S&D: Grebo.

SEARCH: DRILL YOUR OWN HOLE by Gaye Bykers on Acid DESTROY: Fuckheads who talk shit about the Wonder Stuff.

EIGHT LEGGED GROOVE MACHINE by the Wonder Stuff was fucking brilliant, and you're a thankless twat if you think different!

EIGHT LEGGED GROOVE MACHINE by the Wonder Stuff was fucking brilliant, and you're a thankless twat if you think different!

-- ...Motel Hell

I like Carter, though. They don't count.

PWEI rock. 'Beaver Patrol' is one of the best songs ever. As is 'Def Con One'. I think it's unfair the Poppies have been forgotten when they were a very innovative and entertaining pop band.

The Wonderstuff, on the other hand: are godawful shite. I don't understand what anyone sees in them. Nor do I see any stylistic links between them and the mighty Pop Will Eat Itself.

Ned's, PWEI, Wonder Stuff, MC4, Senseless Things, Carter - good tunes, good fun, good memories.

Problem?

BJ

Does anyone sound like Gaye Bykers on Acid on acid?
― Andy, Wednesday, 25 July 2001 00:00 (8 years ago) Bookmark

this question is still up for debate.
would love to hear of bands in '10 being influenced by this lot.
playing their debut album for 1st time in years, and loving it way more than i ever expected.
never noticed the driving bassline on the excellent, but dreadfully titled track, after such there's blow.
sounds amazing ..

after suck there's blow i meant of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83mYg7kHrhk

This is the most bizarre thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQ6Av3pwT0

this is the rubbish you get reminded of clearing out old cupboards on a saturday night

Ah, I didn't realise that Andrew Eldritch was their manager for a spell, that might explain the bizarre and terrible Sisters cover. It sounds like Primal Scream trying to write a song in the style of early Third Eye Foundation.

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/lk/f/s/c97fddd982a7d2e53e12c12a9c24f3a2/3352460.jpg

haha! god, why am i even interested in this shit?

its kind of hard to look away

Reminds you of your misspent youth.

only grebs i ever really liked were crazyhead, but not sure i even want to hear them again now

took me a while to figure out this thread isn't about greta garbo.

so it's about methy barenaked ladies bands?

greta grebo!

the name grebo is p incredible, also bambi slam, can you imagine having to tell people the name of yr band is bambi slam

http://youtu.be/rf6-5-9efM8

Dang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6-5-9efM8

is it pronounced gree-bo or greh-bo, plz say gree-bo, although tbf theyre both p sweet

in that first bambi slam song you can hear that they started off sharing gigs with my bloody valentine, but there was something always so crudy and cackhanded about them

it is pronounced gree-bo as it is apparently derived from the epithet "greasy bastards"

i have listened to "black planet" four times now. it is mesmerizingly bad

so still. so dark all over europe.

haha yes it incredible, the video too my lord stay off drugs everyone

it was nice of andrew to lend them his hat though

If it's actually possible to be "the poor man's Crazyhead" these guys were it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x7UC-PUPfg

lol @ "poor man's crazyhead". were they something to do with the bomb party?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgT3yhkaG0

^ pronunciation guide

The Batfish Boys were what Simon Denbeigh did after The March Violets. The Bomb Party stand alone although I think there's a GBOA connection after both bands split up?

I never really saw what put any of them together in a scene apart from mainly all coming from the Midlands.

I thought they were all supposed to come from Leicester, though maybe it is just MIdlands since PWEI were from further east, was it Brum?
& I thought there was supposed to be some attempt at something approaching a heavy rockish thing to tie in with the name Grebo. As in Grebo being what people called rockers, motorcycle loving hardrock listening individuals.
So when I was just looking at Grebo I was thinking pre-stoner rock but done wrong but that don't really seem to work. Think there was some psychedelic fixation with people like GBOA, Crazyhead & Bomb Party and some references to harder rock. Though not so sure with GBOA. Also influences from punk & Pop.
Wouldn't have cited Wonderstuff, Ned's and definitely Levellers as having to do with Grebo. Levellers was more crusty folk & wasn't Fraggle used for at least one of the others?

I used to go and see GBOA in '90 and get lifts back to London from them.

PWEI were from further West, not East.

Wonder Stuff, Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned's Atomic Dustbin were from Stourbridge
Crazyhead, The Bomb Party, and Gaye Bykers on Acid were from Leicester
all i can remember were those awful longsleeve t-shirts everyone seemed to wear at the time

Is this like the UK equivalent to third-wave ska?

do i have to dig out my scorpio rising album to figure out if those guys were part of the grebo scene as i seem to recall they were connected to pwei in some way (same label)

also tomorrow i am digging out my GBOA cds, however, i suspect an hour later when i remember why they're all buried so deep, i'll put them back.

