45RPM: #116 Fairytale In The Supermarket - The Raincoats (1979)

Fairytale In The Supermarket - The Raincoats

Rough Trade (RT 013)

Produced by Mayo Thompson and Geoff Travis

Released April 1979

 A-Side Fairytale In The Supermarket

B-Side

B1 In Love

B2 Adventures Close To Home

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One of my favourite Post-Punk singles from way back in 1979 is by The Raincoats and was released on Rough Trade Records.

By the time this single appeared the band were now an all-female set up featuring: 

 Ana da Silva – vocals, keyboards and guitar
 Gina Birch – vocals and bass guitar
 Palmolive – drums
 Vicky Aspinall – vocals, guitar, bass guitar and violin

Palmolive (Paloma McLardy) had been a member of The Slits (she was actually the second former member of The Slits to be part of the band as Kate Korus had been the original guitarist in 1976 and had been a part of The Raincoats a shortwhile before going off to form the Mo-dettes under her name Kate Korris) and prior to joining The Raincoats had been playing drums for  Pre-Spizzenergi Spizzoil. She had left The Slits after tensions between band members and their manager at the time Malcom McLaren surfaced. Palmolive had written a number of the early songs of The Slits.

Vicky Aspinall had joined the band after answering an advert she saw in a bookshop in Camden Town. The classically trained violinist had previously played in a Woman's Collective called Jam Today who played a hybrid of Jazz and Rock.

Gina and Ana were founding members of the group that first began in 1977. Early members of the band included drummer Nick Turner who left to form The Barracudas (whom he also left to be a founding member of Lords of the New Church), Patrick Keiller (he would later go on to become a film maker) and Richard Dudanski also had a moment on the drumstool (he had previously played with Joe Strummer on The 101ers and would go on to play with Public Image Ltd and Basement 5).

The Raincoats hit the road touring with the all-female Kleenex from Switzerland, their distinctly non-commercial sound did not appeal to everyone; after witnessing an early performance by the band, Danny Baker remarked that: "They are so bad that every time a waiter drops a tray we'd all get up and dance."

I liked them regardless of what Baker thought!