Forgotten Sheffield bands: the Suncharms
Sheffield’s shoegazers
The Suncharms were part of Sheffield’s contribution to the shoegazing music scene of the late 80s/early 90s.
Shoegazing is characterised spacey tones, a groovy feel and melodic vocals often buried in a wall of fuzzy guitars. Notable bands of the genre include Ride, Catherine wheel and Chapterhouse, and although not as successful, those that remember the Suncharms do so with fondness.
I’m told that they were named after a soft drinks factory in their home town of Huddersfield called Suncharm which sold dandilion and burdock and lemonade in glass bottles.
The two 12″s that they released are now quite collectable. Their debut EP – out 18 years ago this month – included the track Sparkle and got good reviews after being sent to the music weeklies in a Catherine wheel record sleeve. It was also played by John Peel.
Tranquil day was the follow up release and continues in much the same vain of their debut. Hear this at the Static fuzz blog where it is described as ‘fuzzy pop melodies wrapped in sugar-coated melancholy’.
According to this article, the band continued until 1993 with a final live appearance at BBC Radio 1′s Sound City in their adopted home of Sheffield. It turns out that the drummer went on to be a teacher here where he was also known to play drums in bands with his pupils.
Here is a psychedelic video for Sparkle, edited using live footage from a Library theatre gig in Sheffield:
I’d like to know what happened to the “The Extras” and “The Push”, both playing in the Broadfield and around Sheffield late 70′s, early 80′s. I know Ray Ashcroft (The Push) went on to act in The Bill but what happened to the bands?
The lead singers sister was also a page 3 stunner.
Hello!
Richard Farnell – Ex Suncharms bass player here just pointing out a few mistakes in the above posting!. Firstly we were NOT from Huddersfield! (but the Sun Charm/Ben Shaws soft drink company factory was)-and yes we did take the name from a can of pop, it seemed to fit our sound-(fizzy pop!) and we liked the slightly psychedelic logo on the can.
Myself and Marcus were from Stocksbridge, Matt and Chris were from Sheffield and John lived in Bamford. We were previously known as The Eunuchs but were encouraged to change our name by David Gedge after a chance meeting at a Wedding Present gig- he didn’t like it and we figured he knew what he was talking about!.
We were signed to Wilde Club records on the strength of our first demo-(produced by “Nort” of Sheff industrialists HULA). This was also home to The Catherine wheel at the time so I think that may have led to some confusion above…we very much had our own record sleeve!. We also recorded a Peel session which was broadcast twice.
The debut E.P reached the heady hights of number 23 in the indie charts and we did quite a few gigs around the country to promote it. We supported bands such as CURVE, CRANES, BRILLIANT CORNERS and often played local gigs with SUGARDRIVE and CRADLEYARD.
I’m still not sure why it all fizzled out..I think education/careers may have started to get in the way and I suppose we were never the hardest working band..rehearsing once or twice a month, gigging occasionally and perhaps with hindsight not giving it our full attention – something which I now regret as I’m sure we could have done more.
In 1993 we started recording tracks for an album but it just never went further..guess we’ll have to wait for the box set!.
In 1995 I moved to Manchester and now co-own Vinyl Exchange record shop.
Marcus works in housing, Chris and Matt are teachers and sadly I’ve no idea what John is doing.
Hope this has cleared up a few points.
Thanks,
Richard Suncharm xx
Cheers for setting the record straight there Richard! Let us know when the comback gig is sorted
Thanks – we may be waiting some time!.
I think another reason we ground to a halt was that we were signed to a small label based in Norwich and in those pre-internet days everything to do with the label was a phone call and a four hour drive away!.
In our eagerness to get a record out we simply went for the first thing to come along..let that be a lesson to any young bands out there!.
Between 1998 – 2003 I played in a Manchester band called Screen Prints who released several 7″ singles which were compiled onto the c.d album “perfect city” on Earworm records. Still under the influence of The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub etc it might be of interest to anyone who remembers The Suncharms.
Thanks,
Richard Suncharm x