Rolling Metal Thread 2009

I got into it via being a verve fan (who years later after going on about it actually ripped it off for the rolling people)

I don't know those coves, but I have a fair few mutual friends up in Wigan, St Helens, Manchester, Liverpool. It's that North West scallydelia thing. I never got into the Floyd or Genesis or what have you but it was good being played loads of the 'Child, Hawkwind, Beefheart, Cardiacs and that by acid crazed loons in tracksuits when I was a callow youth. Certainly extravagant prog and that kind of thing didn't go out of fashion in the north west like it did elsewhere.

There's an urban myth about house breakers doing over someone's entire flat and stripping out everything including carpets and furniture and the only thing they leave is either a copy of 666 or The Wall.

Interestingly, this is either seen as a kind act or a diss depending on whether it's told in Merseyside or Lancashire.

dare i ask which is which? you're all southerners to me

Rolling Metal Thread 2010

Shall we lock this thread now, or keep it going for totally off-topic Aphrodite's Child/Britisher talk?

Liverpool and places like Wigan, St Helens and Warrington lean more toward psychedelia in rock music and Manchester and Lancs tend to lean away from it.

You can only really make the broadest of generalisations here but bands like the Stone Roses, The Engineers and The Verve, while usually being lumped in as Manc, have this through line to psych and prog that goes with the territory they actually come from (Stone Roses were more of a Warrington band, The Verve, Wigan etc), imho. Even bands like The Coral and Teardrop Explodes kind of fit this theory.

I think Julian Cope has it down as a Catholic Irish/Anglo Protestant split between the two areas; which is partially true and partially over-romanticized.

It falls apart if you examine it too closely.

XP: Sorry Jeff! All done now.

hey, that was really interesting! the merest whiff of 'cardiacs' and i'm in like flynn :D but the psych/non-psych lancashire divide is pretty intriguing. i'll have to try and keep tabs on my favourite north-west bands and see if it holds true!

The Year in Metal (BBG's best of 2009)
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/01/the_year_in_met_1.html