I love that White Stripes track, and I have to say that Manics track sounded more bearable than most of their stuff I've heard. :lol:

I love that White Stripes track, and I have to say that Manics track sounded more bearable than most of their stuff I've heard. :lol:

 

Trust me, they were an awesome band back in the day.. I was at one of their early gigs (with The Wildhearts supporting them no less....) back in '91, they played my home town just before the release of their first album "Generation Terrorists", Christ, they just RIPPED!!! It was a packed venue, over 800 people in a place which could comfortably fit only about half that. A fukkin' great vibe, all of us knew that we were seeing the birth of something special.. I saw them again for the "Holy Bible" tour and that was intense as well, of course knowing what would happen later with Ritchey makes my memories of that gig a bit melancholic and sad.. After that, I saw them again in '98 for the "This Is My Truth..", post Ritchie.. Words just cannot express my utter disappointment of that night, a band just going through the motions and not really giving a sh!t, they'd become just another 'stadium rock band', I'd may as well have been at a fukkin' Bon Jovi gig..... <_<

NUMBER 36 - HOLE - MISS WORLD

 

Well, what can one say about Courteney Love, or 'Mrs Kurt Cobain' that has not already been said about a thousand times before....? So, I wont actually bother boring everyone with regurgitating that tabloid bullsh!t and actually concentrate on the merits of Hole's actual music.... Because, if you actually strip away all the nonsense what you actually have is damned decent rock band at the end of the day... And this is a bloody great song from a bloody great album... In fact, Hole did three pretty damned good albums.... Of course, one can actually accuse Courteney of ripping off Babes in Toyland and their singer/guitarist Kat Bjelland's whole image and vocal style; BUT, what that fails to take into account is that Bjelland and Love actually played together in a band before either Babes or Hole called Sugar Baby Doll.. So, is Courteney ripping off Kat, or is it just a natural by-product of both women having played together that they would perhaps feed off each other's ideas...? Who knows...? It just seems so easy to label Love in a particular way, and yes, she does make it easy by playing up to it... But Hole's music is actually very good, and they seriously developed as a band, something Babes In Toyland never really did, somewhat painting themselves into a corner by the time their rather uninspired "Nemesisters" came out in the late-90s, whereas Courteney was gifting the world the gorgeous "Celebrity Skin" album full of delicious hooks and Folk Rock-inspired melodies... But anyway, "Miss World" is a great song, the "Live Through This" album is a great album, and no, I dont believe for a second that Kurt Cobain wrote it all for her, that's just bollocks... They were married for fukk's sake, of course they would inspire and influence each other's art.... Stands to fukkin' reason...

 

So, while I will defend Courteney Love as an artist and musician, I will NEVER defend her as a person - she is utterly vile.... Just to set the record straight...

 

 

I am the girl you know, cant look you in the eye

I am the girl you know, so sick I cannot try

And I am the one you want, cant look you in the eye

I am the girl, you know I lie, I lie and lie

 

I'm miss world, somebody kill me

Kill me pills

No one cares, my friends

My friend

I'm miss world, watch me break and watch me burn

No one is listening, my friend

 

Now Ive made my bed, Ill lie in it

Ive made my bed, Ill die in it

Ive made my bed, Ill lie in it

Ive made my bed, Ill die in it

 

Cute girls watch when I eat ether

Suck me under

Maybe forever, my friend

Now Ive made my bed, Ill lie in it

 

Ive made my bed, Ill die in it

Ive made my bed, Ill cry in it

Ive made my bed, Ill lie in it

I am the girl you know, cant look you in the eye

NUMBER 35 - CURVE - FAIT ACCOMPLI

 

 

And people say that Indie/Shoegazer didn't have it's sex-symbols.... What utter c**p... Yeah, cos all the Indie Shoegazer Kids were totally and utterly asexual and had their heads in the clouds and never ever thought about the 'S' word, oh no...... :lol: :lol: Well, I can think of at least three individuals that would send your average Indie Kid into fits of screaming, fainting, hard-ons and wide-ons.... Lush's Miki Berenyi (an utterly gorgeous young lady who I once had the pleasure of at a Ministry after-show in Glasgow..... :dance: ), Ride's Mark Gardener (gorgeous little pretty-boy who I would've gladly fukked like a beast given half the chance....), The Charlatans' Tim Burgess and Curve's absolutely drop dead gorge Toni Halliday. No Sex Symbols in early 90s Indie indeed.... Fah......

