Volume 15 Side 3 - Levitation, Captain America, Midway Still, Family Cat, Wonky Alice

1. Levitation - World Around (Rough Trade)

"Levitation dive into a pool so deep they might never hit bottom, but they are sending back postcards from the edge that makes it sound like a weird and wonderful place to be".

"World Around" is a relatively accessible piece of work by Levitation's usual standards, laced with irate stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Had Billy Joel's can of Coke been spiked with a particularly powerful tab of acid prior to writing "We Didn't Start The Fire", he too might have come out with an agitated list of unconnected things such as "Running into brick walls sow's ears pitfalls covered with flies/ Green so green so paint the world green we've got a new machine/ it'll burn out your eyes!" But nobody tampered with his soft drink, so he didn't.

Really though, "World Around" consists on the one hand of bonkers, jagged, stream-of-consciousness ranting, then the comparatively blissful, twanging chorus on the other, and the two elements work incredibly well together. If Levitation were occasionally guilty of drowning in their own indulgences, "World Around" is proof that when they held back a bit and offered easy points of access, they actually could create mad and pleasurable pieces of progressive pop - this has it all, from an unexpected string section right through to hard, angular riffing.

There are even slight traces of Julian Cope around the edges of "World Around", and its manic power makes it compelling and exciting. Certainly, this is more enticing than anything House Of Love were churning out at the same time.



2. Captain America - Flame On (Paperhouse)

"After exploding on to the independent scene at the start of '92, Captain America have gone from strength to strength, despite almost being taken to court by C&A over the design of the front cover of their 'Flame On' single. Captain America are undeterred by all this trauma and look set to take the world by storm when their eagerly awaited long player is released towards the end of this year".

Cuh! C&A! D'yer remember them, eh? C&A! Clockhouse clothes, what were all THAT about? I shouldn't have thought they had enough money in their coffers to legally challenge even a Scottish indie band by this point, though - by 1992 they were doomed as a High Street clothing brand, and close to going under in the UK. Interestingly, though, you could at least buy tie-dye tops cheaply in their outlets by this point, just in case you wanted to pretend to be a Levellers fan while actually buying your clobber off the High Street.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, Captain America. "Flame On" enters the fray with screeching Teenage Fanclub styled guitar riffs, but steadily throws itself in the mud and dirt. Low down grubbiness is the order of the day here, with Eugene Kelly's vocals groaning in the ditch alongside rough and ready guitar sounds.

It's actually been years since I've revisited this, and it's an incredibly pleasant surprise. Crashing cymbals chime in with pounding drums, a melancholic chorus meets propelling verses, and powerpop riffs meet distorted grungey guitars. It really shouldn't work, and should be a total mess, but the whole thing is a pleasing concoction and arguably the finest piece of work by Captain America (aka Eugenius). Like The Pastels trying to rock out, it stumbles and slips along down its own muddy path, kicking all obstacles out of the way in a dirty great huff - a furious sulk of a record.



3. Midway Still - Better Than Before (Roughneck)

"After the critical success of their first two EPs 'I Won't Try' and 'Wish', Paul, Jan and Declan took a brief holiday before launching themselves into the recording studio for their debut LP. After ten days in a London Docklands studio with the irrepressible Don Fleming, Midway Still produced the wonder that was 'Dial Square'. 'Better Than Before' became their third single in March 1992 and captured the boy's soulful cranked up pop at its best".

If "I Won't Try" and "Wish" showcased Midway Still's slightly moody, melancholic side, "Better Than  Before" saw them put their feet down on the accelerator to growl their way down the indie highway. It's the strongest single of the three, seeing them bouncing off the walls as soon as the chorus peeks into view.

In fact, the whole thing rushes along so urgently, pulling you along as it goes, that it's easy to miss that it's actually a simple, uncomplicated piece of work, akin to their other efforts. Midway Still obviously weren't going to do such a thing as "progress" or "mature" for their debut album "Dial Square", and had no desire to present themselves as anything than an uncomplicated, modernised take on rough and ready power pop, rather like The Lemonheads across the pond.



