An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 2, 1982 -

[Brundle-Fly]

Keep It Down - Simon Warner  Released on Rough Trade In 1997.



Waiting Rooms. Without doubt, my favourite album of 1997, and in my top ten of all time.  I could've lifted most tracks from this 'lost' classic. I've covered the decadent genius before in the 1985 section of this thread. 

Anybody who is even remotely a fan of early Scott Walker, The Divine Comedy, Pulp, Tom Robinson Band, My Life Story, Julian Cope, I insist, must investigate immediately.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdkDerp3WJQ

[jamiefairlie]

The American Analog Set - Magnificent Seventies

https://youtu.be/xnNTP0CmxaI



Formed in Austin in 1995, the group's early sound was highly-influenced by krautrock and post-rock and British shoegazer bands like Cocteau Twins, often featuring long instrumental passages. This is their second single and is also the opening track of second album, "From Our Living Room to Yours".

[Greg Torso]

Smog - Ex Con



Classic loners anthem from Mr Callahan. Jim O'Rourke's trumpet brings an extra rain cloud of melancholia over this ode to imposters syndrome.

[Greg Torso]

Deerhoof - Polly Bee



Well known now of course for their rainbow sparkles and mad bastard drumming pop type mess, but Deerhoof started off as a arty-noise duo (Rob Fisk and Greg Saunier) who did things like releasing records with both songs playing simultaneously in left and right speakers. Cool, but there was something missing from their sound...
Luckily, Satomi Matsuzaki arrived in the US from Japan to follow the band Caroliner around on tour, and within a week was signed up as fully sworn in member of the Children Of The Hoof.
The song Polly Bee, from Deerhoof's second album The Man, The King, The Girl was perhaps the first indication that the band were moving from "grinding, feedbacking guitars in a storm of crash cymbals" into a more pop area. I loved the band at this point, a perfect axis on which free form noise and indie rock could swing to and fro.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Orlando - Nature's Hated



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hcB4qkFkM

The great '90s anthem that never was. Taylor and Pricey, while writing their half-pissed Romo manifesto, were presumably listening to this.

[Astronaut Omens]

Stereolab and Nurse with Wound- Simple Headphone Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSychSVOSaI

Stereolab's finest rarity. A basic track, originally titled "The Long Hair of Death" was given to Nurse with Wound's Steve Stapleton to do whatever he wanted with. The distorted voices and unusual sound effects he added are perhaps what you might expect from him, but not, perhaps, the jangly, melancholy guitar figure.

[Brundle-Fly]

Jack Shit George - Ian Dury & The Blockheads.   Released on Ronnie Harris Records in 1997.





Dury knew he was running out of time having been diagnosed with a particularly nasty cancer in 1996 but was able finally to record the album he'd been wanting to make for years, and 'andsome it was too! He passed away in March 2000, aged 57.

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

[daf]

Fuzz Townshend ‎– Hello Darlin'



Reached #51 in the UK charts in September 1997

John Richard Keith Townshend acquired his nickname 'Fuzz" at junior school - thanks to his Afro hair. His mother won a Vauxhall Chevette in a national newspaper competition when he was ten; having never learned to drive, she instead opted to take the prize in cash instead and spent it buying her son a drum kit. After taking lessons from local jazz musician Al Reed, Townshend's stage debut was made in March 1977, aged just 12.

Townshend joined former The Beat singer Ranking Roger and his band General Public. Pop Will Eat Itself noticed him drumming with local acts and asked him to join. Townshend spent the next four and a half years drumming for the band. Townshend started playing drums for the dance music outfit Bentley Rhythm Ace, and his first solo release, "Hello Darlin", was released in 1997.



He released his first album, 'Far In' in 1999, followed by 'Fuzz Townshend' in 2002.

[Brundle-Fly]

Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?) - Period Pains.  Released on Damaged Goods in 1997.



Miaow!

