity with The Left Outsides, have also a new band The Trimdon Grange Explosion. Make sure to look them up on social media.

I am going to talk about myself now though (Matt, Alison – as ever, do send me stuff and I will post it up).

It has been just over two years since I released the Rodney Cromwell album ‘Age of Anxiety’ on Happy Robots Records. When I last posted about it in April 2015, I was pretty downhearted. Although at that stage it had received some radio play I was struggling to get anyone to write about it. But, following its very slow start, with barely a tweet from anyone on the day it came out, the album ended up being surprisingly well received.

In the end I took on a press agent Shameless Promotion (PR) from Canada and between us we were able to get great coverage in NME, Huffington Post, the Electricity Club, Electronic Sounds Magazine, Record Collector, Louder Thank War, Impose Magazine, SoundsXP, Overblown and loads more. It also had a lot of ‘grassroots’ coverage and I ended up doing more interviews than I had ever done in my career. It was particularly great to get positive feedback from a few synth ‘legends’ with Mal Holmes from OMD saying nice words and Rusty Egan from Visage / Rich Kids saying great things and playing the record loads on his shows.

I also got a load of terrific radio play from the likes of Gideon Coe and Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music and on several shows on RNE3 in Spain. And it hasn’t stopped; the album and its singles are still getting constant play on specialist indie and synthpop shows and stations. I did a few radio sessions too – the highlight perhaps being a session with Julio Ruiz on RNE3 in Madrid. Julio previously interviewed Saloon back in 2002 when we played in Contempopranea Festival, so it was lovely to meet him again and play some songs on the show. 

If I posted links to all the radio sessions, interviews and reviews is would take me all day, but – if you care – all the links are available on the Happy Robots Records website. 

I also never thought I would play live again – in fact I sold much of my gear in 2014 at a boot fair. But by Summer 2015 I was playing my first shows for five years. Almost every gig we played was great. There were almost too many highlights to mention but clearly playing with the bands Marsheaux, Death and Vanilla, and Snookerstar DJ Steve Davis, plus the festivals Indietracks and Madrid Popfest, have to be near top of the list.  It was great organising another Happy Robots gig in November 2016 and really great that some of the old faces who used to come and watch Saloon came out to show their support.  The call of the Travelodge, terrible service stations and tiny back room venues will always be there for me. I can’t ever see that going away. 

It is impossible to thank everyone who has helped me out, but many thanks must go out to those who played in the heavily rotating Rodney Cromwell band over the last year and half – Adrian Taylor (from Controllers) and Matt Saloon / Leaf Library all deserve a massive thank you! A slightly bigger thank you should also go out to Alice (Martha of Arthur & Martha fame plus Cosines, Mass Datura and more) and Richard Salt (also Controllers) who played the lion's-share of gigs. We spent many enjoyable hours in our rehearsal rooms talking about guitar pedals, synths and how shit Brexit is, as well as practicing occasionally. 

And to the point of this lengthy post, well after a most enjoyable trip to Spain, where Matt from Saloon joined us on guitar, I feel things have come full circle and I’ve achieved  all I wanted to accomplish in terms of promoting ‘Age of Anxiety’. It's time to put the synths back in the metaphorical loft and let my ears recover. It feels like a good time to think about future projects but also to spend a bit more time with my incredibly supportive wife Alison and our two kids, who have had to endure me being away for many weekends.

This is not to say there won’t be any gigs or releases in the future. Rod Cromwell will be appearing on a couple of great compilations soon, and in terms of gigs I am always up for offers. I just won’t be actively looking for opportunities. I do hope to play at least one more London gig in 2017 (and you know where I am if you need me.)

But I want to spend a bit more time with the family while concentrating on the label, probably arguing with strangers about politics on twitter and, maybe even, writing some new songs.  I also have a couple of great new releases out this year on Happy Robots Records, so do stick with us, follow us on Facebook and sign up to the Happy Robots Mailng List if you haven’t done so already.

Right – off to write that new album I keep promising you.

Adam

New records, new fruits of the 'loon.

It has been a while since our last update. The reason being, well we have been rather busy. 

2015 has been dubbed the year of the Saloon comeback! Ex-members of Saloon have, we hope, three new records out this year, so Loonatics start saving your pennies…(please)….here is the news so far....

RODNEY CROMWELL (Adam)  

Age of Anxiety

The album that I have been tinkering with for about for several years is finally finished. It is very much an extension of sonic area explored with Arthur & Martha (it features Alice / Martha on a couple of tracks too). It is an album of ten songs propelled by hissy analog synths, cheap vocoders, toy instruments, crackly samples, bass riffery and – errr - more analog synths. 

