It has been many months since I last posted on here, not
because of how quiet things have been, but because we have all been so busy.
2015 has been a great year for ex-members of Saloon, with Alison, Matt and
myself all having released well received records this year.
But any success is always tempered by a degree of sadness,
as we think about the friends and family we have loved and lost on our travels;
none more so than at this time in November, when we remember Mike and his wife
Sara who are no longer with us.
A few weeks ago Paul from Track and Field sent me a copy of
a letter from his archives. It was the letter that Mike sent to Track and Field
as an introduction to Saloon; at the time we badly wanted to play their club
because it was so damned cool and we were sick of playing terrible gigs every
time we came to London. Little did we know that Track and Field had already
seen us when we supported Stereolab and couldn’t really see the point in
Saloon. Still, the letter must have made a difference, as within the next few
years we went on to play countless Track and Field shows and release three
albums with them. Anyway here is the letter for you to enjoy.
Missing you Smoughts!
Friday, 17 April 2015
Recording Artist Rod Cromwell
Other Projects
It has been a busy few weeks. My new album has been out for over a month now and I have still not officially announced the release on here. I tried writing a lengthy blog post about it, but just can't find the time to finish it, so here is the quick version.
So you know, the album is out in the shops, called RODNEY CROMWELL 'Age of Anxiety' released on the Happy Robots label on CD and digitally:
It has been favourably compared to early-OMD, Giorgio Moroder and Krafwerk (I think in terms of its sound rather than its cultural impact). The record has had really good airplay, with plays on the Gideon Coe show on BBC 6 Music, multiple plays on several Radio 3 in Spain and on loads of synthpop shows and other radio shows (all of whom I will thank again properly at a later date). Oh and somehow two songs are on heavy rotation on Croydon FM. So muchos respect there.
Thanks to everyone who has played, bought and said nice things about it. It has been very much appreciated! I will write some more about it I'm sure. Oh and feel free to follow Happy Robots on the Facebook. You can hear it on Spotify too, although obviously we would prefer you to buy it.
What else to report:
Alison's band 'The Left Outsides' have a new album 'The Shape of Things to Come' out on 8th May which itself is getting some great airplay. Follow all their news too on Facebook. I've not heard it yet but I'm sure it will be really good.
Indietracks 2015
Matt I know is in the studio at the moment with The Leaf Library working on their new album. And both The Leaf Library and Rodney Cromwell will be appearing at the Indietracks festival this 24-26th
July. It's the first announced gig for Rodney Cromwell so many thanks in advance to Indietracks for taking a punt and booking me.
On the Saloon front, I've renewed the Soundcloud subscription so all the old stuff is available again. Gideon Coe played two songs from the first Peel Session last night (that is the 16th April 2015). Gideon has played that session several times so many thanks for that Gid.
Lastly I've been emailing a chap James who was in the band Postalowa who we played with once in Norwich. As well as having a great Mixcloud show Tall Ships Radio Club, he has a band Broads who Saloon fans may be interested in. Our chat also enabled me to find the details on the 2003 gig in Norfolk which I've added to the Saloon timeline. As keeper of the archives and master of the data this stuff matters OK.
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.
As it is the 10 year anniversary of John Peel's death, this means it is also the anniversary of a far less momentous occurrence, the split of out band Saloon, a band was much championed by the jovial DJ. We officially announced Saloon's split two or three days after the Peel news, but in truth the band had fallen apart at least a year before.
As a way of marking the date, I am posting here a set of real rarities; a collection of ideas recorded, mostly in 2003, and were a work-in-progress towards our third album. An album we referred to as our folk LP, also known as 'Speak Softly a dream sleeps here.'
I issue thee songs with a 'health warning'; although written for Saloon I am somewhat loath to really give them the Saloon name. Our band was a very much a collaboration - nay collective - of five people, and it is telling that as soon as one of the five left, then the band fell apart. These recording are mainly just Matt and me; Amanda sings and plays on four of them, but there is not much of Mike and Alison on these recordings. Nevertheless, if you are or were a Saloon fan, I hope you enjoy these tracks despite the rather dour tone of some of them.
If you want to know a bit more of the backstory behind these recordings, I have written a much more comprehensive post on another page.
On a cheerier note, I'm happy to say (to those who don't already know) that earlier this month I became a father for a second time (which explains why I am up typing this at 4am. Alison has a new record coming soon from The Left Outsides (lots of activity on their website), Matt is recording a new record with Leaf Library and I'm happy to say my synth-heavy solo record - under my moniker Rodney Cromwell - has been mixed and mastered and is being polished off right now for, I hope, a release after Xmas. Lastly talk of a vinyl re-release of Saloon's our first collection of recordings - The Blue Demo - is gathering pace, so keep looking out here for an inevitable crowd funding request soon.
Alison posted onto her Facebook earlier this week a link to the The Left Outsides'
unreleased album The Shape of Things to Come. Recorded several years ago by Simon Trought at Soup Studios with appearances from Ben Phillipson, Karl Sabino & Matt Ashton (aka Matt from Saloon) & mixed by Martin Noble & Graham Sutton.
I've not had a chance to listen to it all, but what I have heard sounds great. Criminal that it was never released, but hey that's the music biz these days (grumble grumble etc etc). I am sure it will be much enjoyed by all you Saloon fans.
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.
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.
It’s not all just dwelling on the past on the Saloon
website. Alison has announced a gig for The Left Outsides on 24th 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.
A few weeks ago Paul from Track and Field sent me a copy of
a letter from his archives. It was the letter that Mike sent to Track and Field
as an introduction to Saloon; at the time we badly wanted to play their club
because it was so damned cool and we were sick of playing terrible gigs every
time we came to London. Little did we know that Track and Field had already
seen us when we supported Stereolab and couldn’t really see the point in
Saloon. Still, the letter must have made a difference, as within the next few
years we went on to play countless Track and Field shows and release three
albums with them. Anyway here is the letter for you to enjoy. 
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