Post 1990 British Indie Rock/Rock/Metal

i got nothing against the country or its music as a rule, but British rock from the 90s onwards is mostly a sad joke and these guys are the punchline

― some dude,

Weird it just now occurred to me that there's really not an ongoing underground rock culture in the UK in the same way there is in the US.... it's like when you think 90s music board dorks from UK think of Blur & Oasis and we think about like Unwound or Jesus Lizard

― hello :) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, August 3, 2013 3:32 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it's because a lot of the underground-styled/sounding bands in the UK take all their cues from their US counterparts.....but if you already have the latter, what use is the former, watered down?

― Master of Treacle, Saturday, August 3, 2013 4:14 AM (15 hours ago)

I'm just saying there was no comparable scene in the uk to us circuit

― hello :) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

So, was UK indie rock as shit as claimed? No comparable uk scene?
What were the bands that can compare to The Jesus Lizard, Afghan Whigs? Nevermind (geddit?) the truly great bands like Nirvana.

Who are the good indie rock or rock bands or even metal bands from the UK around now?

and in before LJ posts about The Heads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heads_%28British_band%29

Fudge Tunnel and Silverfish come immediately to mind.

great bands

Early eps/albums by Therapy? and The Wildhearts too

Manic Street Preachers too at least up to Everything Must Go

Are you looking for heavy stuff? Like, do Radiohead and Youthmovies count?

xpost OK, that probably answers it.

Oh, duh, Caina.

Cathedral?

No, not just heavy stuff. I included metal because I knew someone would ask why cant they include metal.

Future of the Left/McLusky rule

― hello :) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, August 3, 2013 4:43 PM

just no indie pop/britpop I guess.

A Storm In Heaven Verve totally count though.

Like, do Radiohead and Youthmovies count?

yes.

I don't know that much about UK rock (or even as much about US indie rock as many posters do) but my sense was that M@tt's point was that there wasn't really as much of a 'scene' with indie labels, zines (in the old days), networks of venues, campus radio stations, etc that was supporting indie guitar rock in the UK as there is in the US. (I imagine that there may [have] be[en] more of this for electronic music?) I don't think he was saying there were no good UK bands.

I didn't think he was either, some dude was though!

but both are points worth discussion I thought.

btw there was plenty of indie labels and zines (Plus the weeklies actually covered plenty of good stuff even if there was no radio except Peel/friday rock show/evening session)

I always did feel however that the UK tended to prefer making indie pop and when there was a lull it looked to the USA for the rock. That was just my personal feeling during the 90s and may not be true of anyone else. It didn't mean we didn't have any good bands however.

Im waiting on the shoegazers turning up ITT

I'm wearing this tshirt right now actually
http://www.metalinsider.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/godflesh_1277059014.jpg

Part Chimp seemed to me the best UK live band for a good few years. Fantastic and largely over-looked.

on the same note as Part Chimp I always found Hey Colossus underrated.

it's like when you think 90s music board dorks from UK think of Blur & Oasis and we think about like Unwound or Jesus Lizard

lol wtf

ok again mbv, lush, pale saints, slowdive, cocteau twins, your arsenal-period morrissey, catherine wheel, curve, stereolab. not ned's atomic dustbin.

xpost is it wrong to think of superchunk?

It's never wrong to think of Superchunk along with Unwound/Jesus Lizard

Most of that stuff doesn't really rock in the way that e.g. Fugazi rocks.
xpost

-early gringo stuff, bob tilton. well, p much everything gringo puts out is good
-all the riffyer noisier shoegaze bands telescopes, ride
-current diy scene. nitkowski, silent front, shield your eyes, that fucking tank some of my favs

telescopes? please no

Off the top of my head, my favourite non-britpop '90s UK indie record is probably Prolapse's The Italian Flag.

I definitely got the impression there was a big DIY scene over here at that time, even though I didn't know much about it, labels like Fierce Panda, Chemikal Underground. Oh wait, I forgot about Mogwai!

actually the uk took over as far as the 90s with me till recently with the likes of lfo 808 state aphex twin squarepusher boards of Canada chemical brothers prodigy coldplay radiohead meat beat manifesto and others.

For this thread Bush are American. Cuz nobody knew them here until til Gwen Stefani married the singer.

Gay Dad
Toploader
Reef
Kasabian
Baby Bird
Electric Wizzard
Busted

Electric Wizzard

That would be quite a cover band

hahahaha
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/british-rock-bands.html

British Alternative Rock Bands

This style of rock music emerged in the 1980s and some of the best bands of the 90s also took root from this era. Alternative rock music had and even today has many variations from the punk rock style of music. It is a step further than punk rock and was made international by record dealers when they realized the importance of rock music. Today, there are many alternative rock bands which emerged from the British but are influenced by the US in their music. Mentioned below are the names of such alternative bands from Britain.

♪
Airhead
♪
Breathless
♪
Uriah Heep
♪
Angelica
♪
Cable
♪
David Bowie
♪
East Village
♪
Cream
♪
Quintessence
♪
King Adora
♪
Yachts
♪
Young Guns
♪
Chemical Brothers
♪
Shrug
♪
Mumford & Sons
♪
The Silencers
♪
Arrows
♪
Momento Mori UK

I Wish It Could Be Black Mass Everyday

off the top of my head: gallon drink, COUNTRY TEASERS (if UK stuff is ok), SKULLFLOWER, BEVIS FROND, terminal cheesecake, fudge tunnel, THEE HEADCOATS, E-WIZ.

and i remember at least half liking the freak-noisy uk psychedelic bands on shimmy disc - walkingseeds, jellyfish kiss (though they were more late-80s-into-very-early-90s). also more aggressive post-shoegaze stuff like th' faith healers & prolapse.

recommendations along these lines please.

wizards of twiddly, world of twist, leatherface, the framk and walters

a few ilxors will certainly stan for terminal cheesecake and skullflower

oh yes the 1st Leatherface album was a real classic. Not sure Mark e is around this weekend so I'll nominate Compulsion for him (to my knowledge him & I are the only Compulsion fans on here).

