Trendy NME/MM/etc type groops that actually sound good NOW!

[IdleRich]

I had a Marion t-shirt, they sounded a bit like Shed Seven. I had some stuff by Puressence and Geneva who sounded pretty similar to each other if I remember rightly. I also liked Whipping Boy and Jack.
But I can't imagine listening to any of that stuff now except that there was one song by Jack that I still remember as quite good - that could be because I just used to listen to it at a girlfriend's house and never had it myself so I have never re-visited it.

 

[jaxxalude]

I have a memory of Marion's "Toys For Boys" playing a lot in the late morning slot at this now defunct Alternative music station here in Portugal (funnily enough it was called XFM, and it ended its run just as London's XFM was going legal), and I even remember the chorus going something like "Yeah, oh yeah/I still wanna know ya/If you use those toys/I still wanna know/I still wanna know". Great poetry, eh? The lead singer looked like Richey Manics and Crispian Kulas lovechild (no, serioulsy!)
I also seriously remember this London band called Delicatessen, which had an, erm, angular sound that I think would earn them an 8 or 9 out of 10 at Pitchfork, Stylus and webzines like that. But I'm not really sure if MM ('cause I'm positively secure NME wouldn't give them the time of day then) really tried to push them.

 

[Logos]

Anyone remember the New Wave of New Wave/Taking Speed period?

Elastica on front cover of MM before they had released 'Stutter'!

Powder!

 

[henry s]

Jack and Whipping Boy were both good, i seem to remember.
QUOTE]

Jack are kind of an interesting proposition, I think...they were lumped in with Tindersticks and Cousteau as the new wave in la decadance, and while the latter two have each received the NYTimes puff-piece treatment (full-blown articles in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section), Jack have withered away in relative obscurity...but it is Jack who I find myself going back to more and more (not so much the first album, but Jazz Age and the more recent one, with the really long name and the film samples) are really ace, and actually "rock out" in places...

so who knows?

 

[mms]

There was always something very tenuous about the quality of a lot of these bands, like they were only ever good by dint of some strange and unlikely combination of circumstances, with mediocrity always waiting in the wings to reassert itself.

that sounds like the essence of every special/not special nme band - it's all about spell bound london journos watching nacent bands in camden shitholes isn't it ? it's that on stage glimpse of brilliance as seen thru the edge of some booze which nme have tapped into excellently as it now seems to be incredibly important to bands as a whole, you can literally wring the nme out nowdays and get a barrel of real ale. i mean something like fsol's isdn live performances or something like that would'nt even hit the 'is this feasable' stage would it ?

 

[jaxxalude]

I know this may sound devilish to many here, but I think Menswe@ar, in some ways, invented Franz Ferdinand almost ten years prior!

 

[swears]

I know this may sound devilish to many here, but I think Menswe@ar, in some ways, invented Franz Ferdinand almost ten years prior!

Yeah, that's another reason why this wave of post punk-lite bands sucks so much.
It's not even the first new wave revival, we already had all this crap 12 years ago.
I thought it was cool that Daft Punk called their first EP of brutal minamalist techno "The New Wave" as a way to say "fuck you" to all of that.

 

[jaxxalude]

I know MM or NME really didn't try to push them to the forefront, but does anyone remember Goya Dress? And is anyone here following Astrid's solo work of late? I have a feeling that the MM of yore (not the Britpop-MM of '95/'96 onwards) would have really backed them all the way. Their sound was somewhere between Tori Amos, Lush and The Triffids. Something tells me a combination like this would have earn them front cover at Plan B and big coverage at Drowned In Sound and webzines of the sort, if it was released today.

 

[jaxxalude]

(...) Whipping Boy were (...) good, i seem to remember.

Continuing on my vicious circle/eternal return theory: don't you all think Editors are Whipping Boy for 2005/6, but with real commercial success?

 

[swears]

Continuing on my vicious circle/eternal return theory: don't you all think Editors are Whipping Boy for 2005/6, but with real commercial success?

Yeah the funny thing is we had a load of bands who sounded like this around ten-twelve years ago, but no one gave a fuck at the time.

 

[jaxxalude]

Yeah the funny thing is we had a load of bands who sounded like this around ten-twelve years ago, but no one gave a fuck at the time.

Mmm, I seem to remember Menswe@r had Top 20 singles and their debut album entered at #1.

 

[swears]

Mmm, I seem to remember Menswe@r had Top 20 singles and their debut album entered at #1.

They had a couple of minor hits.
But in general apart from the big acts like Blur, Oasis etc, most of those bands didn't last a year before being dropped.
Did Menswe@r really have a number 1 album?

