PUBIC FRUIT - Curve (1992)

Curve’s one-word band name and early Nineties gestation was enough for some of the music press to lump them in with the indie "shoegaze" movement, whereas Curve were in fact carving out new territory for themselves by marrying the spirit of Goth to a dirty and danceable edge. (It would not be long before Goth unexpectedly began to embrace it's former mortal enemy - dance music - once and for all.) Those of you who recall the rather more successful late Nineties band Garbage probably know that their loudmouth singer Shirley Manson rated Curve as their biggest influence. (Garbage's self-titled debut is well worth a listen, by the way.) Curve have also since been credited with influencing Marilyn Manson, among others - so they cast a pretty long shadow over the Nineties without getting much of the glory themselves. A double "best of" album, The Way Of Curve, emerged in 2004, shortly before the band split (presumably for good) in 2005. I would recommend that you check it out.


Pubic Fruit isn't an album as such, this is a compilation of three early EPs, which was put together for the American market. For many fans, this early collection showcases the band at their best. It's certainly rougher around the edges than the more polished Doppelganger album. Personally I could listen to the song Ten Little Girls all day.


The band were, to be fair, something of a one trick pony, but it was a damn good trick. The Way Of Curve is gonna be in my car stereo for some time yet...




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve_%28band%29


http://www.curve.co.uk/

NOT ACCEPTED ANYWHERE - The Automatic (2006)

This one might prove a bit controversial, in terms of obscurity. After all, less than five years ago Monster was a big radio hit and The Automatic were well in favour with the likes of NME and Radio 1. Since then, however, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the band have begun a steeply angled dive into obscurity. Having been dropped by their major label backers the band have released two more albums, sadly to increasing indifference. It's a damned shame, when the names of talent-lite underachievers are being shouted from the rafters. Particularly when Not Accepted Anywhere was arguably one of the best debut indie albums of the Noughties. 


Monster is of course the catchiest song, but throughout we discover a fine selection of smartly barbed indie pop tunes with a sly sense of humour. Also, I actually liked Alex Pennie's atonal screeching underpinning the lead vocals of Robin Hawkins, although not everyone felt the same. (In any case, Pennie was gone by the second album.) And what's not to like about a band that gives you a comic on the cd inlay instead of boring crap like lyrics and sleeve notes??


In summary - The Automatic are as surely destined for the "successful first album and critical acclaim followed by utter obscurity" route that Mansun pursued in the Nineties. But their obscurity is every bit as unjust and ill-deserved as the other bands on this blog.


Do yourself a favour and pick yourself up a copy of Not Accepted Anywhere. You won't regret it. My copy cost £1 because it was ex-library stock, but had I known it was going to be brilliant I would happily have paid more. Sorry about that, lads!!


What's that coming over the hill...?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Automatic


http://theautomatic.co.uk/

STRANGELOVE - Strangelove (1997)

I saw Strangelove live at the Cockpit in Leeds in 1997, and it remains one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. Strangelove’s charismatic singer Patrick Duff was described in the press as “eye-poppingly intense” in a live situation, which turned out to be something of an understatement. Duff glared, ranted, stage-dived, even ripped out some of his own hair during the song Sea Of Black, all the while with a knowing wink to the audience – he was clearly taking the piss. Wasn’t he? Well…probably.


Strangelove was the band’s third album, but really this recommendation could be for any of the three studio albums they recorded (the first being Time For The Rest Of Your Life, the second Love And Other Demons). Strangelove's songwriting was consistently excellent, including the b-sides – a posthumous b-sides compilation surfaced in 2008. An early review of one of the band’s performances described Duff as “Morrisey if tutored by Scott Walker”, which is not such a bad description for the songs themselves. Time For The Rest Of Your Life remains my favourite single, including as it does a drily amusing cover of Bob Dylan’s Motorpsycho Nitemare, although I also still love the song Freak - the lines I hear my mummy crying in her sleep/he’s a freak amuse me to this day.

Sadly this album proved to be the last huzzah for the band, as they were to split up the following year. Patrick Duff has since started a solo career, while guitarist Alex Lee has aided and abetted Placebo and Goldfrapp in recent years.


If you’re lucky, you might find a Strangelove album or single languishing in a charity shop or car boot sale near you – if so, I would suggest that you snap it up immediately! Good Lord, he’s a freak...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelove_(band)

YEAH YEAH YEAHS - Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2002)

When I think about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs I get the same kind of ambivalent feelings that you might have towards a cheating yet endlessly alluring ex-lover. I kind of feel betrayed and warm inside at the same time. Maybe I should explain a bit.