4. The Family Cat - Steamroller (Dedicated)

"Formed at the start of 1988, Family Cat are the band who seem to be living all their nine lives at once. Following a handful of critically acclaimed records and a change of record company, The Family Cat are finally on the edge of greatness. 'Steamroller' is their debut single on Dedicated and is featured on their debut full length LP 'Furthest From The Sun'. The Family Cat are definitely in 'The Purr...Suit of Excellence'".

This was a surprise, though all the signs were there that it was coming. Whereas their debut single "Tom Verlaine" was a charming, scratchy lo-fi exploration of a skint young relationship, and other singles were simple slices of indie rock, The Family Cat had always had a slightly showboating, anthemic element to their sound - "Remember What It Is That You Love" sounds, in retrospect, like a slightly clumsy attempt at that.

"Steamroller", though, is utterly unashamed, featuring sweeping guitar work, stomping rhythms, and the line "The Saints are playing at home today". It's far closer to eighties era Slade or Big Country than it is nineties indie rock. The chaps sound as if they've got their football scarves round their necks, their glittery DMs on their feet, and are fantasising about waving giant flags around an arena stage. This is so lacking in subtlety it's actually quite astonishing.

What's more surprising is that they do pull it off. This isn't entirely to my taste, but sounds like a possible hit single. The group sound muscular and unstoppable, powering their way through a fist-punching anthem as if a corner was being turned in their careers. It really wasn't, though. "Steamroller" made no commercial headway, and I have to wonder if all their fans really wanted or "got" it. It sounds more like a cunning ploy to break through to the mainstream on a new record label than an attempt to cling on to any indie credibility, but that's possibly not the case... it may simply be that with a higher production budget suddenly at their disposal, the group suddenly found themselves in a position to act out their lighters-aloft fantasies.



5. Wonky Alice - Sirius (Pomona)

"This is Earth calling Captain Wonky. You've really made the grade this time. 'Sirius' is a blinder which will see Wonky Alice orbiting your stratosphere any time now".

If their previous "Indie Top 20" appearance with "Caterpillars" was clean and jangly, if incredibly wobbly and capital "q" quirky, "Sirius" takes on a much darker post-punk sound infused with streaks of psychedelia. Rushed, frantic spy theme guitar riffs collide with pounding drums initially, but then the song veers all over the shop, taking strange atmospheric detours when you least expect them. As unabashedly psychedelic as Gorkys and Super Furry Animals were when they arrived a few years later, Wonky Alice unfortunately found themselves landing into a 1992 environment where being a bit trippy meant being very, very serious about your lysergic visions. The group instead opted to sing tunes about outer space and "cracking the genetic code". How sci-fi and uncool.

"Sirius" is a bit of a lost gem of this period, though. Like Pulp at their most space-age, the band verge very close to affectionate pastiche, as well as delivering a skipload of interesting ideas of their own. It sticks out like a sore thumb by the standards of this era, but there's a strong chance that if Wonky Alice had formed slightly later in the decade, they may have gained themselves a much larger and more appreciative audience.

Volume 14 Side 3 - Curve, The God Machine, Silverfish, Leatherface, Midway Still

1. Curve - Die Like A Dog (Anxious)

"To date Curve have released three EPs on Dave Stewart's Anxious label. The first two, 'Blindfold' and 'Frozen' proved that Curve were without a doubt a very exciting proposition for the future. 'Die Like A Dog' is taken from their third EP 'Cherry' which was released in December '91 and reached the Gallup Top 40. Their debut album 'Doppelganger' will further establish Curve as one of the most important bands to have emerged out of the British independent scene in the last few years."

If I was going to pick a track from the "Cherry" EP to put on a compilation album, I'd have opted for the lead track "Clipped" and its haunting, sinister mantras. That said, track two "Die Like A Dog" is something of a favourite among many Curve fans, so it's not as unusual a choice as some of the flipsides and buried EP tracks "Indie Top 20" have opted for over the years.

