It was strange time as 1997 collapsed into 1998. With 'Britpop' and 'Cool Britannia' failing to register that deeply with me 'up north' in Scotland - this period was less about London Loving Blur as it was with the second coming of the Madchester acts, (still) successfully riding the guitar tidal wave they'd helped start jangle, if not wholly distort. Somehow I just seemed to drift from music in '97....
The death of The Charlatans' keyboardist Rob Collins in 1996 ended the party for me in many ways, and the sudden ascendance of 'Big Beat' trampled the wonderful, ever-expanding ambient dynamics of electronic and techno music under its shallow bludgeon-by-numbers paper thin deep ham-footed boots....
Even progressive bands like Super Furry Animals and Mansun - I remember staring down the 'Stripper Vicar' CD single in HMV and deciding to pass - weren't making the same impact as I shied away from my characteristic artist loyalty (ie. the feverish purchase of every available single and album) and routine gig attendance....
The death of The Charlatans' keyboardist Rob Collins in 1996 ended the party for me in many ways, and the sudden ascendance of 'Big Beat' trampled the wonderful, ever-expanding ambient dynamics of electronic and techno music under its shallow bludgeon-by-numbers paper thin deep ham-footed boots....
Even progressive bands like Super Furry Animals and Mansun - I remember staring down the 'Stripper Vicar' CD single in HMV and deciding to pass - weren't making the same impact as I shied away from my characteristic artist loyalty (ie. the feverish purchase of every available single and album) and routine gig attendance....
Having since given up on NME - a casualty of the Blur vs Oasis war - I still made a point of buying the bumper Christmas double issue (something that I continued for many years until such a time as it turned into the indie version of Heat Magazine, being little more than a collection of page after page of Pete Doherty and Arctic Monkeys photos with cloying commentary. In fact, it died in its printed free format, almost 25 years to the day I bought my first issue, The Charlatans/RIDE Daytripper issue*)....
Still, in 1997's issue the two pages of the 'Under The Radar' feature - I remember that fondly, and the accompanying 'Vibes' features - had a round up of singles that had made a dent 'on the NME stereo' in the preceding 12 months. It was here that I read of The Beta Band's Champion Versions 12" EP and Campag Velocet's 'Drencrom Velocet' 12". More intriguing was the fact this brand of burgeoning alt-indie had been christened with the alluring tag of 'skunk rock'. Sounded good to me....
Still, in 1997's issue the two pages of the 'Under The Radar' feature - I remember that fondly, and the accompanying 'Vibes' features - had a round up of singles that had made a dent 'on the NME stereo' in the preceding 12 months. It was here that I read of The Beta Band's Champion Versions 12" EP and Campag Velocet's 'Drencrom Velocet' 12". More intriguing was the fact this brand of burgeoning alt-indie had been christened with the alluring tag of 'skunk rock'. Sounded good to me....
So the New Year was spent scouring the record shop ads at the back of NME, hopefully phoning up various shops on the hunt for affordable copies of both these limited 12"s.
Off the back of these never-before-heard purchases I was also tuning into Mary Anne Hobbes' - my John Peel that's for sure.... though these days she's sadly turned into something of an incredible 6 Music bore - 'Breezeblock' show on Radio 1. This was the spiritual FM home of many a progressive sound, including 'skunk rock' and she played a crucial role in championing The Beta Band, Lo-Fidelity Allstars, Campag Velocet and Regular Fries....
What was the appeal? Was it the fact these bands seemed to have picked up on the Madchester scene's (initial) melting pot of forward thinking influences and (in their own individual ways) enthusiastically mashed them together with the beats of Hip-Hop and the expansive atmospherics of dance music? There were songs, of sorts, but the whole was a sum of its energetic parts, the funky beats and bass, the spaced vocals and guitars, the slightly shambolic experimental approach winning through at all times. Here were bands that had that 'gang' feel but that seemed less concerned with who did what - I got the distinct impression they simply clowned around in the studio for days, gently jamming up their next "hit". As such coining the term 'skunk rock' seems a no-brainer. So as respective albums turn 20(!) (and 21) it's time to dig deep into the archives and see what interesting mementos can be unearthed (and to, y'know, 'get a blog on')....
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