Shoegaze - articles / interviews with fellow shoegazers admiting to loving dreampop!
What does shoegaze mean to you? We Need your help!
We want your articles, views and memories of the scene that celebrated itself plus bands of today that take their influences from the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse etc etc.
If you want to join in, just drop us a line at mail@shaddersonline.com
Shoegaze Interviews
Rachel Goswell
In the early nineties a musical movement came out of the
Slowdive
Q1, How weird is it that ‘Just for a day’ was released 16 years ago!? Not really weird, it just seems like it was in a past life though!! I was 20yrs old when that was released and life has moved on so much since those days.
Q2, I once heard the early slowdive sound described as like lasagne layers and layers of sound. Would you agree or how would you describe it? Yes, that’s a pretty apt description. I think it may’ve been Neil that said that.
Q3, Do you know who ‘invented’ the shoegazing term and did you ever describe yourself as a ‘shoegazing band’?The phrase was coined by a journalist in the
Q4, Which of the other so called shoegazing movement did you like (ie Ride, Chapterhouse etc)? Both those bands. We did a good amount of touring with Ride, both in the
Q5, What bands / music influenced Slowdive in those early days? Loads really. Jesus & Mary Chain, The Primitives, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, MBV to name a few. The first cover we ever did was ‘Stephanie Says’ by VU.
Q6, Did the press (I’m referring mainly to the NME here) ‘build you up and knock you down policy’ bother you, either at the time or in hindsight now? As I recall they were fairly brutal in their treatment of bands they considered to be in the ‘scene that celebrated themselves’ of which they lumped Slowdive into. Did it bother me? Yes, I expect it did. But we weren’t naïve about it. By the time we released the third EP – the full working title was “Holding Our Breath (Waiting for the Backlash)”. I think it was frustrating more than anything. We still did quite well in the
Q7, What was it like to be signed to Creation? I always considered Alan McGee to be a bit of a dick but he’s seen as a musical god now cause he signed Oasis, what was it like working with him at the time?McGee was a funny guy. Very positive and enthusiastic in the beginning. Unfortunately drugs got the better of him and by the time we were releasing Souvlaki I think he was in rehab. He signed some good bands and some not very good bands. I think all labels have their fare share of both don’t they? A lot of people have put Alan up on a pedestal over the years. Whether that is truly deserved, who am I to say. It’s the kind of idolization you have when you’re younger I guess. Though I personally didn’t.
Q8, I understand that Slowdive (and a lot of the ‘shoegazy’ bands) have a bit of a cult following in the states, is this true and if so how did that come about? There still seems to be a lot of affection for Slowdive which is great. How it came about, I don’t know. I guess the records have stood the test of time to a certain extent, which was always what we wanted.
Q9, On the second Slowdive album ‘Souvlaki’ I’ve just noticed that a track is co-written with Brian Eno, how on earth did that come about and what sort of an experience was working with a ‘legend’ like Eno? I think our manager approached Eno’s manager and it turned out he had already heard us and liked our music; and was happy to do a collaboration. Neil was the only band member that met him. He said it was an interesting experience. Neil spent a day or two with him (I can’t remember now!), and came back with tapes of bits and bobs, which morphed into two songs – ‘Sing’ which we all collaborated on ultimately and ‘Here She Come’ which was a song Neil had already written and Eno added in the noises…
Q10, Do you think you achieved everything you set out to with Slowdive or are there things you’d love to go back and change? We never had a huge game plan, Slowdive ran it’s natural course. There’s nothing I would want to change about it. It is what it is.
Q11, What is your favourite Slowdive track and why? Souvlaki Space Station because we all had such a laugh recording it, and we all wrote our own parts. I still have picture memories in my head of when we were mixing it and how some of us were quite stoned. Good days.
Q12, Looking at the Slowdive credits, it appears that the majority of the songs are written by Neil Halstead, how much input did you and the rest of the band have in the songwriting process? It depended on the songs really. Some Neil wrote on his own, he would invariably 4 track his ideas and either bring them into the studio or into a rehearsal room, where everyone would just play around with them. I wrote a few lyrics on a few songs. The guitars obviously were layers of lasagne that were built up between Neil & Christian. Neil generally had very clear ideas of what he was after though.