Beginning with airy industrial synth noises and a growling bass line, Toni Halliday's cooing vocals soon enter the fray, then the wall of guitars, then the rattling rhythms, and frankly, it's all business as usual. By this point Curve had issued three EPs with lead tracks which promised an astonishing, possibly even classic debut LP. By the time "Doppelganger" emerged, however, none of those tracks were present, and the record sagged slightly under the weight of Dean Garcia's samey soundscapes. "Doppelganger" contains some marvellous tracks if you cherry-pick (no pun intended) the best moments for stand-alone listening, but as an LP it was sequenced somewhat questionably, and felt weighty, chrome plated and unforgiving, arguably costing the band their mainstream breakthrough moment. Creating an alternative tracklisting and running order for the LP out of other material they had recorded during the same period must surely be something of a Curve fan's hobby horse.

The NME also joked that one of the reasons "Doppelganger" sold less well than anticipated was that Toni Halliday wasn't anywhere on the cover, and the sleeve instead consisted of lots of dismembered child's dolls. It was an off-the-cuff comment which wasn't meant to be taken as a serious criticism, but there's nonetheless possibly some truth to it. Actually, just about anything would probably have been preferable to the teen-goth student art project of the final sleeve.



2. The God Machine - Home (Eve)

"The God Machine arrived in Camden from California and released their debut EP 'Purity' on Eve Recordings in November 1991. 'Home' is one of three tracks featured on the EP which has been hailed in some quarters as the finest debut of '91. Now signed to Fiction, The God Machine are an exciting prospect".

Few American bands were misguided enough to base themselves in Britain during the early nineties. Why bother when you could remain in the country where everything was happening musically? Certainly where rock music was concerned, the world's eyes were on the USA, not Britain, and anyone moving to smelly shared accommodation in Camden risked costing themselves riper global opportunities.

Hats off to San Diego's God Machine for making the trip and gracing us with their presence, then, and releasing this heaving bit of sledgehammer rock in 1991. On its re-release in 1993 it managed to tickle the Top 75, and it's possibly surprising it didn't do better still. While it's not the kind of single that floated my particular boat at the time, it's a fine piece of doomy, dark and forceful alternative rock entirely in keeping with the 1992/3 zeitgeist.

When I first bought this LP, "Home" was very much a track I preferred to skip, but my 2017 relisten has revealed a wealth of surprises. It's an absolutely unforgiving noise, like metal grinding and crashing against itself, with a nagging dominating riff which never really gets boring. There's some furious, bloody-minded drumming throughout which adds to the air of viciousness, and effects-laden vocals which make the singer sound at war with the machinery around him.

The God Machine went on to have some cult success in the UK, and are still occasionally referred to as one of the great lost rock bands of the nineties. Perhaps it would all have been different if they'd just caught a flight to Seattle instead...



3. Silverfish - Jimmy (Creation)

"Silverfish were formed in North London at the end of '88. Before signing to Creation they had released two singles, both of which received 'The Single of the Week Treatment'. In January '90 the first real Silverfish album 'Fat Axl' came out - 'The title comes from a particularly scathing NME review'. Their first 45 for Creation was the 'F***in' Drivin' Or What' EP which reached the Gallup Top 100. 'Jimmy' is taken from their January '92 'Silverfish with Scrambled Egg' EP which is indeed Silverfish at their finest".

It's easy to forget what a big deal Silverfish were for a brief period. An indie-punk outfit featuring the snarling, snapping Lesley Rankine on vocals, they were actually strangely prescient of the Riot Grrrl movement without being mentioned much when that scene briefly went overground. Rankine's chant of "Hips, Lips, Tits, Power" on the track "Big Fat Baby Pig Squeal" ended up on T-shirts and was inked across the pages of feminist fanzines, while slowly losing its original attribution as the band became an increasingly distant memory. Their single "Damn Fine Woman" also highlighted Rankine's feminist views.

