I wanna be a Punka too ..... Kenickie

We were Kenickie ... A bunch of fuckwits.


What a fantastic way to disband and go on your merry way. Some of you may know Lauren Laverne from the television and radio fronting all sorts of programmes, but did you know she fronted one of the best loved female fronted bands during the Britpop era?.. No?.... then please read on.


Hailing from Sunderland and naming the band after the namesake in the film Grease, they exploded on to the scene in 1994 and shook up the Britpop sound with punk and Leopard skin!. They would go on to release 2 EP's, 7 singles and 2 studio albums, but would gain a cult following and many a young teenage boy heart.
To me the three minute single is a hard thing to write but Kenickie perfected this with their 1st single Punka. Now certain girl groups of the era would be spouting about "Girl Power" (you know who you are Spice Girls!) when there were women and bands who actually were already doing this for themselves and not banging on about it. I remember at the time getting so angry with groups like The Spice Girls spouting about Girl Power when in fact they were manufactured and moulded by accountants and record producers who wrote for them and told them what to do, say and wear.  Kenickie were actually out there doing it! Writing their own material, playing their own instruments and playing the sweaty Indie clubs to 10 people and a dog!

With Sounds like they played their guitars with razorblades, they were what the British music scene needed in 1994 just as Britpop exploded and blew the shoegazing scene out of the water. A band that other bands look up to the first time in years. The 3 girl and a guy drummer (his name was Pete Gofton and an excellent drummer at that!) was a perfect formula and with a love of Peroxide, animal print, spiky guitars and the pouting....... oh how can we forget the pouting, we had the makings of a band who would invoke what it was to be in a band when you were a teenager.
Like living in a cartoon bubble and with references to British culture they were like a female fronted punk version of Pulp but from Sunderland. Their debut album At the Club was released in May 1994, and thrusted the band into the limelight and smack on the front of the local music mags all angst and angry but looking so pretty!. At the club would include the excellent single Night Life which was released on a limited 7" leopard print vinyl. So in 1998 we were treated to a second album. Get In would give us a very different sounding Kenickie and I would say a more grown up album. Only two singles would be released off the album. The very twee I Would Fix You and the catchy Stay in the Sun. Putting away the guitars for a more synth, twee pop sound the album failed to top the success of their debut despite being a fantastic album in its own right.


So there we have it. A band who shot to the heady hights of the mid 20's of the UK charts right as the Britpop bubble was ready to pop. Its bands like Kenickie that should be around today to show how UK guitar pop should be done. They may be gone but for many of us they will never be forgotten.

Were having a ball ...........60ft Dolls

Whilst tuning in to Radio One's Evening Session which I did every Monday to Friday, Steve Lamacq played a single from one of a new set of bands that were emerging from Wales. The single was Pig Valentine and the band was The 60ft Dolls.  They gave the whole Britpop sound a stripping down with a swagger of rock and a whole load of punk. With sound scapes ranging from Mod and Metal to early 90's Grunge they gave the scene something that was lacking at the time and that was the classic 3 minute pop song, and boy these guys could write some. A whole album chock full in fact, but we will come to that later.
Forming in 1992 in Newport; Wales with connections to Donna Matthews from Elastica, hung out at the local music venue TJ's and listened to the local hardcore bands that played on a weekly basis and they took this and mixed it with rock just at the right time for the British public to take notice. I've spent many a drunken night in the venue TJ's when I lived in Newport and saw many of the ‘greats’ play there and can see why it was an integral part of the band making them what they were.
Being championed by Radio One's Evening Session they even broke the American market being featured in the New York Times’ Best Singles of 1996 and; given the amount of great singles released in that year that was pretty good going.  Being signed to the uber cool Indie label Indolent they released the two singles Talk To Me and Pig Valentine before releasing the storming classic album The Big 3. The album has gone down as a rock classic and would feature all the singles apart from White Knuckle Ride and would re-release and re-record their very first single Happy Shopper.From releasing Indie singles on an unknown label to being signed to Geffen and touring the world in just 4 years is pretty good going by any standards but alas it wasn't to last as most things from that era.They released their last single Alison's Room in 1998 with the following album Joya Magica in the same year and later disbanded.
I saw them a handful of times in the mid Nineties and each time they blew me away. For a 3 piece punk rock outfit hailing from Newport they did what some bands won't do in a life time and a sound that some can never re-create live no matter how hard they try.

Some bands just have 'IT' ! and the 60ft Dolls had it in spades.