Cardiacs

Rothko ;)

I thought Carcass & Napalm Death would be mentioned by now

how ironic, some gimp just posted a bush song on the facebook shoegaze group. to general derision i'm glad to report.

Hah, Levitation too

oooh good call

btw if anyone wants a laugh.. http://www.thetoptens.com/best-british-indie-bands/

God
Aufgehoben
Mass
Ganger
Telstar Ponies
Long Fin Killie

were good noisy bands of one sort or another

gallon drunk! well mentioned. you the night and music is a stonecold classic.

yeah, in the long still night too

Aufgehoben

^ always meant to check them out. never did, but heard good things.

Esoteric
Acrimony
Iron Monkey
Six By Seven
Warning
(Early) Pitchshifter

I dont think we're going to convince some dude however!

the funking barstewards
african headcharge

I thought Carcass & Napalm Death would be mentioned by now

doh! i think of them as "80s bands", but no excuse, really.

Last three Aufgehoben records have all been on a US label too. That whole improv/jazz/noise scene that God were an earlier manifestation of is pretty interesting imo.

Even though they started pre-1990 I always thought that the Wolfhounds had it in them to be some sort of British Sonic Youth analogue, particularly the Blown Away EP which had some pretty ferocious and expansive songs, a shame that it was hampered with totally weak production.

And that may be a common thread for a lot of UK Indie bands, the US were better at getting a more fully rendered sound that some bands required.

If the Jesus Lizard had booked 6 days at a demo studio in Northampton and made Goat there's no way it would be on anybody's radar because it would have sounded about as heavy as Talulah Gosh.

hahahahaha

lol. does seem like we're hitting some iowa beef experience level barrel-scraping tho

(no offense to iowa beef experience)

fishbone?

Troublegum by Therapy? is one of my favorite albums ever.

Bark Psychosis, fucking amazingly turbulent live band.

Never cared for them but if noone else is gonna mention them then I guess I better
Paradise Lost

Flying Saucer Attack

this is a strange thread

Disco Inferno
PJ Harvey

bolt thrower
cathedral

I actually had some Iowa Beef Experience - an album and a single iirc. Think they were licenced by Vinyl Solution here in the 80s, same label as Feedtime and Bolt Thrower and the Stupids and the Hard-Ons and Les Thugs and a bunch of other great things.

they actually exist??

fucking LOVE feedtime, dug hard-ons and les thugs at the time.

mega city four

yeah, ibe were a real thing

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-835870-1163712466.jpeg

you took an instamatic camera and snapped me till it hurt

Iowa Beef Experience were real but they were no Horny Genius.

Off the top of my head (which means craploads of Notts/Brighton):

Bob Tilton
Bilge Pump
Reynolds
Hirameka Hi-Fi
Lords
Designer Babies
Wolves of Greece
Kogumaza
Grey Hairs
Part Chimp
Charlottefield
Joeyfat
Jacob's Mouse
Hey Colossus
Hookworms
Vision Fortune
Sauna Youth
The X-Rays
Th' Faith Healers (they count)
Ligament
That Fucking Tank
I'm Being Good
Kill Yourself
Mucky Sailor
The Unit Ama
Spin Spin the Dogs
Eska
PROLAPSE (they definitely count)

Plus stuff that I'm not particularly into, like the Earache roster - Pitchshifter, etc

eugenius

Does Spiritualized count as rock?

No.

That Vision Fortune album is very good! Some good Loop-ish droner psych, but pared right down till it's sort of reminiscent of Om or someone.

xp

but they rock more than talulah gosh

a) I'm not sure that they actually do, and b) where do you see Talulah Gosh on my list?

For a quick minute in 2004/2005, Bloc Party were my favorite band on earth. They burned out pretty fucking fast, though.

he's joking because maresnest said about them, he's not making fun of you

they must have done as I forgot they existed until now

xp

correct

www.drownedinsound.com

anyway, I obviously love a shit-ton of this stuff

Drowned in Sound is pretty indie, though. I tried to avoid stuff-that-rocks-but-is-actually-indie for the most part, even though some of the stuff I excised was pretty rocking indeed.

we all know you love
http://www.silverdisc.com/images/80/803341226357.jpg

xp

you too!

I normally find it is either good or it isn't

Actually emil.y you will know this : is there a thriving Indie rock scene out there just now?

Porcupine Tree

^ spz rocks harder!

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats

ohhhh how could I forget

I'll mention Oceansize, even though they're proven to be a me-but-not-ILX thing (can't hack the indieprog)

rock is a bit of a dirty word in britain I find, and tends to be used to describe non-alternative music

Anyway, I refer you all here: Unknown, vaguely Cardiacsy prog-pop that only MaresNest and I actually like

Good evening!

Not mentioning Guapo, lj?

Shamefully yet to give them a proper listen. MaresNest you may wring my sorry neck now

status quo is top-notch rock

Actually emil.y you will know this : is there a thriving Indie rock scene out there just now?

I'm not sure if I can speak to whether it's "thriving" or not, but there's some good stuff out there. From the scenes I know, there's a bit more of a rocky slant to things from stables like FP0P etc, and there's some great angry grrrl punky stuff about.

idk I think the ~youth industry~ noize/id/fuck-off zeitgeist in the UK in the 90s primarily inhabited techno/hardcore/drum 'n bass/IDM on the one hand (especially in the early years of these genres) and death metal on the other. I recall a v. small indie noise scene in the UK w/ bands like Bodychoke and Splintered and a few others that emil.y mentioned that rubbed elbows w/ the RRR/free noise/power electronics pool o' freaks but otherwise never seemed to garner attention apart from maybe Skullflower and Flying Saucer Attack (who straddle a noise/rock/techno interzone along w/ Scorn, Techno Animal, Godflesh and a few others).

