Dixie Ernill enjoys a 1986 Janice Long radio session which has been released on 10 inch vinyl by Precious Recordings of London from Edinburgh indiepop band Jesse Garon and The Desparadoes.
Edinburgh in the early and mid-1980s was a hotbed of indie-pop bands and Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes were very much a part of it. They made a classic female-fronted indie sound that would propel bands such as The Primitives and Darling Buds into the mainstream charts. Whilst Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes ultimately didn’t make the leap to the big league, their output didn’t lack the quality of their better known contemporaries and this session, despite being very early in the band’s development, was a brilliant showcase of what they had to offer. The fact that at least three of songs – namely ‘Laughing, Smiling and Falling Again’, ‘Leave You Behind’ and ‘Up On The Big Wheel’ could easily have been A-sides, rather than the B-sides on future releases they became, bears testament to just how good the band were. Sadly they called it a day as the 1990s dawned, but they should be remembered as more than just a mere footnote from the wonderful alternative scene of the previous decade.