Volume 13 Side Two - Catherine Wheel, The Telescopes, Moose, Spiritualized, Midway Still

1. Catherine Wheel - Shallow (Wilde Club)

Their last single before rushing off to cash the banker's cheques offered to them by Fontana, "Shallow" was proof that Catherine Wheel had the pop chops to justify the jump away from the indie sector. While "Shallow" edges dangerously close to Ride sonically, the chorus is pure bliss, and the song itself shows no weaknesses at all, charging full-throttle through numerous elated and masterful guitar riffs on its way. "Heaven Sent An Angel" it isn't, being a pleasing tapestry of ideas which occur so quickly that it's initially impossible to realise quite how much is going on in a mere few minutes.

Following this, their career on Fontana was full of mixed fortunes. While they managed to maintain a small and loyal fanbase in the both the US and the UK, they consistently seemed on the brink of success rather than actually breaking through. Singles were released, all of which only just missed the Top 50, only to quickly disappear again. Their sound moved with the times, becoming much heavier and more rock orientated by the mid-nineties, but by 2000 it was all over. Compared to almost every other act of this era, they had a strange, dogged persistence, never giving up even when the scene around them shifted. Indeed, their lifespan went beyond the duration of the "Indie Top 20" series itself; an impressive achievement, but they seem doomed to remain a footnote in any alternative rock story.



2. The Telescopes - Flying (Creation)

The Telescopes had always had a slightly shoegazey sound to their work, of course, and in many ways could have been regarded as one of the earliest groups (along with Pale Saints) to appreciate that a broader listening public awaited for a dense, hypnotic noise. "Flying", though, really pulls things up a notch or two, feeling truly disorientating (still more so when you watch the impressively suitable video) and whooshing past in a rush of sonic mayhem. The sitar overload also indicates that late sixties psychedelic influences were at play, and the whole thing truly soars - appropriately, given the title.

Despite all this, and despite the fact that they had shunted over to Creation Records where a higher profile should surely have been expected, there was a sense that The Telescopes were beginning to become marginalised at this point, and by the tail end of 1992 they would cease to exist. It's impossible to put your finger on quite what they were doing wrong, and really they should have had a head start over their travelling companions - but rather like The Pale Saints, they felt strangely sidelined by the media.



3. Moose - Suzanne (Hut)

"Suzanne" really continues in a similar stylistic vein to "Jack" on "Volume 12", except rather like The Telescopes, Moose really pull out all the stops here to make the track a psychedelic blur. "She walks all over me/ I can't take it from her!" sings Russell, while the band's tune gets locked in the roar of a sonic wind tunnel. The track rattles and canters along to its inevitable chaotic death.

As a single, this got quite a few critics hot under the collar and caused some to revise their expectations of the band's success. The video got "Chart Show" exposure, they were observed being particularly chummy with Blur, and it was felt that perhaps a corner was being turned. In reality, Moose were far too maudlin and self-indulgent (albeit often in an interesting way) to truly vault into the mainstream, and "Suzanne" was and remains an interesting moment where a rather unlikely group became the subject of speculation. Startlingly, the Virgin subsidiary Hut Records didn't lose complete faith in them until 1992, meaning we'll be hearing more from them.



4. Spiritualized - Run (Dedicated)

Fuelled by a cheeky (and credited) steal from JJ Cale's "Call Me The Breeze", "Run" is actually a very repetitive, primal number by Spiritualized's usual standards - their previous single, a version of Lou Reed and John Cale's "Why Don't You Smile Now", took the rough simplicity of the original and turned it into a grandoise epic, whereas "Run" is a bluesy, foggy jog through rock's back pages, and the psychedelic elements do very little to disguise that.

Still, it's an enjoyable few minutes, and while the group had clearly yet to become the Class A gospel preachers of the indie circuit, it shows that a lot of headway had been made by Jason Pierce since parting company with Spacemen 3. Already, a unique and identifiable sound was starting to lock into place, and broader appreciation was theirs for the taking.



5. Midway Still - I Won't Try (Roughneck)

Midway Still represent the idea of forgotten early nineties indie heroes so well that one person even named a blog after them. "Because Midway Still Aren't Coming Back" was the title of one of the earliest online mp3 blogs dedicated to deleted and largely disregarded British nineties indie, and was obviously a bookmark in my web browser's menu bar.

