The Boo Radleys, Classic or Dud?

Both are good albums. It amazes me what an enormous bore Haines has become. Tragic really.

I was actually surprised he picked on Boo Radleys of all things in Bad Vibes. He gets into it even worse a couple paragraphs later, detailing their wrestling matches before shows. It's not a boring book by any means. I loved it.

I like the Boo Radleys. Just read his book recently and it popped up in my head.

Bear in mind that his introduction to the book, he sort-of apologises in advance for what was 'to come', being what he felt at the time.

He hints that the Boos got the praise that he himself was used to receiving.

I dunno, I don't doubt he doesn't like them, but I also doubt he hates them...

detailing their wrestling matches before shows

Wait, luchador-style or what?

El Siceto

being what he felt at the time

So when he was on tour with the Boo Radleys in 1993 he was feeling that two decades later he would hate their 1996 record and to prove it, here's what Alan McGee said in 2001.

I take the stairs to our shared dressing room to find three bodies writhing in the doorway. I accidentally tread on some hair and a Scouser squeals. The hair and squeal belong to a Boo Radley, engaging in their customary roughhousing. This lot seems to be pathologically incapable of setting foot outside their windowless tour bus without breaking into a bout of rough and tumble with one another. The bodies pick themselves up from the deck.

'Awlright', mate? an exaggerated Mersey accent enquires, leering toward me. The implication seems to be of the Do you want some? variety? Hmmmm, the backstage drinks rider is already seriously depleted. Are you really trying to menace me? I wonder. I hold out my hand and offer my finest limp-wristed handshake and my most sickly simpering smile. The north. The South. And never the twain shall meet. All friends then.

xpost -- Luke Haines, timelord.

They're from WALLASEY, not Cantril Farm or Croxteth. My God, we're weak sauce as far as Scousers go.

xxp - wkiw Boos!

Funny that should be posted because it had just crossed my mind that class was behind it. I've noticed that English people often have an almost comical disregard towards people from Merseyside.

ALAN McGEE has launched a stinging attack on ex-CREATION RECORDS band THE BOO RADLEYS, declaring their most commercially successful single 'WAKE UP BOO!' an "atrocity exhibition".

McGee has written a review of David Cavanagh's book on the history of Creation Records, 'My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize' on the Poptones website www.poptones.co.uk.
In it McGee declares Cavanagh's work "unquestionably the dullest book I have ever read", "tedious" and "humourless", before claiming it captures "none of the spirit" of Creation Records.

However, his most venomous attack is saved for ex-Boo Radleys guitarist and songwriter Martin Carr. Apparently unhappy at their musical output following the most successful album of their career, 'Wake Up!', he writes: "For the record, Martin, I would have dropped you in 1995 after the atrocity exhibition that was 'Wake Up Boo!' but for (Creation co-founder) Dick Green's infatuation with you. Creation was never about touring the US in Bon Jovi's tour bus... for me Creation was touring Germany and Holland with the Mary Chain in a transit van."

Elsewhere in the review McGee accuses the Boo Radleys of costing Creation "about a million pounds", before saying "you were never a part of it. For me you never proved it. Sorry, mate."

NME.COM contacted a representative for Martin Carr for comment, but none was immediately forthcoming.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/brave-captain/6277#exRiUHyIT9fBrKWm.99

What a jerk.

Carr calls him on it here in 2009.

Carr: "You once described ‘Wake Up Boo’ as an ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ which, as I’m sure readers will know, was the title of a J.G Ballard novel.He’s dead now and, let’s be honest, you have to shoulder some of the blame for that. What other records (records, not bands) that came out on Creation would you rather have come out on another label, if at all?"

McGee: "Loveless Isn’t Anything and Soon I hate mbv I wish I had never signed them tuneless garbage."

In other words...don't take it too seriously folks (and Luke Haines).

McGee is a dick, but Wake Up is shit.

lol @ "do you think alan gives a shit what you think you dickhead, crawl back up your dog’s arsehole, what the fuck are you doing with your life apart from boring every cunt"

It's funny that McGee disses the Boos for not being "transit van" enough for Creation, while Haines highlights their "windowless tour bus". I'm thinking "what's the big deal with their transportation?" Is it a van or a bus? So I googled it on the off chance their was an actual photo of the Boo Radleys tour bus somewhere. Up pops Ned's report from a '93 Boo Radleys gig "outside the Roxy in their rear parking lot near their tour bus or van."

The mystery deepens.

McGee is a dick, but Wake Up is shit.

― emil.y, Thursday, February 7, 2013 4:08 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's my least favourite Boos album, but I still think it's got a couple of good tracks on it: 'Joel', 'Martin, Doom! It's 7 O'Clock'... and I like 'Reaching Out From Here', too.

