Indie Top Video Take Two - Stone Roses, Lightning Seeds, Kitchens of Distinction, James, Bradford, Parachute Men, Fuzztones, Wolfgang Press

Year of Release: 1989

After the success of Indie Top Video Take One - which managed something none of the vinyl and CD editions of Indie Top 20 had delivered so far, which was to get into the official charts (or official national video charts, at least) - the arrival of "Take Two" was inevitable.

As with the preceding volume, though, it was a weird mix with lots of material which had never had any previous relationship with the "Indie Top 20" series. This time tracks which had recently appeared on "Volume 7" got the lion's share of space, but plenty of others were unrelated. This creates the same interesting situation as before, giving us a brace of non-canon tracks (or, more accurately, videos) which we might not otherwise get a chance to discuss.

"Take Two" would be the last VHS cassette to really go overboard on the bonus items. By the time of "Take Three" in a few months, a relatively normal service kicks in with each video focussing predominantly on tracks from the preceding Indie Top 20 album.

1. Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums (Silvertone) - Bonus Video

This is a staggering opening song combined with a truly abysmal video. The original release of "She Bangs The Drums" was issued with a promotional film from the school of "Why did anyone ever bother when a still photo would have done the job just as well?". Around about this time, the jovial consumer affairs programme "That's Life" began stalking a Manchester film director who was accused of making dreadful promo films for local bands, but as The Stone Roses managed to produce this themselves, in the process creating something of an even lower quality, clearly there were worse options around. The promo features bleached out, blurry clips of the band arseing around the studio while slices of lemons occasionally appear on screen. It's actually just a few seconds of home video footage slowed down and plastered with vaguely arty effects. Anyone who pulled out the VHS tape from the player at this point, threw it across the room and returned to HMV to demand their money back could probably have been forgiven.

Still, never no mind, because as tracks go this is undoubtedly one of The Stone Roses' finest. What's interesting about "She Bangs The Drums" is that the indie scene had been predominantly filled with mournful, reflective minor key musings on life, love and everything for many years. It would be fair to counter that argument by mentioning that many of the indiepop tracks which burst on to the scene in 1986 had a jangly, celebratory edge to them, even if the lyrics weren't always sunny side up (The Housemartins "Happy Hour" would probably be the commercial zenith of this) but almost all of them sounded slightly uncertain in tone, and "She Bangs The Drums" is both euphoric and robust. This doesn't sound like a cheery, cheeky melody to get you through the day, it sounds invincible, fit to shield you from the worst things in life for months. It's about finding a soulmate so suitable and perfect, that the relationship feels like a halo encircling your whole life - and if you couldn't do that (and of course, I couldn't - I was a meek and defensive little 15 year old when this came out) then the song could act like a rubber ring around your waist, keeping you afloat. Or, to put it another way, "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" this isn't. The first time I heard "She Bangs The Drums" I literally leapt for joy. I didn't know it, but I needed this in my life.

The guitar solo frequently backed football match highlights on the television, an unthinkable situation for an indie track a mere year or two before. While it's a simple and highly effective piece of work from Squire, the violent trucker's gear change of the key that follows it - unforgivable in most circumstances - actually works well, giving the song a powerful lift which feels almost impossible.

Of course, the central chorus, and in particular the line "There are no words to describe the way I feel" could have been cunningly striking a chord for numerous ecstacy users, but also harked back to the adrenalin soaked speediness of sixties mod culture articulated in The Who's "I Can't Explain". Not entirely inappropriate, as Pete Townshend had already tried to poach The Stone Roses drummer Reni when the group supported him at a gig in London.

In short, "She Bangs The Drums" is perfection, and stands up as well today as it did in 1989. It's become almost fashionable to deny that the band's first album is actually any good, but that's a ridiculous stance. It's a masterpiece, and this single is one of the highlights.



2. The Lightning Seeds - Pure (Ghetto) - Bonus Track

Way before Ian Broudie was mostly known for being the unofficial songwriter for the England World Cup Squad, his project (never really a proper band) The Lightning Seeds released chiming, reflective and shiny indie tunes which were actually brilliantly crafted. Purchased by both nerdy indie kids and their chunkier cousins who were more interested in having something nice to listen to in the car on the way to football practice, Broudie meshed the worlds of classic indie harmonies with eighties FM pop incredibly successfully.

The first LP, "Cloudcuckooland", emerged on the indie label Ghetto (unlike their other major label releases later) and "Pure" was the only hit single on it. This feels unjust. Besides "Pure", the LP contained "All I Want", later a minor solo hit for Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, and "Joy", either of which would have been at least small Top 40 hits in a sane world. Given the fact that Broudie later enjoyed success with other singles of a similar calibre on major labels, it's tempting to blame the label, or their distribution, or both.

As for "Pure", Bill Drummond - who was once a member of Big In Japan with Broudie - accurately described it as a modernised "Windmills Of Your Mind". Backed with an effective but minimal parping trumpet riff, a whimsical backing occasionally worthy of Art Garfunkel, and Broudie's delicate vocals, it seems soft and overly fey on the surface, but later lines like "And now you're crying in your sleep/ I wish you'd never learned to weep" tell a different story. The line "feelings not reasons can make you decide" also feels uncertain to me - is this about the heart ruling the head and turning an otherwise orderly life upside down? At the time, Broudie wouldn't be drawn.

