Indie Top Video Take Six (inc Cranes, Manic Street Preachers, No-Man) & Best of Indie Top Video

Year of Release: 1991

Unless someone can prove otherwise, I'm pretty sure that these were the last two videos issued in the "Indie Top 20" series. The idea was becoming increasingly unpopular and they were starting to get stocked in fewer places. As nice an idea as these VHS views into the world of independent music were, it has to be said that their appeal was somewhat limited and their novelty waned quickly. Bands on independent labels were generally not cash-rich (the likes of Depeche Mode and New Order aside) and their promo videos could occasionally be inventive, but were frequently basic afterthoughts, swiftly cobbled together moving images created with the half-hearted hope of getting a slot on Saturday morning TV or MTV's "120 Minutes".

Even I'd given up by "Take Six". As much as I love "Spirit" by The Bridewell Taxis, for example, and I think the band-made promo is a lovely example of what a group can produce under their own creative steam, it's hardly "True Faith". There was little point in spending money on buying these videos if I was only likely to watch them three times then never really look at them again.

The sales slump for these is most apparent when you consider the relative scarcity of "The Best of Indie Top Video", the companion piece to the best-selling "Best Of" album. Discogs doesn't list it, and it turns up on ebay extremely infrequently these days. So rare is it that I had to actually go fishing and ask reader Gareth Windbank (who has his own copy) what the tracklisting even was. Thanks to him for his help in putting this entry together. It has to be said that the contents explain its low sales - there are no bonus tracks at all and most of the contents had only recently been released on other Indie Top Video volumes.

The same rules as always apply to this entry. If it's a bonus video not featured on the main vinyl/ cassette/ CD series, I'll discuss it in more depth. If it's not, I'll link back to the blog entry the track relates to.

Take Six

1. The Charlatans - Then (Dead Dead Good)

2. My Jealous God - Pray (Rough Trade)

3. The Bridewell Taxis - Spirit (Stolen)

4. Pale Saints - Half-Life Remembered (4AD)

5. Teenage Fanclub - God Knows It's True (Paperhouse)

6. Carter USM - Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere (Rough Trade)

7. Buffalo Tom - Birdbrain (4AD)

8. Cranes - I Hope (Dedicated) - bonus video

So the question of the day was: Were Portsmouth's Cranes really a shoegazing band, or a goth group who had somehow trojan horsed their way on to the indie circuit? Similar criticisms were hurled in the direction of Curve, who we've yet to discuss, but Cranes were wildly different to them. While Toni Halliday softly cooed her threats and warped ideas, Alison Shaw squawked and gurgled them like a small girl cornered by something unthinkable. Her vocal performances were such that even when the group were at their most delicate and intricate, they still managed to sound somewhat unsettling.

"I Hope" is particularly horrible in a fascinating way. Discords, pounding tribal drums and meaty basslines meet Shaw's vocals to make the whole thing sound haunted or infected. It's disturbing in a way that the likes of Sisters of Mercy of Fields of the Nephilim never managed to be with their epic sound, but I suppose the main question should be whether I actually feel I need to hear it ever again -  and I don't think I do.

Unlike many of either their shoegazing or goth cousins, their unique sound also seemed to place Cranes at an awkward dead end in terms of influence - unless we count the eerie and childlike nature of 2016's great hopes Let's Eat Grandma, with whom they share a few stylistic similarities.

As a post-script, I'll add that when I lived in Portsmouth I saw Alison Shaw walking towards me along Commercial Road once, didn't fully process where I knew her from, wrongly assumed that it was from some unidentifiable place in my social life, and smiled in what I hoped was a friendly way. She looked at me in a very confused fashion, scowled and then carried on about her business... and then it registered with me that I only knew her from copies of the NME and episodes of "The Chart Show". Oops.



9. Manic Street Preachers - Motown Junk (Heavenly) - bonus video

There were lots of us who weren't wholly convinced by the Manic Street Preachers early on. Steve Lamacq, for example, whose line of questioning perturbed Richey Edwards so much that he carved "4 Real" into his forearm to prove the group were the genuine article. Then, in the world outside the media, there were people like me who felt we were possibly being fleeced. This has become an inexcusable, unthinkable stance in the years since, and the revised history would suggest that we were all introduced to their genius and immediately bowled over.

What you thought of them probably depended a lot on how old you were, and how many of their influences you had already absorbed or rejected, and I really have to be clear about this - by 1991, a sloganeering male rock group festooned in make-up and fake leopardskin clothes was already, well... slightly suspect and distinctly out of step with the times. Small independent rock labels like FM and Music For Nations had already mass-marketed lots of UK smalltown glamorous rock and glam metal acts abroad, and while the Manics always were more intelligent, more broadly influenced and nuanced and less downright silly than either them or the cock rock acts, it was bound to sit uncomfortably with those of us who had already suffered years of torture. Let's just say that in 1990, if you turned up at your local niterie wearing make-up with carefully sprayed hair and a leopardskin coat and shades, nobody thought you were a fan of the Manics. Everybody would have assumed your interests lay with a glam rock band instead. That the band's fans now frequently dress like this and have managed to turn it into an instantly recognisable identifying factor is a testament to how huge and overpowering the Manics influence has become.

Second issue; the punk influences. Birdland had already tried this and failed to make an impact, and everyone had since moved on to different styles. It's hard to imagine this since they've been co-opted into rock's mainstream, but The Stone Roses were insurrectionary in an odd and different way, and in a manner that didn't involve barking slogans to three thrashed chords. They referenced ideas like the 1968 Paris riots in a nuanced and faintly surreal way, and splashed themselves with Pollock paint rather than spray-on slogans. Were they more literate than the Manics? No, but they were usually more imaginative.

