Edsel Auctioneer

Edsel Auctioneer (or possibly The Edsel Auctioneer I can never remember) have been on my list of bands for here for a while now, but I'd been umming and ahhing around and not getting round to it for various reasons. Then this week I finally got round to copying the 12" I had to hand and, well I'll be honest here, I can't believe I'd forgotten how much I liked them.

There's a nice little history here and once again the wiki page is a great help so avail yourself there for now. But basically the band were from Leeds, formed in 1988, banged out half a dozen cracking EPs and a couple of albums, played some Peel Sessions and split.

But I guess the important thing for me is that at the height of the floppy-fringed twattery of "Madchester", bands from our side of the Pennines were producing really good "rock" music, for want of a better name. A lot of the reviews liken the band's music to Dinosaur Jr and you can see why, there's a lot of swooping, screaming guitar and good old-fashioned (well, old-fashioned now but not quite so popular in late 1989) wailing and gnashing vocals.

Oh, and from the first linked site here a lovely bit of indie/football cross over that I'm hoping to bring you an extra special post about in a week or so:

"the [band's] instrumental track [on their second LP The Good Time Music Of...] named "11th September 94" more than likely refers to Leeds beating Man Utd 2-1 on that day (a Sunday). The Leeds goals were apparently scored by Brian Deane and David Wetherall."

This here then is Edsel Auctioneer - Unbroken Line from 1990's Gutted EP; this post is brought to you by the need to record the fact that it's 29th February and if I'm still doing this in four years time, the wife will have divorced me!

Also, you might have noticed I've started including links to buy some of the music featured on here, I noticed that Amazon has a lot of this stuff and if, like me, you want to spend a few bob here and there I'm going to try and put them in to help (and, as it's affiliate linked, help me out as well). So here you can buy the aforementioned album on CDor on vinyl.

The Telescopes

More spacey 1991-based indie today with Burton-on-Trent's only* famous sons The Telescopes and once more into the white label promo versions of EPs with Celeste, as featured here.

There's a very good site here with all your information, so again I won't wade too much into the background and Wikipedia is again a mine of useful information; although, one question is asked by the Wiki: is Jo Doran, the erstwhile backing singer and guitar-botherer related to Sara Doran out of Blessed Ethel?

The Telescopes were much-loved by the music press of the time, Steve Lamacq who was working at the NME at the time loved them and so did the Melody Maker. It's cheating a bit putting them on here as they reformed in 2004 and are still touring around the place, but let's remember them where they belong, as part of the early 1990s indie/shoegazing pantheon.

So this: The Telescopes - Celeste, is the title track from the EP.

* Yes, yes, apart from Freddie Starr

Buy music by The Telescopes

The Anyways

Another dip into Oxford-indie-obscurity today with The Anyways.

Find anything about this lot is nigh on impossible, I know they're from Oxford, there's a very good chance they were about from 1987 to 1994 and they released at least one album called Older Than Yesterday and at least two EPs: Sunshine Down and Confession (from the ever-reliable twee.net).

I did find a rather interesting article from Nightshift magazine that suggests that

"Oxford pop legends The Anyways, undoubtedly one of the greatest bands this city has ever produced and the band who inspired Ride’s Andy Bell to play guitar"

Although this might be in the "Moose were the first ever shoegazing band" category. It's nice to think that it's true, but I'm not sure it can be right.

That bit seems to lead onto this bit. The band members were:
· Alan Buckley (Bass; probably not sometime manager of Grimsby and West Brom)
· Pete Lock (Drums)
· Mark Price (Guitar)
· Richard Ramage (Vocals and Guitars)

Again, I'd never heard of the band, but they've started cropping up on some of the other blogs I read about the place, so I reckon they should also get a mention here. Let's start the "Anyways Comeback Tour" bandwagon right here!

This is The Anyways - Wish Away from the aforementioned Sunshine Down EP, released on Brighton's Marineville label.

Talulah Gosh

Well, if nothing else, Talulah Gosh push back my earliest featured single by a year and expand the Oxford-based twee database by another entry.

I'd kind of written off Talulah Gosh as too early for here, but then I heard Gideon Coe play them on 6music (incidentally, George Lamb? Why?) and decided that they were pretty much bang on for posting; let's face it, what do you remember about the band?

Well, we'll wiki them and see shall we?

