Hi and welcome to the latest newsletter where we go behind the scenes and watch a rehearsal session that is the hybrid of Squire and Sugarplum!
First of all, we are looking forward to next weeks London debut of the revised Squire line up! Mods Mayday 2025, we are on at 20.10 sharp! As usual for the venue, there are two bands playing simultaneously, The Purple Hearts start at 8! We’ve actually played together back to back many times, but not in different rooms simultaneously! However the rooms are one minute apart, so catch their intro and then rush in to see Squire because we have a big surprise opening number!
You can also catch us in the merch room before we play, for a chat - or even buy something! Well have some special offers only for the day, so pop by.
The subject of this newsletter Times Change is appropriate on many levels. First of all, Squire has been through many changes over the last few months, first with the tragic loss of Kevin, and later with Jon & Ray stepping back to focus on their own band.
Nevertheless, Squire are no strangers to various line up variations, and you can hear recordings with the 1979 Mods Mayday line up, the California set with The Question, live in Canada with Beat Direction, live in California and London with Paul Bevoir, on radio with Ed Ball & Simon Smith, London again with the Jetset Drummer Mickey Dias, recently with Jon & Ray, in Spain and California with Philip & James & Henrik! An now we have Thomas on drums!
Thomas is no stranger to Squire since he played on all the Sugarplum dates. The set list was a hybrid of Squire and Sugarplum songs ,and a couple of covers thrown in for fun!
Indeed we opened with ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ the opening track on the Fan Club Album, covered 'Needles & Pins' (Jackie DeShannon, The Searchers etc.) and 'Confidence & Love' by Manual Scan, a track we later released on their tribute album! But amongst the Squire and Sugarplum songs was a song that had never been played live - Times Change!
This song was first written during the Smash album sessions and was earmarked for that album. Of course the album never materialised, but the song later surfaced on the revised Fan Club CD re-issue in 2007.
So although it wasn’t included on any vinyl Fan Club Album version, there it was on the CD! Its a classic Squire sound, perhaps reminiscent of Girl On A Train style songwriting, yet there’s something else going on, its 12-string Rickenbacker driven sound is much more jangly, and the song is much more urgent and bittersweet than the previous September Gurls or even Get Smart period, almost a throwback to the earlier Hits From 3000 years ago era. It sounds like a band running faster than their surroundings can keep up — which gives it a timeless, undiluted energy, that thrilling uncertainty of youth which still connects decades later.
We found a video of the first time it was rehearsed before the Sugarplum debut in 2003! In the line up left to right is Thomas on drums, now drumming for Squire, Anthony on blue 12-string Rickenbacker with his back to the camera guiding the song, Henrik on Fender Jaguar, James on Gibson EB2 bass, and Kevin on harmony vocals and tambourine! This was a perfect hybrid of Squire and Sugarplum, a line up assembled specially to play the songs live for the first time - and who knew that 20 years later, the same spirit (and almost the same line-up) would become the obvious choice to carry Squire into 2025!
Yes, the clip is fuzzy and sound a bit uncertain, as stepping through songs in rehearsal usually are, but the spirit and sound are right there. It’s Times Change!