Loop

An earlier version of The Wikipedia page for Loop sums the band's music up quite nicely for me: "Loop did not fit easily into any category but have variously classified as a shoegazers or indie rock band", but this has been changed to some piffle about "psychedelic/drone rock", which doesn't mean anything and lumps the band in with Spaceman 3, when to my ears they have more than a hint of Mudhoney about them. Still, each to their own.

What we can't deny is that for 5 or so years from the end of the 80s, Loop were turning out pretty decent "alternative" rock at a steady pace, appearing with John Peel and carrying out their indie roles with some aplomb.

Again, the wikipedia page provides some good background and there's a very nice discography here.

Once more I was turned on to this particular recording as it's a giveaway flexi disk from The Catalogue magazine (November/December 1988 for the completists) and I think my love of the flexi is well documented.

Anyway, enjoy Loop - Torched, as it's a cracking bit of dirty indie rock that doesn't really fit in with the jingly-jangly stuff I'd normally put on here, but what the hell; I'll make it up to you with some Catherines stuff soon...

Buy "A Gilded Eternity" by Loop

Eugenius

Another of your legendary Scottish indie bands today (Glasgow and Berkshire, the hotbeds of indie, you wouldn't bet on that would you?); with the wonderful and latterly-renamed Eugenius (due apparently to Marvel Comics being a tad miffed that the band were originally called "Captain America".

There's a really good Eugenius fansite here (again, it's Geocities, so get it while it's hot!) that gives us a really nice history of the band.

In 1987 Eugene along with Frances McKee joined to form the Vaselines in Edinburgh. The band also consisted of Eugene's brother, Charles, on drums and James Seenan on bass. The Vaselines dissolved in 1989 with the release of their first LP. In 1990, Eugene formed Captain America but was forced to change the name due to a possible copyright infringement suit by Marvel comics. Thereafter the band would become known as Eugenius. In Addition to Raymond Boyle and Roy Lawrence, Kelly borrowed Gordon Keen from the Bmx Bandits and Francis MacDonald from Teenage Fanclub to form the Eugenius line up. In 1994 Eugenius released their second album, Mary Queen of Scots. Following the Eugenius releases Eugene co-wrote "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" with Evan Dando and has appeared on several compilations and other collaborations. Eugene has now completed a solo album tentatively scheduled for release sometime in 2003.

So there's not much point in me going over old ground again, but suffice to say, the band were one of the great unfancied indie bands that, despite Kurt Cobain - out of Nirvana (you never hear about them any more do you!) - being a fan, they never really lived up to the expectations of the indie kids.

Still, Eugene Kelly was still banging out the tunes until pretty recently so at least some good came of it all. And here you are, the crux of the matter (well done for getting to the bottom of this) Eugenius - Easter Bunny. Enjoy. I did, I'd forgotten how good the band were.

Buy Oomalama by Eugenius

Carter USM

I have a confession to make. I fucking love Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. More than any other indie pop band, Carter are my absolute favourite. Don't get me wrong, The Family Cat and all the rest are the soundtrack to my jingly jangly youth, but Carter are my favourite by a long, long way.

So, it's taken me a long time to put them up here, not because they don't count, but because I wanted to wait and see how those rose-tinted memories stood up to the gigs that were played in Glasgow and London this year. I also wanted to make sure I could decide on an mp3 to put up here. Carter were my introduction to the world of indie pop. I remember vividly that I was on a coach back from a school trip somewhere and we stopped at a motorway service station. Being a bit of a sad bastard I didn't rush into the newsagents and buy a copy of Razzle like the hard kids did, I bought an NME. It had a review for 101 Damnations in it and it sounded to me like the greatest album ever produced. Of course, when I finally got to a shop to buy it and got it home, it was.

I'd hate to say that Carter changed my life, because that would be over-egging the pudding somewhat, but from then on I was hooked. I even grew a fringe like Jimbob - thank God there aren't any photos of that.

