Smudge has been around since 1991 when Tom
Morgan (guitar, vocals), Alison Galloway (drums) and Paul "Duncs"
Duncan (bass) got together to contribute a song to the Half A Cow 7 inch called
Slice (along with Swirl, Jupiter and Studley Lush). There's only so much room
for two songs on one side of a 7 inch so Tom was asked by the label to write a
song "around a minute in length". He came up with 'Tea, Toast & Turmoil' - a short, melodic pop song with colourful lyrics which set the
blueprint for the future output of Smudge.
Tom and Alison used to hang out at the
Lansdowne Hotel and talk about the "pop-punk" band they were going to
form - inspired by their heroes at the time Dinosaur Jr and Descendents. The
newly-formed Half A Cow label offered to put out a seven inch. Don't Want To Be Grant McLennan soon followed. So did a review from NME which gave the
slab 'single of the week'. Whilst on tour in Australia in the middle of 1991,
Evan Dando from The Lemonheads met up with Tom (recording two songs for Tom's other
band Sneeze) and a song-writing friendship was struck up and they co-wrote
songs for It's A Shame About Ray including the title track.
Two more releases followed for this lineup
of Smudge - the Love, Lust & Lemonjuice and Superhero EPs before Duncs left
and was replaced by Adam Yee (formerly of noise-merchants Headache). This
lineup still rocks to this day and have been responsible for 1994's Manilow
album, the Hot Smoke & Sassafras mini-LP, 1996'sYou, Me, Carpark...Now,
1998's Real McCoy, Wrong Sinatra and many other releases.
Releases around the globe followed in
Japan, Canada, USA and the UK with three northern hemisphere tours including
1994's Reading Festival coupled with a session for John Peel making that a
memorable year for the band.
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2014. Smudge has been working feverishly;
retweaking bits and pieces for the 20th anniversary release of
Manilow. Having seen reissues in both Europe (Fire) and Australia (Half A Cow),
the trio has launched its own label (Smudge) to unleash a remastered, 180 gram
virgin-vinyl longplayer. Smudge001. Manilow.
Please ensure that you select the right postage rate to save us all headaches!
PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE OR SHIPPING TO THE UK AND EUROPE.