This single is pretty much a mystery to me. All I found is some scattered comments on message boards that basically told me nothing. It seems as though they were from Carbondale Illinois, although this was recorded in Kentucky, and I believe this was their only single. The A side Pop Songs is so catchy, it instantly sticks in your head.(UPDATE) i revised this post with better sleeve scans, and I re-recorded the record, I took the volume down a bit. 9/18/11
Kio Records 1984
1. Pop Songs
2. I Wanna Be A Brit
***DOWNLOAD***
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12 comments:
Hip Chemists were from Carbondale Illinois - college kids at Southern Illinois University. At the time they were one of the only new wave bands in town. I think you are correct about this being their only single. I'm pretty sure they split up at the end of the school year.
Thank you for the info.
Hello, Dan the drummer here, we did have some moderate success with that single. We toured a few years during school, but never got back into the studio. We all graduated and all ended up in California for a time, but not together. We tried different variations of bands, but Sahun the guitarist stayed in L.A. has several recordings and published a novel. Stace, the singer, and I started a band in Chicago that did pretty well before we both moved back to Carbondale, me to get my master's degree, Stace to work. He has a band that is Alt Country called Stace England and the Salt Kings and has several CD's. My brother, the bassist, writes and records his own stuff, he moved to Madison WIS and I, as well write and record my own stuff. Thanks for keeping this song alive, I have read though, it is pretty popular in Japan right now!
I'm not surprised; Japan seems to be real sweet on American Powerpop.There's bands that probably couldn't fill a bathroom here if they reunited; that go to Japan with great success. Thank you for all of the info Dan, Pop Songs is a great tune, I appreciate the comment..
Hi, this is Shaun. I wrote "I Wanna Be a Brit" which reached number 13 on the top 40 at one radio station, WIDB the top 40 station in Carbondale. That was Spring 1984, locally the song charted for about a month, I used to have the chart flyers they handed out but they are long gone. Pop Songs was written by Stanley Barker, a friend of the Band. We had started as Dead End Kids in summer of 1982, then changed the name to Hip Chemists when we did this single. We played around the Midwest a bit, did shows with Fleshtones, Violent Femmes, UK Subs, Phil N The Blanks. Dan and I had a brief stint in LA as Coughing Fish, then he moved back to IL and I remained in LA since 1985. I had a band called Gutter Swans that released a CD in 2003 and for the last 10 years I've been in a record nerd cover band called The Shills. I still write and record a lot and after all this time I make all my songs available for download or streaming at no charge: http://www.reverbnation.com/shaunmason Thanks!
Sorry, I made a mistake, WIBD is the SIU Carbondale college station, we were on WCIL, the local T40 station.
Thanks for the comments, and all of the info Shaun; I'll update the post. I'm glad to hear your still at it.
Hi, this is Stan Barker (S.A. Barker), writer of "Pop Songs". Thanks for all the positive comments about the song. In 1977, Dave (the Hip Chemists' bass player) and I were in Chicago's first punk band, the Crucified (we had the name before the later Christian punk band). We were also the first Chicago punk band to put out a record, a 4 song EP on our own Power Records label. The Crucified has a Facebook page with 2 of the songs on it: "Saint Joan", an ode to Joan Jett, then with the Runaways; and "Let The Kids Play", about the BBC banning the Sex Pistols over in England. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=lf#!/pages/The-Crucified/127274400671932) The songs are more punk than the New Wave Powerpop of "Pop Songs". We broke up in 1978, because no Chicago clubs would book punk bands back then. I wrote "Pop Songs" after the assassination of John Lennon, when it seemed to me the record company was cashing in on his death, something I'd seen happen earlier with Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin and later with Kurt Cobain. I still write but haven't put any of my songs out-- one of these days I may put some on a website. Thanks again for posting the Pop Songs single on your site!
I'm the photographer that took the photo on the back cover. I don't see it here but maybe I'm blind. I know you said you revised the sleeve scanS.
I was a journalism major at SIU and photographer for the college newspaper, the Daily Egyptian. I was hired by the band to shoot their group shot before a show at Hangar 9. We quickly did the photo in a tight "room" behind the stage.
I later ended up taking a photo that won a Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. It was of Baby Jessica McClure who was caught in an abandoned water well in Midland, TX for 58 hours.
There was a Pulitzer exhibit of all previous winners in Tokyo, Japan I attended so briefly I was big in Japan. Although no doubt much less big than the Hip Chemists!
I had a few copies of the single and still play the songs occasionally. I traded one to my friend Jordan Oakes of Yellow Pills power pop fanzine fame. He had heard of the songs but never heard them so we made a swap.
A year or so ago I saw one go on eBay for a decent amount of money but I'm forgetting the exact amount. I think it was more than I was paid for my band photo!
A quick search shows the record sold for $42 on eBay.
http://www.popsike.com/HIP-CHEMISTS-7-pop-songswanna-be-brit-powerpop-kbd/120764766950.html
Scott! Awesome! Glad to hear you're still doing well. $42 is probably more than we made on total sales of the single when it came out. Holy shit!
Wow! Look what proctastinating and tooling around on the P.C. will uncover. I come across this blog. All these names from my past. Jimmy B., here. I was an original "Dead End Dancer". Somewhere, in my old boxes I have a couple of the 45's and some fliers. Had no idea that they'd be worth $$. I always hoped/wondered that ya'll would pursue performing careers. After C'dale, I moved to Chicago to work in the restaurant industry. I did see Stace perform once (I think it was at Metro).
I now live in SE Wisconsin, as a nutritionist/chef consultant.
Best to everyone.
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