britisher guitar pop/rock charity shop detritus of the 90s

I'm probably going to regret this:

1 The Bluetones "Expecting to Fly" 1996 50p @ the cat concern charity shop

memories of this album. vaguely byrds-ish but not as good as the high?

1/"talking to clarry" good intro, sags badly when the verse kicks in. Weak vocals, not much of a tune. Some of the same chords as on whatever their hit was. Nicely recorded 12-string electric guitar.

Vocals mixed very low, almost apologetically so.

2. Elastica - Stutter, the limited 7" single, number 0002, £20

a few years ago. Is there any other way to show how the ebritpop bubble burst, that I own this and not one of the band?

oh that not one of the band own this single numbered two, not that I don't own one of the band oh please youselves....

you paid 20 quid for a record from a charity shop?

christ they managed to spin the first track out for nearly seven minutes

2/"bluetonic" this was a single I think? Kind of like an emasculated stone roses. Guitar seems to be about twice as loud as the singer.

I remember seeing The Bluetones at The Charlotte in Leicester in 1994, supporting (or maybe headlining over) Supergrass - and on account of really liking the original version of 'Bluetonic' (called 'No.9', i think?), coming out to bat for them while all my mates were enthusing about Gaz & co and deriding Morriss as an ineffectual weed. With the benefit of hindsight, my friends were bang on.

Unsurprising, really, the comprehensive selection of a certain strand of nineties Britpop/Britrock which is by law in every charity shop ever, particularly the following:

Ocean Colour Scene - Moseley Shoals
Menswear - Nuisance
Sleeper - The It Girl
Complete works of The Supernaturals
Complete works of Heavy Stereo
Complete works of Octopus
Ride - Carnival Of Light
Jack - Pioneer Soundtracks
Supergrass - In It For The Money
Cast - All Change
Complete works of 18 Wheeler
Complete works of The Longpigs
Shed Seven - album Bruno Brookes once announced as being called "Change Jiver"

No, it was from a record shop in Camden. Still, though, back whenever, you couldn;t get a copy at all after the first 20 minutes of it's release, it was around £50 for any copy.

M Carlin, you forgot, a bunch of roachford CD singles.

second track was a half-decent backing w/o a good enough tune over the top, spun out for about twice as long as it needed to be (4.09)

Bluetones are about to do a tour playing this album in it's entirety. No Newcastle date is planned though :(

actually, roachford was an eighties act, wasn't he/it/they

Cat Concern Charity Shop?

Is this really what I think it is?

(I recently found a load of shoegaze and nugaze singles at the charity bookshop in Streatham. Weird.)

Also compulsory in charity shops:

Vauxhall Conference trip hop - for all your Mono, Lamb and Alpha needs.

3/"cut some rug" is actually not bad, but needs a strong singer which this guy isn't.

There's something a bit "local band" about this so far. 3rd on the bill @ newcastle riverside, like.

will you be at richard h's wedding do, raw patrick? The "stag night" i mean.

Is that place still goin? (Riverside, I mean, xpost)

"cut some rug" was ok but was a 2-minute number stretched out to twice that long.

x-post no, i don't think so? Not for a few years.

Jack - Pioneer Soundtracks

this is a brilliant album! and no way were they ever Britpop, dammit.

also, no dissing of Lamb, if you please!

Is no one going to answer the pressing CAT CONCERN question.

Lamb? LAME morelike

Pioneer Soundtracks always turns up as a limited edition 2CD package. Strange notion of "limited."

I looked the Bluetones record up and it was a number one album! Fucking hell, I have to write about this on my blog... :-(

Oh yeah, and the No Parlez! of the nineties GREEN MAN BY MARK OWEN

it's a charity shop run by old ladies, the money raised goes to, er, some charity concerned with housecats somehow? I don't dare ask TBH.

Did that ultrasound one ever sell out of the limited 2CD edition, and go out as a 1CD?

I remember seeing The Bluetones at The Charlotte in Leicester in 1994, supporting (or maybe headlining over) Supergrass

Yes, this was a number one wasn't it? I forgot about that.

4/"things change" very sub-roses, some decent guitar playing but again, no tune to speak of. Also it's 5 1/2 minutes long!

I did get that "Ride" best of, similar price, it was quite interesting, but "Floppy haired pointy nosed indie boys? Do not need..."

Wasn't the Ultrasound album 2CD cos it was like 90 minutes long?

xxxpost

I've never seen the Ultrasound album in 1CD format, though it turns up surprisingly often on tape, complete with bonus lengthy freakout track so you get the whole 2CD content anyway.