(my US perspective is necessarily warped tho and I'm sure AG and emil.y have a better handle on UK noize)

I enjoyed Swervedriver at the time. Don't listen to them much now but I did see them play a couple years ago. Ride, Catherine Wheel, Talk Talk, Laika, Pram, Spiritualized, Portishead, God, Cathedral...

But I don't count Gr1ng0 (not sure why I'm g-proofing when I've got half their roster on my list) as "indie rock", I count them as DIY. And I'm also excluding stuff from the hardcore scene, as I'd never call that "indie rock" either.

xxpost to myself.

There's still a few at least half-decent mainstream indie rock bands knocking around - Foals, Horrors, Savages, Wild Beasts, Blood Red Shoes

the first three you mentioned are crap imo. Dunno the other 2

also hey hellhouse!

(my US perspective is necessarily warped tho and I'm sure AG and emil.y have a better handle on UK noize)

― Hellhouse,

haha I cant speak for emil.y but I have to say most of the 90s indie rock i bought was from the usa!

btw I think hardcore bands are fine to name in the thread

moderate rock
call rod!

Current metal(ish) bands
Fen
Falloch

btw I think hardcore bands are fine to name in the thread

If this is to me, then I agree. However, I did exclude hardcore/DIY from my response about "indie rock", which is a specific part of the thread's wider remit.

the first three you mentioned are crap imo. Dunno the other 2

well fair enough and they're hardly bands i'm gonna get all suited-up to do tron-style cyber-frisbee with you over, but in a world of kasabians and arctic monkeys etc they're alright you know?

someone better define rock to me before I evaporate into a cloud of dreampop (actually that would be just perfect)

haha I cant speak for emil.y but I have to say most of the 90s indie rock i bought was from the usa!

yeah, the UK at the time seemed consumed by all forms of electronic music and I think a huge amount of energy and innovation was siphoned off into its emerging subgenres (the US obv became an important market f/ that music, but a fairly large and high-profile indie-rock scene kept trudging along on autopilot over the course of the decade).

huggy bear ffs

I'm on a bus having just seen Gnod in a church crypt in Bristol and feel that this is a relevant occurence as they effing owned. Not actually a rock set in that it was all electronics no guitars, but they're a very good carrier of the Loop kinda torch imo

XP to LJ - No wringing necessary, I'm not actually so interested in Guapo post lineup change, I liked them better when they were a Ground Zero/Zorn type of thing than the later Zeuhl stuff.

I totally assumed that Porcupine Tree were Canadian!

because most boring bands are canadian? ;)

i'm not especially interested in participating heavily in this thread or defending my tossed off invective, BUT since the thread is kinda based on something i said, lemme clarify what i meant:

i wasn't comparing contemporary British rock to American per se so much as I was comparing it to UK pop/rock in the 60s/70s/80s, when this little tiny piece of land was producing a ridiculously disproportionate amount of the world's best bands and then, in my view, pretty much stopped. not to say there's been nothing good since the '80s, just not on the scale of back then. but since there was a whole rabid fandom/press built around finding and championing the next great British, it seems like there's been a drive to keep pretending these whatever bands are every bit as good as [insert your 63-89 era favorite here], and to me the elevation of Oasis is the #1 most emblematic thing of that.

w/e, i was just talking out of my ass, but to clarify that was what i meant, not any kind of "USA! USA!" type thing. American rock has its own problems obviously.

the next great British BAND, that sentence should say

not that into most of this stuff, but MSP still one of my 10 favorite bands.

obviously the UK taking the lead on dance music for much of the last few decades is part of this too, but maybe besides the point xp

I think early nineties produced the best british music

Ever??

your 63-89 era favorite here

What mid- to late-80s British rock bands do you rate, some dude?

The Cult?

(thats to some dude im not saying theyre a 90s band)

i wasn't really saying the late 80s were that hot, or anything, the 90s is just a convenient cutoff point

evening star: yep

Hysteria was a p cool record tho

indie is my single favourite style of music ( if it is a style ) and imo oasis destroyed indie.

not a fan of britpop or landfill indie then?

Off the top of my head (which means craploads of Notts/Brighton):

Bob Tilton
Bilge Pump
Reynolds
Hirameka Hi-Fi
Lords
Designer Babies
Wolves of Greece
Kogumaza
Grey Hairs
Part Chimp
Charlottefield
Joeyfat
Jacob's Mouse
Hey Colossus
Hookworms
Vision Fortune
Sauna Youth
The X-Rays
Th' Faith Healers (they count)
Ligament
That Fucking Tank
I'm Being Good
Kill Yourself
Mucky Sailor
The Unit Ama
Spin Spin the Dogs
Eska
PROLAPSE (they definitely count)

Plus stuff that I'm not particularly into, like the Earache roster - Pitchshifter, etc

― emil.y, Saturday, August 3, 2013 9:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in all srsness this is such an enjoyable list to read

a lot of non-selfconscious Britishness and/or Real Englandness in those bands as well, regardless of the Americanisms that might have been part of their formative influences

The Cosmic Dead are great if you like a bit of heavy psych

oh and some Rose Kemp fits

Sink were from the UK, right?

Another really good Scottish band are Moon Unit

http://thecosmicdead.bandcamp.com/

Stretchheads, who were a Scottish Butthole Surfers-y / Boredoms-y kind of deal. One of their records ended with a five minute or so loop of the theme from US 70s sitcom "Rhoda". Though their lifespan was split over the late 80s and early 90s, so maybe they don't quite count.

