The Boo Radleys - Wake Up! LP C/D

I do to but there isn’t one. It is so hard for me to talk about my very favorite band of all time. I think deep down it really is the Cure who are my all time favorite band but I have grown out of that phase of life.

It’s funny because Martin and I are basically the same age. So every time an album came out in the 90’s it felt like it was written for me because I was going through the very same phase in my life. For the record it is Kingsize that is my favorite album of theirs and in my top five for best album of all time but most people don’t see the brilliance of that album. I am finding out, however, that some hard-core Boo fans agree with this.

Wake Up! came out in 1995 and in that year I moved to San Francisco. So even though SF was not a shitty place to live, it did take me about a year to fully adjust to it, meanwhile I had this album to comfort me about being in a new and strange place. Now I wish I never left San Francisco but that is history.

Sure it is Martin’s Beatles album, but there is something about this album that makes it right. This is a phase that needed to happen to this group and even though it has been cast aside, for the most part, it truly is one great album. Just another one of the great albums that the Boos made for music fans in the 1990’s.

I miss this band ever-single day and I can’t say that about any other band.

great to hear Martin, Doom! stereolab remix again though.

We shouldn't underestimate the input that the other guys had to the music. The one time I spoke to Martin it was clear he had mucho respect for Tim Brown and all he did, not just the bass playing.

Somehow I have never been to Preston, I think secretly this album is why.

So what exactly was the story behind this? And the blue room in Archway?

"I was a Teenage Death Squad"
"Go With Yourself";
"Don't Take your Gun to Town" (?)
"Third Unattended Bag on the Right"
"Stronger";
"Betsy's Beads"
"Little Giant"

BTW, it use to be Brave Captain but now he wants to go by bravecaptain, for some reason, and it’s suppose to be all small with it being one word.

brave captain is horrible, i think gorwel owen must make jokes about him when he's working with sfa and gorky's. 'he's got this hat...'

i'd buy a second eggman album. is sice off somewhere selling books?

The Fingertip Saint Sessions Vol. 1 (2000) – 1) Raining Stones 4) Third Unattended Bag On the Right 5) The Tragic Story [?]

Go With Yourself (2000) – 2) Assembly Of the Unrepresented 4) Where Is My Head? 5) Ein Hoff Le 6) Hermit Versus the World 8) Reuben 9) Go With Yourself

Better Living Thought Reckless Experimentation EP (2001) – 3) Me and You Glue 4) Stronger

Advertisment For Myself (2002) – 3) Stand Up and Fight 5) Rod’s Got One 6) I Was A Teenage Death Squad [?] 9) This Weight That You Have Found 11) Betsi’s Beads 14) Mobitise

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace (2004) – 1) AWOBMOLG 2) Into Thin Air 3) Every Word You Sound 6) Good Life [feat. Sice on lead vocal] 10) Weaponized

I still have a couple of newer EP’s and random songs to go over but, like I said, still have about a month to get it all together.

Sice has shown up on that bravecaptain song (Good Life) and on two other songs from December of 2004. The group is called Meister and has people like Mark Gardner, Idha and Howard Jones also on his album called I Met The Music. The two best songs are the ones that Sice sings however and they are called "Be Love" and "Jealousy" and have this on slsk if you want to hear it.

I LOVED that Eggman album but it never came close to anything he did with the Boo Radleys.

I think Wilder is an amazing song - never understood the hate for it. Eggman is really really good.

Rather than start a new thread, can we talk about C'Mon Kids now? It was hailed as a welcome return to the crazier stuff at the time but maybe it's aged just a bit? I never really liked the title track or What's In The Box but Ride the Tiger and Everything is Sorrow are great songs; Four Saints is sonic bliss as is Bullfrog Green; but there is quite a lot of filler on it. Still very good. I'd say if Wake Up! is Carr's Pet Sounds then C'Mon Kids is Smiley Smile.

(I should say that the self-title debut album by the Works, a Dungen spinoff band, *really* reminds me of the Boos in shoegaze/Beatles mode, more in feel than in specific sonic reference. It's more self consciously a late sixties/early seventies sound but it's done extremely well, search it out if you can.)

Meanwhile, demi-inspired by this, I am listening to my CDR burn of Ichabod and I from many years back. Mmm.

Just wish I had a vinyl player...

I was never sure what to make of Kingsize - a lot of it was good and a lot of it sounded a bit bandwagony and old-before-it's-time and a lot of it sounded like a Christian rock band.

Boy was I right.

I already owned this album and Kingsize without particularly liking either, but hearing Giant Steps triggered some serious reassessment. Epic, EPIC shit. I was having a spot of difficulty with Wake Up! at first, preferring that more 'crunching' sound they did, but now I love it. Whatever you think of *that* song, I like to think of it as Martin Carr's 'Good Vibrations'. You know, a bit of a 'pocket symphony'. Thinking on, someone really should write a symphony about pockets.

