Great Lost Bands no.20: Ui (John Peel Archive U)

Amongst a large selection of music in the Peel Archives U selection which I don't recall ever hearing on the Peel show (U2, UB40, UFO) there are a couple of albums from the overlooked post-rock act Ui (call them ooo-eee if you want to stay cool!) I'm led to believe that Ui are still going, as there is gig footage on youtube from 2010, but the two albums here - Sidelong and Lifelike date from the mid to late 1990s.

Unusually, one of Ui is better known for writing about music than playing it, as Sasha Frere-Jones from the band has been the main pop music writer on the New Yorker for the last eight years.

Ui are a two-bass, mostly instrumental band who were linked with the likes of Tortoise when they first emerged, although I reckon they lean more towards experimental funk than that comparison suggests. Sidelong is the only one of their albums I own, and now you can all hear it through good old Spotify. Tracks to check out in particular are 'The Long Egg' and 'The Piano'.

John Peel Archive: R (Great Lost Bands no.19 Radial Spangle)

The most amazing thing about the "R" section of the John Peel Archive is the presence of no less than ELEVEN R.E.O. Speedwagon albums, a selection which ends abruptly just before they became huge in the early 1980s. Maybe these early albums are different and I should listen? Anyway, it is easily the biggest surprise since Sammy Hagar and Hall and Oates popped up in a major way in H.

A lot of R is given to LPs of radio shows, which would be fascinating to delve into I imagine. Titles such as Bobby & Betty Go To The Moon, The Fat Man and Hear How To Achieve Sexual Harmony In Marriage are intriguing to say the least.

As for the rest of R, I have Radiohead's Ok Computer, which I reckon everyone has heard, and the only other one I have is the much-overlooked and forgotten Radial Spangle abum. A few years ago I was going through cassettes of some Peel shows and there was a brilliant track by this band on one that, typically, was split between sides and the last minute was on my side B (I appreciate that only people of a certain age will get the frustration caused by this!)

I had subsequently acquired their second album Syrup Macrame as it had been sent to me so that I could review it in my fanzine. However the track that Peel played was great and sent me in search of their first album Ice Cream Headache (the one featured on the Peel shelves). eBay came to the rescue and I acquired it on CD for a very small sum of money.

It's fair to say that Radial Spangle have been overlooked or forgotten, and when I imported the CD into my iTunes I found that Gracenote's info included Dance & House as the genre! They are nothing of the sort, in fact they sound like a very typical US indie-rock band from the early '90s. The band existed between 1991-1996 and were based in Oklahama. It turns out that former Flaming Lips drummer Richard English played on Ice Cream Headache and both albums were produced by Dave Fridmann who was then in Mercury Rev of course. They had a certain edge to them though, and I still have both these albums.

Great Lost Bands no.18 : Quasi (aka John Peel Archive Q)

Due to the lack of bands and artists beginning with Q, I think I'm right in saying that this is the first complete selection of any letter, as opposed to just the first 100. I have four of these records, but none on vinyl.

Three of those are by the often excellent Quickspace, who were featured on this blog a few months ago.

The only other one I have is Featuring "Birds" by Quasi.
A long time in Portland Oregon, Elliott Smith and Sam Coombes were in a band called Heatmiser. Of course, Elliott went on to have a successful solo career whilst in 1993 Sam formed an indie-rock duo called Quasi with his then wife Janet Weiss (then also of Sleater-Kinney).
They actually divorced in 1995, but continued the band. The release included in the Peel collection is their fine 1998 album Featuring "Birds". It is well worth a listen, and is definitely of interest for anyone into the music coming out of Portland back then. Apart from the Sleater-Kinney connection, the album was produced by Elliott Smith and his influence is clear in some of the melody lines in particular. I once saw them open a four band bill in London that was Quasi, Hefner, Elliott Smith, Sebadoh. I know, I'm a lucky bugger.

The Happy Prole


I Never Want to See You Again


It's Hard to Turn Me On


Our Happiness is Guaranteed

Great Lost Bands no.17: Labradford

I was going to include Labradford in my great lost bands series anyway, but this week they were included in the John Peel Archive. This interview dates from Autumn 1997 and first appeared in Weedbus fanzine, issue 13

Think minimalism. Think ambient. Think atmospheric. If you've never heard Labradford before you would be best advised to think along those lines before you approach them. Of course it's easy to take the piss out of their kind of electronic ambience. Most pop kids will see it as music where nothing happens, but for those of us who were brought up on the likes of Spacemen 3 and Brian Eno, or who aware of current people like Flying Saucer Attack and Codeine for instance, Labradford make perfect sense.

Bizarrely, they're named after a Louisville basketball player, Labradford Smith, an athletic connection which belies their blissed-out music. With so many people making this sort of thing (post-rock is what they're calling it, whatever that means) it's hard for bands to stand out and appear original. Labradford have achieved this from the outset, with their debut 'Prazision' (a low-key mix of guitar and moog), through the more harmonious 'A Stable Reference', which was the first to see them expand to include the bass playing of Robert Donne. Both these albums have served as a blueprint for the magnificent third album 'Labradford', expanding further to bring in strings and even the odd bit of percussion. 'Labradford's ice-cold but endearing collection of tunes and atmospheres was served up to the UK last November, and we managed to get a few words with the aforementioned Robert Donne when the band were in London in February.

Labradford is known for being the brainchild of Carter Brown (synths, organ) and Mark Nelson (guitar, tapes and vocals) How did you link up with them?

"Well Richmond, Virginia, is a fairly small town and I've known Carter and Mark for a long time now - I would say I've known Carter at least ten years, and we've all been in the same circle of friends for a while. After the first Labradford album ('Prazision') came out they just asked me to join and have a go at playing with them, it's as simple as that."

They were a duo and you've come along - do you have a say on songwriting and arrangement?

"From the time I joined you could say that we started again. When I joined they didn't ask me to play any of the early material - it was very much a case of the three of us all writing songs together."

In what way is this third album ('Labradford') a move on from 'A Stable Reference'?

"There's a few new things we've been playing around with - sequencing, percussion and so on. The chains rattling and the scraping sounds on the opening track ('Phantom Channel Crossing') aren't samples though, they're all played live! All those sorts of things were added, and our friend Chris Johnston who is a classical violinist helped out, although he isn't a permanent addition. He doesn't perform live with us, although I do think we want to continue in that direction. Ultimately I think that he could become involved in some of the writing and have him do some string quartet arrangements."

Have you any affinity with modern classical music and minimalism?

"I don't listen to a lot of it. Carter would probably be a little more interested in that. At the same time I do appreciate what I hear."

What do you make of the British music press and their constant labelling of scenes - Labradford are always lumped into 'post-rock' aren't they?

"I'm not quite sure. I understand it to a degree and I see why it's necessary. At the same time you want to say that in general the idea of labelling is distasteful. Hopefully not many bands would start out wanting to belong to a specific genre - we don't sit around and say, "hey, we're a post-rock band!" It seems that over here the music press is much more lucrative and immediate than in America, especially with the two weeklies that come out. You don't get that kind of exposure in America."

