Indie Top 20 Vol 20 - Stereolab, Drugstore, Cranes, Pale Saints, Frente!

16. Stereolab - Ping Pong (Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks)

It's somewhat absurd yet fitting that Stereolab's most known single is a chirpy paean to the flaws of capitalism. To a series of almost easy listening organ chords and a skippy melody, Laetitia sings observations such as "It's alright 'cause the historical pattern has shown/ How the economical cycle tends to revolve/ In a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop/ A slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more". It's like a melody from "The Sound of Music" retooled to teach the kids about Marxist principles.

I have to confess that despite its ubiquity (certainly compared to other Stereolab tunes, anyway) it's not my favourite piece of work of theirs. Whereas other singles they issued were often pieces of sprawling minimalism with subtle details emerging listen after listen, the first impressions you get from "Ping Pong" are really all there is. That said, as a piece of subversive political pop, it's a deeply sarcastic and scathing piece of work, slowly burrowing Marxist earworms into the brains of innocent teens and children everywhere.



17. Drugstore - Starcrossed (Honey)

Drugstore were an astonishing live band I frequently caught live during this period. They were fronted by the strangely spacey, starry, charismatic singer Isabel Monteiro, who on one occasion mopped tears from her eyes while the audience applauded, and I wasn't entirely sure if she was joking for effect or not.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Drugstore's music was frequently slow, woozy and delicate, but her vocals ensured that every song packed an enormous punch too. "Starcrossed" is filled to the brim with fuzzy guitars, stripped back drum patterns, then topped off marvellously by her dreamy yet somehow piercing voice. On vinyl the intimate, emotional pull of what they managed to achieve as a live band could occasionally be lost, and I don't think this track is any exception - but it still feels like being smothered by a beautiful, soft sonic duvet. Albeit one whose colour scheme possibly makes your eyes go a bit funny.

Isabel relocated to her home country Brazil in early 2015, effectively finishing the band, who had otherwise remained a going concern until that point. However, she remains active as a singer and musician over there.



18. Cranes - Shining Road (Dedicated)

Portsmouth's finest returned with something which was as close as the group came to sounding full of beans. Filled with fuzzed up guitar lines and galloping rhythms, "Shining Road" sure as hell isn't Britpop, but it's closer to pop than the band usually stepped. The faint sense of unease that usually seeps through the band's music overpowering any other intentions is also gone, replaced by something almost optimistic.

Not quite, though. Alison Shaw's parting lines, after singing about seeking out bright city lights and travel, are "And is it all because of you?/ Every time I look at you/ If I look back never mind/ Just don't worry, I'll be fine". I lived in Australia for a year myself - leading the "blogosphere" to get very confused when I first launched "Left and to the Back" and assume I was Australian - and the people I met on the way were mostly a joyous bundle of drunken energy, but there were always a few who didn't like the question "What made you decide to come here?" I nearly caused a woman I met to burst into tears when I asked this innocent question, and after that, never asked anyone again.

The road is frequently a very tempting and, in the modern world, simple response to disappointment, mourning or heartache, the "shining" alternative to dealing with the immediate mess around you. In the novel "Billy Liar", the main character is warned by his mother "You can't run away from your problems, you know. You just pack them into your suitcase and take them with you". In the end, he chooses not to take that way out, although he has very little to lose. "Shining Road", though, is one of the few tracks I can think of that genuinely spells out the doubt and personal anguish behind that route taken and the dazzling fantasy of a relocated city life.

 

19. Pale Saints - Fine Friend (4AD)

Pale Saints purists tend to reject this era of the group as being almost an irrelevance. The original lead singer Ian Masters had upped sticks, and Meriel Barnham was now fully in the spotlight. Gone were Ian's frail choirboy vocals, and Meriel replaced them with something richer and more self-assured. 

Not only did this did have an impact on the group's sound, but the psychedelia of their previous work had now been largely replaced by a much moodier, more organic sound. It hasn't escaped the ears of many listeners just how similar "Fine Friend" is melodically and stylistically to Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You", and that really can't be disputed. This sounds like the work of a group who had absorbed a lot of new influences and undergone a total reinvention.

Much as I do find this single genuinely haunting and beautiful, and perhaps unfairly overlooked as a result of the purists, I can't say that I prefer it to their earliest work. It's not surprising that they disintegrated not long afterwards, having moved on to something which failed to ignite the imaginations of most critics or indeed fans, nor resulted in any improved commercial standing. 

20. Frente! - Bizarre Love Triangle (Mushroom)

Australia has always been filled to the brim with groups who have managed to make enormous waves in their home country and in New Zealand, but failed to create much of an impact further afield. Some are truly wondrous - the situationism and satire of TISM (aka This Is Serious, Mum) doesn't always translate easily to British shores, but is hilarious and effective. Then there's the likes of Master's Apprentices and their sixties/ seventies blues rock, or er, Lubricated Goat who released the album "People With Chairs Up Their Noses".

Anyway, Frente were something of an alternative folk-pop sensation in Australia in the nineties, producing one platinum LP over there in the form of "Marvin The Album" in 1992. We British were first introduced to them via the wonders of the soap opera "Home And Away", where they seemed to be crowbarred into the script for weeks on end, with endless declarations of "Heeeeey, are you guys going to see Frente toniiight?" while their latest single also played on the Summer Bay cafe radio, just to really hammer the point home about how hip and happening they were. 

Asides from snatches of music on "Home And Away" and a guest appearance, most people in this country didn't really pay the group much heed until they issued this skeletal, quickie cover of New Order's single. It's brief, sweet and a pleasant listen, but really no more than that. Clearly not everyone agrees with me, however, as it reached number 76 in the UK charts and number 49 in the US Billboard Hot 100, a truly astonishing achievement for such a niche idea. 

In retrospect, it's entirely possible to look at this cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle" and see it as pre-empting the acoustic or ukulele inflected covers which have saturated television advertising in the last 5-10 years. It's a very similar approach - take a known, credible track and turn it into something homespun and folksy with sweet, heartfelt vocals on top. Sadly for Frente, nobody wins any prizes in pop for being the first through the thicket, and the track didn't even break through in a significant way in their home country, remaining a fringe concern for sad indie kids. 

