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 6 Side 4 - Bradford, Sandie Shaw, Parachute Men, Colorblind James Experience

1. Bradford - Dodging Around In Cars (Village)

"...lazy bastard fumbles funk concerning itself with one afternoon of a misspent youth".

Not really too sure of the point behind including this track on the series. "Skin Storm" had been featured on the CD88 compilation, and "Dodging Around In Cars" was merely the third track on that single, the "extra twelve inch single B-side". And it sounds like it, too... full credit for giving Bradford a tiny bit of extra exposure, but this, a piece of meandering funkiness about teenage driving hi-jinks (a slow and smouldering rethink of the concept behind Madness's "Driving In My Car", if you will) is unremarkable and probably did them few favours.

Nice wah-wah work, though. We'd be hearing more and more of that particular pedal over the next few years.



2. Sandie Shaw - Nothing Less Than Brilliant (Rough Trade)

"the new Sandie Shaw single; succulent, tantilising, rich, beguiling, a bargain at the price and very highly accomplished. A sweeping loop of a record which lies somewhere in between The Cocteau Twins, The Smiths and Raymonde but sounds refreshingly GORGEOUS for all that. Mature pop, vintage wine, send me a kiss and I'll make you my own. Single of the Season". Melody Maker, Everett True.

Ah God, now we're in business! While I'd usually be inclined to take Everett True's hype with a lorry-load of salt - he's been known to rave about both genuinely worthy contenders and barely fleshed out crayon doodles of pop songs - in this case, he was absolutely on the money. "Nothing Less Than Brilliant" involved Shaw hopping back into the recording studio with her old songwriting buddy Chris Andrews, and the pair emerged with one of the finest singles either would produce. Sounding unbelievably 1988 and indiefied from a pair whose career peaks actually occurred in the sixties, it really should have been an enormous comeback single. As it turned out, it wasn't. And it wasn't again when Virgin reissued it to promote a "Best Of" CD in 1994, even though the fair sixties-favouring winds of Britpop should have been behind her at that point.

That's appallingly unjust. "Brilliant" is one of the finest examples of passionate, jagged guitar pop of the era, far better than her Morrissey and Jesus and Mary Chain penned tracks from the same period. Fizzing over with verve, defiance and a towering chorus, the track is pushed further towards genius by Shaw's performance. She throws in some Morrissey styled hiccups and howls as a nod to the new generation, but there's a force of character in her performance which shows this was far from the young, insouciant Sandie delivering a sulky rehearsal of "Long Live Love" for Top of the Pops. She sounds alive and demanding to be noticed, and the lyrics back those feelings up. This is the kind of performance age and experience make possible.

It's unfortunate that Sandie Shaw's comeback LP "Hello Angel" was riddled with song contributions from the press darlings of the time. This proves that she (and Chris Andrews) really didn't need them, and "Brilliant" should have been the lead comeback single.

And what of Chris Andrews, you may ask? What else had he been doing around this time? Well, amongst other things, penning the theme and incidental pieces of music for "The Chart Show" on Channel 4, as a matter of fact.

(Late edit to allow for one more additional fact - it's Chrissie Hynde playing harmonica on this as well). 



3. The Parachute Men - Sometimes In Vain (Fire)

"Flying jackets and bootlace ties. Sunglasses, sideburns, buttondown shirts. Stripes, shades, scarves, loud guitars. A floatdown, a freefall. From Leeds, The Parachute Men brandish an intuitive talent for non-nonsense passionate guitar rock underwired with acoustic country threads".

It's an unfortunate consequence of the track sequencing that the fuzzy, emotional performance of The Parachute Men immedately follows Sandie Shaw. Unfortunate because it's also a bit blooming good too, but is somewhat overshadowed.

