The Creation - Creation/ Shock Horror

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Label: Creation

Year of Release: 1994

The Creation are usually one of the first groups on the lips of any connoisseur of sixties music if they're asked the question: "Which truly great British sixties bands fell by the wayside at the time?" 

In truth, they weren't total obscurities. They managed one very minor hit with "Painter Man", and another very near-hit with the big and beastly "Making Time". The former, somewhat absurdly, was later covered by Boney M, while the latter has become ubiquitous even in indie club land in the last twenty years - I was at an indie night in Ottawa ten years ago and heard the DJ play it to a huge dance floor response, and then again at a wedding elsewhere. It may have failed to crack the Top 40 in the UK, but it's since become regarded as a monstrous piece of mod pop as worthy of attention as anything The Who also produced at the time. The Germans were more accommodating in the sixties and found them a home in their charts - the British, for whatever reason, failed to see sense. 

The Creation's stock began to rise during the first wave of the sixties revival in the eighties, and only continued to gain momentum as the nineties set in. If evidence of this is needed, the fantastically chaotic and psychedelic "How Does It Feel To Feel" was covered by Ride and issued as an A side by them. 1994 obviously seemed like the perfect date for the original line-up to get back together and produce new material, and Alan McGee's Creation Records - themselves named after the band - seemed like the obvious home. They were placed in the studio with the label's legendary producer Joe Foster to produce a single also entitled "Creation", presumably with the idea that this three-way match between label, band and song title would be an interesting press story in itself.

What's astonishing about this record is that, unlike many comeback attempts by sixties groups, it sounds totally and utterly rooted in the decade it actually emerged in. The bleeding, compressed, treble-heavy production, attitude and energy sounds like 1994 Britpop as opposed to sixties mod rock. True, this isn't a tremendously large genre leap, but nonetheless the transition sounded surprising at the time and remains startling on relistening today. The A-side "Creation" in particular is a blistering piece of work, taking a simple riff and pushing it into the red. The track is seldom heard now, and probably doesn't stand up with the group's finest, but it's nonetheless worth your time. So many comebacks are riddled with embarrassment and misunderstanding present pop and rock trends - indeed, The Creation also had a crack in the eighties which is best ignored - but "Creation" and "Shock Horror" still don't sound especially distant. 

The Creation continue to tour and play today, but since the death of lead singer Kenny Pickett in 1997 they have been led by guitarist Eddie Phillips, who at present is the only remaining original member.

Label: Creation

Year of Release: 1994

The Creation are usually one of the first groups on the lips of any connoisseur of sixties music if they're asked the question: "Which truly great British sixties bands fell by the wayside at the time?" 

In truth, they weren't total obscurities. They managed one very minor hit with "Painter Man", and another very near-hit with the big and beastly "Making Time". The former, somewhat absurdly, was later covered by Boney M, while the latter has become ubiquitous even in indie club land in the last twenty years - I was at an indie night in Ottawa ten years ago and heard the DJ play it to a huge dance floor response, and then again at a wedding elsewhere. It may have failed to crack the Top 40 in the UK, but it's since become regarded as a monstrous piece of mod pop as worthy of attention as anything The Who also produced at the time. The Germans were more accommodating in the sixties and found them a home in their charts - the British, for whatever reason, failed to see sense. 

The Creation's stock began to rise during the first wave of the sixties revival in the eighties, and only continued to gain momentum as the nineties set in. If evidence of this is needed, the fantastically chaotic and psychedelic "How Does It Feel To Feel" was covered by Ride and issued as an A side by them. 1994 obviously seemed like the perfect date for the original line-up to get back together and produce new material, and Alan McGee's Creation Records - themselves named after the band - seemed like the obvious home. They were placed in the studio with the label's legendary producer Joe Foster to produce a single also entitled "Creation", presumably with the idea that this three-way match between label, band and song title would be an interesting press story in itself.

What's astonishing about this record is that, unlike many comeback attempts by sixties groups, it sounds totally and utterly rooted in the decade it actually emerged in. The bleeding, compressed, treble-heavy production, attitude and energy sounds like 1994 Britpop as opposed to sixties mod rock. True, this isn't a tremendously large genre leap, but nonetheless the transition sounded surprising at the time and remains startling on relistening today. The A-side "Creation" in particular is a blistering piece of work, taking a simple riff and pushing it into the red. The track is seldom heard now, and probably doesn't stand up with the group's finest, but it's nonetheless worth your time. So many comebacks are riddled with embarrassment and misunderstanding present pop and rock trends - indeed, The Creation also had a crack in the eighties which is best ignored - but "Creation" and "Shock Horror" still don't sound especially distant. 

The Creation continue to tour and play today, but since the death of lead singer Kenny Pickett in 1997 they have been led by guitarist Eddie Phillips, who at present is the only remaining original member.

Boutique - Butterfly & Strawberries and Cream

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1995

Boutique were one of the first bands I wrote about on this blog, and - partly due to the lack of information available at the time, and partly due to inexperience - I spewed out some utterly inaccurate drivel on to the screen. Life is a learning curve, dear readers, and allow me to try and do a slightly better job now.

Arriving at the height of Britpop in the mid-nineties, Boutique almost seemed like a calculated gamble of a signing by the record company, who may have sensed a possible turning tide away from the laddism of the period. Rather than sticking to the tried and tested classic songwriting paths of Blur or Oasis at that point, Boutique were all camp attitudes and art school pretence, owing more of a debt to early eighties synth-pop than sixties mod. At the point of their inception no scene appeared to exist which seemed relevant to their cause, but Taylor Parkes referenced them in a review as an example of a band who might fit a scene he was nurturing called Romo (or Romantic Modernism). Romo would owe a debt to the New Romantic movement of the early eighties, but attempt to also be progressive in its sounds. How well it succeeded on this level is something I'd throw open to question - indeed, I'd argue that for all its rather trad limitations, Britpop did at least allow more creative and extraordinary groups like Pulp and Super Furry Animals to get caught up in its slipstream - but nonetheless nuggets of pop goodness did get spat out of Romo.

Boutique appeared to consist of Chris Johnstone on vocals and Gary Chapman on synths, both of whom were a pair of outsiders from small-town Essex (The PO Reply Box on the back of the record's sleeve suggests Harlow) who, had Romo come along or not, would doubtless have carried on down their own particular electronic pop path in spite of the dominant trends around them. Three singles were issued on Trade 2 Records, none of which managed to even crack the Top 100 in the UK, though they did manage to make their presence felt in the indie chart. This wasn't enough to satisfy anyone at the record company that it was worthwhile issuing their LP, however, and it was filed away in the vaults where it remains unheard to this day.

A slight shame, that, because while all their singles ("Butterfly", "Strawberries and Cream" and "I've Told You Before") were simple, short, sharp affairs, there was an angularity to their style and arrangements that made them compelling. That's keenly in evidence on "Butterfly", where Johnstone's hiccuping, eey-oreing vocals collide with bleeping and gurgling antiquated synths, antiquated by both today's standards and certainly 1995's as well. Even duos like Erasure were trying to constantly modernise and update their synth equipment at this point, so the arrangement here feels consciously dated, in much the same manner that the arrangements of Cast or The Las were in thrall to a certain sixties period.

(Entry continues beneath the sound files)

Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1996

For my money, however, the band's best single was their third and final offering, "Strawberries and Cream". There are obvious and cheeky steals from both The Jam's "Start" (or is it The Beatles' "Taxman"?) here as well as David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", making it a thoroughly bizarre meshing of two pop cultures. But besides that, it's a two minute wonder of a single, effortless and optimistic while also being plainly strange. The buzzing, ringing synths throughout the chorus try their hardest to convey a perfect summer scene, then the clod-hopping guitars thump in immediately afterwards... and it's an enjoyable confusion of a record created by two people who were clearly in love with many different aspects of pop music, however fashionable those may or may not have been.

Their promo videos have finally been uploaded to Youtube too, meaning you can observe the style of a band who, while they were definitely in thrall to Bowie and the early eighties, seem unquestionably mid-nineties to me as well. Something about their youthful enthusiasm, magpie thievery and spark date-stamps them to an era when faintly dorky kids with huge record collections could gain record contracts and raid the pop charts - and while so much of that time was littered with bilge, if it allowed groups like Boutique to have their little moment, maybe that's an acceptable price to pay.

Butterfly
I've Told You Before
Strawberries and Cream

Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1995

Boutique were one of the first bands I wrote about on this blog, and - partly due to the lack of information available at the time, and partly due to inexperience - I spewed out some utterly inaccurate drivel on to the screen. Life is a learning curve, dear readers, and allow me to try and do a slightly better job now.

Arriving at the height of Britpop in the mid-nineties, Boutique almost seemed like a calculated gamble of a signing by the record company, who may have sensed a possible turning tide away from the laddism of the period. Rather than sticking to the tried and tested classic songwriting paths of Blur or Oasis at that point, Boutique were all camp attitudes and art school pretence, owing more of a debt to early eighties synth-pop than sixties mod. At the point of their inception no scene appeared to exist which seemed relevant to their cause, but Taylor Parkes referenced them in a review as an example of a band who might fit a scene he was nurturing called Romo (or Romantic Modernism). Romo would owe a debt to the New Romantic movement of the early eighties, but attempt to also be progressive in its sounds. How well it succeeded on this level is something I'd throw open to question - indeed, I'd argue that for all its rather trad limitations, Britpop did at least allow more creative and extraordinary groups like Pulp and Super Furry Animals to get caught up in its slipstream - but nonetheless nuggets of pop goodness did get spat out of Romo.

Boutique appeared to consist of Chris Johnstone on vocals and Gary Chapman on synths, both of whom were a pair of outsiders from small-town Essex (The PO Reply Box on the back of the record's sleeve suggests Harlow) who, had Romo come along or not, would doubtless have carried on down their own particular electronic pop path in spite of the dominant trends around them. Three singles were issued on Trade 2 Records, none of which managed to even crack the Top 100 in the UK, though they did manage to make their presence felt in the indie chart. This wasn't enough to satisfy anyone at the record company that it was worthwhile issuing their LP, however, and it was filed away in the vaults where it remains unheard to this day.

A slight shame, that, because while all their singles ("Butterfly", "Strawberries and Cream" and "I've Told You Before") were simple, short, sharp affairs, there was an angularity to their style and arrangements that made them compelling. That's keenly in evidence on "Butterfly", where Johnstone's hiccuping, eey-oreing vocals collide with bleeping and gurgling antiquated synths, antiquated by both today's standards and certainly 1995's as well. Even duos like Erasure were trying to constantly modernise and update their synth equipment at this point, so the arrangement here feels consciously dated, in much the same manner that the arrangements of Cast or The Las were in thrall to a certain sixties period.

(Entry continues beneath the sound files)

Label: Trade 2
Year of Release: 1996

For my money, however, the band's best single was their third and final offering, "Strawberries and Cream". There are obvious and cheeky steals from both The Jam's "Start" (or is it The Beatles' "Taxman"?) here as well as David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", making it a thoroughly bizarre meshing of two pop cultures. But besides that, it's a two minute wonder of a single, effortless and optimistic while also being plainly strange. The buzzing, ringing synths throughout the chorus try their hardest to convey a perfect summer scene, then the clod-hopping guitars thump in immediately afterwards... and it's an enjoyable confusion of a record created by two people who were clearly in love with many different aspects of pop music, however fashionable those may or may not have been.

Their promo videos have finally been uploaded to Youtube too, meaning you can observe the style of a band who, while they were definitely in thrall to Bowie and the early eighties, seem unquestionably mid-nineties to me as well. Something about their youthful enthusiasm, magpie thievery and spark date-stamps them to an era when faintly dorky kids with huge record collections could gain record contracts and raid the pop charts - and while so much of that time was littered with bilge, if it allowed groups like Boutique to have their little moment, maybe that's an acceptable price to pay.

Butterfly
I've Told You Before
Strawberries and Cream

Inside Moves - The Man With The Child In His Eyes/ I Wish

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Label: The Brothers Organisation
Year of Release: 1992

I blame Candy Flip. For a brief period in the early nineties, following the soaraway success of their indie-dance cover of The Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever", swinging dance cover versions of established classic tunes became a relatively common proposition. Some were enchanting, most were just awful, and some neither offended nor delighted, but were definitely odd talking points.