Oddly though, Midway Still sounded far more like an imported American underground rock act than the low-budget Kent boys they actually were. "I Won't Try" is evidence of this, with its almost Lemonheads styled power-pop chorus, rough and ready guitar work, and drawled vocals. Their debut album "Dial Square" would be produced by Sonic Youth dial twiddler Don Fleming, cementing their transatlantic sound still further.

Looking and sounding as if they'd fallen off the back of a Greyhound bus fresh from Seattle did the group little harm in terms of media coverage initially, and almost certainly boosted their profile far higher than it otherwise would have gone at any other period - but they never quite rose above their underground status, and became a near-permanent fixture on the Camden club and pub scene in the early nineties. In fact, almost all vaguely "grungey"/college rock styled British groups failed to find much appreciation on their own shores, a peculiar cultural anomaly which I still struggle to make sense of. Given the fact that they were able to tour here with greater ease and regularity and were also available for media appointments at the drop of a hat, you'd have thought at least a few British grunge-styled acts would have broken through, but success proved elusive (unless you count the artificial one hit wonders Stiltskin, that is...)

Volume 10 Side 4 - Pixies, Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes, Teenage Fanclub, Telescopes, Carter USM

1. Pixies - Velouria (4AD)

"...is taken from Pixies fourth LP 'Bossanova'".

"Velouria" is a strange one, by general standards at least. It comes crashing through your stereo speakers like an epic rock tune at first, scaling a mountain-face like David Lee Roth at his keenest, but constantly gets distracted on its way. It seems to be constantly building towards some grand anthemic chorus, only to deliver Frank Black's barked shout of "Velouria! My Velouria!" It beckons you forward with one hand, then pushes you away with the other.

It's still a strangely beautiful record, though, from those scaling, powerful verses right down to the Kim Deal vocalised outro. It's slightly unpredictable form also creates something a damn sight more interesting than your bog-standard piece of FM rock, twisting and turning around to ensure there's more to draw you back than the obvious initial hooks. Truly horrible and pointless video, though, which looks more like a "Chart Show" home-brew effort than an official product.

This was the group's first Top 40 hit in the UK, peaking at number 28.



2. Jesse Garon and The Desperadoes - Grand Hotel (Avalanche) - Vinyl and Cassette Only

"Shine on Patrick Magee, shine on! Ceadh mile failte."

Mmm. As a teenager, I found the references to the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing in this song exhilarating and hilarious, and considered it a true piece of punk rock. Now it feels uncomfortable - a key indication, if any were needed, that we get less flippant about these artistic gestures as we get older. Also, it perhaps shows how politically divided Britain was in 1990, with bilious and murderous hatred being targeted at those who weren't on the correct side of the left-right divide from a variety of sources, and never mind anyone else who might happen to be caught in the firing line. Ladies and Gentlemen, those were the days, and we're set to recreate those days...

Jesse Garon and The Desperadoes were actually old-school Scottish indie-poppers from the mid-eighties who seemed rumly out of place with the rest of Volume Ten's offerings. That said, "Grand Hotel" sits neatly enough next to "Velouria" with its abrasive sound and angelic female backing vocals. It's also a total headrush of a track, scruffy and scuzzed up but ferocious and full-on - an innocent slice of C86 this isn't, obviously.

It was also an unusual Indie Top 20 track in that it wasn't a big seller at the time, even in indie terms, and one EP later (the "Hold Me Now" extended play issued in November 1990) and the group would be no more. Its appearance on this compilation was the first time I was ever made aware of it. Even the Daily Mail's feathers clearly weren't ruffled by its existence, and it seemed to slip under a lot of people's radars. The eighties had been filled to the brim with furious, stabbing and occasionally controversial left-wing records or even anarcho-punk records - the steady flow would continue into the nineties until John Major's government was at its absolute weakest, but interest post-Thatcher began to deplete quite rapidly. The Family Cat's B-side "Bring Me The Head Of Michael Portillo" is the most recent example I can think of, but there may be others which you good readers can think of...



3. Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows (Paperhouse)

"Teenage Fanclub are going to be as big as The Ronettes hairdos, the Beaverbrook Foundation and Van Gogh's sunflowers".

And the Scottish fuzziness and scuzziness continues. "Everything Flows" is a ballad hiding under a fog of grungey guitars. It's melancholy, snail-paced and yet slightly noisy too. Lyrically it's confused and vague - "I think about it every day/ but only for a little while/ and then the FEELING" sings Norman Blake. Enough said, obviously.

"Everything Flows" feels like waking up in the middle of the night from a dream about an ex, alone, and with a sleep-fogged brain, knowing that your past decisions perhaps weren't the wisest, and not certain that you're any more sure-footed in the present day. It ends with distorted guitars swimming all around the mix, never once picking up the pace or offering a clear resolution. It's beautiful in a horribly disconcerting way. Perhaps unsuprisingly, it was wildly popular with John Peel listeners and did indeed do a lot to launch Teenage Fanclub outside of their existing cult following.



4. The Telescopes - Precious Little (Creation) - Vinyl and Cassette Only 

"Obsession always was one of the most terrifying of human emotions. It's when the noise stops that you silently start to scream." - Melody Maker

We're on side four of Volume Ten of "Indie Top 20", and is that... can that... can that really be a contribution from Creation Records? Well, switch my knickers! Apart from contributing the video to Tangerine's "Sunburst" to one of the Indie Top Videos, they had avoided the series like the plague until now for reasons known only to Alan McGee.

Of course, "Precious Little" is a piece of distorted, sinister and not entirely reassuring noise about love, or perhaps as the Melody Maker scribe pointed out, obsession. Had it been written for my benefit, I think I would have been a bit worried. You could quite easily give the lyrics and the melody to a twee girl with an ukulele in the present day (note to anyone reading - please don't do this) - it certainly starts appropriately enough with "Precious little look outside the sea crashes for you" - but The Telescopes, being The Telescopes, ramp up the volume and turn it into a threatening, obsessive attack, not a simple love song.

It's not their finest single, in truth, but it's certainly never short of being interesting. Stick it on in the company of friends, and witness the silence afterwards.



5. Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Rent (Big Cat)

"I've been waiting half of the twentieth century for my housing benefit so that I can pay my rent, I am pissed off" - Fruitbat.
"I like the Pet Shop Boys and I'm more than happy to make them a little bit of cash to help them out, stuff the Poll Tax" - Jim Bob.

The second cover version on Volume Ten takes the same approach of taking the basic template of the original but completely transforming it. Or, if your views of this are unfavourable, it might feel actually as if Carter simply scrawled childishly and furiously all over the Pet Shop Boys original melody with a variety of Crayola crayons.

Obviously, The Pet Shop Boys version of "Rent" was largely deemed to be about male prostitution (subsequently denied by Neil Tennant in recent years) something I doubt either Jim Bob or Fruitbat would have been terribly successful at. Perhaps because of that, rather than due to a deliberate misunderstanding, they seem to have made it about paying the rent in general and turning into a screaming punk assault. It starts calmly enough with a gentle (if cheap) synthesiser pulse, then slowly begins to rumble like a volcano before exploding into a disconnected, screaming rant about the contents of DSS forms.

An unpopular view started to form approximately around this time that Carter were like a rather punkish take on very late Pink Floyd - and when I say "late Pink Floyd", I very much mean the Roger Waters dictatorship years. Initially that might sound ridiculous, until you surf away and listen to "Not Now John" and hear similar spittle, samples, swearing, despair and melancholy rolled into one ball, just with much more careful production values (and classier backing vocals and more saxophones). Even the epic war ballads on "The Final Cut" with their tinkling pianos bore vague similarities to the likes of Carter's take on "The Impossible Dream". Whatever your general view, "Rent" here sounds truly hilarious at first, then weirdly gripping thereafter. It's a marvellous tantrum of a cover.

It was the flipside to their single "Rubbish" rather than an A-side, obviously, so its inclusion here is a bit strange. Clearly either the band or Beechwood Music deemed it more worthy, but I'm glad I got to hear it when I did.