Q13, I’ve read that the Slowdive name came from a dream Neil had, is this actually true? Not quite. It was a dream Nick had. Slowdive or Slowburn were the resulting names from that dream, we opted for Slowdive, obviously.
Q14, Is it true that the band have regained the rights to the Slowdive back catalogue? How does this work and has there been any re-releases / best of / live / rarities recently or planned for the near future? Not that I’m aware. Sony own the rights to the back catalog.
Q15, How would you like Slowdive to be best remembered? Epic guitars and magical layers.
Mojave 3
Q1, How did Mojave 3 come about, I have read that Slowdive never really split they just evolved into Mojave 3? Yes this is very true. Pygmalion was finished a year before it was actually released, so there was a lot of down time. Nick & Christian’s interest in doing any music by the time that record came out was minimal really. Neil had a bunch of songs and we managed to get some studio time through EMI Publishing with whom we still had a deal. We went in as a three piece (Neil, Ian & I) and did some songs. Some songs were recorded in Neil’s house – Love Songs on the Radio. I did the vocals sat on a mattress in his kitchen.
Q2, You signed to 4AD after Creation, was it easy getting a new deal after Slowdive? Yes, it was very easy. We sent Ivo the demo’s and he loved them. That was all it took. Pretty instant really!
Q3, How do you feel you changed musically from Slowdive into Mojave 3? How would you describe the Mojave 3 sound to people? Well the obvious difference is the lack of guitars and the songs with Mojave 3 became more traditional in the way they are presented rather than layers of sounds which is synonymous with Slowdive. Mojave 3 has it’s little areas of ‘alternative country’, some experimentation.
Q4, Mojave 3 why the name? An American friend – Wendy Fonarow (who has just released a book called “Empire of Dirt’ plug plug) came up with the suggestion of Mojave. We had to add the 3 because we found out there was a German band called Mojave already, and there were 3 of us at the time.
Q5, Mojave 3 have released (to best of my knowledge) five albums, how many were you involved in and which is your favourite? I’ve been involved in all of them. My favourite was ‘Out of Tune’ to record as it was the album that for me personally I felt I had the most input in terms of writing bass lines and I always enjoy the singing! We spent a few months demoing in a farmhouse down in
Q6, If somebody was new to Mojave 3 which album would you suggest as a starting point? Out of Tune, followed by Spoon & Rafter
Q7, I believe that Mojave 3 record in a studio in a very beautiful part of the world,
Q8, Mojave 3 seemed to record and release records without any mainstream music press, is this fair? And if so do you feel this ever held the band back? Is it fair? Probably not. It’s frustrating not being able to reach a wider audience and yes it probably has held the band back; but I know that for Neil he isn’t interested in having huge success. And for me personally, there is more in my life than music and other distractions. It’s not the be all and end all.
Annie Barker
Now we love Myspace, albeit we were a bit late on the scene but now we are quite addicted. With just a couple of clicks on strangers faces you can be looking at a punk in Battersea one minute then the next you’re looking at some pretty woman from California who has worked with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins and cites Slowdive as an influence! This is exactly what happened to us and we ended up quite taken by Annie Barker, a quick myspace message and several weeks later (thanks to the postal disputes) we had Annie’s album ‘Mountains and Tumult’ on the shadders stereo. We do really like the album too, it has an air about it, the music does have a great atmospheric presence about it and Annie’s vocals can be striking at times (possibly a little too striking on occasion) but at others very lush. It does have real songs on it too, which may sound a bit weird but a lot of the original shoegaze bands the music and structure came first and lyrics almost didn’t matter. So the fact Annie has managed to the get the sound right along with writing proper songs with meaning is no mean trick. Also hats off to Annie as this is no shoegaze tribute album, it’s obviously her own work with her own personality and stamp all over it. As it became obvious that this was quite an album we felt that we needed to know more, another myspace message or two later and Annie had agreed and then fully answered our twenty questions. So who is Annie Barker then?!
Q1, First and foremost who is Annie Barker?
A musician A feminist A leftist A humanist A yogi A vegan A lover
Q2, You’ve got an album out entitled ‘Mountains and Tumult’ to those new to Annie Barker what does it sound like?
