Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:34:59 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Soup Dragons - the C86 years

Started by 23 Daves, August 03, 2015, 09:10:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

23 Daves

Here's one of the more baffling omissions from the record racks and mp3 stores - if you want, you can buy any number of truly rubbish nineties Soup Dragons pieces of sloppy, sub-baggy drivel. Fill your boots. It's all there. The band's hearts don't really sound in it, but nonetheless, money talks and these were all fairly big hits in the day (for an indie act, anyhow).

Completely missing from the shelves, mp3 stories and indeed anywhere is their earliest material, which was largely gleeful, spiky punk-pop. Trashy, scrappy, but underneath it all there were actually some top tunes going on. Their real breakthrough moment in indie terms was "Hang Ten!", two minutes of surf-referencing Buzzpop with an unashamedly cheap video (cheap videos were their stock-in-trade at this point): https://youtu.be/urXI_QYrLL8

Follow-up "Head Gone Astray" is marvellous as well, taking the foot off the pedals a little bit and letting a certain chiming sixtiesness burst through: https://youtu.be/CfzLgsB5vHg

And "Can't Take No More" is the first song I heard by them, and really knocked my socks off. https://youtu.be/HpRoqq8-Uxs

In fact, this period is dotted with all kinds of lovely seven inch singles and EPs, utterly lacking in pretention but still some of the best three-minute guitar pop songs of that little period. They were indie top ten mainstays and record magazine cover stars, up there with The Wedding Present and The Darling Buds at the time, and for good reasons. For those few moments, they were better than most other bands of their ilk. And then, with quite stunning rapidity, they got more sophisticated and more boring. The debut LP "This Is Our Art" isn't all it could be, and it only gets worse from there.

Apparently the YouTube video for "Hang Ten!" has been torn down by the copyright owner on numerous occasions, as have other early Soup Dragons tracks, which either means somebody has a vested interest in keeping things under wraps for now or someone in the band is ashamed of the early work and wants to keep it hidden. Either road, it's very tricky to locate on CD or mp3 through legitimate sources. I have "Hang Ten!" on an indie compilation CD, the others are all vinyl rips lovingly put on my iPod.

They're such a terminally uncool band, yet there's actually something faintly Frank Black-ish about their earliest work that makes them sound a hell of a lot more convincing than the act they became. It is a perplexing case. But I'd love a decent CD or LP filled to the brim with some of these moments.

Dr Rock

Hang Ten was indeed good. I think their rep was fine until they went baggy.

Jockice

How strange. I've actually just bought the expanded CD version of C86. I too loved their early stuff, and actually really liked their first LP. The second was sort of okay too. But then came I'm Free. An awful, tacky bandwagon-jumping cash-in that made me ashamed to have ever liked them in the first place. That song still makes me shudder.  Horrible.

CaledonianGonzo

As much as I like things like Whole Wide World, I also really, really like I'm Free.  It's a shameless bandwagon leap, but ....it's fun.

Jockice

I believe they put out a third album. I was so put off by I'm Free that I've never even seen the sleeve let alone heard it.

Brundle-Fly



My first exposure to them was Rosewood Sky on the Sonic Sounds EP compilation "7 that came cover mounted with SOUNDS music paper in... Christ....1987. I thought it was a pleasant enough fayre but didn't explore further. 

I was quite surprised these fey indie hippies turned into a sort of semi skimmed Happy Mondays couple of years later.

I don't feel such animosity towards their 'baggy' piggy-backing, as I associate the album,  Lovegod with a very happy point in my life.

What was the NME interview cliche at the time?

"There was always a dance element to our music"

CaledonianGonzo

Apropos of this thread, just had a wee squiz to see what Sean Dickson aka DJ HiFi Sean was up to.

Got a new album coming out, seemingly, including a collaboration with Yoko Ono.

Future Pilot AKA is probably more my speed, though.

23 Daves

I just saw the review of "This Is Our Art" on iTunes. Staggeringly, they've run with a bad review? What kind of marketing is this!

Sean is displeased and comments beneath:

QuoteThanks Rhino for putting up a crap review of our first album REALLY great way to market it, Sick of sad old know it all journalists stamping there approval over someone else's work

He's going to find this thread and fucking kill me, quite obviously (not that I'm a journalist, but still...)

Actually Rhino, or anyone who cares, the obvious thing to do would be to reissue "This Is Our Art" with the early singles and B-sides as bonus tracks. I'll buy it.

