Other Sunny Day

The second club night is drawing closer and Erik came up with the rather charming idea for each of us to write about the first time we heard Another Sunny Day. When I think about it, there is theoretically a chance that someone reading this still haven't heard this band. So we have to let you know why it's so special to have Harvey playing for us.

Well, I volunteer to start. In one of Delicious Goldfish's mailorder mail-outs about new second hand-stock there was a rather off-hand mention of some Sarah Records singles. So I emailed to ask which they were. Because this was two and a half years ago and I had never seen a Sarah release before and hadn't come across a mailorder that had any. There were two Another Sunny Day 7"s and I decided to go for the oldest one. 150 SEK was the most I'd paid for three songs at that time, and since then I've found you can get these things a lot cheaper. I hadn't heard Another Sunny Day, although I'd been reading lots about them and knew I would like them. The only bands on Sarah that I HAD heard were Heavenly, The Field Mice and my first love of the name Sarah - Brighter. Well anyways, it turned out that I had gotten my hands on the very best one, I'm usually quite lucky that way. Because with "What's Happened?", "Impossible?" and "Can't You Tell It True?" on it there's no arguing about it, is there? I remember opening the parcel, feeling this curious artifact in my hands for the first time. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I owned. And I loved the fact that all the songs ended with a question mark. I put it on the turntable and lowered the needle, there was some crackle and then the world-toppling pop noise that is "What's Happened?" blasted out the speakers. It's very under-produced, but it sounded like nothing I'd heard before and I still think it would be near-impossible to create that sound again. The only band that has ever been fairly compared to Another Sunny Day is Love Dance. Their "What Does This Tell You?" is not far off the mark, but it sounds HUGE compared to this tiny miracle. It's so crisp and they way the drum machine and the almost percussive acousic guitar mesh together is wonderful. And that 'solo' at the end makes me want to die every time. One of the best 50 songs ever? Yes.

Read what Erik and Kalle have to say on MySpace, but you might need to catch up on your Swedish first. You'll find "What's Happened?" somewhere below!