Volume 8 Side 4 - Sonic Boom, Loop, The Telescopes, Thee Hypnotics

1. Sonic Boom - Angel (Silvertone) - Vinyl Only

Sadly, I have the CD edition of "Indie Top 20 Vol 8" and therefore don't have the sleevenotes for this epic, nine minute long track, which was clearly left off the CD version for reasons of space. If anyone knows what they are, please enlighten me and I'll add it above.

Nonetheless, on vinyl and cassette versions of the LP, this track gave Sonic Boom two bites of the royalty money cherry, after "Hypnotised" on Side One. Perhaps it's safe to conclude that if you really, really hated Spacemen 3, and Sonic Boom in particular, this compilation was going to contain two major let-downs.

The only thing that sets "Angel" apart from the shimmering, heat-haze psychedelia of "Hypnotised" is its relative minimalism. Beginning with what sounds uncannily like a basic click track and a very simplistic guitar line, "Angel" gradually climbs a monumental hill before hitting a mournful church organ and gospel influenced vocals at the end. Proof positive that the "spiritual" element of Spacemen 3 was by no means entirely Jason Pierce's trademark (though he apparently helped out on this track) "Angel" really howls as it moves with its head bowed down the old gospel road.

Lyrically, the track appears to be a tribute to a recently deceased friend, but there's little information available on who it might be, or why this track didn't feature on a standard Spacemen 3 album. It's unsafe to assume, but it seems fairly likely that this was simply a very personal record for Peter Kember.



2. Loop - Arc-Lite (Chapter 22)

"Arc-Lite captures the noise of a motorbike chain deep in swampland and revving into the red, a frictional mesh of metal and rock that won't rub down. Like nothing on earth and out of this world" - Melody Maker 2.12.89.

Melody Maker's journalists and critics sometimes wrote some absolute tosh about records, but that's one of the best summaries of the sound of "Arc-Lite" I think I'm ever likely to read, and no, I can't top it across a few paragraphs.

In the same way that The Kinks "You Really Got Me" had a churning great stop-start primal riff at its very foundations, "Arc-Lite" is the pounding, crashing Suicide-influenced late eighties vision. From the booming, chugging drums to the howled, distant vocals, seemingly lost in a wind-tunnel, this is simultaneously brutal and hypnotic, and certainly an acquired taste.

The video was played on "The Chart Show" and featured Loop standing around with their long manes of hair in the wind near the then-derelict land at the London Docklands. Both the video and the song remind me of a distant time when the visual and musical landscape of London was entirely different - brash rather than flash, with lots of rubble and hard edges. How far we've come since. Or not, as the case might be.



3. The Telescopes - To Kill A Slow Girl Walking (What Goes On)

"...is like a sarcastic approach to religion. Well, not so much religion as people who easily led, y'know, people in a flock looking for a shepherd, people who don't think for themselves looking for a new Messiah all the time" - Steve Lawrie, Feb '90.

With an opening of ear-splitting white noise created seemingly by the entire band thrashing on their instruments, "To Kill A Slow Girl Walking" continues with a swaggering riff and sneering vocals, only to punctuated by more white noise at regular intervals. It's a thrilling burst of arrogant rock and roll which has one foot in Loop's world, another in the land of the MC5 and The Stooges.

The Telescopes would later steadily become more psychedelic and were even occasionally tagged as part of the Shoegazing movement, but "To Kill" shows that there was a roughness and a rawness to their sound as well which very few of those bands had in the early nineties. This has stood the test of time unbelievably well, and still manages to sound extraordinary.



4. Thee Hypnotics - Earth Blues (Situation Two)

"Throws The Who and the early Stones together and adds a rare sense of soul. Thee Hypnotics blast the blues into the nineties!"

Raw, ragged and furious, "Earth Blues" doesn't feature any kind of progression in the sound Thee Hypnotics had when we last encountered them, but is a reliable continuation of their scuzzed up garage noise. What's thrilling about is that it sounds so incredibly spontaneous. There's no sense that the group aren't hanging the whole performance together on a frayed piece of rope, and at its best, that adrenalised feeling a band has when they're playing free and loose can be very contagious. "Earth Blues" isn't a neat, structured piece of songwriting, but it's the sound of some strong musicians tearing the place up. Nothing wrong with that.