Volume 9 Side 2 - The Shamen, New Order, McCarthy, Finitribe, Nitzer Ebb

1. The Shamen - Pro Gen (One Little Indian)

"Play this loud in a very dark room and little green men will come and beat you on the side of your head with silver hammers shrieking 'Let us in, let us in, we have some good sounds for you'. Fast, furious and sometimes a mite frightening, "Pro Gen" makes all the right moves in the right places." Record Mirror

Also known as "Move Any Mountain", "Pro Gen" tickled the belly of the Top 75 in 1990 before becoming a huge Top Five hit on its re-release in 1991. Really, it's the song that moved the group away from the cultish fringes and into the big league, containing Mr C a-waggin' his finger as he rapped twenty-to-the-dozen, lots of pristine, fanfaring synths, and killer beats.

Opinion will inevitably be divided on which period of the group's work stands up the best, their early neo-psychedelia, their mid-period Hacienda-flavoured Indie Dance, or the well fed years. I would argue somewhat cautiously that all those periods had something to offer, but that "Pro Gen" seems ever so slightly unexciting in retrospect. The repetitious chorus of "I can move, move, move any mountain" wanes very quickly, and the rest rings out confidently but lacks depth, edge, wit or bite.

Still, at the time this certainly felt like a bold and significant single, and many predicted a hit for The Shamen. They were right - it just wouldn't break through in 1990, that's all.



2. New Order - Round and Round (Club Mix) (Factory)

(In an interesting move, Beechwood Music provided no sleeve notes at all for this track)

By the time "Indie Top 20 Volume 9" came out, "Round and Round" was already old hat - a 1989 release by New Order which charted lower than anticipated (Number 21) and was promoted by a somewhat rubbish video of lots of female models pulling seductive, amused or innocent faces, the kind of idea even George Michael would have considered for three seconds, then rejected. It's untimely appearance here is probably for two reasons; the fact that the Club Mix fits the baggy mood of the 1990 era, and also to pull in punters with a big indie name. Well, at least it wasn't with an old Peel Session track this time.

"Round and Round" is a curiously understated pop track on an otherwise magnificent album. Always sounding faintly underpowered and underwritten, it sits on "Technique" like a faintly catchy afterthought amidst a sea of mournful ballads and blissed out Ibiza infused indie. Either "Vanishing Point" or "Mr. Disco" would have been better second singles, and even if "Run" had been shunted up the release schedules to occupy an earlier space it might have made more sense.

Still, we can't sit here all day rewriting history, and this was launched into a faintly indifferent world in 1989. Even a "quite good" New Order single from this period is good enough, obviously, and "Round and Round" is mellow, twittery and funky, and manages to slowly charm its way into your heart and cause your feet to tap. But that's all I can find to say about it...



3. McCarthy - Get A Knife Between Your Teeth (Midnight Music)

"The title comes from a cover of an Anti-Bolschevik pamphlet of the 1920s. It showed a crazed and hairy savage with a knife between his teeth who was presumably preparing to stab a respectable citizen to death. He represented what reactionaries believed a revolutionary communist to look like".

When my grandchildren come round on a Sunday and ask me the question "Tell me pops - when was Peak Baggy? And how did we know it had happened?", I usually pop a Werther's Original buttered candy sweet in their mouths and tell them "Why, it was when McCarthy, an underground Marxist indie band from Barking who had been on the C86 compilation, added wah-wah pedals and dancefloor friendly beats to their final single".

Because it happened! It did! And the fact that I don't have any children, never mind grandchildren, doesn't make the rest of what I've told you any less true. Somewhat strangely, they got away with it without a single cry of "Bandwagon Jumpers", though that's largely aided by the fact that "Get A Knife Between Your Teeth" is a fine little single. For all the wah-wah action and pumping rhythms, it's still melodically and lyrically a typical McCarthy record, and there's not an obligatory rapper in sight. Tim Gane sounds as rattled but sweetly voiced as ever, and the chorus punctuates everything with a determined message.

There's no question it was one of 1990's more unusual releases, however, and while nothing was ever said, one wonders if it might be a factor in the group's split and Gane's subsequent Stereolab experiments (more on which much later on). "Knife" swaggers in a way that his music never really did before or since this point, and if he felt uncomfortable, nobody would have been surprised.

He certainly wasn't technically proficient enough to handle it at this point. Apparently another studio helper had to operate the wah-wah pedal for him while he played, as he had no clue how to do it. For shame.



4. Finitribe - Monster In The House (One Little Indian)

"If you've seen the Finitribe live, you start to understand what their records are all about. Being almost cabaret in a housey sort of way, they come on stage dressed in bowler hats, looking like something out of A Clockwork Orange." Rave Magazine

Indeed, there were people who seriously thought Finitribe were The Future in 1990. Taking the traditional format of a group and putting on image-consious live shows to promote their Dance sounds, they knew the power of making their presence felt before The Prodigy came along.

On the great timeline of Indie-Dance (and certainly Dance music in general) they are but a blip, but around the point of "Monster" a seismic rumbling of promise could be felt. The track is an eerie, menacing piece of work, taking a similar semi-ambient tack to The Shamen's "Omega Amigo" but adding gothic drama to the mix. It's like a bad mid-summer dream, or a slightly ropey high in the middle of a derelict warehouse. The vocals alternately whisper, mock and fearfully announce "A thing like this could warp his mind!" then loop around the circuit again as the keyboards gently play a sinister and simplistic melody.

I still really like this track, actually, and possibly appreciate it more now in 2016 than I did at the time. Its slow, ambient pace and cool mean it hasn't dated much at all, unlike many of the uptempo barnstormers of the day, and it utilises a very simple idea exquisitely well.

Finitribe are often famed for featuring Chris Connelly in their early line-up, who left the group in 1988 to join Ministry. Later Finitribe tracks did have an industrial edge to them too, but "Monster" is an uneasy kind of bliss in comparison.



5. Nitzer Ebb - Lightning Man (Mute) - Vinyl and Cassette Only

"...It's thoroughly menacing, schizophrenic and possibly the only genuinely confusing record of the week. Quite marvellous, all things considered". Caren Myers, Melody Maker.

Nitzer Ebb really were rather industrial, on the other hand, and recently reformed in 2007 to continue their unfinished business.