This cover of Kate Bush's "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" by Inside Moves - a group who didn't appear to go on to record any other work - is an unexpected find. It's true to say that "Cloudbusting" was sampled heavily by Utah Saints for "Something Good", so Bush had already had one excursion on to the dancefloor, but this is actually a straight, soulful reinterpretation of her work. It slips and slides down its own smooth and tranquil Ibiza path with its puffing flutes, exquisitely delivered vocals and triad piano lines. It's clearly primed for chill-out compilations, and it does actually work incredibly well within that genre - but seems to have largely slipped out unnoticed at the time, and certainly isn't played at all now.

I have no information on who Inside Moves were, but if their movements were typical of many of the dance producers and performers of this period, they probably naffed off somewhere else to work on another project under another name once this had flopped.

Label: The Brothers Organisation
Year of Release: 1992

I blame Candy Flip. For a brief period in the early nineties, following the soaraway success of their indie-dance cover of The Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever", swinging dance cover versions of established classic tunes became a relatively common proposition. Some were enchanting, most were just awful, and some neither offended nor delighted, but were definitely odd talking points.

This cover of Kate Bush's "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" by Inside Moves - a group who didn't appear to go on to record any other work - is an unexpected find. It's true to say that "Cloudbusting" was sampled heavily by Utah Saints for "Something Good", so Bush had already had one excursion on to the dancefloor, but this is actually a straight, soulful reinterpretation of her work. It slips and slides down its own smooth and tranquil Ibiza path with its puffing flutes, exquisitely delivered vocals and triad piano lines. It's clearly primed for chill-out compilations, and it does actually work incredibly well within that genre - but seems to have largely slipped out unnoticed at the time, and certainly isn't played at all now.

I have no information on who Inside Moves were, but if their movements were typical of many of the dance producers and performers of this period, they probably naffed off somewhere else to work on another project under another name once this had flopped.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 74 - Mr Food - And That's Before Me Tea!

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Who: Mr. Food
What: "...and that's before me tea!"
Label: Tangible
When: 1990
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

It's been over three months since the last "Second Hand Record Dip" entry, such a long gap in the service that I feel almost obliged to remind you all of what the hell the concept actually is. Essentially, it involves a dig into the remaindered section you find in the second hand record store, the unloved vinyl that gets tossed into the plastic crates on the floor near the back (or, in particularly uncared for cases, on the pavement outside) for the passing cheapskate to contemplate whilst on their bended knees praying for budget miracles. I've had some fantastic finds in the 50p box before now, but SHRD doesn't focus on the gems but the oddities - the flotsam and jetsam that may have stayed there forever had not somebody with a blog to write passed by.

Ex-BBC Radio One DJ Steve Wright has already cropped up in this section of the blog, and it's frankly no surprise to find him getting mentioned again. In the great musical box of fireworks, Wrighty has always been responsible for the fast-burning ones which do little more than make a few farting noises, mostly to the amusement of the assembled children and grandparents. Even his hit and near-hit singles remain largely forgotten by the General Public and are certainly no longer commercially available. Like slumber parties and roller discos, his melodic output does not appeal once you reach adulthood (One possible exception might be his effort under the name of Arnee and the Terminaters, whose single managed to prophesise the career of Scooter, so now is amusing for reasons entirely separate to the ones he originally intended).

So then, I'd stopped listening to Steve Wright's show by the time the jingle this single was based on begun to air on his show, having developed what I thought was a more grown-up interest in moodily listening to indie bands, and have no idea what the hell the context of it was - although context meant very little to our Steve, so it's safe to say this was probably played endlessly for the hell of it. It consists of a Geordie character known only as Mr Food delivering a Pam Ayers-esque series of lyrics about how much he enjoys eating over a basic, jaunty piano backdrop. And that really is it. The title of the single itself is the punchline to the joke, so that's out of the bag before the needle even hits the groove. It's the kind of thing you hear at open mic nights up and down the country when a musical comedy act takes the stage after being encouraged by their well-meaning friends, delivers a ditty to polite laughter, then promptly naffs off never to be seen again. With Wrighty's help, however, this managed a staggering number 62 position in the charts, hardly a life-changing triumph for anyone concerned, but certainly more than most indie-distributed discs of the era could hope for.

This record probably wouldn't be worthy of further mention were it not for the fact that the gentleman behind the mask of Mr Food, David Sanderson, went on to craft several pastoral neo-psychedelic pop songs under the name of Flowerbed, and his efforts can be found here. When he wasn't titting around with Steve Wright and The Afternoon Boys, clearly he was taking the time to study his Lilac Time and XTC albums closely. Sanderson is also a contemporary classical music composer who has had his work performed at several major concert halls in Britain and abroad, and if you honestly expected this entry to end in such a manner, you're far more wised up than I was when I began to research the man behind the disguise. Sometimes even these ridiculous chance finds can lead to interesting places.

For those of you wondering what was on the flip side to this, by the way - because I know at least one person will be - it appears to be exactly the same song all over again in the guise of a "remix". A mis-press or satire? You be the judge. And while you're sitting thinking about that, there's a low quality copy of the promo video to watch over on YouTube.

Who: Mr. Food
What: "...and that's before me tea!"
Label: Tangible
When: 1990
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

It's been over three months since the last "Second Hand Record Dip" entry, such a long gap in the service that I feel almost obliged to remind you all of what the hell the concept actually is. Essentially, it involves a dig into the remaindered section you find in the second hand record store, the unloved vinyl that gets tossed into the plastic crates on the floor near the back (or, in particularly uncared for cases, on the pavement outside) for the passing cheapskate to contemplate whilst on their bended knees praying for budget miracles. I've had some fantastic finds in the 50p box before now, but SHRD doesn't focus on the gems but the oddities - the flotsam and jetsam that may have stayed there forever had not somebody with a blog to write passed by.

Ex-BBC Radio One DJ Steve Wright has already cropped up in this section of the blog, and it's frankly no surprise to find him getting mentioned again. In the great musical box of fireworks, Wrighty has always been responsible for the fast-burning ones which do little more than make a few farting noises, mostly to the amusement of the assembled children and grandparents. Even his hit and near-hit singles remain largely forgotten by the General Public and are certainly no longer commercially available. Like slumber parties and roller discos, his melodic output does not appeal once you reach adulthood (One possible exception might be his effort under the name of Arnee and the Terminaters, whose single managed to prophesise the career of Scooter, so now is amusing for reasons entirely separate to the ones he originally intended).

So then, I'd stopped listening to Steve Wright's show by the time the jingle this single was based on begun to air on his show, having developed what I thought was a more grown-up interest in moodily listening to indie bands, and have no idea what the hell the context of it was - although context meant very little to our Steve, so it's safe to say this was probably played endlessly for the hell of it. It consists of a Geordie character known only as Mr Food delivering a Pam Ayers-esque series of lyrics about how much he enjoys eating over a basic, jaunty piano backdrop. And that really is it. The title of the single itself is the punchline to the joke, so that's out of the bag before the needle even hits the groove. It's the kind of thing you hear at open mic nights up and down the country when a musical comedy act takes the stage after being encouraged by their well-meaning friends, delivers a ditty to polite laughter, then promptly naffs off never to be seen again. With Wrighty's help, however, this managed a staggering number 62 position in the charts, hardly a life-changing triumph for anyone concerned, but certainly more than most indie-distributed discs of the era could hope for.

This record probably wouldn't be worthy of further mention were it not for the fact that the gentleman behind the mask of Mr Food, David Sanderson, went on to craft several pastoral neo-psychedelic pop songs under the name of Flowerbed, and his efforts can be found here. When he wasn't titting around with Steve Wright and The Afternoon Boys, clearly he was taking the time to study his Lilac Time and XTC albums closely. Sanderson is also a contemporary classical music composer who has had his work performed at several major concert halls in Britain and abroad, and if you honestly expected this entry to end in such a manner, you're far more wised up than I was when I began to research the man behind the disguise. Sometimes even these ridiculous chance finds can lead to interesting places.

For those of you wondering what was on the flip side to this, by the way - because I know at least one person will be - it appears to be exactly the same song all over again in the guise of a "remix". A mis-press or satire? You be the judge. And while you're sitting thinking about that, there's a low quality copy of the promo video to watch over on YouTube.

Reupload - Yossarian - Gilbert and George/ They Are Naked and They Move

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Satellite
Year of Release: 1998

You've got to move fast to catch Gilbert and George, they're fit old geezers...

Somewhat strangely, "Whatever happened to Soho?" is a question I've encountered on the Interweb more times than I ever really expected to. I'm not referring to the region of London, either, but the one hit wonders who sampled the Smiths "How Soon is Now?" on 1990's "Hippychick". It seems to be appreciated much more in retrospect than it was at the time - now the sneers of "cheap cash in!" appear to have given way to an appreciation of the single.

One small part of the puzzle can certainly be solved via this blog entry, because band member Tim London moved on to this particularly bizarre electronic project Yossarian. Unlike Soho, it was an utterly hitless and frankly rather unusual venture which slipped out largely unnoticed ten years ago, and you'd still be hard pressed to find anyone online who cares.

That's not to say that the general public are necessarily always right, of course, for whilst I find "Hippy Chick" to be a faintly irritating piece of fluff, "Gilbert and George" has wit, originality, and sonic scariness to spare. The tribute to the notorious British artists is lyrically a bit baffling, but somehow pleasing all the same with its carefully phrased but randomly tossed around references to "slightly scuffed shoes", men dressed like Mr Chips, and being stalked by the artists in question down London streets (an image which is probably meant to be worrying, but I find quite pleasing for some reason). It is backed up by primitive electronic noises, deep, stomach churning groans and oscillating whoops, and a basic, lo fi backbeat. It screams "home made", but still sounds more adventurous than most big league productions.

It's also a double A side, and the other "A" on offer here, "They Are Naked and They Move", is five minutes of Krautrock rhythms, guitar freakouts and retro space age noises. It's not as good as its partner, but certainly dominates the room impressively as soon as you slip the needle into the grooves.

And if you're still wondering what happened to Soho after "Hippychick", look here for something I uploaded some time ago:



Update: Tim London got in touch with me to assure me that, in fact, Soho were alive and well and an ongoing venture (or at least were in September 2008 when I originally put this entry online). Their site can be found here.

Tim added: "Yossarian hung up his boots after a few albums/ EPs etc for Satellite/Soul Jazz. Fabio, who played drums, has a beautiful piece of vinyl out with his group Washington Rays. Kirsa, who played Transcendent 2000 and glock, is a mum in south London. She was (is?) also the vibes player with proto Arcade Fire-ish Copenhagen.

I'm back doing pop music as a producer after a break to make films (the feature-length Gordon Bennett would probably qualify for this site, if it was a film site). Look out for Young Fathers (hip hop boy band from Scotland) and Her Royal Highness, also from Scotland."

Tim also offered to help me get the above video unblocked on YouTube, which is more than I should really expect from somebody whose earlier work I harshly dismissed as "irritating" in the original blog entry. He is, therefore, officially a good chap.

Label: Satellite
Year of Release: 1998

You've got to move fast to catch Gilbert and George, they're fit old geezers...

Somewhat strangely, "Whatever happened to Soho?" is a question I've encountered on the Interweb more times than I ever really expected to. I'm not referring to the region of London, either, but the one hit wonders who sampled the Smiths "How Soon is Now?" on 1990's "Hippychick". It seems to be appreciated much more in retrospect than it was at the time - now the sneers of "cheap cash in!" appear to have given way to an appreciation of the single.

One small part of the puzzle can certainly be solved via this blog entry, because band member Tim London moved on to this particularly bizarre electronic project Yossarian. Unlike Soho, it was an utterly hitless and frankly rather unusual venture which slipped out largely unnoticed ten years ago, and you'd still be hard pressed to find anyone online who cares.

That's not to say that the general public are necessarily always right, of course, for whilst I find "Hippy Chick" to be a faintly irritating piece of fluff, "Gilbert and George" has wit, originality, and sonic scariness to spare. The tribute to the notorious British artists is lyrically a bit baffling, but somehow pleasing all the same with its carefully phrased but randomly tossed around references to "slightly scuffed shoes", men dressed like Mr Chips, and being stalked by the artists in question down London streets (an image which is probably meant to be worrying, but I find quite pleasing for some reason). It is backed up by primitive electronic noises, deep, stomach churning groans and oscillating whoops, and a basic, lo fi backbeat. It screams "home made", but still sounds more adventurous than most big league productions.

It's also a double A side, and the other "A" on offer here, "They Are Naked and They Move", is five minutes of Krautrock rhythms, guitar freakouts and retro space age noises. It's not as good as its partner, but certainly dominates the room impressively as soon as you slip the needle into the grooves.