Does rock music (in the traditional sense) have any bearing on what you do as a band? Are there any rock bands you think are important now?

"Sure, I suppose! I still like some rock, but I don't hear a lot of it that's really great. I am a big Bad Seeds fan though, particularly the early work. I was in Breadwinner prior to Labradford and that was a more traditional hard rock set up. The others don't have that. Labradford is the first band that Carter has ever been in, he started from scratch with it. He studied organ in college. We read somewhere that Carter went to Bible College and that's not true at all! He studied music for two years at Richmond and organ was his instrument of choice, but it doesn't really go beyond that."

How do you view your contemporaries? For instance last year you issued 'Scenic Recovery' as a split 10" with Stereolab - is it a big deal to get involved with them?

"I suppose there might be a vague association. I don't see a lot of similarities between bands like Stereolab and us really, even between Tortoise and us, but at the same time I really like a lot of that stuff and I think it's good that those bands are getting as big as they are."

A lot of people have said that this new album feels very wintry - from the overall ambience of it, right through to the packaging and cover design, it feels icy and evocative of snowy landscapes.

"Well it was recorded in Spring and mixed in Summer - it was warm and sunny when all that wintry music was taking place! It's not a conscious reaction to summertime even though I think I prefer winter."

Would you also agree that there is a move towards more accessible melodies, like 'Pico' on the new album?

"I think I know what you're saying but from knowing Carter and Mark for a long time I would say that that sort of thing has always been there, even from the first record where it's not at all obvious. Maybe it's more apparent or visible now. I don't know if it's something that will continue or increase, but we're not afraid to pull out a basic pop melody now and then!"

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Interview by Jonathan Greer

Great Lost Bands no.16: Jacob's Mouse, with an interview

and also a very quick glance at the John Peel Archive's J and K selections

For various reasons I took a week off the site and, such is the relentless nature of the John Peel Archive, I missed a couple of their posts - specifically the first 100 of J and K.

Hopefully you have all had a look by now, but 'J' features an extraordinary amount of acts by the name Jackson, and the only releases that I actually have are by the site's featured artist, Jacob's Mouse. More of them in a minute.

'K' has a similarly poor overlap with my own collection, as a couple of albums by the KLF are the only common items. I'm pleased to see Kanda Bongo Man as the featured artist, as he was one of the guests at the World Service 80th birthday party which I was lucky enough to attend. I'm pretty sure it was John's World Service programme that broadened their audience.

However, let's go back to Jacob's Mouse for a moment because I have a bit of history there. In 1993, I met and interviewed the band in Belfast for my fanzine, The Weedbus, although as they ended up in an issue that also featured an up and coming band called Radiohead, all copies sold out very quickly. Earlier this year I decided to republish my archives but I hit a snag in that I lost my only copy of that issue, but I have now been able to scan it from the original layout sheet.

The other thing about Jacob's Mouse is that, approximately seven years after I interviewed them in Belfast, a new guy started at my work - at the aforementioned BBC World Service - and after a few weeks he told me he used to be in a band that "I wouldn't have heard of." It was Hugo from Jacob's Mouse, and we were both pretty amazed that we had chatted that night in Belfast, seven years earlier.

The main thing about Jacob's Mouse though, is that they were awesome, and also criminally under-rated and over-looked. They ended up sounding like a great collision between the grunge of the time, and the post-punk which pre-dated them by ten years.

Anyway, I've uploaded the PDFs of the interview at weedbus.posterous.com, and I will transcribe them here soon as well. Enjoy. Have a listen to some Jacob's Mouse below.

Great Lost Bands no. 15: The Philistines Jr, with an interview

Yesterday, a band called Philistines Jr were added to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, curated by the National this December. Blank looks all round, but I actually interviewed them way back in 1994 and we kept in touch for a while. I was hopeful they might be added as the National have helped raise their profile by covering one of their songs last year on a kind of 'tribute' album to the Philistines, which also featured Frightened Rabbit and Mercury Rev. Here is the original of the song which the National cover, complete with a video containing cute cats as well as a toddler. Internet gold really.



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**this article dates from Autumn 1994 and was published in Weedbus fanzine, issue 8**

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“The continuing struggle of the Philistines Jr”

Connecticut bunch Philistines Jr have had such a horrible time dealing with the music industry that brothers Peter and Tarquin Kadis, along with drummer Adam Pierce have resorted to living back at home with their parents. Rather than be disconsolate about this, they've saved their money, built a 24 track studio in the basement and set up their own label – Tarquin records. Their main release so far has been a mini-LP engagingly titled 'The Continuing Struggle of the Philistines Jr' and the song '145 Old Mill Road' actually uses their address as its title. I spoke with Peter from the group as he tried to explain this continuing struggle.

“I guess ever since we started we've been thinking we've been doing well, but things always seemed to bottom out. We don't want to sound like we're complaining but it's a sort of weird thing being in a band. We came over to England a couple of years ago and did a Peel session and signed what we thought was a record deal, but that went bad and killed nearly a whole year. Same thing happened in the US.”

Since the single 'Happy Birthday Captain Columbus' you have had a long lay-off. Why was that?
Well 'The Continuing Struggle..” actually came out last Fall (1993) so we had a year without releasing anything. Another label screwed us over and we still owe lawyers money over that one, I'm afraid. We want to release everything ourselves now, but it's difficult. We fund every release, we record and manufacture them ourselves. We would consider bringing in other bands as well, we all play in other bands – such as the Happiest Guys in the World, Iris, the Zambodies (??) but most of those are sillier than the Philistines, but the music is good!

What do your parents think of all this musical activity? You've actually got some soundbites of them on the album (their Dad is heard saying “you know, it's not too late to enrol for medical school”)
“Dad is very uncomfortable with what we do but our Mom basically lets us do what we want, she's not as nervous about it. They're both doctors, psychiatrists, so they would like us to do something more professional!”

With your own studio do you take a fresh approach to recording? I haven't heard it,but I know you have one release with one song in the left channel and a different song in the right.
“ We just think about we can make things different. It's a balance between doing things really well and trying to be really different. Actually recent stuff we have recorded but have yet to release will probably make us more unpopular, but it gets more interesting.

How have English audiences responded to you?
“Our tour pretty much fell through, it's part of the continuing struggle! There's a line in one of our songs, “Have you ever hoped something was true even though you know better?” It's like we run into that all the time. We were supposed to tour with the Family Cat and then Radiohead, but the dates that weren't pulled got cancelled, Although we ended doing four shows in London,one in Exeter and we recorded a second Peel session so it was worth coming over.

John Peel was really the first person to pick up on you, wasn't he?
“Absolutely, he made it possible for us to play in England. He just called us one day when he got our first 12” 'Greenwich, CT' and we thought it was someone pulling our leg, but he wanted to know if he could read our address out over the air so people could write to us, so we ended up being deluged with letters. So later we nervously asked him could we do a Peel session and he was like “Of course, come on over!”