 

Okay, now to the music itself, Curve were another of these totally under-rated bands who have had an unconciously high level of influence on today's scene... No Curve, no Garbage, a lot of Depeche Mode's late 90s stuff has a certain 'Curve-yness' about it as well. They were incredlibly successful in marrying dance beats to Hard Rock guitars, and one of the earliest reallyto do so (along with similarly lost in action Jesus Jones, PWEI and Gaye Bikers on Acid..). Another feature of Curve's sound is the throbbing basslines of Dean Garcia, absolutely amazing sounds this guy could get out a bass guitar and Alan Moulder's production is certainly not to be underestimated in the overall make-up in the band's sound, Moulder was almost a sixth member of the band (he was also the insufferably lucky swine who was nobbing Toni Halliday as well... B/astard.....)

 

Toni Halliday in her own quiet, no-nonsense way did a hell of a lot for women in Indie Rock and never gets any credit for it... 'Quietly Inspirational' is how I would describe Halliday and by extension, Curve themselves...

 

 

Every day there is some kind of darkness

That just won't go away no matter how hard I try

It crawls into your system while your guard is down

Becomes the ball that you drag around to

 

Every party

To every function

To give to people with written instructions

Don't try to get away

I'm here to stay

My name is fate

 

Every night sleep wonders on its own

Never once does it kiss me with its chloroform

It crawled into my system while my guard was down

Became the bore I like to have around

 

Every party

At every function

I give it to people with written instructions

Don't try to get away

I'm here to stay

My name is your fate

 

I've come to crush your bones

I've come to make you feel old

I've come to mess with your head

Cos it'll make you feel good

I've come to make you feel good [2]

I've come to make you feel good alright [4]

 

Come to the party

Come to the function

Give me aggression with written instructions

Don't try to get away

I'm here to stay

Hear me now

 

NUMBER 34 - PWEI - DEF CON ONE

 

And this is to really confuse the sh!t out of people who followed my 'Top 30' Dance/Techno tracks over on the Dance Forum...LOL... "How can Pop Will Eat Itself feature in both Indie and Dance..?" I hear some of you cry.... Well, back in the day the lines between Indie and Dance got pretty blurred and you had a phenomenon called "Indie Dance", practiced by the likes of The Poppies, Soup Dragons, Primal Scream and quite a few others.... "Def Con One" is deffo a more 'Indie' oriented tune as opposed to "Cicciolina" which was a more 'dance' oriented one however.. Clint's disgust with all things becoming Americanised were on display here with a dizzying array of samples and the refrain "Gimme Big Mac, fries to go.." repeating over and over..

 

And I'm pretty damn sure that Fatboy Slim just stole every idea he ever had from this tune...

 

 

Ten to doomsday, moving fast...

Heads up! Mind that blast.

No time to sleep, it's Def.Con.One.

Can't get no sleep as the ticking ticks on,

No time for fear, it's Def.Con.One,

No time to eat but get me some

 

CHORUS

Big Mac, fries to go...

Big Mac, fries to go...

Get me Big Mac, fries to go...

Get me Big Mac, get me fries to go...

Watchman!

We love you all...

Hup! Hup!

 

Heads up! Ground floor coming up...

How sick is Dick?

How gone is Ron?

How sick is Dick?

How gone is Ron?

What's the time?

It's Def.Con.One...

Say, what's the time?

Just get me some

 

CHORUS

 

Goodbye city, hello moon,

Hands up! Vote Dr. Doom!

"You know it makes sense"...

It's Def.Con.One, hey! What's occuring? What goes on?

"It's the only choice..."

