More jingly-jangly 1991 indie pop piffle today with Oxford's Five Thirty. Those of you keeping track will note the similarities between this band and those other monsters of shoe-gazing Ride - it was all floppy hair and wailing guitars round Oxfordshire in those days. And boy did we love it.
Not as popular as their local counterparts, Five Thirty relocated to London to try and make it in the big city. Unfortunately they failed to trouble the chart compilers in their brief existence (1985ish-1992), but they did produce some good old screaming and gnashing guitar music.
It's suggested that they were years before their time and the band would have made more of an impact in the Britpop years, but we've seen it before; another band unfairly doomed to the obscurity of indiepop completist's record collections and fading memories of simpler times.
Once more this is from a promo bit of vinyl - funny how those are the ones that survive so well: Five Thirty - You.
As it's now the 21st century and nothing gets to lie in state quietly and somberly, let's visit Youtube again:
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Five Thirty
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Ah - Five Thirty. I've got their debut EP 'Abstain' somewhere (sample lyric "I left my heart on the pavement for pedestrians like you" - crazy kids). Their lead singer (Tara?) went onto to form The Nubiles who, for some reason, played Bedford a lot. I saw them supporting Oasis & Whiteout at a pub called The Angel.
ReplyDeleteI got the album, Bed, on ebay a while ago - my cassette finally sounded too awful to keep trying to play :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I really, really want to know, though, is did they really have Alisteir Crowley's front door on stage?
Yes Jeff, They did have Mr Crowley's door on stage. They set it adrift down the Thames and lobbed a couple of petrol bombs on it when Chris (their mate who did all the funky artwork on their first few singles - Not the Abysmal album Artwork) comitted suicide by jumping off Chelsea bridge...
ReplyDeleteBlimey, this brings it all back... good work! I've got most of the singles leading up to Bed, but for reason never bought the album. Saw them at Southampton Joiners back in the day. Great live band that for some reason never really had commercial impact.
ReplyDeleteThey were actually from Reading not Oxford.
ReplyDeletePaul went on to form Orange Deluxe who are also fab
They were managed by Alan Mcgee for a while. The Nubiles played Bedford a lot because the record label they were on was based there. I saw them in Hichin supported by Placebo
ReplyDeleteOne of the band members came from Burford in west oxfordshire
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