I really know very
little about French band Féroces, and I realise I’m probably a bit late arriving
at the party, but I’m totally loving the band’s mid-2019 EP, Paul, right now.
At home. In “lockdown”, feeling dark and a little disconnected from the world
we used to know.
If Paul seems like
an odd title for an EP, being a singular name without much context for any
blind newbie, then it’s worth noting that four of the band’s fiveearlier releases on the Bandcamp platform (dating back to 2016) are all similarly
titled … see Juliette, Donna, Victor, and Josephine.
I’ve yet to check out
any of those older releases but if the dramatic dark angsty pop music I’ve found
on Paul is any sort of reliable guide, it won’t be too long before I revisit
that online goldmine to excavate further hidden gems from the band’s archives.
I was first introduced
to Féroces through Fabrizio Lusso’s wonderful White Light//White Heat website (here) when a terrific cover of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ featured on one of
Lusso’s very informative weekly digest posts.
That Féroces
version of ‘Wicked Game’ - and admittedly, I’m a big fan of Isaak’s original as
a starting point - went on to become one of my most thrashed tunes through the
final few months of 2019. It features on Paul, but what was more surprising when
I started digging deeper after downloading the EP, was just how good the rest
of the material was. Including a very decent cover of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Sometimes’.
All of the “vocal”/narrative
is in French, a language I have absolutely no comprehension of beyond a few
swear words, but that hardly matters … it’s seductive and sexy and every bit
the earworm to accompany this intoxicating music.
You can pick up a
copy of Paul and/or have a listen to the rest of the band’s work here.
Following on from his comprehensive lists on Scottish post-punk bands who saved the world (they actually did), and Australian bands who didn't stink like a decomposing wallaby (a much shorter list, obviously), Craig Stephen had a date with some Guinness and found a bunch of Irish bands who didn't give a flying feck about fame and fortune ... *** Yes, Ireland has given the world some of
the biggest as well as some of the worst in music over the decades and the
headline only scrapes the surface.
Here are some of the bands that didn’t sell
four million copies of their ninth album.
Stiff Little Fingers
Originally a Deep Purple covers band, they
saw the light when punk arrived, changing their name to that of a Vibrators
track. The Fingers now sounded as raw and uncompromising as their Belfast
environment with a singer Jake Burns who sounded like his throat was on fire.
The first two singles and the debut album
are as good as anything you’ll hear from the era. ‘Suspect Device’ and its
killer flip, ‘Wasted Life’, was followed by ‘Alternative Ulster’ and an album
Inflammable Material, which was certainly the case.
However, their rock roots couldn’t entirely
leave them: the riff at the start of ‘Suspect Device’ is a direct lift from
American rockers Montrose's ‘Space Station #5’ (true, I’ve listened to both)
and others have suggested they borrowed from the likes of The Wailers and
(other) Irish compatriots.
That matters little, as there’s original
sounds popping out all over Inflammable Material and subsequent releases.
Sadly, one of their best moments, ‘Safe As
Houses’, from the 1981 album Go For It! has largely been forgotten about.
The Divine Comedy
Neil Hannon's witty songs, with their blend
of upbeat poppy tunes and romantic melancholia, have established their own
place in Britpop history, peaking in the late 90s when every student in the
country seemed to know the words to ‘National Express’.
I’ll remind you of some: “On the National
Express there's a jolly hostess/ Selling crisps and tea/ She'll provide you
with drinks and theatrical winks/ For a sky-high fee/ Mini-skirts were in style
when she danced down the aisle/ Back in '63 (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)/ But it's
hard to get by when your arse is the size/ Of a small country.”
Collaborators have come and gone but
Hannon’s talent for clever wordplay and grand orchestral arrangements has
continued, and he’s just released Office Politics, which is worth buying (on
vinyl, naturally) for the cover alone.
My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine have become one of the
most namedropped bands in the world. No one sounds remotely like them.
They formed in Dublin in 1984 around Kevin
Shields and Colm ó Cíosóig, and after burning off their twee indie pretences,
were Creation Records’ stars when they headlined above the House of Love and
caused ripples with Isn’t Anything (1988), the Glider EP (1990), and Loveless
(1991).
Brian Eno claimed the track ‘Soon’
"set a new precedent for pop" and deemed it the vaguest piece of
music ever to get into the charts. Can’t argue with that.
A House
The Dubliners went down the traditional
route of indie/alternative acts and after a series of singles, EPs, and two
albums, signed to Setanta and teamed up with Edwyn Collins. This work produced
perhaps their most memorable moment, the single ‘Endless Art’, where the lyrics
were almost entirely a list of deceased, talented artists, among them Turner,
Warhol, Henry Moore, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Ian Curtis, Sid Vicious and
Mickey Mouse.
