Vinylicious Myu-Jikku: April Showers, Pure Pop Bliss!

April Showers were a short-lived Glaswegian pop duo comprised of Jonathan Bernstein and Beatrice Colin. Releasing their only known single “Abandon Ship” on Big Star, a subsidiary of Chrysalis, in 1984 it quickly gained a cult following due to it’s sparkling production from Anne Dudley (Art of Noise) and string-heavy arrangements. This quality was echoed on B-side “Everytime We Say Goodbye” with the 12-inch featuring an instrumental of Abandon Ship. - Tunesbag

At the time Abandon Ship was released, she was the girlfriend of James Grant who was then part of Friends Again and later the lead in the acclaimed Love & Money - thevinylvillain

Beatrice Colin is also a novelist who also writes for radio. Her novel, The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite (John Murray), has been published in the UK in July 2008 and in the US as The Glimmer Palace (Riverhead).

Beatrice was born in London and moved to Scotland as a child. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, she worked as a journalist for the arts and features pages of publications including The Scotsman, Sunday Herald and The Guardian. Her first novel, Nude Untitled, (Toby Press, 2000) was short-listed for a Saltire Award. Her second, Disappearing Act (Toby Press, 2001) was published in the US. She has written six plays and dramatised three novels for BBC Radio 4, and her short stories have been broadcast and published in anthologies and literary magazines such as Ontario Review and The London Magazine.

She has taught creative writing for Strathclyde University’s English Studies Dept and for Glasgow University’s Department of Adult and Continuing Education, and completed her doctorate in 2008. She currently works at Strathclyde University as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She lives in Glasgow with her two children. - www.beatricecolin.co.uk

Interesting bits:

O P T 0 2 4
APRIL SHOWERS "While The City Sleeps" ~ 7" (UNRELEASED)
Release date: N / A (1983)
Tracks: While The City Sleeps / Wasn't That A Rainbow
PM: Can't remember much about this, except that I liked it alot. Another groovy Scottish combo. Managed by Charles Cosh. Notes: Written by Jonathan Bernstein; published by Fishersongs. Recorded* but never cut. Base artwork for sleeve and labels delivered to OT.

http://home.wxs.nl/~frankbri/ot_discog1.htm#opt024

APRIL SHOWERS (November 1982)

Newlands. The Sleepy Hollow of the North. It would be a wise traveller indeed who, strolling through this plush suburban outback, detected the first stirrings of a new pop phenomenon. The cynical onlooker might suggest that the musical matrimony of teen misanthropist JONATHAN B. BERNSTEIN, stocky stoic HUBBLE and shambling Rodney Bewes acolyte BOBBY CALDWELL is damning proof of Fate's warped sense of humour. "However", muses Jonathan, "the only important thing in Pop is the Song. That's what people hear first and that's what they're going to remember".

April Showers have a repertoire built to last a lifetime. Waiting, wanting, lying, loving, losing, crying... all human life is here. Tunes like "Any Wednesday", "Don't Stay Away Too Long", "All Of The Stars In The Sky" and "Once In A Blue Moon" truly are songs for all seasons. Working within a flexible framework allows the three-man team scope to work with a variety of instrumentalists and singers, the vocals on their sample tape feature ex-French Impressionist, Beatrice Colin. The team are currently engaged in recruiting new accomplaces and hope to take to the boards in early October.

On receipt of a number of early demos, "Don't Stay Away Too Long" appears to have been OT's initial choice for the debut April Showers single, but by November '82 it seems that the band were thinking of saving this song, at least until such a time as it could be transformed by a "bigger production" into a proper "pop hit", one which would perhaps be "more suited" as a second single. In its place a new A-side, "While The City Sleeps", would pave the way for later and greater things whilst the original B-side idea, "Something To Shout About", was also to be replaced by another newer composition, "Wasn't That A Rainbow". The sure existence of any of these final recordings, however, has yet to be varified.