Great Lost Bands no.14: Ganger

I haven't really had a chance to get on top of the John Peel Archive 'G' selection this week - the interactive website is here (thespace.org) - I have a good few of his choices though, in particular, Gallon Drunk, Galaxie 500, Peter Gabriel and Ganger.

Although I have an old interview with Gallon Drunk from 1996 which I have yet to add to the archives, I've decided to highlight the lesser known of the acts, which in this case is the Glasgow-based instrumental rock band Ganger.

Ganger ended up on Domino records so their material isn't too hard to find, although they played their final gig in April 2000 at the very first All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Actually, having a look through that line-up there are a few acts that I could mine for some future 'great lost bands' posts.

Amazingly, their website still exists at http://www.ganger.co.uk/, and it will tell you all about them. It looks like a find from a bygone era, complete with frames and a little animated gif for the email icon.

In brief, what you need to know, is that Ganger were essentially a four-piece band from Glasgow who were active in the mid to late '90s and were inspired by bands like Can, Neu! and Tortoise. Naturally they got pigeonholed into the post-rock world pretty quickly, although they had an unconventional line-up - two basses, and often clarinet and sax. I remember a buzz building around them really quickly, to the extent that their early singles sold out and became desirable, in fact the only place I could hear them was on the Peel show.

Hollywood Loaf


The first release on Domino reacted to this demand and compiled most of the singles together for the 'Fore' album, which brought them to a wider audience.

Smorgasbord


Fore was followed by their 'proper' debut album Hammock Style which underlined their Tortoise and Slint influences and brought them further from the early krautrock sound.

Blau


One final album, Canopy came out on Guided Missile in 1999 but I never actually heard that one. Craig B has already left to form Aereogramme by the time it was released and Ganger called it a day the following year. I don't know what became of the other members...