Volume 23 Tracks 6-10 - Ash, Octopus, Morcheeba, Collapsed Lung, Underworld

6. Ash - Goldfinger (Infectious)

Something very peculiar happened to Ash's output following the runaway success of "Girl From Mars". Their singles appeared to jump from being robust but noisy punk outbursts to something altogether more Pop. "Angel Interceptor" was the first sign of the wind changing direction, and is probably one of my favourite Ash singles of the lot - all dreamy backing vocals, punky thrashing and melodic meandering.

"Goldfinger", on the other hand, is just plain anthemic. So anthemic it would become a regular feature on all those "Best Anthems In The World!" and "Singalonganindiedownthepub!" compilations that littered the market throughout the late nineties and for half the noughties as well. A huge number five hit, it smoothed off a lot of Ash's rough edges and made them palatable to a wider audience, but somehow less interesting too. This doesn't rip the joint apart, choosing instead to take matters at a slow, considered, lighters aloft pace, with the biggest rock chorus they could muster.

Both this and the equally popular "Oh Yeah" set the group up for life, however, and they were still having Top 40 hits as recently as ten years ago. If "Goldfinger" is ultimately disappointing to me, I doubt they have many regrets about recording it.



7. Octopus - Your Smile (Food/ EMI)

A lot of alternative bands who were signed late in the Britpop goldrush suffered on two fronts - getting lost amidst the flood of similar sounding products on the market, and also suffering from the public's waning interest. While Britpop promotional displays remained right by the front doors of HMV branches everywhere, 1996 was a year in which the most acclaimed and successful bands of the period, Blur, Oasis and Pulp, were largely inactive. Even Supergrass only managed one single ("Going Out") during that year.

Record labels began to rely on their non-Premiership acts to keep the Union Jack flying, and while The Bluetones and Sleeper did a sterling job of continuing some interest, they weren't powerful or imaginative enough to generate the same enthusiasm as their leaders (though the music press played a powerful game, managing to convince even me that The Bluetones would be the new Stone Roses. They weren't, of course).

While Blur caught their breath and indulged themselves with cheese, booze and an assorted family pack of pharmaceuticals, their label Food signed the Scottish octet Octopus on the strength of a demo tape alone. Such events usually occur when a group is visually striking (Transvision Vamp) or so exceptional that a label wants to block any possible counter-bids or rival interest elsewhere. While Octopus were a reasonably handsome bunch, it's safe to say that it was their ideas Food were interested in. Named after the Syd Barrett song, Octopus leant towards the psychedelic pop end of the sixties music spectrum, and featured diverse instrumentation and richly woven songs, probably having more in common with Super Furry Animals or Julian Cope than most of the other groups they were saddled alongside.

"Your Smile" narrowly missed out on a Top 40 place, and still sounds wonderful. Filled to the brim with pizzicato strings, Beatles styled brassiness, backwards guitar and impressive pop songwriting, it should have been an enormous hit - and in fact, it's a track you can imagine storming the charts in either the late sixties or early to mid seventies. It's heartwarming and optimistic without being overly bouncy or twee, sounding like a pop symphony to soothe all battered souls everywhere. The video also recalls some of the prime pieces of late sixties pop cinematography, feeling like a lost "Magical Mystery Tour" outtake.

Octopus managed one album ("From A to B") before splitting up, but along with Animals That Swim should be hailed as one of the mightiest groups of the period who are nonetheless unlikely to be on the tip of anyone's tongues in the "Pointless" Britpop round. Despite this, "Your Smile" points one possible way forward everything could have gone if the public had wanted - away from catchy pop with observational lyrics, and towards intricate, polished popsike.



8. Morcheeba - Tape Loop (China)

Morcheeba weren't without psychedelic rock elements themselves initially, but these were usually pushed somewhere towards the back of the mix by the primary force of their trip-hop/ electronic influences. "Tape Loop" stems from the earliest period of their career when their sound hadn't quite been scrubbed and polished up for the mainstream yet, so subtle guitar licks and hypnotic grooves are the order of the day.