Take it easy chicken ...... Mansun

The opening track on any album is the opening door to what's lurking inside, within 20 seconds of the first play you can tell what the album will turn into. Albums like Going Blank Again by Ride, Urban Hyms by The Verve and The Stone Roses debut are just some of the albums throughout the 90's that had classic album openers.

Then along come a bunch of lads from Chester who would release one of the all time best debut albums to be released during the 90's even if it would signal the end of Britpop.

The album would be titled Attack Of The The Grey Lantern, the Opening track would be The Chad Who Loved Me and the band would be the very influential Mansun.

So on a technical note I must state that people have stated that Mansun were not a Britpop band, and to some point I agree but just because their debut album came out just as the Britpop bubble burst shouldn't mean they get dismissed as such. They released their debut single Take it Easy Chicken in 1995 just midway through scene and released in all seven singles before they released Lantern in 1997.  Now if you have taken a little peak at my blog at all then you would have read about what my defeniton of Britpop was and is. It's not about the sound as such or even the style that came from it. To me Britpop was about bands coming together for the first time since the sixties and forcing British bands into the public eye once again. All the bands have been influenced by other British artists from generations past and for once Great Britian had something to shout about and be proud of and also for kids like me it was the best time to be alive. 

Ok so back to the band. The first time I heard the band was from the legend Steve Lamacq from Radio 1's evening session.  From what I can recall they played Take it Easy Chicken even though the band had never played a gig but this resulted in the band securing their first record contract with Parlophone.  I personally fell in love with the band when they released their second single Skin up Pin up which I remember fondly with its distorted riffs and drum machine backed up beats all squeezed onto a single white coloured 7" vinyl record.  So even before their debut album the band had released seven singles which five of those were multi track E.p's.  That's some going for a band just getting started also considering that each song could easily be a single and not just an album filler.  The first time I saw them play live was around my birthday in 1995 and I saw them support Echobelly along with Heavy Stereo and it was quite a gig I can tell you.  Playing songs like Flourella, Take it Easy Chicken, Stripper Vicar, Ski Jump Nose and Skin up Pin up they were one of the best support acts that I have seen with such an energetic live presence but with all the charm and swagger of a established rock band. 

So with the massive singles Wide Open Space and She Makes my Nose Bleed being released to an enthusiastic audience the band released their debut album Attack Of The Grey Lantern, knocking Blur off the #1 spot in the album chart.  Fast forward to 1998 with Britpop fading in the memories of the British public and we see bands being dropped from their labels and disbanding and fading into the back of the nations minds. It was a tough time for new British bands to get noticed and established acts to find the strength to find new ways to carry on. We find Mansun releasing their last two albums to critical disappointment and not a commercial success as their debut and as a result the band split in 2003.

With a dedicated fan base always behind the band, the fans managed to get the band's record company to release the complication album titled Kleptomania which included songs from the bands unreleased fourth album mixed with a selection of B sides.

Although no longer around the band still have many fans around the world still playing their music and keeping the name alive.  Not bad for a band who have been banned from entering every Happy Eater and Holiday Inn around the UK. 

Gav

I never want an easy life .............. The Charlatans

Some bands don't need an introduction.  The Band I am writing about here fall into this category but this blog is for people who have either forgotten, never heard of or have never let go of the bands I write about.  Some bands add to current music scenes and some bands create them.  There are bands who rise above the scenes that surround them and evolve with the times and sound current and fresh.

Throughout my life listening to music there have been only a few bands that invoke SOME of the qualities that I have just written about, but there is one band that invoke all these and more.  I firmly believe that without this band many doors would not have been opened for new kids wanting to start making music.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Charlatans.....

From their early beginnings in the late 80's they released their debut single "Indian Rope" on their own label "Dead Dead Good" and went on to sign to Beggars Banquet and release the massively influential single "The Only One I Know".   With Tims distinctive vocals twinned with Martin's non stop baselines and intertwined with Jon's dance tinged drum lines they had a sound that fitted the Madchester/Baggy scene that had just exploded.  But there was one thing that made The Charlatans stand out more than the other bands of the time and his name was Rob Collins with his mighty Hammond Organ and at that precise moment in time unbeknown to me I just found my first musical hero. 

To this day I stand by the fact that without the Charlatans and especially Rob Collins I would not have started my obsession into music, picked up my first musical instrument or started this blog.   The sound of that Hammond swirling and twisting up and down the musical scale sounded more like a second vocalist than a keyboard.  Songs like The Only One I Know, Then, White shirt, Who Wants to Know and Happened to Die made me get my first keyboard and try to copy the sound, musical movement and style that Rob showed on countless songs.