The list was entirely composed of men,
causing the predictable kerfuffle, which resulted in ‘More Endless Art’ where
all the talent were women (Emily Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, Woolf, Shelley
etc).
The Undertones
‘Teenage Kicks’ isn’t even their best song.
That honour could belong to ‘Jimmy Jimmy’, ‘You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You
Use It)’, ‘Wednesday Week’, ‘Here Comes the Summer’, or their biggest selling
single, ‘My Perfect Cousin’, which celebrated both Subbuteo and the Human
League.
Hailing from Derry, the Undertones were
Mars Bar-chomping spotty working class teenagers when they kicked off and while
they matured over their six years together, culminating in Top of the Pops
appearances and several great albums, they always had a daft wee laddie
attitude to them.
I must also mention That Petrol Emotion
which included the O’Neill brothers but suffice to say that this was the
natural progression to more adult subjects (ie, the situation at the time in
Ireland), and a meatier sound.
Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey had a
No.1 solo hit then retired to be a suit, becoming chief executive of the
British Music Rights.
The Sultans of Ping FC
To get a picture of the Sultans (the name
mocked a Dire Straits single) here’s a sample of lyrics from ‘Where’s Me
Jumper?’ …
“I met a groovy guy, he was arty-farty/ He
said, ‘I know a little Latin: anicus anicae’/ Said, ‘I don't know what it
means’, he said, ‘Neither do I’/ Eat natural foods, bathe twice daily/ Fill
your nostrils up with gravy/ Don't drink tea and don't drink coffee/ Cover your
chin in Yorkshire toffee”.
A Cork version of Half Man Half Biscuit
with better tunes and songs called ‘Riot at the Sheepdog Trials’, ‘Eamonn Andrews (This Is Your Life)’, ‘Kick Me with Your Leather Boots’, ‘Back in a Tracksuit’, and the
album, Casual Sex in the Cineplex. They dropped the “FC”, then dropped “Of
Pings” to become just the Sultans (yawn).
The Stars of Heaven
Stars of Heaven played melodic,
guitar-based rock which combined elements of country, Britpop and psych. An
unusual mix that was influenced by the Byrds, Gram Parsons and the Velvet
Underground, but one that worked well, with John Peel frequently playing their
songs on his show. They signed to Rough Trade and someone at MTV Europe clearly
liked them too.
I obtained their second album Speak Slowly
(1988) in a bargain bin knowing nothing of the band at the time, but it proved
to be an essential purchase. They were a band not of its time: the 1980s wasn’t
a time to be playing stripped-down, guitar-based rock music so their audience
was, sadly, limited.
The Pogues
If you’ve ever listened to the radio over
Christmas you’ll be familiar with the following lyrics: “You scumbag, you
maggot/ You cheap lousy faggot/ Happy Christmas, your arse/ I pray God it’s our
last.”
Suitably, Shane MacGowan’s caustic lyrics
were sung by Kirsty MacColl as a woman down on her luck and at the end of her
tether.
Putting ‘Fairytale of New York’ aside, The
Pogues were one of the illuminating lights of the 1980s, alongside The Smiths,
New Order, and Half Man Half Biscuit.
They were part Irish, part Londoners,
formed in 1982 as Pogue Mahone (aka “Kiss my arse”) but if you really need me
to tell you anything about the band you haven’t been paying attention.
Rudi / The Outcasts
Grouped together because they were both
punk bands, performed in the same era, and were on the same label, Terry
Hooley’s Good Vibrations.
Rudi predated the Fingers by a good couple
of years, but were initially a glam rock act. The arrival of the first Ramones
album soon sorted them out.
In April 1978 the quartet released its
finest moment, ‘Big Time’, which received promising reviews and quickly sold
out.
Things were looking good until the police
division the SPG moved in to clear the punks out of Clapham in London where
they were now based, arresting both Ronnie Matthews and Graham “Grimmy”
Marshall, on driving offences, jailing them for a week before they were ordered
to return to Northern Ireland - or face a six-month jail sentence.
They released three more singles before
splitting.
The Outcasts’ birth came about around the
same time as SLF with three brothers, Greg, Martin, and Colin Cowan, and Colin
Getgood.
Debut single ‘You're A Disease’ was
followed later in 1978 by the poppier ‘Another Teenage Rebel’.
On a shared EP with fellow local acts,
Rudi, Spider, and The Idiots, they contributed ‘The Cops Are Comin'’ about
killing a girlfriend and having sex with the corpse. Yep.
They did release an album, Self Conscious
Over You on Good Vibrations in 1979 which was more mainstream than the singles.
Fatima Mansions
An art rock group formed in 1988 by Cork
singer/keyboardist Cathal Coughlan, taking their name from the infamous flats
in Dublin.
The band’s lone foray into the world’s
attention was their version (needless to say, a somewhat different take) of Bryan
Adams' ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, which was one half of a double
A-side with the Manic Street Preachers' version of ‘Suicide is Painless’.