Although the title is a nod to 80's electro (Age of Chance and/or Age of Consent by Bronski Beat) its themes are those of love, loss, grief, paranoia, euphoria in our modern post millennial world of over connection and tribulation That sounds quite ominous - it’s really just a silly indie disco record.  

I’m releasing it under the Rodney Cromwell name – which is a moniker I used once before, during the Saloon days, when I recoded a song Radaghast the Brown for a Lord of the Rings tribute album on Bearos. It is to be released on CD / digital download on 9th March 2015 and distributed by the good people at Cargo Records. The lovely cover was designed by ‘our Matt’. And it will be the first release in five years on the Happy Robots label; hopefully – if we break even – we will be able to put out some more releases (by other bands) in the near future! …oh and you will be able to buy it on our website as well as in the shops and on iTunes.   

Adam

THE LEAF LIBRARY (Matt and Co)  

Daylight Versions

Second album time! We’re halfway through recording another album at Studio Klank in north London – it’s a lovely place, and they’ve even let us build a little shrine on the wall above the mixing desk (the full Happy Robots back catalogue to the first person to name them all...).

It’s all shaping up nicely thanks with tons of guitars, a bit of synth and some piano, lots of drones, some pedal steel and a ride cymbal orchestra all recorded so far. It’ll hopefully feature contributions from some of our mates too including members of The Clientele / Amor de Dias, The Drink, The Left Outsides and Singing Adams. And horns! There are definitely going to be some horns on there too.

The album is called ‘Daylight Versions’ and is inspired by (variously) the sea, commuting, the Suffolk coast, Walthamstow marshes and death. It’ll be out on vinyl via Where It’s At Is Where You Are some point this year. Happy listening.

Matt

That’s all for now. Hopefully more soon. Do get in touch if you need to know any more.  

Stock Take Time

After the plays on Gideon Coe and the setting up of the Arthur and Martha bandcamp, there has been a bit of movement with shop sales so I thought it was time to do a stock take.

This is a list of everything we have left.  I'm afraid the prices have gone up a little due to a) extortionate UK postage b) People buying off me at uber-reasonable prices only to then re-sell them for much higher on eBay 

MERCH

Electron T-Shirt: Dark and Light Blue (Medium in dark blue and Large in light blue) (no XS or XL left - sorry) £4.99

7' SINGLES

Girls are the new boys - 7' single (new in box - despite being the Festive 50 smash! I have still got a box of new copies. This was limited to 500)  £0.99

Saloon / Lazer Guided Split Single. (I just unearthed 2 of these - very rare [250??] and unplayed. Saloon's track Futurismo our first 7" release on purple vinyl. Very nice.  £4.99

Arthur and Martha: Autovia 7' single (Despite glowing reviews from likes of NME, I still have a box of these too)  £1.99

CD's

SALOON: (this is) what we call progress. (On Track and Field, new and unplayed. Stock running low now - about 10 copies left)  £4.99

ARTHUR AND MARTHA: Navigation (New and sealed.)   £4.99

SALOON: if we meet in the future. (CD Test pressing. I have 2 copies only.)  £4.99 Only one left

CD COMPILATIONS

Readipop No.1 Includes Pink by Saloon (our very first release!! Still have about 10 of these)  £0.99

Readipop No.2 Includes Nina Says by Saloon (never released anywhere else. Rare. Still have about 10 of these)  £0.99

SALOON: LP Demo (3 tracks from the debut album uber rare blue CD handmade sleeve demo. No idea if it works, but looks nice though - one to show off that you own on Discogs. I have one copy)  £2.99 Gone

LAUDANUM: Remixed. (Includes SALOON's only ever remix the wonderful 'Russian Moon' also never again released. I have two copies of the promo version left. Cover starting to look a bit dog-eared though)  £4.99

Litte Darla has a treat for you no.20. (Includes 'Happy Robots' from second SALOON album. Last 2 copies)  £2.99

Litte Darla has a treat for you no.24 (Includes SALOON 'Suivez La Piste Remix' - I think a slightly different mix from the 'Resonance 7" - certainly the only way to get this song digitally. Last 2 copies)  £2.99

BOTPOP vol 1. Compilation album from the Happy Robots label that I ran with Alice. Lovely sleeve by Andrew. Includes ARTHUR AND MARTHA: Ultra Alliance [perhaps our best track] as well as loads of other great tracks by the likes of Hong King in the 60's, Katsen, Jupiter etc.  
 £4.99

Please email me [adam.cresswell [at] gmail.com] with the stuff you want and I will send you postage details. Payment by Paypal please. First come first served on the limited stuff. Apologies if I do take a day or two posting stuff out - this will be due to me not being an amazon sized multinational conglomerate.

