Janice Long

So even though I never heard this band.

at the time that they were around because they were too obscure and you wouldn't be able to get their records in alberta at the time in the 80s it's the kind of band i was listening to at this time period so this band is from scotland this is their version it's from a radio session not a john peel session but a janice long session from july 1st 1987 this is the fizz bombs and they called the song the neil diamond one so let's listen to it

Tonight, yeah

just that little tiny peel of feedback at the end there.

So that's the Fizzbombs from 87 and only released, I think, fairly recently in the last decade or so, this Janice Long session.

The Fizzbombs were from Edinburgh, Katie McCullers on vocal, Margarita Vazquez-Ponte on guitar and backing vocals, Anne Donald on bass, and Angus McPake on drums.

I just read the book.

And of course, we'll talk about the version.

How much do they promote their album? How much, you know, back in the day, you'd have things called radio pluggers, people who would go around to try to convince a radio station to get a certain single on the playlist.

There was people like John Peel and David Kidd Jensen and Janice Long, but they were like night-time, late-time music.

You wanted to get on the daytime stuff, the sort of Simon Bates or God knows what else on Radio 1.

So if record companies are not going to put the resources into getting their artists onto the kind of major airwaves, whatever those airwaves now are, then the bands, they just won't get a hearing in the way that they need to.

So there was a lot of unemployment.

unemployment benefit was quite easy to access and to be on so I think a lot of people went you know what let's just be very poor but we'll be in a band and we're able to sort of just survive on a meagre substance but but there was a sort of network of venues there was like a job the John Peel show and Janice Long shows and then you had like every city and town would have an a venue of a certain alternative indie night that people would be able to access so if you've got your transit van you could get around the country and just have five most bands i felt have a five-year narrative you know 12-month honeymoon period of being in the band as you sort of yeah mentioned a bit earlier then the single the album the tour there's still the tricky second album and by the third album the tensions have just overflowed with um too many too much resentment and it all explodes you

know you've got management companies that are trying to you know get your art to be a certain way um we were never in that world because we stayed very much in the independent sort of realm of music but i can imagine if you were one of those 90s bands that kind of yeah there was there was still money in music then

Yes.

Did she narrate for the radio? It

was a spoken word session in 2011 with Janice Long, but the clip is not available.

Well, it's not available in the US.

I don't know if it's available elsewhere.

Bob Harris is in our corner.

Is Janice Long in our corner?

janice is in our corner absolutely janice is in our corner uh stuart mcconing mark radcliffe they're in our corner

mcconing radcliffe can be in our corner yeah it's quite a big corner this i can't help but feel we're probably spreading into the middle of the room now

...

the John Peel sessions and Janice Long sessions and-

Yeah

... and live at, um, Folkstone.

It's bizarre really because we could find all of them, but I think there's five sessions there.

We actually did six.

We did another one with Katrina for Janice Long, but for some reason they couldn't find that session.

But Roger did get a, a tape of it about two year ago, but it, it went in, Paul Weller split it up on his laptop, and he never got...

And I, I thought they were just awesome.

Two bands on that day, Status Quo, Queen, 'cause I was on the side of the stage watching Quo when they went on Rockin' All Over the World with Janis Long and the Queen boys.

Yeah.

Ama- incredible.