"Pure" was an easy top twenty hit, which from the moment it was Radio One playlisted sounded destined to be.



3. Inspiral Carpets - Joe (Cow)

(Already covered a few entries back if you follow the link, of course, but I just wanted to get another bitchy comment in about the low quality of music videos from Manchester groups at this point, and question why Beechwood and PMI felt so tempted to put these videos so high up the tracklisting. "Joe" is just more arsing about with camcorders so far as I can see).

4. The Men They Couldn't Hang - Rain, Steam Speed (Silvertone)

5. Wire - Eardrum Buzz (Mute)

6. Kitchens of Distinction - The Third Time We Opened The Capsule (One Little Indian) - Bonus Track

Tooting's Kitchens of Distinction never quite managed to climb beyond cult status. Emerging not long after the equally cultish The Chameleons had split, the two bands were completely unrelated in terms of personnel but sounded similar enough to raise eyebrows at the time.

"The Third Time We Opened The Capsule" isn't one of the group's strongest singles, but nails their sound very precisely to the mast. Effects-laden guitars swirl, Patrick Fitzgerald's vocals holler commandingly, and it's a giddy, disorientating affair which bears little relation to a lot of the other music being released at the time. In the long run, this would doom the group to a marginalised status, but they remain an invigorating band to return to.



7. The Man From Delmonte - My Love Is Like A Gift You Can't Return (Bop Cassettes)

8. James - Sit Down (Rough Trade) - Bonus Track

No, not that version of "Sit Down", which was one of the biggest selling singles of 1991. This original Rough Trade version of the track was a small, contemplative affair on one man's inability to fit in. While the hit version sounds like the supporters of Manchester United screaming from some coach windows while piling down a motorway, the original is Tim Booth lost in the corner of a scruffy bar, quietly considering his role in the world.

It's brilliant, in fact. The song itself manages to sound both frail and anthemic, with a constant push and pull between the gentle and doubtful vocals and ponderous piano lines and the confident, euphoric guitar playing. It's a song that wants to pull itself from despair and into daylight, and towards the end it even sounds like Booth is desperately trying to convince himself. In that halfway house state, it feels more human, more real, less barnstorming and militaristic. It's clearly the superior version of the song, which it makes it all the more stunning that it's presently unavailable to buy (and has been for many years).

The video, directed by Manchester artist, poet and eccentric Edward Barton, is simple and touching as well, featuring a ragbag of lost and lonely looking individuals and scruffy yet cheery dogs shuffling about a studio. Unusually, it wasn't screened on British television due to a Musician's Union ban caused by the drummer whacking a log with drumsticks, which broke some official rule about musicians miming on misleading instruments. That didn't seem to prevent the clip from being commercially released in this form, though, giving many people the first ever chance to see it in full.

Both James and Rough Trade were apparently disappointed when this single only managed to climb as high as number 77, but it wouldn't be long before the group were back on a major label and making a much bigger and more commercial racket.



9. Bradford - In Liverpool (Foundation) - Bonus Track

Perhaps aided by a boost in funds and production expertise by joining Stephen Street's Foundation label, "In Liverpool" is a much more fleshed out version of Bradford's early vision. Plucked orchestral strings join Ian Hodgson's powerful vocals to create a ballad to both a woman and a city that sounds majestic. It's still the usual mix of soul and faintly maudlin indie introspection which spiced all their other singles, and while it's not strong enough to be a key breakthrough single, it perhaps could have gained more recognition than it did at the time.

The video is simple, but presents two key things which date it immediately - an unmodernised Liverpool (they're really over-emphasising the derelict and abandoned aspects, actually) and a none-more-eighties female star with frizzy bleached blonde hair, a bright red dress and lipstick. It makes me feel sorely nostalgic, while at the same time questioning what exactly for. Episodes of "Watching", probably.



10. The Parachute Men - Leeds Station (Fire) - Bonus Track

"Leeds Station" became a legendary single in indie circles for one key reason in 1989 - Fire Records began a minor but rather daring skirmish with BBC Radio One over their refusal to put it on the daytime playlist. The central accusation seemed to be that the song was as strong as other guitar-pop records the station had playlisted over the preceding six months, and it was only being locked out of mainstream exposure due to the fact that it was on a minor record label.

After much to-ing and fro-ing, no headway was made, and "Leeds Station" remained unheard unless you were a nighttime listener to Wonderful Radio One. I'm now going to court controversy and suggest that this actually probably wasn't the harshest decision the station has ever made. When you consider that it was difficult to hear bands as mighty as The Stone Roses, James, and even Depeche Mode on daytime radio during the incredibly conservative late eighties, it seems a little rich to assume that "Leeds Station" cuts the mustard above all those. It's a catchy ditty to the band's hometown, but it's far from their strongest track, and has a chorus that seems to be trying a tad too hard to sound anthemic without reaching anything like the same heights as (for example) "Sit Down".

