When you think back over the summer it's hard not to conclude that it might have been better just to skip straight from spring into autumn. Summer '98 was bad news, with its endless downpours, David Beckham's Bruce Lee routine and the malnutritioned tots bawling in the mud at Glastonbury. So just as the wretched season is coming to a close, Sing-Sing are about to dredge up all those appalling memories with their debut single, 'Feels Like Summer'. Why?
"It isn't a marketing ploy to release a single about summer just as it's ending" says Lisa O'Neill, the band's sprightly singer. "We just couldn't have released it any earlier. We could've waited till next summer to put it out, but that would've been silly."
A gloriously shimmering pop song that could have come from '60s Motown, 'Feels Like Summer' has melancholic tinges that make it the perfect summation of the season-that-never-was. It sounds so much like a less-contrived Saint Etienne, it's surprising to discover that the other half of Sing-Sing is Emma Anderson, previously guitarist with shoe-gazing überliggers Lush.
This is her first musical project since the tragic death of Lush's drummer Chris Acland, and she's still in touch with the other two members of the group. "Phil says he likes the record, but Miki hasn't said anything about it yet. She was smiling at our gig, though."
The pair first met through their then-boyfriends in a flat in Camden. "We were introduced to each other in the living room one day," says Lisa. "We didn't speak, we just sort of looked at each other."
And now the boyfriends are gone, but somehow they ended up getting together to form the group. Which is just as well, as Sing-Sing has rescued Emma from the death of the soul that is daytime TV.
"I'd written all these songs, but I was just kicking my heels around the house, watching Ready Steady Cook day after day," she recalls.
Lisa was spending her time more profitably, singing on various dance projects and working as an animator. "I've just worked on this Fairy Liquid commercial where there's a talking germ. You get really anal about it - should it be a friendly germ or a scary germ? What colour should it be? And then you realise it's a commercial and it's not that important."
Lisa does have one special memory of the summer, appearing as a guest vocalist with the Mad Professor as he headlined the shit-splattered dance tent at Glastonbury.
"There were 3000 people going mad. I loved playing there, but then I was nine feet off the ground."
John Mullen.
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