So get me some

 

CHORUS

NUMBER 33 - BABES IN TOYLAND - BRUISE VIOLET

 

Pretty much everything I was going to say about Babes In Toyland ended up on the Hole post.... :lol: Oh well, anyway.. Babes were another one of these 'Seattle' bands, but hardly 'Grunge', more an underground, primal, Swamp Punk which had absolutely sod all in common with bands such as Soundgarden, Nirvana or Pearl Jam.. Babes In Toyland were pretty uncompromising and could be absolutely scarbarous at times - one of their songs "Handsome and Gretel" (a very thinly veiled attack on Courteney Love) has the lines "My Name is Gretel yeah/I got a crotch that talks/It talks to all the cocks/It did twelve city blocks/You fukkin' b**ch/You c-unthole b**ch...". Nasty... Unfortunately a video was not made for this song (cos it would be my pick otherwise.... :lol: ), I cant see MTV playing it somehow.... The law of diminishing returns sort of set in when Babes went over (as so many Underground/Alt bands did) to a major label and they released one or two pretty disappointing albums.. But their first major label album "Fontanelle" was pretty fantastic, but it wasn't really what Warners wanted (they expected Babes to turn in a 'Nevermind-with-chicks' album presumably...) and their label simply did not support them as they should, as a result they never really broke through to the degree Nirvana or Pearl Jam did. Perhaps they just signed to the wrong major label....

 

 

You got this thing that really makes me hot

You got alot and more when you get caught

You got this thing that follows me around

You ****ing b**ch well I hope your insides rot

 

Liar

Liar

Liar

 

You see the stars through eyes lit up with lies

You got your stories all twisted up in mine

You got this thing that follows me around

You were born with glue instead of spine

 

Liar

Liar

Liar

 

Of thee I sing

Tied to a string

You got this thing that follows me around

You got this thing that really makes me hot

You got alot and more when you get caught

 

Bruise Violet

Bruise Violet

Bruise Violet

NUMBER 32 - NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN - KILL YOUR TELEVISION

 

I know, this is the really obvious Neds track to play (I can just hear the groans from all you ex-Greboes and Indie Kids out there...), but come on, this is a killer tune and one that's instantly accessible to the casual listener... It's the song that got me into them, it's probably the song that got about 90% of Neds' core fan-base into them.... "Kill Your Television" was probably as important to the early 90s Indie scene as Oasis' "Live Forever" or Blur's "Boys and Girls" was to defining Britpop... Yes, that important, and it is a pretty killer tune no matter what anyone says... I enclose both versions of the song...

 

Original Version

 

The more 'MTV-friendly' version

 

[ she said, she said

"you don't know $h!t,

because you've never been there"

she turned upon him,

took him by the hair

spun him round about,

laughing as he fell about,

sat down for a drink

in her father's favourite chair

 

kill your television

respectful list scott, theres not many i know...

NUMBER 31 - THE WONDER STUFF - A WISH AWAY

 

Ahhh, the Stuffies.. Along with the Poppies, Kingmaker and the Neds, they pretty much defined the whole "Stourbridge" scene - Grebo, Doc-Martins, floppy-fringes, turn-ups on yer denims, those German Army-surplus Parkas.... Those were the days..... :lol: Of course there are much more famous Suffies songs than this, "Size of a Cow", "Caught In My Shadow", and of course the Vic Reeves team up "Dizzy" (which, frankly, we'd all like to forget tbh....), but I prefer the Stuffies' more unassuming tracks, like this one and my fave two albums of theirs are "8-Legged Groove Machine" and "Hup"... Yeah, I'm really one of these "I was into this band when they were nothing"-types I'm afraid... Not that "Never Loved Elvis" wasn't an okay album (the fourth one "Construction Time for the Modern Idiot" was pretty ropey though..), I just wasn't all that enamoured of it.... But this is really the Stuffies at their best for me, and I really did prefer singer/guitarist/chief songwriter Miles Hunt when his name didn't become a sort of nasty rhyming slang which unfortunately described his personality as fame hit the band....

 

 

I wish you were here, I wish you were here,

now that you've gone.

 

Repeat

 

I remember a time when I was feeling down

and I never ever wished you were here.