Nonetheless, it was an interesting battle, and it's not impossible that it did cause the station's controllers to briefly reflect on the fairly unvaried diet listeners were getting. During 1989, Radio One had already had potshots taken at them as a dated, aged station through The Reynolds Girls "I'd Rather Jack", and possibly didn't need to be shielding themselves from bullets in the indie sector as well. While I highly doubt "Leeds Station" hastened the arrival of the Matthew Bannister era, it's another piece of evidence that Radio One's time as Fab FM was beginning to look limited. All everyone had to do was keep the arguments going, and eventually cracks would appear.

Strange confession time - partly inspired by the "Leeds Station" war, I wrote a letter to the powers-that-be at Radio One asking them to put considerably more effort into their playlists, including a wider range of music. I did also suggest that perhaps they could introduce a phone poll programme where listeners could suggest their favourite current tracks and give an indication of what they wanted to hear most. Pure coincidence I'm sure, but not long afterwards such a show did launch on the station, albeit for a brief period.



11. The Fuzztones - Nine Months Later (Situation Two) - Bonus Track

The Fuzztones are a New York garage revival act, clearly among the many such bands "Indie Top 20" was having a very short-lived love affair with. When you stop to consider the fact that The Inspiral Carpets were beginning to make very serious headway with what sounded like psych-garage revival noises, and other such acts were generating serious IPC press, you have to wonder if some people were hedging their bets not on "Indie-Dance" but a full-blown fuzzed up R&B throwback sound.

Whatever the motivation behind including this, "Nine Months Later" has a fairly mean, almost Animals styled chorus and some neat spiralling guitar and organ work throughout, but is hardly the cream of the revival crop. It's a self-consciously swaggering single, really, and lead singer Rudi Protrudi pulls some very Colin-Gregson-out-Bad-News pouts and poses in the video as if to remind us of the fact.



12. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Mercy Seat (Mute)

13. Wolfgang Press - Raintime (4AD) - Bonus Track

More mean, deep basslines, honking goose-like horns, rattling rhythms and rambling, beatnik vocals -"Raintime" is quite simply Wolfgang Press being themselves very effectively, without smudging or expanding on their existing template.

The group would continue into 1995 enjoying cult success in both the UK and USA, before accepting they had run their course and splintering in different directions.



14. The Sugarcubes - Regina (One Little Indian)

....and once again... this track actually features on the next volume of "Indie Top 20", volume 8. We'll deal with it when we get to that point. 

Volume 7 Side 4 - The Pastels, Lunachicks, Thee Hypnotics, Danielle Dax, Nick Cave

1. The Pastels - Baby You're Just You (Chapter 22)

"Over five minutes of Love, Pain, Dedication and Guitars, taken from five years of the same."

No matter what else happens or happened in the rest of the music world, The Pastels carried on trucking away, in a manner that some critics and listeners find endearing and others downright infuriating. Back in the late nineties, an NME critic explosively slated their work by arguing that nothing in their world ever changed one jot, "and they still hide behind the sofa when Mr Tuneful Singing rings on their doorbell!"

So it was, and so it shall be. The day The Pastels suddenly release an album of polished rock and roll FM radio numbers will be the day the Planet Earth gets sucked into some peculiar, reality-warping vortex where Morrissey records TV adverts for Burger King and Ellie Goulding refuses to ever make an advert again and instead releases a series of three vinyl-only experimental EDM albums with Boards of Canada. Unsurprisingly, then, "Baby You're Just You" could have easily been released immediately after "Crawl Babies" on Volume Two, and we'd be none the wiser. There's no sense of time having passed or the indie scene having moved around them, and unlike many of their old C86 companions, The Pastels would get away with it and retain their cult following.

"Baby You're Just You" is as maudlin and downbeat as "Crawl Babies", actually, featuring Stephen Pastel's mournful vocals and a funereal organ in the background. Just like the best cult punk records, though, it's fragility and the occasional stumbles it takes are a huge part of its appeal. It's a limping, human record and it sounds lovely, though on a personal level I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to this one, whereas I can pop "Crawl Babies" on the stereo at any time and get some enjoyment out of it.



2. Lunachicks - Sugar Luv (Blast First)

"Russ Meyer's vision brought to life with guitars in their hands and havoc in their hearts".

Lunachicks were around before Riot Grrrl was a commonly used phrase in the punk underground (and possibly even used at all) much less the mainstream, and while what they produced wasn't particularly politicised and seemed to be much more about sheer punk noise for the hell of it, they're ahead of the pack here in terms of sound.

"Sugar Luv" is, of course, simple, fast, furious, and ridiculous. Sounding like it was pulled together in one take, possibly drunk, it's the sound of music colliding into the furniture and falling over itself until something pokes someone's eye out. Lunachicks were never, ever going to be a mainstream proposition, but the fat, rumbling chaos here sounds amazing for the first five or six listens. It probably helps if you're a teenager, though.

The band have been inactive since 2001.



3. Thee Hypnotics - Preachin' & Ramblin' (Situation Two)

"From the twelve-inch single 'Justice In Freedom', the classic debut on Situation Two, Thee Hypnotics take the righteously charged guitar rock of the late 60s into a new dimension."