Mountains and Tumult is a mixture of Dream Pop and Brit pop/rock song structures with lyrics that are raw and bitingly honest.
Also what’s the title mean?
Mountains and Tumult describes the ecstasies and tremulous path of self-discovery. The song Mountains and Tumult is more specifically about the dysfunction’s of a terrible relationship and the highs and lows in that dynamic.
Q3, Now it’s quite reasonable to say it has quite the celebratory producer in Robin Guthrie (of the Cocteau Twins fame) how did that come about?
First off, Robin makes himself very accessible to his fans, after and sometimes before every concert he's mingling, so I had met him after a show and that broke the ice for later when Robin and I met in Los Angeles at Guitar Center. He was looking for a piece of gear and I had been having issues with my mic and I went right up to him and told him that he needed to produce my songs. After I sent him the tracks, he said he liked them and “would be happy to work on them.”
How pleased were you with his input?
Robin is simply magical in the studio. How easy was it when you were making your debut album to work with somebody who does quite easily fall into the legend category? He's probably the most easy going man you'll ever meet. It was absolutely wonderful. The only time I had butterflies was when I was singing in an isolation booth, and from the control room was Robin's voice, telling me to "take another one" or "that was great".
And lastly did you in true fan style get him to autograph one of his albums!
No, but one of the first things I did when I got to his studio was take pictures of all of his electronic gear.
Q4, Am I right in assuming you didn’t take the easy road when making the album and built your own studio and you and Robin played all the instruments rather than having a ‘proper’ band?
I don't know which is easy road. I tried using hired guns to play my stuff and it was impossible to convey the emotional and compositional complexity to guys who were just trying to make a quick buck! Whereas going into the studio, learning the programs inside and out and taking my time to lay out the tracks to my best ability and then send them to Robin to have him do the same was time consuming but so much more rewarding. Both sound difficult, but the second bore way more benefits and I'm still a fan of what we created ourselves.
Q5, Also you chose to set up your own record label ‘Beautiful Revolution’ rather than take the conventional route of signing to an established label. Was this always the plan or did you find it difficult for a label to release something that is a little bit different to the norm?
Yeah, when Bjork's label told me the record didn't fit in with their schedule of releases, I knew I needed to put this thing out myself. Also Robin has helped me quite a bit by digitally distributing my record on his label Soleil Apres Minuit.
Q6, What is you favourite Annie Barker song on the album & why?
Sausage Fingers I'd have to say. When we were recording it, Robin and I knew we were capturing a magic that was so electric, we were both grinning from ear to ear. It also contains a lot of “You’ve got balls, girl. Use them.” As Robin so eloquently put it.
Q7, How can we get hold of the album either in CD or digital format?
Digitally you can get the album at any major, and some minor, download sites. You can purchase the cd from either my myspace or my website.
Q8, The album has quite an unusual cover photo, what are you wearing and is it something you wear often or is it too uncomfortable?
I had a metal bodice made for me by metal sculptor Bruce Gray. He used a piece of a propane tank that had been riddled with bullet holes at a shooting range and fit it to my body. I wanted something that symbolised urban decay as well as a hard shell that I was trying to break free from. This record is about transcendence, and I wanted the cover to represent that. Through the difficulty of self-discovery, we shed this outer shell to a more human, beautiful state.
Q9, Do you do many live shows and how would you describe the Annie Barker live experience?
Like I said earlier, getting musicians who understand this music is difficult. Sure, a lot of people have heard of the Cocteau Twins, but being able to play like Robin, that’s something else altogether. So I’ve finally comprised a band of extremely tasteful players and am very excited to get out and play these songs live. As an experience for the audience, it’s more singer/songwriter than shoegaze and more shoegaze than singer/songwriter.
Q10, What was the last CD / download you bought and was it any good?
Radiohead ‘In Rainbows.’ This record has saved my life.
Q11, What’s your view on Radiohead allowing fans to pay what they want for their new album?
I think they’re genius.
Do you think it’s just a marketing ploy and how much would you pay for it?!