Also, the slightly similarly-named but unrelated Foreheads In A Fishtank, producers of "Happy Shopper" (sample lyric: "She grabs a plastic fork and then she buggers me"), and "I Want To Masturbate At Castle Donnington".

yeah, the stretchheads/dawson school of hyperfast hc/noise weirdos was prob the closest thing to a UK scene mirroring the american underground from the early 90s.

more stuff

Bivouac
Red Monkey
Giddy Motors
Todd
Geisha
Shit and Shine
Rolo Tomassi

oh and i love the Minxus record (95-ish i think). try and picture a jazzier pixies with a pint of X plus a cold-ass debbie harry as a singer and you're pretty much there.

I think a massive problem is that UK rhythm sections were generally rubbish compared to US bands. Or at best completely anonymous.

Still a lot of "supporting much superior US equivalent on their UK tour in the early/mid 90s" stuff on here tbh

correct if the music was bad, wrong if the music was good. same with this thing about loud music. not sure about this obsession with the word rock, but uk music is generally better. pixies, salaryman, mazzy star, early liz phair and throwing muses is the only post 80s music I listen to, whereas I listen to a myriad of uk stuff.

I think a massive problem is that UK rhythm sections were generally rubbish compared to US bands.

That's been discussed on the board before. Assuming that this is true, is it because new wave just massively devalued 'chops' in the UK rock world?

xpost

What are the UK equivalents to AmRep/Matador/T&G/Homestead/SST/Sub Pop

Rough Trade? Fierce Panda?

oh and I got nirvana and sonic youth vinyl back in england

and a radial spangle album

and superfuzz bigmuff, mudhoney were cool

at one point 4AD had throwing muses (and kristin hersch, tanya donelly), pixies, lush, pale saints, cocteau twins, his name is alive, dead can dance, ar kane and colourbox on its roster, all at the same time

I always wondered where English bands practiced drums as teenagers.

at home I guess

earl freakin brutus

What are the UK equivalents to AmRep/Matador/T&G/Homestead/SST/Sub Pop

― Master of Treacle, Saturday, August 3, 2013 10:49 PM (Yesterday)

rough trade, yeah. also damaged goods, clawfist, shock, earache, too pure, vhf, vinyl solution (early on), etc.

VHF is American rite?

can't think what Shock is or what they did, feel like it might be an ephemeral 'bargain bin of Music & Video Exchange' kinda label

dang, are they? lol, always assumed ukism, due to fsa, skullflower, vibracathedral, etc. but yeah,

...but yeah, us address.

Going through my music collection, these haven't been mentioned.

Orange Goblin

Other Bristol associated acts - Movietone, Crescent, Third Eye Foundation

Movietone are one of the least rock bands ever! I mean, I could list a million great UK bands if that was what we were doing here, but the thread title specifies indie rock/rock/metal...

the parameters of what's supposed to be talked abt here seem vague enough to fold in someone like Movietone, who didn't really 'rock' at all but did emerge from a culture of people playing guitar music to small audiences, releasing their own records etc, and doing it in a very personalised way that wasn't in thrall to American indie rock or w/e

I used the past tense there but maybe they still exist as a band? not sure

If you see any Shock releases in the bargain bin you should definitely grab them. It was Stefan Jaworzyn's label, had stuff like Skullflower, Ramleh, Ascension, Dead C and Drunks w/ Guns on it. Kind of like a UK version of Xpressway or Noiseville or something.

Some of these names sound vaguely familiar, but the only one's I know for sure are Beck, Rubin, and Weatherall, and out of those it's pretty easy to choose Weatherall, though I have no idea what kind of music he's doing in 2010.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, 5 October 2010 22:30 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He's making Racist Indie Metal

― Already WSed last summer (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 22:31 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the parameters of what's supposed to be talked abt here seem vague enough to fold in someone like Movietone, who didn't really 'rock' at all but did emerge from a culture of people playing guitar music to small audiences, releasing their own records etc, and doing it in a very personalised way that wasn't in thrall to American indie rock or w/e

― I was wearing a liturgy t shit and i noticed your liturgy tattoo (DJ Mencap), Sunday, August 4, 2013 9:44 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah as usual AG has a very subjective idea of what 'rock' means. i meant it in the broadest possible sense of, bands playing instruments in any form that is more pop/rock than dance/rap/soul/etc.

obviously the UK taking the lead on dance music for much of the last few decades is part of this too, but maybe besides the point

But this is totally the point - British music in the late 80s and early 90s experienced a pretty seismic shift away from rock that was simultaneously feared and impossible to really row back from. The British indie scene in the early 90s was pretty forward-looking but Oasis crushed all that and any subsequent Britrock revivals have been generally luddite in nature.

A general refusal to engage with post-1990 black American music is pretty crucial here as well given the relationship that had previously existed and how crucial it was to the development of British rock.

1993 was weird times for indie rock|

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkhwnx3NJH1qcna2no1_500.jpg

GOATS

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2012/05/1993-the-love-post/

^^^ Good Ewing post on this, like by 1993 British guitar music could have pulled in any one of several directions and eventually took the most conservative path.

the parameters of what's supposed to be talked abt here seem vague enough to fold in someone like Movietone, who didn't really 'rock' at all but did emerge from a culture of people playing guitar music to small audiences, releasing their own records etc, and doing it in a very personalised way that wasn't in thrall to American indie rock or w/e

― I was wearing a liturgy t shit and i noticed your liturgy tattoo (DJ Mencap), Sunday, August 4, 2013 9:44 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah as usual AG has a very subjective idea of what 'rock' means. i meant it in the broadest possible sense of, bands playing instruments in any form that is more pop/rock than dance/rap/soul/etc.