What is it with garage revival bands and their insistence on using "Thee" at the start of their names? It is, I suppose, a good signifier at the very least. If a band poster appears in your town with a name like Thee Espadrilles, you know without even having to bother to read further that they're going to be giving you scuzzed up R&B or Rock and Roll through vintage valve amplifiers. If they didn't, explanations would surely be owed and refunds due.

Thee Hypnotics, naturally, never disappointed the world with misleading branding and were a powerful force in reviving ancient rock sounds to a new generation. The A-side "Justice In Freedom" is actually a fine, fine track, but "Preachin' & Ramblin'" isn't so bad either, sounding like a full-on MC5 excursion into bluesy chaos. It's so authentic sounding that you could trick someone who wasn't clued up to the band's work into believing that it was a genuine sixties artefact.

In the case of bands like Thee Hypnotics, there will always be naysayers who argue that they're doing nothing to progress rock music, and that self-consciously mining the past is pointless. However, there's always going to be an audience who just want to hear the overpowering noise of this stuff, and indeed, I would count myself among their number. I don't eat, sleep and breathe this music, but I occasionally appreciate a bit of full-throttle garage rock and roll and words like "revolution" being thrown around as if they're confetti, and Thee Hypnotics are deservedly respected for their output in this area. Chaos seldom sounds this righteous.



4. Danielle Dax - White Knuckle Ride (Awesome)

"White Knuckle Ride was written about the Hungerford massacre, as a vitriolic comment on both that and the Manson murders of the late 60s, highlighting the ludicrous gun laws which allow such events to continue."

It's not as explicit as suggested above, of course. "White Knuckle Ride" actually sounds like swaggering rock and roll surrounded by a few buzzwords on first listen, and caused my father to comment "Oh, delightful" in a sarcastic voice when he first heard it. He saw the video and believed that Danielle Dax was actually using the popular slang (of the time) for masturbation.

There is a suggestive, sexual edge to the track, which I would imagine was supposed to highlight the media glorification of violence; the way the John Wayne figure with the loaded gun is always seen a desirable, Alpha A male figure. Beyond that, its lyrical intent isn't clear - unless you're told - and away from the central message, "White Knuckle Ride" is just Danielle launching herself into a straightforward rock song again, and doing a fantastic job of it. Of all the tracks she released during this era, it sounds the most fully realised. The hammering piano lines and "Peter Gunn" styled horns meet with a killer chorus, and just as you think you're completely immersed in what she's doing, it's all over. (Nearly) three minutes of pop perfection.

This would be Danielle Dax's last single before signing to Sire Records. There she treated the world (at the record company's behest) to her rather tepid version of the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" and probably ending up being marginalised to an even greater extent than when she was issuing material on her own label. You can safely add her to the ever-growing list of mysterious people who signed to major labels who had no idea what to do with them.



5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Deanna (Mute)

"Deanna is a song you can almost imagine coming out loud from a car window. Huge in a raucous 'truly devil-may-care' way - it is one of the best songs of '88".

More chaotic rock and roll, delivered in Nick Cave's inimitable style. Deanna was apparently a girl from Melbourne who Mr Cave was rather keen on, and his obsession explodes all over this song like it's just been confessed for the first time. It forcefully springs from his mouth like some kind of emotional vomiting.

Rather like the previous track, "Deanna" also strikes a strange partnership between sex and death, with many of the lyrics referring to "murder plans" and acts. "I come knocking with my toolbox and my stocking!" declares Nick ferociously, and he probably did as well.

This is equal parts Screaming Lord Sutch's "Jack The Ripper" and "My Sharona" - a driving, demanding chant colliding with something downright dark and wrong. In the end, though, it only ends up sounding like something Nick Cave could have produced.

Volume 7 Side 3 - Dinosaur Jr, Wolfgang Press, The Shamen, Ultra Vivid Scene, Perfect Disaster

1. Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene (Blast First)

"Err... Yeah, Umm well no I suppose".

Sharp, jagged, and with feedback leaking from its every orifice, "Freak Scene" was an utterly amazing racket to land in the UK indie charts in 1988. Unlike many previous releases by Sonic Youth or Swans or Big Black, this wasn't just a pure adrenalin rush of noise, though - rather, this had some cunning pop craftsmanship in its bones.

Rather like Pixies, Dinosaur Jr clearly had diverse pre-punk record collections, and "Freak Scene" is all the better for it. From that fantastic distorted guitar solo to the key lyric of "Don't let me fuck up will you/ cos when I need a friend it's still you", it's pure goodness, and caused a number of snotty and punk-influenced British bands to quiver in fright at what might now expected of them.

In truth, though, Dinosaur Jr never really did release a better single than this, so their audience never rose much beyond cult level. Had they managed to sustain the sheer head-rush of "Freak Scene" (and actually get along with each other) there's every possibility they'd have been as big as The Pixies.



2. The Wolfgang Press - Kansas (4AD)

"The previously unavailable video mix. A version of Kansas appears on their new LP 'Birdwood Cage'. Surely the best video of the year/ decade".

Well, so far as the video is concerned, at least we now know where Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer got the idea for Action Image Exchange from...

The Wolfgang Press had been active since 1983, and "Kansas" still has fat wobbly streaks of post-punk running through its core, from the staccato Talking Heads styled delivery of the vocals right down to the fat and fruity bassline. Given the way that such musical trends had fallen out of fashion by 1989 only to be forcefully resuscitated halfway through the last decade, elements of the track actually sound surprisingly current.

