Happy birthday to Jill Bryson, born this day 1961! The voice, the melodies, the songs, the style, always inventive in her myriad forms of creative expression.

WTF is going on here? Strawberry Switchblade are depicted on the picture sleeve for a 1985 single by comedian Russ Abbot! 🧵

On this day in 1985, Strawberry Switchblade recorded their 5th & final BBC radio session. Although Since Yesterday was still in the top 10 & the album was imminent, the band recorded 4 new songs. Here's Nothing Changes, written & sung by Jill Bryson. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXnj...

Strawberry Switchblade photos from the session for the cover of debut single Trees and Flowers, 1983 📸©️Peter McArthur, used with permission

Wonderful find from Robin Rimbaud on X - a 1984 flier for gigs promoted by Bliss, inc Strawberry Switchblade supporting Farmers Boys at Camden Electric Ballroom. It also has Nick Cave when the Bad Seeds were The Cavemen, between the recording & release of From Her To Eternity 🧵

On this day in 1985, Strawberry Switchblade had their second #topofthepops appearance as Since Yesterday peaked at number 5 in the UK charts www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCXF...

On this day in 1984, Strawberry Switchblade recorded their first BBC radio session for Janice Long, with their 5-piece indie guitar line-up, a few months before they decided to go for electro arrangements instead (forgive the quality, taped off the radio at the time!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPFS...

Something odd just happened - Go Away is now Strawberry Switchblade's second most streamed track on Spotify, overtaking Since Yesterday. 🧵

On this day in 1985, it finally happened - Strawberry Switchblade's Since Yesterday had entered the top 40 singles chart and they were featured in the iconic Top of the Pops show. www.youtube.com/watch?v=otrR...

Rose McDowall's polka dot fixation way preceded Strawberry Switchblade! Here she is with her earlier band, The Poems. The photo shows Rose at the left, Ian sitting next to her, her daughter Keri, and Drew McDowall in a Poems T shirt (plus unidentified person standing).

Happy birthday Phil Thornalley, 66 today! As Strawberry Switchblade were finishing their album, Thornalley was recruited to produce Let Her Go & the proto-dreampop Who Knows What Love Is. Here's the video for the latter, directed by another Cure collaborator, Tim Pope. youtu.be/l-WwKeT3Pvw

41 years ago this week the UK saw TV ads for Strawberry Switchblade's Since Yesterday. The single had bobbed about in the low end of the charts since Oct. The record label thought with a bit of a push it could get through the Christmas charts & be a big hit in the new year. They were right.

Not your traditional festive tune. Here's Rose McDowall singing Christmas Time Is Drawing Near, from Coil's 1999 EP 'Winter Solstice: North' www.youtube.com/watch?v=faGE...

Happy birthday Robin Millar, 74 today! Producer of Sade & Fine Young Cannibals he also made 2 tracks with Strawberry Switchblade that were supposed to be the start of the album. The indie guitar sound's very different to where the songs ended up. Here's Secrets: 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgM...

Unused photos from the session for Strawberry Switchblade's debut album cover, 1984. (📸©️ Peter McArthur, used with permission)

Strawberry Switchblade - Hyde Park, London, summer 1983 (📸©️ Peter McArthur, used with permission)

Strawberry Switchblade - Since Yesterday performed on Japanese TV, 1985. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-2S...

41 years ago this week, December 1984, if you were rushing out to buy the latest Smash Hits you'd have found Strawberry Switchblade on their first ever national magazine cover.

5 years after Stephen Lawrence's murder there was a public inquiry. It was supposed to be the Met coming clean. But they didn't reveal #spycops had been spying on the Lawrence family. Whistleblower officer Peter Francis wanted to tell but was overruled. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Strawberry Switchblade in the studio during the recording of their album, mid 1984. As befits a practical, work-focused day they are underdressed by their standards (though still flamboyant by anyone else's).

44 years ago today, 22 November 1981, an indie quartet called Strawberry Switchblade went to record a demo at the Hellfire Club, a 4-track studio in Glasgow. The 4 young women made a 3 song tape to help them get their first gigs. 🧵

Strawberry Switchblade's Trees & Flowers (Just Music), the instrumental bonus track from the 1983 12" single with a gorgeous pastoral arrangement. Never been reissued & online versions were iffy quality so we just had it digitised from our treasured vinyl. Enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6-6...

New Trees and Flowers cover version just dropped! Madeline Goldstein did this beautiful rendition with Faith-era Cure vibes (and authentic sartorial choices) on 30 October at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. www.youtube.com/watch?v=s85Y...

Strawberry Switchblade backstage at Reading University, 42 years ago today, 12 Nov 1983. Jill: ‘That was our dressing room – we had to get ready in the public toilets! There we are with a table of beer & crisps in the toilet. The glamour!’ (📸©️Peter McArthur, used with permission)

If you were rushing out to buy the new Smash Hits this week in 1984 you'd find future Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant was reviewing the new singles. He declared Strawberry Switchblade's Since Yesterday to be 'one of the few records this week which isn't trying to sound like something else'.

One year since the Since Yesterday film! Glasgow Women’s Library are doing a screening on Wed 13 Nov with a panel discussion celebrating the legacy and future of Scotland’s girl bands. Tickets via sinceyesterdayfilm.com and womenslibrary.org.uk

We've talked a lot about Strawberry Switchblade's cover of Jolene but it's not the only Dolly Parton song Rose McDowall covered. In 1993, under the name Spell, she & Boyd Rice released Seasons in the Sun, a covers album that included the heartbreaking Down From Dover www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S4c...

Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson & Stephen McRobbie of @thepastels.bsky.social. Taken by Peter McArthur, Jill's partner & prime photographer of the early 1980s Glasgow indie scene. They look bored as it's just Peter testing camera flashes. Outside Peter & Jill's flat, West End Park St, c.1982.

Strawberry Switchblade's Since Yesterday was released this week in 1984, accompanied by this brilliant video directed by Tim Pope which perfectly complements the song and the band. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SToF...

Happy birthday to the one & only Rose McDowall, 66 today! The talent, the voice, the endless musical exploration of melancholy beauty, the amazing self-definition & an absolute goth style icon too. 📸 Sin Bozkurt 2016, Peter McArthur c.1983, Gilbert Blecken 1989, unknown

New screening of the documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands! This coming Saturday, 25 October, at Galoshans Film Festival, Greenock. galoshansfestival.co.uk/event/since-...

Strawberry Switchblade's 1982 4-Piece Demo EP now available on grape coloured vinyl. Pressed for Japan earlier this year, a few copies are now available direct from the label @nightschoolrecords.bsky.social: night-school.bandcamp.com/album/1982-4...

Since Yesterday reviewed on the 'pop panel' segment of BBC kids' TV show Saturday Superstore. The non-musicians disparaged it but the musicians were approving. Delia Smith hated the 'doom & gloom', Midge Ure retorted 'I quite enjoy a bit of misery'! www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1zt...

A year ago today Jill Bryson & Rose McDowall were at Glasgow Film Theatre for a panel discussion after a screening of the documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands. In this clip they look back on Strawberry Switchblade

Strawberry Switchblade record company promotional photos for the press, 1984. 📸1 - unknown 📸2 - Peter McArthur 📸3 - Paul Cox

@strawfansite.bsky.social Hope it's ok to ask on here, but if anyone knows of anyone selling a vinyl copy of Spell - Seasons in the sun, I'd be so grateful for the heads up. My daughter is a huge fan of Strawberry Switchblade and is also a fan of all the solo works by both Jill and Rose. Thank you.x

Strawberry Switchblade, September 1985, around the time of their Jolene single. 📸 Mike Prior for No 1 magazine

Strawberry Switchblade, 1984/5. The person in their 1980s body warmer unintentionally serves to highlight the dramatic pizzazz of the band's aesthetic.

Happy birthday to David Balfe, ex-Teardrop Explodes keyboard player & Strawberry Switchblade manager. Balfey produced debut single Trees & Flowers & final single I Can Feel, played keyboards on tracks like Beautiful End, & co-wrote Black Taxi too. (Pic captions in next post 🧵)

Here's an anomaly - 40 years ago this week Strawberry Switchblade were promoting their electropop cover of Jolene. They mimed to it on BBC TV's kids' show Cheggers Plays Pop. Thing is, it's a unique version - it isn't the 7", the 12", nor the BBC radio session version www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9W...

41 years ago today Strawberry Switchblade recorded a Janice Long BBC radio session. Although they'd just completed their album they recorded 3 brand new atmospheric keyboard-based songs & a cover of Jolene. It's a peek into what the 2nd album would have sounded like. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Alan Horne, head honcho of Postcard Records, interviews Viv Albertine of the Slits, while a pre-Strawberry Switchblade Jill Bryson looks on. Glasgow City Hall, 26 September 1979 - 46 years ago today. 📸©️Peter Anthony McArthur, used with permission

40 years ago today Strawberry Switchblade released a single in Japan, Ecstasy (Apple of My Eye). A squeaky Motown pastiche written by Daisuke Inoue & Rumiko Varnes for a Subaru TV ad, Strawberry Switchblade were just paid to sing on it. In the end only Rose did www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK3O...

Jill Bryson aged five & in an outfit presciently embroidered with the initials of Strawberry Switchblade. 'That must be 1966 or thereabouts. It's Sadie Simpson's dance academy, the letters look like Js but it's S's. We had to do tap dancing and ballet & all these stupid things'

Strawberry Switchblade and Erasure at Jars Discothèque, Brechin, Scotland on 19 September 1985 - 40 years ago today! 🧵

Strawberry Switchblade on stage, late 1983/early 1984 [📸Kenji Kubo]. After debut single Trees & Flowers was an indie success in summer 1983 they put together a touring band. Simon Booth (aka Emmerson) from Working Week played guitar, with drummer Roy Dodds & bassist John Cook. 🧵

New Strawberry Switchblade cover just dropped! Japanese punky powerpop trio The Let's Go's just released Ecstasy (on their new album of covers 'Tracks For Lucks - Swamp Bag Sessions', along with songs by The Who, Serge Gainsbourg, the Clash & the Shirelles. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxmw...

New on the Strawberry Switchblade fansite - the gigs page. An overview of the band as live performers, illustrated with tickets, posters, photos, press adverts, the only tour programme, & even the contract from their 1984 support tour with Howard Jones! strawberryswitchblade.net/gigs/

Strawberry Switchblade sample track! Transition (Tsutchie Mix) by Flare (the name used by experimental electronica artist Ken Ishii). He released his album Grip in 1996. Later that year he issued Re-Grip, with each Grip track reworked by a different remixer 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6fa...

3 fabulous previously unseen photos of Strawberry Switchblade live at Brockwell Park London, Aug 1984. It was a free gig put on by Greater London Council featuring an ecelectic mix inc the Damned, the Fall, Benjamin Zephaniah & Spear of Destiny. Thanks so much to @kaptkopter.bsky.social for posting!