"Lighting Man" combines brassy razzle-dazzle fanfares with gritted teeth vocals, snarled threats and squelching synthesiser lines, and is a very irate and confusing piece of noise indeed. What it's so agitated about is anyone's guess, but this is what the harsher end of electronic music sounded like in 1990 - jabbing and taunting rather than blissed out and grooving.

Nitzer Ebb built a large following for themselves throughout the early nineties and almost had a reputation as being the "other" band hardcore Depeche Mode fans liked. They have a loyal cult following to this day.

Indie Top Video featuring New Order, Darling Buds, Birdland, McCarthy, They Might Be Giants, Oyster Band

Format: VHS
Year of Release: 1989

Hot on the tails of the CD88 compilation - indie music on a digital format, whoever would have thought it? - came "Indie Top Video", which brought together sights as well as sounds from Volumes 1-6 of the series.

Though this again was something of a lie. Not only did no videos whatsoever feature from volume one or two of the series, there were also five non-canon "bonus tracks" nestled amongst the fifteen vids, and one track which wouldn't emerge until Volume Seven of the CD/vinyl/cassette format.

Not that it really mattered, and not that I ran to Our Price demanding my money back. "Indie Top Video" was fantastic viewing for those of us who wanted to see videos of some our favourite tracks in full, especially those "The Chart Show" had rudely skated past during the Indie Chart rundowns. And "The Chart Show" clearly had an enormous influence on this tape as well, as prior to each song commencing a flashing "Play" logo emerged. Fortunately, they didn't trouble us with any "Stop" and "Rewind" nonsense, though.

Beechwood didn't handle this release themselves, and looked towards the mighty powerhouse of EMI to take on the manufacturing and distribution. Their Picture Music International arm handled it, meaning that when you started the tape you were introduced to the same charming and whimsical animated logo and music that greeted you whenever you pressed play on a "Now That's What I Call Music" VHS compilation. It was hard to know what to make of that, really.

While this Indie Top Video sold enough copies to climb into the national Music Video Top 20 - which seems like an astonishing achievement given the relative obscurity of a lot of the contents - subsequent tapes sold less and less well, and the series failed to get beyond six editions. We'll take a look at each in order when they occur on our timeline and discuss the tracks that don't appear elsewhere, providing a link back to the others that do.

1. New Order - Fine Time (Factory) - Bonus Track

Straight off the bat, here's our first bonus track, and it doesn't get much better than this. "Fine Time" caused a flurry of both panic and speculation at the point of its release. Being the first track off New Order's "Technique" LP, its frantic Acid House rhythms and full-on collision of dancefloor ideas made some think that the band were going to return with a fully fledged House LP. Of course, they didn't - and in fact, while "Technique" may be a wonderful album, it's actually much more subdued and moody in places than it's widely given credit for.

Still, "Fine Time" constantly ricochets around in such a manner that you do have to wonder what the band were on when they came up with it. The central keyboard riff is never far away, but across only a few minutes we're also treated to Peter Hook's bad Barry White impersonations, stammering vocals and guitar lines, loud, dominant whooshing effects, acid house squelches and a fantastically simple and pretty melodic guitar line at the end. It's supremely hyperactive, and you get the sense that once the group had built the basic foundations of the track and nailed the hook, they went wild taking every popular Ibiza idea they'd heard and throwing it in the blender alongside it. The result is something so impatiently itchy sounding that you want to be dragged along with it. You're never entirely sure where it's going or what the point is, but it throws everything it's got in your direction. It is unbelievably huge fun.

The video is no "True Faith", but is an absurd festive promo about the surreal and faintly disturbing adventures of one boy and his aggressive looking Jack Russell terrier. I didn't know what to make of it at the time, and I'm afraid I still don't now. Even when the track climbed to Number One on the Chart Show indie chart, they failed to play it, for reasons I've always found hard to understand (druggy imagery? Dated Christmas imagery? Just plain "being faintly disturbing"? Who knows?)



2. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika (Moksha)

3. Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One (Chapter 22)

4. A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray (Rham)

5. The Darling Buds - It's All Up To You (Native)  - Bonus Track

I always felt that his was probably The Darling Buds' strongest moment. Released prior to them signing to a major label and becoming steadily smoothed over, "It's All Up To You" still has a hard, abrasive edge beneath Andrea's double-tracked choirgirl vocals. It also contains a killer rumbling bassline and lovely Ramones styled guitar solo from Harley Farr, and like some of the finest Indiepop feels like Phil Spector's girl group ideas meeting with the best punky sounds.

"It's All Up To You" did make some of the hype feel justified, and it was impossible not to wish the best for the band - but the Epic years delivered very little success, and by the early nineties I bore witness to them in a very Spinal Tap situation, sitting in a corner of Southend's HMV waiting for people to come up to get copies of Darling Buds records signed. I thought about buying one just for the sake of saying hello to the group and getting some of their inkwork on a copy of their record, but I was short of money that day and badly wanted to buy a copy of something else, so I didn't. To be fair, it's unlikely that my life would have been wildly changed by such an event. And anyway, I probably would have nervously stammered a lot in front of Andrea Lewis.



6. Wedding Present - Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? (Reception)

7. Birdland - Hollow Heart (Lazy) - Bonus Track

Within a few singles, Birdland went from being the saviours of British music to a standing joke, leading the Manic Street Preachers to nervously protest "We're not the next Birdland!" to any journalist who would listen. In fact, that was one of the last things Richey Manic said to Steve Lamacq before carving "4 Real" into his forearm. Imagine that - you feel so strongly that you might be going down the same career path as another group that you're driven to such a violent act (this, I realise, glosses over Richey's problems perhaps inexcusably for the sake of a semi-joky aside, but there is nonetheless a grain of truth to it).

You can hear what the original fuss was about here, though (and I've also met more than one person who has insisted that Birdland were staggeringly good live). "Hollow Heart" is hyperactively brilliant, with everything taken at a breakneck speed. The cymbals hiss and crash constantly (I've seldom heard this much white noise coming from a drummer) the guitar lines are riddled with dumb, simple hooks, the vocals seep attitude - it's just fantastic in a primitive, slack-jawed way. This is garage punk at its very best, the only question it begged at the time was whether the band had the creativity or imagination to deliver more greatness across an LP or even whole career. The eventual answer was "no".