To answer the thread title: Search: The first three PWEI singles, released as "Now For A Feast".
Destroy this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2F4cUDCYE

The Sandkings are not part of this whatsoever. They were a baggy band. I guess the connection may be that their appeal was largely based around getting drunk and diving around like a nutter at their gigs, which is a big thing which seperated these bands from the previous generation of indie bands where gigs were more of a standing around affair.

Before they put out Circles they were similar in tone to early PWEI & Stuffies and kinda sixties influenced, but I guess not in that garage/nuggets fashion.

I think Scorpio Rising had at least a logo design by tDR as well as being on Chap 22? Of course the Designers Republic / PWEI team-up was post-grebo, so

the big music thread made these boys pop into my head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtSU8nxMxDk

what have they got to do with 'big music'? fuck all thank god

I'll be honest here and say GBoA's look in this promo hasn't aged well, and neither has the music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2F4cUDCYE

holyyyyy shit

no way to word this and not sound daffy, but: for years i've been kinda baffled about how 'grebo' seemingly went from meaning greasy mid-80s Stourbridge and Leicester bands, making muscular, kinda goth-tinged hard rock/post-punk/whatever (bomb party, gaye bykers, hunters club) to meaning like, jesus jones, emf, carter usm, renegade soundwave - bands who did the noise/rap/rave/sampler/indie 'public enemy meets the clash halfway' hoojymawotsit. though stopping short of crusty sorts like senser and back to the planet.

it's got to be pwei right? because they were the first thing - and gave 'grebo' its name - and then they became the second thing. gaye bykers also made a dance album as pfx. but the big inspiration for pwei's makeover - age of chance - also get roped into grebo as well, retroactively. so i just assume the parameters changed with pwei and no one actually cares enough to say it aloud.

but BUT, how does this explain the (proudly 'grebo') wonder stuff and ned's - more black country sorts who took a bit longer to 'blossom' than like idk, crazyhead. was 'fraggle' just the synonym for the greasier early grebo sound as it begat t-shirt bands like senseless things and mega city four with the big student following - cus that's what i always take it as.

apologies for being down a rabbit hole that many wouldn't touch with a bargepole btw. i'm aware para 3 in particular is filled with bands that many will be making jokes about to the grave.

Westbury, if you haven't seen it, the Shamen thread digressed into related questions a few years ago:

the shamen: c/d

reposting this atrocity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb-nZF1ZKN4

xp Hadn't seen that, thanks!

Anyone care to remember Crowforce?

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

Or what about?

- Rub Ultra
- Papa Brittle
- The 25th of May
- Hustlers HC
- Diskord Datkord (feat. young Adamski!)
- Das Psych-Oh! Rangers
- Foreheads in a Fishtank
- Scum Pups
- Sandkings (mentioned above and feat. young Jas Mann!)
- Sunshot
- Kerosene

because at some point I have listened to all of them and either decided they are grebosphere or (in the case of Foreheads, Scum Pups and Sandkings) seen others decide that. Some of these bands are good. Some not so good.

Big fan of Rub Ultra back in the day, nice people too, but more mid-nineties Camden indie than any last vestiges of Grebo, almost bordering at times on the indie rock/ragga crossover thing that Bullyrag and Dub War were doing.

Yeah I get that. A more obvious 1995 descendant of grebo (version two) would probably like Collapsed Lung maybe.

A grebo band really needs to look something like this to qualify as True Grebo (TG):

https://i.discogs.com/BM_5kULcp3aZdqK30OLEgIn4oxFgrlm2lAQeVkvgSvg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:470/w:455/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9BLTI2Nzc2/Mi0xMzM0Mjc2NzQz/LmpwZWc.jpeg

Or this:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/peel/images/c/cd/Zodiac_Mindwarp.jpg

both bands look like they smell completely awful, essential ingredient imo. weird to think that the original drummer in zodiac mindwarp was the son of john le mesurier and hattie jacques

America had its grebos too! I give you early White Zombie, although Rob Z is admittedly looking a little philosophical here so maybe they don't count. You wouldn't have caught Crazyhead philosophising.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/peel/images/7/76/White_Zombie.JPG

I feel that Reverb Mother Fuckers are the USA analog to Gaye Bikers, maybe a lot of scuzzy NY bands are just Grebo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8vSGVljuBE

@DanHunterSportsWriter
4 months ago
For two minutes this is absolutely stunning. Otherworldly. Then it all turns to shit.

