Sunday, October 18, 2009

Doesn't your balloon ever land?

Just realised that title betrays a coincidental topicality, but it's there for a thematic reason. What's happened is in the last few weeks two different people have got in touch with us about promoting a new Spearmint reissue. Can't think why they'd single this blog out.



The reissue in question is in fact the album that track comes from, their proper debut A Week Away, reissued on iTunes and through their online store tomorrow with a CD release on either 26th October or 16th November, depending on which outlet you believe. Not only do they get a hefty namecheck in 500 Days Of Summer - a Garden State/Shins-style profile spike hasn't happened yet, but give it time - but the album itself has just passed its ten year anniversary and so comes repackaged with eleven extra tracks, including the EP song cycle Life In Reverse. Apart from that certain other song, it's also worth noting the one that made the Radio 1 playlist (and featuring the self same sample that underpinned David Morales' Needin' U as it became a top ten single four months later) has now been reinstated to its full glory:

Spearmint - A Trip Into Space (full length version)

Spearmint - Outside The Roundhouse (from Life In Reverse EP)

And while it's currently only on Facebook, we're very delighted to see the A Trip Into Space video because we saw it on MTV's Alternative Nation one week at about 1.30am, possibly while pissed, and have never seen so much as a snippet since, and it's bugged us for a decade. The sop to the non-Facebooked is We're Going Out, only ever shown on the late UK Play channel and featuring celebrated dandy about town Dickon Edwards during his brief spell as second guitarist:



By coincidence this all follows in the wake of This Is A Souvenir: The Songs Of Spearmint & Shirley Lee, in which Image Comics commissioned a subset of comic writers and artists to reinterpret songs from the back catalogue in their own image. For the record, Phonogram's Gillen & McKelvie got Sweeping The Nation. Of course they did.

1 comment:

Breaking More Waves Blog said...

Ah Spearmint. Bless them. Loved this band. Loved the song Sweeping The Nation with its lyrics about bands that nobody had ever heard of sung by a band that nobody had ever heard of. Great.We're Going Out, It Will End, Scottish Pop and The Flaming Lips were other faves of mine. Thanks for reminding me about this great band (which I really should have thought about every time I visit your blog !)