Your music is best described as a fresh, almost humourous version of Pavement-style rock. What sort of music do you find yourselves listening to?
“We've always loved Jonathan Richman, and I really like a new band called the Mommy Heads. We played with King Missile in the US a few weeks ago and that was good, I like the current Pavement record. I like bands that aren't pretentious. Fugazi are cool, I like what they are all about.”

Interview by Jonathan Greer
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and just for luck, here is the National's cover of that song

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...

Great Lost Bands no. 13; Fabric, with an interview

Carrying on from the F section of the John Peel archive, I'm actually going to upload an interview with a band that are pretty lost to me, to be honest. Fabric were an English experimental hardcore band who released a couple of albums in the mid-90s and then, as far as I know they disappeared. If anyone knows what they do now, or if they made any more music, please comment below.
The album on John's shelves was 'Body of Water' which was their debut full length. I met them when they played Giro's in Belfast in late summer 1994, I think. They were a nice bunch. Here is our chat...

**this was published in Weedbus fanzine, issue 9, spring 1995**



Fabric are a hardcore punk with their fingers in a few pies. They have set up their own label – Whole Car – and persuaded Gary Walker from Wiiija to run it for them; they were the first English band to release anything on the US Dog House label; and they’ve contributed ‘March of the Machines/ Seven’ to the split 7” single series Fierce Panda #4 – ‘Built to Blast’. Their whole attitude is refreshing and un-cynical, certainly not like the cliques in the hardcore scenes of old. And besides, they also agreed to me interviewing them on the pavement outside Giro’s in Donegall lane, Belfast. Punk rock! Their exceptionally talkative drummer Chris (who incidentally has 22 body piercings) began by telling me about the set-up with Whole Car records.

“Basically the band got together a while ago, did a few demo tapes and Gary from Wiiija decided to help us out. We recorded a 7” for another label but they let us down, so we had recording but no-one to release it. We didn’t really fit in with the whole Wiiija records thing so we set up a little offshoot. Whole Car is our label but Wiiija produce and distribute everything. We basically say what goes and if it is economically viable then it happens. Rather than just distribute in America, the Dog House label had heard about us from a mutual friend, and then they started talking about us becoming “a Dog House band”. In hardcore circles that is a good thing because they’re very highly respected over there. So we did a 7” for them (’Saturnalia’/ ‘Without’) – we just gave them the recording as a favour and they decided to put the album out over there. It’s much more accessible to be on Dog House than be on some label that no-one has heard of. They really cool thing is that they never previously put out any records by anyone outside of Ohio, and now they’re got us English geezers.”

Is there much life left in the UK hardcore/ punk scene?

Jamie: We like a lot of bands in general but the hardcore scene is pretty dead. There was a time in the early ‘90s when Napalm Death, Heresy, Extreme Noise Terror could sell out decent sized London venues like ULU. Now there are too many bands who sound like Discharge, very few are doing anything original. We do what we do because we’re involved in a lot of different music scenes, and we take them all on board in what we do. There are bands that we like such as Bob Tilton, Polaris, and Dead Wrong all doing interesting stuff.”
Chris: “We played a show in Leicester the other day and this kid came up to me with a Born Against t-shirt on and he gave me a tape of his band. From the t-shirt I thought it might be interesting but it turned out it was just three-chord punk.”
Tony: “The term hardcore now tends to mean big metal bands, it doesn’t mean what it did in the mid-‘80s. Offspring have sold over a million records and five years ago they were playing small clubs in New York. The whole Nirvana thing opened up music so much – people found loud music accessible again.

I notice a big chance in sound between your first two singles and the ‘Body of Water’ album.

Tony: “Yes, there is a huge difference, mainly because we’ve got another guitarist (Kevin) and from the day he joined, things changed. I’m happy because it has expanded the sound.”
Jamie: “the point is that we didn’t have enough money as a band to get equipment to sound how we wanted. As a four-piece we couldn’t quite pull it off.”
Chris: “I just think that we have become the band we wanted to become, we’re not so defined that people can say we’re a metal band or whatever.”

And you’ve stopped using samples.

Tony: “You’re the second person who has said that in as many days!” We used samples on the second single – some dialogue from Staedler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show – that was our experimental phase – we also used a bong break for some reason!”
Chris: “I think with the album we never really thought about samples and when it came to the final mix down we didn’t have any.”
Tony: “We’ve got an idea for a sample in a new song if it makes anyone happier!” I’d like the next record to be more experimental, loads of different guitar sounds, samples, maybe not so defined – why not do a 20 minute song? ‘Body of Water’ was recorded very quickly, with just six studio sessions over a period of three months.”
Chris: “At one stage we wrote some songs while Andy was away in America and he had one day to come up with lyrics and record them when he returned. He managed it, but I’m not saying what songs they are!”

As if on cue, vocalist and lyricist Andy comes over to join us on the pavement. I mentioned in my album review last time how much I liked this guy’s lyrics. I ask him how he first became acquainted with the poetry of Anne Sexton. (She was most famous for the autobiographical work, ‘To Bedlam and Part Way Back’. She took her own life in 1974).

Andy: “Well I studied American Confessional Poetry at college, and my friend Kate who lives in America, gave me an Anne Sexton book. ‘Hurry up Please It’s Time’/ ‘The Death Song’ just fitted the idea I was after. Obviously she said it much better than I could, so why change it?”
Tony: “So instead of taxing your mind, you said, that’s good enough, I’ll use it!”
Andy: “I think there is something to be said for plagiarism. Why write something in a poor way, when someone has done it really well?”
Tony: “Enough bands plagiarise music, so why not lift lyrics? The title of our song ‘A-Student Baby’ is a direct steal from Sam Cooke.”
Andy: “And ‘Shake it’ ends with a Nietzsche quote – ‘Glowing, I myself consume/ All I seize and touch makes light’”.

That’s a good final word to end on, and anyway we have been sitting on the pavement long enough! I’ll leave you with a list of the music the band were listening to on their respective walkmans, en route to Belfast….
CHRIS – Shudder to Think, Raw Shag, Antioc, Arrow, Heroin.
JAMIE - Miles Davis’s ‘In A Silent Way’, Porno for Pyros, Girls Against Boys
TONY- Danzig, Jeff Buckley, Palace Brothers, Chet Baker.
ANDY- Avail, Life of Agony, an Embrace covers compilation, and more Avail.
KEVIN was too shy to be interviewed.

Great Lost Bands no. 12: East River Pipe, with an interview from our archives

I was really pleased to see three albums from the often overlooked East River Pipe in the John Peel Archive this week. What better time to revisit my interview with him from my fanzine archives.