And then there was the time when I was feeling down

and I never ever shed a tear.

I remember the sound as I hit the ground

and somebody called it fear.

And now I need a hug and now I need a hug

and I really really wish you were here.

 

I wish you were here, I wish you were here,

Now that you've gone.

 

respectful list scott, theres not many i know...

 

Well, that's the idea innit..? To educate, inform, etc..... :) Hope you're enjoying the ride (oops, no pun intended... :lol: ) anyway regardless of not really knowing many of the bands....

NUMBER 30 - SWERVEDRIVER - NEVER LOSE THAT FEELING

 

Really cool band this, and again, another one of these forgotten bands. Apparently Swervedriver were a bigger hit in the US than their native Britain, I can kinda see why to be honest.. For me, Swervedriver are a sort of halfway house between Shoegazer and Grunge, they do the atmospheric sound of the former and the driven, harder Rock edge of the latter. Again, it was hard to pick a track, so many of their songs sound cool as fukk, but this just edges it for me over stuff like "Son of Mustang Ford", "Rave Down" or "Sandblasted", but all these are worth a listen as well....

 

 

You can see for miles you say

I'm not watchin' anyway

Hold on tight to the side you take

I can't mind 'cause I'm not right

 

So far reaching

Never lose that feeling

Past believing

Never lose that feeling

 

I'll sweep up the streets today

Take your leave then look away

You need something more today

I don't mind and it's always this way

 

So deceiving

Never lose that feeling

So revealing

Never lose that feeling

So far reaching

Never lose that feeling

So deceiving

Never lose that feeling Feeling

Past believing

Never lose that feeling

So revealing

Never lose that feeling

I have only heard of Lazarus so far! :o

 

Guess my taste is more commercial then.

I have only heard of Lazarus so far! :o

 

Guess my taste is more commercial then.

 

Well, if I can get you and others into a few bands you'd never heard of before, then my job is done really... "Just plantin' seeds" as the late, great Bill Hicks once said.... :lol:

 

Things like The Wonder Stuff, Neds, Hole, actually were fairly commercial at the time...

 

Hope you're enjoying the journey, there'll be more familiar faces later, guaranteed...

NUMBER 29 - SEBADOH - WILLING TO WAIT

 

The case of Sebadoh is as good as any as an example of the apprentice exceeding his master... Lou Barlow was the bass player in Dinosaur Jr, but saw himself being unceremoniously dumped in 1990 when Mascis 'dissolved' the band (in reality he did nothing of the sort, he took the Major Label Shilling, did a more-or-less solo album called "Green Mind" and put it out under the name of Dinosaur Jr...) purely to oust Barlow who was beginning to demand more creative input in Dinosaur Jr... Barlow switched to guitar got together with Jason Lowenstein on bass and the slightly insane Eric Gaffney on drums... All three wrote songs and they were as different as chalk and cheese.. Barlow wrote the more commercial, sensitive, EMOtional songs (**** My Chemical Romance, it was bands like Sebadoh who really understood how emotion could be melded to Alt/Lo-Fi Rock), Lowenstein's work was a bit patchy at first, but as he grew in confidence his songwriting became more assured, Gaffney's songs were shizophrenic, all over the place and seriously deranged, at times trying to meld Folk Rock with Death Metal (seriously...). Sebadoh did something like eight or nine albums in all, and two mini-albums, a pretty impressive canon of work... Barlow wrote a lot of incredibly effective rock-outs, such as "Gimme Indie Rock", "Skull", "Rebound" and "Ocean", but it's in their quieter moments that the real beauty of the songwriting comes across, paricularly Barlow's. This is a gorgeous little song, recalling the likes of REM, Gram Parsons and Neil Young at their best...

 

 

When you see him again

Tell him everything that you told me

Tell him that I'm still your friend

And maybe you would like to see me again

I'm willing to wait my turn to be with you

But I still have a lot to learn about me

And no one's sure if we should be together

But oh, when I saw you again

A beautiful friend, she opened up her heart and let me in

No, I cannot lie to you

I'm still in love with you, and I only wanna be with you

So when you see him again

Tell him everything that you told me

We're more than friends and maybe we should start again

Maybe you could love me again

Cuz oh, when I saw you again

A beautiful friend, she opened up her heart and let me in

No, I cannot lie to you

I'm still in love with you, and I only wanna be with you

I only wanna be with

Daisy Chainsaw's my fave so far - a truly fantastic slice of mayhem.... remember their live TV stuff? Always chaos.