And finally; the fact that the band were frequently feted as intelligent lyricists and erudite men, while quoting GCSE syllabus standards like Sylvia Plath in interviews, or widely acclaimed modern authors. They were tasteful and seldom mentioned anyone whose work was terrible, but at the time it seemed self-conscious, obvious, afraid to be too different or wrong, worried about potentially alienating a young audience with difficult ideas. In short, it seemed a bit calculated. It wasn't as if the early nineties lacked literate groups, intellectual gobshites or intelligent lyricists in any case. This was an age of Cathal Coughlan, Luke Haines, Nick Cave, even Mark E Smith... it didn't really need someone wearing glam outfits and quoting Plath. Did it?

So you could say I wasn't an instant convert to the Manics. I prodded at their work suspiciously with sticks. I took badly to the sheer self-importance of their proclamations, and the vulgar bullshit about recording a 16 million selling debut album then splitting up (I don't despise ambition, but come on, that's just an idle brag worthy of Donald Trump, only he would probably add "Then I'll invest and make serious money out of property"). But still... I had to admit that "Motown Junk" was an incredible force and an amazing single. An astonishing track with essentially not much at all behind it, to the extent that it's miraculous it actually holds together. The chorus hangs on one single chord and the chant of "Motown Junk!" continuously, before finding a second chord right at the last moment, releasing the pent-up tension instantly. The rest of the track is a furious thrash, an accomplished modernisation of punk, far superior to "Hollow Heart". Really, the Manics were closer to the destructive pop art of The Who than Birdland's beery, devil-may-care mayhem.

Lyrically it's less compelling than their later work. The line "I laughed when Lennon got shot" is clearly there just to grab attention, and "We live in urban hell/ we destroy rock and roll" at the end could have come from a 1977 punk B-side (and anyway, we all knew they didn't live in urban hell - they were from Blackwood). But it's a mish-mash of ideas, a montage of definitively Manics images, and as such a fine introduction, a clarion call, a torch beckoning bored, bookish suburban kids to its flame. A broad part of their appeal at the time seemed to be that the film the young Manics imagined they were living through inside their own heads was also an exaggerated visual idea shared by bored fantasising Home Counties kids, or teenagers in market towns in the middle of nowhere - the inauthenticity of it mattered little for as long as their fantasy visions meshed. Suede would later on present a differently seedy yet oddly glamorous dreamworld to a similar cult effect.

Me? I'd admire this at the time, but go back to my Fatima Mansions LPs, and the twisted journey of the KLF. The former seemed more literate and imaginative in their protest (but way less glamorous) the latter more exciting, unorthodox and unpredictable. Those two bands did a lot to get me through my teenage years in commuterville, whereas the Manics wouldn't really impact on me as much. But I couldn't look away either... and I do still own their first five albums, and my relationship with the group would become less doubtful and troubled as time went on.



10. Front 242 - Tragedy For You (RRE)

11. New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Fishes Eyes (PIAS)

12. Flowered Up - Phobia (Heavenly)

13. No-Man - Colours (Probe Plus) - bonus track

The vaguely uncategorisable yet frequently dreamy No-Man hailed from Hemel Hempstead, and combined funky or jazzy breaks with classical inspired violin lines, breathy vocals and a psychedelic feel. Proto-Trip Hop they weren't, however - they were more wistful and comfortable than that.

Like Porcupine Tree, No Man also weren't really much of a part of the baggy movement despite their blissed-out leanings. Rather, they were out on their own presenting a cosy, hushed, rural presentation of neo-psychedelia, one where you might find yourself tripping in a barn while Classic FM leaks out from your portable transistor radio.

"Colours" is a cover of the Donovan track and was released during a point when that man's reputation was enjoying a brief and seemingly yet-to-be-repeated revival. His daughter was in a relationship with Shaun Ryder, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" had been covered by the Butthole Surfers, and although comedians Trevor and Simon saw fit to pastiche his work on Saturday morning children's television -a baffling situation whose nearest modern equivalent would probably be children's entertainers parodying Tim Booth out of James today - that only seemed to increase his visibility still more. For a few moments in the early nineties, Donovan felt ever-present and almost contemporary.

Whether "Colours" works for you in this guise depends a great deal on whether you like the original, and to be honest, I don't very much. It's too much of a simplistic, rural, cornball Bob Dylan imitation, and even with beats and an added ambient atmosphere can't help but feel slight. There's no question that a lot of Donovan's work deserves to be dug up and taken seriously again, mind you - the proto-Nick Drakeisms of "Sunny Goodge Street" alone rank as one fuck of an achievement - but this isn't where I'd personally start, and No-Man can't save it.



14. Moonflowers - Get Higher (Heavenly)

And finally - "The Best Of Indie Top Video" looks like this:

1. The Farm - Stepping Stone (Produce)

2. The Shamen - Omega Amigo (One Little Indian)

3. New Order - Fine Time (Factory)

4. Soup Dragons - Mother Universe (Big Life)

5. The Charlatans - The Only One I Know (Situation Two)

6. The Sundays - Joy (Rough Trade)

7. Lightning Seeds - Pure (Ghetto)

8. Kitchens of Distinction - Elephantine (One Little Indian)

9. Eat - Psycho Couch (Non-Fiction)

10. Wedding Present - Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now (Reception)

11. Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One (Chapter 22)

12. Danielle Dax - White Knuckle Ride (Awesome)

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

14. Loop - Collision (Chapter 22)

15. Carter USM - Bloodsport For All (Rough Trade)

Volume Eleven Side Four - Front 242, Boo Radleys, Bleach, Buffalo Tom, Pixies

1. Front 242 - Tragedy >For You< (RRE)

"Front 242 -Satisfying feelings and imagination, superseding the unity of body and mind. The single 'Tragedy >For You<' announced the release of the album 'Tyranny >For You<'".