Period Pains were a British all-female indie punk band formed in 1996. They gained attention in 1997 after releasing the single "Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?)". They then recorded a session for Peel, which was released as an EP.
They opened the Reading Festival in 1997 on the Dr. Marten's Stage. The track was an attack on what they saw as the Spice Girls' shallow attitudes and was heavily plugged by John Peel and Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1. The UK's tabloid newspapers also picked up on the band] As a result, it made the UK Singles Chart at number 87 in late August 1997 with practically no advertising, and was number 4 in Peel's annual end-of-year Festive Fifty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8AoumEZ07A

[daf]

The Family Way – Strange Ways



Released in 1997 - did not chart

Taking their inspiration from creepy 60's comedy TV series The Addams Family, indie band The Family Way presented themselves as members of a gothic family : led by Father Way (guitar / Keyboards / singing), Sister Rae Way, and Brother Gray Way - as played by Dave Gratus, Lisa Hurley, and Graeme Smith. *



Other members included : Scarlet Day - Delia Sparrow (guitar / singing), Cousin Mortimer - Peter Momtchiloff (guitar), Lady Summer Way - Debbie Green (drums), J.D. 'Babyface' Way - Harry Stein (bass), and Arable Columbus Way - Ara Hacopian.



Their first single, "Strange Ways" was released in 1997 on Roxy Records, followed, the same year, by "Moonshine" on the Where It's At Is Where You Are label. Two singles were released in 2000 - "Amsterdam" and "Sugar Baby Love".



Cousin Mortimer's musical career began in 1978 playing bass guitar in Winchester band The Big Figure. At Oxford he continued as a bass player and vocalist in Ron and His Beat Busters (under the name Miguel Horton) and Communist Alliance. These outfits played a combination of cover versions and original material with new wave, R&B and rockabilly influences.

As a guitarist he played in country blues trio The Shovel Robinson King Biscuit Country Blue Band. He was also a founding member of the seminal twee pop bands Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, and its later incarnation Marine Research. In 1999, along with Lady Summer Way, he joined Jessica Griffin in her band the Would-Be-Goods.

- - - - - - - - -
* [may not be in the right order . . . or any of those people - info is a bit thin on the ground!]

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Comet Gain - Pier Angeli



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiJY7iDTo-g

Comet Gain are a British indie pop band, formed by singer-songwriter and guitarist David Feck (aka David Christian/Charlie Damage) in 1992.

Pier Angeli was a successful television and film actress. She passed away at the age of 39.

[Brundle-Fly]

Bad Haircut - Silver Sun   Released on Polydor in 1997.





More sunshine power-pop from the 1990s. I was stunned to hear on CaB recently that we lost the frontman/ chief songwriter, James Broad last October to that wretched disease.

Silver Sun are a British power pop band, who formed in 1995 in Camden, London. They released their self-titled debut album in 1997, and after two major label releases that saw moderate success, the band released two further albums independently. Their sound is a combination of harder-edged alternative rock and classic power pop, with an emphasis on multi-layered vocal harmonies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POHVxsCC64s

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I was stunned to hear on CaB recently that we lost the frontman/ chief songwriter, James Broad last October to that wretched disease.

Rotten news, I had no idea.

[daf]

Blur – Strange News from Another Star



Featured on the album 'Blur' - released in February 1997

Despite Blur's previous album, The Great Escape being released to positive reviews, Blur became perceived as an "inauthentic middle class pop band" in comparison to the "working class heroes" Oasis. Alex James : "After being the People's Hero, Damon was the People's Prick for a short period ... basically, he was a loser—very publicly."



By 1996, relations between Blur members had become very strained; Guitarist Graham Coxon, in particular, began to resent his bandmates; James for his playboy lifestyle and Albarn for his control over Blur's musical direction and public image. Coxon struggled with drinking problems and, in a rejection of the group's former Britpop aesthetic, made a point of listening to noisy American alternative rock bands such as Pavement.

Graham Coxon : "A lot of them were doing very interesting stuff with guitars and I needed to be nourished. I suppose as a guitar player and there was none of that happening in English music although English music was now more popular so I started listening to more stuff from the States from smaller labels."



Recording sessions for the album started in June 1996 at Mayfair studios in London. After the initial sessions, Blur left to record the rest of the album in Reykjavík. It was in Iceland that the vocals to "Strange News from Another Star", "Essex Dogs", "Beetlebum", and "On Your Own" were recorded.

