Plam Poom: probably the best band you’ve never heard of; or, Reflecting on 20 years in the real world

I thought I’d take a break from my ‘Reflections on Reading’ to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

I’m a bit of a sucker for yearly milestones. I probably spend far too much time having maudlin moments, reflecting on the past, asking myself what I was doing at this point 5 years ago…or 10 years ago…or 20 years ago. I get it from my mother and I blame her entirely for this. As a kid, my mother would often say ‘this time last week we were…’ or ‘this time 25 years ago I was in the midst of intense labour with you’. I do this with historical events as well. When 2014 kicked off, I started diving into WWI-related books. Last month marked 50 years (April 1968) since 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I of course went and re-watched that. No doubt that if I’m still alive and kicking in 2066 I’ll be commemorating a millennium since the Battle of Hastings by reading recently de-classified material.

Regular, devoted readers dating back to when this blog started in 2009 will be fully aware of this – I’ve regularly pontificated on the past, with just one recent(ish) example being this post from April 2015, where I reminisced on the start of my English-teaching ‘career’. (if you’re wondering why ‘career’ is in quotes, you’ll have to go and read that and the follow-up posts!)

Anyway, this very weekend 20 years ago (!), almost half a lifetime ago (!), I graduated from Tufts University. There were all sorts of reunion events this weekend, with a few of my friends attending various shindigs. As tempting as it was to go, Kyiv is pretty far from Boston for a weekend flight, so I had to give it a miss. I think that these days, with Facebook and social media and whatnot, reunions probably have less of a mystery or aura to them. I remember growing up watching films that featured all sorts of cringeworthy moments connected to high school reunions and wondering if I’d ever go to one of my own.

(Speaking of cringeworthy, when I think ‘films connected to high school reunions’, the first film that comes to mind is ‘Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion’. That’s pretty embarrassing.)

But I wanted to at least do something in tribute to the years I toiled away at Tufts. And in my last post, I made reference to my time as a budding sports and music ‘journalist’ whilst writing for the Tufts Daily. A couple of people asked me whether I had any old articles I could dig up and share (believe it or not). A cursory search on the web doesn’t turn up any of my ditties floating around anywhere, and I didn’t feel like perusing the university archives (I do have physical copies of some of my articles, including this one, back home). When I Google my name followed by ‘Tufts Daily’, the only hits are about a quarterback for the football team named Sonny Puzzo. Had I gone to the reunion, who knows what I would have discovered? Hell, the kid could be my son for all I know.

I was sorely tempted to write a reflection on this time 10 years ago, during my last month in Riga. Again, referring to my ultra-devoted fan club of followers who’ve been with me since the beginning, I’ve probably referenced a ‘cracked ribs incident in a dodgy place’ that happened in May 2008 countless times. I’ve dropped so many teasers. I’ve often said that the story is just waiting to be told, and the time would come. And I always promised myself that I would get down to writing it on the 10-year anniversary of that epic event.

But alas, it’s not to be. My creative juices just aren’t flowing in the way they used to. My days of sheniganising are few and far between, and it will take a Herculean effort for me to get back into that frame of mind. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but these days most of my excitement comes from nights like tonight, where at this very moment, as I’m writing this while quaffing an IPA, my wife is dancing in the living room with our adorable little daughter with Erasure blasting away on the Bluetooth. (we’re all giggling hysterically right now) It’s a far cry from the days of cracked ribs in Riga and me grabbing the balls of bouncers in shady Bishkek nightclubs. And yes, many and most of my Bishkek escapades are documented on the Layman’s Guide. And my 'profile' picture on the Layman's Guide also comes from the wee hours of that night in Riga.

Life is a bit more…’relaxed’ these days, you could say.

Give me five years, and I’ll try to revisit Riga.

Long digression over, back to the topic at hand. On these pages, I have shared a few things I’ve written in my pre-blogging days, from Lviv (2005) and Nigeria (2004), but this is now my earliest, from May 1998. This was my penultimate article from the Tufts Daily, and easily my favourite. My final article – a review of former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler’s debut solo album - actually appeared in the special graduation edition published on this very day 20 years ago. This Plam Poom article appeared maybe a week or two earlier.

My introduction to Plam Poom came in the autumn of 1994, during my senior year of high school in England, where I wrote for our school newspaper, the Lancer Ledger. They were having a gig in a small town called Brandon not far from the school, and one of our writers had written a blurb about them. I remember being hooked by the line that they ‘only play in monosynthesized isorhythms on the minor ninth’. I had no clue what that meant, but I thought it sounded great. I really wanted to see them live. I asked my fellow staff writer and good pal Andrew, who merely chuckled and said they sounded like a good band. We didn’t end up going to the gig. And that was all I heard about them until a few years later.

