Midway Still

I guess this blog thing is called what it is because Midway Still are up there with the greatest of the early 90s indie pop bands. More directly it's called what it is because I was in the pub with my mate Rich and he made some lucid and forceful point about early 90s indie pop bands by tapping his finger rather too hard on the table and making his conclusion by saying "you've got to remember this stuff, because Midway Still aren't coming back!"; or words to that effect.

Really it was more the point that noone remembers these bands and noone wants their vinyl any more (well, except me), but he could have used any of the bands listed so far, or those that are coming - and let me tell you, I'm looking forward to Kitchens of Distinction...

Anyway, Midway Still, as it turns out, capture everything that was good about indie in 1992. The music is jaunty and happy, the words are apparently carefree but turn out to be well written when listened to. And most of all, they sound like Teenage Fanclub who in turn, of course, are just a Big Star covers band.

And this is a good thing. Here's their biography from the Fire Records site:

Taking their muse from Husker Du, Midway Still have described their music as being just the noise and tunes of a punk rock band into The Byrds and The Beatles. Yet their power-chord melodies catch classic strains of The Who and the Jam and in another era, they would have made a great mod band.

So even the band and their label admit it. Sort of. (The wonders of Fire Records is another project all in itself of course).

But the point for me is, sort of, that they epitomise the 90s music that I loved and want to remember here; listen, if you will, to this offering ("Midway Still - Better Than Before") a couple of times and tell me you're not singing along and tapping your feet, yearning for those happy days of snakebite and cheap roll-ups at the student disco.

As a footnote: Midway Still did of course make a brief comeback last year in London to celebrate the life of the late Darren 'Wiz' Brown, erstwile Mega City Four singer/guitarist.

PS. Arse, Mega City Four. I'd forgotten about them...

Buy the Best of Midway Still

A House

That's right, it's flexi-disk time once again! This one courtesy of Irish indie funsters A House. formed in the mid-80s, once more this is a tale of not living up to potential; the band never hit the big time as was hoped, with "Endless Art" - an indie disco favourite nonetheless - the only release to even think about possibly trouble the chart compilers.

The band's wikipedia entry suggests that they were signed to some big labels (Parlophone, Setanta, Blanco y Negra, MCA), and also suggests that the band are still going, but there's not a lot of information around. Mind you, that's not why you're here...

The flexi pictured and featured was apparently sent to their fan club members in the Christmas of 1992. I don't remember being a member of the fan club, but there's the flexi with my name and address on, so I must have been. Drinking in Manchester in the early 1990s was a dangerous thing for the impressionable and gullible music fan like myself.

A House - Slang

Five Thirty

More jingly-jangly 1991 indie pop piffle today with Oxford's Five Thirty. Those of you keeping track will note the similarities between this band and those other monsters of shoe-gazing Ride - it was all floppy hair and wailing guitars round Oxfordshire in those days. And boy did we love it.

Not as popular as their local counterparts, Five Thirty relocated to London to try and make it in the big city. Unfortunately they failed to trouble the chart compilers in their brief existence (1985ish-1992), but they did produce some good old screaming and gnashing guitar music.

It's suggested that they were years before their time and the band would have made more of an impact in the Britpop years, but we've seen it before; another band unfairly doomed to the obscurity of indiepop completist's record collections and fading memories of simpler times.

Once more this is from a promo bit of vinyl - funny how those are the ones that survive so well: Five Thirty - You.

As it's now the 21st century and nothing gets to lie in state quietly and somberly, let's visit Youtube again:

World of Twist

I'll admit that I had to have a good rummage around on the internet to refresh my memories of World of Twist. 1990 was a bit early for me to be getting into the Madchester "baggy" scene that gave us the Happy Mondays. Fortunately, later experimentation with living in Manchester brought it to my full attention - need less to say two years too late. Then of course, further experimentation with snakebite and recreational drugs rather dulled my memories for these later years.

Anyway. Originally formed in the mid-80s and re-invented in 1989/1990, World of Twist were yet another highly-regarded band that never quite made it as big as they should have. Although feted by Alan McGee of Creation Records as better then Pulp, creative differences (that old chestnut) and generally poor critical and pubic reception of their debut album saw them split after only a couple of years.

Sadly the best bit of guff I could find about the band comes from the Guardian's obituary of the band's frontman Tony Ogden:

World of Twist's style fused glam-rock sensibilities with pulsating psychedelic pop, dazzling sell-out crowds at the Manchester Ritz, London Astoria and Sheffield Leadmill. An eccentric fusion of high- and low-tech visuals featuring spinning cut-out heads of the band's members, pyrotechnics and fake fur was the backdrop to Tony's magnetic presence, darkly handsome in sleek-fitting clothes.

However, their singles, including Sons of the Stage (1990), adopted by Oasis as their opening live number, and described by BBC radio's Mark Riley as "one of the greatest songs of all time", failed to break into the top 40. Their only album, Quality Street (1991), featuring Ogden on the cover in a soldier's uniform looking like Terence Stamp in Far From the Madding Crowd, disappointed critics, fans and the band alike.