It's all perfectly OK in a loose, laidback, mid-tempo way, but there's nothing here screaming at the listener to regard Morcheeba as the most innovative group among their peers. With hugely popular later albums like "Big Calm", they'd reveal themselves to be the prime listening choice for "spiritually inclined" types on their way home from Ibiza or a festival. If you happened to find yourself following a bunch of well-spoken but hairy, beardy, beady types home from the club or pub for a late night bang on a bong, the chances are that LP was firmly ensconced in their CD player tray.

In 1996, though, Morcheeba were a faint curiosity, a group who were neither fish nor fowl and hadn't quite found their audience yet. Their appearance on "Indie Top 20" might seem baffling now, but it wouldn't have raised many eyebrows at the time.



9. Collapsed Lung - Eat My Goal (Deceptive)

Harlow's Collapsed Lung were a strange indie hip-hop group named after a particularly troubling medical condition. The crossover potential for the band was huge, but they seemed to find themselves forever touring around tiny venues in the UK to loyal cult audience of skate kids and leftover baggies.

The group had a particularly quirky sense of humour which possibly put the "serious" hip-hop fans off their work. If their name wasn't questionable enough, early track "Thundersley Invacar" set things off on the wrong foot by focusing on the problems of cruising for ladies in a three wheeled motor vehicle built for disabled people. "Eat My Goal", borrowing its title from an Alan Partridge outburst on "The Day Today", has a similar tongue-in-cheek frivolity to it.

It went on to become their only hit, entering the top 40 twice - once in 1996, and again in 1998, and has been used since on numerous adverts and computer game soundtracks. It's a huge slice of swaggering fun which didn't change the world or the music scene as we know it, but enlivened many parties or indie club nights just as the energy was waning. Not long after its 1998 re-release, the group dissolved.



10. Underworld - Born Slippy (Junior Boys Own)

Underworld were at this point already an enormously respected electronic duo, but "Born Slippy" provided them with their big breakthrough moment. Crossing over from their usual dance audience into the bedrooms of indie kids and pop listeners, "Born Slippy" is a somewhat rare example of a jarring piece of work finding mainstream acceptance, the polar opposite of Morcheeba's eventual success forged from melodic calmness. Streams of barked, overheard phrases from a Romford bound train journey join harsh, juddering beats, atmospheric washes and that persistent, chiming keyboard riff to create something which is actually tremendously uncommercial. Even The Fall's mid-nineties electronic work has more obvious hooks and coherence to it than this.

1996 was no stranger to jagged electronic sounds having a mainstream presence, of course - The Prodigy became absolute masters of that game - but whereas they had a charismatic frontman and an air of threat, "Born Slippy" is bit parts Eno ambience joining drunken disorientation and sharp, awkward angles. It's a testament to the power of the track that it not only crashed the charts and daytime Radio One, but also ended up in John Peel's Festive Fifty for that year.

Given that it was never really typical of many other sounds of the era, "Born Slippy" doesn't even sound particularly dated now. Its ubiquity is such that you do have to take a few steps back to remember just how odd it sounded on the first listen, though, and how thrilling too. Its appearance in "Trainspotting" may have helped it along considerably, but even without that moment, it felt enormous and truly fascinating.

Volume 22 Tracks 6-10 - Ash, The Wannadies, Powder, Heavy Stereo, Intastella

6. Ash - Kung Fu (Infectious)

The anarchic, roaring stomp of "Kung Fu" felt like the moment Ash stopped being a fringe cult concern or a teen punk fanzine act, and began to scream through the speakers of evening radio like a serious proposition. It's a full-throttle delight, feeling chaotic enough to sound like a possible accident, but craftily hooky enough to cause listeners like me to suspect that the group were on their way up to bigger and better things.

It feels shorter than its allotted two-and-a-half minutes somehow, seeming like a peculiar minute-long rush of ideas all flashing past each other in an overwhelming fashion. It's not a work of melodic sophistication, as some of their later singles would try to be, but it lives up to its subject matter by feeling like several well-aimed chops to the body.