Did that ultrasound one ever sell out of the limited 2CD edition, and go out as a 1CD?

― Mark G, Friday, 3 October 2008 10:06

This would be a charity shop find and a half, for sure.

As a charity shop junkie I am distressed by the fact that a lot of them don't stock tapes any more... :-(

I did get that "Ride" best of, similar price, it was quite interesting, but "Floppy haired pointy nosed indie boys? Do not need..."

is that OX4? WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT. I will buy that off you if you don't need it because I totally need that. (it is really embarrassing that I don't have it, I know.)

The Ultrasound album isn't limited 2CD. It's an actual 2CD double. Last track lasts 35 minutes. I was kind of disappointed I couldn't find a copy on my trip to London the other week, cos I've been listening to/being emotionally ravaged by "Stay Young" a lot recently.

I think I still have four songs off Expecting To Fly on me iPod - the singles (not "Cut Some Rug") and "Putting Out Fires". From what I can remember, all the songs off it are much, much too long. I still kind of have a soft spot for them, though.

I once found the Spiritualized Ladies & Gentlemen promo complete with original "Can't Help Falling In Love" bits for 50p.

Needless to say it wasn't in a know-it-all Oxfam branch but in a totally out of the way place run by a sweet old lady to whom it was "all music" and these places always yield the best finds.

5/"The Fountainhead" is actually good! Well, good in parts. Pro: Some semblance of a tune, nice instrumental break. Con: let down by weak singing.

Note also that, had it not been for Babylon Zoo, "Slight Return" would have been a number one single.

Thank fuck for that.

Babylon Zoo - another charity shop reliable.

"Slight Return" should have been called "Tonight Matthew I'm Going To Be Roddy Frame."

6/"carn't be trusted" half-decent, again weak singing lets it down.

There seems to be a pattern emerging here...

7/"slight return" Yes! It does sound like Aztec Camera. Very obviously miles better than everything else on the album, singing seems stronger, even.

Pff! They wish!

OX4, Kate if we ever pass again, or you get a bad arm and need a DVD off a VHS from the pond, or, um, do another lolapalooza inline ewith an ILX comp, or, oh hell, when I see the CD again, sure.

8/"putting out fires", good backing track to a weak song. I can't remember any of the tunes so far, except for "slight return".

I'm getting a bit sick of this album now. 3 tracks to go after this one.

What is up with my typing at the moment? Every time I end a word that ends with an e, I end up typing the next word with an e in front of it, and have to go back through taking the extra e's out!

Like, just then.

I nevere did underestand the love (and there was love) for the Blueetones. "Generic" seemed to be the word.

Oh yes - Countdown by Pulp.

They know what it mean, yeah yeaeh yeah yeah...

I see Petridish has given the "new" Oasis album a two-star review but four stars.

Oh, "Pulp on Fire", not a number one hit single, but.

You see, it's all in the detail...

http://i34.tinypic.com/akv403.jpg
The sleeve was nice, if not exactly fitting

As opposed to a cheery picture of them being pushed off the top of Blackpool Tower...

It was all down after that.

Oh dear.

You started it!

.. sunbeam!

Luckily they landed on a passing Frank Carson and we all saw the funny side.

Eh, well, so much for that.

Right, this is actually a "good" band in a lot of respects - they play well together, it sounds "tight" (which is a good thing w/this kind of sound) and doesn't sound pro-tooled, some of the arrangements are quite imaginative, there is a decent amount of variety, it's not too samey. Occasionally they sound like a stone roses 1st album knock-off, but a lot of the time they have a sound that is recognisably theirs, I mean, it sounds like "the bluetones", not like "rip off of band b". The guitarist is very good.

But, they never quite push it over the top, thus it's all a bit tame and a bit soporific. The singer can hold a tune, but he doesn't have enough, I dunno, enough "push" to front the band. The tunes generally are weak, "Slight Return" excepted, a lot of the album sounds like unfinished backing tracks. I guess at some point in the past a band like this would have had an A&R man select a bunch of tunes from tin pan alley songwriters to cover for the weak numbers of the band's. Maybe. I don't know. "Slight Return" is still very good, the rest of it a bit meh.

Maybe next time I look in a charity shop I will find a Dodgy album or maybe even a kopy of "K" by kula shaker, who knows.

The cover is very good. It looks like it should be a Levitation album, somehow.

Good summation. They were always a bit too introspective to really grab one's attention, weren't they.

Lots of copies of the second Kula Shaker album going spare in charity shops at the moment.

If you have to pay more than two quid for the entire complete recorded works of Dodgy you're being diddled.

Levitation! I've seen their album knocking about in a few places.

