If you want to give me more ........ Octopus !

Some bands Create albums that are so-so and continue to do this till they get old and release a dance album to boost sales and be down with the cool kids. Then there are artists who release 1 single album of sheer brilliance then split and never release anything again, and here i give you "Octopus".

Lead singer Mark Shearer spotted a certain "Damon Albarn" walking back stage give them some constructive criticism. When Octopus got signed to Blur's Food label he had these wise words for Damon "He'd better watch out, because we're on the up. We're not here to be this year's darlings and then disappear." 
And looking back now 15 years later........ thats just what happened.

The album im talking about is "From A to B" which was released in 1996 on Food records. The 1st single taken from the album was the Punky "Magazine" which i remember buying on i think Red coloured vinyl, which sounded like crap but looked pretty!. At the time it was an effort to get a single by an indie band into the top 100 but their 2nd single "Your smile" reached the amazing heights of #42 and was officially a hit with Radio 1's evening session. They only released 4 singles and 1 album but i think the band had so much to offer. "From A to B" has a rich landscape of so many themes and sounds, combining guitars, horn section, Beautiful melodies, punk and acoustics. Just listen to tracks like "Saved", "your smile" and the beautiful "Adrenalina" and you you will find the most heart fealt songs of the Britpop generation.

If you do manage to get a copy of the actual album you find that it is desguised as a fold-out colour board game including cut-out tokens that you use to play with the game.  I was always Jealous of My mate Geoff for buying the 12" vinyl version as i only had the poxy cd !!.

With so many influences and styles this was one of the best  psychedelic tinged albums in the entirety of Britpop.

Haven't seen you in a long time........ Perfume

When you stick a Britpop bands name in Wiki it always starts with this line :
"Name of your britpop band"  WERE a British indie group from ....... blah blah blah !!!!!


Thats right here we have another band that for such small amount of time shined so brightly in my eyes but faded away with the scene that they were the forerunners of!. Yes people i bring to you the fantastic PERFUME. 


Now to me the band reminds me of Fantastic drunken times spent with 3 of my best friends of the time Angela, Kelly and Geoff and the summer we spent at the glorious Glastonbury in 1995. I remember buying a 12" of the single lover from a record seller at the back of select magazine for £3.99, this was after seeing the band perform  if my memory serves me well alongside the bands "Thurman" and "Menswe@r" at the cavern club Exeter in late 1994. I cant really remember the gig as i was steaming drunk from the cheap white lighting they were selling at the bar.  This was the way it stayed at every gig i saw perfume play until the Phoenix festival in 1996 where on one occasion i didn't drink so i could actually watch the band play!.  And from what i can remember it was a brilliant gig that spanned all the singles and tracks form the Debut album "One".  All the singles i had from the band was on the Aromasound label which was their own label to get their songs out there until they teamed up with Big star To release the album "One".  They toured with some of the best small bands of the time like Thurman, Powder and Menswe@r and on to support Gene and they even managed to get on to Paul Wellers "Nottinghill" publishers.  In 1997 along with the release of the album "One" they re issued a re recorded version of "Lover" and their last single "You and i". In the latter of 1997 they split along with releasing a Best of album "Yesterday rising"


So once again we have another band that should have been bigger than they should have been, but for me they influenced my music and music tastes forever and helps me remember some of the best friends and time i will ever have.

You must be ginger ....... David Devant and his spirit wife

In another life maybe ............... We'll all be ginger and free !

Those immortal lines will stay with me until the day i die!. Also the 1st David Devant gig that i went to will stick in my memory for one of the most bizarre gig's that i have ever been to.

To start with it was a blazing hot summer in 1996 and the Glastonbury festival had been cancelled and we ended up with buying a 4 day ticked to the now defunct Phoenix festival.  Which was a great idea because it was a fantastic festival and i managed to see most of the best of the Britpop collective at the time.  So we was waiting to see the band Marion to come on stage and we had a wander around to see who was playing.  We came across a tent that was rammed to the brim with sweaty people, that we thought were trying to escape from the sun.  We was wrong, they had all come to see "David Devant and his spirit wife" and they were just about to come on stage.  The first few songs were played with the band playing with their backs to the audience whilst facing a mirror because they wanted to see the gig from a different perspective and see what the audience was seeing!.  After playing through a couple of numbers they started to play the single that they are famous for "Ginger", this was of course done whilst someone grated raw carrot over the drummers head!!.  From that i was in love with the band and everything they released, and no matter what the NME (Sic!) wrote about them they stood for everything Britpop meant to ME!.

In the mid 2000's i remember catching a documentary on late night Channel 4, filmed in the mid to late 90's it focused on the band touring behind their 2nd album "Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous. For me Britpop never had an ending and left so many things unanswered and when i watched this documentary i remember shedding a tear at the close of the program.  It finished with the lead singer burning his synonymous wig which was one of the striking characteristics of all the Indie bands that i loved and even though it was very sad i also thought of it as a final goodbye to the scene. You must understand that i saw this many years after Britpop had faded away and lost contact with most of the friends that i knew back then.