Ooh, they're a bit riled. Front 242 make their first appearance on "Indie Top 20" since Volume Seven with a piece of dystopian industrialism that sounds like someone's kicked over a hive filled with battery-operated robot bees. Whatever they are. Unlike many of their contemporaries, however, Front 242 possess an ability to sugar the pill with various melodic fanfares and flourishes, each one sounding more welcome than the last. The track judders to a broken halt on one of them at the tail end, perhaps trying to prove to us that the ugliness will always win out.

"Tragedy >For You<" (and I quite like the over-emphasis on who the tragedy is being aimed it there) does get a tad silly in places, though, with lines like "I still feel disemboweled" and "The sore in my soul/ the mark in my heart/ her acid reign", even if the latter does sound as if it could have been adopted and used within a different context by Brett Anderson a couple of years down the line. Subtlety was not Front 242's strong suit, and in the end you can only enjoy this for what it is - a ferocious and threatening bit of electronic noise. It's really not everyone's bag, but whenever I revisit their work I always find myself enjoying it more than I thought I would.



2. The Boo Radleys - Kaleidoscope (Rough Trade)

"In fact 'Kaleidoscope', 'Aldous' and 'Swansong' are as crucial as anything made in the name of noise and beauty over the last two years" - Paul Lester - Melody Maker.

There's been a slightly unusual approach taken to The Boo Radleys back catalogue over the last fifteen or so years, which seems to take the view that anything they released before "Giant Steps" should be avoided as amateur adolescent doodlings. The band may have been largely to blame for this, making unflattering comparisons to their early work, but the music press didn't help matters much either. For a brief period, the NME mockingly dubbed them the "Do Badlys" on account of their limited commercial appeal and also the fact that they were the low budget also-rans of the shoegazing scene.

One listen to "Kaleidoscope", however, will prove to you that whatever goodness was apparent on "Giant Steps" had almost flowered during their Rough Trade years. Beneath the downright messy production here lies a sweet and seductive melody, growling guitars with beautiful riffs intertwining with each other, and a low budget psychedelic soup of swirling prettiness. It's easy to overlook this and "Everybird" while sifting through their canon, but both tracks could, with a few production tweaks, have equally happily sat on "Giant Steps" without anyone batting an eyelid.

This is their first appearance on the "Indie Top 20" series, and their peculiar career path also makes them the first Britpop band to appear on one of these compilations - although at this point, the noise they were making was such a far cry from the singles they put out in 1995 that it's safe to argue that this isn't the first appearance of any kind of Britpop "sound".



3. Bleach - Decadence (Way Cool) - Vinyl and cassette only

"...makes me think of jets streaming their way through clouds of white and grey, and of guitars imploding under their own power" - Everett True - Melody Maker. 

Far more than The Boo Radleys, Ipswich's Bleach were considered a proper, serious shoegazing proposition, a band who were likely to pick themselves up from the pub circuit to make all sorts of interesting unimaginable transcendent noises. Everett True faithfully sums up some of the early press gushings in his quote above. It really didn't work out as everyone expected. The band made all sorts of rum decisions such as rapping over shoegazing noises on "Shotgun", or splitting their 1992 album recording sessions into two LPs, "Hard" and "Fast", and while they were uncompromising, they were also quite a bit flawed. The Boo Radleys would develop and grow and experiment to a generally positive effect, whereas Bleach didn't really push the envelope so much as playfully doodle a bit around its edges.

Unlike a lot of the bands making similar noises at the time, Bleach did have a charismatic lead singer in Salli Carson, though, whose moody gaze peered from many a provincial gig venue's stage, making the group seem a bit more dark and mysterious than I suspect they really were.

As for "Decadence", I'm afraid I don't really get it. Under-produced, underpowered, immensely repetitious and held together by an unshifting and simplistic rhythm at its foundations, it really is a bit dull. They would go on to release better work, but from this, it's really hard to hear what all the early fuss was about.



4. Buffalo Tom - Birdbrain (Situation Two)

"...smears your ears and leaves your nose runny. A big cacophony with a buried melody and bountiful beat - delightful!" - Liz Evans, Raw. 

"Birdbrain" introduces itself with a bruising, almost glam rock, riff before the vocals bark in demandingly. If you thought they might be throwing away their strongest cards before the song really gets going, however, it carries on its goodness from there forth, holding its nerve and occasionally sticking its head into sunshine streaked melodies in the chorus.

Buffalo Tom were an odd group whose initial appeal appeared to lie in their associations with Dinosaur Jr and the American underground rock scene, but actually had some very trad rock ideas at their heart. While "Birdbrain" gnashes and grinds away, future singles such as "Tailights Fade" were seeped in an almost Springsteen-esque American melodrama, and it was this - rather than their slightly grungey leanings - which assured them a strong cult fanbase from 1990 until close to the end of the decade.

They even managed a top ten hit in the UK by default in 1999, with their unconventional cover of The Jam's "Going Underground", though it wouldn't be unfair to say that this almost certainly would have been lucky to climb so high had it not shared vinyl space alongside a Liam Gallagher cover of "Carnations" as well.



5. Pixies - Dig For Fire (4AD)

"Remixed from the LP 'Bossanova'"

While we're on the subject, while we know and love Pixies for their own particularly sharp-toothed barks of surrealism, they too occasionally showed a conventional edge. On "Doolittle" this was showcased by the almost Monkees-esque Saturday afternoon cheer of "Here Comes Your Man" - the track that got your parent's ears pricking upwards and saying "Ooh, who're these? They're good!" On "Bossanova" "Dig For Fire" takes a similar pop-rock tack, this time seeming like some kind of seventies Top 20 anthem. In fact, while I frequently struggle to get fans of the group to agree with me on this point, elements of the guitar runs veer close to the "If we ever get out of here" element of Wings "Band On The Run", something that was apparent to me on the very first listen and I've never been able to shift from my brain since.