Scrappy and thrashy, most of Silverfish's singles pinned you up against the wall with their force of volume and wouldn't let go until you'd listened to their ideas. They were one of the most brattish and threatening of the Camden bands, and "Jimmy" is no exception to the rule. Each moment of relative silence is a mere split second long before they begin pushing and shoving you on the shoulders again.

Their success peaked in 1992 with the "Organ Fan" LP which reached the National Top 75, but by 1993 the group had split, with Lesley Rankine later claiming that she grew to realise that spending all her life surrounded by other human beings in a group simply wouldn't work for her. The trip-hop duo Ruby were the end result of this eureka moment, and revealed a very different creative side to her work. More on them much, much, much later.



4. Leatherface - I Want The Moon (Roughneck)

"'I Want The Moon' is the second single to have been released from Leatherface's titanic 'Mush' album. It earned the band an NME single of the week in November '91. Look out for their next release which will be a ten inch EP, 'Compact & Bijou' which should be available from May onwards".

You know what Leatherface wanted, don't you? The moon on a stick! Oh, just the moon, then. OK.

Often likened (not unfairly) to a punked up version of Motorhead, Sunderland's Leatherface were apparently a thrilling and energising experience live. "I Want The Moon" gives a strong impression of that, being three minutes of high-throttle guitars, throat-shredding vocals and chugging riffola. It had been done before, and would be done again many times again until the present day, but there's no way you can fault the execution here. Leatherface sound menacing and dangerously high on adrenaline.

The group would split at the tail end of 1993, and the lead singer Frankie Stubbs now mainly focuses his time as a producer for various indie bands.



5. Midway Still - Wish (Roughneck)

"Midway Still formed at the tail end of '90 out of the ashes of a couple of anonymous grunge bands. Signed to the Roughneck Recording Co, their debut EP 'I Won't Try' received huge critical acclaim. 'Wish' is the title track from their follow up EP which also features an outstanding cover of My Bloody Valentine's 'You Made Me Realise'. Their Don Fleming produced album is set for an April release".

Midway Still sound completely melancholy here, surrounding "Wish" with a mournful blue note. It's the noise of lovelorn young hairy men stuck in smelly bedrooms surrounded by the remains of half-smoked spliffs, which had been hastily rolled on the sleeves of American grunge imports.

There's a bright poppiness to "Wish" in places too, especially in the run-up towards the instrumental break - but once again, it's staggering how damn unEnglish the group sound. Those drawled vocals, brash guitar licks and bluesy lyrics are such a solid impersonation of early nineties American alternative rock that it's hard to believe they were one of ours. If that kind of noise is your particular idea of heaven, and you haven't explored the group's catalogue before, you may find much to love.

Volume 13 Side Two - Catherine Wheel, The Telescopes, Moose, Spiritualized, Midway Still

1. Catherine Wheel - Shallow (Wilde Club)

Their last single before rushing off to cash the banker's cheques offered to them by Fontana, "Shallow" was proof that Catherine Wheel had the pop chops to justify the jump away from the indie sector. While "Shallow" edges dangerously close to Ride sonically, the chorus is pure bliss, and the song itself shows no weaknesses at all, charging full-throttle through numerous elated and masterful guitar riffs on its way. "Heaven Sent An Angel" it isn't, being a pleasing tapestry of ideas which occur so quickly that it's initially impossible to realise quite how much is going on in a mere few minutes.

Following this, their career on Fontana was full of mixed fortunes. While they managed to maintain a small and loyal fanbase in the both the US and the UK, they consistently seemed on the brink of success rather than actually breaking through. Singles were released, all of which only just missed the Top 50, only to quickly disappear again. Their sound moved with the times, becoming much heavier and more rock orientated by the mid-nineties, but by 2000 it was all over. Compared to almost every other act of this era, they had a strange, dogged persistence, never giving up even when the scene around them shifted. Indeed, their lifespan went beyond the duration of the "Indie Top 20" series itself; an impressive achievement, but they seem doomed to remain a footnote in any alternative rock story.