And if you're still wondering what happened to Soho after "Hippychick", look here for something I uploaded some time ago:



Update: Tim London got in touch with me to assure me that, in fact, Soho were alive and well and an ongoing venture (or at least were in September 2008 when I originally put this entry online). Their site can be found here.

Tim added: "Yossarian hung up his boots after a few albums/ EPs etc for Satellite/Soul Jazz. Fabio, who played drums, has a beautiful piece of vinyl out with his group Washington Rays. Kirsa, who played Transcendent 2000 and glock, is a mum in south London. She was (is?) also the vibes player with proto Arcade Fire-ish Copenhagen.

I'm back doing pop music as a producer after a break to make films (the feature-length Gordon Bennett would probably qualify for this site, if it was a film site). Look out for Young Fathers (hip hop boy band from Scotland) and Her Royal Highness, also from Scotland."

Tim also offered to help me get the above video unblocked on YouTube, which is more than I should really expect from somebody whose earlier work I harshly dismissed as "irritating" in the original blog entry. He is, therefore, officially a good chap.

Reupload - Moonshake - First EP

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Label: Creation
Year of Release: 1991

Sometimes when I'm rummaging around the flat for possible things to upload to this blog, my greasy little paws chance upon something I really should have considered a long, long time ago.

Moonshake really weren't everybody's particular cup of tea. Formed by David Callahan of The Wolfhounds after that band had decided its time was up, their fans must have been baffled by the sudden shift in approach. Whereas The Wolfhounds specialised in a fierce, brittle and politically charged kind of indie guitar pop, Moonshake were a mongralised meeting of electronica, dub, krautrock, and "shoegazing" indie dream-pop, whilst still retaining some of the old spittle of yore.

Curiously, this first EP slipped out on Creation Records, but for whatever reason (possibly the label's perilous financial state at the time) they opted not to stay there and shifted to Too Pure for their debut album "Eva Luna". Whilst that album had heavier basslines and a more noticeable identity of its own, this EP is admittedly far closer to the sonic experimentation of My Bloody Valentine. The loops shimmer, the beats thud along like a drunk rolling slowly down some stairs, and the vocals are buried deep in the mix. Suffice to say, it's impossible to feel indifferent to this - you will either think it's sheer bilge or really rather good.

The first track "Gravity" in particular manages to be hypnotic in a repetitive, krautrock way whilst also being tremendously dense with ideas, and whilst the "Eva Luna" album (which was a critical fave rave at the time, but is seldom if ever referenced now) had a more definite identity, there's a more pleasing subtlety to these tracks to my ears. You can start hurling your collection of "Indie Top 20" albums in my face if you must, but I honestly believe that "Coming" on side two of this EP shows more balls, innovation and downright unsettling surprises than anything the Slowdives of this world managed. There are unexpected shifts, atmospheres and lyrics which make you stop and pay attention - it's difficult to focus on anything else whilst this is playing. This is the sound of people with big, broad record collections and the creative talent to understand how to take the most effective ideas from each to create something bold and relatively unique.

That Moonshake have been largely forgotten about in the 21st Century whilst plenty of people seem to be falling over themselves to download a lot of inferior material from the early nineties is a deep shame. That I hadn't actually played them in years myself is something you should perhaps punish me for as well, although depriving myself of these noises for so long and for no good reason might possibly be punishment enough.

Tracklisting:

1. Gravity
2. Coward
3. Coming
4. Hanging

(Update: This EP was originally uploaded in February 2009. I don't really have anything to add at this point, beyond saying - why the hell aren't this band being listened to thousands of people right now as we speak?)

Label: Creation
Year of Release: 1991

Sometimes when I'm rummaging around the flat for possible things to upload to this blog, my greasy little paws chance upon something I really should have considered a long, long time ago.

Moonshake really weren't everybody's particular cup of tea. Formed by David Callahan of The Wolfhounds after that band had decided its time was up, their fans must have been baffled by the sudden shift in approach. Whereas The Wolfhounds specialised in a fierce, brittle and politically charged kind of indie guitar pop, Moonshake were a mongralised meeting of electronica, dub, krautrock, and "shoegazing" indie dream-pop, whilst still retaining some of the old spittle of yore.

Curiously, this first EP slipped out on Creation Records, but for whatever reason (possibly the label's perilous financial state at the time) they opted not to stay there and shifted to Too Pure for their debut album "Eva Luna". Whilst that album had heavier basslines and a more noticeable identity of its own, this EP is admittedly far closer to the sonic experimentation of My Bloody Valentine. The loops shimmer, the beats thud along like a drunk rolling slowly down some stairs, and the vocals are buried deep in the mix. Suffice to say, it's impossible to feel indifferent to this - you will either think it's sheer bilge or really rather good.

The first track "Gravity" in particular manages to be hypnotic in a repetitive, krautrock way whilst also being tremendously dense with ideas, and whilst the "Eva Luna" album (which was a critical fave rave at the time, but is seldom if ever referenced now) had a more definite identity, there's a more pleasing subtlety to these tracks to my ears. You can start hurling your collection of "Indie Top 20" albums in my face if you must, but I honestly believe that "Coming" on side two of this EP shows more balls, innovation and downright unsettling surprises than anything the Slowdives of this world managed. There are unexpected shifts, atmospheres and lyrics which make you stop and pay attention - it's difficult to focus on anything else whilst this is playing. This is the sound of people with big, broad record collections and the creative talent to understand how to take the most effective ideas from each to create something bold and relatively unique.

That Moonshake have been largely forgotten about in the 21st Century whilst plenty of people seem to be falling over themselves to download a lot of inferior material from the early nineties is a deep shame. That I hadn't actually played them in years myself is something you should perhaps punish me for as well, although depriving myself of these noises for so long and for no good reason might possibly be punishment enough.

Tracklisting:

1. Gravity
2. Coward
3. Coming
4. Hanging

(Update: This EP was originally uploaded in February 2009. I don't really have anything to add at this point, beyond saying - why the hell aren't this band being listened to thousands of people right now as we speak?)

Elcka - Boho Bird

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Label: Nectah
Year of Release: 1995

1995 was a confusing year if you happened to be reviewing music either for a living, or because you wanted to due to the tons of free records and tickets to gigs you got. Britpop had caught hold of the public's imagination, and you couldn't go to see a new band without witnessing at least one support act with either a fey English approach to guitar pop or a monstrously unsubtle demonstration of Ladrock (soon to turn into Dadrock). Many of the acts obeying the fashions of the day were actually perfectly good, but if you happened to be attending two to three gigs a week, you began to crave any band who seemed just a tiny bit like oddballs, and developed an irrational hatred for anything observing the NME approved template. Trust me, there was a review I wrote of no-hopers Powder at the time which was so vitriolic that these days I'm actually ashamed of it. Pearl Lowe's slightly smug performance pressed a horrible red button in my brain I hope nobody ever goes near again.

I managed to catch Elcka playing at a small provincial gig venue during this simultaneously exciting and somewhat trying year, and was immediately struck by their slightly bizarro approach to the more bohemian side of indie pop. The lead singer Harrold led the band in a flamboyant, airy way, seemingly beamed forward in time from some seventies Art College graduation ceremony. The songs were pure pop, but had enough twists and unexpected (and, even at the time, unfashionable) quirks such as harpsichord noises and MOR backbeats to stand out. There were some sounds occurring which seemed to be channelling both Steve Harley and Genesis's "I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe" as well as Bowie and Roxy, meaning unfavoured retro acts were creeping into their sound besides the more accepted ones from the canon of cool.

Then I picked up this single, and decided to go haywire with my praise for the band, telling anyone who happened to be bothered enough to read my writing - which was very few people - that they should Watch Out, because here was The Next Big Thing. That was utterly untrue, of course, and in reality the splash Elcka made went unnoticed by even some of the more hardcore indie kids. Listening back to their debut single "Boho Bird" now, it seems good enough to understand why I'd have managed to get carried away, but not quite good enough for me to fathom why I thought they would end up taking on allcomers. "Boho Bird" is at once odd and infectious, combining erratic keyboard riffs with swaggering vocals, but was ultimately just too subtle to find a larger audience. There are no big choruses to be had, and instead the track saunters along in the kind of considered, stylish way which might not have leapt out of anyone's radios.

Eclka eventually signed to Island Records, and in 1997 their album "Rubbernecking" landed, but by then it was far too late, and even I seemed to fail to notice its arrival, buying it a few years later after spotting it in a record store. For all that, the band have a web presence (and fanbase) of sorts, and in April of this year it was announced that they were considering reforming for some gigs. I await with interest to see what happens, and if they do get back together, I've no doubt I'll turn up to see them if only to relive that moment when I saw a brilliant live band and immediately supposed they'd be on the front cover of all the major music papers within the twelve-month. Sometimes you can still be impressed and have huge fun while you're busy getting things wrong.

Label: Nectah
Year of Release: 1995

1995 was a confusing year if you happened to be reviewing music either for a living, or because you wanted to due to the tons of free records and tickets to gigs you got. Britpop had caught hold of the public's imagination, and you couldn't go to see a new band without witnessing at least one support act with either a fey English approach to guitar pop or a monstrously unsubtle demonstration of Ladrock (soon to turn into Dadrock). Many of the acts obeying the fashions of the day were actually perfectly good, but if you happened to be attending two to three gigs a week, you began to crave any band who seemed just a tiny bit like oddballs, and developed an irrational hatred for anything observing the NME approved template. Trust me, there was a review I wrote of no-hopers Powder at the time which was so vitriolic that these days I'm actually ashamed of it. Pearl Lowe's slightly smug performance pressed a horrible red button in my brain I hope nobody ever goes near again.

I managed to catch Elcka playing at a small provincial gig venue during this simultaneously exciting and somewhat trying year, and was immediately struck by their slightly bizarro approach to the more bohemian side of indie pop. The lead singer Harrold led the band in a flamboyant, airy way, seemingly beamed forward in time from some seventies Art College graduation ceremony. The songs were pure pop, but had enough twists and unexpected (and, even at the time, unfashionable) quirks such as harpsichord noises and MOR backbeats to stand out. There were some sounds occurring which seemed to be channelling both Steve Harley and Genesis's "I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe" as well as Bowie and Roxy, meaning unfavoured retro acts were creeping into their sound besides the more accepted ones from the canon of cool.

Then I picked up this single, and decided to go haywire with my praise for the band, telling anyone who happened to be bothered enough to read my writing - which was very few people - that they should Watch Out, because here was The Next Big Thing. That was utterly untrue, of course, and in reality the splash Elcka made went unnoticed by even some of the more hardcore indie kids. Listening back to their debut single "Boho Bird" now, it seems good enough to understand why I'd have managed to get carried away, but not quite good enough for me to fathom why I thought they would end up taking on allcomers. "Boho Bird" is at once odd and infectious, combining erratic keyboard riffs with swaggering vocals, but was ultimately just too subtle to find a larger audience. There are no big choruses to be had, and instead the track saunters along in the kind of considered, stylish way which might not have leapt out of anyone's radios.

Eclka eventually signed to Island Records, and in 1997 their album "Rubbernecking" landed, but by then it was far too late, and even I seemed to fail to notice its arrival, buying it a few years later after spotting it in a record store. For all that, the band have a web presence (and fanbase) of sorts, and in April of this year it was announced that they were considering reforming for some gigs. I await with interest to see what happens, and if they do get back together, I've no doubt I'll turn up to see them if only to relive that moment when I saw a brilliant live band and immediately supposed they'd be on the front cover of all the major music papers within the twelve-month. Sometimes you can still be impressed and have huge fun while you're busy getting things wrong.

Reupload - Golden Section - Young Mavericks

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Diversion
Year of issue: 1991

Given the proliferation of blogs focusing on lost indie gems from the early nineties, it’s slightly surprising that “Young Mavericks” doesn’t seem to have been given any attention anywhere yet. This received rave reviews in the weekly music press, to the extent that the NME saw fit to give them an interview and also listed the single in the end-of-year “On list” – meaning that they thought it was one of the best recordings by a new band in 1991.

The Roman Jugg produced “Young Mavericks” is indeed the kind of ditty which would have got music journalists very hot under the collar at the time. A storming, sneering song which namechecks Rimbaud and Baudelaire, it has "Statement of Intent" stamped all over it. Such pretentious arrogance on debut singles always got the press to prick up their ears in those days (and it still does at the NME) but that’s not all it has to offer – there’s an infectious energy on display too, and an urgent chorus (which admittedly takes rather too long to kick in). The drums pound, rattle and roll, the guitars feedback joyously, and the keyboard sounds as if it’s engaged in a battle with an irritated and writhing octopus. In short, it’s huge fun, and if the band had actually made it there’s no doubt it would have been the monstrous, firework display launching finale piece to their festival shows.