7. The Wannadies - Blister In The Sun (Indolent)

A somewhat odd inclusion on the compilation, this. It featured as the Swedish indie-pop sensations  flipside to the "You and Me Song", and seems to be another example of Beechwood picking a B-side over the more appreciated main track. A cover of the Violent Femmes song, it manages to jettison a lot of the charming lo-fi scrappiness of the original and replace it with a hard, rocking edge. For many listeners, that will probably cause it to lose an enormous amount of its original appeal - for me personally, it tightens up some of the original ideas and gives it a sheen which can potentially feel more appealing depending on what mood I'm in.

For such a cultish song, "Blister In The Sun" seems to have been covered by every bedroom boy or girl with a spare acoustic guitar and been on every advert and trailer on Earth now. In 1995, though, it was still a reasonably respectable, niche underground track before the floodgates burst open.

As for The Wannadies, they were huge in their native Sweden but never quite managed to have the major success predicted for them in the UK. A scattering of respectable but moderate chart positions later, they finally split up in 2009, but occasionally regroup for one off shows. While a lot of mid-tier Britpop bands around this period released cynical and plastic sounding bouncy songs with advertising jingle melodies, The Wannadies had a more intricate pop craft at their centre which was actually very welcome at the time, and there's no question they deserved at least a couple of bigger hits here.



8. Powder - Afrodisiac (Parkway)

Powder (often the group the entire Internet splutters "WHO?!" about whenever the BBC repeat their "Britpop Now" programme) were a peculiarly ever-present band throughout 1995. Signed by the PR gurus Savidge and Best to their Parkway label and fronted by Pearl Lowe, there were deeply held suspicions among some listeners that the band were mere "scenesters", hyped beyond measure and given opportunities above their rightful station. Lowe hit back by saying that they were signed by Parkway because they were "too uncommercial" to be on a major.

Unfortunately, I must admit to being one of the cynics. Powder are responsible for one of the most awful live music reviews I've ever written - awful in the sense that I absolutely lambasted the group and also awful in that, as with many scathing reviews, it reflected worse on me than the group themselves. I've long since shredded it in shame, but the irritation I felt around Powder had been building for some time, and peaked with a live show which was essentially a competent, pedestrian presentation of basic punk ideas delivered with smug arrogance and self-belief. Pearl Lowe strutted and pranced around, grinning from ear to ear, while delivering songs like "Afrodisiac" which sounded suspiciously similar to a lot of unsigned band demos I'd been hearing around the same time. Staring aghast at the band right at the top of the gig bill, I couldn't understand why them, or why now. 1995 wasn't short of chancers, of course. Menswear were often regarded as the top criminals in this respect, but what's often been overlooked since (even by some of their members) is that Menswear actually had at least three or four good tracks to their name. Powder didn't.

Listening to "Afrodisiac" again now, I still find myself cringing and getting increasingly angry when I hear the "It's a wrap/ take it back/ do ya feel crackerjack" chorus. Glued together in a mend-and-make-do fashion and then presented as the next big noise, it feels hollow - neither adrenalising, nor imaginative, nor witty, it's just another slice of slightly disappointing indie stomp.

Of course, far from brimming over with smugness and confidence, we've all since learned that Pearl Lowe ended up with serious drug addiction issues during this period. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that the stage persona in front of you is not necessarily the person as they really are, and nor does it reflect their self-belief or general state of mind at the time. Pearl Lowe's later musical work was also far more considered and much less scrappy than this, and Powder never really did make a proper album - so getting hot under the collar about their shortcomings really was a waste of my and everyone else's time.



9. Heavy Stereo - Sleep Freak (Creation)

Heavy Stereo were unfortunate enough to get signed to Creation right at the point when the music press were treating Alan McGee - aka The Man Who Signed Oasis - as an A&R guru who knew exactly where the action was. Getting news and gossip column inches purely on the basis of being the label's hottest new property, they were never really given a fair hearing, with opening expectations being far beyond reasonable.

When I first listened to "Sleep Freak" myself, my reaction was one of pure disappointment that the group clearly weren't the next big thing. As time wore on, however, its incessant glam stomp and power-driving chords won me over. In common with a number of other groups at this point, it half-inches ideas from a variety of sources, most notably T Rex and John Lennon's "Instant Karma", but manages to present something which sounds punchy and relatively fresh.