This interview dates from Summer 1995 and first appeared in Weedbus fanzine, issue 10
It is the last week of June and the first week of our intense summer heatwave. Luckily my phone interview with Mr FM Cornog (Fred to his pals) aka East River Pipe, has been put back to 8.30 pm, or else I would have to do it from inside a cold running shower. So from a sweltering flat just behind Queen's, Belfast, to another sweltering flat in Queen's, New York, Fred unknowingly becomes a participant in the first ever transatlantic Weedbus interview. His background is fascinating and will be explored later in the conversation, but for now let me inform you that ERP are the proud creators of three fine albums to date - including 93's classic debut 'Goodbye California' and the recent, teasingly brief 'Even the Sun Was Afraid'. Some wonderful songs, deceptively simple arrangements and an overall sound fit to fill the gap left by the demise of the Go Betweens. In short, ERP are lovely. So how has Britain taken to you so far, FM?

"Well, I notice that a lot of the reviews that I get from the UK refer to the label, Sarah records, and I don't really know how to react to that. I think a lot of people in the music industry over there tend to pigeonhole Sarah, and they imagine that any band on that label has to be cute or whatever. I suppose that is a little frustrating, but I guess it's the same with all labels, whether you are Warner Brothers or Drag City. The critics seem to have a typical 'Sarah' review already written. I mean, I don't think that I'm a typical Sarah act, I personally like a lot of stuff that Sarah release, but I certainly don't fit the stereotype."

Were you aware of the label? I mean, when you were making demos were you thinking "I'll send this to Sarah records"?
"No. It's kind of a weird story. Before anyone was interested in East River Pipe at all, my girlfriend Barbara Powers took me off the streets - I was living in Hoboken train station with a 6 pack of bad, bad beer - but anyway, she heard about a tape of mine, and we met and connected right away. So she put out two 7" singles by me, and we brought them over to a record shop in Hoboken begging the guy to take five copies of it. He said his name was Tom Prendergast and he really liked what we did. His label wasn't interested but he told us about this label in England - Sarah Records - and he gave me their address. Luckily, Matt and Claire wrote back and said they would love to put the stuff out in the UK. Barbara and I were astonished, but that's how it happened, and we became the only American act on Sarah."

What would you have done if no-one had picked up on your songs?
"I've always just written for myself anyway, in the same way some people would kick a soccer ball around, you know, just for fun. My thing is that I write songs, and I'm always gonna do it, whether somebody picks up on it or not. It never really occured to me that people would want to put this out. It was Barbara's idea, I didn't have any burning desire to start a record label or anything. That it has got this far is a surprise to me, because I just record right here in the apartment on an eight track."

What was your ambition when you started out? Did you just do it for the love of it?
"My ambition was just to write good songs. It was never my goal to be a rock star or something, and to be on a big label competing with the Pet Shop Boys and Oasis. I just wanted to write good songs and whether they got out to people or not didnÍt really matter to me."

What sort of things still inspire you to keep going?
"Really the things that have always inspired me - just to keep writing good songs. I like to think that these songs can compete with anybody really. I know sonically, because its recorded on this little portastudio, that my records cannot compete with people with big studio budgets, but I honestly think that my songs are as good as anyone's, so now you can shoot me out for being an arrogant asshole!"

Are you ever going to get a full time band and play gigs, etc?
"At some point, yes. I have a drummer right now. While I still record at home, I'm having fun with this drummer whom I've known since we were kids in high school - he actually introduced me to Barbara. I would like to find a bass player and guitar player, but the problem is that I live in NYC and everything is very macho. No-one plays wimpy enough for me! Besides, a lot of my songs like 'Make A Deal With The City' are really repetitious. Inevitably the guitar players don't want to get stuck on that one riff, they want to start playing Eric Clapton blues riffs over my little East River Pipe song! As soon as I hear one blues note I tell the guy to hit the door. I would love to get a band and tour but I have to get people to play this stuff properly."

Are there any musicians that you admire or that you could see yourself working with?
"I consider my idol (for want of a better term!) to be Tom Verlaine (Television). He's the reason I picked up a guitar. I love the way he writes a song, I love the ambiguity in the words and I love the guitar playing. Other people I really admire would be Laurie Anderson, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon, to a certain extent Sonic Youth. I like a lot of cheesy soul music from the 70s like the Chi-lites and Harold Nelson, Gladys Knight and the Pips. To me that's the coolest music in the world. As for contemporary people - I would say I listen to Pavement, Built To Spill, Guided By Voices. In a brotherly way I admire the fact that they had to struggle for ten years in utter obscurity before Matador picked up on them. Also I think that Morrissey's recent stuff has been fantastic - "Vauxhall and I" is great. There are bands I like such as Shrimpboat, Drink Me, oh, and I absolutely love "Very" by the Pet Shop Boys. For me that's the best album of the last four or five years. There's a big mix of artists that I really enjoy - I don't like to pigeonhole things."

Tell us about the down and out period. Was music the furthest thing from your thoughts then?
"I suppose when I was really messed up, living day after day in a train station in the middle of March, unbelievably cold, the only thing I was really thinking of was what a huge loser I was, and did I want to live or die, basically. Oh, and where the hell was I going to get my next beer. Music wasn't on my mind. NYC is like the capital of homeless people and when you're living that way - you've got nowhere to go, you've got no friends, nowhere to sleep, no way to get money - your life is right up in your face and you have no breathing room. I was so far down I wouldn't take a shower or change my clothes, you can't even imagine coming back to the 'real world'. I wasn't thinking about music at that time of my life, and it only became an option after Barbara had found me and let me sleep on her couch. I really believe that if you're going to start thinking about the more transcendent things in life then you really need a roof over your head, you need food, you have to get laid every once in a while... the basic necessities come first. You ask yourself "am I going to survive?" My story isn't as romantic as it might appear - the guy sleeping in a station dreaming of pop stardom! I wouldn't recommend what I've done, to anybody. You don't have to torture yourself to be a good artist. You just have to keep a level head and just follow your heart."

Interview by Jonathan Greer, summer 1995

Great Lost Bands no.11: Fanuelle, includes album stream

In anticipation of a string of posts on 'new music' I thought I would try and work some into the Great Lost Bands series, and I've been wanting to write about this for a few weeks now, so here goes. Fanuelle's self titled debut album is fast becoming one of the most acclaimed releases of the year, although it actually came out as a limited release in 2005. Now, after a few years of being properly lost, it has been reissued by Swedish label Emotion.
As far as I know, Fanuelle is basically Matthew Fanuelle, who released this lo-fi synth album full of great songs then issued a follow-up under the name Nunzio Fattini, confusing everyone.
Anyway, 'Fanuelle' is a lost masterpiece, one of the best lo-fi pop albums of the last decade and now it's everywhere - on soundcloud (below) and spotify for a start. If you're a fan of Magnetic Fields, Brian Wilson, Daniel Johnson, and Laurence from Felt/ Go Kart Mozart and you haven't heard this, you are missing out. Investigate below...

Great Lost Bands no.10: Quickspace

Back to London in the 1990s for this week's great lost band. Quickspace were originally called Quickspace Supersport and were formed in London in 1994. Guitarist and occasional vocalist Tom Cullinan had been in Th' Faith Healers, who had already made some cracking records in the early part of the decade and were often referred to with the 'Peel favourites' tag. Quickspace released records on quite a few different labels, including their own Kitty Kitty label, but their main releases were on Domino (UK) and Matador.
Quickspace Happy Song #1 was their first single, from 1995.



