What are you listening to at this very moment?

[Salian]

@Blackout

Are You Scared to Get Happy, another 80s indie compilation, another unnecessary RSD indulgence. Well not completely unnecessary as there are a couple of oldies I loved at the time on there that I don't own elsewhere.

Intrigued. As someone who was very active in the C86-Sarah-early Creation days (& associated stuff), curious which are the songs from this (and other likeminded comps) you describe above.

There's some insanely good stuff on this collection, but I haven't played it for a little while. Thanks for the nudge to have another plough through it.

[pomfob]

Sometimes BSP support band Warm Digits in session on Marc Riley. Sounds like...Warm Digits (with guest vocalists on a couple of tracks).

[Blackout]

@Blackout

Are You Scared to Get Happy, another 80s indie compilation, another unnecessary RSD indulgence. Well not completely unnecessary as there are a couple of oldies I loved at the time on there that I don't own elsewhere.

Intrigued. As someone who was very active in the C86-Sarah-early Creation days (& associated stuff), curious which are the songs from this (and other likeminded comps) you describe above.

There's some insanely good stuff on this collection, but I haven't played it for a little while. Thanks for the nudge to have another plough through it.

This is a terrible admission for a former 80s indie kid but I never had a copy of Shimmer by the Flatmates. Or indeed anything by Mighty Mighty (aside from their track on C86, obviously). Being a teenager in the mid 80s I couldn't afford all the records I wanted, however many school dinners I didn't eat to fund my music habit. Cherry Red (and previously Rough Trade Shops) compilations are brilliant for backfilling the odd hole like that. A while ago a good friend booked a well known and renowned post-punk band for a private party, which blew the minds of everyone who was there; he also booked his old workmates' recently reformed (if little known outside of 80s indie circles) band as support, which was of limited interest to most attendees - they being Mighty Mighty and me I finally got to post that line from the Pooh Sticks' "On Tape" on social media - even within my circle of friends only about 5 people got it...

Anyway, "very active"? In a band? Fanzinist? Go on, your secret's safe with us the six and a half people who actually still bother with this forum.... :)

[flatland juz]

Now I feel guilty that I don't post on this forum enough so I will state that I am listening to A Quick Blast for wind, brass and percussion by Turnage. It's good. I picked it up cheap.

[Salian]

Anyway, "very active"? In a band? Fanzinist? Go on, your secret's safe with us the six and a half people who actually still bother with this forum.... :)

My band was shite, supported the Farm once in Widnes... but I authored a fanzine "Do it for fun" which got one of the latter Sha-la-la flexis appended to it, and I then used to peddle the early Sarah stuff around Manchester and Liverpool, as well as putting on a few bands in the North West, especially Manchester, Warrington and the St Helens. I helped persuade and promote some of the stuff as St Helens Citadel (VALENTINES!!!, early shows by the Roses and Mondays), TVP's, Sea Urchins, Field Mice in Manchester, Bachelor Pad and Primals in Liverpool, Bob, A Witness, McCarthy in Warrington!!

in Manchester I ran (generally unsuccessfully) some Indiepop/60s/Girl group & psych nights in loads of the shittier clubs until the early 90s before starting my failed career in journalism proper and then jacking the whole idea in just before Britpop and the lad mags took advantage of the growing interest in Indie music and the work we'd been doing for the previous decade.

Watching the mid 90s rehash of great pop music was painful, by then I was in corporate world, getting married and thinking about families, music was broadly pish (Belle and Sebastian excepted....) and I wasn't part of any of it. Got back on track in the early 00's and whilst I don't make as many gigs as I did between 85-93 new music and good music is still a huge thing for me.

But C86, aged 16 was, following the JAMC and Wedding Present in 85, my personal real year zero.

Mighty Mighty were ace. Built like a car is one of the great dancehall classics in my mind.

[pomfob]

in Manchester I ran (generally unsuccessfully) some Indiepop/60s/Girl group & psych nights in loads of the shittier clubs until the early 90s.

I went to a lot of those sort of things from 86-90 when I lived in Manchester. Quite probably me, you & Blackout were stood next to each other at Pastels gig at the Boardwalk (or something similiar).

:)

[Blackout]

.... just before Britpop and the lad mags took advantage of the growing interest in Indie music and the work we'd been doing for the previous decade.

Watching the mid 90s rehash of great pop music was painful,.....

ha. I like you. my feelings about shitpop are well documented here and everywhere else.

I used to go to St Helens Citadel quite a bit in 88-90. I was at the BOB gig there the night of the Hillsborough tragedy, as well as a few less weird nights out such as Inspirals (one of their first gigs with T** H*****y), The Bodines, probably some other stuff. I probably went to things you put on, anyway.

I'm afraid I don't remember Do It For Fun but that doesn't mean I don't have one stashed somewhere. I really need to excavate the drawer of my late 80s zine collection sometime, it's been largely untouched since we moved into our current flat 17 years ago and possibly the one before that in 1995. Mine was Bobstonkin Aubergines, I only ever did one issue, wish I'd made more effort. Mad thing is I was at a classic indie all dayer in Preston this Monday just gone and The Train Set were playing, they being Crewe's next big thing during the time I was at 6th form college there (88-90), they were the first band I interviewed for said zine, anyway went to talk to Clive the singer after and he actually remembered me.

[Salian]

I'm afraid I don't remember Do It For Fun but that doesn't mean I don't have one stashed somewhere.

I pretty much guarantee you won't!

My attempts at fanzine domination were crap, and I got numbers all wrong and only made about 40 of them, but as I was a long standing pen pal of some of the other more famous zine writers I got a bundle of flexis, and ended up selling all my copies at a very very very early Pale Saints gig in Leeds and a Walking Seeds gig in Liverpool.

