Labels: self released
Review by: MH
What’s this? A band who has named themselves after one of my favourite Leatherface songs and cites early End Of A Year as one of their main influences? That’s enough to start me foaming at the mouth with excitement before I’ve even listened to them. Then I saw that at least one of them used to be in The Family Cat. Anyone remember them? I remember doing their Christmas pub crawl and treasure hunt with my friends after they played a gig at the Rough Trade Shop in Covent Garden when I was about 15. They were all wearing Santa beards and hats when we got to the end of the treasure hunt at some pub in east London. To coincide with the gig they had released a Christmas 7inch single with a cover version of “Jesus Christ” on it by Alex Chilton. The B side had “Jesus Karaoke Christ” on it so you could do your own version at home. I have considered flogging my signed copy of that record on Discogs but I have not yet been willing to part with it for the 20p that it is worth. You can get it on Discogs for a pound but I think the fact that they have signed my copy has probably devalued it considerably. That treasure hunt was in 1991 and I’m not sure if the guy in Springtime was even alive in 1991 – he certainly wasn’t old enough to be in The Family Cat as even in 1991 they all looked they were about 50 years old. They were probably only about 30 but I thought they looked ancient at the time. Obviously this guy was not in the same Family Cat so had no hand in such timeless classics as “Gabriel’s Wings”, “Albert Hoffman’s Bike” and “Steamroller”. THE FAMILY CAT FROM STOKE NEWINGTON IN LONDON, ENGLAND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS BAND. A shame.
Shall I now bleat on about how much of a great song “Springtime” is by Leatherface? No? Ok…I won’t then…it is great though, really great…one of their finest. Sometimes I would say it is one of the greatest songs ever written. Those lyrics too – “There’s a little bit of springtime in the back of mind/Remembers when there was a time/When we danced and we laughed” – pure poetry, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Back to Springtime, the band (if I have not lost everyone and anyone is still reading). There is another band of the same name who released an album in 2005 according to Spotify. However, this Springtime comes from Richmond, VA. There are six tracks on this, their first demo. Short, bite-sized songs – only one shatters the two-minute barrier by a disgraceful 11 seconds. The vocals definitely have a hint of Patrick Kindlon about them “” probably the nearest I have heard anyone sound to him. They do have a similar, raw sound musically too although I’d say they are a touch more melodic and less chaotic than early End Of A Year. The melodic side of this band seems to be coming from that Leatherface influence as well as Lifetime. I’m into it – more than happy to see bands doing this type of thing. Apparently there will be a 7inch coming out soon if someone will help to put it out and I am very interested in hearing that record.