The indie also ran thread

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Time for some memory triggering:


Groop Dogdrill.

About the only thing I remember about these was thinking they had the worst band name in the world at the time they were in the NME.

[Jockice]

Hey, they were great, even despite coming from Doncaster. I'm friends with the drummer on Facebook you know.

If we're talking landfill indie, The View are the landfill indie band's landfill indie band. The ones that every other landfill indie band looked at and said: "Now THAT'S a landfill indie band."

[Dr Syntax Head]

The Music. The new Verve according to NME at the time. Yeah mate, even new Verve couldn't be new Verve

They were crap.

Who wasn't crap? I quite liked Cooper Temple Clause for the first album but they were just a product of the times in the end.

[Brundle-Fly]

Another band with the Morrissey endorsement of death.

[jobotic]

They were all crap. Even the good ones. Look at your records. Which ones that are British indie excite you enough to want to play them now. Why would anyone listen to JAMC after Psychocandy?

Actually I can think of loads now, forget that. But the point sort of stands. Would I listen to Mambo Taxi in 2017 at the age of 44? No. I would listen to Huggy Bear though. Oh i just don't know.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

I almost always think of Menswe@r when I think of these kinds of bands. But I also think of didn't even runs like GayDad.

[MattD]

Hurricane #1.

Just appalling.

[owlboy]

Wonky Alice!

Shit name, great EP...

[checkoutgirl]

The Audience
The Coral

I know nothing about them but they were talked about for a few weeks.


Menswear were decentish I reckon. There were an arseload of bands that Marc 'n' Lard used to play in the mid 90s who had a decent tune and some fame at the time but looking back are incredibly of their time. Sleeper, Belly, Echobelly, Veruca Salt, Headswim, Pizzicato 5, The Railroad Jerks. I'd even throw Elastica in there. There were hundreds of them.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I really like theaudience's album and it still gets the odd play to this day, it's a real shame Sophie went solo and then so bland.

[Jockice]

I really like theaudience's album and it still gets the odd play to this day, it's a real shame Sophie went solo and then so bland.

That is a very decent album.

[purlieu]

Who wasn't crap? I quite liked Cooper Temple Clause for the first album but they were just a product of the times in the end.

Still very fond of them. The mix of electronica and post-hardcore influences made them stand out a bit, and although everyone hated the third album I thought it still had a few really lovely tracks on. I don't think they quite qualify as also-rans, as they had a good five or six years of critical respects.

Hurricane #1 are a superb example. I stumbled across a "music of the next century" type compilation in a charity shop a couple of weeks back. I'd not heard of any of the bands on there except Hurricane #1. Funny just how wrong they could get it. But I suppose back in 1999 nobody expected The Strokes.

The Coral

I know nothing about them but they were talked about for a few weeks.

They had five top ten albums! Throw in three more top 20 albums since then, and they've been around for 15 years.

Sleeper

I'm enormously fond of Sleeper, despite knowing there's something a bit crap about them. Louise never had a very strong voice and the production on the second and third albums makes all the songs sound kind of lifeless despite them mostly being quite upbeat. But they wrote some really good tunes. Like Menswear, they were an also-ran who've become sort of famous for being an also-ran, to the extent that they've actually been reevaluated much more than they would have if they'd been completely ignored.

[Porter Dimi]

Who remembers The Paddingtons? Bands like this were a dime a dozen between 2005-08, and NME seemed to trumpet every last one of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPZSFiM76o

[purlieu]

I know there are a few Bluetones fans here, and I'd say they definitely managed to surpass the Britpop also-rans tag by still going now (technically they broke up for about 18 months, in which time they acted as Mark Morris's backing band, so I don't really count it), and by putting out a string of lovely indie-pop records and retaining an almost obsessive fanbase in the meantime.
Still, I think this poster is very apt for the thread.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I'd quite like to go to that, at least if it were really cheap, mainly as I used to be a big My Life Story fan but I'm also fond of everyone else bar Dodgy. And they're not terrible, just a band I never had much time for. But £42's way too much for me.