Still, just as we didn't ask The Kingsmen for another "Louie Louie", there's no reason at all (beyond record company expectations) that we should have demanded Birdland create another hundred or so "Hollow Hearts". This is the distinct sound of a group shooting out their finest moment from the barrel first, and rather than condemning them for that, we should still acknowledge that it was a pretty spectacular moment.



8. Cardiacs - Is This The Life (Alphabet Business Concern)

9. Danielle Dax - White Knuckle Ride (Awesome)

(A bit confusing, this - "White Knuckle Ride" wouldn't appear on the Indie Top 20 series until Volume 7. So as not to mess around with the structure of these entries too much, we'll be discussing it  when we come to talk about that LP).

10. Fields of the Nephilim - Preacher Man (Situation Two)

11. Loop - Collision (Chapter 22)

12. Christian Death - Church Of No Return (Jungle)

13. McCarthy - Keep An Open Mind Or Else! (Midnight Music) - Bonus Track

Prior to entering a Krautrock inspired Moogy wonderland with Stereolab, Tim Gane fronted left-wing indiepop firebrands (TM) McCarthy. Their approach to political polemic was unorthodox and challenging, presenting all their lyrics in prose format with Tim squeezing them to fit around the simple pop melodies. Often too, they would adopt the style of someone else's tedious right-wing diatribes and set them to a chirpy melody to expose their arrogance, contradictory nature and stupidity - "The Home Secretary Briefs The Forces of Law and Order" is a good example of this. ("We don't believe in violence! Those who use guns to kill in cold blood, they deserve all they get, they deserve all they ask for. So when you catch them pump them all full of lead, tear them limb from limb. It will be okay! For the law will be on your side!")

"Keep An Open Mind Or Else!" follows a similar tack, sung from the perspective of a person who believes themselves to be reasonable and right-thinking, but who simply cannot or will not engage with political arguments coherently and pushes away any facts they're presented with. To be frank, it hasn't dated one jot and actually probably feels even more applicable now in these social media times. It begins as an order to calm, rational debate being sung in a reasonable tone ("You should always try and see another person's point of view. You should never think that you know everything!") before descending into impatient, aggressive verbal carnage ("I don't believe in facts! No, I just believe in me. Argue, I don't care! Would you like your face smashed in?") And that, my friends, is just another Sunday night on Twitter, and even an eerie precursor to the Stewart Lee line "You can prove anything with FACTS". Times may change, but the patterns of conversation never really do.

"Keep an Open Mind" is backed with a truly sumptuous melody as well, like a trashy, harsher take on The Byrds, delicate backing vocals and fantastic hooks permeating the track. It probably is McCarthy's best moment, and is an unexpectedly pretty and melodic musing on pointless political discourse. Further proof (if it were needed) that political songs don't all have to sound like Crass or The Clash.



14. They Might Be Giants - They'll Need A Crane (One Little Indian) - Bonus Track

I've never much cared for They Might Be Giants. A few tracks aside, their material has always sounded far too much like the work of people who enjoy their own jokes too much. I made the mistake of buying the LP "Flood" back in my youth, and became desperately angered and annoyed with it within three listens. This was back in the days where buying an album probably meant one less night out for me that week, and it wasn't just that I hated much of the LP, it was also that I couldn't remove it from my brain afterwards either. Everything felt like a Sesame Street educational jingle sung by a New Wave Bert and Ernie. In fact, please don't make me dissect that LP again when there's no need. The songs! They're coming back to me!

"They'll Need A Crane" is proof that the band did have a sensitive and considered side, though, as the track takes a very considered look at a collapsing relationship. This verse alone is both witty and familiar: "Don't call me at work, no no/ the boss still hates me/ and I'm just tired/ and I don't love you anymore/ and there's a restaurant we should check out where/ the other nightmare people like to go/ I meant nice people, baby wait/ I didn't mean to say nightmare..."

Other than that, "Crane" is a simple and catchy shuffle through one relationship's wasteland. It's a shame they couldn't be this thoughtful and personal more often.



15. Oyster Band - New York Girls (Cooking Vinyl)

The Oyster Band went through a period of being both music press favourites and Radio Two "Folk On Two" stalwarts for a confusing point in the late eighties, and that's even more bizarre when you consider the fact that they were initially just Fiddler's Dram (of "Daytrip to Bangor" fame) recording and performing under another name. The original purpose of the alternate name was for the Oysters to act as a dance band for specific live shows and events, before eventually the Fiddler's Dram moniker was jettisoned entirely.

Given the success of The Pogues around this time, there was no reason why another folk group couldn't have broken through, and indeed The Oyster Band were probably one the finest examples of the genre at that point. "New York Girls" has just enough of a rough edge to set them apart from the competition, and it's impossible to sit still while this rattles along. The fiddle player alone deserves a gold medal for speed.

Volume 5 Side 1 - Robert Lloyd, Wire, New Order, King Blank, Quireboys

Format: Double Vinyl/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1988

Volume 5 was a significant issue for the series, being the first ever Indie Top 20 LP to come out on Compact Disc - finally, the digital age had reached Beechwood Music, and listeners could (if they chose) listen to all manner of underproduced indie groups in high quality sound. Some of them had never even had releases on CD before. Marvellous. WERE WE NOT MEN?

Of course, I never owned this album on CD myself (or not until much, much later on when I chanced upon a second hand CD copy for £2). I didn't have the kind of money necessary for a CD Player at this point in my life, still listening to all my records on the turntable of a Saisho stereo unit my brothers bought me for Christmas. So whatever revolution this represented, it entirely passed me by.

I can distinctly remember this being a Christmas present too, at the tail end of 1988 - and I was delighted when I ripped the wrapping paper off and found this double vinyl LP waiting for me. When I finally played it at home, though, I was struck by what a gloomy sounding record it is compared to any of the previous volumes. There are obvious exceptions, but this is overwhelmingly a contemplative, moody record as opposed to a varied buffet. Despite the fact that Indiepop was a bit of a busted flush at this point and the music press had largely moved on to other concerns, it appears to be in denial about that fact, probably containing the highest number of slightly shambolic, vaguely twee, low budget bands since Volume One.