For all that, the sound here is most definitely in an early nineties Evening Session vein, and whilst there’s a certain sixties garage undertone to the whole thing, there’s little question there are elements of Jesus Jones and The Wonder Stuff in the mix as well. Depending upon your point of view, you will either find that charming or utterly irritating.

True to the final line on the A-side here, Golden Section did indeed “burn out”. Following this acclaimed single, they split up within a matter of months and with no public explanation. Some members splintered off to form The Earthtrippers (a band I know absolutely nothing about) whilst lead singer Paul Tunkin created retro mod band The Weekenders, who enjoyed a slightly higher profile. These days, he’s better known as the DJ at the legendary Blow Up club in London, and puts together the tracklistings for their compilation albums featuring obscure sixties library and lounge music. A man after Left and to the Back’s own heart, then.

Golden Section were also from Southend, a town I lived in for a number of years. I was possibly too young when they were at their peak to make accurate judgments, but the energy on this single does seem to sum up their live act. They were known for being one of the more full throttle bands in the region, and regularly played to packed and sweaty venues, also earning prestigious support slots in London with the likes of The Verve.

Of the B-sides, the icy “Close Quarters” is the most appealing, with “Can’t See The Light” being a wee bit too indie-pop-by-numbers for my liking.

(Update: This entry was originally posted in April 2008. This song still seems strangely overlooked out in blogland. Its scarcity is probably an issue - the band pressed it up on their own label in limited quantities - but given some of the stodge I've heard on those endless blogs with names like Twisting Me Melons, Baggy Bonanza and I'm Madchester, Me, I find it odd to say the least that this couldn't be given a bit of space. Of all the critically acclaimed indie singles of the early nineties, this really seems to be the one that's fallen most under the radar).

Label: Diversion
Year of issue: 1991

Given the proliferation of blogs focusing on lost indie gems from the early nineties, it’s slightly surprising that “Young Mavericks” doesn’t seem to have been given any attention anywhere yet. This received rave reviews in the weekly music press, to the extent that the NME saw fit to give them an interview and also listed the single in the end-of-year “On list” – meaning that they thought it was one of the best recordings by a new band in 1991.

The Roman Jugg produced “Young Mavericks” is indeed the kind of ditty which would have got music journalists very hot under the collar at the time. A storming, sneering song which namechecks Rimbaud and Baudelaire, it has "Statement of Intent" stamped all over it. Such pretentious arrogance on debut singles always got the press to prick up their ears in those days (and it still does at the NME) but that’s not all it has to offer – there’s an infectious energy on display too, and an urgent chorus (which admittedly takes rather too long to kick in). The drums pound, rattle and roll, the guitars feedback joyously, and the keyboard sounds as if it’s engaged in a battle with an irritated and writhing octopus. In short, it’s huge fun, and if the band had actually made it there’s no doubt it would have been the monstrous, firework display launching finale piece to their festival shows.

For all that, the sound here is most definitely in an early nineties Evening Session vein, and whilst there’s a certain sixties garage undertone to the whole thing, there’s little question there are elements of Jesus Jones and The Wonder Stuff in the mix as well. Depending upon your point of view, you will either find that charming or utterly irritating.

True to the final line on the A-side here, Golden Section did indeed “burn out”. Following this acclaimed single, they split up within a matter of months and with no public explanation. Some members splintered off to form The Earthtrippers (a band I know absolutely nothing about) whilst lead singer Paul Tunkin created retro mod band The Weekenders, who enjoyed a slightly higher profile. These days, he’s better known as the DJ at the legendary Blow Up club in London, and puts together the tracklistings for their compilation albums featuring obscure sixties library and lounge music. A man after Left and to the Back’s own heart, then.

Golden Section were also from Southend, a town I lived in for a number of years. I was possibly too young when they were at their peak to make accurate judgments, but the energy on this single does seem to sum up their live act. They were known for being one of the more full throttle bands in the region, and regularly played to packed and sweaty venues, also earning prestigious support slots in London with the likes of The Verve.

Of the B-sides, the icy “Close Quarters” is the most appealing, with “Can’t See The Light” being a wee bit too indie-pop-by-numbers for my liking.

(Update: This entry was originally posted in April 2008. This song still seems strangely overlooked out in blogland. Its scarcity is probably an issue - the band pressed it up on their own label in limited quantities - but given some of the stodge I've heard on those endless blogs with names like Twisting Me Melons, Baggy Bonanza and I'm Madchester, Me, I find it odd to say the least that this couldn't be given a bit of space. Of all the critically acclaimed indie singles of the early nineties, this really seems to be the one that's fallen most under the radar).

Reupload - Dracula's Daughter - Candy

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .




You'll remember, of course, that I once mentioned that Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (aka Zodiac Mindwarp) wrote and released a number of records in 1997 under the guise of up-and-coming acts from Finland? Oh, you don't. Well, if you really need more information on the slightly baffling project (which in fairness is no more or less baffling than most Drummond activities) a website still sits here.

As only 500 copies of each were ever pressed and imported to Britain, they're naturally extremely scarce, and actually tremendously varied in quality as well. Some - such as KLF roadie Gimpo's self-titled "Gimpo" - are an absolute waste of precious pressing plant resources. Others - like Aurora Borealis' self-titled "Aurora Borealis" - were actually extremely good, but I won't waffle on about that one too much since it's already been posted on this blog elsewhere.

Draculas (sic) Daughter's "Candy" sits somewhere between the two. Manning and Drummond periodically used local Finnish musicians and singers for the recordings and just directed their style, and it seems fairly safe to say that's what happened in this case. What you've got here, then, is a pretty good Velvet Underground apeing disc which wouldn't have been out of place amidst the mid eighties music scene, or indeed the late sixties one. It's hypnotic, repetitive and insistent, and features some agreeably lazy, scuzzed up guitar work in the instrumental break. Please don't ask me why the original title "Supermodel" is scrubbed out on the label, because I have absolutely no clue...

One has to wonder if Drummond was trying to belatedly achieve with Kalevala a project he mooted a long time ago for Zoo Records, where he created "parallel universe" versions of bands on their catalogue. The Teardrop Explodes were to become Whopper, and featured Cope's alter-ego Kevin Stapleton on lead vocals who "enjoyed a game of rugby and liked the odd pint". These occasionally poorly disguised Finnish bands with their records released by a fictional clueless sounding Finnish indie record label owner do bring to mind a parallel universe Zoo Records, set up in Helsinki rather than Liverpool. Only Drummond could honestly back me up on my hunch, though, and I've a funny feeling he won't bother.


(This blog entry was originally posted in October 2008.  And nope, Drummond hasn't bothered yet, although I suspect he keeps well away from nostalgia-ridden mp3 overloads this days).  

You'll remember, of course, that I once mentioned that Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (aka Zodiac Mindwarp) wrote and released a number of records in 1997 under the guise of up-and-coming acts from Finland? Oh, you don't. Well, if you really need more information on the slightly baffling project (which in fairness is no more or less baffling than most Drummond activities) a website still sits here.

As only 500 copies of each were ever pressed and imported to Britain, they're naturally extremely scarce, and actually tremendously varied in quality as well. Some - such as KLF roadie Gimpo's self-titled "Gimpo" - are an absolute waste of precious pressing plant resources. Others - like Aurora Borealis' self-titled "Aurora Borealis" - were actually extremely good, but I won't waffle on about that one too much since it's already been posted on this blog elsewhere.

Draculas (sic) Daughter's "Candy" sits somewhere between the two. Manning and Drummond periodically used local Finnish musicians and singers for the recordings and just directed their style, and it seems fairly safe to say that's what happened in this case. What you've got here, then, is a pretty good Velvet Underground apeing disc which wouldn't have been out of place amidst the mid eighties music scene, or indeed the late sixties one. It's hypnotic, repetitive and insistent, and features some agreeably lazy, scuzzed up guitar work in the instrumental break. Please don't ask me why the original title "Supermodel" is scrubbed out on the label, because I have absolutely no clue...

One has to wonder if Drummond was trying to belatedly achieve with Kalevala a project he mooted a long time ago for Zoo Records, where he created "parallel universe" versions of bands on their catalogue. The Teardrop Explodes were to become Whopper, and featured Cope's alter-ego Kevin Stapleton on lead vocals who "enjoyed a game of rugby and liked the odd pint". These occasionally poorly disguised Finnish bands with their records released by a fictional clueless sounding Finnish indie record label owner do bring to mind a parallel universe Zoo Records, set up in Helsinki rather than Liverpool. Only Drummond could honestly back me up on my hunch, though, and I've a funny feeling he won't bother.


(This blog entry was originally posted in October 2008.  And nope, Drummond hasn't bothered yet, although I suspect he keeps well away from nostalgia-ridden mp3 overloads this days).  

Reupload - Whiteout - Detroit

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Silvertone
Year of Release: 1994

I predict I'm going to get an almighty slagging from some random readers for daring to speak positively about this single. There is, you see, a particular mindset which dictates that 99% of all British guitar pop singles released between the years 1994 - 97 were awful. Actually, we'll just call the whole thing "Britpop" and save time.

Whilst I hold Britpop responsible for a vast number of ills (the invasion of dumb, posh, high fashion kids into a movement that was supposed to be an 'alternative' safe haven from that stuff and The Kaiser Chiefs to name but two things) it's something of a fallacy to say that the era which spawned it was blighted with low quality product. For one thing, I refuse to accept that Kurt Cobain was somehow more intelligent or lyrically astute than Jarvis Cocker, and nor do I think that Slowdive (good though they actually were) played with as broad a sonic palette as the Super Furry Animals. You can hate the era for how it turned "indie" into a middle of the road fashion statement, for how it killed the music press's marginally leftfield sensibility, or for how at its worst it gave us dullards like Echobelly, but to say it was "all shit" is a sweeping lazy statement. Not only was a lot of the output at the time breathtaking or even exhilirating, it also saw bands as diverse as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Leftfield getting Radio One playlisted amidst the confusion. For about a year, the music scene was actually huge fun, and there was a sense that bands who should exist only on the margins were creeping into the mainstream - until the inevitable comedown when 600 awful Oasis clones parachuted into Camden. Defining the entire era by that horrific moment, however, is as unfair as defining Punk by the cascade of Oi! bands that emerged by the time the party was over. Pick the fag end of any movement and you'll observe similar nonsense. Perhaps some of the better material just needs to be rediscovered by a generation who can't quite remember how bad things got towards the end of the era.

Which brings us, two paragraphs late(r), on to the single in question. Whiteout didn't actually start out as also-rans in the whole race, actually being considered as serious contenders for a time. The four scruffy teens from Scotland weren't necessarily playing with new ideas, seemingly copping riffs from the Faces and numerous sixties bands, but they did so in a way that, for a time, actually made them seem as if they might be as good as the debut album-era Oasis. If that sounds laughable, one listen of "Detroit" should make things slightly clearer - it fizzes with an energy that a lot of bands at the same time couldn't have topped, has one of the better choruses of the year, and actually sounds completely in love with itself, even risking the kind of key change at the end which other bands would be too knowing to bother with. It's the sort of thing that could only have been created by a gaggle of arrogant teens with tremendously low self-doubt - which may be repugnant to some, but in my opinion the best simple rock ideas should be done precisely this way. It's the vinyl equivalent of a firework display which pulls out thousands of pounds worth of pyrotechnics right near the end when you thought it couldn't top itself. At no point across its four minutes does it ever trough out.

Whiteout didn't hit the big time, of course, and a number of factors have been blamed for this - their label (Silvertone were supposedly never the most organised cookies), the fact they based themselves in Scotland rather than moving to London to be on the media's doorstep, or the fact that certain journalists in the press never quite took to them. Personally, I have to wonder if leaving most of the singles off their album "Bite It" and filling it with lots of slow tempo ballads was the best move in the world - after all, Dadrock styled epics were never really what the majority of us rated them for in the first place. Despite that, though, "Detroit" is one of my favourite singles of 1994, whether you like it or not. And let's face it, this blog shouldn't really be about going for the easy options all the time.

The B-side "Dee Troyt" is a slightly unusual slow version which was produced by Brian O'Shaugnessy, who created The Firm's "Star Trekkin'", then went on to produce Primal Scream, Saint Etienne, Denim and Misty's Big Adventure. What a peculiar career the man has had.


(This blog entry was originally posted on 27 October 2008.  I have no real information to add at this point, except to say - who the hell are the Kaiser Chiefs, exactly?  How time flies when you're having fun).