[Jockice]

I'd quite like to go to that, at least if it were really cheap, mainly as I used to be a big My Life Story fan but I'm also fond of everyone else bar Dodgy. And they're not terrible, just a band I never had much time for. But £42's way too much for me.

I saw My Life Story before hearing any of their records, on a night when I was uncharacteristically absolutely bladdered and thought they were the greatest act in the history of music. Then I heard the records....

[Serge]

Would I listen to Mambo Taxi in 2017 at the age of 44?

They did two absolutely superb singles - 'Poems On The Underground' and 'Do You Always Dress Like That In Front Of Other People's Boyfriends?' - which I still listen to at the age of 46!

I like the fact that it's 'Salad Undressed' on that poster - investigation turns up that it's 'Marijne and Paul from Salad performing acoustically'....like anyone remembers anyone from Salad who isn't Marijne.....

[Custard]

TERRIS

The Wikipedia is great

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terris_%28band%29

"The new Joy Division"

https://youtu.be/PUdo-ixCp7U

SEE!

[jobotic]

They did two absolutely superb singles - 'Poems On The Underground' and 'Do You Always Dress Like That In Front Of Other People's Boyfriends?' - which I still listen to at the age of 46!
.

Yeah I've got the first one, and I wasn't really slagging them off. Just years later it doesn't scream "play me" anymore. I dunno, I'm talking crap. Most of the bands I were shit now I thought were shit at the time. I'm just trying to join in.

Swervedriver and Curve - never saw any point in them.

[Gulftastic]

Curve were a bit before all the indie bands that followed in Brit Pops wake though. I quite liked them.

[Neomod]

I saw My Life Story before hearing any of their records, on a night when I was uncharacteristically absolutely bladdered and thought they were the greatest act in the history of music. Then I heard the records....

They were great live. Blonde violinist #2 was cute as I recall. I enjoyed his Anthony Newley stylings but yes they were also rans. Last I heard of Jake Shillingford was on this KPM Britpop album doing a Blur pastiche. Ouch.



Another vote here for Sophie's theaudience. I bought the first 3 singles from the overpriced Tower in Camden, where I was living[nb]Camden, not Tower Records[/nb] and stood next to her mum at their 100 club gig.

[Danger Man]

Campag Velocet and Northside.

Goodnight.

[jobotic]

I have a vague recollection of seeing My Life Story and enjoying it. Don't think I've ever knowingly heard their records though.

[checkoutgirl]

Senser. Now they were an indie/rock also ran. Known in 1994 and then...

[Neomod]

Senser. Now they were an indie/rock also ran. Known in 1994 and then...

Saw this lot at Feet First at the Camden Palace. I'd forgotten them by the time I got to The Worlds End.

[chocky909]

Northern Uproar.
Symposium.
Regular Fries.
The Webb Brothers.
Cast.

[Danger Man]

History is kinder on bands fronted by female singers.

Bennet were better than Sleeper, for example, but are long forgotten.

[gilbertharding]

If this is a thread for bands you liked, and thought could have properly made it, but never did:

5:30
Kinky Machine
Nilon Bombers
Mint 400
Big White Stairs

Or bands you loved but knew were never going to make it (because that's not why they were even doing it)

Jacob's Mouse
God Machine
Th'Faith Healers
Thee Hypnotics

Or pure going through the motions landfill

Laxton's Superb

[thraxx]

Strangelove are my favorite Indie also rans.  There were about 37 people in the band who obviously all hated each other, all big collared polka dot shirts, glasses and floppy hair.  Patrick Duff was a great front man, good looking and great voice, but by the time you get to their brilliant self-titled record (which is as dramatic as Suede and as catchy as anything Blur did), a great marriage of art and pop.  Then they fall apart.  Live they were amazing, I saw them support the Tindersticks in about 96 at some theatre or another.

They could have had it all, but totally fucked it up.

Fucking love Strangelove.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Laxton's Superb

Saw these support The Manics in '96. About as exciting as tile grout.