Your Essential Ex-Band Members

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverberation_(album)

I spotted (drummer) Damon Reece's name among the credits there, which reminded me:

Spiritualized were never as good after Jason Pierce sacked the amazing band that was Reece, Mike Mooney, Sean Cook & Kate Radley back in the late 1990s.

[Kankurette]

Cerys Matthews is the reverse of this. As in Catatonia are essential to her.

[Famous Mortimer]

Spiritualized were never as good after Jason Pierce sacked the amazing band that was Reece, Mike Mooney, Sean Cook & Kate Radley back in the late 1990s.

Agreed. I saw them around 2010 or so, and given how big a fan I was of Pierce's previous work, I ended up sitting at the bar for about half the show. Just dull.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

That Spiritualized shout is funny because it's not like Lupine Howl did anything amazing. It's weird when people leave a band and the band isn't as good but the people who left don't do anything that great either

[jamiefairlie]

That Spiritualized shout is funny because it's not like Lupine Howl did anything amazing. It's weird when people leave a band and the band isn't as good but the people who left don't do anything that great either

It's often the overall blend that helps and when one element is taken away it can make a huge difference.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

yeah.

[Steve Faeces]

The best time I saw Spiritualized was around the time of Amazing Grace when they had Thighpaulsandra/Tim Lewis and John Coxon in the band so I think January 2004. Cardiff was absolutely not arsed about their gig though and from memory they had to pull a curtain across half the venue, which was about 1,500 capacity, and it still looked pretty sparse.

[Kankurette]

I always wondered why the music press were so obsessed with Spiritualized (Jason Pierce was one of the musicians whose faces appeared on the Mount Rushmore mock-up for John Harris' Tin Planet review, along with Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft and Bobby fucking Gillespie), because I couldn't get into them at all and I don't know why. It was a bit weird seeing them doing I Think I'm in Love on TOTP.

Re Cerys, her solo stuff is OK (mainly Never Said Goodbye, Cockahoop was something I bought just because it was her and Catatonia had only recently split up, but I'm pretty cigs about it now and her voice is HORRIBLE on some of the songs) but it's not a patch on Catatonia. Her voice really suited Mark Roberts' songs. Plus her solo albums are very folky and I much prefer her as an indie singer. I want to like them but just cannot get into them, same with all the books she's done, like Hook Line & Singer. Teenage me would have bought every Cerys book and album I could get my hands on, but she just isn't the same without Mark and the guys. Catatonia's old stuff has such an ethereal quality to it before Cerys fucked her voice, and she isn't as screechy as she is on the later albums. (I found out their Blanco y Negro period boxset is on Spotify and heard Beautiful Sailor for the first time - it was a very rare B-side from about 1995 - and loved it. Some of their B-sides were absolute bangers.)

[thenoise]

Belle and Sebastian quickly turned to dog plops after cellist and Stuart Murdoch's muse Isobel Campbell left. Stuart managed a couple of bitter break up songs and that's about it. Somehow they're still going though, so I guess not everyone agrees with me.

[timahall]

Belle and Sebastian quickly turned to dog plops after cellist and Stuart Murdoch's muse Isobel Campbell left. Stuart managed a couple of bitter break up songs and that's about it. Somehow they're still going though, so I guess not everyone agrees with me.

Immediately after Isobel Campbell left they did produce their all time worst album (Dear Catastrophe Waitress), but they did some great albums after that like The Life Pursuit and especially Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance.

[Ignatius_S]

I spotted (drummer) Damon Reece's name among the credits there, which reminded me:

Spiritualized were never as good after Jason Pierce sacked the amazing band that was Reece, Mike Mooney, Sean Cook & Kate Radley back in the late 1990s.

I don't think it's common knowledge that virtually immediately after the sackings, Jason tried to get Sean back and pull the old mates act (don't worry about the others) - however, he told him to fuck off.

I'm not sure if it was ever reported that what led to the sackings is that they all asked for new contracts (the deal they had meant that they were paid when they played; although I heard with Glastonbury they didn't get payment), which Jason agreed to but then suddenly fired them.

[Memorex MP3]

The E-Street band's Vini "mad dog" Lopez.

Going way beyond that the notion of the E Street Band without Clarence seems really weird to me, the point where it tipped from being plausibly some kind of actual band.

[timahall]

I like all Kinks albums BUT it would have been a perfect time for them to stop when Mick left as they would have went out on a commercial high (Come Dancing charting well).