Candyskins

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

Chapterhouse

I'm afraid I've not got any snow-related pop to hand, so in the meantime, how about some Chapterhouse?

Sneaking in (and often lumped in) with the shoegazing boys, Chapterhouse were much more than just another raggle taggle bunch of floppy-haired chaps, these Reading-based boys knew how to put together a swooping bit of indie dance-cum-pop that is vaguely reminiscent of the mid-90s MegaDog-style world dance nonsense that I'll admit I had a brief flirtation with; but again, they're much more than that.

As usual there's a wikipedia page but there's actually a dearth of fansites about, which is pretty unusual for a band that made a fair impact in their time. But the background is that half a dozen fellas from Reading put together a band and, instead of just banging out a demo tape and disappearing, toured extensivly with such luminaries as Spaceman 3 until they were good enough to release records - not something you could really imagine happening these days!

Most of the band's releases came out in 1990 and 1991, but they hung around until 1993 at least, still touring, still putting out a bit here and there, then finally splitting and shuffling off to join other bands. Later on Cherry Red re-released some of their stuff and there was a brief reformation at the 2008 Truck Festival.

So, how would you like to hear Chapterhouse - She's a Vision? I thought as much.



And you can buy the reissued debut album Whirlpoolhere, should you so wish.

Salad

It's double-request-post Wednesday today. Starting off with Salad, another band with that indiest of things, an attractive lady singer.

Formed in 1992, the band consisted of Dutch vocalist/keyboardist Marijne van der Vlugt, bassist Pete Brown, drummer Rob Wakeman (not Rick Wakeman as it took me three goes to work out) and guitarist Paul Kennedy. The band were bulked up for live outings by Charley Stone (latterly of Gay Dad).

Again, I'll keep it short as there's a load of information on wikipedia and a nice little collection of rareities and B-sides on myspace which tells us that the band...

"released three full-length [albums] - 1995's Drink Me, the same year's Singles Bar, and 1997's Icecream - before breaking up in the late '90s. Despite being part of the Britpop scene in terms of sound, they never quite received the same amount of attention given to their peers."

And they certainly don't; this offering Salad - Kent is a cracking bit of swirly-waily indie pop. And it's a great addition to this place.

Intastella

Back to early 1990s Manchester again today with Intastella, a great band that produced some really good, swooping, atmospheric pop and were unfairly lumped in with the Madchester crap that was kicking about at the time.

Another one with not much about unfortunately, but we do know that the band were formed in 1991, consisted of members Stella Grundy, Martin Wright, Martin Mittler, Spencer Birtwistle and Lil' Anthony (Anthony Green), released a load of great singles and three albums and live on in myspace. As they say themselves, they

"made music we liked and created music we had not heard before. Although we were inspired by some Manchester bands, we never tryed to sound like any of them. We wanted to make pop music."

The bit of music we're going to have today is this, Intastella - Point Hope, a magic bit of indie pop.

There's an interview on the BBC Manchester bit of the internet here and if you've got more money than sense, you can buy their best of here.

World of Leather

The only thing the internet knows about the best band ever named after a sofa shop, World of Leather seems to be on the once more invaluable Trouserpress site; which says:

"British power pop auteur Tot Taylor is the man behind the throne in the World of Leather, a merry band floating around Liverpool singer/guitarist Mark Chase...[the band] were a bizarre glam-pop extravaganza that credits a couple of drummers and as many as eight (!) guitarists on a single track."

And it's true I've got their first two singles here, and World of Leather (below) has six guitarists, five vocals and three violins credited; the second Future Ex-Pop Star has eight guitarists and, wonderfully, two drummers; a quick Google brings up a couple of ex-members around: Ray Weston, drums and Paul Cuddeford, guitar.

They came to my notice care of a drunken weekend in that indiest of cities, Oxford, via my friend Paul who was at one point either their manager or PR man or similar. He also had something to do with The Gigolo Aunts back in the day. He told me a story about how he'd got them a gig somewhere in Kilburn and the band had paid a couple of my other chums £5 each and all they could drink in exchange for working the smoke machine.

Of course, they took "all you can drink" as a challenge, so when it came to doing the smoke they just left it blowing full blast and filled the whole place with a thick smog. People walking through kilburn that night tell of vast clouds drifting down the road, obscuring the pavements, causing busses to crash and bringing back memories of the famous London pea-soupers.