So with the debut album Some Friendly under their belts they produced one of my most played albums of all time. Between 10th and 11th was released just as the Madchester scene was dying out and received some negative reviews from the press but it didn't bother me. Tremolo Song and especially Weirdo remain classics to this day and an album with songs like Chewing Gum Weekend and Page One has stood the test of time. Even though their image took a beating because of the changing music scene at the time ignited by the press doing what they always do (build someone up to knock them down) The Charlatans would soon rise above.

Ok, so technically The Charlatans are not a Britpop band per-say but they did rise to greater fame during this era and helped to diversify a sound which was now being called Britpop.   A lot of people think bands like Blur, Oasis and Pulp and the use of Brass instruments were the forefront of the sound but I completely disagree.  For me it was bands like the ones I write about in this blog and The Charlatans played a big part of this.  They had already been a part of the Madchester/Baggy scene and had a good innings in the industry under their belts.  Bands from the 60's like The Kinks and The Zombies were pushing music further by writing about things that were particularly English and in the Britpop era this was to be focused on again.  The Charlatans had grown musically since 1989 and with the release of the album Up to Our Hips in 1994 you could hear that growth in the lyrics and the music.  Just take the instrumental track Feel Flows for instance and you hear a band just as good as their peers and an indie band that the new kids could look up to.  With songs like Can't get out of Bed and the spiky single Jesus Hairdo to the fantastically named "I Never Want an Easy Life if Me and He Were Ever to Get There"

Now we come to the biggie.  Their self titled 4th album would shove them into the public eye once more and this time they would receive the respect they deserved. With the first single Crashin in they released a monster of a single and it set the tune of what the forthcoming album would be sounding like. Two more singles would be released, my personal favourite Just Lookin (the video always seemed to be on the chart show every week) and the acoustic driven Just When You're Thinking Things Over. Things seemed perfect for the band as they were at the top of their game and riding high in the public eye and the charts. Life has a way of throwing a curveball at you from time to time and The Charlatans had their fair share of these but what happened next would normally destroy a band.

I will remember the 22nd of July 1996 for the rest of my life with great sadness and loss. My dad was driving us both home from work just like every other day and like every other day we had one of my new mix tapes on in the car.  I remember the tape stopped as it had reached the end of side A and the radio came on with the news that Rob Collins from The Charlatans had died in a car crash.  My world just seemed to cave in, my first music hero had been taken from us and the band that I most looked up to would obviously be disbanding and I would never hear Rob play on a record again.  Well this is where the band come into their own and instead of splitting they marched on in the memory of Rob and went ahead and released their third number one album Tellin Stories. For me the first single of the album One to Another would be Rob's song and a final goodbye but also a look to the future for a band who always come out fighting. 

So from 1989 and spanning eleven albums we find The Charlatans still touring and still making music and embracing the digital music revolution. The band seem to go from strength to strength with a sound of their own but not not being able to be pigeon holed or labelled. 

So there you go this page is dedicated to one of the greatest survivors of the British music scene and of course to Rob Collins who without both I would not be listening, playing, writing and breathing music to this day.

 Gavin.

You're a long time dead............ Shed Seven

         

Many bands made Britpop what it was. Whether it was Menswe@r strutting around in sharp suits or Elastica snarling at the camera and singing about having a shag on car bonnets, certain bands made it what it was. So we come to the mighty Shed Seven, whom without, we wouldn't have had the Melody Maker try and pigeon hole the "new wave of the new wave" scene that turned into Britpop. To me not just a Britpop band but the band who to me, defined what "indie" sounded like. At the time the only album I had in my possession was "The Greatest Rock Album Ever......" And I though there must be something more!

And there was ........

The evening session sometime in 1994 played one of the greatest singles of my teenage years - "Mark". It played over the airwaves and kicked started my obsession with music for the next 19 years. With the release of their debut album "Change Giver" Britpop exploded and shoved Shed Seven into the limelight. The single Mark just broke into the top 70, which back then was a feat for an indie band, but the next three singles Dolphin, Speakeasy and Ocean Pie made the top 40 and started a string of top charting singles.  I don't think I can explain my love for their debut. It was an album that came along at the time when British music was at a turning point and when many kids took up the guitar trying to copy the arpeggios of their new heroes.  From the opening track Dirty Soul to the closer - On an Island With You; the album felt like a complete piece of work and not a handful of singles with a few extras. The album flows like a story from start to finish and I honestly can't listen to one single track without playing the whole album.  It just doesn't feel right.

