The Peryls of Releasing a Record

Let me take you back in time to a sleepy North Shropshire town called Whitchurch.   It’s 1988 and I’ve tucked myself into a pair of stonewashed jeans and I’m stood in front of a mirror chanting “I’m gonna do it” while attempting to backcomb my hair.  It was the night that changed everything.  It was the night of the school disco.

I’d been thinking about this night for weeks.  Giggling over maths textbooks and batting my eyelashes while conjugating the French verb “avoir”.  All I could think about were freckles.  Freckles and the face attached to them.  Tonight I was going to put myself out there and ask him for the last dance.  The signs were good.  We’d shared a sewing machine in textiles and he’d once stood next to me in the playground.  He liked me, I just knew it.

After an hour, things were really hotting up.  “Come On Eileen” was in mid flow and the time felt right.  I nudged my best friend and nodded in his direction.  I tried to appear nonchalant as she made her way across the dance floor and stomped with aplomb at the rousing chorus of “too rah doo rah day”.  Within seconds she was back by my side.  I looked hopefully into her eyes but she gravely shook her head. 

The rest of the night passed by in a bit of a blur.  When the time came for the fated last dance, I stood in the corner by the pommel horse, choking back tears as the object of my desire stuck his tongue down another girls throat.  I vowed that night that I would never face rejection again…

So what the hell are we doing releasing a record???

You put so much of yourself into an album (quite literally in our case, we’ve been stockpiling toe nail clippings to sellotape to the front of the CD as a bonus item) and putting it out there to be judged by the masses is really scary.  Almost as scary as asking a boy to like you.  So…listen to it, order it and please, please like it.  If you don’t…just lie to us and tell us it’s great or we’ll cry.