There's some good moments on the album, but no really great ones (in my opinion) and some downright baffling inclusions. Perhaps in this halfway house, this motorway travel tavern sleepover between Indiepop and Indie Dance, a slight loss of focus could only be expected. But you may well disagree as we travel through the tracks:

1. Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons: Something Nice (In Tape)

Robert Lloyd, normally lead singer of Brummie indie group The Nightingales (victims of endless lazy and slightly inaccurate "They're Birmingham's answer to The Fall!!!" music press reviews) and one of the heads of indie Vindaloo Records was well known as a scene stalwart. Behind numerous cult indie classics with wiry, angular guitar noises, once The Nightingales split in 1986 he clearly decided that his solo career would veer in a more pop orientated direction. The false group name Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons was created for this very purpose (and very quietly and quickly dropped again to become plain old "Robert Lloyd", presumably when someone got antsy that the actual Four Seasons would take legal action. Somewhere on a cutting room floor, perhaps this was even a subplot in the "Jersey Boys" film - "I cannot believe da noive of this Nightingales guy").

"Something Nice" proved Lloyd could clearly have a pop career if he wanted and had enough of a tail wind behind him. It's a stomping, bold, brassy and incredibly catchy track lyrically focused on some kind of mid-life crisis. "I get scared that something nice will fly by", Lloyd panics. "Every time I'm ill I think I'm dying" he clarifies later on, "every time I'm sad I feel like crying/ this is the state I've got myself in". For all that, this propels along in a strident, chirpy, almost festive fashion, sounding like a hit Edwyn Collins never had.

This received a strong amount of evening airplay on Radio One, and ensured that the ears of A&R staff at Virgin Records pricked up. Doubtless hoping for a whole album of glossy alternative pop, he was signed to the label and released the "Me and My Mouth" LP and the rather ace single "Funeral Stomp" which utterly and undeservedly stiffed. Virgin dropped him, and there would then be nothing much from Lloyd until The Nightingales reformed in 2006.



2. Wire: Silk Skin Paws (Mute)

We last met Wire on Volume 4, with the fantastic "Kidney Bingos". "Silk Skin Paws" also emerged from the LP "A Bell Is A Cup..." and despite being a brilliant track in its own right didn't seem as obvious a single. A gloomy, atmospheric pean apparently about bankers throwing themselves out of windows, it's again rich with atmosphere, chiming guitars and icy synths.

As an LP, "A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck" created a short-lived wave of renewed critical focus for Wire, and there was a feeling that while they never truly achieved everything they could have done (in terms of sales) in the seventies, perhaps now was their time. Mute apparently hoped that they would eventually at least match their levels of success on EMI, and perhaps even usurp them. They were not without their famous supporters, either - David Bowie was even spotted buying a copy of their CD in HMV on Oxford Street.

Wire always were an awkward bunch of sods, though. A lot of their material in the eighties was sublime, but as time wore on some of their projects became either successfully or unsuccessfully experimental, and baffled critics and sometimes on occasion fans. The largely forgotten LP "It's Beginning To And Back Again" was a live-in-the-studio reimagining of other tracks of theirs, often so distanced from the originals that only the lyrics gave the game away - it's a great listen in places, actually, once the disorientation wears off. On the other hand, the "Drill" project, consisting entirely of different versions of the same song, was just completely fucking silly. An appearance from the group on an American chat show performing the track underlines their stubbornness hilariously. What would a band like Wire do with a prime time TV slot? Be as aggressively inaccessible as possible, obviously.

For Wire fans like me, this brief period is as thrilling as it is frustrating. In my opinion, the band should be on the tip of anyone's tongue when the subjects of punk or art-rock are raised, and should have managed at least one bona-fide hit, but they seem to have remained a cult act who never managed to prove their worth to a wider audience. Tracks like "Silk Skin Paws" and "Kidney Bingos" prove that even during their less fashionable, non punk scenester phase, they were more than just an arty, angular act - they were great songwriters as well. It's a shame that's talked about so infrequently.



3. New Order - Dreams Never End (Peel Session Version) (Strange Fruit)

Volume Five of Indie Top 20 is the very last time we'll be hearing New Order and Joy Division Peel Session tracks. Thank the Lord for small mercies. It's not that I don't like their work, it's just that they were clearly given slots on the albums as bait to floating voters in Our Price, and all their efforts date from a period years before the release date of these LPs. Therefore, putting them into meaningful context for the purpose of this blog is impossible.

"Dreams Never End" is a bizarre track in New Order's canon in that Peter Hook is given the mic rather than Bernard Sumner, and it makes a strange difference to the sound. His braying voice bears a slight resemblance to Andy Partridge of XTC here (even though it's probably trying to ape Ian Curtis) and almost in sympathy, the band clatter and jangle behind him. It's one of the least New Ordery sounding New Order tunes ever.

Despite this - or perhaps because of this - there's nothing remotely essential about it at all, and it's a curio rather than anything else. If New Order fans were asked to contribute to a poll of their finest work, I highly doubt "Dreams Never End" would be a prime entry unless Hooky himself rigged the contest.




4. King Blank - Blind Box (Situation Two)

As we trawl through the volumes of Indie Top 20, we're going to encounter a number of slightly baffling bands who have since been mostly forgotten, but were critically fancied for about two or three weeks in their given year. King Blank are the most obvious example so far, though I have no recollection at all of them being music magazine cover stars - I just have hazy memories of some complimentary gig reviews and the odd positive nod.

There's no way I can possibly be kind about this track, unfortunately. I lived in a small town in Essex at this point, and occasionally our local gig venue would put on a local groups gig bonanza, highlighting all the up-and-coming talent in the area. Tickets would be about £5, and you could stand all night and watch indie, rock and alt-rock talent from the regional Sunday leagues. Without exaggeration, there was always at least one band who sounded like King Blank on every bill. They would have the same bluesy swagger, the same raw sound, and similar vocals delivered through gritted teeth. None of them ended up with record deals.

