Ruth PO!

This post is written for anyone attending Indietracks festival this weekend 29-31st July 2016. It always seems a shame when there's so much choice of what to go and see and you might miss something good if you haven't got your schedule totally organised. But then again, there's the serendipity of discovering something worthwhile - and hopefully that will happen for me.  Back in 1986, the must-read music paper of the day, the NME, printed a number of editions with free cassette compilations. The start of the indie-pop movement is often attributed to C86, which was one of these cassettes.  The following year, I formed the band PO! My motivations were largely feminist anger at a harsh world, but there was no Riot Grrrl then and I was probably too nice. I also did like singable tunes and wordsmithery so indie-pop was the genre that fitted best of all. If you didn't listen to the lyrics, you might be cheered by the soaring and jangly tunes, but the words are often mo...

I'm just about to put together a website and make PO! songs available in a digital and physical way again. It might take me a few months, but I'm determined to do it. In the days when letters came through the post and I parceled up cardboard on a daily basis, it was fun to run a record label, but I guess it can be just as fun with instant downloady technology, analytics and 'likes'. Just got to get used to it, that's all.  In the meantime, here are links to all the tracks I can find online at present:  A Page A Day  Northern Wonder Danny's Girl Your Shout Appleseed Alley  I Took My Head on a Date Sunday Never Comes Around   Treasure Haunt You Fay  Good Behaviour  Jacqueline's House Things That Might      https://soundcloud.com/user-795124448/things-that-might Bus Shelter .... in the Rain   https://soundcloud.com/user-795124448/bus-shelter-in-the-...

Before I had cancer treatment, I had retired from music. I wrote in my blog that it would be unlikely that I would ever play with  PO! again; I was too old, nobody would want it and it just seemed a crappy thing to do.  But after having a whole body and hair reboot, the idea of making music with friends just seems like a fantastic idea, because making music IS fantastic. If nobody wants to listen then they don't have to, and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks, because I could have died and not had this opportunity.  Strangely though, my interest seems to be coinciding with other people's interest in PO! Some are old fans whose names I know from the old mail order business; others are much younger people who have grown up with Japanese fanzines and Spanish vinyl and somehow know that PO! are part of the indie-pop furniture. 2016 got off to a good start when Mark Hibbett emailed and asked me to play a gig at Totally Acoustic in London. A few weeks later, Mari...

My first experience of seeing a band rehearse was in Newark, Nottinghamshire when I was about 15. Before that, I had never considered that a group might need to play their songs over and over again with a bit of arguing, blaming and shouting in between. At the end of the '70s, there were two significant rock bands in Newark: Paralex and Overlord. Although I was too much of a punk to admire the hard rock of these bands, the different youth cultures tended to mix together in such a small town. Paralex were the first band I ever saw rehearsing. They went on to join New Wave of British Heavy Metal One Sunday afternoon in the late 1970s, someone took me and a friend to see one of these bands rehearse - I tend to think it was Paralex. The rehearsal took place in a small detached bungalow. Each member of the band was in a different room, with cables running down the hallway. The noise was unbearably loud, even as we walked up the road, but worse still inside. Looking back,...

The way you present yourself on stage in your first gigs can make a big difference to the success and longevity of your band. The music can be terrible, howling with feedback, out of tune or time. But with character and energy, you can gain fans who will come to more gigs and allow you to develop and improve musically. Just by having confidence, you can make it a great band! In your head, you might aim for this perfect musical gift for the audience.... However, deep down you know that it's more like this kind of gift.... And that's where the first bit of learning comes in. Don't feel bad about what you do; be proud! In your first gig, you are showing what you can do. Yes, you should rehearse and plan and promote all that you can, but being a good band is about persuading people that you are a good band. So which of these statements after the gig sounds like a good band? "It's usually better when the drummer's in time. Sor...

My ambition for PO! was serious; that's why I paid for a Post Office Box so that we could receive letters and not have people knowing where I lived. I also thought it made us look very professional. PO! recorded three tracks for a demo tape, funded by Leicester City Council and sold copies of the cassette at gigs. As a result, someone called Charlie offered to make a flexi-disc to go with his fanzine ‘Samantha’ The songs were 'Confidence' and 'Appleseed Alley'. At this time, before the Internet and social media, the only ways to find out about new indie bands were through fanzines and John Peel’s Radio 1 show. The mainstream music press, such as the NME also promoted a small number of ‘next big things’ according to the whims of the writers. The PO! flexi peeking out from Samantha Fanzine Fanzine Charlie was a lovely person; he was so dedicated to promoting new bands and single minded in his efforts to make his fanzine successful. In fact, ...