Sinister: shoegazing

[Keith Watson]

>>this might sound utterly daft, but can someone please explain to me what
>>shoegazers are?  my music guide thingy lists, as Shoe Gazers:
>>blur
>>charlatans uk
>>happy mondays
>>inspiral carpets
>>my bloody valentine
>>portishead
>>stone roses
>>suede


Dear dear, your book seems to claim shoegazers were pretty much every UK
band to appear between 1989 and 1993. OK, in November 1989, into the charts
with a smack a bang and a wallop went the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and
(just outside the charts with a plop) the Inspiral Carpets. This was the
first wave of Madchester (rave on) or as it was far later called variously
"Baggy" and "Indie Dance". It changed a lot of things in most of the people
I know's book and it was a great time for music - everyone was talking about
it at school the Monday after the Roses and the Mondays did She bangs the
drums and W.F.L on the chart show. A great P!O!P! moment. And likewise for
them both on Top of the P!O!P!S! For the next year and a half this got
steadily worse until everyone was right-royally sick to death of shit bands
claiming that there had always been a dance element to their music, so the
music press gallantly invented another scene, trying to keep up the momentum
(quite rightly in my opinion), however the bands weren't much cop, and it
didn't last too long, and that was shoegazing, influenced by mainly MBV and
the Cocteau Twins I suppose (Lush got produced by Robin Guthrie). Slowdive,
Ride, Moose, Revolver, Chapterhouse etc I suppose. This lasted for a bit and
then John Harris from the NME did a big article about Madchester one week
and very amusingly pointed out that we'd only realized that the party had
stopped when you saw the likes of the Frank and Walters on the cover. Suede
popped up about this time, and whilst nothing really new, were dead good and
pretty much existed in a world of their own. Verve appeared at the same
time, and whilst at first no-one could really decide whether they were
shoegazers or not, I suppose they're definitely not now. Verve were good
too - a lot of people will disagree with me on that one, but then, you have
to be the sort of person who likes Pink Floyd and early Simple minds albums
to like them. Christ only knows how they managed to get Portishead into the
list, as they were/are more what the press terms "Trip-Hop" which is as good
a term as any. Trip Hop has, as opposed to Shoegazing produced in my opinion
many memorable records, as a result all I've got shoegazing-wise is the
first slowdive LP, (bought for 99p), the first Chapterhouse one (borrowed
off a mate and never gave back), a couple of Lush singles, and most of the
Ride stuff. On the other hand I've bought almost everything Mo'Wax has
released (although this isn't entirely advisable - some of it's a load of
shit). Oh yeah, and Blur, well they've just jumped around from scene to
scene trying to make it look like they'd invented eveey one of them. I
remember clearly Damon Albarn trying to claim he had "Killed Baggy" - Doh!
You daft bastard, you've just been on top of the pops dresssed up as the
Stone Roses!

That's the way I saw it at the time anyway.

Cheers,
    Keith.

(what a BIG paragraph! W!O!W!)

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