King Blank, on the other hand, did, and I've never fully understood that. There's nothing exceptional occurring here at all, and the song constantly tries to bear its teeth and attack, but couldn't sound more staged and less threatening if it tried, like an amdram English take on the harder edges of the American underground. The production of the whole thing is so hollow and skeletal it also feels like it would collapse if you prodded it for long enough.

After one LP, "The Real Dirt", the group went their separate ways and guitarist Nigel Pulsford became one of the founding members of nineties grunge legends Bush, ironically becoming one of the few British bands to become hugely successful in America during that decade. King Blank give no hints away that this would ever be the case.



5. Quireboys - Mayfair (Survival)

Another truly baffling addition to the LP. The Quireboys eventually became far more successful than King Blank, of course, being a much-fancied old-school boozy rock group in the vein of The Faces. Renowned for their raucous live gigs, they gave the national scene a raw, balls-out sound it had clearly been missing for a long time by the late eighties. While they were never fashionable as such, they certainly beat Primal Scream to the Southern boogie punch bowl on a number of occasions as well.

Despite being on an indie label at this point, they really didn't have a keen indie following, attracting the long-haired denim wearing boys and girls much more keenly. They sound unbelievably out of place on this compilation as a result, like total gatecrashers.

"Mayfair" is a neat track, though, sounding like a lost piece of 1973 rock and roll. Stemming from a period when Ginger of The Wildhearts was a member of the group, it seems so authentic that you could possibly even fool someone by telling them that it's an out-take from a much more legendary band - and that bar-room piano and those growling vocals are expertly handled. It's not really surprising that their time in indieland would be limited, and EMI stepped in to sign them fairly swiftly, giving them a number two hit album in "A Bit Of What You Fancy" in the process. A long career in the limelight seemed assured, but disappointing sales of the follow-up "Bitter Sweet & Twisted" put paid to that idea and their demise was cruelly swift.

They've since undergone some line-up shuffling and reformed a couple of times, and remain active to this day.

Indie Top 20 Volume 3 - Side One - New Order, Depeche Mode, Leather Nun, Danielle Dax, PWEI, Motorcycle Boy

Indie Top 20 Volume 3
Format: Double LP, Double Cassette

Volume 3 of the Indie Top 20 series suddenly adopts a style which would last for years - the familiar Indie Top 20 logo has established itself along the left-hand side of the cover. That xeroxed "paper clip" would reoccur as a motif across the next few LPs too, and the Melody Maker sponsorship is now front and centre of all formats (dominating a goodly chunk of the sleeve here).

This was also the debut release on the newly formed Beechwood Music, presumably named after Bee and Ch(et) (Sel)wood, the driving forces behind the series. Beechwood would go on to release other LPs outside the Indie Top 20 series, eventually making more money out of the ever-fruitful Dance music compilation market. However, there were other odd excursions into Indie in their catalogue which didn't fit the rubric of the main series, and we might briefly explore those eventually in slightly less depth (please don't ask me to cover them in more depth, for Christ's sake).

This was also the start of the brief period Beechwood Music started giving titles to each album. Volume 3 is "War of Independents". It's not too clear what marketing purpose this served, and after a few of these sub-headers I suspect the idea got quietly dropped as a probable waste of time.

So what of the contents? Well, it's musically much more of a mish-mash, and you get a clear sense of the reign of indiepop fading away slightly and heads being turned towards different strands of "alternative music" which were less light and frivolous. In particular, several ground-breaking artists emerge for the first time, including two whose influence remains enormous, even though one of them still has their feet in the past at this particular point. Goth Rock remains hanging about the place as well, whiffing faintly of patchouli oil.



1. New Order - Truth (Peel Session) (Strange Fruit) 

If I were a cynic, I might argue that this track was placed right upfront to get people to buy the LP by mistake, accidentally believing that it might be New Order's recent huge hit "True Faith". New Order had recently worked with Pet Shop Boys producer Stephen Hague to create one of their finest pop moments, giving their chart career - actually somewhat patchy after "Thieves Like Us", although people seem to have forgotten that - a massive boost. The hugely memorable video featuring sinister primary coloured Michelin man type figures running around slapping each other up the face helped increase the exposure of the track tenfold.

"Truth", on the other hand, was a recently released but ancient New Order Peel Session track stemming from 1981, a point where their sense of identity was still rather incomplete. In short, they still sound rather like Joy Division here, only without one of the key elements. The drum machine and icy synths hint towards a clear future direction, though, and the track has the same cold eeriness that made "Turn The Heater On" such a compelling listen on Volume One.

It's a downright peculiar track to put upfront in the compilation for any other reason than the bankability of New Order's name, though. It's a quiet, despondent point of entrance.



2. Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again (Mute)

If only this had been the opening track... now, I sense trouble ahead with this one. Depeche Mode haven't always been widely appreciated in the UK, and that's a source of enormous frustration for me. People tend to either take the view that they were a middle-of-the-road teen synth-pop band or stadium rock stars scaling unsubtle heights. These simplistic overviews ignore swathes of their output, which include magnificent pop - much of it unplayed even on oldies radio these days - and material which mongrelised pop with epic, scaling hooks with experimental industrial indie and political protest with superb attention to detail, right down to the sleeves and videos. It created a band of heroes across mainland Europe (and even the USA for a period); a group freely mentioned alongside other huge musical pioneers, while Britain often looked the other way.

In reality, most of their naive teen-pop output can all be found on the first LP "Speak and Spell". The alternative stadium rock God phase is mostly encapsulated on "Songs Of Faith And Devotion". Everything else is decidedly interesting, even at its worst. The band even toyed with Marxist and Communist imagery across two LPs, "A Broken Frame" featuring a peasant woman scything a field, "Construction Time Again" a workman with a hammer, raised proud and high up a mountainside. The lyrics on "Construction Time Again" were naive, like most early Mode, but clear - "Pipeline" called for wealth redistribution while playing with industrial soundscapes, the melodic "And Then" dreamed of erasing all existing structures and erecting society from scratch. "I'd prefer to think that things couldn't turn out worse" they sang wearily. The band banged their fists on the table in interviews and talked about the importance of the welfare state. Again, I insist - this all happened while you were asleep, although the central message of "Everything Counts" wasn't too ambiguous on "Top of the Pops" either.