The guy who did Simply Thrilled, Jim Kavanagh, used the name for his new zine in '89, so I ditched my 2nd copy, but by then I was losing a bit of interest in some of the bands being championed, was more into Loop, Telescopes, even Thee Hypnotics, and was thrilled as the Sea Urchins, The Clouds etc were getting more garage rock and less pure pop. It was great at the Derby Christmas gig to hear Rex Speedway do a cover of "You're too much" by the Eyes, a classic bit of British beat that was a regular on my club night playlists and a fixture in the Sea Urchins later sets.

Putting on bands back then was a doddle, and great fun, I'd completely forgotten about the Bodines in St Helens, so thanks for that memory! It was a brilliant little venue, but it's really strange you talk about that Bob gig, that was one of ours, and having watched the events unfold that day on TV was a night I took no pleasure in, I had friends at the game, and acquaintances who never made it home, the night was one of dread, and I had a huge row with my girlfriend that night as the band and some of our friends were keen to go into liverpool after the gig to carry things on, I just wanted to go home and check my mates were still alive. We never did go into the City, and by all accounts Liverpool was horrific that night, understandably.

So here's to growing up around each other in the late 1980s North of England, brilliant music, exciting times.

And if anyone is too young to remember or didn't get into that stuff... " Get out of my dream" by The Clouds.

[SPT]

he also booked his old workmates' recently reformed (if little known outside of 80s indie circles) band as support, which was of limited interest to most attendees - they being Mighty Mighty

Small world - the bassplayer of Mighty Mighty used to work at my work's Coventry office. The C86-bothering Soundsxpers at our London office were v excited when I told them. (Mary Chain aside C86 passed me by - too much metal and goth going on.)

[Heartland]

These are great stories; really not just saying this, but I've always surmised that your regular BSP audience contains an above-average quota of promoters, ex-fanzine types, other writers.

[Blackout]

... it's really strange you talk about that Bob gig...

It was a night, certainly. One has to cast one's mind back to 1989. "Rolling news" was some years away, and while football fans would have had the telly on at teatime for the results we weren't and didn't. (a mere matter of months later I started tagging along to Maine Road with some of my music fan mates but that's another story). The bloke driving had no interest in it either, we'd have had tapes on. Me and my mate would have a cider and a smoke before we went in cos we were 17 and never knew if places would serve us (though gig venues always did). The driver didn't, we were daft kids but very strict on drink/dope driving, we grew up in mid cheshire with its twisty country lanes and everyone knew someone who'd had a scare or worse. We started to pick up shreds in the venue - there had been some incident, a lot of people hurt, some died even? But the gig went ahead, and we would-be fanzinists introduced ourselves to the band. Oh, what's the fanzine called? Bobstonkin' Aubergines. 

The thing is, it wasn't. I was at college in Crewe, a place still boasting a small but resilient goth community in '89. They were our mates, but we took the piss. (they did too, and the metalheads. It was teenage tribal banter but we all hated the "straights" and "trendies".) so we decided to do this indie pop fanzine but with a pisstake goth front cover. Gravestone, the lot, and the zine name "here lies a dead man". So i'm standing in this corridor in St Helens and this singer's just asked me my zine name and suddenly it is the worst thing ever. 

But the cider and smoke saved me. There was a band we hung out with at college and we had also interviewed for the zine, whose "band word" for everything good was Bobstonkin'. And during said interview they also likened our mutual fave band The Chameleons to an aubergine, fuck knows, but we thought this was the funniest thing ever and had become obsessed with the word "aubergine". And without missing a beat, I answered "Bobstonkin Aubergines". It just came out, thank you brain.  We kind of had to call it that then. And thus, in the grand tradition of fanzinistas, mate and I became Corinne and Cath Aubergine. (I resurrected the name in 2001 when I started writing online, partly for anonymity at work and partly in case anyone remembered our zine and I met a couple of people who did.)

But the gig? Over the years I have thought a lot that it's weird that the gig even happened. Clearly St Helens is not Liverpool but does tend to look that way rather than to Manchester. Thing is, I do have my own report of the gig to refer to, and it's clear that the gravity of the situation was very much not known by most there. The support band still played - with a stand-in bassist, as theirs was stuck in Sheffield "with an injured mate". This wouldn't have happened had they known more. And Bob themselves went down pretty well, people were singing along down the front.

These are great stories; really not just saying this, but I've always surmised that your regular BSP audience contains an above-average quota of promoters, ex-fanzine types, other writers.

It's true... have to say though this is an unexpected wormhole to my 17 year old self I hadn't anticipated when I posted a few album titles on this thread cos I was bored or something :)

It's also completely derailed the thread, maybe one of those moderator types should spin this section off into some sort of 80s indie fanzine memories thread...

[Salian]

have to say though this is an unexpected wormhole to my 17 year old self I hadn't anticipated when I posted a few album titles on this thread cos I was bored or something :)

Yes.

Anyway back on track...Brutalism by Idles.

Since I saw them in Leicester they have rather infected my brain. Not great music to generate emails by, and I think I will tire soon, but they've won May it seems.

[giftonnoelwilliamsagent]

The new single by The National. Usual suspects going goo goo over it (6 Music played it three times between 5 and 8am).
Need to give it a bit more time but, at first listen, can't help thinking it's a bit High Violet meets the less interesting moments of the last album.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6duDDkhis

[Nurdled, by Astley]

Jim Jones & the Righteous Mind; contemplating a trip to Leeds to see them next week at the Brudenell, depending on whether I'm needed at work. However, the temptation is growing, prompted by the memory of Gallon Drunk at the Barrel Organ in 1992...

[Hebrides Zimbo]

In Trance as mission - Simple Minds