They opened a European leg of U2's Zoo TV
Tour in 1992, and almost started a riot when Coughlan insulted the Pope. In
Milan. Released a brilliant single ‘Blues For Ceausescu’ about the dead
Romanian dictator.
Honourable mentions: The Frank and Walters,
Into Paradise, the Boomtown Rats, Microdisney, The Pale, Schtum, the Virgin
Prunes, The Chieftains, Sweeney’s Men, Andy White, the Saw Doctors, The
Cranberries and Christy Moore.
The
release of a brand new My Bloody Valentine album at the beginning of February
created quite a stir. More than 20 years after the much feted Loveless (1991)
was unleashed on an unsuspecting world we finally had the long promised
follow-up. The reaction was entirely predictable, and MBV fans across the
planet were once again able to indulge in a feeding frenzy of unrestrained
adulation. But does the album – simply titled mbv – match the hype?
Well,
I suppose I should start with a disclaimer: I’m not one of those fans. I quite
like the band’s 1988 debut album Isn’t Anything, but I’ve never been overly
passionate about Loveless, an album that seems to have taken on a life of its
own since the relatively humble (if not muted) response it received at the time
of its release.
And
when I say I “quite like” Isn’t Anything, what I actually mean is that I quite
like it as an album for a specific mood. Something to lose myself in when
things aren’t going especially well – it might even be regarded as an “angry place”
for me (layers of guitar, walls of feedback, best appreciated loud). Even at
that, for such a mood, there are dozens of other albums I’ll turn to before
Isn’t Anything.
So,
I’m probably not what you would call an avid My Bloody Valentine fan. Over the
years I’ve tended to regard the band (aka Kevin Shields, Bilinda Butcher, and
friends) as being somewhat one dimensional. What they do, they do well, but the
widely celebrated EPs and the two albums were more than enough. Did we really
need, some 20-plus years on, a third offering of what amounts to pretty much
the same thing again?
I
recall reading some years back about Shields and the ongoing struggle he faced
to produce an adequate follow-up to Loveless. From all accounts the man is a
sonic perfectionist who set the bar so high, the whole thing wound up becoming
impossible. Compromise, it seemed, was not a word he was familiar with. If it
wasn’t just right, it wasn’t going to see the light of day. His efforts to
replicate the “spirit” and energy of Loveless proved, um, fruitless. The band
broke up in 1996, with the album “three-quarters finished”, Shields got on with
his life, and that, we all thought, was that.
Then,
in 2007, out of nowhere, Shields announced that MBV had reformed. By 2008, the
band was very much in demand on the festival circuit; more often than not as headliners.
Which is quite odd really, when you stop to consider that back in the day the words
“My Bloody Valentine” were just as likely to have been found loitering amid the
bill’s fine print.
The
return as a live outfit was an obvious catalyst for Shields revisiting the
previously shelved material. He spoke candidly of the partially finished album
at the time ... “it just got dumped, but it was worth dumping. It was dead. It
hadn't got that spirit, that life in it” ... half a dozen years on, writing as
an observer – rather than as a fan – it is difficult to see what has changed.
Same old MBV
Certainly
there is nothing new to MBV’s approach on the new album ... layers of squalling
slightly out-of-tune guitar (check), blurred vocals (check), heavy on over-dubbing
and other assorted studio wizardry (check), and apart from one suspiciously
“pop” sounding tune (a track called ‘New You’, which features Butcher on
vocals), there’s very little on mbv that grabs me or excites me.
Popular
music website Pitchfork – while rating the album a positively gushing 9.1/10 –
made the following observation ... “through the 1990s Kevin Shields often
talked about jungle, what it meant to him, and how some of the ideas behind it
were making their way into a new (MBV) album. He was not alone in this, but
mixing drum'n'bass' whooshing walls of percussion with oceanic shoegaze seemed
a natural pairing” ...
Yet,
for me, none of that actually rings true. Those guys must be listening to a
different album. Those “ideas” aren’t immediately apparent on mbv. In terms of
“drum’n’bass” and any variation thereof, all I personally hear is a muddy drum
sound and a bass sometimes lost so deep in the mix as to render it almost
superfluous. Basically, I just don’t get it.
The
whole thing feels a little too heavily indebted to shoegaze’s early Nineties
heyday for my liking. That’s perhaps understandable, but nothing really
distinguishes it from past work, and if you ask me, this whole “new mbv” thing has
turned out to be something of an anti climax. I’m only thankful I didn’t have
any great expectations in the first place.
I’ll
probably end up giving it another couple of spins in attempt to uncover whatever
it is I’ve missed, but right now that doesn’t feel like an especially
appetising prospect. Right now I’m struggling to see what others see, and it
feels – as with Loveless – a little bit like I’ve been excluded from someone’s
special secret.