It's funny that McGee disses the Boos for not being "transit van" enough for Creation, while Haines highlights their "windowless tour bus"...

― everything, Thursday, February 7, 2013 4:46 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's funny that McGee is laying into the Boo Radleys for this. I wonder if he'd say that Oasis, the act that made him the most money, weren't "transit van" enough for Creation either.

Yeah, it doesn't make that much sense.

Wake Up is amazing fwiw. A totally misunderstood record base on the misunderstood irony behind the lead single.

While I'd agree that a lot of people misunderstood the band in general because of 'Wake Up Boo!', I don't think tracks like 'It's Lulu' and 'Find The Answer Within' do them any favours either.

It's Lulu is terrible. I like Find The Answer Within and the backwards messages etc

I like abt half of Wake Up, esp Joel

that luke haines stuff about the boo radleys is relatively affectionate. you should hear what he has to say about the verve. and suede.

I've always found this band to lack that extra special charm...I think it's the vocals. They don't really have much character, do they?

idk the boyishness of the vocals well suits the wide-eyed pocket-adventure quality of much of the music

the cover of Giant Steps is absolutely horrible

Joel is a beautiful song the string arrangements and then it goes full on Revolver by the end

idk the boyishness of the vocals well suits the wide-eyed pocket-adventure quality of much of the music

― imago, Thursday, February 7, 2013 11:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I quite like it how, on things like 'Run My Way Runway', Sice is like, this tiny voice in the middle of chaos. His small voice actually does the trick of making the music seem bigger.

OTM. The one thing his voice just doesn't suit are brash pop numbers - I never liked or saw the point in It's Lulu, C'mon Kids, Free Huey etc...

I don't mind his brash voice so much on 'What's In The Box? (See Whatcha Got)', but I do get what you mean!

Maybe it's because I'm not a super fan and I have a place in my heart for pretty cheesy pop songs, but I don't get why something like "It's Lulu" stands out as a blatantly bad song. I never thought it was that bad in the scheme of things...not that I've listened to it in years.

I like the horns.

It's just such a drag. The whole premise behind the song and the lyrics are weak and condescending. It's brash in a horrible alarm clock kind of way. It sticks out from the rest of the album like a sore thumb. Just sounds like Carr was asked to do another Wake Up Boo and tossed this off in about five minutes.

'It's Lulu' might have been one of the first songs written for Wake Up!, actually... I remember reading that Martin wrote it while the band were mixing Giant Steps. Apparently he tried to write it in the style of the Buzzcocks.

I read an interview where he says he hates it, so I guess I'm just not listening to it with very critical ears. I always wonder how artists can hate their own songs.

When artists 'give-in' to their baser instincts, (ta, Eno!) and then live to regret it/

It's very 1995 though, isn't it? I get the same feeling from it as I do whenever I listen to Grand Prix, it always reminds me of that specific year. I don't really get the same feeling of "this sounds like a specific year" whenever I listen to C'mon Kids.

squeaky brass was a britpop trait. brass seems to be making a bit of a comeback, but it's deeper and lower. imo anyway.

btw, i'm going to do an artist poll for the Boo Radleys. it will come up sometime in the next five year.

Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls

61. Iggy Pop, incl. Stooges - flopson
62. Boo Radleys - Bee OK
63. XTC - Shakey Mo Collier

that is a joke, hopefully it won't be in five years.

Well, the poll/ballots have really slowed down lately

Looking forward to it. I think a boo Radleys poll was what started the idea of that coordination thread.

Yep, will undoubtedly be participating in it... and then the XTC poll afterwards!!

Well, the poll/ballots have really slowed down lately

well it does stop every time in late December for the end of the year stuff. it does gets going again about now.

i'm going to do New Order at 36, starting to feel the pressure...

"Giant Steps" is mostly a classic. Wake Up is hit or miss. Their talent didnt always match their Mcacartney-like ambitions to dabble in all genres but even the Boos failures had their charm.

Re. the hit and miss aspect of the Boos (which I agree), I'd say Carr took on too much himself really. I know most bands usually have a talisman or whatever, but they had scope and ambition beyond many of their contemporaries (especially when you get to around 1995) that was...kind of realised.

they could've made artistically smaller albums that would've hit the sweet spot for this or that niche or indie ghetto, but the Boos seemed to want to make a pop record, like the kind that were common in the 60s, that could blow minds with its scope and innovation and ability to have something for everybody. Didn't obviously work, but I'm glad they tried.

Well, "kingsize" did that, but it came too easy to MCarr and he wanted to try/ fail at more difficult things