Anyway, this offering World of Leather - World of Leather is a bloody marvellous bit of indie/power/glam/rock pop and more than deserves a mention here.

I'll admit that I'm breaking my own rules a bit and it's from a CD, not a bit of vinyl so I hope you'll forgive me. But as a) it's so good it needs remembering, b) WoL don't seem to have released anything on vinyl and c) they're my rules to break so nuts, I'm going to put it on.

Do bands still use smoke machines? They were very indie...

PS, I forgot to say, the song is off a limited 500 run of the CD and there's still loads of WoL stuff on Amazon, much for as little as 1 pence.

The Sedgwicks

A more than mysterious band here; The Sedgwicks were, as far as I can tell, from Kent, released two singles in 1992 or possibly 1993 and disappeared without trace. Having said that of course, I can only find any trace of the Stolen Smiles EP that this track, the eponymous The Sedgwicks - Stolen Smiles comes from.

It's a cracking bit of jingly-jangly and I'd love to know more about the band, so sorry this is a bit short, i'm kind of hoping anyone who stumbles across this knows more than the internet does; plus it's been a hectic month and I've not had the time to sit down and do anything that passes for research!

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.

Swervedriver

Often cruelly lumped in with the shoegazers of this world, Swervedriver were yet another Oxford four-piece with a hint of the Rides about them but they sounded far more, well, grungey really, than the other Moose-and-chums bands.

The band debuted in 1990 with the classic Son of Mustang Ford EP (they had reportedly been signed to Creation after their pals Ride passed a demo tape to Alan McGee), banged out more cracking EPs over the next couple of years and played some pretty big venues (Manchester's GMEX for example) at their peak.

There's a really good fansite here which tells the story far more eloquently than I can here; so much so I feel like I'm cheating putting the band on here, but I've had a couple of requests for scratchy mp3s so here we go.

The band are planning a reunion tour for 2008, to cash in on their enduring popularity. If you can't wait until then, here's Swervedriver - Duel, it's got a sound to it I can't place and reminds me of something that's on the tip of my tongue, something that will no doubt come back to me, maybe it's a bit Molly Half Head. Maybe not.

And as I've not put one of these in for a while, here's a youtube video of the same song.


Also, you'll have to excuse me I'm having real problems with the template so the font keeps changing size and I've cocked up all the links. If anyone is a whizz at these things and wants to help, please let me know!

Buy music by Swervedriver

Sleeper

Do Sleeper count as a forgotten indie band? You'll have to decide for yourselves on that; but what isn't in doubt is that their debut single release, the Alice EP, is as indie as they come because it's rare are hens' teeth and well, how to put this kindly..? It's not very good.

No, that's unfair. The single is classic "trying to be indie" before finding out what they were actually good at material and for that reason alone needs recording here. In fact before Sleeper became the BritPop behemoth that we all know and love*, they put out three less-than-well-received EPs between 1993 and 1994. What they then became of course is the classic belt 'em out sing-alongs like "What do I do now?" and "Inbetweener", so let's enjoy this single for what it is (and fondly remember Louise Wener).

What this bit of vinyl also is, is a single that the band had to release as Sleeper UK as there was a far more famous (hmmm...) American band of the same name and as is the way with these things (Verve UK anyone?) they had to chose an alternative name. And of course went on to be far more popular then their erstwhile American namesakes.

This vinyl is limited to 1800 copies according to the internet (although, confusingly it's listed as limited to 5000 copies on the same site); having said that there seems to be some confusion about whether this particular version was ever released at all.

Well, as it's a new year I'm not going to split hairs, again if anyone can clear up what's going on with versions and what-was-released-as-what I'd be more than happy to know. And here is Sleeper - Alice in Vain from the limited edition or non-existent Sleeper debut EP.

Oh and Happy New Year! Santa and his little elves brought me loads of requests and names of new bands to hunt down so between me and Mr eBay I reckon we can carry this piffle on for a while yet!

Buy Sleeper's Greatest Hits

BMX Bandits

If ever there was a Scottish indie-pop super group, then it's these chaps, the BMX Bandits. Containing, in no particular order or time frame, members of Teenage Fanclub, The Soup Dragons, Arab Strap and Eugene Kelly out of Captain America/Eugenius, not only do the group give me loads more names that I'd forgotten to include, but it also provides a collection of some of the most talented musicians of the generation - and all are from a little bit of Scotland near Glasgow.

