Kingmaker

I don't think I ever saw these guys live (except maybe at Glastonbury?) but they were part of the whole indie scene around the time of the Neds, Stuffies, Mega City 4, Poppies etc. and they had some great tunes. I think they originally came into a lot of people's consciousness with their sleeve artwork which was created by a pre-Gorillaz' Jamie Hewlett.

"High octane guitar pop" is probably one way of describing their sounds which undoubtably woill have reached my ears courtesy of Gary Crowley on his Sunday afternoon show on GLR (now called Radio London I think) which I used to listen to whilst I did my homework on a Sunday afternoon - oh the memories! Anyway, their debut album (depending on whether you regard 'Postcard CV' as a short album or long EP) had some great catchy tunes and stunning artwork. Catchiest of the lot was 'Got It At The Delmar' which was a classic indie disco tune. One might say they were fairly 'disposable' tunes but things were about to get a bit more grown up.

The next album 'Empire Of The Senseless' was darker and had more of a conscious. Starting with the album tracks first off there were some crackers such as 'Counting Friends', 'Tempting Kate' and 'Just One Reason' were quality tunes. But when it came to the singles there were some classics which included some social comments too. 'Homophobic Asshole' was a brave statement about some of the things they were seeing from some of their colleagues in the industry and other 'homophobes' in general however with a title like that and a tune that was perhaps less bubblegum than some of their previous stuff it was always going to struggle to dent charts. 'Primary Instinct' and 'Hold It Down' had more commercial success (although their Wiki entry doesn't have any chart placings to I don't remember the details). They did have some great 7" single colour vinyls that I still have in my collection.

Final album 'Taking Care Of Business' was less successful and I only remember getting the 'Christine Keeler' single (renamed from an obviously radio un-friendly 'Christian Killer') and not the album. The band went their separate ways and the main offshoot from this was when Morgan Nicholls joined Mile Hunt and Pete Howard in 'Vent 414'. Morgan then went on to play with Muse live doing all their keyboard wiardry out on tour. Cass create Delakota who released the acclaimed 'C'mon Cincinnati'.

For more information:
Kingmaker on Wikipedia
Kingmaker on MySpace

Essential Listening:
Eat Yourself Whole
Bloodshot and Fancy Free: the Best of & the Rest of Kingmaker

Senseless Things

I don't think I ever saw these guys live (except maybe at Glastonbury?) but they were part of the whole indie scene around the time of the Neds, Stuffies, Mega City 4, Poppies etc. and they had some great tunes. I think they originally came into a lot of people's consciousness with their sleeve artwork which was created by a pre-Gorillaz' Jamie Hewlett.

"High octane guitar pop" is probably one way of describing their sounds which undoubtably woill have reached my ears courtesy of Gary Crowley on his Sunday afternoon show on GLR (now called Radio London I think) which I used to listen to whilst I did my homework on a Sunday afternoon - oh the memories! Anyway, their debut album (depending on whether you regard 'Postcard CV' as a short album or long EP) had some great catchy tunes and stunning artwork. Catchiest of the lot was 'Got It At The Delmar' which was a classic indie disco tune. One might say they were fairly 'disposable' tunes but things were about to get a bit more grown up.



The next album 'Empire Of The Senseless' was darker and had more of a conscious. Starting with the album tracks first off there were some crackers such as 'Counting Friends', 'Tempting Kate' and 'Just One Reason' were quality tunes. But when it came to the singles there were some classics which included some social comments too. 'Homophobic Asshole' was a brave statement about some of the things they were seeing from some of their colleagues in the industry and other 'homophobes' in general however with a title like that and a tune that was perhaps less bubblegum than some of their previous stuff it was always going to struggle to dent charts. 'Primary Instinct' and 'Hold It Down' had more commercial success (although their Wiki entry doesn't have any chart placings to I don't remember the details). They did have some great 7" single colour vinyls that I still have in my collection.

Final album 'Taking Care Of Business' was less successful and I only remember getting the 'Christine Keeler' single (renamed from an obviously radio un-friendly 'Christian Killer') and not the album. The band went their separate ways and the main offshoot from this was when Morgan Nicholls joined Mile Hunt and Pete Howard in 'Vent 414'. Morgan then went on to play with Muse live doing all their keyboard wiardry out on tour. Cass create Delakota who released the acclaimed 'C'mon Cincinnati'.

