Another victim of digital music proliferation and the great music heist of 2000. Los Angeles band Sugarplum Fairies’ final effort, SPF21 Altar Songs 1998-2021, released before Benny and Sylvia went their separate ways. Like a sad public divorce – the passion is there but the spark…just doing the motions.
The band was my most favourite discovery from Peoplesound – Sugarplum Fairies – sadly disbanding in 2021 but reforming later sans Ben Bohm – Silvia continued but the sound had changed, as to be expected. I’m not entirely sure what Altar Songs is supposed to be. There are remixes and reproductions of old classic songs and songs I’m not entirely familiar with but Apple Music classifies it as a compilation album so I’ll go with that.
Sure the compilation gives a good scope of what the band’s original sound was like and the direction they were heading but as an entry point, I’d still go for Flake which was their first album, especially if it’s dreamy college folk you’re after with songs about unhealthy relationships with college English professors and drug addiction.
It pains me to listen to this album knowing how they once were. They were just getting airtime, songs were appearing in soundtracks for TV shows and occasionally little mentions of them would appear across web media. All very very sad.
Available on Apple Music/Itunes – https://music.apple.com/gb/album/altar-songs-1998-2021/1696617516
Never really been a big fan of Radiohead, Creep and Paranoid Android were my limit. They were always one of those bands people told me that I “should like”. Like it was some edict from above. “You should like Radiohead”.
Like most teenagers, I was fortunate enough to be Bez to my old school friend, Mike’s band Jean Pierre O Malley & the Gieger-Muller Tubes. I attended most practice sessions (mostly on the promise of a few pints of beer afterwards) and I accepted that they would do cover versions of songs I didn’t really know.
The guitar. Some would say it is a crucial instrument in modern music. “Without guitar” they might say, “All you have is some bloke singing with drums and a keyboard.” Which is true, but as we have already heard with the likes of 
Once, while talking about the amazing film Lost Highway and its soundtrack with a former acquaintance, the conversation went like this:
Stegzy's Music Project 