Although they had definite leanings towards more experimental music, incorporating extended repetitive grooves with links to krautrock and arabic music, some of their output was reminiscent of Th' Faith Healers, with the fuzzy guitars and the slightly off-kilter male and female voices, like this 1996 single 'Friend'.



Their profile steadily grew and by the time I moved to London in 1998 I was able to see them headline places like Dingwalls and the Underworld. They released their second album 'Precious Falling' around then as well, which was a lot stronger and more coherent than their self-titled debut. Nothing brings back the vibe of London in '98 like this video for Quickspace Happy Song #2. Some of this was shot near my flat in Finsbury Park.



The ominously titled 'The Death of Quickspace' from 2000 is probably my favourite of their records, and it has held up very well over time. They disintegrated soon afterwards although they released a single called 'Pissed Off Boy' on Domino in 2005, with Roxanne from the Th' Faith Healers on vocals. The next time I heard of any of them was when Th' Faith Healers popped up at My Bloody Valentine's All Tomorrows Parties weekend and played a thoroughly decent set in the early afternoon. The whole Faith Healer/ Quickspace set up has been quiet on the news front ever since.

They Shoot Horse Don't They (from The Death of Quickspace)

Great Lost Bands no.9: The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band

Most of the bands I have featured in this series have dated from the 1980s and 1990s, but this week's is the oldest one yet, as the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band were most active between 1965 and 1969.
I hadn't heard their music until five or six years ago when the English group The Clientele did a cover of one of their songs 'Tracey Had a Hard Day Sunday'.

I liked the sound of that so I dug a bit deeper and grabbed a couple of their albums. The WCPAEB came back into my head this week as I heard the sad news about Davy Jones of the Monkees. Whereas the Monkees were a band assembled for the purposes of a TV series, the WCPAEB were put together with another motive. The son of an oil tycoon, Bob Markley had been trying to find fame as a pop singer or an actor in LA since 1960 with limited success, but in 1965 the record producer Kim Fowley (The Runaways, Kiss, etc) hosted a party in Markley's house which the Yardbirds played at. Fowley had been working with some younger musicians including Michael Lloyd and Shaun Harris and they were also at the party. The story goes that Markley was so impressed by how the bands at the party got the attention of so many teenage girls that he effectively bankrolled Lloyd and Harris and formed the WCPAEB with them in order to get in on the action. His supposed blueprint for their recording relationship was the way that Andy Warhol had been working with the Velvet Underground and Nico. Whether this is true or not is debatable but it has passed into music history now.
They completed an album for the tiny label Fifo records of which only 100 were pressed. It was simply called Volume One and an original copy of it once reached as much as $15,000.
Shifting Sands

The band build up a live following and signed to Reprise. They released two albums, 'Part One', which was all over the place in its blend of straight forward pop and psychedelia, and 'Volume Two - Breaking Through' which sounds more like the work of a coherent band. My favourite of their albums is 'Volume Three: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil' which came out in 1968 and contains this classic.

Eighteen is Over the Hill


The band did not have the success they were aiming for and started to fizzle out. They recorded two more albums 'Where's My Daddy' (which I've never heard) and the confusingly titled 'Markley: A Group' which although it sounded like Markley had taken over, it was still a group effort. The band ceased to exist in 1970 and their influence has only become apparent in recent years.

Roger the Rocketship

Great Lost Bands no.8: The Triffids

"The Triffids remain one of Australia's best-loved, post-punk groups [...] McComb was an authoritative singer and accomplished songwriter [...] he infused his melancholy songs with stark yet beautiful and uniquely Australian imagery. Few songwriters managed to capture the feeling of isolation and fatalistic sense of despair of the Australian countryside"

These are the words of the music historian Ian McFarlane, as the Triffids were inducted into the Australian Music Hall of Fame in 2008.
Hardly unknown, and thanks to a reissue campaign from Domino records a couple of years ago they aren't exactly forgotten, but the Triffids effectively ended their music making in 1989. Due to the early death of front man David McComb in 1994 at the age of 37, it is impossible for them to fully reform.
Once again, a remarkably detailed Wikipedia article on the band makes retro pieces such as this slightly unnecessary, so once again I will just offer up my personal account of what the Triffids mean to me.

The band called it a day the year I left school but I listened to them a lot during my sixth form years, largely due to late night radio plays from the likes of Dave Fanning on RTE Radio 2. I got even more interested when I found that the brothers David and Robert McComb were born near Ballynahinch in County Down, which is actually only about 10 miles from where I grew up. Their family emigrated in the early '70s and ended up in Western Australia.
No-one at school quite 'got' them though and I didn't meet another Triffids fan for years. The first place to start for Triffids novices is with their 1986 single Wide Open Road, which actually dented the lower reaches of the UK chart. Now officially recognised as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time, it is a song which perfectly evokes the great spaces in the Australian outback. The Triffids regularly drove from Perth to Sydney and Melbourne for gigs and recording, and that space must have been a constant fixture of that journey.
Wide Open Road


That song comes from an album called Born Sandy Devotional which is one of my favourite albums of all time. The band were big enough to warrant live performances on prime time Channel 4 such as this 'Stolen Property' from The Tube.

After many years of indie releases they signed a big deal with Island records and released 'Calenture', another great album, although it turned out to be a difficult one to make, due to label interference and swapping producers. It is an epic, almost OTT album, with songs coated with string arrangements, and intensely personal, passionate lyrics. It was a total contrast to their last indie release - 'In the Pines', which was more folk-based and recorded on a 4-track in a shed in the Australian countryside.

Compare and contrast different versions of Blinder by the Hour



The label also insisted that they record their next record in England and the result was 'the Black Swan'. David McComb intended this to be a double album but the 1989 release was a single album. It was a sprawling, flawed masterpiece which only really made sense when re-issued with tons of extra tracks by Domino in 2006. On 'The Black Swan' they flirt with traditional songs, country, catchy pop and hip-hop and you never quite know where it is going to go next. This song is one of the most Triffids-like on it.
One Mechanic Town


The band split up soon after and David McComb suffered substance abuse related health problems, which led to a heart transplant at the early age of 34. He made a solo record called Love of Will and shortly after a promotional tour to support it he had a car accident in Melbourne and died 3 days later, in February 1999. The coroner's report stated "McComb's mental and physical condition had deteriorated after his (car) accident but his death was due to heroin toxicity and mild acute rejection of his 1996 heart transplant."
The other Triffids have performed their music over recent years in Australia, usually for special events, and with guest vocalists such as Steve Kilbey of The Church taking lead vocal duties. Martyn Casey from the band became a permanent member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a band who I'm sure would acknowledge the huge influence of the Triffids.
One of the best things about compiling features like this, is that I get to stumble upon some things I hadn't heard or seen before. This last video is something very special and I had never seen it before. It is for one of my favourite ever Triffids songs and has some lyrics to live your life by. Enjoy.
Save What You Can

Great Lost Bands no.7: The Make-Up (with an interview!)