DanHunterSportsWriter otm

great ZTT sleeve though

the OK Computer booklet owes it everything

I feel that Reverb Mother Fuckers are the USA analog to Gaye Bikers, maybe a lot of scuzzy NY bands are just Grebo

It's a fine line between scum rock and grebo, perhaps a non-existent line. I guess the difference lies in the relative levels of cider consumption.

snakebite to be exact amirite

hadn't heard diskord datkord before and this is actually great imo. not sure how grebo it actually is, but it would probably go off in the right club today tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2pSpP0skw8

one too many actuallys there, soz

I discovered it through almost all 1990 profiles on Adamski mentioning it as part of his (painted less credibly) background and it leads credence to the idea of almost every Adamski single being different to the rest

I think that the influence of Public Enemy was trememdously important on a certain strata of indie bands back in that period and the ones that took on the mantle of beats/samples/dissonance/trash and threaded it into low-slung UK guitar music with various levels of success are the ones that peel away from the more basic garage rock aesthetics of Grebo.

PWEI evolved very quickly as tech was getting worked into the band, from yer garden variety indie to Grebo then the latter kitchen sink dance/rock/hip hop etc:

westbury mentions Age of Chance there, they got a lot of positive press from the likes of the NME, and I totally bought into them at the time, of course they were from a much more nuanced musical background than Crazyhead, Sheffield/FON etc, and were biting on Hank Shocklee's production style in a big way.

Maybe my memory is playing tricks but I remember so much scuzz rock seemed to have that vague Shocklee influence, Head of David, World Dom, Dave Howard Singers, The Three Johns, Blood Uncles probably a ton more.

'sidewalking' by the JAMC seems like a big moment in scuzzy indie bands nicking elements of hip-hop

thinking about it, Sonic Youth's 'Master=Dik' seemed kind of like a joke record when it came out, from the title to the lyrics to the whole ridiculousness of the b-side, but that's perhaps a good landmark in that whole timeline

This might be the thread to mention that Gaye Bykers on Acid are touring the UK from this week, I'm aware of this remarkable turn of events because my mates are supporting at some of the shows.

https://www.gayebykersonacid.co.uk/gigs

so are ARE weapons stateside grebo then

Tempted to take a purist view and say if they're not mentioned in Rich Deakin's book then they're not grebo.

Arguably this leads to defining W Mids and E Mids grebo as different things - E Mids being the one true grebo obviously.

W Mids seems to come from C86/JAMC peers and influences - PWEI, Stuffies, Ned's - and pre-Neds was all Breton shirt/stripy tights and Thurston haircuts, like in this early Poppies photo.

The first photo I took of Pop Will Eat Itself in 1986, outside a disused shop in Stourbridge that someone had gone to great trouble to change the letters round.
Photo: Dave Travis#PWEI #popwilleatitself #stourbridge pic.twitter.com/IyEQD3U2X0

— Dave Travis (@MrDavidTravis) February 11, 2020

E Mids was metal/punk/psych garage/classic rock influence, biker jackets, chains and looking unwashed. And liking or knowing the Janitors and the Bomb Party.

how on earth did i not see this thread revival !?
especially with the AOC shout outs.

picked up the PWEI live cd yesterday for a coin, and yeah, have been digging around the archive for more of the same.
turns out that i enjoy GBOA more now than i did at the time.
and yeah, the PE love runs deep, with GBOA shouting out 'Dont believe the hype !' a lot during 'better of dedd'.

nb : the connection between AOC and PWEI was always obvious.
seem to recall Clint wearing an AOC baseball cap on the cover of GBF.
that and the story re Clint going up to Geoff T asking for info re the techno toys that they used prior to an AOC gig.

I'm old enough to remember when PWEI were called Wild and Wandering. I think their version of "Orgone Accumulator" in the midst of C86 was ur-grebo.

typically the first time i saw PWEI live (Poppies Say Grr era), they were supported by Hurrah! who i was much more into.
so i went off and chatted with the Hurrah! folks instead of checking out PWEI.
next time i saw PWEI they had discovered samples/beats etc and Hurrah! were no longer of interest to anyone, including me.

it is pronounced gree-bo as it is apparently derived from the epithet "greasy bastards"

― Superphysical Resurrection (NickB), Saturday, October 6, 2012 4:12 PM (twelve years ago)

Today I Learned (thx NickB)

The grebo was also the dance the guys behind Mud did on that Top of the Pops performance of Tiger Feet.