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!

We've spent a week celebrating the 40th anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade covering Dolly Parton's Jolene, and now it's your turn. Here are the guitar chords - there are only four of them so it's really not a big ask 🖤🤍🍓🤍🖤

Continuing our week celebrating the 40th anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's Jolene, here they are promoting the single with Rose McDowall's bashful daughter Keri on UK breakfast show TVAM, September 1985

Strawberry Switchblade performing Jolene on Bliss 40 years ago today, 6 Sep 1985. The UK press largely regarded country music as a joke & leant into condescending cheesy western iconography. Bliss came complete with people chewing hay & slapping thighs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1nq...

Continuing the Jolene 40th anniversary celebrations - although extended versions exist of all five of Strawberry Switchblade's UK singles, Jolene was the only one that actually had it on the 12". 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcHu...

Strawberry Switchblade released their cover of Jolene 40 years ago this week, but they'd done a version a year earlier for a BBC Radio 1 Janice Long session. Recorded on 27 Sep 1984, it a more swishy disco rhythm rather than the single's hopalong beat. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH1q...

Continuing our celebration of the 40th anniversary Strawberry Switchblade's Jolene! The single marked a change of producer & video director too, leaving behind the quirky originality of Tim Pope. Shot in Paris, we're not actually sure who directed Jolene! www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq0U...

40 years ago today, 2 Sep 1985, Strawberry Switchblade released their electro-pop Hi-NRG-tinged cover of Dolly Parton's Jolene. Despite a big promotional push inc a strawberry shaped picture disc it failed to make the UK top 40. We'll be posting about it all this week www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6bq...

Remembering John Peel on his birthday. Strawberry Switchblade were among the innumerable bands he promoted, giving them a session in October 1982 before they were signed (and which led to their getting a recording contract). Here's Little River. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG_T...

Released 30 years ago today, Julian Cope's album 20 Mothers. There are 20 tracks & every one's a mother, & to celebrate that fact the cover is a photo of 20 actual mothers including Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson (2nd row, far left). 🧵

Strawberry Switchblade interviewed on UK Saturday morning kids' show No. 73, 30 Mar 1985. Given the constraints of time & audience, Kim Goody does a good job of getting a range of decent questions in. Bonus points to Rose for mentioning The The & Psychic TV on telly! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2fm...

Happy birthday to Mark 'Bedders' Bedford! The Madness bassist turns 63 today, and we're still grateful for him and bandmate Woody's work on Strawberry Switchblade's 1983 debut single Trees and Flowers. 🧵

Strawberry Switchblade tattoo by Moira Ramone of Studio Ex Voto in Rotterdam. A witty twist on classic design, at first glance it looks like a typical 'dagger through heart' but then you see it's a switchblade through strawberry & there's a polka dot ribbon. Thanks to Moira for sharing with us!

Happy anniversary to the brilliant documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands. A year ago today it had its global premiere in Edinburgh ahead of screenings across Scotland and beyond. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=v38p...

New to us - the first track to sample Strawberry Switchblade! Tokyo band Flipper's Guitar were part of the city's late 1980s Shibuya-kei movement of musicians taking an iconoclastic cut and paste approach to making music. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7K_...

New Strawberry Switchblade cover just dropped! Japanese duo Neco Asobi have done a perky EDM version of Since Yesterday with a tasty little guitar line that's not in the original. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIwu...

Paul McCartney arriving at Live Aid, accompanied by his daughter Heather who's wearing a Strawberry Switchblade T shirt. Wembley Stadium, 13 July 1985.

Remembering Caroline Crawley from Shelleyan Orphan on her birthday. Members of Shelleyan Orphan & Strawberry Switchblade had flats in the same building, Caroline lived below Jill Bryson. Here's Caroline with Jill in 1986, modelling for a photography student’s session.

On this day in 1982 Strawberry Switchblade had their 1st interview in the music press. Glasgow journo Kirsty McNeill invited them round to hers for a piece published in the New Musical Express. Here's the article (low res, sorry) & another photo from the day 🧵 📸©️Peter McArthur, used with permission

41 years ago today, 4 Aug 1984, Strawberry Switchblade played a huge free gig in London's Brockwell Park. As far as we know it was the first performance of Since Yesterday, in a much softer guitarry arrangement than the electropop single issued 3 months later🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=89vi...