"Dig For Fire" proved that Frank Black was actually a damn good songsmith, not just someone who could make a bloody fine and occasionally peculiar noise. It's a rollicking good listen, but unfortunately the stadium chant nature of the chorus causes its obvious charms - and it has many, including those chiming guitar lines and stomping rhythms - to wane more quickly than they would on most Pixies tracks. This is something I played to death in 1990, then didn't return to very often subsequently. Still, the thrills are there to be had for a while.

Volume Eleven Side Three - Charlatans, Teenage Fanclub, Pale Saints, Welfare Heroine, The Shamen

1. The Charlatans - Then (Dead Dead Good/ Situation Two)

"Excellent follow-up to their hit earlier in the year. Outstanding, a massive hit that should establish Northwich's finest as a major band".

It wouldn't have been illogical to expect another juddering piece of catchy organ-driven indie as a follow-up to the hugely successful "The Only One I Know", but "Then" took people by surprise in 1990. While it was still a bit of a smash by indie standards - number 12 in the national charts isn't really to be sniffed at - it has a despairing dream-like quality to it, sounding like the soundtrack to someone's slow-motion meltdown.

It is beautiful for all that, though, and the misty, blurry sound to this showed that there was far more to The Charlatans than foot-tapping retro pop. In "Then", they had also managed to create a piece of atmospheric indie which, while not being overly similar to the likes of Ride, Lush or Slowdive, certainly had a similar tripped-out, steadily building ethereal nature at its roots.

Frustratingly, despite the fact that it was a reasonably big seller at the time by indie standards, "Then" is very infrequently heard on the radio now, with programmers tending to skim past all the post-"Only One I Know" singles until they get closer to their more upbeat Britpop revival material ("Weirdo" occasionally excepted). This does the group a disservice, as they're much more versatile than they've generally been given credit for. Three singles down the line, and they'd already managed to show us three very unique sides to their personalities.



2. Teenage Fanclub - God Knows It's True (Paperhouse)

"Jack Black - it's good for singing, guitaring, and playing the drums." - Don Flemming

This remains one of my favourite Teenage Fanclub tracks. It sounds amazing from the first second - starting off with that buzzing guitar riff, then steadily building to a clattering, pissed off anthem of betrayal, it's the halfway house where the moody melodies of "April Skies" era Mary Chain meet with American underground rock and Big Star. From the sulking chorus right up to the basic but marvellous guitar outro, it feels oddly effortless and yet wonderfully constructed. If anyone had dismissed Teenage Fanclub as being a scratchy indie band, this was the point at which they would be proven wrong - and things would get better and more powerful over the coming years.

The group were about to up sticks and sign to Creation in the UK and Geffen in the US, and while they never quite achieved the commercial wonders many predicted (it's often forgotten that circa "Bandwagonesque", they really were regarded as possible future stars) a string of acclaimed albums and moderate hits would ensure that their legacy would be the envy of many of their peers. Staying respected and relevant twenty-five years down the line is arguably preferable to stadium success followed by rapid burn-out.



3. Pale Saints - Half Life Remembered (4AD)

"Gustav Holst is the horse's mouth in whose saliva we take our baths".

If "Sight Of You" had been maudlin, "Half Life Remembered" is disorientating and slightly frightening, from its strange video featuring dated psychedelic effects and an overload of custard, pasta and beans and dentistry related nightmares, to the track itself - airy vocals meeting a vaguely threatening and malevolent melody. "It's eating you away, and some will never know its taste" we're informed, while ambitious drum patterns smash around and angelic female vocals coo along.

To all intents and purposes, "Half Life Remembered" really is Pale Saint's equivalent of "White Rabbit", and is so obviously about hallucinogenic matters that it would have been banned in a less enlightened age. While psychedelic ideas were incredibly prevalent in this period through the noises of both the so-called Madchester bands and the shoegazing stars, this really was unbelievably explicit. When they're not twanging away in an early sixties style, even the guitar riffs veer close towards sitar-mimicking scales in places. Far out, man.

But it's unbelievably good. It could make the mistake of spanning ten minutes and repeating its best ideas endlessly, but instead, for four and a half minutes, it's an interesting and ever-evolving piece of wonky pop that explores every possible melodic nook and cranny.

The Pale Saints always were one of the more interesting and inventive groups in the so-called shoegazing movement, which makes it strange that they appear to be less raved about during the present revival.



4. Welfare Heroine - Cry - Blood (Dub) (Non-Fiction)

"It's hopelessly sad, hopelessly lonely, probing, while always attempting optimism... but already I can feel tears pricking my eyelids, more of an emotion than a song".

A real oddity of the period, "Cry - Blood" mixed Gregorian monk chanting with a post-punk dub sensibility. While it was released slightly before Enigma's "Sadeness" which unexpectedly rose to Number One in the early part of 1991, its subsequent credibility has nonetheless probably been slightly damaged by the obvious similarities.

Nonetheless, it's an incredibly uncommercial slice of minimalism which finds its groove early on and remains firmly locked into it. The shuffling rhythm is pure 1990, it's only the deep dub basslines and faintly jazzy riffs which make it sound outside of anything else being produced at this point.

Welfare Heroine consisted of NME journalist Dele Fadele - so the fact the track earned an NME single of the week is slightly suspect, to be frank - Dave Egan and Ian Jones. Like their labelmates The Honey Smugglers, they were very quickly dropped from Fiction's slightly half-arsed Non-Fiction subsidiary label after a couple of singles and left to fend for themselves.



