"Dear Mr. Fab,
Good day! I'm a reader of your blog and an ardent lover of exceptional music. For the past year, I have been on a relentless search for a very unusual band, and I am hoping that perhaps you could help. In short, about a year ago I chanced to hear two short songs that have haumted me ever since. The music was simple, strange, like a primitive Velvet Underground, with the words sung in a depressive monotone. It was definitely the lyrics that caught me the most, deadpan honest and sad, like a suicide note set to music- somewhat in the vein of Jandek. I wasn't able to catch the name of the band, but the primitive truth of it definitely fit the criteria of 'outsider' music. Despite a wide and varied knowledge of music, and a year of searching, I've yet to find them- my only hope is that by some chance another connoisseur will have been lucky enough to know of them. Is there any chance that you know the band I'm talking about? I seem to remember the lyrics were something like 'Everything I felt in life was someone else's bad joke', with the chorus 'All I wanted was a place in the sun.' This was the kind of music that changes your life, and I would be eternally grateful for your help in this. Thank you, and please keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Z. Colombino"
I wrote back: "Your description of the music/singer sounds like Beat Happening, but I don't remember any really depressing songs of theirs like that, the lyrics don't ring a bell" and he replied: "Yeah they are very reminiscent of beat happening, definitely similar to the twee-pop school musically. I've come to realize they defy classification- for any similarity they have with another band, they're completely different in ten other ways. If I had to guess the era I'd say late 70's-80's...I'd thought maybe Edinburgh post-punk at one point? Orange Juice is another very similar band."
And so we turn to you, dear readers. Anyone?