In 1996 the single, Where Have You Been Tonight was in the charts and is still the song that takes me back to those days of hot summers, Glastonbury and Louise Wener. The new album that was going to be called "In Colour" would be soon called "A Maximum High" and was Sheds most successful album at the height of the Britpop era and become a classic. Spawning five top 40 singles and spending 26 weeks in the album charts, they also created the finest Britpop singles Going for Gold which will be placed on every Britpop compilation album for the rest of time.

With 1998's "Let it Ride" we find the Sheds shifting their sound for a beefier rugged soundscape and pulling no punches. Spending 7 weeks in the album chart and spanning four top 40 singles including the infectious "She Left Me on Friday" and my personal favourite "Chasing Rainbows". The album also featured the keyboard talents of The Inspiral Carpets' Clint Boon.  Maybe not as successful as their previous efforts but the album still remains one of my favourites and is still Shed Seven to the core.

The last studio album was 2001's "Truth be told" and would see the departure of guitarist Paul Banks but the return of the Sheds original guitarist Joe Johnson who left before the release of their debut album Change Giver. With only one single " A Cry for Help" the band split and went their separate ways with new bands and other projects. The band did release another album "One Hand Clapping" which comprised of material and demos of what would have been the 5th album and was limited to only a thousand copies.

I'm glad to say that the Sheds are still playing reunion shows every now and then with all original members. And as far I can see they are not stopping and neither are the ticket sales.

So STOP what you are doing right now and purchase the best back catalogue of one of the best British bands of the 90's.

Change Giver changed my life.......... And It might just change yours.

Back in bloom .............. Sulk

Lets start off as we mean to go on, I proclaim Sulk to be the best British British band to come out of Great Britian in the past 20 years.  There I've said it and I can't go back now, and why would I? I mean every word I say and have been preaching about this band for a while now and now with the release of their debut album "Graceless" my words have paid off. Graceless is flowing with soundscapes from the past 40 years, from the early 90s baggy and britpop movements to the bands that influenced them from the 60s and 70s. Yes I can hear tinges of the charlatans and the Roses through to bands like Northside, Ride and Slowdive but also britpop bands like The Space Monkeys, Sussed and Mantaray. But it doesn't stop there, you can reach back to the 60s within the likes of Sgt. Peppers era of the Beatles, to The Zombies, The Byrds and The Stones.  Even the likes of the psych bands like The Thirteen Floor Elevators, Love and Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Unlike many many other bands over that last few years who come off sounding like the bands they are influenced by, Sulk pull off sounding like a band who have lived through four very British music scenes and sound as fresh as if they had created them themselves. Weather Psych, Shoegaze, Baggy or Britpop these boys don't sound like one band but a whole four decades worth of music that have influenced every kid that sits in their bedroom with their 2nd hand squire electric dreaming of being in a band.

Their debut album "Graceless" is the album I would of dreamt of making back in the day when I was gigging. For me it represents everything that made me want to pick up a guitar and join a band. It's even made me dust off the old Gibson and crank up the chorus and reverb just like I did when I first bought it. The album is perfect from start to finish and gives me the same feeling I had when I first listened to The Stone Roses debut. Swirling chorus filled guitars, hazy vocals and double beats that any air drummer would be proud to swing their arms to. Every song could be a single and I can't just listens to one track without having listening to the whole album as I don't want to miss out on all the tracks, which to me is a sign of a classic album. Tracks like "Flowers" with its blissful chorus hook and energetic guitar riff swirling in the background inbetween its modest baggy beat, to the track "Wishes" with its soft vocal harmonies and a back beat that any Madchester band would kill for.

So there you have it, the wait is over.

The Roses may have sung about it but Sulk are the real resurrection.

The resurrection of the uk music scene.............

Every silver lining has a cloud ......... The supernaturals

Some of the best bands of the Britpop era were on the parlophone record label. I remember buying the latest DJ promo singles from the local record shop, all had the same sleeveless surrounds with the red "parlophone" label on the insert. One such band were the supernaturals who hit us with a string of upbeat summer pop songs starting with the infectious single "smile".  Hailing from Scotland they scored a record contract with parlophone in 1996 and released 3 top 40 singles and a re-release of their 1st single "smile" before they gave us their debut album "it doesn't matter anymore" in May 1997.  The album was a top 10 hit which complimented the summer like strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. Bursting with singalongs and humorous songwriting that tapped into the British psych at the time and with cheeky music videos that never seemed to be off the chart show. Another two albums followed with "A tune a day in" in 1998 and the strange synth pop influenced "What we did last summer" in 2002

To this day I stand by the fact that the single "Sheffield song" taken from the album "A tune a day" was the last ever britpop single!  I remember when I first heard it I knew the scene was over as it felt like a goodbye song, and not long after ............ It was.