Welcome to this very special edition of the Squire Fan Club Newsletter!
When we restarted the Squire Fan Club Newsletter back on July 25th 2019, inspired by the Expanded September Gurls release, and a flurry of UK tour dates, we had no idea it would carry us through to ISSUE 150! Thats a milestone worth celebrating!
We were inspired to continue, urged on by your feedback, and found ourselves at Issue 50 on 1st August 2021, which was incidentally - Squire & The Quarter Boys! Discussing our connection to the Get Smart horns and Jesamine trumpet solo - we even included the Jesamine demo for good measure! So the newsletters evolved from general news of record releases and gigs to pouring over the archives, and sharing the hidden history of the band.
Issue 100 arrived on 31st March 2023, called appropriately A Century Of Squire! We looked back at the Top 5 most popular newsletters, and looked forward to gigs! Remember the August Bank Holiday Brighton date with The Molotovs supporting Squire! And then the 2023 Secret Affair / Squire UK tour! Good Times!
So here we are at issue 150! And this is the point where we not only get a chance to reflect back over the past couple of years, but excitedly look forward to a new style of expanded newsletter! We are so grateful for your support, we never forget that without a fan base, we would be staring into an empty room and releasing records into the void. We want to do more to make your interest - more interesting!
Issue 100 coincided around the same time as the release of Passengers On Trains LP, never before issued on vinyl, and a more reflective folk pop sound in contrast to Squires pop beat dynamic. We actually ran our last competition around that time, and followed through the year listening and sharing the stories of the demos from the Get Smart era, and sharing unreleased tracks as well. The year ended with a 2023 national tour and our own Christmas party date in Blackpool!
2024 was a year of unplanned change for the band. Early gigs focused on a ‘homecoming’ theme, playing in Haslemere, actually the birthplace of the Fan Club - PO Box 10 Haslemere being the original address!
Sadly, the year saw us saying goodbye to my brother Kevin, and founding member and heartbeat of Squire. He had been ill for some time, and the Haslemere gigs were more coincidental than planned, but it allowed him to share one last time with everyone together, and be there to see James back in the line up, giving us a stronger more dynamic soundscape with two guitars.
It was around this time that both Jon and Ray decided to refocus on their own band, and so the Mods Maydays in London and Cambridge would be our last with that line up, but by then James had played both guitar and his original role as bass player, and together with Thomas, Squire were back in business and ready for 2025!
2025 kicked off with gigs in Spain and back at the Mods Mayday in London! The September Gurls Mono edition had been released for the very first time in September 2024, and we are celebrating the anniversary of that with the repressing in cream vinyl right now!
Further 2025 newsletters took a look at the lyrics of Squire focusing on the mod trilogy of Its A Mod Mod World, Noonday Underground and The Life!. Recently we’ve been enjoying the various cover versions by bands getting into Squire! So always plenty going in Squire world and lots of surprises too!
Next month we are playing the 100 Club in London, with the Purple Hearts and next January in Minehead for the big Mod extravaganza!
What we want to do now though is to ‘flip the switch’ and focus on recording. For too long, circumstances have dictated that we keep the band focus on performing live dates. Its an easy and obviously exciting opportunity. We get to meet the fans, go to interesting places, play the songs which everyone wants to hear. We could never say goodbye to that! But there is a cohort of Squire fans that are keen to hear new songs, and many that cannot make it to gigs.
'When are you releasing a new record’ is a constant nagging question that is hard to answer since it is tied up with an understanding of authenticity and legacy. There’s a constant tension facing heritage bands - evolving while respecting what came before.
The answer is to expand the horizon. I feel it is important for the Squire sound to be a recognisable yet developing sound. Its interesting when you hear other bands cover your songs, because you get to understand the DNA and the characteristics of your soundscape. What makes it work? What is the key that makes it stand out? When is it not Squire?
For me, the Squire dynamic has always been about the songwriting, simple arrangements, and letting melody carry the song rather than volume or aggression.
Nevertheless, there is always a more subtle, maybe sophisticated sound or experimental lo-fi approach lurking in the air. Its heard in the demos, its there in the original ideas.
What I’m going to do then is to open the box to everything! It means if you are interested, you can ‘look behind the wizards curtain’, explore the process of the songwriting to demo to final record. It’s too big for the Fan Club Newsletter, so it will be shared on a new Substack portal. For Free! Yes, everything from now on will be documented!
https://anthonymeynell.substack.com/
I want to introduce the idea that Squire is but one facet of this prism of musical output that is me! It wont replace the newsletter, the newsletter will continue to focus on Squire related stories, from the archive, about new gigs, up coming records, always with links to Substack. That will be an ongoing dialogue which will expand from Squire to solo records, experimental recordings, ideas, sketches, techniques, videos, stories, and integrate with the other work that I do which is musical research, writing, investigating historic processes, which often runs parallel with the music, but tends to be kept separate so not to overwhelm. Both subjects inform each other, even if they appear to be discrete audiences. Its time to try and bring it all together under one umbrella so the music and ideas can find their natural home. So you get exclusive access to unreleased Squire songs, the ideas behind them, experimental sketches that might not fit any particular project, and everything that lives at the intersection of the creative and more scholarly work. Dip in and out as you want.
So heres the invitation, if you’ve enjoyed 150 issues of the newsletter, I’d love you to join me for another 150 more on Substack!
There you’ll find-
Squire news and concert updates
Exclusive demos and works in progress
Essays on the art of recording and the joy of disruption
Occasional glimpses of the academic side that underpins it all
Its still me, still music to the core, - just viewed through a wider lens!
https://anthonymeynell.substack.com/
To kick this all off, heres a link to Substack where im discussing the simplicity of the demo for the song Girl Go By! This song isn’t new, we played it live during the 2008/9 period. There's a live video from The Cavern Liverpool on YouTube. But the song was never recorded properly. It was earmarked as a potential single and then dropped from the set.
But its a goodie! And thats why its been resurrected and introduces what will be the exploration of a lot of unrecorded songs. I say that knowing that Squire are in the studio next month to record songs for a new release!
Thank you for being part of this journey, from the PO Box in Haslemere to your inbox today. Heres to 150 more editions, new songs, and new stories to share!
With gratitude,
Anthony / Squire