So it’s just a little over three years since I started this blog with my first post about a band who sparked my interest into Britpop way back in 1994. Now many bands come and go which you will all know about if you read my blog on a regular basis but the band I’m talking about today are a band who have just recently morphed and have come back to life.
I would like to introduce Menswe@r
To say this band has had a profound importance on my life is
not even scratching the surface. I was 16 years old and just discovering music
and seen the band on the front cover of Melody Maker unbeknown to me that they
hadn’t even released a single yet. As a kid I was brought up on bands like The
Kinks, The Who and The Small Faces so I had a good music upbringing and knew
about the music and fashion styles of the mod movement and was excited to see a
band wearing these colours again. I
remember going into my local Our Price record shop and asking for the single by
the band called Menswe@r only to be told that had never heard of them. Just as
I was leaving a store assistant tapped me on the shoulder and said he overheard
me at the counter and he’d heard of them as well and knew that they hadn’t
released a single yet but were due to perform on Top Of The Pops. I sat with bated breath and tuned in to BBC1
just to see the band perform I’ll Manage Somehow a whole week before the single
was released. The hype for the band was going through the roof with Record
companies fighting for the band to be on their label and soon enough they would
be signed to London Records. The band would release the single Day Dreamer as
their second single and this is where my musical journey would begin as this is
when I first saw the band live and to be honest is was the first time I’d been
to a live gig.
I remember it was a blazing hot day when we caught the train
to see the band perform at the Exeter Cavern Club and got to the venue a few
hours early. Sitting outside the club we got the chance to listen to the band
do a couple of sound checks and I almost exploded when the opening bass riff to
Daydreamer was played! I seem to recall
the band was supported by Powder and the very fantastic Thurman who warmed the
crowd up very nicely. Darkness …..
silence …… then the band walked on and the place went crazy, Then the lead
singer Jonny Dean walked on and the whole venue erupted just as the band kicked
into the opening on 125 West 3rd Street. It was my first gig and I found myself in the
middle of the crowd being pushed left, right and centre so I did what everyone
else did, I stuck my elbows out and just started to jump to the music (Hence
pogo to Britpop). Right there on that dance floor in 1994 I lost my heart to a
new following called Britpop and if it wasn’t for Menswe@r I don’t think I
would be here today sitting down writing this blog.
The band were a mix of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish with
the styling’s of Mod and the curled lip of the punk movement of the 1970’s but
with very British story telling strewn through their lyrics. Throughout 1994 and 1995 you couldn’t read a
music magazine without reading something about Jonny Dean and his merry
men. Then came the summer of 1995 and I
had just got my hands on two tickets to the fabulous Glastonbury Festival and
looking back at the line-up it looks like the who’s who of Britpop and Menswe@r
were top of the bill for me. With the band releasing their debut Album Nuisance
around this time the festival would we a great way to gain more exposure even
in reality they didn’t need it. After a storming performance at Glasto the band
would go on to release three more singles from the album and having one go top
ten with the release of Being Brave in early 1996. A standalone single was released in the
summer of 1996 entitled We Love you and listening back now I think it’s a
farewell to the Britpop movement that would start dyeing out shortly after the
singles release.
So yes it’s the dreaded year of 1997 and we find the band
leaving London Records just after they released their second album Hay Tiempo!.
The release didn’t get a release anywhere in the world apart from Japan and
would only be available via import at stupid prices but at this point the
Britpop Bubble burst and British music as we know it would end (Slight
execration I know but I can’t get excited by British bands nowadays). So there we have it just add another band of forgotten
heroes of the British music scene to never be heard of again……………. Oh! Wait!
2013 we find Johnny Dean playing a gig to raise money for the
National Autistic Society performing under the guise of the The Nuis@nce Band to
a sell-out audience. A new formed Menswe@r performed their first show in 15
years on the 26th March 2014 at London’s Bush Hall and was also a sell-out.
They performed their new single Crash which was a reworking of an earlier B-side
to the We Love You single in 1996 and went on to release the single via Nuisance
recordings on May 26th.
So looking back at the two albums that the band released we
find two very different albums but at the same time very distinctive. In their debut album Nuisance we find a band
at the forefront of a new music scene that was filled with 60’s references,
poppy rhythms and a very British Fashion style. From start to finish I can hear
my teenage years flow through every song and listening to it as I’m writing
this review I feel the same sense of excitement and wonder that I had back in
the day not knowing what life lay ahead of me. From the opening track 125 West
3rd Street to the Stardust reprise that closes the album you will
find the definitive Britpop album. Of course the standout songs were actually
released as singles including I’ll Manage Somehow, Sleeping In and the era
defining Daydreamer through to Being Brave and Stardust it starts to sound like
the soundtrack to my teenage years. The standout song for me will always be the
track titled Hollywood Girl as I remember drunkenly making my way home from
seeing the band play at my first gig in Exeter. I remember making my way back
to the train station and singing the chorus at the top of my lungs over and
over till I caught my train at 6am the following morning.
In their second album Hay Tiempo! We find a slight change in
sound with a more Shoe gaze feel mixed with Teenage Fan club and 60’s sunshine
pop. That’s quite a range to have but with songs like Wait For The Sun, Silver
Tongue and the space rock sounding Shine we find a band evolving into something
more than a child of Britpop. I never got a chance to listen to the album upon
its release as already covered earlier as it was only released in Japan but I secured
a copy via import a few years ago (but now residing somewhere in London due to
missing box when I moved).
So there you go to a band I thought was lost in time like
many other bands of the era only to be resurrected and start touring again and
release a single. There are many bands
that evoke the spirit and true nature of Britpop but in Menswe@r you will find
the true greatness of a British band who was at the start of one of Britain’s
golden music eras. The band have had the bad reviews and the low points that
comes along with being in the music press but if you were there you will
remember a band who meant the world to many a teenager. Like I’ve said in many
posts before I don’t write about bands that I don’t like as my music tastes
maybe different than someone else’s but everyone has an opinion of the bands
that mean the world to them. Menswe@r meant the world to me then and will
always mean something very special to me as they introduced to the live music
scene and the thought that one day I might be able to pick up a guitar and
start a band of my very own. My dabble in music may never have turned into what
I wanted it to be but you have to give credit to all the bands who do make it
in whatever shape or form.
Menswe@r are a part of a bunch of bands who for a very short
time put Britain on the music map in the 1990’s when it was awash with the American
Grunge scene and British music was starting to lose its identity. Bands like
Menswe@r made music fashionable again and opened a lot of doors for newer bands
to be picked up by the record company’s and for small indie record labels to
start forming all over the country.
I was planning about saving this write up for last ever post
on this blog as it would be fitting to finish the blog as I started it with the
Birth of Britpop and my First gig featuring the band. But finding that the band
is alive and well in whatever shape or form it’s spurned me on to keep the
Pogo2Britpop doors open and continue to post until I run out of bands.
Thank you Mr Johnny Dean and to your band of Merry men (And
women!)
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