The Popguns (l-r: Greg Dixon, Wendy Morgan, Simon Pickles) and me in a glow-in-the-dark bio-cop tshirt!

Here are a few of my favourite things:

1: Waking up on a Monday morning, realising it’s a bank holiday, going back to sleep to resume a treasure hunt dream.

2: That episode of ‘Lost’ that always secretly makes me cry even though I’ve seen it over 100 times. (the constant)

3: The Popguns.

Thats it in a nutshell really. I make no bones about it, I love The Popguns. That’s the simple basis for inviting them on my show. For me, its like Xmas came early as The Popguns have the distinct honour of being the band that performs one of my favourite songs of all time, ‘Waiting for the Winter’. It’s the song I have listened to the most in my life, and its the song that reminds me how powerful music can be. If you haven’t heard the song before (I’ll put a link to the original video somewhere down the bottom) then what you are missing is a song with the ability to both send you into a spiral of melancholy AND uplift you to new heights of unbridled happiness. So, when I was told that Wendy would do something “special” on my show and I saw her appear at the studio door with a keyboard, I crossed my fingers that it was going to be ‘Waiting for the Winter’… LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE VIDEO BELOW…

So that was quite simply the best thing that’s ever happened on my show. Before posting this, I’ve watched this video about 50 times because its a beautifully stripped down version of possibly rhe greatest song ever written. That might sound like hyperbole, but show me a better song and I’ll show you a liar.

Wendy models a signed Popguns tshirt, which was given to competition winner Andy Lowe!

Okay so now a little history lesson from Wikipedia to bring you up to speed:

The Popguns were an indie rock band which played a part in the British jangle pop scene. Originally from Brighton, East Sussex, they formed in 1986 by vocalist Wendy Morgan, guitarists Simon Pickles and Greg Dixon plus bassist Pat Walkington and were joined by Shaun Charman, the former drummer for The Wedding Present in 1988.

Their first release, Where Do You Go?, came in the form of a split flexi disc (with How Many Beans Make Five?) given away free with an issue of a local zine in 1988.^[1] The next year this was followed by the single “Landslide”, (released by Medium Cool Records), which reached number 20 on the UK Indie Chart,^[2] and made it to No. 46 on BBC radio DJ John Peel‘s annual Festive Fifty list for that year. The singles “Waiting for the Winter” (1989) and “Someone You Love” (1990) featured on their debut album, Eugenie (also 1990), released by the record label Midnight Music.^[1] The single “Still a World Away”, preceded second album Snog, which was followed by the EPs XXX and Crazy (all released in 1991).^[1] Charman left, leaving the group on a brief hiatus which saw them lose a significant amount of their media coverage. The single “Star” saw them debut for their new label, 3rd Stone, who released their third album, Love Junky(1995), which also contained the 1995 single, “Get Out”. Their final album, A Plus de Cent (1996) – which features the French language version of their last single, “Harley Davidson” – was released by Tall Poppy Records.

Thanks Wikipedia. So that’s where the story ended until last year, when they took inspiration from renewed interest from the next generation discovering their music, so reformed and played a few shows and wrote some new music and I’m going to show you the videos of the new songs they played on my show right now! First up is something incredible. It is a sequel to ‘Waiting for the Winter’ called ‘STILL WAITING FOR THE WINTER’. YES! This is the World Exclusive, so enjoy!

Well that was some kind of wonderful. Can I have The Popguns on my show every week? Here is the other new one they did on my show and it highlights the fact Simon’s songwriting skills haven’t faltered over the years. Catchiness personified and I cannot wait to see this one live. It’s called ‘Long Way To Fall’ and it would fit quite nicely on Eugenie or Snog.

So you’ve read the band’s history and you’ve just watched the band’s future… now listen to the whole show again, where I speak to the band for 2 hours in an almost ‘Behind the Music’ marathon of chat and music.

20131215160010 – first hour

20131215170010 – second hour

And a wonderful time was had by all. But thats not the end, I am going to further convince you how important this band is to the perception of British Music and why we need them now, more than ever, Lets take a look at their music videos from the late 80s, early 90s.

LANDSLIDE (from the 1990 album ‘Eugenie’)

WAITING FOR THE WINTER (from the 1990 album ‘Eugenie’) – they don’t really like this video, but I love how raw it is and its always good to see Brighton beach and suicide hotspot Beachy Head!

SOMEONE YOU LOVE (from the 1990 album ‘Eugenie’) – filmed with a Super 8 camera so 2 thumbs up from me.

STILL A WORLD AWAY (from the 1991 album ‘SNOG’) – eagle eared listeners will notice that this song is referenced in ‘Still Waiting for the Winter’!

I hope you can now all see why I love this band so much and why I have played ‘Waiting for the Winter’ on every show I’ve done, even though paradoxically, my show is a ‘NEW MUSIC’ show!

You can find out more about the Popguns in these places:

https://www.popguns.net/

https://www.facebook.com/ThePopgunsBand

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Popguns-Fan-Page/155755697825842

https://twitter.com/ThePopguns

So I’ve convinced you and you want to see The Popguns LIVE?

See them live in london in April 2014 and buy tickets here: https://www.songkick.com/concerts/18505234-primitives-at-lexington (I will be there so that’s DOUBLE reason to go! :P)

or do you want to see them play THE WHOLE OF ‘SNOG’? Well they are doing that very thing at the Lewes Con Club on March 29th 2014 (https://www.lewesconclub.com/)

Or are you in France and can’t get to the UK to see them? FEAR NOT, Parisians, as ANOTHER SUNNY NIGHT  and Just Handshakes are inviting them over to Paris in February 2014 to play a little gig (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Another-Sunny-Night/114832601870964)

ON THIS SUNDAY’S ‘JED SHEPHERD SHOW’…

HETTIE!

EMILY CAPELL!

KAMILA BLEAX!

APPLE EYES!

If you are one of my favourite bands of all time and have written the greatest song ever, please get in touch and you too can be on the Jed Shepherd Show, only on PHOENIX 98FM!

Jed

@jedshepherd