Category: Non-fiction (page 8 of 9)

13 February 2004 / 0 Comments

Verve, not “The” Verve—get it right!

Back in the early 1990s ‘The’ Verve were still called Verve, the Charlatans didn’t have a UK tacked onto the end of them and Suede still sucked the big one.

Pardon me for sounding monotonous but Verve were further proof that the old ‘the early EPs were great but the later work is like drinking paint stripper’ theory is a valid one. Until proven otherwise of course.

Verve started off as a freewheeling, psychedelic, dual guitar and dub influenced, sixties-sounding stoner epic outfit. Then they released ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, changed their name to The Verve and began hitting up the middle of the road (in no particular order).

Their first three releases, however, showcased a different band entirely. ‘All in the Mind’ was a banging single. ‘She’s a Superstar’ was also a single but because of its length (both it and b-side ‘Feel’ clock in at around 10 minutes) should really be considered an EP.

Verve released the 'She's a Superstar' single in 1992.
The cover of Verve’s ‘She’s a Superstar’ single, from 1992. Artwork by Brian Cannon/Microdot.

‘Gravity Grave’ was perhaps their weirdest single ever, a track that was also about 10 minutes long. It was included on the Verve EP, which also featured an extended mix of the song recorded live at Glastonbury.

The Verve EP also featured my favourite Verve track of all time: ‘A Man Called Sun’, a spacey odyssey featuring some excellent noodling from guitarist Nick McCabe, cavernous echoes and a drum beat so slow it was probably on smack.

Together these releases summed up a band that seemed to have no idea what was going on in the world around them. And they seemed perfectly fine with that.

Then, in 1993, they dropped A Storm in Heaven, a totally bodacious album’s worth of deep grooves and psychedelics.

Verve released the A Storm in Heaven LP in 1993.
The cover of Verve’s debut album, A Storm in Heaven (1993). Artwork by Brian Cannon/Microdot.

Truth be told, I am not sure the world was ready for Verve’s early work, which projected a worldview in which everyone was ‘high’, or ‘already there’, like, all the time.

The music itself was not so different to a lot of other bands but by 1994 it was sounding a little out of place. This is why I consider Verve to be one of the 10 greatest UK indie bands of the early 1990s.

It’s a real shame that ‘The’ Verve then went on to become such poseurs. Don’t even talk to me about the Richard Ashcroft solo experience.

But truthfully, I think the reason why I have such a soft spot for Verve’s early EPs is the fact that they remind me of the girl I was seeing at the time. She’d been to England and came home with a tape of Verve songs that proved excellent background music for smoking weed and pashing.

Unfortunately, part of the tape was erased by her previous boyfriend, who somehow pressed the wrong button on the car stereo one day, or so I’m told.

I can still hear the sound of car park noise, a kind of ‘Oh shit!’ exclamation, and then a return to the swirling, dreamy music. I don’t think she ever forgave him for that.

But who am I to talk? We also broke up, most likely due to some asshat behaviour on my part.

I’ve still got a dubbed copy of that cassette tape and managed to work the fact into the ending of a poem I recently wrote:

I made sure to dub your tape of early Verve
second-hand memories are all I deserve

‘Pixie’ (2004, unpublished)

Sniff.

12 February 2004 / 0 Comments

Swervedriver: the good guys of early-1990s UK indie

As Crowded House said, “Now we’re getting somewhere”. Swervedriver were one of the greatest bands of the early 1990s. Full stop.

And you know what? Their early success, like that of Ride, hinged upon a series of phenomenal EPs: Son of Mustang Ford, Rave Down and the incendiary Sandblasted EP, all of whose title tracks would feature on their impressive space odyssey debut album Raise.

At the time Raise came out, I remember thinking that the album itself was a slight disappointment after the stunning ferocity of those three EPs (think speed metal fused with a Sonic Youth style melodicism).

Raise grew on me, however. Opening track ‘Sci-Flyer’, with its razor-sharp guitar lines and driving rhythm, set the tone for a sprawling album which crossed many stylistic boundaries and managed to capture what will forevermore be known as the Swervedriver sound.

Second album Mezcal Head was even more adventurous than its predecessor, including ‘Duel’, the completely bizarre ‘Last Train To Satansville’ and the jazz-metal fusion of ‘Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn’: an extended 11-minute jam that closed out the US edition of the album, silencing the naysayers in that realm at least.

I kind of lost track after 1993 but for freak’s sake, the Swervies had already done their job, really.

The cover of Swervedriver’s sophomore LP, Mezcal Head (1993).

Despite their huge sound, and the inherent possibility that trying to rein it in might have caused problems for the band, Swervedriver (or should I say lead singer Adam Franklin) developed a reputation for quality songwriting as well.

