After my post about the band Claudia Miss from a couple of weeks ago, I promised I was going to check the other bands Phil Barnard, keyboardist of said band, had been involved with. Bands he had uploaded to his Soundcloud account.
One of these bands is Wendyhouse. Listening to the few tracks that are online I immediately think that this will be a good recommendation for the blog. Songs sound great. Indiepop!
From my previous post I leaned that Phil was based in Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey. That is part of the Greater London.
From what I understand Wendyhouse came after Claudia Miss. The recordings online date from 1996. That is a year later after the songs by Claudia Miss.
This time around the band was formed by Phil Barnard on keyboards, Wendy Frost on vocals, Steve Nott on lead guitar, Craig Timmings on bass and Chris Ritchie on drums. So, we can see Phil, Craig and Chris continued playing together after the demise of Claudia Miss. Also notice that it may be that the band’s name came after the vocalist Wendy Frost?
The songs online are “The Rest of Me“, “Science Fiction” and “New Day” which were recorded and mixed at Cornerstone Studios in London between the 15th and 19th of December of 1996. These tracks were engineered by Peter Brand and Peter Leverick. Were these part of a demo tape perhaps? A demo possibly called “We’re Wendyhouse” as the image on Soundcloud shows? Were these all the studio recordings by the band?
There are two other recordings. These are from a gig at The Orange in West Kensigton on 6th November of 1996. The first is the song “Brighton” and the second is “Minister Sinister“, both of which are original songs by Claudia Miss.
As mentioned in the previous post Phil has been in another band called Rise. I will check that one out afterwards.
There is no more information about the band or the band members.
Anyone from London remembers this band?
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Listen
Wendyhouse – Science Fiction
One Response to “:: Wendyhouse”
Hello, my name is Davy, somebody linked me to your blogs about my old band “Claudia Miss” from the 1990s – it’s wonderful that you discovered us all these years later. To fill in some gaps, Phil B (who was a friend of my brother Andy who often recorded/produced out stuff) formed the band in 1994 in my bedroom. Phil helped me to give shape and encouragement with my songs. I was really into Sarah Records bands like The Field Mice and Even As We Speak, as well as The Wedding Present, and Creation bands like Slowdive and Ride. We were very young, I was only 21, and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing! By the way, “The Diary of Peter Starbuck” was just something I made up, I had no idea such a person existed. I left the group because it wasn’t really going anywhere, gave the songs to Wendyhouse with my blessing, and wished them luck. We are all still friends to this day. Phil B has played on many of my other songs over the years, and in fact he will be on the new “California Ballet School” single, which should be on Spotify very soon. Many thanks again, and all the best, Davy C