Damon Albarn : "We just recorded some vocals there. I have a house there and it's the perfect place to write because of the light. Not good during the summer because it's sunshine all the time, 24 hours a day."

Apart from a change in musical style, the band changed the way they recorded.

Graham Coxon : "It was the first time we sort of jammed. We've never really jammed before. We've been quite white-coaty, overall about recording, like in a laboratory. Yeah, we did actually feel our way through just playing whatever came to our minds and editing, which was really exciting."



Dave Rowntree : "We just played together for two weeks in a way we hadn't done since 1991. We wanted to purify the sound, to not have anything there not played by us. We reasoned that if we made small changes at the input end, we could effect large changes in the output."



Stephen Street : "Blur had decided that commercial pressures and writing hit singles wasn't going to be the main consideration any more. The mood in the studio was very different to when I'd first worked with them. In the studio, once we got past those first few days, where I felt everyone was treading on eggshells, there was a great atmosphere. I think it was because they didn't want to be competing with anyone on this record, they wanted to make a record that would help keep the band together."



Strange News from Another Star took it's title from a collection of eight short stories written by the German author Hermann Hesse between 1913 and 1918. It was first published as Märchen in German in 1919 and was translated to English by Denver Lindley in 1972.

Damon Albarn : "That's about Iceland - there's a recording of Icelandic radio at the start of the song. Actually, I heard the Shipping Forecast in Icelandic the other day. Very strange - 'Dogger, finorrk, rinnerek, German Bight . . .' The song is about Iceland, just the majesty of the place. The death star mentioned is the depression I was sffering prior to arriving n Iceland."



Despite worries from Blur's label, EMI, and the music press that the change in style would alienate the band's predominantly teenage fanbase and that the album would flop as a result, 'Blur', the album, and the single 'Beetlebum' both reached the top of the UK charts.



The success of "Song 2" led to 'Blur' becoming the band's most successful album in the US where the Britpop scene had been largely unsuccessful.

[Brundle-Fly]

It's telling you should choose the one track on the 'Blur' album that (to me) sounds like an early David Bowie Hunky Dory-era track given how this album was touted as a move towards the American underground sound.

[daf]

Tomorrow's World ‎– Kites Are Fun



Featured on the album 'Songs For Marshmallow Lovers' - released in Germany 1997.

The Free Design were a New York-based vocal group, whose music can be described as sunshine pop and baroque pop. Though they did not achieve much commercial recognition during their main recording career, their work later influenced bands including Stereolab, Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, Beck and The High Llamas.

Starting in the mid-1990s, interest in them began to grow as part of a general resurgence of interest in easy listening and sunshine pop from the 60s and 70s. In 1997, the band Tomorrow's World covered their song "Kites Are Fun". Stereolab, whose lounge-inspired music clearly showed a Free Design influence, named a 1999 single "The Free Design" (though the song itself had no direct connection to the band). The Free Design song "Bubbles" was covered by Dressy Bessy on the 2000 Powerpuff Girls soundtrack, and performed live by LA power-pop band Wondermints in the late 1990s.

[Brundle-Fly]

L'Aventure Fantastique - Fantastic Plastic Machine   Released in the UK on Bungalow in 1997.





J'aime la pop club japonaise des années 90!!

Or in other words?

1990-Nendai no Nihon no kurabu poppu ga daisukidesu!

Fantastic Plastic Machine AKA  田中 知之 (TANAKA Tomoyuki) now abbreviated as FPM) is a Shibuya-kei ("Shibuya-style") dance music project by DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka. After the self-titled debut was released in 1997, Tanaka worked closely with Masayuki Kumahara and started to incorporate elements of Philly soul and house. In 2009, Tanaka, now abbreviating the name to FPM, started working with Takashi Watanabe and Yuzuru Tomita to pivot FPM to a much more streamlined electro house sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQGd6IBD4eI&t

[Smeraldina Rima]

Patti Smith - Blue Poles



This is a song from Peace and Noise (1997) with a title taken from the Jackson Pollock painting. It's sung as a Dust Bowl refugee writing a letter to her mother. The singing in the chorus reminds me of No Other, the Gene Clark album, perhaps "Some Misunderstanding" most. It's in the folk tradition of Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, recorded in 1940.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Jimi Tenor - Outta Space



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

Cosmic vibes from a Finnish musician whose music combines elements of jazz, funk, psychedelia, lounge, house and techno.