Kingsize, I'm still struggling with. There's the spine of an absolute classic there: the first four tracks (even *gulp* Free Huey) are superb and seem to be taking the album on this kind of grand, serpentine adventure but it seems to hit a bit of a buffer after that. The title track is one of the best songs I've ever heard, The Future Is Now is a cool, breezy way to end the album, but other tracks just seem too much to have 'required assembly'...which can be a good thing...but with stuff like Clo-Clo, the main trunk of the song doesn't really fit the coda (those extended wig-outs they did so well). Also, said 'trunks' aren't very good, which is bound to be a problem. It does sound at times, as Martin Carr said, like he'd almost given up by this point.

Maybe it will click eventually. In any case, I haven't indulged in one band so much since I went out and bought SFA's entire (then) catalogue 5 years ago after digging Radiator and Outspaced out of my collection and giving them long overdue listening time. A not dissimilar story, but one for a different thread altogether I suppose.

Pretty fucked off I'll never get to see the Boos live, actually.

C'mon Kids thrills on a way more visceral level than Wake Up! but it does seem to stall and wobble a bit more than I remembered. I still think I like it better, but only just. Kingsize needs to lose "The Future Is Now" (and maybe "Monuments For A Dead Century") before I will consider it best-Boos-evah!-contender, but I do like how much tighter and less jangly it is than Wake Up!. I always loved "Free Huey", I thought it was like they were trying to be Republica.

"Belvidere" pretty much wipes the floor with everything else, on reflection. But a whole album of this would have been a bit drab.

BeeOK and I'm usually hang around in the I Love Music room as well.

I will be back in a bit to write my thoughts on Kingsize.

Thanks for the Ned!'

I am really starting to love ILM!

hmmm...i thought it was safe to assume that this was one of the best songs on Kingsize.

I don't much like Boos lyrics, i think this is why I prefer 'C'mon Kids' because he does oddness a better turn than earnestness. Shelter isn't filler, it's a solid album track.

I saw the Boos open for Better than ezra, a miserable experience as all the dopes there kept talking while they played their 8 song set, ugh. saw them on their own a few years before and they were horrible then, one big ball of black noise, hard to get anything out of it.

That just about tells it all. I could write out a three-page review of why I love Kingsize but will cut it down and try not to get too personal.

I had just about giving up on trying to find someone, anyone on this earth who thought this is by far the best thing the boos have ever done. Than because of the anthology album Find Your Way Out that is coming out (July 4) the question came up on bravecaptain board, what is the best album? To my shock and amazement this beat ever other album easily when I thought it would be Giant Steps that would win.

First my criticism of this album is that 'Free Huey' does not work. In fact I always thought I hated this song but it’s not bad on its own. So I am so use to skipping this song every time I play the album it doesn’t even feel to me like it’s part of it.

I have always been drawn to powerful music that seems to draw me in and speak to my inter soul. When you can relate to ever single song on an album than you know you have something special. With age comes wisdom and everything just seem to come together perfectly for this album. Martin Carr has never written better lyrics before or after this period in his life. So I can understand this album not speaking for a lot of people but for the few it has it seems to have really made a certain connection.

It made me laugh that someone said that he felt like this was a Christian rock album. Martin is not a religious man but did write songs that might seem that way but really they are about drugs and friendship. "Now we’ve high as monkeys Now we’ve come so far You and I are simple friends no more Now we’re high as monkeys Opened a few doors Let the sunshine crash into our souls …Thinking fast and feeling free And there’s no one who can touch me Higher than the universe itself Thanks I don’t need no help."

'Kingsize' is the Boo Radleys best song and is a powerful statement when they have a song called 'Lazarus' but is true. I always felt that song would be the song I dedicate to my wife someday…

Their best ever single is on this album as well but was never released as such or on the UK version of this album. 'Put Your Arms Around Me And Tell Me Everything’s Going To Be OK' is pure pop genius, IMO.

'The Future Is Now' is also a peek into what he would be doing next with bravecaptain stuff. 'Song From The Blue Room' is a much better or perfect ending for this album however.

So I do understand many, many people not getting or liking this album. I also feel it doesn’t reveal itself for a bit and could be a bit off putting a first. The rewards are so much greater in the end but could be just me.