Label: Silvertone
Year of Release: 1994

I predict I'm going to get an almighty slagging from some random readers for daring to speak positively about this single. There is, you see, a particular mindset which dictates that 99% of all British guitar pop singles released between the years 1994 - 97 were awful. Actually, we'll just call the whole thing "Britpop" and save time.

Whilst I hold Britpop responsible for a vast number of ills (the invasion of dumb, posh, high fashion kids into a movement that was supposed to be an 'alternative' safe haven from that stuff and The Kaiser Chiefs to name but two things) it's something of a fallacy to say that the era which spawned it was blighted with low quality product. For one thing, I refuse to accept that Kurt Cobain was somehow more intelligent or lyrically astute than Jarvis Cocker, and nor do I think that Slowdive (good though they actually were) played with as broad a sonic palette as the Super Furry Animals. You can hate the era for how it turned "indie" into a middle of the road fashion statement, for how it killed the music press's marginally leftfield sensibility, or for how at its worst it gave us dullards like Echobelly, but to say it was "all shit" is a sweeping lazy statement. Not only was a lot of the output at the time breathtaking or even exhilirating, it also saw bands as diverse as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Leftfield getting Radio One playlisted amidst the confusion. For about a year, the music scene was actually huge fun, and there was a sense that bands who should exist only on the margins were creeping into the mainstream - until the inevitable comedown when 600 awful Oasis clones parachuted into Camden. Defining the entire era by that horrific moment, however, is as unfair as defining Punk by the cascade of Oi! bands that emerged by the time the party was over. Pick the fag end of any movement and you'll observe similar nonsense. Perhaps some of the better material just needs to be rediscovered by a generation who can't quite remember how bad things got towards the end of the era.

Which brings us, two paragraphs late(r), on to the single in question. Whiteout didn't actually start out as also-rans in the whole race, actually being considered as serious contenders for a time. The four scruffy teens from Scotland weren't necessarily playing with new ideas, seemingly copping riffs from the Faces and numerous sixties bands, but they did so in a way that, for a time, actually made them seem as if they might be as good as the debut album-era Oasis. If that sounds laughable, one listen of "Detroit" should make things slightly clearer - it fizzes with an energy that a lot of bands at the same time couldn't have topped, has one of the better choruses of the year, and actually sounds completely in love with itself, even risking the kind of key change at the end which other bands would be too knowing to bother with. It's the sort of thing that could only have been created by a gaggle of arrogant teens with tremendously low self-doubt - which may be repugnant to some, but in my opinion the best simple rock ideas should be done precisely this way. It's the vinyl equivalent of a firework display which pulls out thousands of pounds worth of pyrotechnics right near the end when you thought it couldn't top itself. At no point across its four minutes does it ever trough out.

Whiteout didn't hit the big time, of course, and a number of factors have been blamed for this - their label (Silvertone were supposedly never the most organised cookies), the fact they based themselves in Scotland rather than moving to London to be on the media's doorstep, or the fact that certain journalists in the press never quite took to them. Personally, I have to wonder if leaving most of the singles off their album "Bite It" and filling it with lots of slow tempo ballads was the best move in the world - after all, Dadrock styled epics were never really what the majority of us rated them for in the first place. Despite that, though, "Detroit" is one of my favourite singles of 1994, whether you like it or not. And let's face it, this blog shouldn't really be about going for the easy options all the time.

The B-side "Dee Troyt" is a slightly unusual slow version which was produced by Brian O'Shaugnessy, who created The Firm's "Star Trekkin'", then went on to produce Primal Scream, Saint Etienne, Denim and Misty's Big Adventure. What a peculiar career the man has had.


(This blog entry was originally posted on 27 October 2008.  I have no real information to add at this point, except to say - who the hell are the Kaiser Chiefs, exactly?  How time flies when you're having fun).

These Animal Men - Speed King

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Hi-Rise
Year of Release: 1994

Many years after the event, it feels odd to be talking about These Animal Men.  Odd in a "Did that really happen?" way.  The band smelled suspicious to many right from the very off, launching their career with a series of slogans such as "Never trust a crustie" and "Don't be ashamed of your adolescence", and subsequently ended up seeming like an exercise in hype and branding rather than a proper band.  The sleeve of "Speed King" followed this sensationalism neatly, including an amphetamine wrap (although Pulp would do something similar on "Sorted for Es and Whizz" a couple of years later to much greater effect).

With the benefit of distance, the whole phenomenon does seem a tiny bit silly and dated now (especially the references to speed - honestly, who on earth has seen such a thing recently?) but the band weren't incapable of sounding urgent when they wanted to, which gives everyone an inkling of how the music press hooked on to them.  "Speed King" isn't without charm, and rollicks its way along in such an urgent and aggressive way that you can almost believe the band were under the influence when they recorded it.  The NME tagged the act with the label "New Wave of New Wave" alongside S*M*A*S*H and Echobelly, but only the latter managed to get reassessed as a Britpop act as soon as the phenomenon died its predictable death nine months later, with dire consequences for the other contenders.  Most of their follow-up material was ignored, and is now widely available on iTunes for further investigation if anyone seems tempted by the idea.

Hitless until the end despite a Top of the Pops appearance, and seldom (if ever) referenced in the music press today, These Animal Men are a strange example of how hype can sometimes create a bright and powerful spark without causing the kindle to burn enough to create the flames of an entire career.

Ex-members later went on to form Mo Solid Gold with soul singer KA Hepburn, creating a new and rather more interesting sound.  Despite major label backing, this failed to go much further as well (and may prove another topic for another day).

Label: Hi-Rise
Year of Release: 1994

Many years after the event, it feels odd to be talking about These Animal Men.  Odd in a "Did that really happen?" way.  The band smelled suspicious to many right from the very off, launching their career with a series of slogans such as "Never trust a crustie" and "Don't be ashamed of your adolescence", and subsequently ended up seeming like an exercise in hype and branding rather than a proper band.  The sleeve of "Speed King" followed this sensationalism neatly, including an amphetamine wrap (although Pulp would do something similar on "Sorted for Es and Whizz" a couple of years later to much greater effect).

With the benefit of distance, the whole phenomenon does seem a tiny bit silly and dated now (especially the references to speed - honestly, who on earth has seen such a thing recently?) but the band weren't incapable of sounding urgent when they wanted to, which gives everyone an inkling of how the music press hooked on to them.  "Speed King" isn't without charm, and rollicks its way along in such an urgent and aggressive way that you can almost believe the band were under the influence when they recorded it.  The NME tagged the act with the label "New Wave of New Wave" alongside S*M*A*S*H and Echobelly, but only the latter managed to get reassessed as a Britpop act as soon as the phenomenon died its predictable death nine months later, with dire consequences for the other contenders.  Most of their follow-up material was ignored, and is now widely available on iTunes for further investigation if anyone seems tempted by the idea.

Hitless until the end despite a Top of the Pops appearance, and seldom (if ever) referenced in the music press today, These Animal Men are a strange example of how hype can sometimes create a bright and powerful spark without causing the kindle to burn enough to create the flames of an entire career.

Ex-members later went on to form Mo Solid Gold with soul singer KA Hepburn, creating a new and rather more interesting sound.  Despite major label backing, this failed to go much further as well (and may prove another topic for another day).

Reupload - Action Spectacular - I'm A Whore

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .

Part of: Snakebite City Volume Eight
Label: Bluefire Records
Year of Release: 1998 

There were numerous independent music industry innovations on the go during the nineties which now seem to have been thrown under the bed in pop's great spare room. The "Volume" series of albums springs immediately to mind, offering a compilation album of obscure tracks, album tasters and remixes with a well-written CD booklet sized magazine. You'd think they'd be worth a fortune by now, but don't rush on to ebay, because it seems they're not.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to "Volume" in terms of presentation are the "Snakebite City" series of compilation albums, strictly no-frills minimal affairs which retailed at budget prices. Focussing largely on unsigned bands, each release still seemed to have an uncanny strike rate in predicting which bands would cause a press flurry (Bis featured on one of the earliest volumes). They never quite managed to showcase an act who went on to top ten success, but nonetheless the line-up on the albums does read like a who's who of the pub circuit at a certain time in UK musical history. The Crocketts are there, as are Drugstore, The Sweeney, Inter (weren't Inter everywhere at one point?), Posh, Tiny Too, and... erm... some ranty performance poet type called Vis the Spoon (who still regularly performs around London, in case you needed to be told).

As you might expect, there's some tremendous dross across the eleven volumes, but some sheer brilliance as well, and one of the finest pieces of work props up track three on Volume Eight - for Sheffield's Action Spectacular produce the mournful "I'm a Whore" at that moment for our pleasure. Essentially Spearmint's "Sweeping the Nation" in lyrical tone with added spittle and despair, the song is a ballad to the McJob. It starts with a screeching thrash, the lead singer screaming "I'm a whore!" then turns into a delicate ditty, outlining the tedium of a low-rung daily routine. Answering phones, washing dishes, faxes, photocopiers are given namechecks towards the end, whilst the lines "I'm a slag whose been had/ in ten years I'll be my Dad/ look at all the worthless things I do" appear within the first verse. It's so despairing it's actually very funny, but also perhaps depressingly familiar, and by the time they come to "Always dreamed I'd have a band/ but I'm working for The Man" you can only sing along in sympathy. The epic ending with spoken word rant recalls Pulp at their finest, and the track really does have "cult classic" stamped all over it. The trouble is, I've never even met anyone who has heard it, unless I shoved it on to a compilation CD for them first of course.

Unlike a good many of the bands who were given the Snakebite City treatment, Action Spectacular did go on to get signed - but by the time I heard them tweeting out of my radio alarm on XFM one morning in the year 2000, they were rather different. The comedy angst of "I'm a Whore" had been replaced by lo-fi electronica and contemplative acoustic work-outs. The NME never completely got behind them (there's a mixed review here) , the records didn't sell, and to the best of my knowledge "I'm A Whore" never even came out as a flip side, never mind being given the A-side treatment it surely deserved. Still, here it is for your delight below - and if anyone does have a copy of their "From Here On In It's A Riot" album, I for one would be interested.

Anyone curious about Snakebite City might be surprised to see there's still a website active too.

(This blog entry was originally written in June 2008.  I finally did manage to track down a copy of their album "From Here On In It's A Riot" very cheaply indeed, and I'm disappointed to report that it's mostly a rather middling affair which doesn't show the same amount of wit or flair as this track.  The original entry for "I'm A Whore" is also one of Left and to the Back's lowest pulling pages of all time - despite the use of the word "whore" in the main header, which would normally pull in all sorts of waifs and strays - and received no comments at all. This either means I'm completely on my own with this one, or for some reason I didn't do enough to convince people of its greatness.  One last chance, then... and I'll never mention it again).  

Part of: Snakebite City Volume Eight
Label: Bluefire Records
Year of Release: 1998 

There were numerous independent music industry innovations on the go during the nineties which now seem to have been thrown under the bed in pop's great spare room. The "Volume" series of albums springs immediately to mind, offering a compilation album of obscure tracks, album tasters and remixes with a well-written CD booklet sized magazine. You'd think they'd be worth a fortune by now, but don't rush on to ebay, because it seems they're not.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to "Volume" in terms of presentation are the "Snakebite City" series of compilation albums, strictly no-frills minimal affairs which retailed at budget prices. Focussing largely on unsigned bands, each release still seemed to have an uncanny strike rate in predicting which bands would cause a press flurry (Bis featured on one of the earliest volumes). They never quite managed to showcase an act who went on to top ten success, but nonetheless the line-up on the albums does read like a who's who of the pub circuit at a certain time in UK musical history. The Crocketts are there, as are Drugstore, The Sweeney, Inter (weren't Inter everywhere at one point?), Posh, Tiny Too, and... erm... some ranty performance poet type called Vis the Spoon (who still regularly performs around London, in case you needed to be told).

As you might expect, there's some tremendous dross across the eleven volumes, but some sheer brilliance as well, and one of the finest pieces of work props up track three on Volume Eight - for Sheffield's Action Spectacular produce the mournful "I'm a Whore" at that moment for our pleasure. Essentially Spearmint's "Sweeping the Nation" in lyrical tone with added spittle and despair, the song is a ballad to the McJob. It starts with a screeching thrash, the lead singer screaming "I'm a whore!" then turns into a delicate ditty, outlining the tedium of a low-rung daily routine. Answering phones, washing dishes, faxes, photocopiers are given namechecks towards the end, whilst the lines "I'm a slag whose been had/ in ten years I'll be my Dad/ look at all the worthless things I do" appear within the first verse. It's so despairing it's actually very funny, but also perhaps depressingly familiar, and by the time they come to "Always dreamed I'd have a band/ but I'm working for The Man" you can only sing along in sympathy. The epic ending with spoken word rant recalls Pulp at their finest, and the track really does have "cult classic" stamped all over it. The trouble is, I've never even met anyone who has heard it, unless I shoved it on to a compilation CD for them first of course.