Concluding our week celebrating the anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees & Flowers, now it's your turn! We have the guitar chords for all their singles on the fansite strawberryswitchblade.net/category/gui...

As we mark the anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's 1983 debut single Trees & Flowers it's worth flipping the record over. The B side, like the A, is a beautiful track that's never been reissued. Listen to the crystalline melancholy beauty of Go Away www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwEb...

Continuing our celebration of the anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees & Flowers in 1983, here's a thread of how it was received in the press 🧵

The master tape of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees and Flowers. Mastered at the legendary Trident studios in Soho on 27 June 1983, it features the two tracks for the 7" & the instrumental 'Trees & Flowers (Just Music)' as the bonus track for the 12".

This week is the anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees & Flowers. This is the BBC radio session version which led to the single being released. It was heard by Bill Drummond (then of Zoo records, later of the KLF). The rest is history! 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yre1...

Continuing our celebration of the anniversary of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees and Flowers - here's Peter McArthur, Jill Bryson's partner & Strawberry Switchblade's main photographer, with his handiwork on a flyposter for the single. Oxford Street, London, July/August 1983.

Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees & Flowers was released 42 years ago this week. Here are the 7" & 12" covers, & the uncropped version of the cover photo. See next post for some unused shots from the session. (📸©️ Peter Anthony McArthur, used with permission)

Continuing our week celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the release of Strawberry Switchblade's debut single Trees & Flowers. The single was issued on 7", & also on 12" with an instrumental version of as the bonus track. So where's the extended version from? 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxOU...

Happy birthday to Strawberry Switchblade's debut release, Trees and Flowers issued on this day in 1983. In celebration of this, we'll be doing a week of posts about the single. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY9u...

Strawberry Switchblade with 18 of their favourite things - feature in No 1 magazine, 5 January 1985. As we might expect, there are numerous polka dot items, as well as guitars, snacks, & the plastic melodica they used to such wonderful effect on Being Cold and Sunday Morning.

Strawberry Switchblade on WAC Snax, the inedibly sweet food feature of kids TV show Wide Awake Club, 6 May 1985. In this world, hurried putting tinned fruit & jelly in an orange peel is cooking. Absolute fever dream stuff. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ77...

Strawberry Switchblade on the cover of Jackie, 16 May 1985. Jackie was a hugely popular British weekly magazine aimed at girls in their early teens, with circulation of well over half a million at its peak. It featured pop music, beauty tips, romance photo stories & problem pages.

Srawberry Switchblade's Rose McDowall on stage at The Warehouse, Leeds, 1 December 1982. It was the penultimate night of their support tour with Orange Juice. 📸©️ Peter Anthony McArthur, used with permission

On this day in 2013, Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson released her first music in 20 years. As part of The Shapists with her daughter Jessie Frost & Craig Hood, they released Change Your Mind. 🧵 theshapists.bandcamp.com/track/change...

Julian Cope's Autogeddon was released on this day in 1994. It features Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson singing on Ain't No Gettin' Round Gettin' Round. It's one of only three tracks Jill was on between Switchblade's 1986 split & forming The Shapists in 2013. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbum...

Two photos of Jill Bryson's epic cloak from her art college days before Strawberry Switchblade. 'In 1977 or 78 Peter’s dad gave me suit fabric, really heavy. I bought this cheap stripy satin for inside. I wore it instead of a coat, it was sooo warm for Glasgow winters.'🧵

Strawberry Switchblade perform Since Yesterday on BBC TV's Oxford Road Show, 11 Jan 1985. ORS was a music-focused youth culture show that ran 1981-5. This appearance was in the week that Since Yesterday hit the charts - they'd been on Top Of The Pops the night before www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSc...

Strawberry Switchblade's Jill Bryson getting keys cut and about to pay with a Scottish fiver. This is her on a casual day off! Muswell Hill, London, probably 1984 or 1985. (📸©️Peter Anthony McArthur, used with permission)

Strawberry Switchblade, September 1985 📸Mike Prior for No 1 magazine.

Strawberry Switchblade - Jill Bryson & Rose McDowall - with Drew McDowall at the entrance to Postcard Records headquarters, 185 West Princes Street, Glasgow, probably 1981 or 1982. (📸©️Peter McArthur, used with permission)