On Friday nights I like to drink beer with my mates in our pub. Amid the debates about sport and the usual old jokes / stories that we have all heard a 1000 times but still find ridiculously funny (as only inebriated men can) we sometimes address things that genuinely matter, that are genuinely important, to such an extent that it is not beyond the wildest stretches of the imagination to presume that President Trump and that Russian fella who got him the gig, probably talk about similar things.
One such such topic that my beer addled friends and I discussed, that I am convinced would have been addressed by the Donald and Mr Putin over a beer when less important matters of state had been addressed for the evening is 'What Sarah Records band is most typical of the whole Sarah Records aesthetic'.
Now Donald may well have flicked his poerfectly lacquered hair off his orange brow and placed a temporary cessation on his favourite hobby of cursing Mexican chaps, in order to argue the point that Brighter were 'the' Sarah Records band. Which would obviously cause Mr P to stop the training preparation for his World Cup hooligan squad and counter with Blueboy, thus risking immediate nuclear reaction or at least a 'your fired' from 'The Don'.
Luckily for us, despite the dutch courage emanating from several weak lagers, my friends and I were eventually able to reach consensus that Another Sunny Day were probably the most 'Sarah type band' of all the Sarah Records bands. The initial reason for this is that ASD were effectively a Harvey Williams side project of whose most prominent successes at the time were emanating from another Sarah band in The Field Mice, which incidentally, is rumoured to be Theresa May's (British PM) choice of music which she takes a rare moment off from avoiding the implementation of Brexit.
This 'side project' ethos just seems to fit in with the Sarah ethic, who always seemed to have started things offs to foster a love of a certain kind of music and then seemed almost surprised when it took off and desperately tried to keep it as informal as possible. This they did with their 'other' bands like ASD inasmuch that they grew the stock of the band without ever releasing an album or a proper EP. For ASD it was just a bunch of 'jewell in the crown' singles, lovingly released of vinyl. Sarah were effectively the ultimate singles label and ASD were, in our opinion, their ultimate singles band as can be seen on this brilliant compilation which includes all of the Sarah output.
Rio
As such this compilation is totally filler free and symbolizes the 'quality not quantity ethos' of the label with tracks such as
The Smiths William it Was Really Nothing inflected
You Should All Be Murdered, the twee-festivals of
I'm in Love With a Girl Who Doesn't I Exist and
Rio (see above)
. and the jangling beauty of
Can't You Tell it's True (see below) and
Things Will Be Nice, being the torch bearers for a compilation that is an essential purchase for any Twee / jangle / indie pop fans.
Can't You Tell it's True
Another Sunny Day may not have received the plaudits that Trump, Putin and May's 'Sarah band' favourites did...but if me and my pub mates were running the world, they would!