Despite the fact that "Kansas" is rather unexpectedly and agreeably funky, there's nothing happening here you would feel the urge to phone your friends about. It's nice enough, but that really is it.



3. The Shamen - You Me & Everything (Moksha)

"Adrian Mole on acid".

The last time we bumped into The Shamen, they were breaking new ground with Bam Bam's remix of "Transcendental" on Volume 6. "You Me & Everything" isn't quite a step back, but there's something incredibly treble-heavy about the production and the Acid House squelches feel somewhat tacked on. Whereas "Transcendental" sounded utterly perfect in its remixed form, this feels like a catchy indie chorus in desperate search of some decent House beats which never properly arrive. The guitars in the mix sound very smothered and gratuitous as well, only there to prove that the track definitely had its feet in both the Indie and Dance camps.

I tend to think of "You Me & Everything" as being the last uncertain moment in The Shamen's canon before their output became unbelievably confident and, as we probably said at the time, banging.



4. Ultra Vivid Scene - Mercy Seat (4AD)

"Edited version of the remix! Never before on record. A version of The Mercy Seat appears on their eponymous LP. Ultra Vivid Scene currently undertaking some dates in the US".

Blissed out, fuzzy Velvet Underground and psychedelic influences permeated through Ultra Vivid Scene's records - not unlike a rather more slickly produced Pastels, actually - but "Mercy Seat" is probably one of their most gothic and despondent sounding singles. From the clanging bell of doom which recurs throughout the track like a constant motif, to the lyrics which seem to suggest that death by the electric chair might be one way "to bring a new day", it's not a cheery proposition.

Nonetheless, the track can't help but pull through some beautiful, blissful psych noises out of the bag, and these rescue it from its otherwise faintly pretentious doominess. The ahhing female backing vocals (on the remix), chiming bells and seductive chorus allow it to rise above its unpromising beginnings, and become the usual Ultra Vivid Scene slice of slightly scuzzy prettiness.

The video for the bonafide 7" version even managed to pick up ITV "Chart Show" airplay at the time.



5. The Perfect Disaster - Time To Kill (Fire)

"The Perfect Disaster's album Up includes this single. "Up" is a musical see-saw of emotions. Lyrically, it's a deceptively simple new draft of the existentialist's handbook but rhythmically it's a filthy, swarming slab of rock 'n' roll fury. Raw power".

Indeed, with its distorted and twangy riffs, angry buzzing basslines, and drawled vocals, this is Rock and Roll in the very traditional sense of the word. A garage production and ballsy, bluesy feel predominates here, and unlike a great many other artists producing work of this nature at the time, this slouches along in an assured yet slow and lazy way.

Perfect Disaster had been around on the indie scene since 1984, and rather like The Wolfgang Press were generally regarded as being stalwarts at around this point. Their last LP "Heaven Scent" was only one year away, so by the time the Indie Top 20 series got around to covering them, they were near the end of the road.

Volume 7 Side 2 - Oyster Band, Men They Couldn't Hang, Man From Delmonte, Inspiral Carpets, Wolfhounds

1. Oyster Band - Polish Plain (Cooking Vinyl)

"It's Fab!!!"

Good God, The Oyster Band, you're not quite The Pixies or The Stone Roses... such minimal sleevenotes will do you little favours at this stage.

Still, "Polish Plain" is actually one of the better slices of the late eighties folk-rock revival. On one occasion while I was playing it, my wife walked in and asked if it was an American college radio track from the same period, or possibly even REM. It's not, but the guitar lines and some of the vocals do recall eighties alt-pop from the period, though the cat-gut being scraped and skriddled so effectively towards the end screams "Folk on Radio Two". In other words, this is a very neat crossover single indeed, and one which brought folk music to the attention of larger audiences.

It's also a far cry from the bands origins as Canterbury based chartbusters releasing "Daytrip to Bangor", and a damn sight less irritating. "Polish Plain" is rich with both energy and atmosphere, and conclusively proved that modern British folk music had plenty of life left in it beyond its seventies heyday.



2. The Men They Couldn't Hang - Rain, Steam, Speed (Silvertone)

"These guys are good, and if you think they only do Pogues impressions The Men They Couldn't Hang offer far, far more than that" Time Out - 1st March 1989

... and further proof, if proof were needed, comes in the form of track two. The Men They Couldn't Hang were at the point of being considered folk-punk stalwarts at this point, their excellent debut release "The Green Fields of France" having had considerable exposure (and a number one indie chart position) in 1984.

"Rain, Steam, Speed" is nothing like as maudlin as that World War One tribute, however, being a pounding, beating track about Isambard Brunel's often ill-fated railway construction workers. The final verse makes the message utterly clear: "Soon they'll build a tunnel under England through to France/ Will it make the tide run quicker? Will the flow of trade advance?/ Underneath the ocean there is limestone, chalk and sand/ But coming up through the virgin rock will be a human hand". It's a brilliant and incredibly well written track about the industrial revolution and - much like "Green Fields of France" - the exploitation of humans for the benefit of others.