The Tufts Daily, May 1998

Probably the best band in the world

by D[arnell] P[edzo], probably the world’s greatest music reviewer

            For a band that plays only in monosynthesized isorhythms on the minor ninth, these guys are awfully damn good. They’ve managed to perfect the total essence of dance, the energy of rock, the emotions that come with old school soul, and the excitability of rap into one beautiful product. They’ve been hailed by one music magazine as, “One of this year’s most exciting new talents chock full of wicked pissa” and NME even ventured to say of them, “Clearly one of the most innovative talents in years, they give Happy Mondays a run for their money.” Who else but Brandon, England phenom Plam Poom, another in the fine, long-standing tradition of British bands set to take the world by storm.

            Although they formed in early 1994, Plam Poom have been delayed considerably by lack of press and genuinely bad reviews. Most of that stems from their bad reputation, especially that of lead vocalist Andrew Uram, formerly of London based Cro-Magnon Man. Numerous financial and creative instabilities led Uram to quit the band, forming the brand-new lineup consisting today of guitarist Joanna Yorke, bassist Yasi Leclair, keyboardist Toshi Briem, and drummer Simone Sebags. Their new sound has been compared to that of quirky pop moguls Lightning Seeds, as well as psychedelic stylesters Jesus and Mary Chain. Until now, with their brilliant first album This is Plam Poom, their biggest claim to fame was guitarist Yorke’s early childhood relationship with Thom Yorke of Radiohead. The romance ended so tragically that she decided to adopt his last name as her own, despite threats of a lawsuit from his management. But thankfully now we can concentrate on their gorgeous pop treats.

            Soap operas aside, however, and into the introspective gargantuan beauty that is Plam Poom. Their sound is nothing short of mystical, eerie, and sensual. Combined with vocals of heartbreaking anguish, they have a sound reminiscent of early Cure style stuff. In “Forlorn Frog Tales of Sorrow,” Uram sings, “Life, gone so quickly/I never had the chance to say good-bye/Slowly, slowly sliding/Oblivion forever and ever.” And in perhaps the greatest display of raw affection in his long-lost search for love, “Dagger Strikes,” Uram chants, “Over for you, perhaps/Not over for me/Leaving me leaves me lost in leaves/Jumping in the leaves leaves me sad now.” Much of the inspiration for their music comes in Uram’s true-to-life experiences of relationship rejection. His most painful tale, the album’s final track and one which Melody Maker has called, “the most despair-driven track since Joy Division’s Atmosphere,” is “Margie:” “Babe, we had it so good once/But opium dens and dreary hens since then/Hanging, grasping for sweet, stagnant air/Gasping without breath, with no metaphors in sight.”

            Ironically enough, plenty of metaphors abound in Plam Poom’s music. Ranging from the absurd to the senseless, Plam Poom have perfected the art of combining story with melody in ways that artists such as Savage Garden, the Wallflowers, and Puff Daddy can only dream of. Unfortunately for us, however, and bewildering to this author is the fact that bands as lousy as these remain at the forefront of the music world in terms of popularity, while bands like Plam Poom, Lo-Fidelity All-Stars and Rialto toil away in the depths of murky solitude, despite their superior musical talents.

            From the early depths of oblivion into a current realm of absolute psychedelia, Plam Poom have overcome severe obstacles to get where they are today. Problems from the outset of their inception may have plagued them and slowed them down, but they are ready to overwhelm us with their delicious array of catchy pop potpourri, a sound Select has called “the cutest thing since Super Furry Animals,” and Vox has called “only what we’ve been waiting for for an oblivion, reminiscent of early Bowie and Pulp.” 

            In conversation with Uram last summer, where I had the great fortune of meeting the band at the V97 music festival in Chelmsford, England, where they were support for Primal Scream, I learnt a great many things about the band’s philosophy. “Having philosophy, direction, and meaning behind our songs is what we’re all about,” says Uram. “Passion, intensity, and fire drives us, makes us who we are. That’s what sets us apart from shite like Dave Matthews and Phish, whose music, to me, is just a load of meaningless bollocks.” Understandably, there is a sentiment of anger in their voices, as all the band member’s expressed their desire for greater popularity. The video for their debut single, “Fetishes of Love and Leather,” is set to take American MTV by storm, as it has already hit top ten playlists in Asia and South America. Before we know it, Plam Poom just may have the fortune to be as successfully commercially as other bands. Wouldn’t that be just grand? You can bet your life on that.

With lead singer Uram (left), and author (right), many years later, well after Plam Poom's demise, in Berlin at 3am during the 2006 World Cup. We had been to see Ukraine v Tunisia earlier that evening.