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!

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 🧵