The Men They Couldn't Hang remain active today, but we won't be encountering them on "Indie Top 20" again.



3. The Man From Delmonte - "My Love Is Like A Gift You Can't Return" (Bop Cassettes)

"It's Morrissey in short trousers; it's Anthony Newley behind the bike sheds; and it's that nutter off Playaway making a bid for indie fame....."

Infamously managed by a pre-success Jon Ronson (who also directed the video below) The Man From Delmonte were actually a Manchester band with their heads firmly in the indiepop era - no electric organs, funky drummer beats or ecstacy tablets for these chaps, thank you, they were happy enough to tend their catchy sixties melodies instead. Fronted by the effervescent Mike West, who was the son of Australian author Morris West, they oozed a carefree uncool which was as thrilling to some indie pop-pickers as it was alienating to others.

"My Love Is Like A Gift" is a goldmine of catchiness from start to finish, cramming in so many melodic and lyrical hooks that it edges closer towards Herman's Hermits than more credible sixties influences. For all that, it's a fine single, and while it was never going to reverse the emerging trends of the time or storm the National Charts, it was going to offer listeners missing the incessant melodic chirpiness of the likes of The Housemartins something to enjoy.

Hilariously, The Man From Delmonte's output was indeed regularly inspected by staff at the food company Delmonte to ensure that it did not tarnish the reputation of the brand. The group were never asked to cease and desist, which can only mean that The Man From Delmonte said "yes" to The Man From Delmonte.



4. Inspiral Carpets: Joe (Cow)

"Inspiral Carpets third single, and first for their own Cow label; went straight into the Indie Charts at number one: Cool as F**k!"

It's worth noting that this is also the first Inspiral Carpets single with Tom Hingley on lead vocals, and expanded significantly on the group's popularity.

"Joe" is a significant step up. The opening funky drum rhythms are the first obvious concession that the group were making towards baggydelic trends, but the rest of the track is actually quite overblown psychedelia with Clint Boon's keyboard work stuck right at the forefront. With its disorientating, giddy merry-go-round organ riff, screeching and almost improvised sounding organ work and Hingley's impassioned ranting about a Manchester tramp, it's actually a very strange single to become so massive (even in an indie sense of the word) in 1989. And huge it was, emerging as the number one best-selling single on the year-end indie chart (ahead of The Roses, The Happy Mondays, The Pixies and others besides).

Still, the thundering and driving bassline and funky rhythm patterns give the track incredibly solid foundations to build on, and it remains a compelling listen to this day. The Inspiral Carpets would release increasingly conventional songs as their career progressed, and become fairly serious contenders in the mainstream charts right up until their split in 1995.



5. The Wolfhounds - Happy Shopper (Midnight Music)

"An innocuous pop song with obnoxious anti-consumerist lyrics. Not actually about the cheap food chain, but their lawyers seemed to think so".

Indeed. The Happy Shopper chain had form for being quite threatening towards indie bands who appeared to be mildly dismissive of their products. Foreheads In A Fishtank released their own single "Happy Shopper" around the same time, which also attracted legal attention - though to be fair, that particular single did also involve the lead singer screaming "Oh God! Who BOUGHT THESE BISCUITS?" so you could see their point of view.

The Wolfhounds aren't quite so ridiculous or provocative. Their "Happy Shopper" is, as stated, a very simple and brief anti-consumerist statement, which is disappointing by the band's usual standards. It's less than two and a half minutes of distorted guitars and lyrics stating the obvious about capitalism and fashion. It's enjoyable enough, but sounds like a B-side or a demo rather than a fully fledged single. Never mind Happy Shopper, the Man From Delmonte's nose might have turned if they'd managed to drag him into the argument.

Indie Top 20 Volume 7 Side One - Pixies, Stone Roses, They Might Be Giants, Wire, Throwing Muses

Format: Double LP/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1989

If Volume 6 seemed scattershot and chaotic in its all-encompassing journey through indieland, Volume 7 doesn't really do much to restore order - but then again, why should it? The notion that the Indie Charts had predominant trends at certain times in its lifespan is true, but the shoegazing moment had its crusty scene running alongside it, the Britpop movement its Trip Hop, and the baggy/ Madchester movement had grunge alongside it (or at least the most successful howls of American alternative rock and punk as it bled straight into grunge).

There's a dominant myth that's been doing the rounds for decades now that Grunge emerged out of the shadows like some kind of murderer in the night and killed off the indie-dance heroes in British society. It's a myth I've probably privately contributed to many conversations myself, purely because it's such a convenient narrative. In reality, the late eighties and early nineties were an incredibly tolerant, diverse time for music, a time when you could go to your local alternative nightclub, sip on an overpriced pint of something truly objectionable, and listen to artists as diverse as The Stone Roses, Sly and the Family Stone, The Aphex Twin and Mudhoney. I should know, because I was there. It's only really when The Stone Roses went on a long, extended hiatus and The Happy Mondays lost the plot that things changed and the focus narrowed. Nirvana hitting the British music scene like a plaid rucksack filled with bricks at a time when not much else was going on inevitably had a significant impact.

