BOOKS
BOOKS
Heavenly, 1990: (l–r)
Peter Momtchiloff, Amelia Fletcher, Mathew Fletcher and Rob Pursey
MARTYNGOODACRE/GETTYIMAGES
SARAH
Records has recently been examined in afilm (My Secret World), abook (Popkiss) and aretrospective exhibition in the label’s home town of Bristol. All three made adecent case for areappraisal of this none-more-indie institution founded by Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes, fanzine-loving students who bonded at aJulian Cope concert. True to the label’s democratic ideals, Jane Duffus’s These Things Happen presents the story as an oral history, in which the slights of the music press throb like afresh bruise.
There are many anoraks worn in anger, and an extended discussion of how one of the more articulate Sarah stars, Heavenly’s Amelia Fletcher, was dismissed by critics thanks to her posh name. Fletcher says that fashion-wise, their inspirations were Bobby Gillespie and Stephen Pastel, who “wore their anoraks with leather trousers, so it was a combo of the rock and the punk with the childish”. She continues: “Unfortunately people looked at us and thought we were just arsing around like kids.”