 

Lush were great, too, such a shame they imploded - it seemed they'd been plugging away at it for years, and as soon as they started having (rather great) hit singles, the drummer committed suicide - VERY sad.

 

Talking of Courtney Love - did you see her on JRoss and Russell Brand this past week? My mate was watching them with me and he reckons she's morphed into Baby Jane-era Bette Davis.

 

He has a point....

NUMBER 28 - MUDHONEY - GOOD ENOUGH

 

Mudhoney's Mark Arm was in a band with Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard called Green River, and it was within here that the genesis for the whole 'Seattle Grunge' sound grew. Arm formed Mudhoney, Ament and Gossard would form Pearl Jam... Indie Record label Sub Pop did an incredible job nurturing this precocious talent and really were the midwives to the whole thing; obviously, we all know of Sub Pop because of Nirvana and Soundgarden's associations (Pearl Jam themselves never recorded an album with Sub Pop..), but it was Mudhoney whom I feel were the band who summed up the whole Sub Pop/Grunge ethos more than the others... They had a filthy, nasty sound, taking ideas from all over the place - 60s Surf, Punk, The Ramones, Iggy and the Stooges, Velvet Underground, MC5, 13th Floor Elevators and just mashing it all together against this wall of fuzz and noise... They could be quite tuneful at times, but most of the time chose not to be... Again, they were another example of the exodus of underground bands to major labels and they left Sub Pop for A&M. They actually fared better than some, not really compromising too much...

 

 

I've made mistakes

That I'm sure I'll make again

Guess I liked them enough

The first time around

No way to fight them

No use denying

The way it grows

Uh-huh

 

Whatever happens

Never thought for a second

That I'd let go

Uh-huh

 

Everybody says

You must have lost your head

Well, one more time is good enough for me

Yeah, one more time is good enough for me

 

It's a hard road to your heart

And there was a time when I never thought I'd get that far

Uh-huh

 

Everybody says

You must have lost your head

Well, one more time is good enough for me

Yeah, one more time is good enough for me

Daisy Chainsaw's my fave so far - a truly fantastic slice of mayhem.... remember their live TV stuff? Always chaos.

 

Lush were great, too, such a shame they imploded - it seemed they'd been plugging away at it for years, and as soon as they started having (rather great) hit singles, the drummer committed suicide - VERY sad.

 

Talking of Courtney Love - did you see her on JRoss and Russell Brand this past week? My mate was watching them with me and he reckons she's morphed into Baby Jane-era Bette Davis.

 

He has a point....

 

Does Courtney have a new album coming out or summat, she's getting around a bit (mind you, she always did get around a bit, just ask Julian Cope, Billy Corgan, Trent Reznor, etc, etc..... :lol: ). I can see the resemlance to Baby Jane, deffo... :lol: All that rather faded Hollywood glamour....

 

I really liked Lush, saw them live a few times and had an, erm, rather nice encounter with the lead singer at a Ministry aftershow party back in '92.... I wont say anymore, there are impressionable youngsters reading this... :P Such a sad thing to have happened, especially when they were on the verge of really making it... But, they'd been friends for years with Chris, in all honesty you cant really expect a band to continue after such a tragedy, it's a waste of good songwriting talent that neither Miki or Emma have ever resurfaced in another form though...

 

I loved Daisy Chainsaw when they appeared on The Word... Some bloke just ran onstage, grabbed Katie from behind and started throwing her around like a rag-doll.. Hilarious.... He was clearly pissed and they both crashed to the ground.... Luckily, Katie landed on top of him.... :lol: I just wish someone had posted that on You Tube....