― some dude, Sunday, August 4, 2013 3:19 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Okay, then there's *way* too much great British music that fits these definitions to even start talking about. I mean, do you honestly want me to list the thousands of gigs and records I've been to/bought/been a part of? I can't even...

But most of that stuff exists in its own micro-scenes and doesn't really gain any major cultural traction - the dominant narrative in British guitar music has been one of conservatism for a generation. It's to the detriment of the sort of music you're talking about more than anything else.

I did like this album
http://www.senser.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/stackedup.jpg

I saw Laika in 1995 opening for The Young Gods. Laika were british werent they?

(Fwiw I'd argue that American rock music post-1994 or therabouts is closer to these doldrums than people would like to admit - there's no way it's been the most vital or exciting music coming out of the us for 20 years or so).

Well, yeah, but the posts quoted in the OP were talking about 'underground rock culture' - surely underground stuff by its definition doesn't gain major cultural traction? Or are you saying that the scene(s) is/are too fragmented for there to be a cohesive 'culture' to it? I'm not entirely sure that's true, but yeah, it's certainly not monolithic, it's more, uhhh, a loosely-bound bunch of syndicalist co-operatives?

xxxp to Matt DC

And yes, Laika were British. They were ex-Moonshake.

A lot of underground music can and does gain major cultural traction but the more esoteric end of British underground rock culture gets by and large ignored because music industry and the British public by and large isn't interested in rock music as anything more than a vehicle for cultural revivalism. This probably explains Radiohead's exalted status over all post-95 British bands as well to some extent, because they're the only band who've been allowed to carve out a niche for themselves while also selling loads of records.

Yeah, Unwound and Jesus Lizard were pretty far from the cultural traction of Marcy Playground or Matchbox 20.
xpost

(Fwiw I'd argue that American rock music post-1994 or therabouts is closer to these doldrums than people would like to admit - there's no way it's been the most vital or exciting music coming out of the us for 20 years or so).

"most vital or exciting music coming out of the US" sets an absurdly high bar. rock certainly vacated the center of pop discourse over the 90s, on many fronts retreated to timid retro conservatism by the end of that decade, and generally seems much less vital today than it was 30 or even 20 years ago. but that's all relative. taken on its own terms, the genre's still thriving in the states.

I kind of assumed AG was looking for equivalents to (North) American post-hc/noise-rock stuff (towards which I'm a little ambivalent anyway). By the broader definition of "rock", I can't really write off British rock since 1990, esp since Radiohead is one of my all-time favourite bands. British rock probably did get better in the 90s and 00s than it was in the mid- to late-80s, not that I know as much about it as many people on this thread. Slowdive, Mogwai, Stereolab have good stuff. I'd even consider the last (excellent) Portishead album a rock album. A lot of this combines guitar rock with electronic music but so did the Beatles.

xpost

it's like when you think 90s music board dorks from UK think of Blur & Oasis and we think about like Unwound or Jesus Lizard

Pretty dumb opening post anyway considering these acts aren't even remotely the equivalent of one another. You might as well say Creed and Green Day.

see I wasn't lying about fishbone.

The thing is, I consider much of what's on the pop and country charts to be rock music. It certainly would have been considered rock in the 70s and 80s (when rock was "still central to pop discourse").

not sure anyone posting itt is actually sure what they're meant to be posting about, I certainly don't. just here for the intersting observations and/or comfort blanket nostalgia

that roster kicks the arse of anything you could come up with now ANYWHERE

I don't anymore tbh.
xpost

http://www.wastesomecash.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/483x398/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/a/bald-mans-comb-1.jpg

solitary joke shop products that effortlessly sum up etc

Woah...haha OK sund4r basically summed it up, wasn't saying there aren't any good uk band just feel like the ones I think are really worthwhile outside of the shoegaze thing seem to not have as much cultural infrastructure to support them...

Like could you do a tour of house shows in the uk? Are there house shows?

Or basically I really feel that at least from the outside the deck really seems stacked against an actually great uk band

Thinking of bands like country teasers or flaming stars or beatnik fimstars or gallon drunk etc

Or I mentioned but FOTL seems like that now....

houses in the UK tend to be smaller and not have basements so it's far less common over here, although I was talking abt this a couple of days ago with someone who noted that Leeds is or was an exception to this rule for some reason

aiui it is insanely difficult for British bands (or whatever) to tour the States in a non-professional capacity, ie without visas - even if they come over w/o any instruments etc it's highly possible they'll get found out to be a band via the magic of google and get turned back. so not many of 'em bother

Whereas a band like Fucked Up or No Age (formed out of Wives) can be nurtured by the hardcore scene & graduate to pitchfork type crowds

(Sorry dj already had that typed on my phone but I figured it would be hard in uk)

(that was a response to the thing abt "cultural infrastructure", ie if there were a bunch more UK bands coming over to play in the US it might appear a lot healthier to someone like M@tt)

its £5000 per person for a working visa isnt it?

there are a decent amount of UK bands who started off in the HC scene or similar and went on to be legitimately commercially successful for a while at least. certainly wouldn't endorse all of them but that's just me

Gallows?

There are house shows but it's not that viable in most cities, certainly not for full-size amplified rock bands. As Mencap says, Leeds has often been a big exception. I guess it's only really doable at student houses and squats, and Leeds has a reasonable number of both?

yeah. can't stand them but I expect they've sold more albums than No Age

They did seem really popular for a while.

think they lost the singer though? Dunno how big they are now.

Weren't Gallows a really expensive commercial flop? I wouldn't hold them up as an example of anything.

