I should really draw up an indie map one day; granted most of this stuff will be Oxford, Glasgow or Manchester-based, but here's another entry for the agricultural wastelands of Suffolk.
Jacob's Mouse were a rather nice indie rock band with, and I feel this is important, identical twin brothers Jebb and Hugo Boothby playing bass and guitar. I don't think I've featured twins before; identical or otherwise.
Wikipedia says that they formed in 1991 and
"...despite some critical acclaim, and a successful UK tour supporting Babes in Toyland and Trumans Water, they failed to take the wider world by storm. Following the release of their Rubber Room LP in 1995, Jacob's Mouse split."
There's a good full biog on the Wiija site, so pop along there for more and as usual TrouserPress know all.
They seem to get tagged as "grunge" around the internet which seems rather unfair. Granted some of their stuff is more rock than the jingly jangly indie stuff we all know and love, but still. They recorded a couple of Peel Sessions and released some cracking records, so hats off to them and welcome to the blog.
This particular mp3 is a good ones as well, Jacob's Mouse - Company News, it's from the legendary Rough Trade Singles Club as well, nicely.
Another band that was brought to my attention by an email, this time by a very nice chap called Martin. The band in question? Disco. No, me either.
They were around in about 1995, appeared at the In the City expo in Manchester, and released two singles by the look at it. I've got a scan of a cutting from the NME, it says that Stop Me and Buy One, the mp3 below is:
"a simpering, simmering cauldron of feisty, femme-tastic shenanigans... All bloody marvellous."
Well, I guess that's one way of putting it. Listen to the mp3 below; it's rough and exciting in a 'two girls shouting into a bin' way.
I managed to hunt a copy of this single down from a very helpful Dutch chap at a record shop called Distortion Records in Amsterdam (and if I'm ever in that fine city again I'm certainly popping in to see them; Amond was a great help).
Anyway, this is Disco - Stop Me and Buy One and I think you'll see why they are a long lost band. I hate being rude about people who managed to form a band, get a single out, get reviewed and get heard of by people; my respect for them is part of why I'm doing this. But, and it's a big but, I'm sorry, the NME were talking out of their hats. This really isn't that good...
A bit of an odd one this, the Gigolo Aunts are American, but couldn't sound more indie if they tried. Well, if they tried any harder to sound like Teenage Fanclub anyway.
It's a bit of a shame really, as a band they were pretty good and they knocked out some cracking indie pop; unfortunately they never really took off over here and were kind of swamped by all the other American bands doing bloody grunge, just as they started to make their name.
They did of course have a massive hit in "Where I Find My Heaven" which featured in "comedy" film Dumb and Dumber and in the late-but-not-really-lamented sitcom "Game On" which featured the comedy stylings of Samantha "let's just forget Eurovision, please!" Janus, the ginger chap who does the adverts and the hilarious bloke who wouldn't leave the flat.
I went to see them in a comeback gig in what must have been 1998 or 1999 at The Garage in Highbury; all the way through you just knew the audience were waiting for them to do the song. To their credit they did; they saved it for a show-stopper at the end. I remember them doing it twice, but I may be wrong.
Anyway, they deserved better, they produced some lovely indie pop and if they'd made it big(gish) 3 years earlier we'd still be talking about them.
Here for your listening pleasure, copied from the coloured vinyl 7", here's Gigolo Aunts - Mrs Washington, complete with scratches and a skip or two. just so you can see that they had more than one song.
One of the genuine joys of doing this is that every now and again someone emails and says "have you heard of so-and-so? They were great!"; The Anyways were one of these, The Nilon Bombers were another. This particular record though is probably my favourite so far. It's a flexi disk (yay!), it's a football crossover and, more importantly, it's by a painfully cool indie supergroup consisting of Simon Raymonde from the Cocteau Twins, Chris Acland and Miki Berenyi from Lush and Kevin Mckillop and Russell Yates from Moose. You just know it's going to be good.
So this is it. A supergroup called The Lillies and a swooping, spacey bit of indie memorabilia called "And David Seaman will be very disappointed with that..." recorded to commemorate Tottenham Hotspur beating their arch-rivals Arsenal in the 1991 FA Cup semi-final on 14 April 1991 helped by a wonderful free-kick by Paul Gascoigne at the very height of his genius. I remember watching the game, my Spurs-supporting mates still talk of the game and Gazza's goal in hushed tones. And, more importantly, it led to this fantastically rare bit of plastic tht you could only get by buying The Spur, a Tottenham fanzine/magazine of some reknown.
To say I was excited when this came up on eBay would be to commit the greatest understatement in years. I was agape, my mouth could have caught a double-decker bus, my eyes were that particular wide, stary look that only 6-year-olds get on Christmas day when they get their first BMX; God I was in awe. So much so that I hastily put in a bid that was far, far above my self-imposed five pounds limit (including p&p) that I've set for buying these old records. I don't think I've HAD to have anything quite so much in years, probably not since I first saw a ZX Spectrum in action. I'm actually shaking just thinking about it, that's how badly this bloody blog has affected me.
The only thing that made it even better was that the seller was called Stuart. Stuart Mutler in fact. Only the bloody editor of The Spur and the man whose idea the whole thing was in the first place. The man who told me
"The flexi disc was my idea (I was the editor of 'Spur') and I got the artists together all those summers ago. Simon did most of the work. The others came in for one day. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Although with the attention the recording got on release, I think Miki may have regretted her involvement. She kept getting badgered by supporters, and it detracted some people from her work with Lush."
And really very kindly included scans from the NME and Melody Maker reviewing the thing in the first place.
It's a great bit of swooping indie pop, just as you'd imagine the Cocteau Twin, Lush and Moose would make if they had free rein to do whatever the hell they wanted together.
Oh, and here is "that" goal...
"Mabbutt has gone forward, with Stewart to the right. Lineker and Howells to the left. Is Gascoigne going to have a crack? He is you know! Oh I say! Brilliant!"
PS, Stuart says there's a few more of the mag/flexi combinations going up on the old eBay soon, so keep your eyes open!
The Orchids are an odd band. Sarah Records stalwarts and creators of swooping melodies and electronica-influenced pop.
Formed in Glasgow in the mid 1980s and lasting until around 1993/1994 the band were moderately popular and certainly had fans at the NME (when that still counted for something); but they never made it really, really big. There we reissues of all the old material in 2004 and they've reformed recently.
...is about indie bands. Proper indie bands from the late 1980s and early 1990s. When indie band were real indie bands, and when they released their music on big lumps of vinyl; like God intended.
This page, blog, whatever is dedicated to remembering the unremembered bands, the ones that almost made it, the ones that noone has ever heard of and the ones who put out loads of records and faded from view; because for every Pixies, there's a Bob; for every Stone Roses, there's a Family Cat.
I've been collecting old vinyl for as long as I can remember, any mp3 on here is copied (using science and magic) from the original vinyl. Music like it should be.
As much as possible is rare, some is practically unique, most of it will only be remembered by 35 year-old ex-indie kids who spent too much time at indie clubs in the early 1990s and reading the NME from cover to cover.
By the way, any good stories, extra details, bits of stuff you want to hear and other comments, then please feel free to get in touch.
I should really draw up an indie map one day; granted most of this stuff will be Oxford, Glasgow or Manchester-based, but here's another entry for the agricultural wastelands of Suffolk.