Unlike a good many of the bands who were given the Snakebite City treatment, Action Spectacular did go on to get signed - but by the time I heard them tweeting out of my radio alarm on XFM one morning in the year 2000, they were rather different. The comedy angst of "I'm a Whore" had been replaced by lo-fi electronica and contemplative acoustic work-outs. The NME never completely got behind them (there's a mixed review here) , the records didn't sell, and to the best of my knowledge "I'm A Whore" never even came out as a flip side, never mind being given the A-side treatment it surely deserved. Still, here it is for your delight below - and if anyone does have a copy of their "From Here On In It's A Riot" album, I for one would be interested.

Anyone curious about Snakebite City might be surprised to see there's still a website active too.

(This blog entry was originally written in June 2008.  I finally did manage to track down a copy of their album "From Here On In It's A Riot" very cheaply indeed, and I'm disappointed to report that it's mostly a rather middling affair which doesn't show the same amount of wit or flair as this track.  The original entry for "I'm A Whore" is also one of Left and to the Back's lowest pulling pages of all time - despite the use of the word "whore" in the main header, which would normally pull in all sorts of waifs and strays - and received no comments at all. This either means I'm completely on my own with this one, or for some reason I didn't do enough to convince people of its greatness.  One last chance, then... and I'll never mention it again).  

Angel Pie - She

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Echo
Year of Release: 1993

A slightly unusual upload, this one, in that it's a promo cassette rather than a piece of vinyl - hence the picture above bears no relation at all to what I have in front of me, which is simply a rather blank looking cassette thrown into a plain company case with the details printed on white card.  It is of bugger all value, but... let's not let that get in the way of the track itself, which slipped out almost completely unnoticed in the early nineties.

"She", far from being a cover of the Charles Aznavour classic, is a unique slice of ambient pop which oozes both class and atmosphere, from the slightly ominous chiming opening to the hushed vocals (delivered by Marina Van-Rooy) right down to the rather toytown psychedelic lyrics.  It sounds like an epic sixties orchestral belter turned inside out, with the peaks replaced by smooth, delicate ambient troughs - sound effects burble in and out of the mix, almost taking priority over the music at the tail end, and the strings are so subtle you might not necessarily notice they've arrived until a few seconds after they begin, drowning as they are in the audio soup and heavy bass the rest of the record offers.  Whilst the melody is very simplistic and delivered with breathy, girlish vocals, the record itself has so much going on that, despite owning it for many years, I've never really lost interest in it.  That it wasn't a hit shouldn't be very surprising, though - on the one occasion I heard it on daytime Radio One the DJ playing it simply sounded baffled as soon as the song ended, unsure of how to deliver his next link.  A promo video is on YouTube, but it's safe to say that it probably didn't get much in the way of MTV attention at the time either.

According to the information I have in front of me, Angel Pie were supposed to have had an album called "Jake" out, but I've never seen a copy anywhere and can only assume that it remains locked away in the vaults.  Their debut single "Tin Foil Valley" was more akin to snappy, Saint Etienne styled pop but did little business, and a third single "Tipsy Q Horses" appears to have been slated for release, but so far as I can see never materialised.  If my memory is correct the band were Liverpool-based and involved the producer Mark Saunders as a key member, but that's as much detail as I can recall.

More information on the band would be appreciated, most especially what happened to their album (which, believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to) and what they're up to now.

Label: Echo
Year of Release: 1993

A slightly unusual upload, this one, in that it's a promo cassette rather than a piece of vinyl - hence the picture above bears no relation at all to what I have in front of me, which is simply a rather blank looking cassette thrown into a plain company case with the details printed on white card.  It is of bugger all value, but... let's not let that get in the way of the track itself, which slipped out almost completely unnoticed in the early nineties.

"She", far from being a cover of the Charles Aznavour classic, is a unique slice of ambient pop which oozes both class and atmosphere, from the slightly ominous chiming opening to the hushed vocals (delivered by Marina Van-Rooy) right down to the rather toytown psychedelic lyrics.  It sounds like an epic sixties orchestral belter turned inside out, with the peaks replaced by smooth, delicate ambient troughs - sound effects burble in and out of the mix, almost taking priority over the music at the tail end, and the strings are so subtle you might not necessarily notice they've arrived until a few seconds after they begin, drowning as they are in the audio soup and heavy bass the rest of the record offers.  Whilst the melody is very simplistic and delivered with breathy, girlish vocals, the record itself has so much going on that, despite owning it for many years, I've never really lost interest in it.  That it wasn't a hit shouldn't be very surprising, though - on the one occasion I heard it on daytime Radio One the DJ playing it simply sounded baffled as soon as the song ended, unsure of how to deliver his next link.  A promo video is on YouTube, but it's safe to say that it probably didn't get much in the way of MTV attention at the time either.

According to the information I have in front of me, Angel Pie were supposed to have had an album called "Jake" out, but I've never seen a copy anywhere and can only assume that it remains locked away in the vaults.  Their debut single "Tin Foil Valley" was more akin to snappy, Saint Etienne styled pop but did little business, and a third single "Tipsy Q Horses" appears to have been slated for release, but so far as I can see never materialised.  If my memory is correct the band were Liverpool-based and involved the producer Mark Saunders as a key member, but that's as much detail as I can recall.

More information on the band would be appreciated, most especially what happened to their album (which, believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to) and what they're up to now.

The Apples - Eye Wonder

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Epic
Year of Release: 1991

Like just about every so-called alternative scene in the world, from psychedelia to punk to grunge to Britpop, a lot of major labels got out their cheque books for various baggy bands so late that by the time their records were released, both the mainstream and indie markets had utterly lost interest.  CBS and their sister label Epic were spectacular late-runners, dipping deep into their bank accounts for the likes of Liverpool's The Real People and Rain right at the point where other major labels were considering culling anything indie in its stylings off their roster.  Ill-advised A&R matters clearly didn't stop at the banks of the River Mersey either, as Scottish indie-dance shufflers The Apples were also given a contract around the same time.

To cut Epic a tiny bit of slack here, there's a sound to "Eye Wonder" which points more towards Jesus Jones and EMF than it does The Roses or the Mondays.  Those sampler pressing digits are clearly incredibly itchy indeed, and the angular guitar riffs chop in around some very bass heavy grooves rather than being a constant feature.  It also has a slick, smooth production which, were it not for the subcultural nods around it, wouldn't sound out of place on a Jamiroquai single.

It mattered not, however, as "Eye Wonder" caused The Apples to join the small and unenviable league of bands who only managed one week at number 75 in the UK charts then never created a follow-up "hit".  Judging by the sheer volume of copies I saw of this in bargain bins for months after its release, Epic were also patently overly optimistic about the quantities they needed to press.  There are serious lessons here any A&R executive would do well to learn - but it doesn't stop "Eye Wonder" from being a pleasant piece of period work which quite a few baggy fiends do try to track down now.

Label: Epic
Year of Release: 1991

Like just about every so-called alternative scene in the world, from psychedelia to punk to grunge to Britpop, a lot of major labels got out their cheque books for various baggy bands so late that by the time their records were released, both the mainstream and indie markets had utterly lost interest.  CBS and their sister label Epic were spectacular late-runners, dipping deep into their bank accounts for the likes of Liverpool's The Real People and Rain right at the point where other major labels were considering culling anything indie in its stylings off their roster.  Ill-advised A&R matters clearly didn't stop at the banks of the River Mersey either, as Scottish indie-dance shufflers The Apples were also given a contract around the same time.

To cut Epic a tiny bit of slack here, there's a sound to "Eye Wonder" which points more towards Jesus Jones and EMF than it does The Roses or the Mondays.  Those sampler pressing digits are clearly incredibly itchy indeed, and the angular guitar riffs chop in around some very bass heavy grooves rather than being a constant feature.  It also has a slick, smooth production which, were it not for the subcultural nods around it, wouldn't sound out of place on a Jamiroquai single.

It mattered not, however, as "Eye Wonder" caused The Apples to join the small and unenviable league of bands who only managed one week at number 75 in the UK charts then never created a follow-up "hit".  Judging by the sheer volume of copies I saw of this in bargain bins for months after its release, Epic were also patently overly optimistic about the quantities they needed to press.  There are serious lessons here any A&R executive would do well to learn - but it doesn't stop "Eye Wonder" from being a pleasant piece of period work which quite a few baggy fiends do try to track down now.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 65 - Mojams feat. Debbie Currie - You Can Do Magic

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Who: Mojams feat. Debbie Currie (actually, Sinitta)
What: You Can Do Magic
Label: Gotham
When: 1997
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street
Cost: 50p

Whilst truth is indeed frequently stranger than fiction in the music industry, sometimes when things seem too absurd to be true, it's because they are.  This single is a supremely odd confirmation of that fact, a scam so subtle in its execution that to this day, you can still see references to it on national newspaper websites as being a bona-fide piece of work.

Debbie Currie, the daughter of "outspoken" Conservative MP Edwina Currie, was attempting a career as a journalist when the team behind the investigative programme the "Cook Report" approached her with an intriguing offer.  The deal was that she would pretend to front a single produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken, and they would hire a gang of "hypers" to artificially push its position up the charts.  The aim was to ultimately expose the British charts as being open to abuse despite the BPI's continual assurances that hype was now easily spotted, and a thing of the distant past.

In reality, Sinitta sang the vocals, and all Currie really appears to have done is displayed her stomach on the sleeve (above) and posed for a few publicity shots.  The gossip columns of newspapers also ran a few short pieces about "sexy" Debbie Currie's new pop band which gave the project an air of authenticity, which was eventually blown on prime-time television.

I suspect that the "Cook Report" team would have liked to have seen the single chart within the Top 40, but in reality - despite the production team behind it, and despite the publicity - the single stiffed at number 81.  The end programme appeared to gamely claim that they'd exposed the fact that chart rigging still existed, but it's hard not to conclude that an average pop single produced by Stock and Aitken would have been expected to chart within the lower reaches of the Top 100 at the very least.  Music industry mogul Clive Selwood also dismisses the show's scoop in his biography "All of the Moves But None of the Licks", stating that the single should probably have charted higher on its own merits, and questions should have been asked of the distributors.  All it proved, he concluded, is that people can easily be tricked out of money for non-existent services, which is admittedly fraud, but not exactly headline news.

Perhaps it's due to the failings of the documentary to make a concrete point that to this day, journalists still cite Debbie Currie's "failed pop career" as evidence of the fact that she's "Edwina Currie's rebellious, wild child daughter".  This is an utterly incorrect version of events, and Debbie has gone on record as saying that she would never have seriously considered a career in music, and that her friends assumed that she was having "some sort of breakdown" at the time whilst she kept the pretence up.

As for "You Can Do Magic" itself, it's a passable little single, perfectly pleasant in a quickly recorded Saint Etienne B-side kind of way.  In a quiet week in January it might actually have performed moderately well in its own right, and it's certainly a strange tune to pick to prove a chart hype point.  Perhaps if something noticeably below par had been used, the researchers and producers behind the show might have worried that the authorities would have smelt a rat.

Interestingly, there's also an information service advertised on the sleeve, asking us to write to "Mojams, Freepost 1276, PO BOX 4100, London, SE1 0YW".  One wonders what anybody who scribbled a note to that address got in return - a signed picture of Roger Cook angrily pointing, perhaps.

Who: Mojams feat. Debbie Currie (actually, Sinitta)
What: You Can Do Magic
Label: Gotham
When: 1997
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street
Cost: 50p

Whilst truth is indeed frequently stranger than fiction in the music industry, sometimes when things seem too absurd to be true, it's because they are.  This single is a supremely odd confirmation of that fact, a scam so subtle in its execution that to this day, you can still see references to it on national newspaper websites as being a bona-fide piece of work.

Debbie Currie, the daughter of "outspoken" Conservative MP Edwina Currie, was attempting a career as a journalist when the team behind the investigative programme the "Cook Report" approached her with an intriguing offer.  The deal was that she would pretend to front a single produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken, and they would hire a gang of "hypers" to artificially push its position up the charts.  The aim was to ultimately expose the British charts as being open to abuse despite the BPI's continual assurances that hype was now easily spotted, and a thing of the distant past.