I guess so
http://www.punknews.org/article/36590/gallows-dropped-by-warner-bros-records

The Guardian has published an interesting article about Gallows and their brief stint on major label Warner Bros. The band's lone album for the label, 2009's Grey Britain, was generally received positively by critics, but according to the article has only sold 50,000 copies worldwide. The article alludes to the 'Great Rock'n Roll Swindle' perpetrated by infamous Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and suggests that the band are better off for having such a short stay on the label:

"Spiritual forefathers such as Black Flag, Crass and Concrete Sox might have rightly railed against the establishment, but major-record deals were never an option for them. Gallows did the right thing. Knowing they could never be Green Day they took the money, toured the world and recorded an album so brutal no one could ever accuse them of selling out."

House shows don't really exist here but there used to be a network of "toilet venues" throughout the country, mostly pubs with an upstairs room with a stage and a capacity of 50-200

in the 90s an up+coming band would tour those venues across the country losing money to build up word of mouth for their new single/album, but I feel like that idea has shut down now the album doesn't make money so you need to make money on playing live, so you only play local gigs and London, and probably only there if you're guaranteed an audience (and the provincial venues now just do local covers bands if they're still open)

I could be mistaken though as maybe it's just that my town fell off the circuit when the handful of promoters who did that kind of thing gave up (there were always plenty of towns about the size of this one which only ever had a small set of local bands unheard of elsewhere and most gigs were covers nights)

I wonder if any bands play youth clubs and church halls or small art gallery type places

Gallows played Warped Tour here which seemed about right

I always forget Stereolab is British

also feel like the British music press prides itself on Finding Them First, so in the early 90s they hyped every possible proto-scene when it was 2 bands big and both of those needed a lot more practice, and anything vaguely mature (especially if it had been maturing at a distance from London) had to be sneered at, like, "we knew it was there all along but it wasn't worth our time, darling"

or maybe the embarrassing implosion of some of those unready early 90s scenes e.g. the New Wave of New Wave - by the late 90s a laughing stock - made them too scared post-Britpop to risk aligning themselves with anything? OK, the Melody Maker was pretty into some terrible imitations of nu-metal and eyeliner-wearing, point-missing Manics copyists, but the NME was more interested in single bands and US music than homegrown scenes.

every week in the NME '98-2002 the live adverts were full of listings for bands, venues, cities which would never make the magazine proper, or not for more than a non-commital 100-word live review

the local scene may not be representative, but here youth clubs and church halls are strictly for self-organised gigs by under-18 bands who can't play in pubs, and are much more vulnerable to noise complaints or the PRS shutting them down

art galleries don't really have the space or the PA for rock bands but put on electronic music or e.g. folk duos sometimes (probably easier to sell to an art crowd anyway). these gigs are usually early, seated, a bit sterile and expensive. I mean I'm not against live music divorcing itself from romanticisation of dirt, darkness, drunkenness and excessive volume, but...

in the 90s an up+coming band would tour those venues across the country losing money to build up word of mouth for their new single/album, but I feel like that idea has shut down now the album doesn't make money so you need to make money on playing live, so you only play local gigs and London, and probably only there if you're guaranteed an audience

I'm not sure if this is true for 'up and coming' bands, but certainly DIY bands still tour toilets. The most 'up and coming' band I can think of is someone like Hookworms, and they more than paid their dues touring around. But there *is* a difference between bands trying to get NME coverage and bands who, I don't know, just want to be in a band and play and make a record.

I wonder if any bands play youth clubs and church halls or small art gallery type places

Nottingham's always had a problem with venues outside of the Rock City conglomerate, but in recent times (since I've left) there's been a shift to art gallery shows, some more established than others (from the fancy Contemporary space to little arts warehouse spaces).

Youth clubs I'm not sure about, I think that is more for underage shows, but church halls work - if it's the actual hall then you'll get the odd indie thing, or you'll get larger spacey/droney/Low shows at chapels/churches themselves.

It makes sense for bands to go that route as i daresay its cheaper to put on a few bands there than the pay-to-play pubs which people complain is too expensive. Most pubs definitely go for cover bands here now which wasn't the case in the 90s so much (yeah cover bands did play but so did local bands albeit britpop or green day type punk bands by the mid to late 90s)

There's definitely fewer pubs putting on live music now.

I know we all like to blame britpop for everything but UK Indie Rock was already dire and a laughing stock with utter shite like Kingmaker, Carter USM etc not to mention its backing of ever worse shite like Sultans Of Ping FC. In a way its no surprise britpop "won". The 'Indie' music press generally always did like to back the 'wrong' horse. Kerrang was certainly no better. I much preferred the instinct of certain, shall we say, maverick, writers in the 90s rather than the editorial led chasing the big new thing pish they did.
Romo,NWONW, Britrock (Kerrangs answer to britpop) fuck the list of shite goes on. Melody Maker even went with Yob Rock

I'm not sure if this is true for 'up and coming' bands, but certainly DIY bands still tour toilets.

ah, ok - I guess Oxford just doesn't have any promoters left on the DIY circuit. We used to get the Gringo/diskant-approved bands through and the occasional how-the-hell band playing 3 UK dates and one of them here, but not any more. RIP

can't complain though as it's not like I'm volunteering to be one myself

(Foals came out of a fairly tight-knit post-rock scene here fwiw - I can't really work them into any grand theories of modern British music though)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanwhile,_back_in_Communist_Russia...

look before dadrock there was a lot of shit but also a lot of really magical stuff. after dadrock came along mainlly just the most unutterable shit.

dadrock,carters etc its still all shit to me

before oasis good and shit music. after oasis arrive only shit. comprendez?