[Brundle-Fly]

Jimi Tenor good call, Ballard. I've him lined up at a later year.

Meanwhile...

Dream Another Dream - Rialto.  Released on EastWest in 1997.





The band grew from the remains of the band Kinky Machine, which featured singer Louis Eliot and guitarist Jonny Bull. Metaphorically, they arrived at the Britpop party but unfortunately on the following morning. All the main bands were now suffering with 'the fear' and having massive comedowns in a cramped bedroom upstairs. The fizz has run out but there is a crate of stout on a stool in the kitchen.

Rialto were an English rock band formed in London in 1997. They released their self-titled debut album in 1998, followed by their second and final album, Night on Earth, in 2001. Their single "Untouchable" reached the top 20 in the UK Singles Chart. In the summer of 1998, Rialto became the first ever UK chart band to release a single exclusively through the internet.

Despite finding favour with music critics, with Melody Maker anticipating "a fairytale future of Oasis-like proportions", the band were famously dropped by their label East West, a Warner Music Group imprint, a month before the release of their heavily promoted eponymous debut album, denting the group's chances of major commercial success. Neil McCormick noted that Rialto were "among the most critically acclaimed and highly touted new groups to emerge" of the late 1990s, making "carefully crafted, Beatlesque pop, with an epic, cinematic sound and slightly sinister lyrics". The group gained a following in East Asia, particularly in South Korea where their debut reached the number one spot in the album charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQvfFerjCBo&t

[daf]

Strangelove ‎– Someday Soon



Featured on the album 'Strangelove' - released in October 1997

Strangelove were formed in Bristol in 1991 after David Francolini (drums, of Levitation) spotted singer Patrick Duff, who at the time was a street busker. Francolini then got together various musicians he knew throughout the area; Alex Lee (guitar, formerly of The Blue Aeroplanes), Julian Pransky Poole (guitar, formerly part of The Jazz Butchers), and Joe Allen (bass guitar).

With Francolini on drums, the quintet played their first gig at Bath Moles Club in October 1991. Francolini took on the role of drummer for only two gigs, before being replaced by John Langley. The first song Duff wrote for Strangelove was titled "Zoo'd Out" in 1991, released the following year on the Volume 4 compilation.

Following an early morning set on the NME Stage at Glastonbury 1992, the band were approached by John Peel to record a BBC Radio 1 session. The band released their first EP 'Visionary' in October 1992. Another Peel session followed in January 1993. Their second EP, 'Hysteria Unknown', in February 1993, earned them a support slot on Radiohead's tour.



Ed O'Brien : "Radiohead are definitely post-Strangelove. We toured with them for 'Pop Is Dead' and we changed quite a lot after that. They were inspirational. Apart from their trousers."

They were signed to Food Records in 1993, and released their first album, 'Time for the Rest of Your Life' in August 1994. The album brought them to the attention of Suede who invited them to support on their European tour in 1995. Manic Street Preachers' Richey Edwards was also a fan, inviting them to support at the London Astoria on the penultimate gig before his disappearance in 1995.

 

Their second album, 'Love and Other Demons' was released in June 1996. The second single from the album, "Beautiful Alone", went to number 35 in the UK Singles Chart.

Singer Patrick Duff's heavy addiction to drugs and alcohol threatened to take his life. His battle with depression and excess were highlighted in one vaguely suicidal Melody Maker interview in 1994. After the second album's recording, Duff was booked into a rehabilitation clinic.

Patrick Duff : "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. My personal life was now in tatters – and I decided my last chance was to throw what was left of me into our album. Something was left in me that wanted to do something positive. Thank God."



By this time, Nick Powell had joined the band to play keyboards, expanding their sound. A third album, 'Strangelove', was released in October 1997. This album was seen as significantly more uptempo than previous albums with Duff choosing to write less directly introspective. The album yielded the UK Top 36 single, "The Greatest Show on Earth", and sell-out shows at the London Astoria and Shepherds Bush Empire.



Seemingly on the point of a major breakthrough, Strangelove split up in April 1998.