In reality, Sinitta sang the vocals, and all Currie really appears to have done is displayed her stomach on the sleeve (above) and posed for a few publicity shots.  The gossip columns of newspapers also ran a few short pieces about "sexy" Debbie Currie's new pop band which gave the project an air of authenticity, which was eventually blown on prime-time television.

I suspect that the "Cook Report" team would have liked to have seen the single chart within the Top 40, but in reality - despite the production team behind it, and despite the publicity - the single stiffed at number 81.  The end programme appeared to gamely claim that they'd exposed the fact that chart rigging still existed, but it's hard not to conclude that an average pop single produced by Stock and Aitken would have been expected to chart within the lower reaches of the Top 100 at the very least.  Music industry mogul Clive Selwood also dismisses the show's scoop in his biography "All of the Moves But None of the Licks", stating that the single should probably have charted higher on its own merits, and questions should have been asked of the distributors.  All it proved, he concluded, is that people can easily be tricked out of money for non-existent services, which is admittedly fraud, but not exactly headline news.

Perhaps it's due to the failings of the documentary to make a concrete point that to this day, journalists still cite Debbie Currie's "failed pop career" as evidence of the fact that she's "Edwina Currie's rebellious, wild child daughter".  This is an utterly incorrect version of events, and Debbie has gone on record as saying that she would never have seriously considered a career in music, and that her friends assumed that she was having "some sort of breakdown" at the time whilst she kept the pretence up.

As for "You Can Do Magic" itself, it's a passable little single, perfectly pleasant in a quickly recorded Saint Etienne B-side kind of way.  In a quiet week in January it might actually have performed moderately well in its own right, and it's certainly a strange tune to pick to prove a chart hype point.  Perhaps if something noticeably below par had been used, the researchers and producers behind the show might have worried that the authorities would have smelt a rat.

Interestingly, there's also an information service advertised on the sleeve, asking us to write to "Mojams, Freepost 1276, PO BOX 4100, London, SE1 0YW".  One wonders what anybody who scribbled a note to that address got in return - a signed picture of Roger Cook angrily pointing, perhaps.

Blessed Ethel - Rat

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: 2 Damn Loud
Year of Release: 1994

These days, when a consortium of critics and music industry insiders get together to name who the most important artists of the coming year will be, there's little danger involved.  Trends are easy to predict.  Does the band have 768,000 MySpace fans already?  Have they just been signed for a lot of money by a cash-strapped major label who absolutely has to see a return on their investment?  Are they Brit school graduates?  With every year's announcements, you can almost hear the noise of check-boxes being ticked.

It wasn't always thus.  In the nineties, predictions were likely to be very wonky indeed, which is how Blessed Ethel infamously got voted above Oasis as being the band most likely to succeed at the Manchester "In The City" live event.  This isn't as unusual as it sounds.  In the early nineties, suspicions in the music press were rife that Oasis were nothing more than a re-heated baggy band.  Blessed Ethel, on the other hand, had vitriol and a sneering energy which sounded much more of the moment - elements of the still relatively topical Riot Grrrl movement were apparent, and much was made of the band's oddball outsiderness, an absolute virtue in those pre-Britpop days.  The NME and Melody Maker wanted weird kids in the charts back then, not everyman styled stars.

We all know how the story ended.  Blessed Ethel did not conquer the world, but "Rat" gives some clues as to how they might just have given the impression they could.  It's ferocious garage rock with hysterical vocals; breathless, desperate and really rather brilliant in its own way.  True, at the time this would have been no more or less original than Oasis' known output, but the full-throttle nature of the single showcases a band keen to leave a scalding great mark.  Compare it back-to-back with an Oasis demo such as "Cigarettes and Alcohol", and everyone's favourite monobrowed pop stars suddenly sound  less fierce, less full of themselves.

As for any musicians reading this who may have recently lost a "Battle of the Bands" contest... take heart.  It means nothing.

Label: 2 Damn Loud
Year of Release: 1994

These days, when a consortium of critics and music industry insiders get together to name who the most important artists of the coming year will be, there's little danger involved.  Trends are easy to predict.  Does the band have 768,000 MySpace fans already?  Have they just been signed for a lot of money by a cash-strapped major label who absolutely has to see a return on their investment?  Are they Brit school graduates?  With every year's announcements, you can almost hear the noise of check-boxes being ticked.

It wasn't always thus.  In the nineties, predictions were likely to be very wonky indeed, which is how Blessed Ethel infamously got voted above Oasis as being the band most likely to succeed at the Manchester "In The City" live event.  This isn't as unusual as it sounds.  In the early nineties, suspicions in the music press were rife that Oasis were nothing more than a re-heated baggy band.  Blessed Ethel, on the other hand, had vitriol and a sneering energy which sounded much more of the moment - elements of the still relatively topical Riot Grrrl movement were apparent, and much was made of the band's oddball outsiderness, an absolute virtue in those pre-Britpop days.  The NME and Melody Maker wanted weird kids in the charts back then, not everyman styled stars.

We all know how the story ended.  Blessed Ethel did not conquer the world, but "Rat" gives some clues as to how they might just have given the impression they could.  It's ferocious garage rock with hysterical vocals; breathless, desperate and really rather brilliant in its own way.  True, at the time this would have been no more or less original than Oasis' known output, but the full-throttle nature of the single showcases a band keen to leave a scalding great mark.  Compare it back-to-back with an Oasis demo such as "Cigarettes and Alcohol", and everyone's favourite monobrowed pop stars suddenly sound  less fierce, less full of themselves.

As for any musicians reading this who may have recently lost a "Battle of the Bands" contest... take heart.  It means nothing.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 60 - Singing Corner meets Donovan - Jennifer Juniper

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Who: The Singing Corner (aka Trevor and Simon) and Donovan
What: Jennifer Juniper
Label: Mercury
When: 1990
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London
Cost: 50p

Comedy double-act Trevor and Simon will probably always be regarded as a rather peculiar anomaly.  Originally jobbing circuit comedians, they were spotted by the BBC and asked to perform a regular turn on children's Saturday morning show "Going Live".  Strict instructions were issued to the effect that they should not make their act too rude, but otherwise not make any effort to tailor their work specifically to children.  "Be yourselves, lads," seemed to be the mantra emerging from Shepherd's Bush.

As absurd as it sounds, that's how their fictional duo The Singing Corner, who parodied the twee excesses of the sixties folkies (not least Peter and Gordon, I'd have thought) crashed down into the nineties morning television schedules.  What on Earth nineties schoolchildren got out of their versions of Donovan's "I Love My Shirt" and "We're Going to the Zoo" is a question which doesn't seem to have bothered very many people before or since - but absurdly, the whole venture worked.  "I Love My Shirt" was quoted in playgrounds by children you suspect would otherwise never have heard it, repeated endlessly at the behest of keen viewers, and eventually Donovan himself was persuaded to release a novelty single with the pair.

Sadly, a redux version of "I Love My Shirt" was not forthcoming, which was surely what the public wanted.  A new version of "Jennifer Juniper" was recorded instead, which wasn't as effective.  Donovan's presence in the studio also shatters the impact of the piss-taking somewhat, given that Trevor and Simon played up the drippy hippy-ness of the tunes in a tremendously cartoonish, Austin Powers way.  When placed next to Donovan's hushed vocals it seems too extreme, too laboured, and not subtle enough.  It in fact highlights the strengths of the original song and makes it seem as if two gimps have broken into the studio, grabbed some master tapes, and made silly comments over the top of a Donovan recording for three minutes.  It was a move that caused Rowland Rivron on "Jukebox Jury" to argue that they'd "bastardised" the song.  If the three had taken "Shirt", a song so enjoyably ridiculous it's almost hard to understand how it existed in the first place, then a top ten hit would have been assured.  This, on the other hand, was an attempt at vandalism on something which was never that absurd or risible to begin with.

All three artists are still going to greater or lesser extents, with Trevor and Simon still doing podcast work and occasional BBC broadcasts, and Donovan thrilling live audiences with his slightly fey form of folk.  This single, however, is unlikely to feature high on the CVs of any of the individuals concerned.  Maybe they genuinely were on drugs at the time...

Who: The Singing Corner (aka Trevor and Simon) and Donovan
What: Jennifer Juniper
Label: Mercury
When: 1990
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London
Cost: 50p

Comedy double-act Trevor and Simon will probably always be regarded as a rather peculiar anomaly.  Originally jobbing circuit comedians, they were spotted by the BBC and asked to perform a regular turn on children's Saturday morning show "Going Live".  Strict instructions were issued to the effect that they should not make their act too rude, but otherwise not make any effort to tailor their work specifically to children.  "Be yourselves, lads," seemed to be the mantra emerging from Shepherd's Bush.

As absurd as it sounds, that's how their fictional duo The Singing Corner, who parodied the twee excesses of the sixties folkies (not least Peter and Gordon, I'd have thought) crashed down into the nineties morning television schedules.  What on Earth nineties schoolchildren got out of their versions of Donovan's "I Love My Shirt" and "We're Going to the Zoo" is a question which doesn't seem to have bothered very many people before or since - but absurdly, the whole venture worked.  "I Love My Shirt" was quoted in playgrounds by children you suspect would otherwise never have heard it, repeated endlessly at the behest of keen viewers, and eventually Donovan himself was persuaded to release a novelty single with the pair.

Sadly, a redux version of "I Love My Shirt" was not forthcoming, which was surely what the public wanted.  A new version of "Jennifer Juniper" was recorded instead, which wasn't as effective.  Donovan's presence in the studio also shatters the impact of the piss-taking somewhat, given that Trevor and Simon played up the drippy hippy-ness of the tunes in a tremendously cartoonish, Austin Powers way.  When placed next to Donovan's hushed vocals it seems too extreme, too laboured, and not subtle enough.  It in fact highlights the strengths of the original song and makes it seem as if two gimps have broken into the studio, grabbed some master tapes, and made silly comments over the top of a Donovan recording for three minutes.  It was a move that caused Rowland Rivron on "Jukebox Jury" to argue that they'd "bastardised" the song.  If the three had taken "Shirt", a song so enjoyably ridiculous it's almost hard to understand how it existed in the first place, then a top ten hit would have been assured.  This, on the other hand, was an attempt at vandalism on something which was never that absurd or risible to begin with.

All three artists are still going to greater or lesser extents, with Trevor and Simon still doing podcast work and occasional BBC broadcasts, and Donovan thrilling live audiences with his slightly fey form of folk.  This single, however, is unlikely to feature high on the CVs of any of the individuals concerned.  Maybe they genuinely were on drugs at the time...

The House of Windsor - Squidgy (Candy MC Edit)

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Di-Lema Records
Year of RElease: 1992

"If you want to be like me, you've got to suffer..."

Princess Diana hopefully needs few introductions to readers of "Left and to the Back", whatever their nationality or generation.  The "Squidgy" tape, however, was a curious case indeed - an intimate recorded mobile phone conversation between her Di-ness and 'friend' James Gilbey, which an amateur radio ham apparently managed to catch on the airwaves as it happened.  Or so it seemed.  Subsequent investigations proved that far from being live on the air, the telephone conversation was rebroadcast several times over in the hope of catching someone's attention, which pointed towards darker forces afoot at Buckingham Palace and (possibly) within MI5.  Various users of Wikipedia do a sterling job of picking the incident to pieces here.

It was Diana's misfortune to have such a conversation right at a point in time where a lot of techno and Dance music still had dangerous, edgy connotations in the mainstream media, and the idea of free parties (or 'raves') were still fresh in the brains of tabloid hacks.  The sampling frenzy numerous DJs and producers embarked upon in search of a hit seemed never ending, and a new angle was always vital - especially one that gained the artist free press.  Bear in mind that many of these sample-heavy efforts would never have picked up radio airplay without becoming hits first, and were sometimes a bit too clunky and gimmicky to be taken seriously in clubland, a place where opportunistic tomfoolery was often frowned upon.  Therefore, whilst it might seem strange that somebody would have taken Diana's misfortune and tacked a techno beat on to it now - especially in the light of her subsequent death - it was something you would have placed money on at the time.  What better way for some more naughty 'ravers' to find their way into the disapproving tabloid press?

