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The Pastels are legendary. Their story goes back to the early '80s, when Stephen McRobbie (known as Stephen Pastel) and David Keegan co-owned a record label called 53rd & 3rd, home to beloved and influential bands such as The Vaselines and The Soup Dragons. They also played in a group named The Shop Assistants together with a girl, Aggi Wright. Stephen and Aggi soon broke off into their own group, which they named The Pastels. They released a number of singles in the mid '80s until 1987 when they released their first LP, entitled Up For A Bit With The Pastels. Early on, the lineup of the Pastels included members of Teenage Fanclub and The Vaselines, and David from the Shop Assistants even joined up for a time. These different groups and their contemporaries pioneered an entirely new genre of music that developed from labels such as their 53rd & 3rd, Subway, Pink, Creation, Glass, and others. The genre was known as a number of different things, early on called "shambling" or "anorak" pop, and now known commonly as Twee or as c86 - after the benchmark cassette compilation named c86 that music mag NME released in 1986, which The Pastels and other groups of this music style appeared on. The style is most unique for the jangling guitar lines, vocals that are usually pleasantly out of tune, and a certain hypersensitive personality backing everything. Certainly, much of the Pastels music would fit this description.

Finally in the late '80s some rearranging was needed and the group became a permanent trio consisting of Stephen, Aggi, and Katrina Mitchell, who was a fan of the group and would come to their shows. It was a bit of reworking of the lineup and the Pastels as a whole, with Katrina and Aggi learning drums and bass from scratch. This became the definitive lineup of the group and they released some of their greatest material throughout the early and mid-90s. They collaborated with Jad Fair in 1992, and released the LP Mobile Safari in 1995. With this release they found permanent homes with Domino records in the UK and here at Up Records in the US. Following these next few albums they began collaborating with many of their friends and contemporaries, both on their own releases and guesting on a wide range of friends' albums. Most recently Stephen has formed a record label once again, named Geographic, and The Pastels wrote music for a film - The Last Great Wilderness. They play the occasional show and are still writing music in between running the label.
 

The Pastels: Katrina, Stephen, and Aggi.
 Store Items (see more here)
The Pastels
Mobile Safari
CD/LP
The Pastels
Illumination
CD/LP
 Up Discography click for info
01 02 03 04 05 06
07
 1. The Pastels - Mobile Safari CD/LP (1995)
 2. The Pastels - Unfair Kind Of Fame CD/2x7" (1997)
 3. The Pastels - Illumination CD/LP (1997)
 4. Up In Orbit! compilation CD (1997) songs: frozen wave (flacco remix)
 5. Up Next compilation CD (1998) songs: one wild moment (remixed by stereolab)
 6. The Pastels - Illuminati CD (1998)
 7. One Wild Moment. Pastels Music Remixed 12" (1998)
 Career Discography
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
46 47
 01. The Pastels - Heavens Above 7" (Whaam! Records)
 02. The Pastels - I Wonder Why flexi-7" (Creation)
 03. The Pastels - I Wonder Why 7" (Rough Trade)
 04. The Pastels - Something Going On 7" (Creation)
 05. The Pastels - A Million Tears 12" (Creation)
 06. The Pastels - I'm Alright With You 12" (Creation)
 07. The Pastels - Heavens Above/I Wonder Why 7" (Villa 21)
 08. Buba & The Shop Assistants - Something To Do 7" (Villa 21)
 09. The Pastels - Truck Train Tractor 7"/12" (Glass)
 10. The Pastels - Crawl Babies 7"/12" (Glass)
 11. The Pastels - Up For A Bit With The Pastels (Glass)
 12. The Pastels - Comin'through 7"/12" (Glass)
 13. The Pastels - Truck Train Tractor/Crawl Babies 12" (Glass)
 14. The Pastels - Suck On The Pastels (Creation)
 15. Good Feeling Vol. 1 compilation (53rd + 3rd)
 16. The Pastels - Baby You're Just You 12" (Chapter 22)
 17. The Pastels - Sittin' Pretty (Chapter 22)
 18. The Pastels - Different Drum 7" (K)
 19. Jad Fair & The Pastels - This Could Be The Night 12"/CDS (Paperhouse)
 20. The Pastels - Songs For Children 7" (Overground)
 21. The Pastels - Speeding Motorcycle 7"/12"/CDS (Paperhouse)
 22. The Pastels - Thru' Your Heart 7"/12"/CDS (Paperhouse)
 23. Jad Fair & The Pastels - No. 2 12"/CDS (Paperhouse)
 24. The Pastels - Thank You For Being You 7"/CDS (Paperhouse)
 25. The Pastels - Truckload Of Trouble (Paperhouse)
 26. The Pastels - Olympic World Of Pastelism 7"/CDS (Domino)
 27. The Pastels - Yoga 12"/CDS (Domino)
 28. The Pastels - Yoga 7"/CDS (Matador)
 29. The Pastels - Mobile Safari (Up/Domino)
 30. Sandy Dirt (K/Domino)
 31. The Pastels - Worlds of Possibility 12"/CDS (Domino)
 32. Duglas T. Stewart - Frankenstein (Vinyl Japan)
 33. The Pastels - Unfair Kind Of Fame 2x7"/CD5/12"/CDS (Up/Domino)
 34. The Pastels - The Hits Hurt 7"/CDS (Domino)
 35. The Pastels - Illumination (Up/Domino)
 36. Up In Orbit! compilation (Up)
 37. Up Next compilation (Up)
 38. The Pastels - Illuminati (Up/Domino/Dohb)
 39. One Wild Moment: Pastels Music Remixed 12" (Up/Domino)
 40. Kid Loco - A Grand Love Story (Atlantic)
 41. Future Pilot AKA - Future Pilot AKA vs. A Galaxy Of Sound (Beggars Banquet)
 42. Kid Loco - Prelude To A Grand Love Story (Wea)
 43. Caroline Now! - The Songs Of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys (Caroline)
 44. Future Pilot AKA - Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea (Domino)
 45. Teenage Fanclub - Words Of Wisdom And Hope (Alternative Tentacle)
 46. You Don't Need Darkness To Do What You Think Is Right - New Geographic Music Vol. 1 compilation (Geographic)
 47. The Pastels - The Last Great Wilderness (Geographic)
 Links
 Geographic Music
 The Pastels on Domino's website
 A website about The Pastels
 Jonathan's (dormant) Pastels website
 
 ©2003, 2004 Up Records