Over the next couple of years I saw them whenever I could. At least twice at the Poly in Huddersfield (I hope you've been paying attention, there's a quiz later on the support bands) and at the 1991 Reading Festival where, apart from the Sister's of Mercy and some no hopers called Nirvana, they were the best thing ever.

It's just a shame they weren't more fashionable. All the cool indie girls in their black and purple hoopy tights (you know you loved them!) went to Cud. Teenage Fanclub were the kings. Carter were my favourites. I don't care if I'm wrong.

Anyway, I decided. Much as Sheriff Fatman is the crowd pleaser and Only living Boy in New Cross is the big hit and After the Watershed is the one the Rolling Stones tried to ban and Bloodsport for All wasn't played on Radio 1 "because of the Iraq war", I had to go for Carter USM - Shopper's Paradise because when they played it at Brixton I had a smile a foot wide. This isn't the original Christmas special edition I'm afraid, just the one from 30 Something (admittedly a white label version :), but do you care? I don't. And I care even less that the photos have fucked the formatting on this.

Tell your kids, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Best indie band ever.

Perfume

So what do we know about Perfume? Well, after being made aware of their existence in the Blab Happy post back in the mists of time, what we know is summed up in the Wikipedia page dedicated to them:

When Blab Happy split up, singer/guitarist Mick McCarthy and bassist Tony Owen recruited John "Johnny Wadd" Waddington to form Perfume, initially releasing records on their own "Aromasound" label.

Their first releases was "Yoga" in December 1993. Second single "Young" (which was perfume-scented) appeared in April 1994. Third single "Lover" was picked up on by BBC Radio One DJ's Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley (the latter getting the band in to record a session for her show), and they toured with Gene, the band's profile rising as a result, leading to a minor (UK Top 75) hit in January 1996 with the single "Haven't Seen You".

That year's success saw them sign to Big Star Records, who reissued "Lover", to be followed by the debut album One in 1997. Perfume performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 1997. The band split later that year, with a posthumous "best of" compilation Yesterday Rising released in 1998.

And now thanks to our old friend Mr eBay, of course, we also know that this tune Perfume - Lover is a bang on bit of indie pop, very much in the Big Star label's vein of Teenage-Fanclubbery.

Resque

Now we're talking. For the first of this month's posts we have those excitable Reading based scamps Resque. Previously known to one and all as International Resque, the band dropped the first word sometime prior to this little offering: Resque - She Drives My Train.

There must be something in the water in Berkshire. Reading and Oxford seem to feature heavily in any list of indie pop home towns.

Resque toured extensively with Carter USM, which of course is where I was first introduced to them (specifically at a gig at Huddersfield Poly in probably 1991. It was in the Great Hall mind - ask your dads kids!); and it only took the first 30 seconds of this to remind me of their lovely jingly-jangly Beatlesesque pop offerings.

And of course, in 1993 or so after the band split, Wez, the Resque drummer was latterly recruited to the by-then slightly past it Carter to bolster the duo into a 'proper' band. It wasn't his fault...

There's a nice little fan site here for more information, but there's not much to be found about the band around the internet so I'm a bit at a loss I'm afraid. All stories welcome!

Thousand Yard Stare

You may not believe me, but I do have a kind of plan for where this page is going and what order I'm going to do stuff in. I've got a little notebook and everything (very reasonably priced, 79p from Sainsbury's). But then something comes along that makes me stop and shove something in that I'd forgotten about or was saving for later.

This is one of those times.

Partially because a chap called "cambridgemartin" linked to this blog from something called the Panic Club board and said it was great except for the upcoming band and partly because I'd forgotten that the featured mp3 is of one of my favourite football-metaphors-for-life records (right up there with Mathematically Safe by Half Man Half Biscuit). So ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for Thousand Yard Stare!

Hailing from the much-maligned industrial wastelands of Slough, Thousand Yard Stare banged out a succession of pure jingly-jangly indie pop EPs of the finest quality for four years or so in the early 1990s and were right up there in the pantheon of the country's finest exponents of energetic dancey sing-a-long music that we love so much.