All this from a band who named them selves after a Victorian magician i hear you ask.  Well yes actually, they released one of the all time greatest Britpop albums "Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous" with 4 of the best singles ever to be taken of an album!.


And to end this little rant of mine there is only 1 way i can think of to remember the band and its ..........



It was Miss Scarlet
In the ballroom
And she was using
(what was she using?)
She was using


The La la la la la
La la la la
Lead piping
It was the
la la la la la la
La la la la la
Lead piping

Im breaking away ......... Syndicate

Cant remember much about The band Syndicate* to be perfectly honest. I remember buying the single "Free me" because it sounded all Madchester and to this day still sounds excellent. I do remember the band being championed by the likes of Oasis, the Real people and a couple of the Daily papers.

Their only album "The smile says it all" was released in 1997 and for me at the time contained all the elements for a fantastic album :

1) Mod groovs
2) Shouty bits !!
3) Baggy Moments that you could shake your air drums to !

All in all its a pretty cool album for the arse end of Britpop as at this point in time it started to fade out and tastes were changing.

Check out the song "Free me" for a Britpop, Heavy, Baggy hybrid.

Step right up ........... Mainstream

So as we entered the twilight years of Britpop circa 97-98 we got given a handful of bands who had different influences than the rest!. Mainstream were one of the bands who were influenced by prog rock and the Shoegaze movement of the early 90's.

Some would call it "Shoegaze" and others would call it "Groove rock" but no matter what you called it you had to shake your soul when you listened to Mainstreams debut album. Starting out in 1994 but not releasing a demo  till 1996 Mainstream was offered a record deal after only a handful of gigs. Playing like the early Verve songs but with more production and vibe the stage was set for these London boys to make it big.  I've always been a sucker for the sound of a Hammond organ pumping out of a Leslie speaker and Mainstream would please me no ends with their frantic bass lines and the sweet sound of the Hammond swirling in the back ground. These boys had groove and lots of soul which poured out of every track on their debut. With tracks like "Stranded", "Privilege" and of course the excellent "Step right up" they had a sound of their own and to this day they are one of the bands i just wished i had seen live.

But as with most of the bands that emerged at the end of Britpop they only released a handful of singles and 1 album.  I always loved the verve but i thought Mainstream were streets ahead even though they were mearly youngsters.

You make me want to scream ...... The Dandy's

So the 60s had a major sound influence on quite a few of the bands of the Britpop era but just before the Britpop explosion we had another short but excellent music scene that was called MADCHESTER !.

For me The Dandy's fell into this small group of bands that had a the influential sound from this early 90s music scene. Floaty, shoegazey, poppy and baggy are just 4 words to pin the sound of the Dandys whilst conforming to the standard Britpop sound as well.

They only released 1 album and a handful of singles but for a short time they ruled my record collection!. Searching for singles at the music shop Solo records in Exeter (R.I.P) i came across the single "Dirty weekend" by the band and as it was only 99p and i thought it was worth a shot!. And what a fantastic single it was, Dirty weekend is the musical version of one of those naughty postcards that you will find in the shop at the end of any British seaside pier!.  And those Typical English references ran through the lyrics of most of the bands songs on the album "Symphonic screams" including "English country garden, Merry go round and Johnny foxtrot to name but a few.

As usual with the Music press of the era NME ( WANKERS!!) hyped them up to be the next best thing but as soon as the album was released that were thrown aside!. Despite this they got popular on the touring scene and had a very big following including some members from other popular bands of the time.

So in 1999 with a new drummer and a new album being announced they seemed to be getting bigger and gathering a bigger fanbase then ..................................... NOTHING !!!


So go grab the album and treat yourself to one of the best Forgotten band from the era.

Oh What a lovely day ! ........... Thurman

Underrated is a word that is commonly used to described many of the britpop bands that i write about but Thurman stands out as one of the foremost of the bunch and the band NME touted as the New Blur!.

I saw these lads open for menswear in 1994 and they had me and all the other spotty teens hooked. Ok so a few of the songs sound like someone else ( "Loaded" is "children of the revolution" and "cheap holiday" sounds like "chemical world" and i wont even go into  "now i'm a man") but that didn't matter to me because these songs meant more to me than anything written in the 60's and 70's!

Rooting through the 7" bargin bin i found a copy of the single Famous that had been placed in there by mistake but i managed to grab it at 99p anyways. And what a single it was, from the opening piano riff to the lyrics about a certain famous Indie front man of the time!, the single was a classic even if my copy was a little warped and crackled all the way through !!.

So with a handful of singles under their belt they released their only album "Lux". With its plagiarism of more well known songs and styles (Mod, Glam and pop) they only lasted 2 years and then disbanded.
Don't listen to what the press wrote at the time, go and have a listen to Lux, its stuffed full of singalong tunes and every track could of easily been a single.


Thurman weren't just another band they were a band who wore their influences with pride, They WERE one of the Underrated bands of the 90s that never got to shine. But for people like me who actually got to see them play live they meant the whole world for those couple of years and defined our music direction for many years to come.