NUMBER 27 - PAVEMENT - CUT YOUR HAIR

 

An amazing band... easily one of the best of the US Alt-Rock bands of the 90s... Singer/Guitarist Steve Malkmus and guitarist Spiral Stairs were the creative forces behind this band, and even more bizarre was that when Pavement started up band members actually lived thousands of miles apart, they would send each other tapes of stuff they'd been working on. Pavement were inlfuenced by the likes of Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Devo, the usual Indie/Alt Rock suspects, but there was a Country-Folk tinge to the music as well, and the likes of Neil Young, early REM and Gram Parsons played just as important a part in forming their sound as as anyone (clearly evident in songs like "Range Life"). Pavement were a genuinely different band, really standing out from their peers in the scene.. Some lazy Journos tried to lump them into the "Gen X/Slacker" scene, but I ask you, can a band who came up with about a half dozen albums in the space of a decade seriously be called 'slackers'....? Unfortunately Pavement are no longer with us, but if you want to investigate further you really couldn't do worse than to check out the "Slanted and Enchanted", "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain" or "Wowie Zowie" albums....

 

 

Darlin' don't you go and cut your hair

Do you think it's gonna make him change?

"I'm just a boy with a new haircut"

And that's a pretty nice haircut

Charge in like a puzzle

Hitmen wearing muzzles

Hesitate you die

Look around, around

The second drummer drowned

His telephone is found

 

Music scene is crazy

Bands start up each and every day

I saw another one just the other day

A special new band

I remember lying

I don't remember a line

I don't remember a word

But I don't care, I care, I really don't care

Did you see the drummer's hair?

 

Advertising looks and chops a must

No big hair!

Songs mean a lot when songs are bought

And so are you

Let's run down to the practice room

attention and fame

a career

career, career, career

NUMBER 26 - BELLY - GEPETTO

 

There was a point when Belly frontwoman/songwriter Tanya Donnelly was in about three bands almost simultaenously... She started off as second guitarist/vocalist in her half-sister Kristin Hersh's band Throwing Muses (of whom more later...), and then she was in ex-Pixies Kim Deal's band The Breeders as rhythm guitarist on the Breeders' first album "Pod", and then we Belly, which was absolutely her band... Unfortunately, Belly only lasted for two albums - the fantastic "Star" (of which "Gepetto" is one of about 7 or 8 stand-out tracks..) and the not so fantastic, but still pretty good "King", which frustratingly actually features one of Belly's greatest tracks, "Now They'll Sleep".. But I just loved "Gepetto" so much at the time that it simply had to be my pick... Oh, and you'll notice the bass-player Gail Greenwood tries her damndest to totally steal the limelight away from Donnelly with her totally mad rock postures, which led to Donnelly almost collapsing in hysterics mid-song on more than one live performance... She's kinda in the wrong band, I think her histrionics would've been more suited to, say, L7 or Lunachicks... Donnelly dissolved the band after the "King" album and went solo...

 

Original video

 

Live performance with Tanya in giggles...

 

So he's lying on top again

Just like Gepetto with his doll

And he's right around the bend

And I can't get him out of this house

And if you bore him, you'll lose your soul to him

 

So that kid from the bad home came over my house again

Decapitated all my dolls

And if you bore me, you'll lose your soul to me

 

(sha la na, sha la na, sha la na)

Hey Gepetto, where'd you put it? Oh Gepetto whoa whoa (x2)

 

And if you bore him, you're gonna lose your soul

 

(sha la na, sha la na, sha la na)

Hey Gepetto, where'd you get to? Oh Gepetto whoa whoa (x2)

 

(sha la na, sha la na, sha la na)

Hey Gepetto, what'd you get me? Oh Gepetto whoa whoa

 

So he's lying on top again

Just like Gepetto

 

(sha la na, sha la na, sha la na)

Well, if I can get you and others into a few bands you'd never heard of before, then my job is done really... "Just plantin' seeds" as the late, great Bill Hicks once said.... :lol:

 

Things like The Wonder Stuff, Neds, Hole, actually were fairly commercial at the time...

 

Hope you're enjoying the journey, there'll be more familiar faces later, guaranteed...

I am enjoying it, thanks for doing it :D