Back to the indie heartland of Oxford today with the Candyskins and, in recognition of my planned trip to see England v Ukraine tonight, how about their 1993 jingly-jangly belter that is "Wembley"? I don't just throw this shit together you know...
So, the featured track reminds me of something that I've featured on here before so much that I had to go through everything I've done to make sure I'd not already done the band. I just can't put my finger on it and having been back through most of the old posts I just can't think what it is. Have a listen and see if you can help me out, it's going to annoy me.
Candyskins - Wembley (right click, "save as" to download)
Basically, the band were formed in 1989 in Oxford by brothers Nick and Mark Cope, Karl Shale (who was replaced by a chap called Brett Gordon on bass-bothering duties towards the end of the band's career) and John Holliday. They released some great early 90s indie before being buggered over by major label Geffen; apparently due to money shenanigans as so often happens, and subsequently didn't quite catch the brit-pop-proper wave, although their 1997 single "Monday Morning" did sneak into the charts. The band split in or about 1997 with their best years sadly behind them and just a posthumous album ("Death of a Minor TV Celeb"
) left.I don't want to repeat too much of what's on this rather nice little fan site, so let's have a look at the wiki page instead.
Hang on, "regarded by the music press as one of the founders of Brit Pop"? That one has got to be up there with Moose as the first shoegazers? I had to go back to check my big boys book of indie music (well, Martin Strong's excellent "Great Indie Discography") to see if that could possible be true. As you can imagine, it's sort of true. According to Mr Strong's* hefty tome - Christmas money well spent that was! - they're a "seminal brit pop act"; so close but not quite, I've go fannied around with wikipedia so you'll have to check the history if you don't believe that's what it said...
Well there you go, not quite brit pop stalwarts, not quite proper indie legends, not quite major label players. Shame, the track above is ace. Now, I just need to work out what it sounds like.
* insert "and you'd have to be Mr Strong to lift it etc etc!" style joke here
Nice band, with Space I'm In a personal favorite. At some point someone will use "Never Will Forget You" in a movie and it'll sell a million copies....
ReplyDeleteSounds like Midway Still's Better Than Before if it were covered by Senseless Things!
ReplyDeleteI always fancied Head Of A Pin as my favourite Candyskins song though.
Excellent excellent stuff (as usual).
ReplyDeleteI was looking for an excuse to repost the song on F&M and there is the FA Trophy final and of course the FA Cup too.
An aside... I just watched the video on YouTube and between that one and their cover version of For What It's Worth (which I first heard being done by the Muppets, but I digress...) - they went through quite the transformation.
From fringe/baggy/Madchester to Oasis/Primal Scream style in the space of less than two years.
candyskins are (sortof) back, and are playing truck festival in oxford later this month...
ReplyDelete