I was delighted by the announcement last Wednesday that The Make-Up would reform for ATP's I'll Be Your Mirror yet also surprised by the fact that some people I was talking to didn't know who they were! Their wikipedia entry is pretty good at filling in the facts.
From my experience I can tell you that in 1997 they played a storming gig in the Duke of York in Belfast which was so oversubscribed and raved about that it passed into local music legend. I was there and it was quite an experience. Iain Henderson, who wrote for my fanzine The Weedbus, went down early and managed to grab a chat with the band, which I am shamelessly reproducing in it's entirety below....

This interview dates from 1998 and first appeared in Weedbus fanzine, issue 13
Do I really need to mention The Nation of Ulysses here? No? Okay then. Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for Washington DC's Make Up. Since forming in February 1995, Make Up have released three damn fine albums, as well as a handful of singles, but you'll know this already. I talked to Ian F. Svenonius and James D. Canty before their storming gig in the Duke of York. Considering Ian's rather energetic behaviour on stage and the fact that they're near the end of a long stretch of dates, I began with the only question a concerned journalist in my position can.

How are your knees?
Ian: "My knees? (laughing) No, no, no, I've all new moves, man. It's the hips and the arched back. Yeah, it's more simian and less baptismal really."

How has the tour been so far?
I: "We've had a lot of different digestive experiences."
James: "Yeah, it's great, man. The continent it's beautiful."

What do you think of the small stage here?
I: "Not a lot of space. I think the acoustics might actually be very good. That wooden ceiling over there."
J: "We like the concept of playing small places. It definitely creates a better atmosphere."
I: "Like Sammy Davis Jr, you know, he was the greatest entertainer of his time. He just played clubs all the time. He never played arenas. He wasn't so cynical as to try and get as much money as he could from a single night. Yeah, those massive rock concerts have a fallacious side to them."

Do you think you could play larger places?
I: "we could with the same extent of success that people do, which is unsuccessful. You know, you go to these things and they're more like idiot pall gatherings. They really have very little... the featured group becomes an aside."

Could you see yourselves on a major label?
I: "I don't know, you know, 'major label', that's one of those terms like drugs. It's something I've never really understood.
I mean basically, you know, we only want to be involved with things, people that we like, things that create things that we like. If you mean the Sony corporation (pointing out my dictaphone) I don't know the last time they put out a good record, so I wouldn't really trust the way they approach making a record, you know what I mean? (his face getting closer and closer to the dictaphone) To me they just make odious filth, but I don't want to use the term 'major label', I mean, what's that? People have to start thinking about the terms they use, because if you're going to talk about major and minor labels, all you're thinking about is petty bourgeois and major bourgeois and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing essentially noble about either capitalist venture, you know what I mean?"

Is there anybody you feel an affinity with?
I: "Lungleg, we've played with. And Royal Trux. They recorded our new record which is coming out in October. Fugazi and another DC band called the Warmers. Blonde Redhead."

What do you think about the seemingly constant comparisons with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion?
I: "I think that that's fallacious because I think... I've never heard them. I've never really heard any other rock bands like us. We're from the gospel tradition. They're from the blues tradition, like rock n roll is. Naturally I've heard that they are fantastic. But we're steeped in the gospel tradition. Rock n roll is just a foreign language."

I even read one early review (of 'Destination: LOVE; Live! at Cold Rice') where they thought you were Jon Spencer.
I: "They have a lot of trouble with us black-haired types!"

Make Up have also been compared to James Brown and MC5 a lot.
I: "Sure"

In what aspects do you think?
I: "We're gospel as far as I'm concerned. Our shows have a lot more to do with a gospel ritual than any rock show. We don't step ourselves in the tradition of rock n roll. We're not constantly making references. We're not defined by rock n roll. We're not a homage to other rock bands. That's really limited and boring. What's rock n roll? Rock n roll doesn't mean anything. It's a term that doesn't mean anything. It has no parameters, not like salsa music. We're part of the gospel tradition. We speak in sermons, catharsis, call and response. It's a spirit of oration and voodoo ritual combined. That's what gospel is."

What about the outfits Make Up wear onstage?
I: "It's a means to an end ad that's what we use it as. A device to submerge individuality to the greater idea. We're uniform fetishists."

Is there anybody more stylish?
I: "Than us? No."

Does anybody even come close?
I: "Oh, Lungleg, who else? The Dirty Birds."

You're not wearing the suits you wore last year?
I: "No, we've new suits."

What's the new stage wear?
I: "You'll see."

No sneak preview?
I: "No chance! (laughing) We have to maximise our effectiveness."
J: "He's gonna write it anyway so we should tell him how we interpret it. An ode to what?"
I: "Our outfits may be misinterpreted. We're kind of a homage to Mao sensibility, a cultural revolution, but synthesized with a Beatles at Shea Stadium thing. For us there's two similar strains going on, which is the subversion of the individual, the idea of the communal mass mind, the insects, the Beatles, the bug, the Mao..."

What happens after this tour?
I: "Well, we go on tour in America from July and our new record comes out in October."

What about this new record?
I: "It's more constructed. It's a more studio constructed record. It's produced by Jennifer and Neil from Royal Trux. They took it and shaped it."
J: "We're going to be releasing a couple of singles before it comes out."

What can we expect tonight?
I: "I don't know. Anything can happen now we see ourselves as sort of providing an infrastructure and the night is responsible for everything else."

How long do you see Make Up lasting? Is that something you have thought about?
J: "Like an expiration date or something?"
I: "Well, we figure a lot of people retire into the church from rock n roll, because it's not subject to the whims of the market place. So that's what we're doing right now, so we've basically already retired. This is our retirement. The church always provides steady work."

Interview by Iain Henderson

-----------------------------------
and in case you don't know what the Make-Up sound like, here's a video.

Great lost bands no.6: Bark Psychosis

Not so much a case of a "great lost band", but more a case of "great band gone missing, last seen 2005".
Bark Psychosis were a London based band who were active between 1986 and 1994, although they issued their long delayed third album in 2004 and they are officially still a going concern. I didn't realise this until I was doing my homework and I checked their wikipedia entry
That entry is pretty conclusive so I'll just add my own personal experiences of Bark Psychosis. I wasn't that aware of their first few releases, but in retrospect they stand up as a fine bunch of EPs and singles, collected together as the album Independency, which was confusingly issued not long after their major label debut Hex.

The band's history is riddled with record company woes and hassles. I became aware of them during the period around 1991-92 when they released two amazing singles, 'Manman' and 'Scum', which pretty much cemented their status as one of the founders of what became known as post-rock.

Manman


If 'Manman' gathered some buzz and some radio play for them, the follow-up single, the uncompromising 21-minute long 'Scum' was hailed by critics as a masterpiece but it was difficult for people to hear, as its length and extreme dynamic range effectively ruled out radio play. It was recorded from improvisations in the band's rehearsal space underneath St John's Church in east London and still stands up as a beautiful and timeless piece of work, which ultimately comes from the same place as late-period Talk Talk.