But that's for us to think about later. For now, we're about to enter one of the most diverse, fascinating and occasionally perplexing eras in British alternative music. A time when anything went, but also indie music started to sell in quantities high enough for there to begin to be a noticeable mainstream impact. The videos got slicker, the production got better, the marketing more advanced... and far be it for me to court controversy by suggesting that the monstrous sales of Dance twelve inch singles and Stock Aitken and Waterman records may have given distributors a shot in the arm, it probably is the truth.

1. Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven (4AD)

"What more can be said about the Pixies". 

A highly apt liner note that remains a good point to this day.

With a mighty crash of five opening notes, "Monkey Gone To Heaven" heralds the moment when Pixies became a huge deal in the UK. The year before, "Gigantic" had been a massive track in the alternative clubs and even reached Number 90 in the national charts, but "Monkey" was truly inescapable in certain circles. The gloomy black and white promo video dominated the Chart Show indie chart for months, and Frank Black's world finally met with the public at large... a world of UFOs, surfing, Christianity, South America, and whatever else his brain was hoovering up at any given time.

"Monkey Gone To Heaven" still sounds extraordinary, and it remains perplexing that Ivo Watts nearly  turned the band down for being "too normal". Compared to many 4AD signings they may have admittedly been less ethereal or atmospheric, but where the very worst of those acts sounded little better than Clannad fans performing in a backyard shed, Pixies took rock and roll to some unpredictable places. While "Monkey Gone To Heaven" is supposed to be an environmental protest song (with various chunks of religious imagery seeping in along the way) the lyrics are so stripped back and scattershot that it could be dismissed as nonsense. Yet when Frank Black brilliantly howls "If the devil is six... then GOD IS SEVEN!" it could also be taken straight from a Black Sabbath LP, so trad is the idea.

Pixies ripped, clawed and tore at the fabric of rock music and the culture that surrounded them, and sounded so fresh and yet so familiar when they arrived that it was powerful beyond measure, like Proper Rock music distorted through exhausted dream sleep. Their blend of cultural influences and references could have turned out naive and messy, but there's a masterful control taking place in their work at an enviably early point. While we may have casually regarded them as American eccentrics at the time, their approach slowly became absorbed by other more successful acts from their home country... not least the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic being applied to the verse/chorus structure, and the belief that early seventies hard rock wasn't an embarrassing corner of music history to be pilfering from.

And let's not ignore the fact that Kim Deal's basslines, which always sound as if they're being played with the thickest plectrum in the world, also added a huge amount to their sound.



2. The Stone Roses - Made Of Stone (Silvertone)

"Let's call them The Stones - no-one will get confused" - Sounds - 15th July 1989

It's very, very telling that the liner notes for both Pixies and The Stone Roses are tremendously half-arsed, almost as if everyone involved knew there was no point in expanding on the pre-existing narrative.

But let's not get too carried away here. That liner note may conveniently fit the idea that The Stone Roses were universally adored from the moment "Sally Cinnamon" first fell into the world, but it's not how I remember things at all. Rather, it seemed suspiciously as if the comparison the Sounds journalist was making to The Rolling Stones had been taken out of jokey context to prove a point the band wanted to make.

The simple truth is that while The Stone Roses and their manager Gareth Evans were keen to tell anyone that they were the most important group in Britain (if not the world) surprisingly few people believed them initially. Record Mirror ridiculed the entire situation by referring to their much-reported Manchester gig attendance figures and stating "Manchester City get more people in, and we're not putting them on our front cover either". The NME gave the debut LP 7 out of 10 and almost (but not quite) dismissed it as a nice enough psychedelic pop pastiche. Much history has been rewritten around The Stone Roses since because music journalists were caught with their trousers down - many still had all their money riding on The House of Love as being alternative rock's next big dominant force. The Roses seemed like a parochial, retro irrelevance, and who needed John Squire as a guitar hero when you could have Terry Bickers? (Though to be fair, both can be astonishing guitarists in very different ways).

That's not to say that "Made Of Stone" wasn't viewed as an exceptionally good single by most, but perhaps it's not really been given enough credit even since for its relative richness and complexity. Starting with a truly beautiful interwoven guitar and bass line, Ian Brown's hushed vocals then enter and begin singing what appears to be a surreal, lyrically drifting ballad about the righteous death of a wealthy scoundrel.

I'm possibly stretching comparisons to breaking point by saying this, but if you spin back to Volume Four of "Indie Top 20" and listen to Wire's "Kidney Bingos", there are clear and unacknowledged parallels in the approach, from the delicate prettiness of the interwoven guitar and basslines to the soft, surreal and yet actually very political lyrics, followed by a unifying anthemic chorus. The over-arching concept of The Stone Roses debut album was the 1968 French student riots, from the sleeve right through to many of the contents, seemingly wishing that similar values would transport themselves into a Thatcherite 1989. Wire's "A Bell is A Cup Until It Is Struck" was similarly very agitated and dystopian in a similarly blissed and calm way. It's highly doubtful the two bands ever even listened to each other, much less took influence from each other, but the fact that parallels can be drawn gives a significant hint towards the dominant mood of the times. The Poll Tax riots were just around the corner, ecstasy was everywhere, and among the youth of the country there was a significant kickback, a sense once again that the times could be changed and certain forces could be overthrown.