Oh, btw: Every Oxfam w/music has a host of cassettes, especially the music branches.

I got the "history of the fairports" as I wanted to know which bits of their history I'd like, after being surprised by "unhalf" and a bit bored by "liege"... "John Lee" was alright, the rest a bit hohum, so I guess I have all I need.

.. for 50p.

Not all of them do.

I admit, the reading one is particularly good in this respect.

One CDR I found in Paddington was a burned copy of "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End", which was nice.

I'm going to resist the obvious punchline there.

IN HIS FORTIES AND STILL UNUSUAL!

Levitation's 2 albums, "Coterie" and "Need for Not" are very good, still.

Need For Not's the one that keeps turning up. Like millions, I didn't know there was nother one.

A-nother one.

i didn't know there were 2 Levitation albums either.
i have one album by them, no idea what its called though. buried deep deep deep in the archive.

There is another Lev album that only got released in Australia but you could get copies over here pretty easily.
It's called Meanwhile Gardens and unfortunately it's got the replacement vocalist after Terry left and he's pretty 'meh', but
there are copies of the album with Terry singing and it's grand, anyone wants one let me know.

Ooh, I'd be up for a copy of that! I got the import which is good in parts, I suppose, but I also got the "even when your eyes are open" single which has got terry singing on it, and that's much better.

You wouldn't have Dark Star "Geneva" as well, by any chance?

I've got a bunch of unreleased Lev stuff and I've always been meaning to get Geneva but keep forgetting, I could put my hands on a copy easily. Send me a pm. Dark Star might be reforming btw.

1st Levitation album, "Coterie" was a mini, with most of the tracks from the 2 eps, a couple of live tracks, and this great track "it's time" which I thought was their best one.

Dark Star might be reforming btw.

Oh man, I hope so. the only band I've EVER seen that was better than Dark Star was Van Der Graaf Generator, and even then, maybe. I heard the Dragons singles w/the 3 guys from Dark Star backing, they were OK, but not the real deal.

(webmail sent)

Dragons is actually just David, Bic and Laurence we just depping for some gigs.

I think someone told me Bic was doing guitar tech stuff for MBV recently. (webmail also sent).

I've never heard any Levitation, will check them out.

haha before i open this thread the first thing i think of is 'bluetones'

Dragons is actually just David, Bic and Laurence we just depping for some gigs.

― MaresNest, Friday, 3 October 2008 13:23 (7 minutes ago)

Last thing I saw was "Here are the Roses" (which I liked!) a year ago already, I'm out of date, obv.

I've never heard any Levitation, will check them out.

David F's youtube channel is as good a place as any:

http://www.youtube.com/user/OHMrecordings

Oh it's actually that David F. Thanks, will check it out when I'm at a computer with sound. Brings us back to Octopus..

It's "in his MID-forties and still unusual" :-P

Ah, Sir Henry. One of the comedy greats.

Oh, and I might just take you up on that offer, MaresNest...

I'vee often tried to watch that film, but I nod out pretty much each time.

One day...

The film? I've never seen the film. I'm talking about the unparalleled audio recording.

Why don't Nanny State Politically Correct Channel 4 screen it earlier instead of wasting our hard-earned screens with How To Dress Naked On Location and telling people how to live their tax-paying lives in FREE BRITAIN????

The film is well weird. DO NOT watch when loaded.

I d/l'd a bunch of audio (Peel sessions, etc) that I'm working through.

At times you get that "Oh, that's an old joke. Hang on, this is probably where eit came from and who invented it in the first place"

"You broke wind in front of her majesty"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know it was her turn.."

That sort of thing....

best line is obviously "My dear lady...I wouldn't even have liked to have been the first man"

"I'm afraid this is going to be an understandable mistake"

Oh god...so many

Charity shops in the smoke must be a slightly different beast to the ones up north. I've never seen half the stuff Marcello's listed in any up here (Lamb/Jack/Ride/Alpha).

Anyway the elephant in the room is surely this one...

http://missskind.no.sapo.pt/dbimg/Republica-Republica199611392_f.jpg

Part of me wishes "Ready To Go" was still blared before kick-off at every Football League fixture in England

Is it a part you can have amputated?

Maybe you should hear the nu-Britpop crap they've replaced it with...

I note the second wave of nu-Britpop is breaking through to the charity shop massive; Razorlight, Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs now all regulars.

Menswear - Nuisance

Having just seen the cover for this album I realize I've been seeing it for years (decades actually) in charity shops and bargain bins without knowing (or caring) what it was.

I wonder what are the best selling CDs in charity shops, as opposed to the most common ones.