Such a Marvelous Time

Is it just me, or does having a good band/artist that matches your personal tastes send you a friend request on Myspace feel a little bit like receiving a thoughtful Christmas present in the middle of September from someone you don't know very well? It makes me personally very excited about the prospect of a more considerate humanity, but slightly worried about the inevitable upset to the balance of the Universe that this might cause. Not to say that all bands that seek you out on Myspace are bad, they just generally never take the time to consider the fact that their music will probably not appeal to everyone. The non-considerate folks are almost always the ones that you receive the random friend requests from. Therefore, generally when you see those emails alerting you to the fact that someone whose name is clearly that of a band your likely natural reaction should be to cringe.

On Sunday I noticed an email from Myspace alerting me to the fact that Strawberry Fair wanted to be my friend. I didn't cringe, I instead decided to remain optimistic as I traveled the short internet journey from Hotmail to Myspace. It has been my experience that most bands with the word strawberry in their name tend to be quite good and tend to produce some variation or other of the dreamy pop song. When I arrived at the Myspace page in question to find a picture of an adorable Swedish girl in pigtails staring at me, and the classic Phil Spector-esque sounds that accompanied it, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It didn't take long for the initial feeling of relief to transition into giddiness over the fact that I had a brand new pop group to fall in love with.

Strawberry Fair is the recording project of Jenny Franzen though the live show consists of a kind of supergroup of Swedish indiepop including one member of A Smile and a Ribbon making a contribution amongst others. Apparently she has two previous CDr singles to her name, but February of this year saw the release of her first EP entitled I Can't Do Anything. Imagine the sweet sounds of 60s girl groups walking down the street, brushing shoulders with 1980s indiepop, and creating an ever so slight (yet more than slightly exciting) electrical shock. You can pick up your very own copy of the EP right here.

~squaregirl marion

Here is a video of the full band in action at the Rip it Up Festival in 2006. It's almost impossible to not smile over a band that can make people dance outside, in broad daylight, in the midst of only maybe fifty other people who are not dancing!