Nothing good came after 1994 you are saying?

the notion of my interest in music being snuffed out by any one group's ubiquity is incredibly weird and alien to me

I do admit I started to get into older music by the late 90s but thankfully Napster saved the day and I got to hear the best old music along with 90s stuff i missed out on plus a whole load of new bands not covered by the press. Its always worthwhile digging a bit deeper. Good music will always be there IME if you are willing to look for it.

it was the effect they on guitar music as a whole, as AG himself said earlier. I didn't stop liking music ay all I got into Portishead, Moloko and Goldfrapp, and Ninja Tunes, and even had a brief flirtation with trance. I also and still do, listened to Belle and Sebastian. Then I discovered the German bands MIA and wir sind Helden.

well I'd still say that there were vast expanses of 'guitar music' in the 90s that were not affected by Oasis in any way whatsoever, but everyone's experiences were different I guess, likewise the music that was easily accessible to them at the time. I guess it was true that a lot of the bands you mentioned earlier (the ones that seemed like comedy suggestions notwithstanding) found it p hard to exist post-1995 or so in the same way they had before

yeah exactly. lush released an album called lovelife, which was trying to fit in with britpop. all their magnetism was gone.

Boo Radleys recovered from their atrocity

obviously things were a bit different regarding lush

slowdive produced pygmalion a wonderfully weird album that foxed me at the time and then disbanded to become mojave 3.

Even the biggest pre-Britpop bands were or allowed themselves to be affected - compare Suede pre-Coming Up, and the Manics, who stopped sounding like Def Leppard and added strings on their music

lol I don't think there's a less def leppard sounding album than the holy bible (something else I was listening to)

Even the biggest pre-Britpop bands were or allowed themselves to be affected

I dunno, not sure if the likes of Primal Scream or Spiritualized or Radiohead were influenced that much by Britpop were they? Could be talking out of my arse here, I didn't really pay close attention to any of those.

The Verve did BUT they were still great.

Or PJ Harvey for instance. xp

Wasn't Radiohead actually considered a Britpop band pre-OKC? They were classified that way here anyway.

Good question, maybe they were? They fall outside of the Blur-Oasis-Pulp triangle in terms of sound though, and their intentions were never really very pop.

they were a vertex in the b-r-o-s-p pentagram

nah they were never called britpop. If anything they got labelled alternative rock

an artichoke in the dodgy black grape salad

id take Black Grape over any of the britpop bands

help yourself

lol I don't think there's a less def leppard sounding album than the holy bible (something else I was listening to)

sorry yeah was specifically referring to JDB's playing on the first two (that Les Paul sound), especially the first album

I would concede the quieter/melodic side of the Bends as more attuned to typical 1995 stuff than Pablo Honey, which sounded very American

squirrel and g man twenty four hour party people plastic face carn't smile (white out) is a fantastic album but that was 1987

Already mentioned Godflesh but nobody said Jesu

I'd like to talk about Ride here because they were fantastically great for a short time (2 years?) and, I think, got mixed up in Mcgee's 70's classic rock obsessions.

"Hey kids, you have a really great exciting sound. Come and listen to some old Neil Young & Stones records. It'd be good if you sounded like this."

And from there we got Oasis. Ugh.

Carnival Of Light was really good though!

I think Ride are the ultimate example of allowing Britpop to catch up with them in all the wrong ways

Unlike Suede, Boos it didn't pay off at all

mcghee asked slowdive for an album of hit singles, probably because oasis were having hits. he got pygmalion instead. he was less than happy.

xxp
I can't agree. Especially in comparison to Nowhere / Today Forever / first 3 eps. That is the kind of great UK music we're looking for in this thread, I think. It was 1990-1992 though. Right on the edge and of course, most of us know this stuff. Right?

carnival of light predated britpop tho.

Only ride I didnt like was the last album.

shush! don't talk about that. It didn't happen.

Didn't realise Carnival of Light predated Definitely Maybe. Summer 1994.

Ride ahead of the curve maybe, even if it did them no favours

birdman didn't grab me

I did like Birdman as a single. Especially with the b sides. I might have been fooling myself though. I thought the album was pretty poor. Maybe I should dig it out.

I saw them live in 1990, fantastic gig, despite some technical problems. didn't really get on with going blank again. last year I bought waves, a collection of their radio sessions, and the early stuff really stands out.

i wonder if a lot of noise rock fans moved on to black metal or drone/doom

i think that's exactly what happened, at least in a general (if not necessarily a personal) sense. many people who would have been listening to noisy, scurrilous US indie rock (e.g., the early blast first stable) in the 80s & 90s are listening to thrash, doom, black and hc metal these days.

pitchfork thread rubbed up against this idea recently: "why so many metal reviews?" cuz indie as a contemporary genre no longer makes munch room for the noise & aggression that were once so central to indie as an ethos.

lol, "munch room"

there's a lot of punk out there, it's just way more far removed from indie revivalism than metal.

haha munch room

contenderizer it would explain a lot why the dreaded 'indie hipster' got into metal over the past decade.

i'm an heavy/harsh indie rocker from way back, and i trace my current (glancing) interest in metal to the gap between dopethrone and dopesmoker, so i figure i embody that straw man as well as anyone.

then again, the two streams have never been all that far apart. most of my college friends dug voivod, metallica and slayer alongside sonic youth, scratch acid and butthole surfers. that fed into the likes of soundgarden, kyuss and the jesus lizard in the 90s, though i jumped ship on "alt metal" at a certain point. stoner rock (qotsa, fu manchu, nebula, high on fire, e-wiz) got lots of attention from the indie/generalist rock press circa y2k, along with art-doom from khanate and sunnO))). earth as a through-line.

squirrel and g man twenty four hour party people plastic face carn't smile (white out) is a fantastic album but that was 1987

don't think you can blame any other britpop band for shaun ryder's demise unless you mean powder, nudge nudge sniff sniff

The eventual metal thing is unsurprising but I still think there's a lot of people who won't go any louder or heavier than say, Helmet, Jesus Lizard, or Unsane. Like the noise rock genre as a whole is the furthest they'll allow themselves to go.

