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Having
spent 25 years on the fringes of the music business Tim Chapple
and his wife decided to put something back. They set up a record
company to promote Cornish talent.
The
label's first releases are two volumes of unsigned Cornish talent.
The quality is almost uniformally fantastic
- from the Green Day catchiness of Daywaste on Volume One to the
Turin Brakes-like acoustic beauty of Mad Dolphins Fly.
Top
of the Hill is the ultimate in cottage industries - the label is
based at Tim and Sue's cottage in Canonstown - at, you've guessed
it, the top of the hill. It's no wonder Everest conquerer Sherpa
Tensing is their iconic mascot.
Tim
explains the reasons behind setting up the label:
"I've
been playing since 1976, and had some success in the 1980s with
a band called Zambula. Now I play for fun in an 11 piece soul band
Heart and Soul. It's nice to be still playing.
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| Newquay
four piece Mad Dolphins Fly play Suicide and Generation on Volume
Two |
"I've
learnt from bitter experience - I've had 25 years on the outskirts
of the business - never managed to make it as a professional, and
made 25 years of mistakes. Hopefully some of the young bands can
avoid the pitfalls.
"If
you are a band in based in London, you can put on six gigs and if
you are any good and have a bit of luck you will get noticed. In
Cornwall you could go for years without record company interest.
"I
decided to collect together the best of unsigned Cornish music talent
and put it out on two CDs. The thread which runs through the label
and the bands on it is attitude - despite the differing musical
styles.
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| The
John Peel-featured WBs whose "Strawberries" is a dose of organ-led
garage rock from Volume one |
"I
put out a request for bands to send in their demos - which got published
in loads of places including the NME - and receieved literally hundreds
of replies. Some were the finished article but some were quite rough
and needed some TLC. So I decided to re-mix those to bring the CDs
up to a consistent standard. I split the music into two genres -
Punk, Metal and Ska for Volume One and Acoustic, Eclectic and Electric
for Volume Two.
"I
signed the bands to the label on a non-exclusive basis and they
will receive a royalty payment for every disc sold.
"Mark
Omori runs another cottage industry down in St Just - Magic Space
studios - and he agreed to help me with the re-mixing.
"The
Future for Top of the Hill recordings is to produce full length
albums and I'd love to do that with some of the artists featured
on the CDs.
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| "The
band most likely to" - Helston's Daywaste have three tracks
on Volume One including the superb Millionaire |
"I
really believe in all the artists on the records, but I think Daywaste
could be the closest to making the breakthrough. They played the
Barfly in London on June 14th and went down a storm by all accounts.
"We're
also going to host Top of the Hill live nights - the first of which
will be on July 5 at the Crow Bar in Redruth and will feature Helston's
raucous Fathead, who contribute Hubcap and Drown to CD1, and Confuse
who produced Sheets of Glass. We're also planning an acoustic evening
in the near future.
The consistently high quality of both CDs
shows up the paucity of live venues in Cornwall. Once young bands
have outgrown the school hall circuit there is very little other
than small pubs to play at and very few big groups to support. Tim
hopes to change that:
"I
saw The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and Talking Heads at the Winter
Gardens in Penzance. It would be great to get that calibre of bands
down to Cornwall again."
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