Best of Oxford

Talulah Gosh!

hmm, wonder who'll win this.

Indeed (xp).

James Lavelle should be in there somewhere, ditto the Candyskins, and if we're counting Banbury so should G*ry Gl*tt*r.

Chalky's favourites THE EGG!!!

xp we're not counting Banbury.

who is James Lavelle?

the richey manic of UNKLE

Including Ugly Rumours is a nice touch.

Swervedriver.
Easy.

Sure I read somewhere they were re-uniting?

What of the mighty IRON GOAT?

Oh, sorry, this is the wrong messageboard for that one.

Gotta be Radiohead, even though Supergrass have made better music since the late 90s.

Heavenly

(Ride were from Banabury art college)

If we are counting Banaury what about Play Dead?

Yeah, well, Radiohead are from Abingdon.

This really isn't a very impressive line-up.

I can't wait for the Best of Cardiff poll.

SHAKY TO WIN

Jazz Butcher
Play Dead

Swervedriver.
and yes they have announced a reunion tour recently.

No World of Carpets?

In my head Supergrass are from Didcot, but I can't imagine anyone being from Didcot, so I am probably mistaken. Maybe it was a joke answer to an interviewer.

they are from Wheatley. To start a "best of Wheatley" thread would be, I feel, tantamount to trolling.

Certainly equivalent to a Best Of Lounging About At The Corner Of Park End Street On A Wednesday Afternoon In The Nineties thread (since I regularly saw the Jennifers/Supergrass doing this).

There was never enough love for Five Thirty at the time. Or since. Not that I voted for them.

Razorcuts, The Carousel, TG/Heavenly obv

(won't be voting)

Haha.. It's a thread to get me out of hiding isn't it?

BTW Black Nielson were from Southampton and not Oxford. I'd have voted for them otherwise

"To start a "best of Wheatley" thread would be, I feel, tantamount to trolling."

Tough choice between The Pernoctators, Requiem and Supergrass, right?

Possibly not quite so tough for those of you didn't used to be in both The Pernoctaors and Requiem while they were at the Poly in Wheatley?

Hi Jill!

Dingbod, did you ever hear 90s Oxford improv duo the XIII Ghosts? They did an album with Derek Bailey (and Thurston Moore, and Andrew Clare of I'm Being Good and Plan B illustrations, though I could not honestly tell you what any of them did on it). It's not my thing at all, unfortunately, but knowing you were in Oxford around that time and listen to Derek Bailey I wondered if you'd heard them and what you thought.

I'm going with 5:30, being that "13th Disciple" wipes the floor with all that other shit.

Also, I'm guessing we're talking about a different Mr.Big, right?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

spacecadet xpost:

Bloody hell, yes, the Oxford improv massive! I've got two albums by XIII Ghosts in the house (Legend Of The Blood Yeti was the one with DB and Thurston on it though the first one with just Alex and Ben on it was better) - must give those a further listening.

I know Steve Noble pretty well and he was pretty much flying the banner for Cowley Road improv back in the early eighties with Pat Thomas, Rod Poole, Pete McPhail etc. They should all be in here really.

No Meanwhile Back in Communist Russia, no etc.

I found my way to the XIII Ghosts from Nought via Camp Blackfoot (either of whom I might have voted for had they been listed) and it's a little too out there for this non-improv-listener but I dig it out every so often (great titles and artwork if nothing else) and like it more each time.

I got talking to Dr Switch and Heini L-W at Nought/CB gigs a few times and they seemed good people. Switch wrote me a list of albums to check out and I eagerly tracked them down, eventually; found some great stuff from him, though much of it might seem kind of obvious in post-ILM retrospect, but it was mostly either new to me or something I'd only vaguely heard of. I was going to wonder what he's up to now but a quick burst of e-stalking suggests he's writing about horror films for Sight and Sound and has a book about "Night of the Living Dead" due out soon. I'd love to hear some new music from him though.

Was just watching the John Peel "Sounds of the Suburbs" on Oxford w/Pat Thomas and James from Nought, prompted by the Nightshift messageboard, funnily enough. It's up on Youtube now.

Radiohead, if only by default.

Mr Big must be the "Romeo" lot not the "To Be With You" lot, yes?

I wonder whether anyone will vote for Ugly Rumours just to make their own neoliberal point. In 1995, Pat Kane (who I have never been able to stand musically - soulcialist Phil Collins just about covers it - but who has got a lot more other things right than I'd like him to) commented about the proto-Blairite elements that were in Q magazine right from the start. And we know who else was in Ugly Rumours and what he went on to do, don't we?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A correct win given the competition. Even if they were way better in the 90s.

Btw. I had no idea Mr. Big were actually British at all. I thought that kind of music was only being made in the US (and Scandinavia)

The Stop the War Coalition released a single in February 2007 credited to Ugly Rumours, with the band fronted by a lookalike claiming to be Tony Blair. The single, a cover version of Edwin Starr's hit "War", had a notable video. It reached number 6 in the UK midweek charts on 28th February, and charted at number 21 on 4 March.

Subtle.

Geir, there were 2 bands called Mr. Big, one British and the other American.

lol @ the shifty disco ignorefest with zero votes

Britpop pwned there.

hmm, wonder who'll win this.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:04 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

To clear the issue up for Hongro (not that I should be bothering, and I did hint at the difference myself) the band cited here must surely be the band who had a UK Top 10 hit in 1977 with a horrible soft-rock song called "Romeo", not the (definitely American) band who had a hit 15 years later with a horrible etc etc.

Presumably there are five people here who actually like that song. Or maybe their other records were nothing like it. Or maybe there's a third band. Who knows? Who cares, particularly?

This was just about the most predictable of the lot, though 10 years ago Supergrass would have run the 'Head close, and 13 years ago they'd have beaten them, and probably quite easily.

oh and "War" was never remotely as good as "Stop Her On Sight (SOS)" (when Starr died during the invasion of Iraq, the latter was on dentist's waiting room piped radio as a "tribute" and even if the station had blacklisted "War", I still much preferred to hear the earlier song). "War" is too much the 1987 NME idea of Real Soul for my ears, too much the Motown song Free fans would tokenistically like, and probably think years later that still liking it made them a Real Rebel because their headmaster at Fettes thought it was vulgar ... which of course is precisely why there was a point to covering it, but not the point those responsible had in mind.