The problem of course with putting up such a well-regarded, if not particularly commecially-successful band is that there are lots of places around the web for them, probably the best being The unoffical tribute to the BMX Bandits.

A quick delve into Wikipedia shows just how influential the band were:

"Oasis did their first UK tour dates supporting the Bandits as a favour from Stewart to Creation label boss Alan McGee. BMX Bandits admirers include Kurt Cobain who was famously photographed wearing a BMX Bandits T shirt as he had been wearing T shirts of Daniel Johnston and Captain America (later renamed Eugenius) and Cobain claimed on a New York radio show that if he could be in any other band it would be BMX Bandits."

So, rather than go over too much old ground, here's BMX Bandits - Little Hands and a picture of Nicole Kidman (see also this page) in the Australian film of the same name...


Oh yes, and needless to say the bit of vinyl pictures above is a promo only copy retrieved from some record fair bargain bin in the mid-90s in the vain hope it would be worth something...

Catherine Wheel

You don't get much in the way of rock and roll from Great Yarmouth; it's not your hot bed of music like Manchester or Liverpool. Granted that bloke out of sub-van Halen cover band The Darkness was from that neck of the woods, but apart from him, the only real contributers to music - and certainly the only ones we're interested in, were Catherine Wheel.

Formed in 1990, the band had Bruce (off of Iron Maiden) Dickinson's cousin on guitar; Fortunately for all of us however, he was far more interested in swooping shoegaze feedback and vocals than cod-metal.

In true indie style, the band split in the mid-90s, then reformed to chance their arms in the indie-revival of 2000, before finally calling it a day and going their separate ways.

The official website now redirects to newer bands, but this list of their gigs suggests that they toured extensively. And I've a nasty feeling I saw them at the Boardwalk in Manchester being supported by Bang Bang Machine; but I can't be 100% as they appear to have played the city a lot in the years I was there so it might have been upstairs at the Hop & Grape with someone even less famous...

Check wikipedia for more information and listen to Catherine Wheel - Crank. It's very good and true to form, I've got a "not for resale" 12" version of the single. Of course, "not for resale" these days means "cheap off of ebay".

Molly Half Head

Hands up who remembers Molly Half Head? No, me either really; beyond a vague recollection of seeing them supporting somebody when I was at university; possibly somebody like Babes in Toyland but possibly not. It might have been at the Boardwalk in Manchester, of course it might not have been.

Still, they're a band that lie there on the outskirts of memory and so deserve to be "remembered" here.

This is lifted from TrouserPress.com which has turned out to be an invaluable resource in my indie wanderings:

"This Manchester quartet, whose complex arrangements and skewed pseudo-poetry have roots in the members' avant-noise origins, produce an intricate and original post-punk roar. But despite superior instrumental chops, it's singer Paul Bardsley who remains front and center. Second only to Mark E. Smith in the Potentially Annoying Vocal Affectation Pantheon, Bardsley is fond of pronouncing almost all of his consonants as z's. That idiosyncrasy aside, Sulk is a revelation. Moody yet muscular, it manages to blend the tuneful dynamics of grunge with Bardsley's Smith-like inscrutable dada-esque scribblings ("Green hits a hole that just about buries me/Peeling spuds was taking five/Sad therapy? No."). The domestic blisters of "Barny" and the scarily obsessive "Taste of You" highlight a stunningly assured debut filled with songs that try to say something in a way only some listeners are likely to understand.

The more challenging sophomore effort, co-produced by Craig Leon, rocks harder as Bardsley waxes even less intelligibly (imagine a drunken Zima pitchman singing the lines "In grimstitch snortel form you can't be nursed/It's time to learn to take your soup with fork"). Here's one band for which lyric sheets are mandatory — if all but useless.

After the end of Molly Half Head, Bardsley and his songwriter partner, Phil Murphy, formed a band called Wireless."

So, this is "Barny" and as you can see from the photo it's on limited edition one-sided vinyl; my early 90s obsession with future rarities catching up with me again - paid £3 in 1993, still worth £3 today.

Looking back it occurs to me that lots of bands were paint-by-numbers indie pop like this. Of course that's the whole point of what I'm doing here and I still love it to this day.