Scum


Fans will argue whether 'Scum' or the subsequent album 'Hex' was their masterpiece, and it's hard to split the two. 'Hex' was recorded in the same church and sounds very similar, and it sustains it's brilliance over 7 tracks, whereas 'Scum' is a single 21 minute piece.
I was fortunate to interview the band around the time 'Hex' was released, and you can read the results here. In Simon Reynolds revie of the album for Mojo, he coined the phrase post-rock, and that was that.

Absent Friend


The pressures on the band during the recording of 'Hex' took their toll, and after one more single 'Blue', which touched on more danceable elements within their sound, the band split. Main member Graham Sutton began to release drum and bass singles under the name Boymerang, and has worked successfully as a record producer with the likes of Jarvis Cocker and British Sea Power.
In 2004 a long awaited follow-up to 'Hex' emerged under the Bark Psychosis name, entitled 'Codename: Dustsucker'. It was a major progression in sound, and came across more as a Graham Sutton project with diverse collaborators, but there was enough of a connection with previous Bark Psychosis releases to please old fans. Fortunately it was also very, very good.

Burning the City


previous Great Lost Bands
No. 5: A.R.Kane
No. 4: Loop
No. 3: Bongwater
No. 2: Prolapse
No. 1: Bowery Electric

Great lost bands: A.R.Kane

It's often hyperbole to suggest a band is ahead of their time, but in the case of A.R.Kane I think it's a fair comment. Essentially a duo comprising of Alex Ayuli and Rudi Tambala, they were most active between 1986 and 1990 when they released a string of EPs on One Little Indian and 4AD plus two highly regarded albums on Rough Trade. In that short burst of activity they managed to touch on shoegaze, trip hop, ambient dub and post-rock before anyone knew what those things were.
Early releases such as debut single "When You're Sad" were often filed under an inadequate "black Jesus and Mary Chain" tag, but A.R. Kane had much wider influences behind their work.
When You're Sad

It's true that JAMC and the Cocteau Twins had a major effect on them, but, speaking personally, A.R.Kane's music made me want to check out Sun Ra and 'Bitches Brew' by Miles Davis for a start.
They also had a notorious alter-ego in the guise of M/A/R/R/S, which was a collaboration between them and Colourbox, CJ Mackintosh and DJ Dave Dorrell, and of course had a gigantic hit in 1987 with 'Pump Up The Volume'. This was the first UK number one on a totally independent label (4AD) and a major source of funding for future, more experimental activities. The EP 'Lollita' was their first classic release; it featured three of their best songs - the title track, as well as 'Sadomasocism is a Must' and 'The Butterfly Collector', and showed their edginess as an uncompromising noise band with jarring psycho-sexual themes, a lyrical interest that would continue over the next few records.

All of the EPs are worth checking out, and they paved the way for their extraordinary debut album "sixty-nine" (1988). On the EPs they had sounded like an indie-guitar band with some experimental ideas, but with sixty-nine they threw jazz and dance music into the mix, as well as exploring both extremes of ambient music. Some times it was pretty and dreamy, other times it was edgy and violent. The radical mix of styles on the album is illustrated by its most popular track, Baby Milk Snatcher, with its mix of dub reggae and blissed-out noise. The title is a deliberate reference to Thatcher, but it isn't a jarring political song. It also fits "sixty-nine"s obsession with breasts, as evidenced on the inner sleeve art, and in particular the mother and body bond, as heard on the unsettling 'The Madonna Is With Child.'
Baby Milk Snatcher


The follow-up album "i" was a complete curveball. 26 tracks, ten of which are short noise-based interludes, it was almost too much of a mix of genres for some. Some of it is complex, multi-layered pop such as lead track 'A Love From Outer Psace' and the single 'Pop', some of it is discordant and difficult, and the closing track 'Catch my Drift' manages to mix heavy dub with Pavarotti.

A Love From Outer Space

It was a hard act to follow and they never tried to top it. They signed with David Byrne's Luaka Bop label but this only yielded a compilation of previously released material called 'Americana'. The only new material to come out was a 1994 album called 'New Clear Child' which received a very tepid reaction from fans and critics alike.
The band had nurtured some new talent through their own H.ark label (Belfast bands Papa Sprain and Butterfly Child released 2 EPs each on it) and Rudi Tambala went on to record under the name Sufi, and with Alison Shaw of Cranes as In Rain. Alex Ayuli had a career in advertising prior to A.R. Kane (with TBWA amongst others) and became a museum curator in the US afterwards. I haven't known them to make any music together since 1994.

----------
previous Great Lost Bands
No. 4: Loop
No. 3: Bongwater
No. 2: Prolapse
No. 1: Bowery Electric

Great Lost Bands no 4: Loop

Today's addition to the list of lost bands is probably the most well known one yet. I'm including them as a 'lost band' mainly because of the time that has passed since their last new release (1990), but more specifically because of their huge influence on one of the best albums of last year, Wooden Shjips's 'West'. I have been met with a few puzzled expressions when I've stressed the similarlity between Wooden Shjips and Loop, but for those of us who know them and remember them, the comparison is an obvious one. Here is 'Collision' from 1988, which was practically an indie chart hit!
Collision


For those of you who don't remember them, Loop were active between 1986 and 1991. They were based in London and released three studio albums as well as a few collections of EPs and Peel sessions. The band were inspired by garage bands, Krautrock, heavy drone based rock and the minimalist side of Suicide, and were often, perhaps unfairly, thought to be following in the aftermath of Spacemen 3. The two groups didn't get on and in 1989 Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 claimed in an interview with Lime Lizard, that "they really ripped us off!! Their first record sleeves, their sound, their live shows, just about everything. Their first few gigs were supporting us. The first time they had acid was when we gave it to them. Then they started calling themselves Loop. The first album was alright but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t done already."
Obviously there were huge similiarities but I always thought Loop had enough edginess and abrasiveness to sound distinct. They built up a strong live following, and when I saw them in Belfast Art College in 1990 they were the loudest band I had ever heard. They only held that title for a few weeks until My Bloody Valentine rolled into town, but still... There are a few amateur live videos of them on the internet, and this one below illustrates the intensity of their show.
From Centre to Wave


The band were getting popular in 1990 and the album A Gilded Eternity was released on Beggars Banquet offshoot Situation Two. It was more experimental and difficult than the garagey sounding early singles, but it has proved to be a lasting epitaph for the band. The first single from it was Arc Lite.
Arc Lite

Loop ceased to be a band in 1991, although a collection of Peel Sessions, 'Wolf Flow' was released the next year. Founder member Robert Hampson went on make music under the name Main, which continued until 2006 and was based more around experimental noise and sound art. Drummer John Willis and bassist Neil Mackay formed the Hair and Skin Trading Company whose first couple of albums carried on where Loop left off, but their last release Psychedelische Musique took influences from Faust and musique concrete.

