Selling your 1st 7" single on the door at your gig was common at most small venue bands in the 90s and this was where is got my 1st taster of the longpigs!
It was at the Piazza venue in Torquay where over a couple of days before the 1995 Glastonbury festival they put on some cracking bands (Apart from Northern uproar! ). Baby bird, Heavy stereo, Gorkys zygotic mynci, Northern uproar and The longpigs all on one ticket!. Now this was when all bands didnt have a single out and people only knew them was via BBC radio 1's Evening session. Id heard the song "Happy again" and "Jesus Christ" a few days before and if you read my post on Heavy stereo you will find out how i got in for free.
The Longpigs were cool, not just cool but Britpop Cool. They had something else that others didnt have and that was lead singer Crispin Hunt. He along with the other Pigs oozed coolness and style, not just the way they dressed but with the lyrics. The songs were crafted and thought about and had a power and resonance that was very English to them. Every cover band in the country (Including Mine!) would have the Acoustic song "On and On" somewhere on the set list, it just had that opening Acoustic riff that was too good to pass up.
I remember Them playing the track "Jesus Christ" twice because when they were ordered to play an encore they didn't have any tracks left. But we didn't mind because to this day it was one of the stand out track of the era and their career. After leaving the Piazza gig with my limited edition press of happy again and Sally dances 7" firmly in hand and singing "Jesus Christ" over and over on the way home to catch the bus!.
The 1st official singles "Happy again", "she said" and "Jesus Christ" didn't make any waves in the charts until they released their 4th single"on and on" which got into the top 20. In 1996 they finally released the debut album "The sun is often out" and they re-released "She said" again and it also got placed into the top 20.
3 years later they released the 2nd album "Mobile home" with the excellent single "Blue skies" but after the 2nd single they faded away along with their record label.
Check out "The sun is often out" and the song "Jesus christ"..................... you wont be dissapointed !!!
