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All Music Guide:
Following the Manhattan Love Suicides' breakup in 2009, the four members of the Leeds-based indie pop group paired off to form two new ventures: the Medusa Snare and the Blanche Hudson Weekend. The latter, founded by Caroline McChrystal and Darren Lockwood soon after the group parted ways, sounded more or less identical to the Manhattan Love Suicides: a twee pop outfit whose blissfully buzzy, girl group-influenced tunes drew heavily from seminal twee pop acts like the Shop Assistants, Dolly Mixture, and Talulah Gosh. Named after Joan Crawford's character from the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the Blanche Hudson Weekend featured a host of rotating bandmembers in addition to the core duo of McChrystal and Lockwood, including Sasha (guitar), Chris (bass), Lee (keyboards), and Matt (drums). The Blanche Hudson Weekend's debut 7", The Letters to Daddy EP (a vinyl pressing featuring a 1920s glamour shot of a young Joan Crawford on the sleeve), was released via Squirrel Records in late 2009. Another disc, The Rats in the Cellar EP, was released on Odd Box Records the following year; Hate Is a Loaded Gun, a 7" single released via Squirrel Records, followed soon after. All of the tracks from these releases, along with a handful of new songs, were bundled together onto an odds-and-sods CD release, Reverence, Severance and Spite, which was released on Squirrel Records before 2010 came to a close.
Wikipedia:
The Blanche Hudson Weekend is a UK-based indie band, originating from Leeds and formed in 2009. The band is named after the fictional character portrayed by Joan Crawford in the 1962 film What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, which itself is based on the Henry Farrell novel of the same name. The band was formed by Darren Lockwood and Caroline McChrystal after the split of their former band The Manhattan Love Suicides in July 2009. Allmusic's Margaret Reges described the band as "[...]a twee pop outfit whose blissfully buzzy, girl group-influenced tunes drew heavily from seminal twee pop acts like the Shop Assistants, Dolly Mixture, and Talulah Gosh", and the band have cited the British indie pop band The Primitives as an influence.
Initially the band were a studio-only project with various guests helping on recordings. They released their debut 7", an EP entitled The Letters To Daddy, on Squirrel Records in November 2009. On 20 July 2010 the band debuted its live line-up for the first time. The band then released two further 7" singles, followed by a 17-track compilation CD, released on the band's own Squirrel Records imprint at the end of 2010, entitled Reverence, Severance and Spite. The band's debut album, entitled You Always Loved Violence, was released on October 10, 2011.