Of course, The Stone Roses may have been lyrically oblique, but they were still less lyrically baffling than Wire. Even with one listen of "Made Of Stone", it's possible to hear that it's clearly a song with a revolutionary darkness at its heart. "I'm standing warm against the cold/ now that the flames have taken hold/ at least you left your life in style" brings to mind a Porsche in flames in a riot-strewn Manchester street, and an unprivileged Ian Brown toasting marshmallows on the funeral pyre of a millionaire.

The chorus is so anthemic against this comparative menace that it did cause a few of the band's critics to take shot. John Peel sneered on his 1989 Festive Fifty countdown "Well, I can see that's got a certain sing-a-long factor..." Like many, he refused to do a u-turn on his original dismissive approach to the group, but I insist... they weren't just some kind of retro rock band.  They plucked a wide array of influences from the family tree of rock music before coming up with something engagingly different and relevant. They may have obtained the services of John Leckie as a producer for the album, knowing that his work on XTC's "Dukes of Stratosphear" was authentic psychedelic pop, but not a single track on "The Stone Roses" sounds exactly like an equivalent piece of 1967 era music.

Critics might argue, of course, that "Made Of Stone" does sound a bit like Primal Scream's "Velocity Girl", and I'll pass on discussing that one.

It's also tempting to pass on discussing the fact that the national chart peak of "Made Of Stone" on its first release was number 90. It hung around the indie top ten seemingly forever, of course, notching up a slow trickle of sales across the entire year, but the band were not big players in any sense. Time, a more sympathetic press, and the power of word of mouth would all work in their favour very, very soon, until the dam very suddenly broke.



3. They Might Be Giants - Ana Ng (One Little Indian)

"Ng is one of the most common Vietnamese names in the New York telephone directory - that's where the name came from. The song, however, is a love poem to an imaginary woman on the opposite side of the globe. It was the Number 1 college radio song in the USA; displacing U2. The video was a big MTV hit. The LP has sold over 200,000 copies in the US".

Clang, cla-clang, clang... ca clang clang, clang clang.... Ana Ng announces itself like a piece of music being played by a stammering robot trying to negotiate its way around an electric guitar. Of all the singles released by They Might Be Giants, it's probably one of the more accessible despite its quirkiness, taking a fairly complex lyrical conceit and peppering it with some very sharp, emotionally resonant observations, with lines like "I don't want the world - I just want your half" punctuating the clever-dickery of the "everything sticks like a broken record" gag.

There's an overwhelming sense that the single isn't as smart as it wants to be, though, and the band spend more time on attempted profundities than they do on the arrangement. By the time the track is due to close, the constant, nagging repetition of the chorus sounds uncomfortably like an idea without a firm conclusion.



4. Wire - Eardrum Buzz (Mute)

"Wire are criminally undersung - Eardrum Buzz is another of Wire's Hole-In-One, Inch-Perfect singles. A product of sheer draughtsmanship in the tradition of "Dot Dash", "I Am The Fly" and "Map Reference". If Wire weren't so good at this, they might have had a hit by now. But no matter". - Melody Maker

And if "Eardrum Buzz" couldn't become a hit single, you had to wonder what on earth Wire could produce that would be. Of course, it wasn't.

Alongside "Outdoor Miner", it represented the closest they came in their careers, though. Enjoying television and radio airtime, "Eardrum Buzz" was essentially jagged but excessively catchy synth-pop styled through the band's well-developed art-punk approach. Much more unashamedly Pop than anything they had issued prior to this point, it's polished and scrubbed within an inch of its life.

"Eardrum Buzz" is the Wire single a lot of Wire fans pretend to dislike or disapprove of. Subtlety isn't its strong suit. Rather than gently weaving its way into your brain, it approaches with a sledgehammer and demands squatter's rights. The lyrics are also almost sub-sixties psychedelia in their infantilism, with the chorus of "Zee zee zee zum zum/ buzz buzz buzz in the eardrum" dropping things down to almost "Fee fi fo fum" levels.

For all that, however, it's a burst of sunshine and a total joy. Had it been a huge hit, its ubiquity may have become trying; on the cultish lower-reaches-of-the-Top-75 status it managed, however, it's a private pleasure and nothing at all like a guilty one. And hey, it was still a bigger hit than The Stone Roses "Made Of Stone"...



5. Throwing Muses - Dizzy (4AD)

"Dizzy was released as a double A side single along with "Santa Claus" in March 1989. It is also to be found on the group's third full-length album Hunkpapa".

When we last encountered Throwing Muses on Volume Three, the noise was akin to an antagonised, hysterical racket in a rural henhouse. By comparison, "Dizzy" was a shock, another song from an unlikely source that sounded like it wanted to be a hit. While the verses combine flashes of poetic travelling imagery and almost crash into chaos, the chorus is pure late sixties/ early seventies Americana pop. It's hardly Lobo's "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" - in fact, it may still be millions of miles away from that - but it's not impossible to reimagine "Dizzy" as a huge, overproduced stadium hit from another era.

It still remains one of the key tracks people most readily associate with Throwing Muses to this day, and while it may have just dropped short of getting mainstream attention, there's no reason why it shouldn't have achieved it.