Dr Rock

Didn't they used to get the hump when people thought they got their name off The Clangers when they claim it was from the original term for a dinner lady type person? And they also got the hump when people questioned their newfound love of dance music? Always getting the hump over something.

Anyway 14 Iced Bears were better.


the psyche intangible

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on August 03, 2015, 10:16:25 PM


My first exposure to them was Rosewood Sky on the Sonic Sounds EP compilation "7 that came cover mounted with SOUNDS music paper in... Christ....1987. I thought it was a pleasant enough fayre but didn't explore further. 

I was quite surprised these fey indie hippies turned into a sort of semi skimmed Happy Mondays couple of years later.

I don't feel such animosity towards their 'baggy' piggy-backing, as I associate the album,  Lovegod with a very happy point in my life.

What was the NME interview cliche at the time?

"There was always a dance element to our music"


I used to mock a band called 'Cerebral Fix' that submitted a shit song to one of those Sounds ep's. I later lived with one of the members, and now we're best buds to this day.

So...be careful of what you say about Sounds ep's and perms.

Jockice

I did a phone interview with Sean around 1987 and he was great. Really chatty and friendly. We ended up talking for about 45 minutes in what was supposed to be a 15-minute slot. Never spoke to him again though. I recall trying to set up an interview around the time of I'm Free when they were also doing a tour with a date in my area. I was told that they weren't doing regional press anymore. For fuck's sake. They're not the Rolling Stones I felt like saying to the PR person, just a band who have done a lousy cover version of a Stones song. Still don't know if it was their doing rather than the record company but it certainly left a sour taste in my mouth.

Puce Moment

This is very odd timing. Just a couple of days ago I was looking for the TV footage of the band that first got me into them when I was a young teen. It was this, about the time of This is Our Art, the second album I ever bought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RjjXVZm6Jo

I was intrigued by their 60s cool sound (as it was), and they reminded me of the sort of band who would be hanging out in Camden and rehearsing, and having a better laugh than The Weather Prophets and some of their more dour indie peers.

Dr Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urXI_QYrLL8

This seems to have been up for half a decade, that's your conspiracy theory knackered.

Dr Rock

Although all the comments are about it being repeatedly taken down before.

DrGreggles

I loved The Soup Dragons in the mid-to-late 80s. In fact they were the first band I ever saw live (supported by a pre-fame Ride).
The lack of their stuff online is something that really annoys me though. I have everything they did up to 1990 on vinyl, and these days no way of playing them or transferring them.
If anyone can furnish me with mp3 copies of the early stuff I'd be very bloody grateful indeed.

Dr Rock

Oh you did successfully link to it in your opening post, just ignore me.

phes

Quote from: Jockice on August 03, 2015, 09:38:30 PM
But then came I'm Free. An awful, tacky bandwagon-jumping cash-in that made me ashamed to have ever liked them in the first place. That song still makes me shudder.  Horrible.

I don't think they saw any of the money from I'm Free

Jockice

Quote from: Dr Rock on August 03, 2015, 10:39:54 PM
Didn't they used to get the hump when people thought they got their name off The Clangers when they claim it was from the original term for a dinner lady type person? And they also got the hump when people questioned their newfound love of dance music? Always getting the hump over something.

Anyway 14 Iced Bears were better.

I thought that their claim was that it was just two random words thrown together and they had no idea at all about any children's tv connotations....

As if.

Jockice

Quote from: phes on August 03, 2015, 11:48:39 PM
I don't think they saw any of the money from I'm Free

They should have given it to me for having to hear the horrid thing. And having people say: "isn't that one of those bands you like?"

SavageHedgehog

Quote from: Jockice on August 03, 2015, 10:15:11 PM
I believe they put out a third album. I was so put off by I'm Free that I've never even seen the sleeve let alone heard it.

Not only did they put it out, it featured a US Hit Single! It reached No. 35 in the US Hot 100, which was like getting to 12 or something in the UK. So moderately successful in the US were they that more famous UK bands, like James IIRC, were supporting them on their US tour.

23 Daves

Quote from: Jockice on August 04, 2015, 05:34:19 AM
I thought that their claim was that it was just two random words thrown together and they had no idea at all about any children's tv connotations....

As if.

That's what I remember them saying as well. I was wondering about that last night. Did they try that line in interviews in case they were sued by Oliver Postgate? There's no other conceivable explanation. "The two words sounded good together" is not remotely convincing - as if two completely different individuals could have accidentally come up with that combination.