And "A Broken Frame" may be their most derided LP, disliked even by the band themselves, but the spells of pop light and moody atmospheric shade make it feel twin-towned with OMD's "Dazzle Ships". An imperfect twin it may be, but it still has some stellar moments.

Moving forward to 1987, the band had already released their bona-fide classic LP (if you're reading this outside Britain) in "Black Celebration", and had followed it up with the less-good but still frequently startling "Music For The Masses". That was the LP which turned the suburban Essex boys into a stadium band, and created so much of the trouble and confusion ahead. "Never Let Me Down" is a beast, though, an absolute juggernaut of a single which oscillates between slapping industrial rhythms and an almost symphonic sounding chorus. At this point, Anton Corbijn had also got fully on board to produce all their videos, grainy Super 8 affairs laced with dream-like imagery which worked with the music almost perfectly. Everything was gelling.

"Music For The Masses" came in a sleeve featuring a glossy photograph of a huge red megaphone, presumably broadcasting the album to an abandoned piece of twilight countryside, a string of lights from a road in the distance being the only sign of life. Internal sleeve shots showed the megaphone up mountains or by lakes and canals - in my mind, the bash and clatter of "Never Let Me Down Again" was coming out of all of them. It's a truly great single, the sound of all the best and most interesting elements of the eighties rolled into one ball.

Is it indie? Of course. It was released on Mute, a label the band stuck by throughout everything, even when their distribution and pressing plant power wasn't all it could have been ("Just Can't Get Enough" had to satisfy itself with a number 8 chart position, when most people imagine it was a huge top three hit). Is it any good? Well, you're entitled to disagree. But if you do, you're wrong.



3. The Leather Nun - Lost and Found (Wire)

Given Depeche Mode's dress sense a couple of years prior to this point you could forgive Chet and Bee for following them with a Swedish band called The Leather Nun, but this song is somewhat overshadowed by what precedes it.

The Leather Nun were cult artists and early industrial stars who had been around a fair while, and had constantly courted controversy across Europe with lewd live shows and imagery. By the mid-eighties their reputation began to spread to America, and it seemed as if a major breakthrough would occur - but it didn't. And while the atmospheric "I Can Smell Your Thoughts" received some TV and radio exposure in the UK and pushed the band to new heights, "Lost and Found" did less well, and only reached number 35 in the indie chart. That's perhaps not overly surprising. The rigid groove of the track doesn't really go anywhere interesting, feeling like a graceless, stilted industrial kind of Swing. A baffling inclusion here, and one to skip.

The band soldiered on until 1995, but failed to find much success again after being without a record label from 1991 onwards.



4. Danielle Dax - Big Hollow Man (Awesome)

Southender Danielle Dax was a visual artist and ex-member of the experimental group The Lemon Kittens, and previous collaborator with Robert Fripp. Her first solo LPs continued to explore often harsh and challenging forms, but towards the end of the eighties changes began to emerge in her musical style and she rocked out in a slightly more conventional way.

Always having a striking appearance and to all intents and purposes looking and dressing like an iconic pop star, however ill-suited her temperament may have been for that role, it was probably all worth a shot. "Big Hollow Man" begins with a funky guitar riff which then collides into thumping drums and a forceful melody, part glam, part new wave, and ever so slightly threatening but worthy of constant repeated listening. A cheap but effective video earned her "Chart Show" exposure, and a new phase began - Danielle Dax the possible star, popping up on interview shows, Juke Box Jury, and magazines the length and breadth of the land.

It couldn't last, and it didn't last, but more on that eventually.



5. Pop Will Eat Itself - Beaver Patrol (Chapter 22)

Oh Good God. You see, my wife's theories about "Sex Pest Rock" - she keeps threatening to start a blog with that title, by the way - really are proven right here. "Beaver Patrol" was originally a sixties garage single by The Wilde Knights, and was self-consciously sleazy even by the standards of that period, but at least possibly had a ludicrous enough edge to be titterworthy rather than offensive. In the sledgehammer fists of Pop Will Eat Itself, it becomes a Brummie beer boy sexual harrassment anthem, though, far too heavy and Beastie Boys aping to be easily dismissed as an ironic joke. It received slatings from many quarters, taking the group by unpleasant surprise.

Ignoring the lyrical contents, though, "Beaver Patrol" at least set the template for their forthcoming "Box Frenzy" album, being a loud, proud, British indie approximation of the Def Jam rock/rap hybrid style. Looking back, it all seems faintly amateurish to say the least, but even the KLF's debut "1987 - What The Fuck Is Going On" from the same period also seems like a clumsy sticklebrick creation. This was a new dawn and new rules were emerging, and the public didn't much mind the feel of chaos to start with - "Beaver Patrol" edged PWEI that bit closer towards the grown-up official Top 75, and it wouldn't be long before RCA would arrive with a chequebook in their hands. Unthinkable stuff at the point of "Oh Grebo, I Think I Love You".

Oh, and despite the fact it wasn't a proper hit, "Beaver Patrol" was still quite popular with the teenage boys at my school. Well, it would be, wouldn't it.



6. The Motorcycle Boy - Big Rock Candy Mountain (Rough Trade)

Edinburgh's The Motorcycle Boy consisted largely of ex-members of Creation noiseniks Meat Whiplash, and only hung around indieland for this one single before jumping on board Chrysalis's boutique label Blue Guitar. By the time they finally issued their grown-up work in 1989, the public had largely lost interest, and it was all over before it had even really started.

"Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a pretty and melancholy single with a driving, chugging riff which occasionally sounds like a Flatmates record played at the wrong speed. It stormed to number two in the Indie Charts, the band became NME cover stars, and then there was silence for nearly two years and momentum was clearly lost. "Big Rock" was a damn fine single, but very much of its moment, and not quite good enough to stretch interest in the group to a degree where a long break would have no ill effects on their career.

The group subsequently split in 1990.

Indie Top 20 Volume One - Tracks 11-15 (New Order, Ghost Dance, Rose of Avalanche, Ciccone Youth, Chesterfields)

11. New Order - Turn The Heater On (Peel Session) (Strange Fruit)

While it might have seemed a bit rum to follow Joy Division's track with New Order's on this album, it does, to be fair, involve a flip of cassette sides first (remember we're still a long way from the CD era at this point). What waited for you on side two was actually something of a New Order obscurity, being a cover of reggae maestro Keith Hudson's song which was unissued on any of their B-sides or albums, being a John Peel session exercise only.

