The Dylans

Right, it's Friday, so let's go with a classic sing-a-long, top notch indie classic from The Dylans; and I dare you not to be singing along after the first twenty seconds.

Long before Sheffield was the 'indie' capital of the world, The Dylans were plying their trade out of the grim north, and they might not have been as big as we'd have hoped, but boy weren't they just a great band!

All the history you need is on the wiki page and at Discogs.com and you know you should own at least one of their singles, if not, what the hell were you doing in 1991?

"I hear your tambourines
Inside my head, she says
I hear your tambourines
On Planet Love, she says
On Planet Love..."

Go on, get that baggy t-shirt on, flick what's left of your indie fringe about, go to the nearest pub for a pint of snakebite and dance along to The Dylans - Planet Love; it's what Fridays were made for.

One big question remains mind you, why were all the best indie club nights on a Tuesday, not a Friday?

The Nivens

Wouldn't you know it, I just get sorted with putting The Nivens on here and it turns out that there's two bands called the same thing. Even worse, they could both fit in here quite happily.

What to do? Nuts to it, I'm going with my original Nivens; the lot from Ashington, Northumberland. Mostly because they're the ones I meant to put up, but partially because the next band I get on here will probably be the band that released a split flexi (yay!) with them in 1988. More of that later though.

So, The Nivens, formed in 1987, released the aforementioned flexi and two other proper singles; put out a compilation CD, played loads of gigs and supported indie luminaries like

"The Las, My Bloody Valentine, Cud, Primal Scream, Brilliant Corners, Family Cat, and any indie band who bothered to visit the north"

and then folded.

Their official site is here and has what you need to know.

I also particularly like them because their music is intelligent and catchy and the second track on the double-A sided (I miss double A sides, you wouldn't get Billy Bragg having a secret number one these days) final EP The Dialect Drug is called, rather fantastically I thought, "The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century".

And this is it, The Nivens - The Necessity for Spastics in the 20th Century; great isn't it. I'd heartily recommend getting hold of the EP as it's genuinely really good.

For the other Nivens, go look at their Myspace page

The Trashcan Sinatras

I'm breaking one of my own unwritten rules again today with The Trashcan Sinatras, because they're still going; and indeed have fairly recently released new material and will be putting out a new single in October 2008. All the guff you really need about the band is on the official site.

Still, it's good to put them up as they're another of the bands that dropped their "The" to sound more rock and roll and they're another band from Scotland; though not Glasgow for a change. For a change, the wikipedia page really does tell you most of the stuff you'll need to know about the band.

I really liked the band when they were in their 90s heyday, and this is one of the few records I've actually had for a while in the cupboard that a) isn't off ebay or from the lovely chaps at Vinyl Tap and b) isn't the only record I own by the band (because of reason a).

Mind you, this particular recording is from a DJ only promo as you can see in the picture. All I can say is: God knows what DJs do to their records. This one is scratched to fuck and took me four attempts, metaphorically balancing 2p coins on the arm of the record player, to get the sodding thing to play and record.

I hope you enjoy the fruits of my needle-knackering exploits: The Trashcan Sinatras - Circling the Circumference; go download the new single from the official site and remember just how good The Trashcan Sinatras were.

Or you can of course buy the band's classic 1990 album Cake here.

The Waltones

We're lumbering towards actually famous today with The Waltones, not least because they may, or may not, have been offered a deal by legendary Manchester DJ and producer Dave Haslam and soon-to-be Happy Mondays Manager Nathan McGough; and of course after the band's eventual split, Mark Collins the guitarist went off to join The Charlatans.

The Waltones were formed in Manchester in 1986, comprised Alex Fyans (Drums), Mark Collins (Guitar), James Knox (Vocals, Harmonica) and Manny Lee (Bass, Backing Vocals), recorded four singles and an album, are alleged on wikipedia to have recorded a Peel Session (although the official Peel pages seem to contradict that and, thanks to the internet we know that:

"...despite gaining much streetcred and selling out their LP, their distributor Red Rhino went bankrupt. The new distributor APT refused to take on Red Rhino's debts and thus no re-press of the album was undertaken. When Medium Cool was taken over by Midnight Music records a fall-out occured between the label and the Waltones ex-manager over ownership of the mastertapes for 'Listen To Your Heart' (the bands 5th unreleased single)."

There are a number of good sites about for the band, including their myspace pages which really covers everything, James, the singer's page - which tells it from his point of view and this nice blog post.

The Waltones are great; they played proper pre-Madchester indie that reminds me of one of my favourite bands, Bob, though which came first I'll leave up to you...

So, this is The Waltones - Everything's just Fine, the first song off the album Deepest, boy, does that take me back...

You can buy You've Gotta Hand It To 'Em the re-released Best of... here.

The Rosehips

The Rosehips are one of your great should-have-been-bigger twee bands. Formed near Stoke in 1986, the band are another with an indie-lady singer in a line up of:

"Yoland (vocals), Glenn (guitar), Ant (bass) and Mark 1 (drums). The [band's] first release was "The Last Light" on the Subway Records compilation LP "Take The Subway To Your Suburb". Two further singles - "Room In Your Heart" and "I Shouldn't Have To Say" - were released on Subway and the band gigged alongside Talulah Gosh, The Flatmates, The Clouds and The Groove Farm."

Again, I don't want to just copy and paste too much of the already full internet, so the "official" history is here and there is, of course, a lot on the band's myspace page. Oh, and believe it or not, there's a Rosehips tribute band!

The best thing about the internet is that people record such minute details as who the band played with, including such indie legends as the Darling Buds, Mega City Four and The Wedding Present!

So, here you go, this is The Rosehips - Room in Your Heart, it's a great bit of late 80s indie pop.