The quintessential example was ‘Harry & Maggie’, which fused a pop sensibility with the traditional dual-guitar attack in a way that was seemingly beyond contemporaries Ride.

Remember ‘Twisterella?’ No? Enough said.

I also remember being impressed by the fact that unlike other bands at the time, the Swervies had no problem with naming other bands they liked and promoting the scene in general.

How many NME interviews at that time managed to slag off every other band around? Not Swervedriver, who came across as, well, a bit more mature. Or nice, anyway.

Finally, and this is perhaps the clincher, the band reportedly hung out with former Husker Du legend Bob Mould around the time of the release of Sugar’s extraordinary Beaster EP, and talked guitars.

Swervedriver were one band who took their guitars seriously. As a result, their discography is a testament to well-crafted, sonically adventurous rock/pop with a science fiction bent.

Leave them all behind? Too late, we already have.

9 February 2004 / 2 Comments

Ripe—Cherry Ripe

Last night when I was thinking about who I would profile next in my exhaustive catalogue of early 1990s bands that have, sadly, disappeared, I became aware that I was perhaps being a little too shoegazer-centric.

Hence the inclusion of Ratcat whom, to be honest, I was never really that into at the time, except perhaps for ‘That Ain’t Bad’.

I guess I should also admit that in terms of Australian bands, my listening habits centered around Sydney bands, mostly because I lived there.

However, it’s one of the worst-kept secrets that Melbourne in the early 1990s was the place to be, especially if you were into indie bands excited and influenced by the new movements in UK and US indie pop.

I’m talking bands like The Earthmen, Rail, Ripe and The Fauves.

Ripe were a mystery band for me, a band I never saw, but whose influence on the Melbourne scene was palpable.

I heard them on Triple J in about 1991/92, upon the release of their Filterfeed LP (if anyone has a copy of this one, I’d sure love a tape of it) and their appearance on one of the Youngblood compilations—their track ‘Gaze’ was for me a standout.

Ripe evolved into a heavy sonic outfit, having started out as a sample-friendly band. Just listen to The Plastic Hassle, their second full length effort (released through Shock) and you’ll hear what I mean: big dirty guitars, thumping bass, drums with lots of cymbals.

Their music was very dark but also melodic, a bit like Straitjacket Fits I suppose, but perhaps closer in sound to The Fauves’ angular ‘science rock’ of The Scissors Within / Tight White Ballhugger twin EPs.

Lead singer Mark Murphy, who bears a passing resemblance to Pete Townsend, is an impressive songwriter with a real ear for the melancholy.

The Plastic Hassle was the definitive Ripe statement, a sprawling effort about fourteen songs long, standout tracks being ‘Something Fierce’, ‘Love Your Guts’ and the awesome ‘Moondriven’.

Funnily enough, Murphy and fellow Ripe member Kate Dixon now front a band called Moondriven whose sound is fairly similar to Ripe’s. The first week I was in Melbourne in 1998 I saw them play at the Punters.

In the last six years I think they’ve probably released about half a dozen songs, total. One of these, ‘Ghost’, is a real standout, though I’m not sure it’s on any of their releases.

As you can tell, I’m not really as excited about these guys as I should be, probably because they’re just so damned sporadic.

I remember in the early 1990s, however, there was a great deal of buzz surrounding Ripe and their temporary signing to SubPop.

Come 2004, however, and they’ve been relegated, just like The Earthmen, Rail, Autohaze, The Glory Box and Pray TV, to the dustbin of Melbourne’s musical history.

The next time you eat a Cherry Ripe, spare a thought for Ripe—actually, on second thoughts, scrap that.

Just eat the freaking Cherry Ripe, okay?

6 February 2004 / 6 Comments

Ratcat ain’t that bad (and that ain’t bad)

You may notice a pattern appearing: the last two posts have mentioned the seminal influence of a particular EP—namely, Ride’s Play and MBV’s Glider—on my musical tastes and palette. Well, here we go again. It’s time to talk about Ratcat.

I cannot emphasise enough the impact of Ratcat’s Tingles EP on both myself and the Australian musical landscape. Put simply, Ratcat were Australia’s Nirvana. I say that only because there were three guys in Ratcat originally, and Tingles came out a full six months before Smells Like … so have a think about that for a second.

Forget those Ride boys and their fey haircuts, Ratcat were the real deal. In fact I’ll go out on a limb (because I don’t care) and say that Ratcat were better than Nirvana. They’d already released one full length album (This Nightmare) and a pile of indie 7-inch singles but no one was prepared for what happened in 1990 when Tingles came out.

As an EP, Tingles was nothing short of a blueprint for the past, present and future of fuzzpop. ‘That Ain’t Bad’, with its explosive guitar line and Joey Ramone vocals, was one of the smash hits of the year and I’m not talking Kerry Packer.