5. The Shamen - Oxygen Restriction (One Little Indian)

"A sub bass collision with techno pop minimalism... but Teutonic it ain't"

The Shamen's unbroken run of tracks on the "Indie Top 20" series starts at Volume Three and ends right here, and it's been possible to track their evolution right through that period, from politically outspoken psychedelic guitar noiseniks to disco biscuit spiritualists. Seldom has one band changed their style so much and so recognisably in such a short space of time.

By this point, the group were poised to take on the world. "Oxygen Restriction" was a track on their LP "Entact" and was not actually released as a single, so it's hard to hear the commercial chops they had developed; but if you were in any doubt, "Ebeneezer Goode" wasn't terribly far around the corner.

As for "Oxygen Restriction", it is indeed a stripped back and bare piece of techno which judders by at a mid-tempo without leaving an enormous impression. It seems to have been dropped on to "Volume Eleven" of this LP to take advantage of The Shamen's rapidly growing reputation at this point. And perhaps, of course, it would have been a horrible pity to have left them off the tracklisting, since they had been such mainstays until this point.

By Volume Twelve, however, we will find ourselves doing without them.

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Volume Eleven Side Two - Honey Smugglers, Cud, Rig, Upholstered Eldorados, Iggy Pop, Moonflowers

1. The Honey Smugglers - Listen (Non-Fiction)

"A bad trip burnout, it's an acid splash that justifies the existence of the southeast. Like swimming in treacle."

If I were to lean towards one record which proved that a lot of southern bands simply boarded the baggy express too late, it would probably be this one. It's the first case for the defence, to which there can surely be no justifiable answer. "Listen" is just wonderful - beginning with an ominous, low atmospheric hum, the droning of an organ, a creeping bassline and a shuffling rhythm, it slowly builds into a furious and almost jazzy pean to defiance, possibly against insurmountable pressures. "Listen!" begs lead singer Chris Spence. "It's just the sunset glowing/ doesn't mean your life is fading/ no it's just the day unfolding". Perhaps the liner notes above hit the nail completely on the head by suggesting it may even be about a bad trip burnout. The track pleads desperately, possibly trying to persuade itself as much as anyone else.

Whatever our interpretation of it, it remains one of the finest indie singles of that unique little period. Dynamic sounding, epic, scaling and strangely soulful without once seeming pretentious or preposterous, it deserved to be huge but never broke through. Fiction Records got cold feet, dropped the group, and even when they managed to sign a new deal with Ultimate Records they never quite had the same profile or momentum ever again.

Years later, Dom Joly would give this track a home on the soundtrack of his "Trigger Happy TV" series, possibly one of the most honourable gestures he's ever made. It really didn't deserve to languish in obscurity, and the fact that it has now become one of the main "go-to" obscure nineties indie tracks every blogger says they love (other contender for the title - Bang Bang Machine's "Geek Love") is perhaps some consolation to a group who could achieved a lot more.



2. Cud - Magic (Imaginary)

"Here we find the original recording of 'Magic' from Cud's acclaimed second LP 'Leggy Mambo'. Stockport and Farsley reworkings of this track, care of Messrs. Creffield, Nagle and Nagle are featured on their current 45 release".

Cud became cult indie sensations in 1989 with their eccentric debut LP "When In Rome Kill Me", a concept record about a sly old cad of a murderer, complete with acted interludes between the tracks. "Only (A Prawn In Whitby)" from that LP (apparently about a real-life incident where the vegetarian Morrissey was caught dining on seafood in that town) became popular enough with the indie crowd at the time to score a place in the top twenty of Peel's Festive Fifty. It's an utter corker of a track, actually, with its buzzy folky fiddliness colliding bizarrely with an early Roxy Music feel, like Brian Eno being parachuted into the Oyster Band. It sounded like little else in 1989, and still seems incredibly angular to this day.

By the point of the release of this single, however, Cud had adopted some of the shuffling rhythms of their immediate peers, and "Magic" is probably closer to "Love Is The Drug" than "Virginia Plain" if we wanted to continue the Roxy comparisons (and I don't feel we necessarily should). It's a slick and finely oiled little single which sounds as if it could have been a hit had it been performed by another band with a greater profile in another era. Snaking, subtle and seductive grooves are the order of the day, and for five minutes you too can believe that Ilford's finest indie sensation (after Louise Wener) Carl Puttnam was the nineties greatest loverman.

Cud would go on to ink a major label deal, but in reality the chequebooks came out arguably too soon. Their flamboyant thrift shop style and quirky seventies-inspired grooves would actually have made a lot more sense at the height of Britpop, and while numerous attempts were made in the music press to make them stars - with the feeble invention of the "Lion Pop" genre being perhaps the most memorable - they remained appreciated only by a select crowd, with their most well-known singles achieving only modest low Top 30 places. Their LP "Asquarius" sits on my shelf at home and remains one of the most commented on records I own by friends, however, with many exclamations of "Oh fantastic! You own THAT one!" Their moment for reappraisal may well be overdue.



3. Rig - Moody 'Live' (Sub Rubber) - vinyl and cassette only

"...is taken from Rig's 'Moody' white label, their first single following their debut release 'dig' on the now-demised Cut Deep label. The track was originally recorded by ESG and produced by Martin Hannett in 1980, but don't worry about it".

Well, here we have it. Arguably one of the most obscure tracks ever to find a slot on the "Indie Top 20" series, a record which has fallen so utterly by the wayside that I've had to upload it to YouTube myself just now.

Rig were one of the many bands of the era to be touted by the inky music press who went on to sell very few records indeed. After "Moody" was put out as a limited pressing white label, the group moved on to the Charlatans-affiliated Dead Dead Good label, where they managed two other singles ("Big Head" and "Spank") which also failed to attract much interest.