This particular football-metaphor-driven ditty, Thousand Yard Stare - 0-0 AET featured the talents of Martin Bell of The Wonder Stuff on fiddle, topped the Indie music charts and even made its way onto the UK top 40 singles chart.

I'd forgotten just how good Thousand Yard Stare were and I'm sorry it took so long to get them in here; but it was all part of the masterplan. Promise.

Galaxie 500

I guess it should be pretty obvious that I'm a big fan of scratchy old indie records by now. What is probably less obvious is jus thow much I love flexi disks. A couple have snuck in already from The Family Cat and A House, and these are absolutely my favouritest things so far. It's pretty fair to say that if I had a load of money and nothing better to do then I'd get completely obsessed with them. Just take a look on ebay and see how much cool stuff there is.

Anyway, suffice to say when I found this combination of Galaxie 500 and top notch 'free off of a magazine' flexi disk I was as happy as happy can be. This particular flexi was given away with a magazine called "The Catalogue" which I have to admit I'm not familiar with and comes with another tune from a New Zealand band called "Straitjacket Fits".

Anyway, I digress. Galaxie 500 were part of the late 80s American shoegazing invasion and owe more than a nod (in this recording at least) to bands like Spaceman 3. For a couple of years the band swirled around the UK, banged out a Peel Session and made a lot of friends, not least Liz Phair who cited them as an influence. Unfortunately Rough Trade, their label, went bust in 1991 and that rather spelled the end of the band in the UK at least.

There's some really good stuff available here and an mp3 of the flexi here in all it's scratchy plasticky wonderousness - Galaxie 500 - Victory Garden.

Heavy Stereo

Ok, so this is going to be slightly different as it's more of a treasure hunt for information from anyone that can help.

What we have here is a a 1-sided 7" in a natty brown carboard sleeve with an insert promoting a few gigs, but that's it really. According to the only bits and bobs I can find about the internet it may well be a freebie sent out to fanclub members and is probably called "Mouse in a Hole", although during the warm up bit of the track the chap (presumably the aforementioned Gem) calls it "Tell Your Ma". The various copies on eBay seem to be being sold by people who don't know either.

I do know that Heavy Stereo were the stepping stone band for Gem Archer, current guitarist with the Oasis boys. I'm not too worried that this is edging into Brit Pop territory (shudder), as we've already had Ride and Andy Bell.

What I'd like to know is this: What is the bit of vinyl is pictured? Is it Mouse in a Hole? How did the fanclub get it? Is it a 5000-only limited run or similar? Did you see the band play?

I picked it up in a charity shop as it was right next to the first Sleeper EP (of which more later) and for a pound it seemed like a proper bargain. It's nice late-indie with a smattering of rock and more than a hint of the Oasis sound.

So this is the mp3 of it Heavy Stereo, but what?, help!

Bang Bang Machine

I was reminded of Bang Bang Machine when I was doing the Catherine Wheel post down there, so had to rush off to ebay and spend some hard earned (well, adsense-earned) cash on this particular 12". Partially because it turns out it was one of the last records the band released, partially because it was released in 1995 and that's the first missing year from the 90s in this blog so far, but mostly because it's an absolute cracker of a record.

So who were Bang Bang Machine? Well, they were only Worcestershire's finest purveyors of the indie-pop, jingly-jangly, shoe-gazing type of music that we all know and love. Actually, that's a bit unfair; the band experimented with various musical styles from proper indie pop to grunge to, well, goth really and towards the end of their existence firmly fell into the Brit Pop category.

The band's indie pop pedigree can't be denied of course, a Peel session and number 1 in the 1992 Festive 50 above such lumiaries as Pavement, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Wedding Present, Sonic Youth and The Fall attest to that, and if you've got a copy of Geek Love (said number 1) on CD, then that's worth about £20 on ebay to you guv!

There's a nice unoffical site here and for your listening pleasure, here is Bang Bang Machine - Breathless.

I think this post is going to be one of those where everyone remebers far more about the band than I do. This is probably due to an excess of snakebite in the early 1990s than anything, so please fill in the gaps!

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...