Jack

Feel like remembering some of the great orchestral indie pop bands of the mid and late 90s.

I rediscovered Animals That Swim not so long ago, as written about here. Whipping Boy have been a constant favourite. Now I'm recalling the band Jack. I collected a couple of singles/EPs over the years, and certain songs made it onto compilation tapes often. There are various distinctive song titles I recall, and hearing more of their songs on Youtube, I'm easily transported back to my teenage bedroom, half expecting Steve Lamacq to chirp in with a back announcement on the radio...

What a gloriously sophisticated sounding, lyrical, romantic lot Jack produced. There was an otherworldliness to their songs, hearing them as a teen who was yet to start going out... picturing Parisian style cafes of London, suave, bookish people, dimly lit clubs playing debonair songs of the 60s, dramatic romances, that sort of stuff...

Looking back, it's pretty criminal that it was the likes of Rialto that were having hits and primetime TV championing. Passable pop rather than seriously good songwriting... standing up as a 

a bit indie boyband and lightweight in comparison. Ditto with the likes of My Life Story having repeat comeback concerts and reminisces in recent years... I quite liked them, but they were nothing like as soaring, mature, dreamy, literary. Introspection mixed with unaffected grandeur, Jack were one of those perfect indie bands.

Early on new year's day, I played some old tapes, and found myself feeling a pang of poignancy, hearing 1963 by New Order. It is one of the songs that bridged the way from commercial dance music to more guitar based stuff for me, as a young teen. Essentially, going from, say, MC Sar and the Real McCoy to The Smiths!

I got transported back to January 1995, and my absorption in the single as its video played on The ITV Chart Show. I don't remember the video being quite so quirky (it stars Jane Horrocks larking about), but I do know that the tune was one that had me heading to the music shop straight after the TV show, to buy the single. And I still have it, on tape. The cover is ace:

I seldom write blogs harking back with nostalgia, but I think this year will inescapably remind me of the magical year I started to discover a good deal of the bands that would mean so much to me. I find myself reflecting on how odd it was in 1995 for me as a provincial (and female) 14 year old to be listening to stuff like Billy Bragg, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, Mega City Four, Joy Division, Members, 80s synth pop, obscure early 90s indie outfits... I would unearth all this music through borrowing from the local library, raiding my aunty's compilations, reading music books and magazines, listening to 'retro' radio, secondhand record shops, market stalls with bootlegs... 

It was weird to be young and yet be heading backwards in time, then, and in an unprompted way: rare. Whereas now, it's taken for granted, with all that's available online, everything's reassessed and everything up for grabs. Back then, at my school, there were either dance fans (Helter Skelter, Nicky Blackmarket, Dreamscape, rave), or metaller kids (Iron Maiden, or Nirvana), and in between, just your current chart pop fans. I was totally alone in my corduroy flares, velvet suit jacket and Nick Drake tape from the charity shop. But this was what was to come... the borrowing from the past, the music revivals, the reissues, the album special gigs. I didn't know it then but what The Stone Roses' second coming, and then Pulp, Blur and Oasis and the like did for indie guitar music, in making it mainstream and entwined in popular culture and fashion was the beginning of all that, and nowadays, looking back to previous decades is more the norm. In general with all music, not much is left unearthed, left to the alternative or to the dusts of time...

I remember how ethereal Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen seemed to me at that age, when I saw the video on TV:

It's just nice to think back fondly to how otherworldly it all seemed to me, and how secret it all felt, how I was almost enjoyably alienated in this sepia musical world that I could only find scant traces of, that I really had to dig around to discover, because there was no easy click of a computer button and instant access to history and details. I spent a long time listening to The Cure, for example, without any idea of what the band looked like. The only way I could obtain a poster of Robert Smith was later when I got my dad to photocopy an album sleeve, as borrowed from the library. Of course, the following year, they made a return to the fore, and I could live in the present moment, even see the band live, and meet Robert Smith himself...

I was muddling through and finding my own way independently, without any guidance or notions. I went out on a limb, and I actually had more in common musically with my 40 year old music teacher, who used to daub Fall lyrics on the whiteboard of a morning, and hum Smiths songs. It was more likely that any taping of albums I wanted was done via my dad's mate at work (in his 40s), than via anyone of my own age (Blackmarket Clash comes to mind).

So perhaps kids are luckier now, in a sense, as archive stuff is much more easily accessible and distributed... and widely welcomed.... But I still cannot help but feel a kind of warm romance to think back to my clandestine discoveries, my grappling with the unknown, and my mixed up music fandom, and all my delight within, all the same.

