Name: 1982 4 Piece Demo
Brand: Strawberry Switchblade

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

LSSN048P

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Colour

pink

Colour details

Neon Pink

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Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

With Original Risograph Booklet

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Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-04-29

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Forte

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

1 / 7" / Extended format: Yes / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / pink

Artist

Strawberry Switchblade

Genre GB

New Wave / Post Punk

Label GB

Night School

1982 4-Piece Demo is the first official, fully-licensed and unreleased material to be released under the name Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences in 1986, the already-cult band have since grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t a complete picture. Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship, having met some years earlier on the punk scene, became a creative partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation, an all-female 4 piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the line up on bass and drums respectively. Strawberry Switchblade would eventually pair down to a duo and go on to chart success but it’s in these raw, passionate recordings that the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time. Spanish Song is a previously unreleased song. With Rose McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it’s the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or a precursor to the indie-pop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a couple of years later. Trees and Flowers is instantly recognizable, a bona fide classic that would earn the band its first record deal. Here it’s given a more forceful rhythm section: Goodlett and McGowan’s playing is in fact accomplished and doesn’t hint at the bands’ youth. Go Away would also surface later on the band’s debut LP but here it is a moody-garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting refrain. These 3 songs point to a tantalizing future of the band that was never realized. Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, with artwork based on a single photographic contact sheet (the only visual evidence of the band in this form) and with a booklet of photographs and new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.

1982 4 Piece Demo

Music GB