For more information:
Senseless Things on Wikipedia
Senseless Things Website

Essential Listening:
Empire Of The Senseless
The Singles

Unbelievable Truth

Happy New Year everyone, and I'll start with a band who were criminally overlooked in their time and I'll try not to mention the R word!

Hailing from Oxford (yes they are from there too) Unbelieveable Truth consisted of Andy Yorke, Nigel Powell and Jason Moulster. They played beautiful, beautiful music that was best heard in a lovely small venue like the Fleece and Firkin or The Louisiana (two venues that I saw them play at). Debut single 'Building' was released on Shifty Disco in 1997 and was a gorgeous piece of music which defined their style and sound. The fact that Andy was 'his' brother was something that both helped them (got them press, gigs, attention) and hindered them (always having every article ever written about them mentioning the R word). They deserved all the attention though and debut album 'Almost Here' lived up to all expectations with other classic songs including 'Higher Than Reason' and 'Finest Little Space'.

The band were dropped from Virgin records and so the returned to Shifty Disco for their second album 'SortryThankYou' in 2000 which was met with less enthusiasm from the media and a short while after Andy left the band (but didn't go to Russia but instead back to University). Nigel hung around to put together the 'Misc. Music' double album or rarities and live stuff which was released to fans via the internet. Nigel went on to do other things and stayed within the music business releasing loads of old UT MP3's he dusted off from the vaults and kept the official UT website going for a while. He stayed in touch with Jason and now Andy and they played together as a band again last year at The Zodiac in Oxford after it was reopened.

Whilst writing this entry I've been listening to the tracks on Nigel Powell's Sad Song Co. MySpace page. For everyone who thought that R******** were so innovative in releasing an album and you could pay for it what you wanted well I wonder where they got the idea from??? Sad Song Company did it first back in March of last year and when 'Poignant Device' was released you could decide how much to pay. Go to the Sad Song Co. website and order it now (and pay him a fair wack for it).

Then later on this year Andy Yorke finally returns to the music scene with his debut solo album after disappearing for a while (and not going to Russia apparently). Listen to some of Andy's new stuff and keep in touch with everything he is up to at his website.

For more information:
Unbelievable Truth on Wikipedia
Andy Yorke Official Website
Sad Song Company (Nigel Powell)

Essential Listening:
Almost Here
SorryThankYou

Turin Brakes

A posting about a band that are very much still with us but one of my favourite bands. Olly and Gale produce some wonderful acoustic edged pop songs.

Their debut album 'The Optimist LP' came out in 2001 and is in my Top 10 of all time and contains some classic songs in 'The Door', 'Underdog (Save Me)', 'Emergency 72' in fact each of the 12 tracks on the disc. I first saw them at an acoustic only show at the Shepherds Bush Empire (probably my favourite venue for intimacy) where they played a wonderful show (supported by Ffion Regan who went on to make the Mercury Prize nominated 'The End of History' and is a regular support act every time I've seen them play).

I also saw them at a pretty special show at the London Palladium in 2005 which was then released on download a few days later. The were totally on form that night with some great acoustic versions of their songs including covers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Breaking The Girl' and an impromtu jam of Survivor's 'Eye Of The Tiger'!! I kid you not. A downside from the show were the two girls who stood behind us yapping away for half the show paynig no attention to the music and more concerned with each others love lives. At one stage we had to turn round and tell them to shut the f*%k up or get out - why do people do that - pay good money to see a gig and then spend most of it just talking to their friends?! if you want to do that go down the pub.

Anyway here is a smattering of tracks from across their career including a few rarer items. I'd encourage you to enjoy and then go out and buy the bands latest album 'Dark On Fire'.

For more information:
Turin Brakes on Wikipedia
Turin Brakes Official Website

Essential Listening:
The Optimist LP
Dark On Fire

Pop Will Eat Itself

The Incredible PWEI! (or Pop Will Eat Itself or even The Poppies!)

OK, so I lied. I posted the files a couple of weeks ago and then didn't have time to add all the other stuff around it. Let's try again though.