The Pop Guns, at The Borderline, 22nd November, 2014

The buoyant return of The Pop Guns was one of my favourite gigs in recent months. I was familiar with a couple of records and a flexi disc care of my boyfriend, who is a long time fan. Waiting for The Winter was the song I knew best: melancholy in sentiment yet soaringly bright, hopeful pop. I was looking forward to seeing the band who'd hit their stride in one of my cherished periods for indie (the start of the 90s).

I was also thrilled to take the chance to get over to the Borderline off the Charing Cross Road in London - one of very few gig venues remaining in that once thriving area. We've just lost the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street, and we were forced to say goodbye to the once dependable, pivotal Astoria and LA2, as well as the fantastic basement bar Metro (indie club extraordinaire + spotlight for new bands). The Borderline was a great choice for gathering the band's original fans, as well as new ones, in an atmosphere akin to a student union circa the 90s. Big 80s pop hits played as we waited, mixed in with new wave bands like The Go Gos, and the Buzzcocks.

As soon as Wendy Pickles and band stepped on stage, their sense of jubilance to be playing together for a crowd could be warmly felt. If memory serves, it was City Lights, the opener to their newest album that dazzled us first. Bold, strident, twinkling and tuneful, it felt like a well-worn favourite. Lovejunky had a similar effect, so immediately catchy, kinetic and smoothly sung. It's a song worthy of indie club playlisting and delighted dancing.

Wendy's singing was complemented with brilliant effect by Kate Mander - 60s girl band backing style, or lending strength with joint lead. This had resonance with me, as this sort of female-led, jaunty, jangy, guitar pop is all too rare in current times, and we need more. There simply hasn't arrived a new female indie singer who is equivalent to Wendy Pickles or, say, Amelia Fletcher, another longstanding indie great. At times, I found it hard not to be reminded of the great Amelia Fletcher. Wendy too has the knack of singing with a full, genuine smile, which only makes the Pop Guns' songs seem all the more gleeful, giddy, model pop, much like Amelia's many ace bands over the years, Tender Trap/Marine Research/Heavenly/Talulah Gosh.

Waiting for the Winter was received with appreciative ebullience by the audience. Pleasant heckles about 80s and 90s Pop Gun gig memories came along with other older songs.

I ought to add that the Pop Guns are not typically sensitive, gentle, jangly indie pop -there is a real sense of punk influence at work, which thrives when played live. Guitars are as threshing, thrashing as the Buzzcocks. At times, The Pop Guns are more akin to the heavier moments of The Wedding Present than anything from Sarah Records.

But, given there is also the reminiscence of Amelia Fletcher and jangly indie pop, it did come as a huge surprise to witness an encore that night of Wendy Morgan expertly rapping (!) A Tribe Called Quest's hot song, Can I Kick It....! She sang an unfaltering version of the 90s novelty hip hop song. It was the perfect bit of pre-Christmas fun. It turns out the band recorded it as a B-Side years ago.

I don't bother much with thinking about albums of the year type lists, but Pop Fiction by Pop Guns was a highlight of 2014. It lends memories of that perfect indie pop from the early 1990s, but also sounds very now, and is very essential, emotional, confident pop. The charcoal drawn album cover also gives smitten delight:

Animals That Swim, Pullover, Abuse fanzine, and the spirit of 90s indie

Thoroughly enjoying creased up old issues of Abuse indie fanzine from the mid 90s lately - tatty old, black and white Xeroxed pages, heavy on typed cut and paste text and messily pasted backgrounds, only one staple in the top left-hand corner - nostalgia!

I remembered Animals That Swim again, and put them on as I read the fanzines, excited as a kid at Christmas. I bought one single at the time. But I do have one album that I came across in more recent years, the one that has the brilliant Faded Glamour on it, a classic indie song.




Their album Workshy sounds fantastic too. Particularly enjoy Pink Carnations (maybe ignoring the lyric about the big white turkey) and Smooth Steps. I miss that sophisticated, lyrical, wistful kind of indie that the 1990s produced a lot of. Whipping Boy and Jack were other bands of that ilk, also sadly missed by me.



I also marvelled at a Pullover interview in Abuse fanzine, as few shards of this sublime pop band survive. I have written about Pullover in the paper 'zine of this blog, they are a sadly lost, forever-to-be-treasured, indie-pop band of the mid 90s. I am still besotted with their pop songs, and I cherish the 7" singles of theirs that I have. I felt a bit of a pang to see the band's home address (a flat in Camden - but they're back in Manchester now, I think) 18 years too late. And the fanzine editor had a demo tape of their album - never released, to this day - which I really do not wish to exit the world without ever hearing!