As for "Moody", it's a slow, minimal and dark piece of funk complete with wah wah guitars and metronomic, thudding rhythms. It's about as uncommercial as indie-dance ever got, not due to the presence of any wild experimentation, but because of the absolute minimalism of the idea. It's rich in atmosphere, but ultimately low on hooks or even energy, being just one big thudding, groovy grey sulk committed to 12" single.

If that's your kind of thing, you might love this. I, on the other hand, have to admit that it leaves me rather cold, moving neither my feet, heart or mind. It feels like it needs to be sped up.

The original, on the other hand, is (like a lot of ESG's work) brilliantly urgent sounding, and well worth your time.



4. Upholstered Edlorados - I Wanna Talk Like Iggy Pop (Box 52) - vinyl and cassette only

"Vocals Helen Shaw (lead vocalist on last summer's "Nothing Compares 2 U" by Powerjam). Keyboards by Andy Stennet (formerly founder member of Freeeze who had top 10 hits with "Southern Freez" and "IOU"). Produced and mixed by Andy Stennett and Barry Durdant-Hollamby who have had 30 releases in the last 18 months under various different pseudonyms including Hard Times, Sound Of The Underground, Elle, Bam, Colours, Powerjam, etc."

This is the one and only time Iggy Pop features on the "Indie Top 20" series, and the reasons are thoroughly absurd. Absolutely all the lead vocals for this track were culled from an edition of Radio One's Roundtable where he was a guest reviewer of the latest singles releases, and the lyrics are simply found snippets of conversation where Pop frequently bemoans the state of pop. Possibly my favourite moment in the whole song is when Helen Shaw tries to "sing along" to his studio chatter, to fantastic comedic effect.

This was something of a cult club hit at the time, and obviously a one-off for all concerned - Iggy loved the track and gave it his blessing, but obviously didn't work with the individuals behind it in any other capacity, and they in turn presumably moved on to whatever their next DJ/ studio project was. Musically, it's a bit of a treat too - its early nineties, baggy-ish groove ensured that it worked on the dancefloors of some of the more open-minded "proper" clubs as well as out there in the sticky cider-stained floors of indieville.

While copies of this seem relatively easy to come by these days, and it clearly sold moderately well, it's become one of those long-forgotten novelty dance records which most people have forgotten about. But I think we'd all do very well to remember....



5. Moonflowers - Get Higher (Heavenly)

"We dig your earth".

Amidst the ecstacy based revelry of the early nineties, the spectre of the Festival/ Free Party Band promptly rose up again out of nowhere, as if the biggest hippy excesses of the late sixties and early seventies had been reactivated by an evil scientist. Endless amounts of groups toured the country in transit vans, pulling into the next official or unofficial festival or free party to play to the latest gang of travellers and hairies, as well as pulling up outside small Camden gig venues and squats to treat the rest of the public to their noise.

Some of these bands were rustic and folk influenced (The Levellers), some were naive, shouty, shambolic and actually fucking unbearable despite their best intentions (Back To The Planet), others performed strangely psychedelic techno-inspired noises, and others, like The Moonflowers, seemed to be an amalgamation of anything they'd accidentally hoovered through their ears on their travels through life. It has to be said, while some of the music emerging from the crusty movement was more agitated and faintly depressing than energising, The Moonflowers had both a jazzy and funky edge to a lot of their work. There's a sense of playfulness about it which was somewhat absent from a lot of the music of this period. You suspect that the main thing they were interested in was getting an audience to have a ridiculous and memorable time, rather than rise to the level of legends or magazine cover stars.

"Get Higher" is sweet and relatively simple, and sounds alarmingly Madchester at times, and also pulls on the traditions of seventies funk very effectively. Here, they almost sound like a particularly stoned, backwater English hippy version of Sly and the Family Stone.

Indie Top 20 Vol 11 - Side One - Carter USM, My Jealous God, Bridewell Taxis, New FADS, Flowered Up

Format: Double LP/ Cassette/ CD
Year of Release: 1991

Volume 11 is a seriously odd compilation, consisting largely of up-and-coming bands who never quite arrived at their intended destinations and lesser-remembered, mid-ranking tracks by known names.

"Indie Top 20" as a series did occasionally put out LPs where the hit-to-miss ratio leant more towards "miss" than usual, and it often seems to be for a mix of reasons. For starters, one of the jobs of the series was to introduce us to new talent in the hope that these acts would at the very least become cult heroes. Their tracks would sit on the LPs alongside press darlings and established indie acts. Overall, the series usually did an uncanny job of getting a tricky balance right, but when trends were changing or the tide was going out against alternative music, they sometimes responded in a very confused fashion.

Volume 11, then, seems to have been released on the assumption that indie-dance would remain big news throughout the whole of 1991, when in reality people were starting to turn their backs and move on. This wasn't an unreasonable response on Beechwood Music's part, and they were far from alone in getting things wrong. The IPC music press also took punts on all manner of groups using shuffling beats and funky rhythms who failed to make any real headway, to the extent that readers wrote into their letters pages to openly mock them. Every movement has its crunch point when almost all the vaguely relevant acts get snapped up, and that's usually the moment it also all turns sour.