Heavy Stereo would never become proper contenders, and sure as hell weren't the "next Oasis", but frontman Gem Archer would later join the line-up of that band, which seems like a pretty reasonable runner-up prize.



10. Intastella - The Night (Planet 3)

Intastella had been around since the baggy era, and at the height of that movement were as critically acclaimed as many of their better known peers. Fronted by the confident, glitzy and glamorous Stella Grundy, tracks like "Dream Some Paradise" were minor club hits, but not big enough for their parent MCA Records, who were quick to drop them when baggy died.

The group are genuinely worthy of greater investigation if you haven't bothered already, and I'm saying this mainly because this cover of the Frankie Valli Northern Soul classic is a total misfire, and we won't get the chance to discuss them again. The original is filled to the brim with brassy flourishes, a rich atmosphere, creeping basslines and dramatic vocals, which are here replaced with a somewhat minimal electronic backing and slightly laissez-faire sounding vocals. Reduced to the basic kernal of its ideas, the band unfortunately "lose more than they found" and reduce it to a pulsing stomp - it's a good example of how a fantastic song can lose almost all of its appeal once its arrangement is radically altered.

Nonetheless, it acted as the group's fourth Top 75 entry, reaching number 60. They also continued until 1997, outlasting many of their peers.

Volume 21 Tracks 11-15 - Whiteout, Supergrass, Ash, 60ft Dolls, Bandit Queen

11. Whiteout - Jackie's Racing (Silvertone)

"Da-vid!" cried my mother in disbelief when she heard me listening to this, "have you started listening to seventies teenybop stuff now?!"

I - sort of - get where she was coming from on this, and can also completely understand why Tim Millington chose to place it next to Ride's "I Don't Know Where It Comes From" in the tracklisting. Both have a wistful, breezy seventies styled pop production, although I suspect Whiteout were using The Faces rather than the Bay City Rollers as their sonic template.

It wasn't just my Mum who wanted Whiteout's guts for garters, either. The music press were bafflingly savage towards the group, frequently focussing on their very young age and inexperience as reasons to attack them, while praising Supergrass for precisely the same characteristics on the other hand. Some of Whiteout's material was a whirlwind of energy, the likes of "Detroit" in particular rivalling Oasis's earliest work for attitude and force of personality (indeed, Whiteout co-headlined a tour with them).

"Jackie's Racing" was Whiteout's peak mainstream moment, and is perhaps atypical of the rest of their output, but is nonetheless a solid pop song with many fantastic melodic flourishes and twanging guitar work. With its lyrics focussed on a girl (played by actress Caroline Catz in the video, later of "Doc Martin" fame) enjoying her "kicks" and "teenage fun" who "wears tight clothes that don't quite fit", it's hard to take the song overly seriously or get emotionally involved in it. However, its bouyant innocence does act as a tonic, and it acts as one of those all-too-rare examples of a very young band being able to communicate their enthusiasm and zeal in an infectious way.

Whiteout never did really become properly famous, though, even at the height of Britpop when everything should have been in their favour. Their debut album "Bite It" (which bizarrely left off many of their best known singles) received a muted critical and commercial reception. Singer Andrew Caldwell left the group not long after its release, and their follow-up LP "Big Wow" in 1998 failed to attract much attention. They rank as one of the era's most bafflingly marginal groups.



12. Supergrass - Caught By The Fuzz (Parlophone)

Speak of the devil... Most of Supergrass last appeared on Volume 16 of this series as The Jennifers, a rather naive teenage indie band who could on occasion sound slightly like Whiteout at their most wistful. By the time "Caught By The Fuzz" emerged, however, it was clear that they had morphed into a group of some wit and ferocity.