Radio 1 sessions for John Peel and Mark Goodyear came closer to capturing the sound and energy of their live presence.

So, enjoy this offering: World of Twist - The Storm.

It's not the famous naked cover of "Sons of the Stage", but it is a cracker nonetheless.

Also on YouTube!

HX2

Bit of a mystery this one. A band called HX2 who must have been from Halifax although I'll be honest and admit I don't remember anything about them.

A chance conversation reminded me that I said I'd put this up and I've finally got around to doing it. I remember getting the 12" white label from my mate Simon, and it even says on it "Happy Birthday", but beyond that it's a bit of a puzzle.

Still, it's pretty good early 90s indiepop and even better it's as rare as rocking horse poo. A white label 12" from a small band in West Yorkshire.

So, this is HX2 - Good Times, enjoy. And if you know anything about the band then let me know.

PS, I've just realised that that's Kylie on the picture (which is of the sticker that was on the sleeve); curiouser and curiouser.

Madder Rose

"Do you really need anymore of this shit?" asked the good lady wife as a Madder Rose 10" maxi-single dropped through the letter box courtesy of Mr eBay.

Fighting back the urge to say "Yes, I need all of this 'shit' as you so delicately put it; because if I don't remember Madder Rose then who will?" I simply put the kettle on and began to explain at length how important proper indie pop was before Blur got all wanky and invented "BritPop". That soon sent here to sleep.

So, Madder Rose then. Turns out they were an American band. It also turns out that the word "twee" is used an awful lot when describing them. They've got a brief page on Wikipedia and John Peel let them do a session (presumably whilst high on ether) and Rolling Stone magazine of all publications says:

As rock & roll teeters on the edge of the millennium, dream pop has swirled onto the music scene. It's as if the global psyche were dividing: the brutality of grunge or the buttercup sighs of the Cranberries, the Sundays, Frente! and Slowdive. But the alloy of the two sounds is most compelling...

Which tells you nothing. Still, it's very nice and in the interests of archiving the early 90s, here it is:

Madder Rose - Panic On

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.

Teenage Fanclub

At last! A bit of plastic that's worth more now than when I bought it. Teenage Fanclub's cover version of The Ballad of John and Yoko, released for one day only in 1990 on one-sided 7 inch single; by crikey if it's not worth about 20 of your British Pounds Sterling today.

Of course records are deleted all the time and it was always a good way of picking up a few extra sales back in the good old days, but there's only 5000 copies of this particular single in existence. See, 5000 copies.

Teenage Fanclub are still going of course, but in the early 90s the "fannies" were the epitome of indie-pop. I've seen them live a couple of times back in the dark ages and Bandwagonesque is still one of my favourite albums from those halcyon days. It's dated now of course, but it only takes the first couple of seconds of Star Sign to get me up and dancing around my living room.

Here you go, a nice scratchy (and one of only 5000 copies in existence) vinyl mp3 of Teenage Fanclub - Ballad of John and Yoko.

Lush

Now I remember Lush being around much earlier, and a quick wander round Wikipedia suggests that this single - Ladykillers - is actually the band's penultimate release; funny how your memory plays tricks.

So, the official story is: British shoegazing band, formed 1998, featuring Steve Rippon, Emma Anderson, Chris Acland and Miki Berenyi.

It's probably Miki that chaps of a certain age will remember most fondly. Apart from the jolly old indie pop that Lush could bang out on occasion, Miki was the way to a young man's heart in the early 90s. Part-Japanese, Part-Hungarian, all lovely.

We should also remember that sadly, Chris Acland the band's drummer committed suicide in late 1996 at the age of just 30.

This is the Ladykillers, jolly sing-along britpop jangleyness in its pomp. Recorded from the 1996 green vinyl 7" single. Enjoy.

Lush - Ladykillers

Jesus Jones

There was quite a fashion in the early 1990s for 'indie dance' music; along with Jesus Jones, bands like EMF, The Shamen and Pop Will Eat Itself were plying their trade around the indie discos and concert circuit and were making quite a name for themselves.

Jesus Jones were the next big thing. Again big in Japan, they also had not inconsiderable success in the USA; something few English bands manage at the best of times, and something usually reserved for middle-of-the-road cobblers.

Info Freako was the band's first EP and it's still as good today as it was then. A grinding, shouting, emotive primal scream of a record. The 12" was originally something of a rarity and at the height of their fame a copy would set you back £15 if you could find one. I know this because my mate Will bought one (from Vinyl Exchange in Manchester I think) as he was convinced Jesus Jones were going to be the next U2.

They weren't of course and you can now pick up a copy for £3 off ebay. And you should. It's fantastic. I've listened to this track 10 times in a row today and it still sounds as good.

Jesus Jones - Info Freako