I can't remember how I first got into the Poppies but it was many years ago when I was at school and just starting to get into the more 'alternative' bands having previously been a follower of Duran Duran and Five Star (I can't believe I've just admitted to that in such an open way). I have a vivid memory of borrowing a tape from a school friend (Andrew Little) which had the debut album's from The Wonderstuff and The Stone Roses on it (at the time I thought the Roses album was shit - that soon changed). In return I know that I offered the first PWEI album that I had which was 'This is the day...' and I have a feeling that it was one where I just took a punt on it as I was experimenting with new music and never looked back from there. At that time the Poppies had moved on to a major label after spending their early years in the West Midlands 'Grebo' scene. I think I first heard of them through The Chart Show on ITV when Beaver Patrol was released and was just listed in their Indie Top10 but there was no video and they had to be careful to not play too much of the song with its lovely PC lyrics. 'This is the day....' was a big step forward and brought with it not only wild guitars, breaks, samples and catchy lyrics but also some great images and designs courtesy of the Design Republic. In fact PWEI were part of the breed of bands at the time who probably sold more T-shirts than records (other examples being Carter, Neds etc.)







I only saw them live once but what a gig it was. Live at The Marquee in London (legendary venue) - a small venue, packed to the rafters, the gig certainly wore ni my leather jacket and I was soaked to the skin by the end. I think they were supported by Yeah God (and the lead guitarist 'The Buzzard' smashed his guitar to pieces at the end of the set) and TAD (and Tad himself threatened to crowd surf during his set and for those of you who remember TAD he was not a small chap!.

Follow up album 'A Cure For Sanity' increased the dance/beats element and reduced the guitars but was still something special. However I think their best stuff was certainly from the 'This is the day...' era where apart from the obvious standout singles (Wise Up Sucker, Can U Dig It?) there was some great album tracks and then my favourite piece of vinyl ever was the 'Very Metal Noise Pollution EP' shaped picture disc pictured here which also featured some of their best tracks 'PWEIzation' and 'Preaching to the Perverted'.



The band broke up in '96 with the most famous offshoot being when Richard March and Mike Stokes formed 'Bentley Rhythm Ace'. Most of the stuff I had from the Poppies was on vinyl (inc. the multi-formatted singles that record companies churned out at the time) so its been great to rediscover a lot of the albums by getting digital versions from Blogs.

For more information:
PWEI on Wikipedia
PWEInation

Essential Listening:
PWEI Product 1986-1994: The Pop Will Eat Itself Anthology
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!

Radiohead - without peers

I'll start off with just a bit of comment.

So just a couple of weeks after releasing yet another stunning album (yes I love them all, even the one's after OK Computer) Radiohead held one of their webcasts on Friday night with some great footage including live versions of some of the tracks from 'In Rainbows' (if you haven't already bought it - for whatever price, don't download it for free from a blog get the real deal from the band) with live versions of Reckoner, Bodysnatchers and Faust Arp but they also perform some great new cover versions with The Smiths 'Headmaster Ritual' and Joy Division's 'Ceremony'.

THIS is a great band making music the way THEY want to make it, releasing it the way THEY want to release it and promoting it the way THEY want. They are truly without any peers.

Geneva

Geneva, the band with a lead singer possessing the voice of an Angel. Andrew Montgomery (he of said voice) and bandmates formed Geneva in 1992. Their debut single 'No One Speaks' began to make waves in the music press (mainly due to Andrew's voice and the rich melodies of the song). I got hold of the single and then saw them play at some small gig in Bristol (which probably would have been the Fleece & Firkin. They quickly became one of my favourite bands and in a similar vein to Embrace (see other posting on this blog) I started to create a website dedicated to them. Through this I met many Geneva fans and even got name checked in a letter to one of the other guys from Andrew.

Debut album 'Further' was a classy piece of work and also contained the singles 'Into The Blue' and 'Tranquilizer'. The follow up 'Weather Underground' maintained the quality and infact the soundscapes were even more spectacular with influences from outer space in particular with 'Dollars in the Heavens' and 'Rockets Over California'. Sadly the second album was not so commercially successful and shortly after the band split.

From there a few post-Geneva bands were formed notably Amityville who released, the now very rare, Pacific Radio Fire EP which contained Andrew's trademark vocals. Andrew now forms part of St Famous. 69 Corp and The High Wire also follow in the footsteps of Geneva.

For more information:
Geneva on Wikipedia
A Place In The Sun - A Geneva Archive
St Famous on MySpace
69 Corp on MySpace
The High Wire on MySpace


Essential Listening:
Further
Weather Underground