[A Hat Like That]

Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?) - Period Pains.  Released on Damaged Goods in 1997.



Miaow!

Period Pains were a British all-female indie punk band formed in 1996. They gained attention in 1997 after releasing the single "Spice Girls (Who Do You Think You Are?)". They then recorded a session for Peel, which was released as an EP.
They opened the Reading Festival in 1997 on the Dr. Marten's Stage. The track was an attack on what they saw as the Spice Girls' shallow attitudes and was heavily plugged by John Peel and Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1. The UK's tabloid newspapers also picked up on the band] As a result, it made the UK Singles Chart at number 87 in late August 1997 with practically no advertising, and was number 4 in Peel's annual end-of-year Festive Fifty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8AoumEZ07A

Abbey School, Reading's finest.

I was in the same year but at the boys' school around the corner.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Jimi Tenor good call, Ballard. I've him lined up at a later year.

He's good, old Jimi. Definitely the second best pop Jimi.

[daf]

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Tarbuck's performance at Woodstock was blinding.

[Neomod]

Keep It Down - Simon Warner  Released on Rough Trade In 1997.

Thanks for this it's just up my street but Simon seems not to have heard of dynamics, having only two levels, loud and louder.

Arrangements are lovely though.

[daf]

TURN ON ‎– RU TENONE



Featured on the album 'TURN ON' - released in 1997

TURN ON was a side project by Stereolab's Tim Gane and the High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan, plus Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay.



Sean O'Hagan : "Some time ago, 1994 or 1995, Tim Gane, Andy Ramsay and I got together with engineer Fulton Dingley in Blackwing Studios in Blackfriars to make a record which had no stated intention or sound. The idea was that no ideas were to be brought into the studio. Everything had to originate in the room with the four participants facing each other and approval had to be unanimous. It was funny and nicely odd, and sort of like a committee gathering of the Workers Revolutionary Party, circa 1974. There were plenty of rules. A bass sound could not be generated from an instrument that already been used on that track. No pure electronic tracks and no purely organic tracks. The whole project was not allowed to exceed the appointed record time, five days. No consecutive speeds. No consecutive keys. Rules and regulations. The record was released by Drag City, and we called it Turn On. Actually, the whole exercise was created to break our recording habits in our respective bands, Stereolab and the High Llamas."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

John Peel - 29 July 1997 :
(John plays the next track unheard, reasoning that any unexpected swearing would be in French)
• Stereolab: Miss Modular (CD Single) Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks $
• Turn On: Ru Tenone (CD - Turn On) Duophonics Super 45's
• Alpha Omega: Nubian Mines (12") Reinforced @

[Brundle-Fly]

Thanks for this it's just up my street but Simon seems not to have heard of dynamics, having only two levels, loud and louder.

Arrangements are lovely though.

I initially found his bellowing vocal style very mannered to the point of dismissing the album, but I persevered, and his affectation really won me over in the end. But after one album flop and he more or less disappeared off the face of the Earth. "It's a shitbusiness."

[jamiefairlie]

ACEtone - All The Time

https://youtu.be/tlErJXiOXNY



Formed in 1992 in Los Angeles by Mark Lightcap on guitar, Richie Lee on bass and Steve Hadley on drums. The band ended after Lee committed suicide on July 23, 2001, aged 34. This is from their self-titled debut album.

[Jockice]

I Need You - Wireless

Band formed by half of Manc also-rans (but quite good ones) Molly Half Head, with my schoolmate Christian on keyboards and the wonderfully-named drummer Basil Creese. This, their debut single, was a very minor hit (If you count one week in the top 75 as a hit. Sorry I can't reach my Guinness Book Of Hit Singes from here) as was the follow-up. Alan McGee was involved with them (although they were signed to Chrysalis) and they were named in a magazine (The Face if I remember correctly) as possible rivals to Radiohead.

They then proceeded to be so thoroughly screwed over by the music business that to this day I am convinced they are the band mentioned near the start of Kill Your Friends by John Niven, even down to the 4/10 album review in the NME. I'm even sure there was a video made for this single (set at a wedding ceremony) that seems to have been removed from youtube. I've definitely watched it before.

Christian now plays in wedding bands and the like. And is much happier for it.

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