In the event, this didn't sell.  Special premium rate phonelines were set up by "The Sun" newspaper so people could listen to Diana having a private conversation, so anyone desperate to hear her chat could do so without feeling the urge to dance at the same time.  In the end, the tabloid press were far more shocking and business-minded than the people on E - who ever would have thought?  This sure as hell wasn't going to get played on the Johnny Beerling era Radio One, and whilst it did pick up some club spins, it clearly didn't get enough attention to actually shift the necessary units.  When I found a seven inch copy (yes, these do exist, contrary to other Internet rumours) in a second-hand store in Reykjavik, my brain jangled with the long-buried memory of the track's existence.  A flop which gathered about a week's worth of press attention before promptly being buried again, it was an easy thing to manage to forget.

Strangely though, even now (or perhaps especially now) it's hard not to be impressed by the record's cheek.  Not since The Sex Pistol's "God Save The Queen" had something with its designs on the charts so brazenly mocked a member of the Royal Family, and in actual fact, behind the slightly basic construction of the record lie some slightly chilling effects.  It's like hearing a private phone conversation cutting into a pirate radio broadcast, fizzing and fuzzing in and out of coherency.  Whether that was the intentional effect or not is a moot point, but something about it seems disquieting and gently uncomfortable rather than outright shocking or funny.

As for Princess Diana herself, she never did have a hit single, perhaps making her the most famous person never to have a smash, and not The Grumbleweeds as I previously stated.  I'm also aware that by posting this up here for public consumption I'm leaving myself open to all manner of Royalist oddballs surfing in from Google, and things may turn sour.  Therefore, for the benefit of anyone spoiling for a fight about whether this record is in bad taste or not, I may as well declare my general indifference - meaning I won't be much fun to have a ruck with.  What's done is done, and nobody at the time of this release knew Diana was going to meet a tragic end, therefore I present it to you as a very odd slice of recording history rather than a snigger-fest at the dead lady's expense.

Still, though - troubled, paranoid and lonely the woman may have been, but surely there were far worthier candidates for  everyone's concerns and affection?  I'd like to think that even she would have agreed with that point, even if she probably wouldn't have been seen dead on the dancefloor while this played.

Label: Di-Lema Records
Year of RElease: 1992

"If you want to be like me, you've got to suffer..."

Princess Diana hopefully needs few introductions to readers of "Left and to the Back", whatever their nationality or generation.  The "Squidgy" tape, however, was a curious case indeed - an intimate recorded mobile phone conversation between her Di-ness and 'friend' James Gilbey, which an amateur radio ham apparently managed to catch on the airwaves as it happened.  Or so it seemed.  Subsequent investigations proved that far from being live on the air, the telephone conversation was rebroadcast several times over in the hope of catching someone's attention, which pointed towards darker forces afoot at Buckingham Palace and (possibly) within MI5.  Various users of Wikipedia do a sterling job of picking the incident to pieces here.

It was Diana's misfortune to have such a conversation right at a point in time where a lot of techno and Dance music still had dangerous, edgy connotations in the mainstream media, and the idea of free parties (or 'raves') were still fresh in the brains of tabloid hacks.  The sampling frenzy numerous DJs and producers embarked upon in search of a hit seemed never ending, and a new angle was always vital - especially one that gained the artist free press.  Bear in mind that many of these sample-heavy efforts would never have picked up radio airplay without becoming hits first, and were sometimes a bit too clunky and gimmicky to be taken seriously in clubland, a place where opportunistic tomfoolery was often frowned upon.  Therefore, whilst it might seem strange that somebody would have taken Diana's misfortune and tacked a techno beat on to it now - especially in the light of her subsequent death - it was something you would have placed money on at the time.  What better way for some more naughty 'ravers' to find their way into the disapproving tabloid press?

In the event, this didn't sell.  Special premium rate phonelines were set up by "The Sun" newspaper so people could listen to Diana having a private conversation, so anyone desperate to hear her chat could do so without feeling the urge to dance at the same time.  In the end, the tabloid press were far more shocking and business-minded than the people on E - who ever would have thought?  This sure as hell wasn't going to get played on the Johnny Beerling era Radio One, and whilst it did pick up some club spins, it clearly didn't get enough attention to actually shift the necessary units.  When I found a seven inch copy (yes, these do exist, contrary to other Internet rumours) in a second-hand store in Reykjavik, my brain jangled with the long-buried memory of the track's existence.  A flop which gathered about a week's worth of press attention before promptly being buried again, it was an easy thing to manage to forget.

Strangely though, even now (or perhaps especially now) it's hard not to be impressed by the record's cheek.  Not since The Sex Pistol's "God Save The Queen" had something with its designs on the charts so brazenly mocked a member of the Royal Family, and in actual fact, behind the slightly basic construction of the record lie some slightly chilling effects.  It's like hearing a private phone conversation cutting into a pirate radio broadcast, fizzing and fuzzing in and out of coherency.  Whether that was the intentional effect or not is a moot point, but something about it seems disquieting and gently uncomfortable rather than outright shocking or funny.

As for Princess Diana herself, she never did have a hit single, perhaps making her the most famous person never to have a smash, and not The Grumbleweeds as I previously stated.  I'm also aware that by posting this up here for public consumption I'm leaving myself open to all manner of Royalist oddballs surfing in from Google, and things may turn sour.  Therefore, for the benefit of anyone spoiling for a fight about whether this record is in bad taste or not, I may as well declare my general indifference - meaning I won't be much fun to have a ruck with.  What's done is done, and nobody at the time of this release knew Diana was going to meet a tragic end, therefore I present it to you as a very odd slice of recording history rather than a snigger-fest at the dead lady's expense.

Still, though - troubled, paranoid and lonely the woman may have been, but surely there were far worthier candidates for  everyone's concerns and affection?  I'd like to think that even she would have agreed with that point, even if she probably wouldn't have been seen dead on the dancefloor while this played.

The High Llamas - Gideon Gaye

nineties - Hola Music Lovers, Music іѕ а form оf art thаt involves organized аnd audible sounds аnd silence. It іѕ nоrmаllу expressed іn terms оf pitch (which includes melody аnd harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo аnd meter), аnd thе quality оf sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, аnd texture). Music mау аlѕо involve complex generative forms іn time thrоugh thе construction оf patterns аnd combinations оf natural stimuli, principally sound. Music mау bе uѕеd fоr artistic оr aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, оr ceremonial purposes. Thе definition оf whаt constitutes music varies ассоrdіng tо culture аnd social context.This Blog tell About nineties, Music is formulated or organized sound. Although it cannot contain emotions, it is sometimes designed to manipulate and transform the emotion of the listener/listeners. Music created for movies is a good example of its use to manipulate emotions. .



Label: Alpaca Park
Year of Release: 1995

So then, I think we've all established what happened to Cathal Coughlan after Microdisney split, but what of his songwriting partner, Sean O'Hagan?  Did he simply set off in a knackered old Ford Cortina and build himself a career in pensions administration?  No, obviously - The High Llamas became his equally oddly named pet project.

The High Llamas have probably gained more recognition for their music than the Fatima Mansions managed, certainly in terms of the weight of the press cuttings involved.  Whereas the weekly and monthly music press seemed to lose interest in the negative realities expressed by the Mansions almost as soon Britpop arrived with a chirpy backflip, The High Llamas were almost oddly relevant.  In a world where Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were harking back to sunny melodies, Stereolab were looping and messing with krautrock styles, and the likes of The Divine Comedy were re-introducing intricate arrangements, they almost managed to cross-over the lot.  Whilst nobody was ever going to make a million by seeming akin to the aforementioned bands, it did ensure a wave of publicity which held them in good stead for awhile.

But then again, "Gideon Gaye" is such a fantastic record that it probably would have generated interest all by itself.  It's impossible to talk about the album without mentioning its similarities to the work of Brian Wilson - and in fact, it seems impossible for any critic to talk about the album without talking about how impossible it is not to do that, so please pardon my cliche - but it indeed is the kind of thing he may have made at the peak of his powers with perhaps a greater degree of freedom.  With the exception of some questionable doodles like "Giddy Strings", the album is a delightful, thematically unified piece, tracks cross-referencing each other in the manner that The Beatles managed on side two of "Abbey Road", the sound never slipping away from a woozy, chiming, summery nirvana.

Lyrically though, the approach is actually as scattershot as Coughlan's, albeit not as savage.  When I interviewed O'Hagan in 1995, he stated that part of "The Dutchman" was about some arrogant businessmen he met at a hotel in New York, all of whom were determined to stroll the rougher streets in the city wearing designer suits.  Still though, his roving eye takes in other details - the hotel barstool with the Collie sat by its side, his dyslexia prior to his own personal wandering around the city ("I don't know my right from my left"), and the effect is a mix of the good, the bad, and the almost inconsequential - a detailed portrait of the situation at the time.

The rest of "Gideon Gaye" continues in as panoramic a manner as that, with some of the looping interlude tracks locking in beautifully.  When playing it for the first time in a while last week, I checked the internet and was stunned to see that it was no longer available - a darling of many a year-end critic's poll in 1995, it seems as if it should be a constant seller, the kind of thing ripe for constant remastering and reappraisal.  That we've come to this pass is a bit unacceptable, but hopefully when you hear the album for yourself, you'll be converted to the cause.

SORRY - this album is now commercially available again, and as such as has been removed from this blog. If you want to buy a copy, iTunes is now stocking it among a number of other online sources.

Tracklisting:
1. Giddy Strings
2. The Dutchman
3. Giddy and Gay
4. Easy Rod
5. Checking In, Checking Out
6. The Goat Strings
7. Up In The Hills
8. The Goat Looks On
9. Taog Skool No
10. Little Collie
11. Track Goes By
12. Let's Have Another Look
13. The Goat (Instrumental)

Label: Alpaca Park
Year of Release: 1995

So then, I think we've all established what happened to Cathal Coughlan after Microdisney split, but what of his songwriting partner, Sean O'Hagan?  Did he simply set off in a knackered old Ford Cortina and build himself a career in pensions administration?  No, obviously - The High Llamas became his equally oddly named pet project.

The High Llamas have probably gained more recognition for their music than the Fatima Mansions managed, certainly in terms of the weight of the press cuttings involved.  Whereas the weekly and monthly music press seemed to lose interest in the negative realities expressed by the Mansions almost as soon Britpop arrived with a chirpy backflip, The High Llamas were almost oddly relevant.  In a world where Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were harking back to sunny melodies, Stereolab were looping and messing with krautrock styles, and the likes of The Divine Comedy were re-introducing intricate arrangements, they almost managed to cross-over the lot.  Whilst nobody was ever going to make a million by seeming akin to the aforementioned bands, it did ensure a wave of publicity which held them in good stead for awhile.

But then again, "Gideon Gaye" is such a fantastic record that it probably would have generated interest all by itself.  It's impossible to talk about the album without mentioning its similarities to the work of Brian Wilson - and in fact, it seems impossible for any critic to talk about the album without talking about how impossible it is not to do that, so please pardon my cliche - but it indeed is the kind of thing he may have made at the peak of his powers with perhaps a greater degree of freedom.  With the exception of some questionable doodles like "Giddy Strings", the album is a delightful, thematically unified piece, tracks cross-referencing each other in the manner that The Beatles managed on side two of "Abbey Road", the sound never slipping away from a woozy, chiming, summery nirvana.

Lyrically though, the approach is actually as scattershot as Coughlan's, albeit not as savage.  When I interviewed O'Hagan in 1995, he stated that part of "The Dutchman" was about some arrogant businessmen he met at a hotel in New York, all of whom were determined to stroll the rougher streets in the city wearing designer suits.  Still though, his roving eye takes in other details - the hotel barstool with the Collie sat by its side, his dyslexia prior to his own personal wandering around the city ("I don't know my right from my left"), and the effect is a mix of the good, the bad, and the almost inconsequential - a detailed portrait of the situation at the time.

The rest of "Gideon Gaye" continues in as panoramic a manner as that, with some of the looping interlude tracks locking in beautifully.  When playing it for the first time in a while last week, I checked the internet and was stunned to see that it was no longer available - a darling of many a year-end critic's poll in 1995, it seems as if it should be a constant seller, the kind of thing ripe for constant remastering and reappraisal.  That we've come to this pass is a bit unacceptable, but hopefully when you hear the album for yourself, you'll be converted to the cause.

SORRY - this album is now commercially available again, and as such as has been removed from this blog. If you want to buy a copy, iTunes is now stocking it among a number of other online sources.

Tracklisting:
1. Giddy Strings
2. The Dutchman
3. Giddy and Gay
4. Easy Rod
5. Checking In, Checking Out
6. The Goat Strings
7. Up In The Hills
8. The Goat Looks On
9. Taog Skool No
10. Little Collie
11. Track Goes By
12. Let's Have Another Look
13. The Goat (Instrumental)