Reading about the 90s indie gig scene again feels strange. It seems like such a small world now. And the spirit so different - the unabashed enthusiasm and rallying for little bands and challenging the music press status quo. Also the power that fanzines had to make new bands - they were useful and focal outlets and bands took the writers seriously as such forces for the good. The internet and digital music and all that goes with it - plus the lack of power/centrality to any kind of music press now - make things so much bigger, more out-there, less defined; not to mention how carefully corporate and hegemonic things have become in that dilution process. Even just reading about it now, in those battered, photocopied pages, it gives a real sense of how it felt like a community, one big exuberant party, involving a small number of specific little scrappy venues, that we'll never see the like of again.

Currently playing

1. Neko Case: Man

I heartily recommend Neko Case's recent album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I love You. The song Man seems to send a nice anti-macho message with lyrics from different gendered perspectives, and overall is just quite simply a rousing great pop-rock tune. The album also has a high point in the graceful but catchy Calling Card.

2. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: X-Ray Style

This song keeps getting jammed in my head, since I went to a recent Strummerville night, with Ray Ganges on decks playing this, plus a bunch of other Strummer-related material, good reggae, old punk, and so on. I feel like as I get older, I prefer the work Joe Strummer did post-Clash, for the many more moments of tenderneess, intimacy and easygoing, breezy, calm sense. See also:

3.Joe Strummer: Sleepwalk

4. Viv Albertine: The Madness of Clouds

Really enjoying Viv Albertine's unique approach to music making - interesting sounds and her style of playing guitar and singing. Greatly anticipating her new rock biography too - not many books around that are by female musicians, frankly, plus there is that female perspective of punk that seems to have been written out of history.

5. Robyn Hitchcock: Keep Finding Me

Any excuse for a song by Robyn Hitchcock, really. This is a recent discovery of mine as I still have so much to explore of his glorious canon of work. He is rarely off the stereo in this house.

6. Go Kart Mozart: 

Only Lawrence could cover a Roger Whittaker song with such electric pop panache and perfection. But just when will Go Kart Mozart play London again... Last tour didn't even include a London date and got cancelled. We're waiting! Also, Go Kart Mozart are forever the mightier, better band of his career and we will never fathom this reverence for Felt this has been going on in recent years. Lawrence would agree too! Recommend all the band's albums (plus his work on Denim as well - synth pop excellence). I was going to link to Electric Rock and Roll on here, but Youtube doesn't have that one.

Nat Johnson

My favourite song at the moment is by the solo singer-songwriter Nat Johnson:

I was delighted to discover her music recently by way of a surprise gig, with live violin along with acoustic guitar and her wonderful, reflective vocals. Really moving music - something so powerful in the quiet. I also really appreciate singers who are natural and gentle in their singing. I can't wait to investigate more of her music, and hopefully more gigs some time too - I think the Union Chapel in London on a summery Saturday afternoon would be just perfect.

Whole host of stuff to listen to by Nat on her official website.

Punk's Penetration

Don't Dictate by Penetration is one of the great punk anthems/singles. I've just started investigating the band's albums, and I wonder why they aren't a more widely/wildly acclaimed band. It's one of my bugbears that endless punk programmes get made about the Sex Pistols and maybe they'll throw in a bit about The Clash, Buzzcocks, et al. But female punk bands rarely get a sidenote mention (hardly even The Slits or X-Ray Spex), let alone the celebration in such ways. I want to see documentaries and books and DVDs and front covers and art exhibitions - surely we can all do the same old tired old punk bingo by now and we need so many more of the other bands of the time to come out of the cracks of history? Crucially, female bands to get that spotlight at last?

There must be so many untold stories. The mediateque at the BFI in London has a superb documentary on Huddersfield punks, including some of the experiences of female fans of the time. There's that whole wealth of non-London punk that needs proverbially writing into history, too.

A couple of full length albums up on Youtube,by Penetration, and they're truly excellent:

Came across an interesting interview piece on Penetration over at Eccentric Sleevenotes, including about their split and then much later reformation (and in fact, the band are touring a bit in a few months).

There is also an interview with Viv Albertine on the same site, which is worth a read. I'm greatly looking forward to Viv Albertine's forthcoming autobiography, and her solo stuff in recent years is pretty damn ace too.

Where are we going? We're all going mad.

Essential Saturday morning viewing here, in the guise of The Smiths appearing on Charlie's Bus, an 80s kids' TV show.

Everything about this video is perfect. From Morrissey uttering the above line to innocent kids, to Marr playfully threatening to duff up a kid on the top deck of the bus, to the downright absurdity of Sandie Shaw singing such relentlessly bleak lyrics and melody to a group of wide-eyed, attentive, but overwhelmingly bemused children on the grass in Kew gardens... All of that humour and absurdity is a little part of what made The Smiths (and the 80s for that matter) so uniquely superb.