So could New Order have followed in the footsteps of UB40 in another life? Not really, but this is an exceptionally eerie, wintery dub excursion which had its heart in exactly the right place. Recorded solely due to the fact that it was one of Ian Curtis' favourite songs, New Order turn it into a unique tribute of its own, and create something beautifully atmospheric and filmic. While Hudson's original burbles along in a lively and summery fashion, New Order leave it to sprawl on the bare floorboards of a Manchester bedsit in January. It's the best kind of cover version, in that it's a total reinterpretation. That it's also a touching gesture makes it a bit more special.



12. Ghost Dance - The Grip Of Love (Karbon)

Enter Goth Rock into the fray. Goth was a funny old business back in the mid-eighties, receiving a very variable music press reception which appeared to operate along the following lines - Sounds viewed it more favourably than Melody Maker, who in turn viewed it much more favourably than the NME. So far as the NME seemed to be concerned, Goth was a deeply silly business only to be spat at, a game of Dungeons and Dragons for Bauhaus fans who were all old enough to know better. By the end of the eighties, of course, almost everyone had given up and began writing about Goth in mocking tones, if they wrote about it at all (many of the movement's biggest bands were utterly denied coverage by the turn of the decade).

Ghost Dance were much-feted among some sympathetic journalists and also within the movement itself, but ultimately never really broke through commercially. Unfortunate, as "The Grip of Love" certainly proved they had the pop chops to cross over under the right circumstances. It pounds along like a more leaden-footed version of mid-seventies Fleetwood Mac (has anyone actually investigated the influence mid-period Mac had on Goth Rock in the eighties? It seems more common than you'd suppose) but ultimately never drifts far from the chorus or central riff, clinging on to both like a small child terrified to break free of its mother's grip. The Grip of Love? Well, maybe. Perhaps that's the point they were trying to make.

This isn't the last we'll see of Ghost Dance on "Indie Top 20" (I told you, they were big news for awhile) and the next time we come to visit them, my opinions may actually surprise you, as they say on Upworthy. Or not, now I've let that huge plot spoiler out of the bag.



13. The Rose of Avalanche - Velveteen (Fire)

We seem to have entered a brief Goth Rock segment in the compilation, for while they later denied it utterly, Leeds' The Rose of Avalanche certainly had a goth following, and a distinctly dark, doomy air to most of their recordings.

"Velveteen" is a prime low-budget, indie approximation of an epic rock tune which in places vaguely predicts the riff from Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child Of Mine". Written about Nico of the Velvet Underground, a drum machine thuds and echoes its way through a slowly evolving guitar riff, and the drama slowly brews, sprawling across six minutes of hollering vocals and foreboding atmospherics.

Or, if you're anything like me, you'll actually find this single unspeakably dull. While it was considered a huge statement to make at the time, back in the days when everything Velvet Underground was the height of outsider sophistication, right now it sounds like a horrible plodding chore, with nothing much to say for its woebegone self. An artist like Scott Walker could do chorus-free character portraits across six minutes and make them sound fascinating - The Rose of Avalanche don't have the same dexterity with arrangements or lyrics, and this entire song is writing artistic cheques it cannot cash. There's no question that this was hugely significant at the time and highly regarded by many fans and critics, but for me it just doesn't cut it.

The next time we meet The Rose of Avalanche, however, I will be a lot more favourably disposed towards them - but epic, plodding rock statements of this nature are something I just lose patience with.



14. Ciccone Youth - Into The Groov(y) (Blast First)

Aka Sonic Youth and Mike Watt having a jolly good piss-around. Like a lot of Sonic Youth's attempts at side projects and experimentation, this starts off feeling so gleefully anarchic that you immediately want to rewind and listen to the whole thing again... but the fun palls quickly. "Into The Groov(y)" is a mutant Hip-Hop and punk celebration of all things Madonna, cutting huge holes in the original pop arrangement of "Into The Groove" until all that's left is a hollow, grinding structure predominantly driven by Watt's repetitive bass runs. Occasionally Madonna's original vocal (which I'm assuming they didn't get copyright clearance for) rises up into the mix to threaten to restore order, then evaporates away again, overpowered, giving up the ghost.

But there's no way on earth this was intended as any kind of serious artistic statement, and really, it's just supreme daftness, another in a long line of attempts to punkify and radicalise highly successful, slick pop music (If I wanted to be really controversial here, I might ask what the difference is conceptually between this and The Dickies). Often though, the problem with exercises like this one is they make you realise how solid and well constructed the original vision was, and by the time you get to the end, your main urge is to just put the original single on the turntable.

Sonic Youth do not appear on the "Indie Top 20" series again after this, which feels like a wasted opportunity.



15. The Chesterfields - Completely and Utterly (Subway)

Another very minor indie chart hit here, which held down the "all-important" number 16 slot in 1986. A gentle and merry track, it cowers and quakes in the presence of Sonic Youth immediately before it - and while Chet and Bee did eventually become dab hands at creating the running orders of "Indie Top 20" albums effectively, it has to be said that Volume One highlights that at this stage in the series, they were clearly not firing on all cylinders.

Yeovil's The Chesterfields were one of very many indie-pop bands of the era whose influences appeared to be somewhere between early sixties pop, The Monochrome Set and Orange Juice, while entirely lacking the groove and funk of the latter. Charm was their main selling point, and "Completely and Utterly" veritably nods and winks its way into your heart, despite trying to sound faintly cross with itself. "I am sick of situations... nothing's changed in donkey's years!" states lead singer Dave Goldsworthy, but it doesn't sound as if it's about anything crashingly important. I've always imagined it's probably about something mundane like the local bus service, but - within the context of indiepop - that's actually a compliment. It wouldn't do for The Chesterfields to try to be The Clash. And in any case, crowbarring the phrase "Nothing's changed in donkey's years" into a pop song, then delivering it in a polite voice, is a brilliant masterstroke.

Like many of their kind, The Chesterfields split in 1989. I can see I'm going to be typing "split in 1989" a lot whenever we cover indiepop bands (although a few brave souls limped on into the dawn of 1990).