The Man From Delmonte were closely watched by Delmonte foods in case the quality of their material did not adequately reflect the values of the food company, so there was form for other people getting the huff about indie band names at the time. Would have been great if an Actual Man from Delmonte turned up to the recording studio giving their tracks the thumbs up and thumbs down.


Jockice

Quote from: 23 Daves on August 04, 2015, 08:46:13 AM
That's what I remember them saying as well. I was wondering about that last night. Did they try that line in interviews in case they were sued by Oliver Postgate? There's no other conceivable explanation. "The two words sounded good together" is not remotely convincing - as if two completely different individuals could have accidentally come up with that combination.

The Man From Delmonte were closely watched by Delmonte foods in case the quality of their material did not adequately reflect the values of the food company, so there was form for other people getting the huff about indie band names at the time. Would have been great if an Actual Man from Delmonte turned up to the recording studio giving their tracks the thumbs up and thumbs down.

Didn't the singer of The Man From Delmonte used to do live reviews for NME until he got sued by someone? Can't recall details but something about it rings a bell. I interviewed him once too. A miserable bugger he was.

I preferred this lot anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SbEaHx97hw

Bingo Fury

Quote from: Jockice on August 03, 2015, 11:02:25 PM
I did a phone interview with Sean around 1987 and he was great. Really chatty and friendly. We ended up talking for about 45 minutes in what was supposed to be a 15-minute slot.

Same here. Nattered on very happily and chummily for over an hour, to my surprise, as I expected him to be a tad wary and stand-offish for some reason. This was years later, though - around the time of the release of the first (were there more?) High Fidelity album, which I remember as being pretty good - preferable to anything I'd heard by the Soup Dragons, anyway. He was enthusing about how he'd got a famous Bollywood composer to arrange the strings and about playing with Mickey Finn from T-Rex. I'll have to stick it on to check how well it's aged.

Sushil Dade: another very pleasant, forthcoming interviewee.

Dr Rock

Quote from: DrGreggles on August 03, 2015, 11:33:42 PM
If anyone can furnish me with mp3 copies of the early stuff I'd be very bloody grateful indeed.

PMed you a link. To everyone else I'll say if you want files that you can't find anywhere else, particularly obscure alternative/indie stuff, this russian (I think) site is da bomb. Got a load of Come eps off it yesterday.

http://rutracker.org/

Dr Rock

Oliver Postgate didn't coin the phrase, he borrowed it.


I can find no evidence the phrase 'Soup Dragons' predated Clangers, and described dinner ladies, possibly WW2 soup kitchen versions. But I didn't imagine this, I read it somewhere and can't be the only one. And I think it was the Soup Dragons The Band That Got The Hump who may have said it, but people here are saying they say they just randomly made it up and had never seen the Clangers? Wow that's absurd if they thought people would believe that.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: 23 Daves on August 04, 2015, 08:46:13 AM
That's what I remember them saying as well. I was wondering about that last night. Did they try that line in interviews in case they were sued by Oliver Postgate? There's no other conceivable explanation. "The two words sounded good together" is not remotely convincing - as if two completely different individuals could have accidentally come up with that combination.

The Man From Delmonte were closely watched by Delmonte foods in case the quality of their material did not adequately reflect the values of the food company, so there was form for other people getting the huff about indie band names at the time. Would have been great if an Actual Man from Delmonte turned up to the recording studio giving their tracks the thumbs up and thumbs down.

Apparently, The Man From Delmonte were managed by journalist, Jon Ronson according to what he revealed on his episode of RHLSP.

Dr Rock

I suppose it's quite common for bands to get fed up talking about how they got their name so they start telling lies to amuse themselves.

DrunkCountry

I often wonder what would have happened to Primal Scream had they not become Loaded. By extension, Soup Dragons. At the time I thought they had noticed the attention & mainstream success Primal Scream were getting, something SD had never really attained or looked likely to, after receiving the remix treatment & accidentally spearheading the retro-psych-dance-baggy crossover. In my cynical young mind I thought SD changed their whole sound to ride the coat-tail & their 'debut' release was a baggy as fuck Primal Screamified indie-dance nonsense. I don't remember the name of it, but the video was garishly computer graphixed to fuck cheap psych FX, with the band all performing to camera by means of a jaunty lean & fringe. It was pleasant enough pastiche/homage but, everything after that first reimagining, always had a whiff of desperation / out of ideas for me.

DrGreggles

The Soup Dragons move to 'indie dance' actually predated that of Primal Scream (and The Stone Roses' 'Fools Gold' and Happy Mondays' 'Madchester' EP) as they originally did 'Mother Universe' in 1989.