Talulah Gosh were a guitar-pop group from Oxford, England and one of the leading bands of the twee pop movement, taking their name from the headline of an NME interview with Clare Grogan.

Ooh, Clare Grogan, that should be enough to raise the pulse of most people reading this...

So basically they lasted from 1986 until 1988, released a few decent jingly jangly singles and played a Peel session or two along the way and split; then most of the members went off to form Heavenly, another band that I'll get around to doing at some point.

I won't put too much here again as there's some pretty good fan pages here and here for example and a quick Google brings up more than enough background for even the most dedicated Gosher (I wonder if that's what the fans were called).

You'll like this mp3, it's a cracking bit of indie pop and if there's one thing I like almost as much as a flexi-disk it's a self-referential song name this this: Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh. Enjoy.

Adorable

It's been a while so it's back to Creationland today with Coventry-based Adorable;

There's a few bits an pieces on the old internet about the band, not least on the VH1 site (referencing the All Music Guide again); which gives a nifty bit of the back story, and I also like the assertions on the "Proper Adorable homepage" that the band split "because of several factors: there were problems within the band, creation dropped them, etc", rather than no one wanted to buy their records because, and I apologise if I'm slandering anyone here, they were the shoegaze equivalents of Birdland; all big ideas and snooty interviews, but not as good as they thought they were.

Having said all that, I rather like the mp3 below, it's a snapshot of what indie bands were trying to do in 1992 and is certainly not that far from the Rides and Curves of this world. Maybe they should have been bigger, especially as they were on Creation and could obviously thrash out a pretty good tune when the mood took them; and the more I listen to this particular EP, the more I'm a bit disappointed I missed them the first time around, if I'd ever been any good at meeting hoopy-tighted indie girls, this would have been a belting record to put on the record player while you failed to get a snog out of them at the end of the night...

This is the eponymous first track of the band's first EP; Adorable - Sunshine Smile, and it's a bang on bit of Creationry if ever I've heard one, right down to the Dreams Burn Down-esque wailing guitar at the start. Oh, and you'll note the "I want to be Suede!" sleeve as well.

Buy "Footnotes: the Best of Adorable 1992-1994 "

Blessed Ethel

Right then, let's get February underway with Blessed Ethel. Now, I've a nasty feeling that this lot were American; they're certainly likened to the Pixies and Debbie Harry and people like that, but that seems to be a lazy comparison. There's definitely some good old fashioned grindy-twanging going on and the track featured below seems to be agenuinely good bit of indie pop; but once more dear friends I'm at a loss as to who the band actually were. In my rather limited opinion there's certainly a thread from the shoegazers of the (then) previous few years and more than a nod to the Sleepers of the time and you might spot a mention in the comments to the S*M*A*S*H entry in this here blog thing. Oh, and they also appear to have supported Lush at the Leadmill in Sheffield in 1994 at some point and S*M*A*S*H at "Fibbers" in the same year. And the drummer may have been called Tim James, or possibly Rick...

Actually, strike Tim James (whoever he may be), the official "off of the album" band list is:
· Sara Doran (Vocals)
· Dan Barnes (Guitar)
· Mike Harris (Bass)
· Rick Hunaban (Drums)

And apparently they also won the Best New Band award in 1993 at Manchester's In The City ahead of some no-hopers called Oasis...

The All Music Guide (which is a pretty good place to start and in this case all I can really find out about the band) says:

You may be happy to know that the spirit (and sound) of early Blondie has not been lost to the world -- it's alive and well and powerpopping along in the form of Blessed Ethel, a Britpop bunch who can probably lay claim to the Rezillos as another spiritual ancestor (though there's a lot less shrieking going on here.) What we have are buzzsaw guitars, snapping drums, sprightly rhythms, and Sara Doran's voice cutting through the mix like a searchlight -- no claim to range, but she uses what she has in the best way possible.

Which seems a bit rude about Sara Doran whose singing is far from bad and certainly no worse than any of the cobblers you hear on the radio these days.

There's an album and few singles in the 1993/4/5 era from the band before they seem to disappear from history with only the occasional nod from anyone in the next 10 or so years.

Whatever and whoever the band were, you'll like this: Blessed Ethel - Fat Star, this is off a white label promo as you'll see in the picture. That's a fiver on the open market to you sir.

And once more there's a Wikipedia page to add to (or there would be if the cocking editors stopped just fucking unilaterally deleting everything. Wankers).