a sound reaction
A WELSH band who gave up on their musical dreams 30 years ago have secured their first record deal three decades after splitting up.
In 1988 Rhondda outfit The Peruvian Hipsters self-released their one and only single “Tony Hadley” – an enthusiastic slice of jangle pop that took irreverent aim at the singer of Spandau Ballet. They then promptly split up.
Now this long lost, late ’80s indie track has been rediscovered and snapped up by national label Cherry Red Records for inclusion on a compilation box set called C89.
And the song is in esteemed company alongside such late ’80s indie greats as The Stone Roses, The La’s and The Mock Turtles.
The three CD box set, which also includes indie classic I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well by cult Swansea band The Pooh Sticks, was released last month by Cherry Red.
C89 is a celebration of the ’80s indie scene, documenting a golden era when tuneful guitar-based bands made records on shoestring budgets, often issued on small labels with hand-made artwork, with little hope of mainstream exposure.
The box set, which includes songs from 1988 and 1989, follows previous best-selling collections C86 (2014), C87 (2016) and C88 (2017).
C86 expanded the NME’s genre-defining compilation with 50 extra tracks from the period. C87 and C88 were the imaginary sequels, picking up the story as the 1980s unfolded.
From Treorchy, Peruvian Hipsters had a large following and they regularly gigged in London. Their shows were always packed particularly when they played at venues around south Wales, however it never translated to any discernible success.
Peruvian Hipsters’ guitarist Nigel Buckland said the deal with Cherry Red came about after the label approached him to use the song after discovering it online.
“This all came through Facebook,” he explained. “I set up a Peruvian Hipsters Facebook page ages ago. I put the song up on Myspace years ago and it’s also on YouTube, so it’s been out there. That’s how Cherry Red found it. We did everything by email. It was as simple as that.”
Nigel, 56, who was a well known face on TV in the late ’90s fronting anarchic film review show Vidz on Channel 4, now lives in Bristol and teaches guitar. He said the song’s revival has taken him back to the era of DIY music when the band deployed some colourful ruses in an attempt to get signed.
“When the Hipsters were going, we released the single quite late into the history of the band,” he explained. “I realised that there was no indie label infrastructure in Wales at that time for a band to get signed to. The only way a band gets any credibility is being signed to a label. So I created my own label called Freak Medicine.
“Lo and behold here we are 30 years later. We wouldn’t be on Cherry Red and we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we hadn’t made up our own label!”