Strawberry Switchblade fansite
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strawfansite.bsky.social
Strawberry Switchblade fansite
@strawfansite.bsky.social
The comprehensive online archive of all things #StrawberrySwitchblade since 2003. Posting about the band, nattering about music in general.

https://strawberryswitchblade.net
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)
November 12, 2025 at 4:30 PM
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'.
November 9, 2025 at 1:00 PM
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.
October 31, 2025 at 12:23 PM
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
October 21, 2025 at 7:27 AM
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...
October 20, 2025 at 3:44 PM
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
October 19, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Strawberry Switchblade record company promotional photos for the press, 1984.

📸1 - unknown
📸2 - Peter McArthur
📸3 - Paul Cox
October 14, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Strawberry Switchblade, September 1985, around the time of their Jolene single.

📸 Mike Prior for No 1 magazine
October 10, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Strawberry Switchblade, 1984/5. The person in their 1980s body warmer unintentionally serves to highlight the dramatic pizzazz of the band's aesthetic.
October 8, 2025 at 6:47 AM
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 🧵)
October 2, 2025 at 8:00 AM
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
September 26, 2025 at 8:35 AM
They might've thought it'd quietly go away but when their album was reissued in Japan, Ecstasy was added as a bonus track. Fast forward to the streaming era & the 1997 reissue has become the standard track listing for the album. Ecstasy is their 4th most streamed track on Spotify
September 25, 2025 at 10:32 AM
It's not clear what the 'apple of my eye' bit is about, perhaps that was the original title before Rose wrote the new lyrics. Although in retrospect both Rose and Jill are at pains to disown it, they nonetheless closed the set with it on their March 1986 Japanese tour.
September 25, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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'
September 23, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Neither single became a hit. It would be a year until Erasure's 4th single, Sometimes, was a smash and started their epic success. Sadly, Strawberry Switchblade were headed the other way - Jolene turned out to be their last single in the UK.
September 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Both bands were on a promotional tour of personal appearances at night clubs and on this day they went together to two clubs 12 miles apart - Jars in Brechin and Smokeys in Arbroath.
September 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Strawberry Switchblade had released their electropop cover of Jolene two weeks earlier, the same day as Erasure's debut single Who Needs Love Like That. They were so unknown that they're billed in the advert as 'Vince Clark ex Yazoo and Andy Bell ex Depeche Mode'. 75p a ticket!
September 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Strawberry Switchblade and Erasure at Jars Discothèque, Brechin, Scotland on 19 September 1985 - 40 years ago today! 🧵
September 19, 2025 at 5:37 PM
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. 🧵
September 18, 2025 at 2:27 PM
You can download the track and album from the Let's Go's Bandcamp: theletsgos.bandcamp.com/album/tracks...

They're also coming to Europe this week (UK folks - your options are London, Harrow, Birmingham and Glasgow).
September 16, 2025 at 6:56 AM
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!
September 11, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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 🖤🤍🍓🤍🖤
September 9, 2025 at 7:43 AM
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
September 8, 2025 at 8:30 AM
As for other Strawberry Switchblade extended mixes, the Let Her Go remix was released on the 12" of its follow-up single Who Knows What Love Is, while the extended Trees & Flowers, Since Yesterday & Who Knows What Love Is were specially made for Japanese compilation The 12" Album
September 5, 2025 at 4:52 PM
The remix was by Phil Harding who'd recently done Hi-NRG tracks for Divine & Hazell Dean as well as Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round. The extended Jolene's available on streaming services - despite not being marked as such, it's the version used on The Platinum Collection.
September 5, 2025 at 4:52 PM