oh no nick it's just the only mondays album I really rate, but its not post 1990. he was always on a one way path to self-destruction.

but it has to be said black grape's audience didn't differ that much from oasis'

Funny thing is that in actual heavy terms Unsane is kinda heavier than black metal

Also I just don't enjoy black metal but find the old "you can't handle it" thing kinda cute because Flying Luttenbachers or Lightning Bolt in their prime was so much rear and crazy than dudes tremelo picking over triggered drums

I listened to translyvsnian hunger and the thing that struck me was how thin it was and the drums kind reminded me of sped up skiffle johnny cash drums and the chords were kinda intruiging at times but it's very conventional music in many ways

It's probably like shoegaze, you're sort of responding (or not) to a certain sound and vibe

Not sure Mark e is around this weekend so I'll nominate Compulsion for him (to my knowledge him & I are the only Compulsion fans on here).

well, as soon as i saw this thread i did the cntrl-f thing for compulsion.

despite the lack of love round these parts for them, i still listen to their albums on a pretty regular basis.

Compulsion were Irish not British tho (unless there was more than one band called Compulsion)

wikipedia seems to back up my memory that they were a London-based group for nearly all their career

mbv is a british band even though kevin (who came from america) and colm are irish

I think we're going for British Isles here guys

A lot of indie rock people will respond better to a bunch of 'regular guys' playing noisy stuff (which is basically what the noise-rock was about) rather than deal with the stigma of the 'image' of black/death metal or whatever

'stigma'

I listened to translyvsnian hunger and the thing that struck me was how thin it was and the drums kind reminded me of sped up skiffle johnny cash drums and the chords were kinda intruiging at times but it's very conventional music in many ways

Well, yeah, that's a 20-year-old classic album from when dudes were still laying down foundations of the genre. And the thin sound was probably inevitable when they were not working with v high production budgets. Like early 80s hardcore (most of which holds interest for me) or something probably. The stuff we're talking about here is much less conventional (and less thin), for example: Search: Metal that Sounds Like Glenn Branca

"holds little interest for me" (although I love Bad Brains and later Black Flag; maybe I'm being unfair)

you are

I just find the idea that "moving on" from noise rock or that metal is inherently more progressive, musically interesting, or challenging, heavier or noisier to be pretty funny

Also black metal is more popular w indie ppl breviary of the gonzo look, not less

Because of

it can be sometimes and not in others tbf

like oh no i've heard whitehouse and on the corner and nurse with wound and wolf eyes but these guys picking minor chords really fast with pishpishpishpishpishpish 16th note cymbals made me piss my pants

can't speak for the algerian, but i wasn't talking about fans of one genre abandoning it for another (which doubtless happens, but i dunno to what degree).

i was only suggesting that the relationship of bad vibes harshness rock cru to "indie" and "metal" has changed somewhat over the last couple decades.

for me, the appeal of early svart norsk isn't the sonic extremity, it's the chintzy breakneck gothpunk fuzz. ear-shitting lofi production is as big a hurdle for some as unsane-style sonic brutality is for others.

but off-puttingness isn't high on the list of things i look for in music

no i get that, it just seems like black metal and metal has replaced hip hop as the ILM genre of "is it getting enough attention? too much attention? do enough people like it? do the wrong people like it? do the right people like it in the wrong way?" type handwringing :)

gonna listen to burzum one last time and see if it takes this time

lol of course this the the most i've enjoyed this compared to any other time i've tried, pass me mein kampf and some greasepaint

can't speak for the algerian, but i wasn't talking about fans of one genre abandoning it for another (which doubtless happens, but i dunno to what degree).

Nor me, I was talking about how fans of one genre were finding something similar in another genre in a way that wasnt happening 20 years ago.

Yeah, that's the thing. I get out of contemporary avant-garde black metal what I used to get out of no wave and post-hc/screamo and that I don't get from most music that is currently classified as 'indie' (although I admit to not following that stuff terribly closely anymore): something that really rocks and at the same time is doing something pretty original/interesting/complex. A lot of it is even really openly influenced by post-hc and no wave. Talking about Krallice and Jute Gyte (and other stuff from that thread) here, not early Darkthrone. I dunno, is anyone in indieworld doing the sorts of things that Jute Gyte does?

Am following this from a distance but I have to ask with all due affection algerian goalkeeper what the hell are you up to with your italics

sund4r did I ever play you Aluk Todolo?

wins whats up?

I'm not the only one who is using italics

Italics for band names is v non standard it's a little jarring altho it obv doesn't really matter I just needed to say something

Carry on :-)

i like aluk todolo

I'm a little on the fence about Aluk Todolo. I like some of it. Found the whole album a bit tiring.

(I like early Darkthrone btw. I just don't think it's what you should go to if you're looking for something that's really extreme or avant-garde.)

Hm, listening to Unsane now, I like this well enough but it still sounds like straight-up hard rock at its core, not that there's anything wrong with that. The drums actually made me think of AC/DC and some of the riffs remind me a bit of the White Stripes, maybe? I'm exaggerating a little; I mean, it does remind me of going to hardcore shows in high school. Good solid sound. I'd say Portal is heavier than this.

We're way off topic from British indie now but I think we established that no one knew what we were supposed to be discussing there?

oasis i think?

when has ilm ever stayed on-topic?

this thread reminded me of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DZrLryJCnI
Jesus & Mary Chain - "I Hate Rock 'n' Roll" (1995)

we were talking about ride

the ride album w/a picture of the ocean is really good

yes and the first three EPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmm7uCFImHg

I think the early Charlie Ondras Unsane stuff is a little different from their later output

three bands I forgot:
Northern Uproar
S*M*A*S*H
Fabulous

These Animal Men!