 

[jaxxalude]

They had a couple of minor hits.
But in general apart from the big acts like Blur, Oasis etc, most of those bands didn't last a year before being dropped.
Did Menswe@r really have a number 1 album?

As it happens, no, they didn't. They got to #11. My mistake, then.
But I remember them having quite some Smash Hits coverage at the time. Only natural, being that the oldest member was roughly two/three years into his 20's and they had dress sense.

 

[hint]

I thought it was cool that Daft Punk called their first EP of brutal minamalist techno "The New Wave" as a way to say "fuck you" to all of that.

After their Melody Maker-friendly guitar band flopped

 

[swears]

After their Melody Maker-friendly guitar band flopped

Yeah, they were probably just bitter, cool gag though.
I still haven't heard Darlin'
I'll have a look on Slsk tonight.

 

[jaxxalude]

Yeah the funny thing is we had a load of bands who sounded like this around ten-twelve years ago, but no one gave a fuck at the time.

Let me ask you something: are you one to agree that Kasabian, Infadels, Hot Chip and Klaxons are doing what Delakota, Regular Fries, Beta Band and Primal Scream circa "XTRMNTR", respectively, were already doing in the late 90s/early 00s?

 

[swears]

Let me ask you something: are you one to agree that Kasabian, Infadels and Klaxons are doing what Delakota, Regular Fries and Beta Band, respectively, were already doing in the late 90s/early 00s?

I'll put it like this: in the late 90's you had this sort of strain of chilled out, long haired post-baggy laddism. (Bear with me) I saw "Delakota, Regular Fries and Beta Band" as part of that. Like if you were really into Oasis and The Verve, you could get into those bands to sort of show you where still cool and a bit underground or whatever. I think Noel Gallager said he was a fan of the Beta band at some point. It was all about breakbeats and acoustic guitars and bullshit "eclecticism" (ie: Ripping off Beck's Mellow Gold)

Kasabian, Infadels and Klaxons are shit as well, only the feel of the music is a sort of shitty watered down version of post-punk or rave or whatever.

Kasabian are really bad. They must be the thickest band in the world. They just follow in the stupid tradition of british bands who are arrogant to the point of retardation (oasis, the roses, etc.)

Primal Scream? I could write a 40 page essay on why they suck...

 

[jaxxalude]

I'll put it like this: in the late 90's you had this sort of strain of chilled out, long haired post-baggy laddism. (Bear with me) I saw "Delakota, Regular Fries and Beta Band" as part of that. Like if you were really into Oasis and The Verve, you could get into those bands to sort of show you where still cool and a bit underground or whatever. I think Noel Gallager said he was a fan of the Beta band at some point. It was all about breakbeats and acoustic guitars and bullshit "eclecticism" (ie: Ripping off Beck's Mellow Gold)

Kasabian, Infadels and Klaxons are shit as well, only the feel of the music is a sort of shitty watered down version of post-punk or rave or whatever.

Kasabian are really bad. They must be the thickest band in the world. They just follow in the stupid tradition of british bands who are arrogant to the point of retardation (oasis, the roses, etc.)

Primal Scream? I could write a 40 page essay on why they suck...

I see. But, to tell you the truth, the dumbest thing of all is this grindie thing. In many ways, it's a realization of what many people said in the Wire on Dubstep thread about print music mags having to cater to a specific target and run with it. And why do I say this? Because I think this is just the NME killing two rabbits at once: 1) They can finally cover grime in a way which can satisfy their schmindie audience; 2) They were almost on the verge of killing someone if something wouldn't come along in the UK that could resemble/mirror the original punks-on-reggae-and-disco thing of the late 70s and especially the Madchester thing of the late 80s/early 90s. And all because of one interesting (if not especially brilliant) mixtape, some here-today-gone-about-some-place-else nights and a few, mostly half-hearted remixes!
And, of course, having Plan B and Jamie T right there to make up for The Streets' less-than-stellar third album also helps their "cause".

 

[swears]

They were almost on the verge of killing someone if something wouldn't come along in the UK that could resemble/mirror the original punks-on-reggae-and-disco thing of the late 70s and especially the Madchester thing of the late 80s/early 90s.

I don't really think they even care about that sort of thing anymore. It's just a production line of very, very trad bands now, the fact they didn't put Dizzee Rascal on their cover after he'd won the Mercury music prize with a pretty accessible album shows how conservative they are. Anyway, the whole "grindie" thing is just a cheesy news story.

To be honest, I blame the bands. A bunch of monkeys in their suit jackets and jeans, never letting go of their sacred giutars, unable to imagine even a musical alternative to what they're doing now.

 

[marke]

grindie. you gotta love the name.

i hereby officially await the forthcoming grub-step movement.

sort of.

m.e/ireallylovemusic