I have a copy of Postcard. If I'm ok to upload, I shall do, but shall await a nod from anyone who might prefer me not to!

Unshaker EP came up on ebay the other year and I held off 'til the last minute...and left off too long. Some lucky sod got it for 99p. Hmph. Again, I do have the tracks, but am not sure if it's ok to upload them or not. The second track, Exotic Night, is one of my favourite Venini tunes, though. It's a very sexy thing indeed.

Is there nowt on Youtube? There is a video out there somewhere...for Carnival Star I think. I forget where the link is though, and you need Quicktime to view it.

Someone with technical cleverness should rescue this and put it on Youtube.

I bought the first Venini single in Liverpool HMV. Hard to imagine something that obscure being stocked there these days. Did any of the records ever hit the indie charts...?

I have the two singles, but Postcard was a free download so I can't see the harm in sharing that one. Unshaker EP, I know it was mail order but I suppose it was paid for content so I can see the caution what with the rules of uploading and such.

If the stuff isn't commercially available (i.e. sold on iTunes or stocked in any record shops) then there's absolutely nothing illegal about sharing it on here! People are always sharing unavailable Pulp b sides on here, and the forum hasn't been shut down so far!

Cheers for 'Postcard' Stephen!

Well I've never heard Exotic Night since it's on the EP, but it's a great piece of pop.

I've added some Venini gig dates to the Pulpwiki...

That's a very downbeat Timeline, Mark! I'll update the one I've just done for the wiki. Hadn't realised the Unshaker EP took a whole year to be released. Jeez. Had they been trying to flog the idea of the mooted 3rd single Roxy in the meantime or something...?

And how did you feel about Russell quitting Venini one month after you'd relaunched the website? You can illustrate your answer with a smilie of your choice.

Stephen wrote:

---

That's a very downbeat Timeline, Mark! I'll update the one I've just done for the wiki. Hadn't realised the Unshaker EP took a whole year to be released. Jeez. Had they been trying to flog the idea of the mooted 3rd single Roxy in the meantime or something...?

---

It wasn't really a question of it taking a year to release it exactly. That whole period for the second half of 2000 was an attempt to try and keep things on the boil in the face of little-to-no actual band activity. They'd recorded the album in late '99, then there was this break of six months for the first half of 2000 to reconsider what they were doing, and after that Russell decided he was leaving but hoped (as we all did) that the band would be able to carry on, with him in some kind of managerial role - which seemed sort of possible, as they were all younger and potentially more up for touring and stuff.

So from summer 2000 onwards they were trying to re-mobilise with the new guitarist (and then with a new drummer too), they weren't going to be able to gig for a while, and Russell and I both wanted to put something out to keep people interested and try and retain what fans they'd gathered. Hence Postcard and then Unshaker. Bit of a waste of time as it turned out!

 

---

And how did you feel about Russell quitting Venini one month after you'd relaunched the website? You can illustrate your answer with a smilie of your choice.

---

 

I sort of knew it was coming as we'd talked quite a lot in the runup to that period. I was just happy to be involved really, although it seemed a terrible shame he was leaving. I was probably more miffed that they'd done their first gig at Warwick Uni (where I was a student at the time) and I didn't hear about it till a week later!

You're a babe, Stephen,

Stephen wrote:

---

Mark, what were Russell's reasons for disillusionment? The brutal lack of success at Venini, or the horrific reviews?

---

He didn't really go into it much, but I remember a sense that he wasn't really interested in going up and down the M1 in a Transit van and all those other trappings of being in a small band. The bad reviews and the fact the band didn't really take off commercially were probably a blow to morale (although you could argue calling it a day that two singles and less than a dozen gigs he didn't really give it much of a chance), but all that was secondary I think - although I do remember telling him about a fairly snidey gossip piece from the NME Thrills column about him leaving the band, and him being very irritated that they'd print something like that but not bother to review the singles. There was perhaps a sense of weariness with the petty politics of the indie music industry, and how there seemed to be a limit to what you could achieve if you didn't want to go down to London every weekend and suck up to Lamacq.

---

Were they much cop live, btw? I always imagined them to be rather good...

---

Yes, they were great - very watchable, with a fantastic frontline of Russell, Debbie and the bassist Nick who had this supercharged early Manic thing going on. Really tight too, with quite a loud powerful sound, perhaps more so than the singles would suggest. It's a shame there aren't any gig recordings around.

Postcard goes up...and about three days later, Will transcribes it. Good going, Sir!