Deon

Username: Put Your Arms Around Me And Tell Me Everything's Going To Be(e) OK

Maybe it's because I knew the end was nigh for the Boos when it came out that I couldn't bring myself to love Kingsize. I rushed into the shops on that October day expecting some kind of display with THE NEW BOO RADLEYS! written on it. But no, I had to ask a shop assistant who directed me to a forlorn bit of the shop. I could only be disappointed by the packaging which, on the outside looked like a Wonderstuff poster on a student's wall, and on the inside could have been knocked up by an invalid with a vague grasp of MS Paint.

Still it's the music that counts. I remember being delighted by the drill'n'bass intro, being a massive Aphex Twin fan at the time, but even then still recognising it as tokenism.
Still the first two songs were fantastic. The Old Newsstand especially working as the perfect partner to Belvedere. Free Huey I'd heard already. Never liked this - it sounded dated even at the time and saying things like "Republica" doesn't help it at all. What are the lyrics about?
Monuments For A Dead Century on first listens sounded like a horrible attempt at cashing in on millennium fever, but is redeemable as the only song on Kingsize to have a proper wigout.
I agree with whoever said the middle section of the album needed breaking up. Eurostar and Adieu Clo Clo are both great songs but far too similar to be stuck together. Jimmy Webb Is God, a fantastic track in itself with a sublime coda just gets lost. I don't often make it to the end of this album because of this.
I always skipped Comb Your Hair because it sounded almost exactly the same as a Pulp song that came out about the same time. She Is Everywhere is a welcome return to Wake Up lyricism and almost partners tracks like 4am Conversation.
Altogether, Kingsize is by no means a bad album, it's just a little halfbaked and unfocussed compared to the Boos in their prime.

Gotta go, or I'll be late.

When I check back, the finished album tracks were almost the same as the ones I was having a hard time with – simple things like good sequencing brought the album to life a bit. Free Huey and Kingsize were grafted on as late additions (ironically the worst and best tracks). The early demo of Kingsize was drone-pop, and sounded like early Spiritualized, who Martin used to adore.

It was heartbreaking that they split on the back of such a great album. But if no-one is buying your records, what can you do?

I know it was a US only track but it’s really excellent

Agreed and one of their best songs.

It's actually called "Put Your Arms Around Me and Tell Me Everything's Going to Be OK" and yes, where I got my username.

I'm going to admit it here. I have listened to the new album a lot this year. It's pure AOR crap but with Sice singing it works for me.

Not on the reissue IMO because Cherry Red has a tendency to lift from retail UK CD singles. It's possible whoever compiled didn't know it existed. C'Mon Kids bonus 7" tracks and Kingsize single promo tracks also get overlooked. I have a quite a few of their reissues and this appears to be a common theme

Man, "Wake Up Boo" is such a fucking dark song. "For what could be the very last time" - what are you saying here, Martin?

Marcello on WUB (and the glorious Wake Up! in general): http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-boo-radleys-wake-up.html

I thought this album was pretty shit at the time, after liking the previous 2 and the EPs. Sold it years ago. Still think It's Lulu was a terrible song for a single. Maybe it's worth another listen

It's Lulu is embarrassing trash imo, but the rest of the album is lovely Beatlesy melancho/psychedelia

Quite annoying the B sides from this era are missing from Spotify, and I'd love a deluxe reissue with those on, but here's an alternative tracklisting for Wake Up I made (It's Lulu swapped out for Bench at Belvedere)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0nH15duwTKTYLvM23hC0aB?si=zwnly104QHifai02d_WOow&utm_source=copy-link

Love that Marcello write up. Interesting he mentions High & Dry at the end. One of my first property concerts as a teenager was the Boos on their Belvedere tour at Cambridge Corn Exchange, and I remember the venue piping High & Dry through the foyer on the way in and thinking momentarily that the Boos had already started playing

Heeeeeyyy what's that noise?? Do you rememberrrrr?? Do you remember??

*proper

I did buy the new Boo Radleys' album to help it make a mark in the album chart (failed..).

Played about half of it, it's nice but..

I feel bad about this, but I just don't want to hear it.

I'm ignoring it completely.

Would love to have Sice as therapist <3

It's like a beef chili without any chili in it.

a couple of months ago i found both cd singles for 'wake up boo!' in a charity shop bin.
the second cd has a rather mad 9 minute track :
'music for astronauts'
kicks off with the standard track and then morphs into a full on excess of timestamped baggy beats enhanced with acid squiggles and samples.
i.e. it's rather wonderful, and something i did not expect.
however, the final track on the ep, 'the history of creation parts 17 & 36' will never get listened to again.

I still have never heard “blues for George Michael”, it’s supposed to be a super mental bside yeah?

does your ilx email work ?

Blues For George Michael is my favourite song by them

It's super mental

ta, mark!

"Blues for George Michael" didn't make my ballot when we did the Boo Radleys polls but a bunch of B-sides did make my ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHCVEtWKPTw