Soup Dragons: Classic or Dud?

Is he really 41? He must have been 15 or so when those first singles came out.

Is he fuck 41. He's like 48, assuming he went to school with Norman Blake and Duglas Stewart.

I just saw the age mentioned in a link up thread and again here.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2011/10/26/sean-dickson-of-the-soup-dragons-banned-from-own-mother-s-funeral-86908-23515887/

It didn't seem right.

They were a decent band up to the first album. The first couple of (released) singles were genuinely exciting in the context of mid-80s UK indie: real welly to them. Can't Take No More was fun garage rock, and the B-side of Soft as Your Face - It's Always Autumn - was one of the better attempts at pastoral psych of the C86 bands. Where it went wrong was when they started doing everything Primal Scream had done, but three crucial months later, which made them look like complete chancers - the Stooges phase, then the baggy phase …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH7yf0ttsBc

I still have very fond memories of "Kingdom Chairs"

To be fair, their Stooges phase was about five years ahead of Primal Scream's. "Backwards Dog" and "Crotchdeep Trash" were from 1989 and "Rocks" didn't come out till '94. The problem is that they got the baggy/stooges phase in the wrong order. They were too early with the heavy stuff and kinda late with the baggy stuff. Also, the baggy stuff wasn't very good of course.

1985-1988 is mostly great though.

No, the Scream's Detroit's phase was their second album, when they were doing Ramblin' Rose live, grew their hair and started playing Les Paul's. They got booed at the Creation all-dayer in summer 88 for wearing plaid shirts and playing Imperial as heavy rock. They then went dance then returned to heavy rock.

Here's the lead single for the second album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTUU1H-0F34&ob=av2e

I'd rep for the 'drummy' version of "Can't take no more" which was the 'second groove' on a 12" single.

That would be kinda naff as they say up in Glasgow

What a fucking diddy as they actually do say up in Glasgow

I saw them live circa Hang Ten, supported by My Bloody Valentine, who had just released Lovelee Sweet Darlene. Neither were very good, tbh.

Lovegod has not aged well at all. And I say that as someone who never lost their soft spot for the also-rans of baggy. I do still bump the 12" mix of I'm Free, w/ the extended Junior Reid bit - still very much a jam.

I was lukewarm on This is Our Art & have never heard anything that came before that. I do like me some BMX Bandits, tho!

xpost to bham ... I saw them at that time, maybe the same gig. Soup Dragons headlining, the Primitives, MBV and the Hobgoblins at the Hammersmith Clarendon. I really enjoyed it. But I was 16 and I was hardly the most critical audience member imaginable.

I too saw that tour and thought both the Soup Dragons and MBV were amazing. This was in Feb of 1987. MBV were actually promoting Sunny Sundae Smile I think, while the Soup Dragons had just released "Head Gone Astray". "Hang Ten" is a compilation album that was not released in the UK till years after this.

They did two tours together: Autumn 86 (for Hang Ten! - which was their second released single) then Feb 87, for Head Gone Astray. Same bill except - if I remember rightly - Voice of the Beehive replaced the Primitives.

"Hang Ten" is a single, nur.

Their singles, pre "I'm Free", has massive amounts of packaging (plastic covers, inserts, posters, double-grooves, etc), someone was bankrolling them to be massive weren't they?

Sun Is in the Sky (unreleased) and Whole Wide World were on Subway - the plastic covers for those were for cheapness - cheap pic foldaround with a plain white sleeve inserted, then stuffed into polythene back - and were a standard model for 80s indies: no glue, no mechanical folding, therefore minimal production costs - whoever ran the label could fold the 14x7 pic inserts in half, wrap them around the plain white sleeve then stuff in the bag. I think in 87 they were signed to Big Life, the mainly dance label set up by Tim Parry and Jazz Summers - big deal management team who undoubtedly did have serious investment for the label.

That first single got pressed up and everything, then the band (presumably mr Issues, as above) stopped it.

Just as well the next one sold so well, considering.

The label boss has/had tried to sell off those 'on the quiet' to make his money back but the band, again, stopped it. Cue a lot of disgruntled mail-order customers (and cue "On Tape" by the Pooh Sticks, and now the weather)

I did actually buy a copy of the "unreleased" single from Martin Whitehead but it was around 2000 or so, not in 1987.

Yeah, by then it was probably 'all right' to.

I used to know Martin, He said one single didn't get sent out. And that one disgruntled punter wrote to the NME. Which published the letter, and he got labelled indie's greatest chancer. Was still aggrieved about it years later. However, he did finally make his money back (and some) when the Soup Dragons finally managed to headline the Brixton Academy. He took his remaining boxes of Sun Is in the Sky and went up and down the queue selling them as the ultimate rarity at a fiver a pop.

lol

martin always seemed like a good dude

... a rarity among indie 'entrepreneurs' of that era, generally the most unscrupulous arseholes on the planet

How great was the original drummer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RjjXVZm6Jo

I saw the post about BMX Bandits supposedly having a song about Sean being a diva. This is complete and utter nonsense. I can't even imagine how any of our songs could even be imagined to be about that. Sean is a dear friend. If it wasn't for Sean's initial input and support to me personally there never would have been BMX Bandits plus he co-wrote some of our early songs. More recently Sean played with us at our 25th anniversary show, he features in the BMX Bandits documentary 'Serious Drugs' and he co-wrote and produced a track on our latest album BMX Bandits in Space.

Sean is not a diva and I am very glad and feel lucky that I started my adventures in music with Sean and Norman Blake back in the 1980s.

this is unexpected

hey Duglas, every time i'm passing through Milngavie i always look out for this roadsign

http://i.imgur.com/gHfRbf6.png

haha

I wanna know whats replaced the maternity hospital in Bellshill. Marcello if you're reading this, do you know?

The BMX Bandits song in question is Star Wars, specifically the final verse. I guess it's a mis-interpretation, so sorry for that, although I don't think I'm the only one who took it that way.

Certainly not if you've ever met Sean.... whoops, zingin' at ya Sean!

"Calling rivals nasty names,
The music biz is a dirty game,
It doesn't matter what you hear,
All that counts is their careers,
and all the egos of pop stars,
I sit and watch them all go far,
We'll leave this world and run away,
And play our songs in outer space.
...Don't make star wars etc."

Sean has three new releases out, each one with a guest - Dave Ball, Fred Schneider and Bootsy Collins! The Fred Schneider one isn't out yet so here's the Bootsy one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AujNo4Medcg

Possibly of more interest, he posted this video. Think this might be their debut gig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXTqYkR6v54

I've only just found out, via a circuitous route on Facebook, that he's gay - I'm not surprised by that so much as the fact that he's been out for donkey's years and I'd never heard about it.

Yeah he does pretty well in the club circuit. He's playing at Pride here in Vancouver this year. But he hasn't cut any records for about 15 years so he's been fairly low-key unless you're into the bear scene. He played at a BMX Bandits reunion this month too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHh9bPnvm4Y

i rather like this..

very EDM/Devo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHh9bPnvm4Y

fuck it .. sorry .. no idea what happened there.

Think Youtube embedding is fucked at the mo

yeah .. looks like it ..

ok, just cos :

http://ireallylovemusic.co.uk/blog/?p=2285

having heard other stuff off the album now, this is not representative.

it seems a lot more old school chicago house styled.

the guest list is insane.

album track list :

Testifyft. Crystal Waters
18thft. Norman Blake
In Love With Life ft. Yoko Ono
Atomium ft. Bootsy Collins
Like Josephine Baker ft. David McAlmont
Lost Without You ft. Paris Grey
Ultratheque ft. Dave Ball
Truck ft. Fred Schneider
Monday Morning Sunshine ft. Jean Honeymoon
You’re Just Another Song ft. Little Annie
Heavy Game ft. Billie Ray Martin
Heartbreak House ft. Maggie K De Monde
A Kiss Before Dying ft. Alan Vega

woah that is an insane guest list

and it turns out that the album is really as good as the reviews are saying.

Yeah, I've listened to it a few times and really enjoyed it. Also went back and listened to 'Demonstration' for the first time in a long time and it holds up.

sean is on a twitter groove.
he is clearly still livid re the whole 'theres always been a dance element to our music' phrase that got stuck to them and so is currently trying to figure out the original source of the phrase.
old nme'rs have been dragged into the chaos.

Sean's good people, I've found; somehow we ended up mutual Twitter follows years back and I have to say I really like his recent music. That album with David McAlmont was striking.

100% agree.

i did not post this as a diss, but as a point of order re the chaos he clearly went through due to that one 'quote'.

Don't know about this Twitter thing but their chapter in the recent C86 book is an eye opener on that topic.

Don't know about this Twitter thing but their chapter in the recent C86 book is an eye opener on that topic.

Just read that chapter this morning by coincidence. Great book.

What I really want to hear is that TR808 / SH101 solo thing Sean recorded when he was 14 (as mentioned in the book)

Great recent chat with Sean here:
https://thehustle.podbean.com/e/episode-408-sean-dickson-of-the-soup-dragonshifi-sean/

Gets pretty emotional about his coming out and subsequent breakdown... and his lack of renumeration for turning "I'm Free" into a massive hit. Seems like a good dude.

Guess they are touring again, with the original line up and the BMX Bandits & Vaselines in support. Perhaps an acknowledgment that the Ross on drums era is what people want to hear, at least in the UK. Probably be good fun tbh.