I don't intend to sound disparaging when I say that I laughed my head off when I first heard "Caught By The Fuzz". It sounded like a group of naughty seventeen year old boys trying to write lyrics like a wittier, more interesting version of Jimmy Pursey while Keith Moon played drums in the corner. A small part of me doubts that "Caught By The Fuzz" was ever supposed to actually be as amusing as it turned out. The frantic, panicked delivery of Gaz's vocals suggest that it was originally written as a cathartic exercise after he had his collar felt (he has confirmed that the lyrics were based on true experience) which only seem amusing if you're sufficiently removed from the situation. His delivery of "Who sold you the blow/ WELL IT WAS......... NO-ONE I KNOW!" and "if only your father could see you now!" create little visual snapshots of an eighties teenage kitchen sink drama shown on Channel 4 in the early afternoon. The music behind them, on the other hand, is so pile-driving and determined it sweeps you along effortlessly.

It would have been easy to dismiss Supergrass as some kind of NWONW one-single wonders were it not for the flipside to this, "Strange Ones", which appeared largely unchanged on the number one "I Should Coco" LP. There was clearly much more to the group than punkish melodrama about being caught with naughty cigarettes, and while the group always did have a penchant for playful silliness (as "Alright" would later prove) that's often caused them to be overlooked by casual listeners who have failed to absorb some of their more mature, developed and occasionally psychedelic work. Without exaggeration, Supergrass were one of the last truly great bands to emerge during the Britpop rush, as their superb debut LP and follow-up "In It For The Money" both go to enormous lengths to prove.



13. Ash - Uncle Pat (Infectious)

More teenagers with attitude. Prior to this moment, Ash were mostly known for their heads-down, no-nonsense punk approach, with debut single "Jack Names The Planets" having both a determined amphetamine charge to its sound combined with fluffy, innocent almost nursery rhyme melodies.

"Uncle Pat" is much more laidback and sombre in its tone, but can't quite shake the innocent edge the band had until this point, with simple, chiming guitar lines and marching rhythms. Focusing on the tale of a recently departed relative, it seems like a slightly personal and melancholy moment for the band which acts as an innocent garage-punk prayer rather than something to excite audiences on the national pub circuit.

Ash would obviously go from strength to strength from this point, gaining benefits from Britpop and continuing into the late nineties as a group who enjoyed a certain degree of popularity among provincial rockers and the kind of skate-punk kids you saw in the local shopping centre every weekend. They remain a going concern to this day, even if their star has waned somewhat in the present decade.



14. 60ft Dolls - Happy Shopper (Townhill)

Unlike most of the bands we've dealt with on this entry, at least one member of 60ft Dolls had something of a significant previous history. Lead singer Richard Parfitt had previously been involved in the eighties mod group The Truth as their bass player, and had even had a prominent stint in the largely unknown Welsh mod group The Colours. The latter had a ripping and largely unknown single out in 1983 called "The Dance", which can be heard over at my "Left and to the Back" blog.

Whereas The Colours and The Truth tended to have a bit of a swing about their work, 60ft Dolls tended to favour a rough, tearing aggression, and that can clearly be heard in "Happy Shopper". It junks anything approaching a groove overboard and instead sounds like a furious, murky hybrid of NWONW and grunge ideas.  Whereas 60ft Dolls would release some great singles - "Alison's Room" and "Stay" among them - "Happy Shopper" is unfortunately a track that, to me at least, is a giant tantrum which comes and goes without leaving any major impression. Doubtless this sounded wonderful live, and as a single it has energy to spare but no real stand-out hooks or defining characteristics.



15. Bandit Queen - Give It To The Dog (Playtime)

Bandit Queen were formed in 1992 by vocalist Tracy Godding, who had previously been a member of the almost entirely forgotten early nineties baggy group Swirl (who, for what it's worth, featured on another Beechwood indie compilation "Forever Changing", but never found a place in this series).

Despite their presence on the roster of the relatively low-key and cash-strapped Playtime label, Bandit Queen clearly had the budget to swamp regional music journalists with promo records and CDs of their work and also tended to feature in numerous fanzines throughout this era. Mainstream music press appreciation was harder to come by, however, and the group seemed to forever be "bubbling under" - the subject of many brief live reviews but no interview spreads.

"Give It To The Dog" is a walloping piece of fat, distorted, heavy riffola which owes slightly more to the American underground than the dominant trends of 1995, though, and it's possibly not surprising they failed to find a way through. For all that, it's an interesting listen and Godding's vocals have a compelling force of personality, giving the track an edge it might otherwise have lacked.