Autumn songs

 

'Now it's getting colder, my hands chilled to the bone...'

 

(Barney and Me, by Boo Radleys)

 

 

                                          (NY Doll, by Robyn Hitchcock)

Lovely, wistful, warming, autumnal feeling songs, both.

Hangover music has to be gentle, subdued, pretty... Yann Tiersen, I am calling on you to allay today's legendary, post-party hangover of mine...

I had thought that digging out my Galaxie 500 DVD would be just the cure - musically soothing, gentle, floating, sublime... But some of those videos left me much more unsettled! Frantic fast, fires, things collapsing, injured animals, flashing images, acid eyes, and so much swirling... It was entertaining to watch an old TV interview where Dean Wareham looked so severe as to be menacing. He said something caustic about having the permission to like fish and chips to Naomi.

I loved the surprise of seeing Dean and Britta appear in the film Francis Ha this year, casually hosting a dinner party. The projects the band members have gone on to do - Dean and Britta, and Damon & Naomi - are all so excellent and dreamy perfect. I need to hear Dean's new solo offerings too.

I digress, this is an off-the-cuff post, but weren't they a really cool band? I neglect them sometimes, but I had a really big phase for them in about 2003. Another thing I realise I appreciate them is how they are so clearly influenced by The Velvet Underground, yet they distil that into such a new sound - they're not doing it by numbers just to re-create their heroes - there're the often piercing vocals like a bird in frightened flight, mixed with gentle, slow atmospherics, a bit of moody, buzzing guitar noodling here, and how stripped back it all is; raw. I think Naomi doesn't get enough recognition as a bass guitarist heroine too.

A Galaxie 500 song for you, with superb kazoo use!:

'I think it's okay to wear your own band's shirt onstage during a show, but not for a trip to the supermarket.' - Dean Wareham.

Songs of summer

 

Another song I find so summery, breezy...

Sun, by Cat Power

This Cat Power album is fast becoming one of my repeat-play albums of this summer. It's got the right breeziness for intense heat. Manhatten feels especially cool.

I was worried that having lost touch with Cat Power, and not being keen on some latterday stuff, that I wouldn't like the album. In fact, hearing some of the leading material from this album on Youtube, I was disappointed, it felt pale and not all that melodic.

But seeing her Glastonbury performance this year (one of only about two or three televised acts worth my time - the rest wasn't even broadcast, eg Six By Seven, Robyn Hitchcock - and I got to pining for John Peel's wry and lovely voice as well, but that's another story...), turned me right around. I find an honesty and a kind of strength in her clear discomfort for playing live, no falsity or persona. Albeit, she did seem pretty stoned, and sadly kind of lost, but, that's Glastonbury for you, I couldn't blame her for being overwhelmed/high in the moment.

My immediate reaction to seeing her sing again after so long was fondness. When I was at university, I practically worshipped Chan Marshall: the only female poster on my (male-dominated) wall, and I wanted to play guitar like her, and I saw her live, loved her interview comments, wanted to be her, etc... There are very few females that have that effect on me, if I'm honest.

This album has two huge highlights in the opener, Cherokee, and Manhatten. I've got to admit that hearing these songs on the stereo, and not on a basic laptop, makes such a difference to my feelings for them, too. Obvious thing to say.. But sampling stuff online is often such a bad option for me if it wrongly mars my reactions, as is often the case.... I suppose it's not always down to quality, though, but the immediacy (instant) that the medium demands (though, conversely, with the recent, new Six by Seven material I was hooked from the off). This video for Manhatten is really cool and in good fun though - and maybe now I know the song and taken it to my heart, I enjoy it a whole lot more. I have to state how much I adore the electronic beats along to the piano riffs too:

Overall, it is Cat Power's honeyed voice, treacle thick and sensual that wins me over, and reminds me what I love about this artist.

A toast to Sun by Cat Power, then! Soundtrack to beautiful, laidback summer evenings. Now, to complete my Cat Power collection.

Snow time

Another beloved song that is conjured in my mind when it snows - this time for its video:

I don't think The Cure Play Out has been released on DVD yet, but I have the VHS version which features The Cure messing around with snow in their record company office. There's a lot of interesting stuff on that video, quite nice that it isn't on DVD yet, a curio.

I meant to post this yesterday...

Always think of this song when it is snowing - although what initially got lodged in my head when I saw a snow-topped scene yesterday were various godawful Cliff Richard Christmas songs somehow. This is cooler (pun, naturally, intended).

Sunny pop

Make it feel like a pretty summer's day on holiday on this freezing cold November night! -

I've just been enjoying bopping to this whilst watching fireworks from my window!

I still miss Kenickie, and there's still not been anyone quite like them.