No matter. I've never been able to make up my mind whether the production of "Sometimes In Vain" is blurry and muddy sounding to deliberately convey the confused anguish of the track's subject matter, or just because they were in a low-cost studio and that's all they could manage. It does work well, though, whether by accident or design - chiming guitar licks almost smother Fiona Gregg's vocals so she sounds appropriately lost, and the track has a very peculiar, almost Bronte-esque melodrama to it which is unbelievably effective. This is sixties styled pop laced with an eighties darkness; as soon as the organ kicks in towards the end, you know you're not dealing with a standard piece of tossed off indie-pop. "Sometimes In Vain" is ambitious and atmospheric as well as having the kind of hooks Shaw would have deemed solid in 1966.



4. The Colorblind James Experience - Considering A Move To Memphis (Fundamental)

"The Colorblind James Experience is a six member rock and roll band whose diverse instrumentation allow the group to sound like anything from a traditional country band to a demented small town orchestra".

There's plenty of silliness in pop's history books, of course - The Firm's "Star Trekkin" would be a prime example of that, funny for one listen, not worthy of your attention much after that. Then there's epic, ambitious silliness, which "Memphis" is. Nearly seven minutes of clearly ironic spoken word musings on Memphis by the singer "Colorblind" James Charles Cuminale. He dreams, somewhat pathetically, of a low-rent relocation ("It worked for Elvis Presley/ Why can't it work for me?") and his ramblings are combined with jazzy arrangements which, according to what segment of the song you're listening to, can sound like morning hotel breakfast bar muzak or flamboyant mod jazz (with vibes, of course). Or on occasion, both at once.

Like the work of other Americans with one eyebrow ironically raised, such as They Might Be Giants or Ween, this is definitely an acquired taste and will irritate as many people as it thrills. But the lyrics are effortless dreamy optimism (they even make getting a job washing up in a restaurant sound amazing) and the band are totally swept along by the merriness and ludicrousness of the idea. I swear at some moments you can even hear suppressed laughter.

The Colorblind James Experience were from Rochester, New York, but found greater success in the UK following John Peel exposure here. Somewhere in their work, you can sense a mentality that may have struck a strong chord with long-standing listeners of his. The sophisticated but daft humour behind "Memphis" doesn't exactly owe a direct debt to the Bonzo Dog Band, but it's in the same underpopulated pop parish of humorous songs with meat on their bones. You can return to this often, and it doesn't stop putting a smile on your face nor become melodically tedious.

CD88 - including Crazyhead, Bradford, Sweet Honey In The Rock

Format: Double Vinyl/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1988

Following on from Volume 5 of the Indie Top 20 series emerging on CD came this - CD88, a compilation of tracks from Volumes 1-5, many of which were being made available on compact disc for the first ever time.

CD88 is a rum entry in the Indie Top 20 catalogue in that Beechwood occasionally relabelled it as "CD88 - The Best of Indie Top 20 Volumes 1-5" on the promotional inner sleeves of their other albums. In truth, I don't know that it is a "Best of" as such - for a start, it features four bonus tracks that appear nowhere else in the series. Rather, I think that Beechwood Music realised that there was a gap in the market for lots of much loved indie obscurities being made available for the first time in a digital format.

The vinyl version was labelled "CD88 - The Vinyl" and the cassette version "CD88 - The Tape", and it was noticeable that neither of these lingered around record store racks for very long, whereas the CD remained an ever-present force in the Indie Compilations section. Indeed, it was actually the first ever CD I bought.

Almost all of these tracks have been reviewed on this blog before, but "CD88" was also the first Indie Top 20 album to include liner notes about each track, provided by either music critics, the bands or the bands record labels/ PR department. I've included them below for reference, and also given a quick sniff of a review to the bonus tracks. If you want to read what I originally said about each track, simply click on the relevant link.

1. All About Eve - Our Summer (Eden)

"Our Summer" - the living testament to our sparking the fire of peace and love in the '80s, which we now know as Acid-Folk... can you feel it?" - quote from the band.

2. Cardiacs - Is This The Life (Alphabet Business Concern)

"This single was taken from the Cardiacs successful album 'A Little Man and A House and The Whole World Window'. It stayed in the Indie Charts for 4 months and 'crossed-over' to daytime Radio 1, subsequently entering the Gallup Top 100"

3. Fields of the Nephilim - Preacher Man (Situation Two)

"Albums available: 'Dawnrazor' '...shudders with self-important, bristling energy: an epic, an unashamedly slavering colossus of a disc' - Sounds, 16.5.88
'The Nephilim' '...is fascinating, disturbing, and utterly magnificent' - Record Mirror, 3.9.88

4. Danielle Dax - Cathouse (Awesome)

"Unanimously voted Single of the Week by the nation's music press, this number one indie-seller turns rock, pop and glam into a unique blend of sex, metal and mayhem for the 80s, proving beyond doubt that when it comes to 'Guitar Wars' Dax leaves those leather boys gasping at the starting line".

5. Crazyhead - Baby Turpentine (Food) - Bonus Track

"Flat 2, 37 Springfield Road, Leicester, 1986 - chopping down next door's fence to keep warm in front of the epileptic television."

Here's the first bonus track out of the bag. "Baby Turpentine" pretty much picks up where "What Gives You The Idea..." left off on Volume Two, making an unholy racket about nothing in particular. The guitars make an old school rock and roll row (dig that descending and rising fifties double bass styled bassline) the vocals scream, and it sounds like full-on garage rock with a slightly hairy eighties twist.

Given that groups making this sort of noise are all over the Internet these days, it might feel faintly peculiar to remember that we really did get quite excited about this at the time. What innocent days.

As stated on the other entry where we mention this bunch of unmentionables, Crazyhead's subsequent career on EMI was something of a flop, and they quite quickly fell out of relevance, but not before throttling us from both our stereos and from blazing live performances on the gig circuit.



6. The Wedding Present - Nobody's Twisting Your Arm (Reception)

"...surprised everyone by shooting into the Gallup chart at no. 46 and showed that the 'George Best' LP was no fluke".

7. The Soup Dragons - Hang Ten! (Raw TV)

"...became an absolute classic Indie hit single, staying at Number one in the Indie Charts for weeks. Taken from the album 'This Is Our Art'".

8. Rose of Avalanche - Velveteen (Fire)

"The pulsating twilight world of teardrops, mist and mystery, bad company and the illicit thrill of good lovin' gone bad mixed with guitars turned up full blast, all transport you to the furthest edges of the psychedelic firmament in a song that'll take you to heaven and back with the most beautiful girl in the world beside you."

9. Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes (Probe Plus)

"Two years on and the jokes and the punchlines are entirely familiar but somehow, like Monty Python, it's the sort of inspired, satirical humour that bears repeating time and time again without losing it's edge and appeal. Poking fun at TV 'celebrities', bringing inner city problems to 'Watch With Mother', extracting the urine from all and sundry (themselves included) with all the dry wit for which Merseyside is so justly famous". Q - September '88.

10. Michelle Shocked - Fog Town (Cooking Vinyl) - Bonus Track

"Taken from the now legendary 'Texas Campfire Tapes' LP which shot to number one on the indie charts in January '87, despite being recorded on a Walkman at Kerrville festival by Cooking Vinyl boss Pete Lawrence for the cost of a tape and a set of batteries".

You know what, readers, I can't find an audio link for this one online, and since Michelle Shocked seems to control her presence online quite tightly, I'm not going to bother to risk incurring her wrath by uploading anything myself. You know how it is. And also, I respect her desire as an artist and creative force to maintain control over her own affairs without the interference from external etc. etc. etc....

If you're curious, "Fog Town" is inevitably a very stripped back, acoustic live track, which struts along moodily and has a claustrophobic, despairing air throughout. Rather like "If Love Was A Train" on volume two, there's an earnestness and worthiness to this which will either repel or appeal to listeners. Certainly at the time, it felt as if her work and presence was a refreshing antidote to the over-produced luxury of eighties pop - in these days where talented acoustic performers can be found at every open mic night in just about every town, however, some of that novelty has perhaps diminished.

11. The Chesterfields - Ask Johnny Dee (Subway)

"...is still the most appealing slither of sublimeness, it remains a mystery why someone didn't write it aeons ago" - Record Mirror.

12. Wire - Kidney Bingos (Mute)

"Wire specialise in wistful, immaculately crafted avant-songs... it's good to know that Wire have lost none of their taste for the lyrically absurd or their talent for a jolly little tune. The single 'Kidney Bingos' consisted of a string of nonsense-words (although it was probably meant to be rather meaningful) and the album continues in this merry vein" - Record Mirror.

13. Bradford - Skin Storm (Village) - Bonus Track

"This track was the single; receiving a great deal of media interest as Morrissey was quoted as saying of their 'Lust Roulette' track: 'Lust Roulette practically almost made me cry" - Morrissey, Summer '88.

The curse of Morrissey strikes again. With an almost tedious inevitability, every artist the bequiffed one recommends inevitably suffers the near total indifference of the general public, and Bradford, while briefly tipped for success, were no exception.

That's actually a pity, as he had a bit of a point in this case. Mixing soulful vocals with considered and frequently touching lyrics and delicate indie arrangements, Bradford could be a stunning listen when on form. "Skin Storm" really is an example of the band at their peak, a scaling ballad which really could be covered by just about any mainstream pop star or folk performer and still sound affecting - to the extent that I'm surprised it hasn't been.

Still, Morrissey had a stab at it later on on the flipside of "Pregnant For The Last Time". Bradford themselves signed to Sire before being dropped by that label. They then moved to Stephen Street's Foundation label, but success continually eluded them, and the plug was pulled in the early nineties.



14. Sweet Honey In The Rock - Chile Your Waters Run Red Through Soweto (Cooking Vinyl) - Bonus Track

"This five piece all female accapella outfit from Washington DC deliver the goods on this powerful live recording taken from the album 'Breaths... The Best Of' which rode high in various independent charts in Autumn '87. Billy Bragg has also recently covered this track on his LP".

This may well have ridden high in numerous independent charts, but really, I'm sure a great many folk, jazz and reggae albums also had their moment in the sun there - they never appeared on Indie Top 20, so why did this, a gospel track? Only Chet and Bee know.

"Chile Your Waters..." is an a-cappella track which spits out words like "oppression" a lot, and sounds exactly as you'd expect it to. There's a meanness and a definite vitriol to this one despite the limited arrangement, and it's impossible to doubt its righteousness and passion, but it sinks in immediately and definitely on the first listen, and return visits pay very few extra dividends.

Sweet Honey In The Rock remain much loved in the USA, being awarded at the Grammys and generously given a great deal of airtime elsewhere. They are also probably one of the only bands to have a sign language interpreter as a member. At the point of its release, their "Best Of" probably seemed unusual and refreshing in the UK - but really, the group are an institution at home, where they're among the absolute leaders of their genre. Their inclusion on "Indie Top 20" is as absurd as sticking a Miles Davis or Johnny Cash track halfway through.



15. A Certain Ratio - Mickey Way (The Candy Bar) (Factory)

"Taken from their album 'Force", 'Mickey Way' was ACR's last release before leaving Factory Records. Now signed to A&M worldwide, the next album is planned for release early in '89". 

16. Ciccone Youth - Into The Groovy (Blast First)

"...also known as Sonic Youth, in their most rabid Madonna worship frenzy. 'Into The Groovy' was a surprise club and chart hit, it featured Firehose's Mike Watts on frantic bass. 'Into The Groovy' is included on a Ciccone Youth album called The White(y) Album, due for release Jan '89".

17. The Beloved - Forever Dancing (Flim Flam)

"Seriously minimal, minimally serious. Free at last".

18. The Shamen - Jesus Loves Amerika (Moksha)

"...is a blistering attack on that country's fascist, fanatical, fundamentalist "Christians" - ie - those who wish to transform us into a race of right-wing, brain-dead, bible quoting robots.
Musically, the beatbox groove is harder than ever before, overlaid with frenzied, psychedelic mandolin-like guitar and some of the most righteous samples yet to be heard on disc".

19. Pop Will Eat Itself - There Is No Love Between Us Anymore (Chapter 22)

"The Poppies present another song about love and hate. Remixed from their debut album 'Box Fenzy'. Still available in all good and not so good record shops".