2. The Telescopes - Flying (Creation)

The Telescopes had always had a slightly shoegazey sound to their work, of course, and in many ways could have been regarded as one of the earliest groups (along with Pale Saints) to appreciate that a broader listening public awaited for a dense, hypnotic noise. "Flying", though, really pulls things up a notch or two, feeling truly disorientating (still more so when you watch the impressively suitable video) and whooshing past in a rush of sonic mayhem. The sitar overload also indicates that late sixties psychedelic influences were at play, and the whole thing truly soars - appropriately, given the title.

Despite all this, and despite the fact that they had shunted over to Creation Records where a higher profile should surely have been expected, there was a sense that The Telescopes were beginning to become marginalised at this point, and by the tail end of 1992 they would cease to exist. It's impossible to put your finger on quite what they were doing wrong, and really they should have had a head start over their travelling companions - but rather like The Pale Saints, they felt strangely sidelined by the media.



3. Moose - Suzanne (Hut)

"Suzanne" really continues in a similar stylistic vein to "Jack" on "Volume 12", except rather like The Telescopes, Moose really pull out all the stops here to make the track a psychedelic blur. "She walks all over me/ I can't take it from her!" sings Russell, while the band's tune gets locked in the roar of a sonic wind tunnel. The track rattles and canters along to its inevitable chaotic death.

As a single, this got quite a few critics hot under the collar and caused some to revise their expectations of the band's success. The video got "Chart Show" exposure, they were observed being particularly chummy with Blur, and it was felt that perhaps a corner was being turned. In reality, Moose were far too maudlin and self-indulgent (albeit often in an interesting way) to truly vault into the mainstream, and "Suzanne" was and remains an interesting moment where a rather unlikely group became the subject of speculation. Startlingly, the Virgin subsidiary Hut Records didn't lose complete faith in them until 1992, meaning we'll be hearing more from them.



4. Spiritualized - Run (Dedicated)

Fuelled by a cheeky (and credited) steal from JJ Cale's "Call Me The Breeze", "Run" is actually a very repetitive, primal number by Spiritualized's usual standards - their previous single, a version of Lou Reed and John Cale's "Why Don't You Smile Now", took the rough simplicity of the original and turned it into a grandoise epic, whereas "Run" is a bluesy, foggy jog through rock's back pages, and the psychedelic elements do very little to disguise that.

Still, it's an enjoyable few minutes, and while the group had clearly yet to become the Class A gospel preachers of the indie circuit, it shows that a lot of headway had been made by Jason Pierce since parting company with Spacemen 3. Already, a unique and identifiable sound was starting to lock into place, and broader appreciation was theirs for the taking.



5. Midway Still - I Won't Try (Roughneck)

Midway Still represent the idea of forgotten early nineties indie heroes so well that one person even named a blog after them. "Because Midway Still Aren't Coming Back" was the title of one of the earliest online mp3 blogs dedicated to deleted and largely disregarded British nineties indie, and was obviously a bookmark in my web browser's menu bar.

Oddly though, Midway Still sounded far more like an imported American underground rock act than the low-budget Kent boys they actually were. "I Won't Try" is evidence of this, with its almost Lemonheads styled power-pop chorus, rough and ready guitar work, and drawled vocals. Their debut album "Dial Square" would be produced by Sonic Youth dial twiddler Don Fleming, cementing their transatlantic sound still further.

Looking and sounding as if they'd fallen off the back of a Greyhound bus fresh from Seattle did the group little harm in terms of media coverage initially, and almost certainly boosted their profile far higher than it otherwise would have gone at any other period - but they never quite rose above their underground status, and became a near-permanent fixture on the Camden club and pub scene in the early nineties. In fact, almost all vaguely "grungey"/college rock styled British groups failed to find much appreciation on their own shores, a peculiar cultural anomaly which I still struggle to make sense of. Given the fact that they were able to tour here with greater ease and regularity and were also available for media appointments at the drop of a hat, you'd have thought at least a few British grunge-styled acts would have broken through, but success proved elusive (unless you count the artificial one hit wonders Stiltskin, that is...)