Previously in this series
No 3: Bongwater
No 2: Prolapse
No 1: Bowery Electric

Great Lost Bands No.3: Bongwater

This week's great lost band are Bongwater, who were essentially a psychedelic noise band formed around 1985 and dissolved acrimoniously in 1992. The core of the band was vocalist Ann Magnuson, a professional actress who had been in such movies as Making Mr Right, starring opposite John Malkovich, and guitarist and producer (Mark) Kramer, who ran the Noise New York studio and was the founder of the highly regarded Shimmy Disc label.
Magnuson's musical adventures prior to Bongwater had involved the band Pulsallama (try to find their song "The Devil Lives in my Husband's Body"), whilst Kramer had formed Shockabilly with Eugene Chadbourne and had toured with a mid-80s incarnation of the Butthole Surfers.
The early Bongwater albums sat fairly close to those of the Buttholes in terms of sound and weirdness, as you can hear on these two tracks from their 1988 double album Double Bummer.
Jimmy/ Lesbians of Russia

Their sound was sludgy, abstract and trippy. I'm not going to overload the page with unauthorized video clips, but you should investigate 'Dazed and Chinese' which is a fairly faithful interpretation of Led Zeppelin's 'Dazed and Confused' except Magnuson's grating vocal is in Mandarin. There was also a very edgy sexual side to their music, and one of their most memorable early songs was 'U.S.O', which features the refrain, "give me a marine and some bloody sex."

Bongwater's masterpiece 'The Power of Pussy' was even more sexually charged. I bought it when it came out thanks to hearing it on John Peel and reading a fascinating review of it by Everett True in Melody Maker. Unfortunately I can't find his review, but in his book Nirvana: The True Story, he writes "The Power of Pussy has an undeniable sadness, as well as a rampant carnality, obscenity and pornography." Almost all the songs are about real or imagined sexual adventures, but any playfulness that rears its head is immediately checked against the spectre of AIDS. Magnuson's brother Bobby had recently died from the disease. In twenty years since it's release I have listened to it maybe more than any other album. There really isn't anything like it, and some days I think it may be my favourite album ever.
The band made a video for the title track, which was funded by the Playboy channel and is therefore age-restricted on youtube. I'm not going to embed it but, unless you are offended by women in lingerie and animated hand-drawn cocks, please watch it here.
I could go on all day about 'The Power of Pussy' and maybe I will retrospectively review it here someday, but time is against me today (this post is part of a January post-a-day mission folks). I'll leave you with two fan-made clips. The first one is for 'Junior' where a woman films herself lip-syncing along with the track,

and the second is Magnuson's tour-de-force, the 9-minute plus 'Folk Song'. There are some howling spelling mistakes in this amateur video, but what an incredible song.

Bongwater made one more album, 'The Big Sell Out' in 1992, but they had a hard act to follow. The duo split acrimoniously soon after, with Magnuson suing Kramer for over $4m, and although they settled out of court some years later, they never worked together again. Some of Kramer's solo records, such as the epic 'The Guilt Trip' are well worth hearing.

Previous posts in this series
No 1: Bowery Electric
No 2: Prolapse

Great Lost Bands No.2: Prolapse

Great Lost Bands No.2
The second in this occasional series is the Leicester based band Prolapse, who were active between approximately 1992-2000. Despite having the worst name, they first came to my notice in 1994 when I heard them on Radio 1's Evening Session.
The tune was "Pull Thru' Barker" and I wrote the name down with 'Stereolab, The Fall, Huggy Bear' scribbled beside it in case I forgot what they sounded like. They also sounded like a couple having a row over a krautrock-backing track, but I didn't write that down at the time.

Pull Thru' Barker (vid goes dark after a while, but the track is pretty rare so I'm sharing it!)

I managed to find a copy of their debut album, the excellently titled "Pointless Walks to Dismal Places" and it clicked with me immediately. 1994 wasn't a great year for me, and Prolapse sounded exciting whilst managing to come across as depressing and intense, so they suited me perfectly. I played it a lot and for me it became one of my favourite albums of that entire decade.

Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc (single release from Pointless Walks)

I tracked them steadily over the next year, when they played a blinder at the Reading Festival culminating in the mock violence of "Tina, This Is Matthew Stone" which was so convincing one friend thought it was for real!
They released records on all sorts of labels, mostly singles like the brilliant 'T.C.R', including a mini-album called "Backsaturday" which is worth tracking down alone for the epic side-one-filling "Flex".

T.C.R.

Prolapse proved so popular with the fanzine that I edited at the time ("The Weedbus") that they actually won Best band in our reader's vote. I attempted to interview them; a messy activity co-ordinated by Linda from the band vis post. It ended up like this.
The band signed to Radar records and were given a decent recording budget and some money for promotional videos. They released a fine second album "The Italian Flag" in 1997 which increased their profile and got them some radio play. It was produced by Donald Ross Skinner (of Julian Cope fame), who actually joined the band for a while. Unfortunately the album never sold in the quantities required and they parted company with the major label soon after. Their live shows were still a sight to behold, and I have fond memories of a dream double bill with the Delgados in Dingwall's in Camden, and a superb headline show in Highbury Garage, which in retrospect must have been near the end of their life as a band.
This chaotic clip of them performing Flex is probably my favourite amateur gig footage ever.

In my memory, Prolapse gigs were always like that! The band made one final album, The Ghost of Dead Aeroplanes, in 1999 on Cooking Vinyl records, which failed to make much of an impression but it still hit the spot for me. The band drifted apart, Scottish Mick moved to Norway and went back to being a field archaeologist, Linda got a proper job as a journalist with the Leicester Mercury, whilst guitarist David Jeffreys is a professor at the Art College in Savannah in the USA. They are fairly obscure to today's music fans, but there is still a hardcore fanbase that would love to see them reform. This thread over at ILX is always worth having a read if you are curious for news of the band. All I can say is that, for a large period of the mid-90s, I LOVED them, and I still listen to them regularly now.
I nearly forgot to link to Pointless Walks blog, which is your main resource for Prolapse facts and fun

Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric

Great lost bands: No.1 Bowery Electric
It makes sense to kick off this series with Bowery Electric as they are the band that gave this blog its name, their epic tune 'Slow Thrills' seemed to perfectly describe the kind of music I wanted to get lost in around the time I set this up. (For those who don't remember, we used to have a .com address and posted content between 2001-2003, some of which can be waded through at slowthrills.blogspot.com.)

Bowery Electric were essentially a duo from New York City, comprising Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener, who released most of their work on Kranky and Beggars Banquet to little sales and a lot of credibility. They straddled the washed out end of 'shoegaze' and got lumped in with the music which was getting labelled 'post-rock', but they had a wide range of influences behind their sound, in particular trip-hop beats and electronica, and they were one of the first to integrate a laptop and samples into a live rock band set up. I have no idea where they went or what they do now, and their wikipedia entry doesn't give a lot away either.