To understand how all parties managed to get it so particularly wrong, you have to remember that the timelines for baggy were unexpectedly short (by my reckoning at least) rivalling late sixties psychedelia for overground brevity. It rose into the mainstream in 1989 and had largely dipped back under again by the end of '91, causing many major labels to check the contracts of all the bands with wah-wah pedals and organs they'd only recently signed up. On a personal level, this was hugely frustrating for me. Not only was I managing to sneak inside alternative nightclubs just as the music was changing from an exciting mix of danceable sounds back into dreary rock orthodoxy, but I had local friends and friends-of-friends in indie-dance bands who were the toast of the regional press and had A&R interest one minute, then were suddenly abandoned by everyone the next (and you have to remember that bands Down South were much slower to jump on the Groovy Train). I can clearly remember being told enthusiastically "You'll love this new local band My Life Story! They sound a lot like James!" Jake Shillingford would obviously move house, look for new musicians in a new location, and have better luck later on in the decade. Only those willing to reinvent themselves would live to fight new battles another day.

I got to witness the harsh luck and unfairness that could befall perfectly good bands at a very young age. A number of strong demos by promising bands were washed out to sea on the incoming tide of shoegazing and grunge, and there's probably a perfectly respectable series of rarities compilations somebody could squeeze out of the scene if they were so minded. There was a sense - on my part at least - that the party had ended before its natural moment.

Regardless of this, Volume 11 was also a landmark LP for two other reasons - it was the last to feature the familiar vertical Indie Top 20 logo along the left-hand side of the sleeve. It was also the last to be compiled by Chet and Bee. Whether that was because Volume 11 had a lower strike rate than other LPs and they felt it was now time to hand the reigns over to someone else, or for other reasons, I know not.

That said, the differing range of styles on offer between Volume 11 and 12 isn't as sharp or as notable as you'd expect, and a number of acts managed to cling on a while longer - but the times they were a-changin, and a-changin fast.

Don't let what I've said above put you off reading about Volume 11, though. There's some very good, and some highly unusual stuff on offer here, even if some of it is so completely obscure that it does look as if I'm going to have to do some vinyl rips for you all again for the first time since Volume 3. Grrr.

1. Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere (Rough Trade)

"Glorious, energetic, witty guys, who happen to write great tunes with terrific lyrics. Watch them explode in '91" - Jonathan King, The Sun.

The quote above says it all. While I don't remember Carter responding to their recommendation in the Soaraway Sun with quite the same level of indignation that Cabbage did a few weeks ago, it was indicative that by this point, they were no longer those two funny shouty men with a drum machine from the London pub circuit. They were a serious proposition.

Even with Jonathan King's recommendation, though, I suspect that a few of us (me included) couldn't quite believe that Carter would ever be more than a cult band. They neither looked or sounded the part, had a noticeable disrespect for the mainstream, wrote harsh lyrical observations on all number of awkward topics, and quite frankly weren't an easy sell. But rise up they did, signing to Chrysalis Records, releasing a number one LP, rugby tackling Philip Schofield live on national television, inspiring outraged tabloid newspaper headlines, many reeking of bullshit (headlines about their secret South London "swanky pads" turned out to be false, as if anybody hadn't guessed that in the first place) and... essentially, living a life with all the benefits and trappings of pop stardom. That this has become largely forgotten by the media in the years since means I almost feel as if I'm spinning younger or non-UK readers a ridiculous yarn. Indeed, my Canadian wife struggles to believe me when I try to emphasise how big Carter were for a brief period, which is probably why I seem so defensive now. It's become a habit.

"Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" was not their breakthrough single, however, and is actually probably one of the most uncommercial releases of their indie label period. Not only does the entire song seem to hang on a very doomy, dramatic and gothic five-note keyboard riff, it's also about alcoholism, attacking the misleading advertising of the alcohol industry in the process.

You don't need me to tell you that this isn't very rock and roll. While I could point to any number of examples of rock and popular music embracing and celebrating the allure of the alcoholic beverage - right down to Rolf Harris's "Nick Teen and Al K. Hall", for God's sake - very, very few songs have been released underlining the pitfalls and dangers, highlighting the vomit and the sleaze underlying the Martini cocktail lifestyle. "Try agrophobic, schizophrenic, paranoid attacks of panic!" snarls Jim Bob, "Or epileptic fits of laughter 25 million mornings after!"

While the track never quite set indie club dancefloors alight in the way "Bloodsport For All" or "Sheriff Fatman" managed, it apparently caused numerous recovering alcoholics to write to the pair thanking them for the song, with Jim Bob recently claiming that it was responsible for more mail than anything else they wrote. It remains a rare example of an anti-alcohol song in the rock canon, certainly outside of the straight edge scene anyway.

The sound of singing drunks at the start of this track also elicited an immediate response from my mother at the time. "What's that you're listening to?" she asked. "It sounds exactly like the drunks I used to hear in Stockwell when I was trying to get to sleep at night". So there you have it. My mum was referring to a council estate in Stockwell, and by doing so, was rubber-stamping this track as having an authentic working class South London soundtrack.

As for Carter's other work - sadly, we will be spending some time away from them after this, and when we next meet them, it will be when they're travelling in the opposite direction down towards the dumper.



2. My Jealous God - Pray (Rough Trade)

"Poignantly pretty, 'Pray' is a blissful bitter-sweet trance dance, an effortless groove and supremely natural" - Ian Gittins - Melody Maker.

My Jealous God's wah-wah guitar infested "Everything About You" emerged in 1990, and instantly shook up indie club dancefloors and caused a lot of major label A&R reps to begin tapping their wallets along to the groovy rhythms. Here was a band who were clearly bound for greatness. They were promptly groomed for stardom and released the follow-up "Pray" on Rough Trade to higher expectations while everyone watched excitedly.

Their chips were promptly pissed on by the combined effects of the financial problems Rough Trade were experiencing and the waning influence of indie-dance on the mainstream, and "Pray" did not get much attention outside the indie ghetto. The band would still jump ship to Fontana Records to release the rather Blurrish and actually really very good "Easy" as a major label debut, followed up with a reissue of "Pray" - but neither charted and they were dropped without an album ever seeing the light of day.