Feast your eyes on this spunk.

Doubtless, lead singer Simon Day’s stunning good looks won over a lot of fans but it was the sheer relief of the music—power chords, straight ahead drumming (not quite spartan)—in short, three minutes of perfection, that sealed Ratcat’s fate as homegrown rock stars.

The other five songs on the EP were no less impressive, and constituted a huge quantum leap from their previous material. ‘(Getting Away) From This World’, ‘Tingles’ (a Jane’s Addiction tune if ever I’ve heard one) and the astonishing ‘My Bloody Valentine’ provide me with a neater segue into shoegazing than even I could have hoped for.

The fact that the subsequent second album, Blind Love (containing both ‘That Ain’t Bad’ and their other Number 1 hit ‘Don’t Go Now’) went to Number 1 on the national charts is simply a testament to how freaking brilliant Tingles was.

Another factor in its success was its availability in (cheap: was it $3.99?) cassette/ cassingle format. One must also mention the appalling cover artwork (derived from the lyrics to the title track: “It’s in the cards, the future’s in the cards”.

Alas, if Simon Day had only foreseen that just a few years later he would be resorting to a duet with John Paul Young, he might have thrown his cards in earlier. Still, ask anyone who was around in 1990 and inevitably the genius of Tingles will be brought up.

It’s funny, I actually met Simon Day in the mid 1990s, when I was working for the Electoral Commission, going from door to door checking if people were enrolled to vote.

Not only was he enrolled, he was also probably the politest resident I met, and totally enthusiastic about my role as a defender of democracy. Enough said.

4 February 2004 / 0 Comments

“That band is Ride”

Of all the sad remnants of the early 1990s, you’d be pretty hard pressed to find anything sadder than the lead singer of Ride undertaking a tour of Australia, ten years after the band fizzled out, like luke-warm piss floating down an alleyway behind the Punters Club. That’s because the Punters doesn’t exist anymore, and Ride were the shoegazer band par excellence. To make any kind of comeback simply proves how of the moment Ride truly were, and how pathetic they sound now.

Okay, I’m being harsh. They had some good songs. They did to Australian indie rock what Nirvana did to the world – that is, I’m not so sure what they did but at least it was something noisy. They were prettier than MBV and artier than anyone else. Their first EP featured roses on the cover; the second daffodils; the third, penguins. That their fourth (the turgid Today Forever, released in between albums Nowhere and Going Blank Again) featured a white pointer shark suggested that the original shoe-gazing indie boys had learnt the hard way how art doesn’t pay; in fact, is bound to be swallowed whole by both time and money.

“Sharks patrol these waters” said Morphine; and I’m afraid I have to agree.

My brother actually saw Ride before me, at the Hordern Pavilion in 1992, playing on the same bill as what was basically the entirety of Aussie indie pop at the time: Ratcat, the Falling Joys, the Welcome Mat (I think), the Hummingbirds (probably), the Clouds (maybe) and some other Mushroom or Redeye act. According to him, Ride came on (last?) and blew the rest of them apart, which you’d have to expect really, as their trademark was a “wall of noise” – and I’m not talking Phil Spector.

I saw Ride at the Paddington RSL supported by Swirl (perhaps Australia’s all-time greatest shoegazer band). It was a very loud gig indeed. They were very fey, almost corpose-like on stage, all very pretty, la. It’s funny how such prettiness was acceptable amongst straight-acting indie kids, how it’s still okay to adore pasty boys in Doc Martens and obscure-band t-shirts. Whatever.

At the time I think they (Ride) only had about three good songs (this was before Going Blank Again was released – though they did play the monstrous single off that album, “Leave Them All Behind”, making good use of some Aztec-style lights n’ lasers). The funny thing about them was that their first EP (Ride) looked so good but was really just garage crap (the kind of crap the Earthmen managed to record on their first couple of vinyl singles).

The second one (Play) started off with perhaps their greatest song ever – “Like A Daydream” – after which it sank back into turgid territory again; the third – Fall (the one with the penguins on the cover) was perhaps their best – featuring the slightly bombastic “Dreams Burn Down”.

Then came the album Nowhere which in Australia had Fall tacked on the end of it; then came the Today Forever EP (enough said); Going Blank Again; and then two more albums of such ineffable shite I can’t even bring myself to name, catalogue or even describe them (let alone recall what was on the front covers).

The saddest thing of all, apart from Mark Gardener’s impending snooze-fest, is that Creation have just brought out a Ride best-of. Best of freaking what, I’d like to know. Looking for a band that sums up everything that was good and bad about the early 1990s? Look no further. That band is Ride. Thank you, Richard Kingsmill.

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