The attached (for your enjoyment) mp3 is exactly that; a genuine example of what the indie bands were doing just after acid started to rot in the corner and before grunge really took hold.

If anyone is reading this and has a really good story about the band (or any other band for that matter) let me know.

Molly Half Head - Barny (it cuts off a little early, I think there's a scratch right at the end of the groove - still, shows it's vinyl I guess).

Further to the comment below from "anonymous", have the video for Barny. I guess as he/she says it is a bit Oasis, but it's also one of those "walking up the road" videos and features a fantastic jacket and haircut combination. It also look slike it's been recorded off the tv with a handheld video camera which means that watching it makes you a criminal and those people that show their advert before films at the pictures are coming to get you.

New Fast Automatic Daffodils

Ahh Manchester, you gave us so much and demanded far more than it was worth in return. New FADS (I'm so cool I can call them that, that's what the hip kids did) released their first EP "Lions" in 1989; riding the Madchester wave into the NME and our hearts.

Lions, Big and Stockholm are great bits of music. Lions and Stockholm are the rocky-dancey-indie stuff we know and love, Big is a quite fantastic bit of early 90s almost dance music that's up there with Primal Scream's Loaded for invention and genuine novelty in the true sense of the word. They just don't write them like that any more, and more's the pity.

I remember getting this bit of vinyl. I was after a gig in the Students' Union at Manchester University in, I presume, 1993. They played in what used to be called the Great Hall and is now called the Academy 6 or something. You remember, upstairs by the big bar, the one that sold snakebite for somewhere between £1 and £1.15 a pint depending on whether the barman was a maths student or was "doing art" and couldn't add up properly.

I can't remember if I bought it or they were giving it away,but it's got two lovely live recordings on it and has a big hole in the middle - like the one old jukebox vinyl used to have - and it got me rummaging in the cupboard again for the plastic inster thingy that you need to play it on a record player.

CDs just don't have that excitement. Apart from the short-lived flirtation with 3.5" mini-CDs when the techonology was all new and exciting, they just don't have the interest value of trying to find a bit of plastic you know you've got somewhere just so you can listen to another bit of plastic you'd forgotten you owned. Can you imagine your Take That boxset being quite as thrilling in 15 years time?

So; here is Lions (Live) for your delight and delectation. According to the back of the sleeve it was recorded live at the Melkweg, Amsterdam, 29th November 1992 [FAD01; Play it Again Sam (1993) for john Peel-esque obsessives] and the other side is "Bruises".

Amazingly this bit of vinyl commands prices of almost 8 US dollars on the internet. Think of it, if only I dared part with it I could be rich! Please don't tell me what the exchange rate really is. Nice people to do business with.

The Family Cat

Back in the mists of time, people used to play music from big chunks of plastic called "records". These came in various shapes and sizes, although most were round and 7 or 10 inches in diameter. To play them you put them onto a "record player" and they span round while a little needle wiggled merrily in tiny grooves cut into the plastic (commonly called vinyl).

Anyway, as I as rooting through the cupboard we store all our crap that we don't know what to do with I found what is pictured above.

It's a demo flexi-disk sent out to members of the fan club of a band called The Family Cat.

The Family Cat (this link goes to Wikipedia) were an early 1990s indie pop band. They never really made it big, but had a modest and dedicated following of which I was one.

The letter that came with the record says "You have in your hand the first fruits of these labours [recording their new album] "Rockbreaking" was recorded at 3:30am on a tape recorder with a dodgy pause button and it's in this state of the art format that [the record company] have decided to present it to you: Guaranteed one play of passable quality. "Sneaky" Pete Charlton the band's fence advises taping this historic first play for posterity and using the disc to line the cat tray". The envelope is postmarked 23rd April 1993.

Using the miracle of 21st century technology one can, should one wish, convert ancient bits of vinyl to those new-fangled mp3s so that people can listen to them on their "ipods". So, in the spirit of preserving a once 'great' British band (and seeing as nobody 'tapes' music any more, here is the aforementioned flexi-disk in all it's digital glory. Of course, since it's from original plastic there's crackles and in once place a small jump of the needle, but it's here for you to remember the band by, or learn of them afresh.

Right click here to download. Of course, I understand hosting this for download is technically illegal, if any of the band want me to take it down I will; In the meantime, share it with your friends.