To be brutally frank, the fact that "Pray" is absolutely nothing special may also have been a factor in its muted reception. It's a slick and poppy piece of work with a somewhat middle-of-the-road production, sounding like a halfway house between Beats International and Blur, but having none of the hooks of the former or any of the charm, awkward edges or innovation of the latter. Why it needed to be released twice, apart from perhaps the fact that it sounded vogueish and accessible, is a mystery. It's not awful, but nor can I find anything to enthuse about here. One of those singles the word "Meh" was invented for.

Do check out "Easy" and "Everything About You", though - both show that My Jealous God were capable of better, and are enough to make me wonder about what that missing LP might have been like.



3. The Bridewell Taxis - Spirit (Stolen)

"...is Leeds' Bridewell Taxis third single from 1990, out on their own Stolen label, an album is scheduled for release soon!"

The Bridewell Taxis were another bunch of likely pop stars who were somewhat unfairly lumped in with the baggy scene. In fact, their influences were incredibly disparate and never short of interesting, seemingly taking in Northern Soul (unlike their funky rivals), indie-punk and even epic seventies rock as well as the baggy rhythms of the day. Their solitary trombonist was a typically lo-fi and indie approach to injecting a soulful sound into their jagged grooves, and the cheap keyboard sounds combined with that to produce a noise that wasn't big budget, but was at the very least identifiable and unique - something which couldn't have been said for many of their contemporaries.

"Spirit" is a particular favourite of mine, sounding too rigid and uptight to actually be funky, but nonetheless having a powerful, intense driving force cutting right through its core - it's mean, pinch-faced and demanding whilst also feeling somehow empowering and groovy. I used to play this constantly on my college radio show, broadcast live in the common room to about fifteen disinterested people.

The instrumental chorus to "Spirit" also wasn't intentional, but was apparently put in place as the lead singer Mick Roberts was so drunk after a two-day drinking binge that he couldn't remember what the actual words for the chorus were. Perhaps he should have listened to the advice in Carter's "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" a bit more closely.

Incidents such as these seemed to typify the band's slightly dazed and troublesome approach, with criminal incidents, confused highs, drunken brawls and near-death experiences featuring heavily in their careers (perhaps most ridiculously of all, Mick Roberts was once arrested for stealing carpets from the Hilton Hotel in Leeds). They were due to sign to Chrysalis Records shortly after "Spirit" picked up a lot of mainstream media attention, but the label were put off by a shambolic drugged up live performance they witnessed from the band, and swiftly opted to sign the safer, and now largely forgotten, Poppy Factory.

You can't call such incidents "bad luck". The Bridewells were clearly a band who could have had a shot at a lasting career if they hadn't been such a wayward bunch - but then again, without that edge to their personalities, would they have sounded as abrasive as they did?  Whatever the facts, and however many hypothetical avenues we want to explore, they were the closet this period came to producing a Dexys Midnight Runners, albeit without any of the manifestos or control freakery - just pure chaos.



4. New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Fishes Eyes (Play It Again Sam)

"When is a Manchester band not a Manchester band? When their name is New Fast Automatic Daffodils! Hard-boiled dub funksters with a surrealist edge (ooer) on true unpigeonhole-able form" - Good Times Magazine.

Following "Big", "Fishes Eyes" was really a continuation of the New Fads speciality - long, loose, funky and shuffling post-punk funk sounds with strangely barked slogans over the top. In this, lead singer Andy Spearpoint chants the phrase "The fishes eyes will watch your lies" repeatedly, which was apparently inspired by an unknown person posting a dead fish through his letterbox with a note simply stating that fact attached to it.

There was a sneaking sense that the New Fads were a bit like a semi-comatose Pigbag, rambling away and improvising this nonsense off their addled cuffs, but as with "Big", their singles were really highly enjoyable. "Fishes Eyes" manages to squeeze enough riffs, diversions and funky beats across its seven minutes to not make it seem like a chore, and there's a distinctly threatening, paranoid air to the track as well which adds a lot of spice to the mix. They were frequently baffling, but never boring.



5. Flowered Up - Phobia (Heavenly)

"Apples and pairs, but where's the stairs? What's yours!"

Flowered Up's progress was regarded by a few critics as being thwarted by this single. While "It's On" was uptempo and insistent, "Phobia" is a bit dark and chilly by comparison, and is also a strangely clever composition for a group some were trying to write off as punkish urchins. It contains numerous instances of meandering instrumental breaks, noodling guitar work and faintly awkward arrangements, proving that they weren't quite as rough around the edges as they would perhaps like to have been perceived. There's a fussiness and fiddliness to these grooves very few other tracks on this LP contain.

For all its curiosities and strengths, though, it does have to be said that "Phobia" isn't much of a single. It's a perfectly good track in its own right, but it lacks the immediacy and impact of "It's On", and as a result saw their chart fortunes decline as this only just managed to reach Number 75 in the national charts. What it did prove to listeners, however, is that this was a band who weren't just Mondays-apeing chancers. They were more playful and had a much firmer identity of their own than that.

"Phobia" would also be their last indie single before they ran into the arms of London Records, where they produced the legendary epic single-come-music-video-come-short-film "Weekender" - a "Quadrophenia" for the baggy generation, if you will, and yes, I am about the hundredth person to say that - the cult LP "A Life With Brian", the Clash-inspired Top 40 hit "Take It", and a much more innovative and lively mix of sounds than their earliest critics might have suspected they were capable of.

Sadly, brothers Liam and Joe Maher died from drugs overdoses in 2009 and 2012 respectively, meaning a revival or reformation of the group will never happen. They remain definitively tied to the early nineties era, and some would argue deserve a more serious reassessment than they have so far been afforded.