I had the incredible good fortune to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform in 2002 in a tiny club in London. I think it might even have been their first gig in London. Little did I suspect I was about to witness one of the best gigs I had seen in too many years. The drummer, Brian Chase, had a serious and studious look that was at the same time slightly ridiculous, kind of like a Ghostbuster. Meanwhile the guitarist, Nick Zinner, was skeletally thin, pale and entirely wrapped in black, with a vertical shock of black back-combed hair straight from the Eighties. I sipped my pint and watched the pair set up their instruments. Suddenly the atmosphere changed entirely, becoming instantly charged with rock n roll excitement. Singer Karen O had just taken to the stage. Dressed in intriguing tatters and carrying several beer bottles in one hand like maracas, Karen yelped, squealed and threw herself around the tiny stage, hypnotising the audience all at once. She had the rare gift of making you feel like the gig was all for you, directed at you personally, while at the same time not even appearing to take it that seriously. It was like a brilliant joke that you were in on. The music was somewhere between the best bits of The Cramps, The Pixies, The Stooges, and The Birthday Party. I was really excited by all this, and for a while the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were my new favourite band, and I duly went to see them several more times.


Not long after that, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs EP appeared. (Actually untitled, the EP tends to be referred to as the Master EP, after the word on the necklace around Karen O’s neck on the sleeve.) This blistering 5-track EP was and is one of my favourite recordings of the Noughties, crackling as it does with the kind of energy that a listener might expect from a live radio session. I absolutely urge you to go and find yourself a copy of this recording, even if you don’t bother with anything else on this blog. It’s worth a fiver of anyone’s money. Bang is perhaps the best song, sounding as it does like P J Harvey in her classic Dry and Rid Of Me days, but all are perfect. And if anyone reading this has a copy on vinyl, I’ll buy it off you. (email me at baron_bernard@hotmail.co.uk)


Yet by the first album, Fever To Tell (2003), the apparently mighty Yeah Yeah Yeahs sounded to my ears to be faltering already. Somehow the songs which had sounded so amazing live didn’t seem to work quite so well as recordings. Something was definitely missing, although the song Maps rightly gained the band a lot of attention from the media. Hmm, I thought. Oh well, I’m sure it will all work itself out for the next album.


Three years would elapse before the band’s second album, Show Your Bones. I can honestly say that I have never been so disappointed by an album. I expected so much, and what I got was a bunch of half-baked, samey, watery and unconvincing old tosh, most of which sounded like several different bands. There was not a single song I liked. Slowly, painfully, the truth became clear to me – whatever the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had, they had just lost it completely.


In the half-decade since then, one further EP and a third album have emerged, the latter even including (of all the jarringly inappropriate things) some electronic dance elements.


So that’s the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The first EP is great, the first album is OK, the rest of it is just crap (regardless of what NME might try to tell you).


Yet still I love them...!

EVERYBODY GOT THEIR SOMETHING - Nikka Costa (2000)

I wouldn’t even have heard of Nikka Costa if not for the inclusion of the song Everybody Got Their Something on the Radio Sunnydale album (reviewed elsewhere on this blog)…it kind of blew me away! It reminded me of pint-sized yowler Anastacia but far more mature and accomplished. Having obtained a copy of the album, it’s fairly obvious that Nikka can do everything Anastacia can and then some.

I just love this album. The first song, Like A Feather, is like Prince at his funkiest and feistiest; well, if he hadn’t already done all his best work in the 80s, y’know. Brilliant. Check it out on Youtube. Similarly, Hope It Felt Good is funky as hell but more reminiscent of an older visceral furrow that was ploughed to such great effect in the 70s by Sly Stone. Elsewhere we find Tug Of War, a song that throws the listener several curveballs; just when you think you’re got the measure of it, the song veers off in an unexpected direction. I’m surprised that Joss Whedon (or whoever chose the music for Buffy) didn’t choose to include the song Nothing, what with its aching strings and lip-wobbling heartbreak; it would have been perfect for a particularly gut-wrenching episode of Buffy!

Vocally and musically there doesn’t seem to be much Nikka can’t do…soul, funk, bluesy rock, ballads that can move you to tears (well, nearly) all with a modern twist and produced by Mark Ronson. I can’t believe she’s not huge. Maybe she is in the States. Let me know, American readers!

Basically this is a near-perfect album and I’ll be tracking down the others that came after it very soon.


http://www.nikkacosta.com/