Saloon's Expanding Rock Family Tree

So it feels like the last few weeks have been a (relative) hive of activity for the ex-members of Saloon and their extended families, with our Rock-Family Tree seeming to spread its branches further.

One of the things I had been putting off for ages was getting the two Saloon synth serviced. The guy I have been using for almost 15 years now is the best in the business; the moog rogue is playing better than ever and the Moog Opus 3 finally has a working string section. The strings have never worked so this is a big deal to me (but probably not of much interest to anyone else reading this.)

Three tracks from the July 2001 Saloon Peel session were aired again by the brilliant Gideon Coe on his 6 Music Show. Someone emailed Gideon to say that he had fond memories of us at Truck Fest (hopefully from the great 2003 show as opposed to the ropey 2000 one where we were compared to The Corrs).

The Saloon ex-members have spoken a fair bit about setting up a Saloon Bandcamp, giving fans the chance to buy enhanced versions of the albums with extra bits and bobs. Hopefully we can make that happen soon. In the meantime I have set up a bandcamp for Arthur and Martha which is looking quite nice. No rarities on there yet (as there aren’t really any) although you can get the singles at a bargain price, as well as downloads of the three A&M videos.  

Alison and Mark have started recording their new album for The Left Outsides. News and links found on their Facebook. They are also playing in a band The Trimdon Grange Explosion which has a new Facebook page also.  I don’t know how the pair of them find the time to be in so many bands!

Matt has been doing some work with his other band The Form Group, in demo-ing some new songs towards a proper album. He is also writing songs for a new The Leaf Library album and they have a new 7" single coming out in June. A picture disc no less. 

Mike’s brother Rob with his Hot Chip hat on, posted a link the other day to a great cover of William Onyeabor’s ‘Atomic Bomb’ that he plays guitar on and will be released for a forthcoming remix album which I think will be out for Record Store Day. Nice moog on the cover too.

The news for me is that although I hinted previously that there might be another Arthur and Martha album in the pipeline, Alice and I have agreed that the record I have been slowly working-on, probably shouldn’t be an Arthur and Martha record. This is in part due to Alice’s commitments to her band Cosines, but perhaps more due to the fact that it really is an Adam solo album, and it’s very hard to pretend that its anything else. So instead I will probably release it under my solo-Rodney Cromwell moniker. Rodney Cromwell was the name I used back in 2002 when I recorded a song– Radaghast the Brown – for the Bearos Records Tribute to The Lord of the Rings (my song was inspired by the Spectum Lord of the Rings game).

I mentioned Alice’s band Cosines who played last night (which I missed due to family commitments / general flakiness) well their new single Commuter Love is out now via Fika Recordings and it’s a glam rock, glittertastic stonker. She originally wrote it for A&M, which might explain the name-checking of the old Moog Rogue, but obviously due to my aforementioned flakiness I never got around to doing anything with it.  Anyway I hope you enjoy it along with everything Alison and Matt are doing – hopefully one day I will have something new to contribute.

Another mixed bag

I have been pretty busy the last few weeks so not had much of a chance to do any updates on here. But seeing as the Saloon website was down for almost 10 years, I don’t feel too guilty.

Nice to hear an interview on Radio Berkshire with Reading band The Jettes. Two of the members are Richard and Sarah who were also in Desdemona, a band that Saloon played with several times, and I am sure we had them at the Happy Robots night on a number of occasions. Richard also came and helped out when we did our final tour in Scandinavia. We did try and drag him on stage for the finale of ‘Girls are the new boys’ in Stockholm, but he declined the offer. Great to hear them doing so well.

Also in the news, but far less uplifting, is the story of Naomi Button who has had her baby girl Elsa snatched. Naomi is currently campaigning going through legal proceedings to try and get Elsa back from Egypt where she is being held by the family of Elsa’s father. Naomi was a close friend of Mike back when we lived in Reading. Naomi needs financial support for her campaign; if anyone reading this can help I know it would be incredibly appreciated.

So this morning I read that the cassette tape is making a comeback. Not in our house though, in fact if it wasn’t for me clearing out all the C90’s this site probably wouldn’t exist.

Another reminder that Alison has another gig coming up with Left Outsides and Alice (my partner in Arthur and Martha) has a new single and new video out now with her band Cosines. 

And finally, while working on the new Arthur and Martha record (which is a rare enough thing in itself) I found a bundle of Saloon set lists in the Moog Opus 3 case. Four lists all from the same gig, no idea which one it was though. Undoubtedly a headline set in 2003 but certainly not Scandinavia as we definitely closed with Good Life / GATNB there. If anyone knows the right answer please write in to the usual address to win something we have overstocked in the shop. Can’t say fairer than that. 

Gigs, gatherings and other gossip

It’s not all just dwelling on the past on the Saloon website. Alison has announced a gig for The Left Outsides on 24^th May supporting Gravenhurst in a church in Hampstead. There will be a bar apparently and should well be worth the price of admission. 

Saloon’s collaborators have also been busy, Mike’s brother Rob (who collaborated with Saloon on ‘Have you seen the light’ amongst other things) has been touring the states as part of Hot Chip including playing Coachella. Another of our collaborators also inadvertently made it to the gossip pages this week.

In my own news, Alice and I had our first session in the ‘studio’ for about four years to work on some new Arthur and Martha material. Obviously don’t expect anything soon (if ever) but it was great to be making music with Alice again. Her other, much more active band Cosines have a new record out as well as some gig dates 

announced.

Also, on the Saloon front, I found a couple of lost tapes at the bottom of a box on the weekend. Now this was hardly a find on the level of The Tomb of the Cybermen, but what I did find was a really nice instrumental piano version of Chromosomes played by Amanda, along with a demo of a song that Mike wrote and recorded solo called ‘Cool as can be’. Hopefully I will get them up on here in due course of time.

As you can see, my web skills now stretch to hyperlinks.

Communications, Photos and Love

A few days ago it was lovely to get a message from David, a Saloon / Arthur and Martha from Madrid who sent me us these great photos of him sporting a fetching Happy Robots T-Shirt that he made himself.  

Perhaps you have noticed that I have made a few tweaks to the blog; the ‘gig list’ is now the timeline as I hope to add details about release dates and other things that we were up to. And the big update is that I have uploaded all of the old photos that I had on my computer onto my Flickr page with links from the relevant event in the timeline. As you might expect, I have not done much in terms of editing them, which is why they are not all that flattering (my double-chin features quite prominently on several photos). 

For future blog posts I may say something about the recording of each of the singles, mainly so that the people updating the Saloon Discogs page have something to chew on.  If you have any other suggestions for things you would like to see on here please let me know.

Finally, big congratulations are due to Matt and his lovely wife, who have fantastic news that they are now proud parents. With all our best wishes as they enter the magical realm of the un-slept.

Kraftwerk at The Tate

Kraftwerk go bananas

As my ‘friends’ on Facebook will know from all the photos posted on there, I went to see Kraftwerk at Tate Modern last night. It was not the first time I had seen Kraftwerk live, last time was 2003 when they toured Tour de France Soundtracks. On that occasion I went with Amanda, this time I went with another former band mate, Alice from Arthur & Martha.

It was a really great gig and the people at the Tate were really lovely, thanks also to Alice for her determination in getting tickets. The band played the whole of Radioactivity along with some greatest hits; closing with Music Non Stop from Electric Café, which I am pretty sure they closed the 2003 set with. Radioactivity is not the most consistent album but it does contain two of my very favourite Kraftwerk songs, Airwaves and Ohm Sweet Ohm. If I had any small gripe it was that those wonderful two songs hadn’t had the same level of overhauling that the gig hits have. Ohm in particular was a slight disappointment in that it didn’t have the big ending and speed-up that the album version has.

Nevertheless it was a fantastic gig. The sound was great, very precise despite being in the massive space of the turbine hall, and the 3D visuals were worth the price of admission alone. They complimented the music perfectly in terms of the pace and mood, and also added to the playful humour of the band. I particularly loved the visuals to Spacelab and Radioland.

The visuals for Autobahn really reminded me quite how much my own musical aesthetic had been influenced by Kraftwerk. Autovia, which was perhaps the last song written for Saloon (I conceived it as the song to open the 4^th Saloon album), when we spilt it became the first Arthur & Martha track. I came up with the idea for the song when gigging in Spain and I saw the word ‘Autovia’ on a road-sign and thought that sounds perfect for a Kraftwerk inspired / rip-off track.  Our own backing video for Autovia also featured VW Beatles, as does Kraftwerk’s Autobahn backing video.

Anyway, I didn’t video anything last night so I will post our Kraftwerk inspired video on here instead. 

If you are off to The Tate to see one of the remaining 6 shows, you are in for a real treat.