Radiohead doesn’t need a marketing ploy. Also they aren't the first to do this, there's a digital label that started the same thing a couple of years ago. I paid 6 pounds sterling.
Q12, You have quite an unusual CV in the fact you were a child TV star and actress before becoming a singer / songwriter. How did all that come about and why did you decide on music?
My parents got me into acting when I was three. Music and singing was what I always did for me, it was what kept my soul happy. So when I had to make a choice between the two, I chose music which had always kept me sane.
Q13, For somebody who lives out in California you love some very good British music; Slowdive, Smiths, Ian Brown, Richard Ashcroft, The Sundays, My Boody Valentine to name but a few. How did you come to love British music and how does it influence your music?
The ethereal stuff came along with being a Cocteau Twins fan. I got into the CT's when I was younger; a boyfriend tried to get back in my life by telling me I needed to hear them. I ditched the boy, but held fast to the CT's. The other brit rock stuff I was introduced to when I studied abroad in England for a spell. My best friend at Uni introduced me to the music of all the bands he had plastered on his walls. And I love the song structures these bands use; they keep your interest, so I use these kinds of chord progressions in my songwriting.
Q14, What do you most like to write song lyrics about, are they autobiographical or do you prefer to story tell?
Most of my songs are autobiographical or a mixture of auto with stories from other people’s lives. I find the most tantalising lyrics are those that are most personal. Sometimes what we can’t say in life fits perfectly into a song. What is most personal is most general.
Q15, What possessed you to entitle a song ‘Sausage fingers’!?
Hehe, I think part of it was the shock factor. Also, the origin of that song was a bit catty. But as I delved deeper into my issue with Ms. Sausage Fingers, I found another layer of insecurity in myself. Women constantly compare themselves to other women, “how do I compare to her, do I look like that? Better, worse?” Sausage Fingers is an insult.
Q16, In one of your songs you seem to have a pop at our Chris Martin of Coldplay fame, is this right and what’s it all about?
It’s not a pop at Chris; it’s a pop at rock critics. If you follow the rest of the lyrics they say, “who’s hands are in those critics pockets?” This song came out of my frustration at the music industry when a rock critic for a major newspaper said that Coldplay was revolutionary because they combined beauty with rock and pop. Um, hello????
Q17, What song by anyone other than yourself would you have most liked to have written and why?
Marianne by Tori Amos. That song is so pure and raw, it makes me cry every time.
Q18, What’s the worst thing you’ve read about yourself (is it the Enya comparison) and does it ever bother you?
The Enya thing was something an acquaintance said after having a few drinks. The worst so far has been that I would be good for Celine Dion fans. That person clearly has a very limited imagination.
Q19, I assume that there is an Annie Barker website, myspace and face book page. What can we find on them? (You can shameless plug the addresses if you wish!)
www.myspace.com/anniebarker www.anniebarker.com Shit I guess I need a facebook page, huh? My username is Annie Barker. You’ll find samples of songs, pictures, links to purchase albums, etc. Soon I’ll have t-shirts up.
Q20, In ten words write your own press release (swearing is definitely allowed!)…
Fuck, ten words? Annie Barker resensitizes you using beautiful and thought provoking tunes. Ha!
What does shoegaze mean to you?
Shaddersonline.com
Recently there were two things that made me think about this very question. Just prior to christmas 2007 we moved to the new shadders heights and the entire record collection went to storage, in fact eight months later about half of it is still in a loft about a mile away! But as I was unpacking a box marked R I came across the Ride back catalogue, at this point obviously you have to play them, right? Yeah and some, 'Going blank again' is still an ever present in my top five album list so the sheer beauty and intense power came as no great surprise, in fact it is one of the few albums that can make me cry for no reason whatsoever and I don't mind admitting to that fact. But also out of the box came 'Nowhere' and then the best of album or more precisely the Reading '92 live disc and after multiple plays of both it came as a sharp reminder of just how good Ride were and in fact just how great the whole scene was. The second thing was contact via the myspace interview challenge that has been run through the website and myspace pages for the last ten months or so. The band that responded as Daniel Land and the modern painters, one of the new wave of shoegaze band from this current era. This suddenly made me realise that there was a new generation of bands who took some or all their influences for the bands of the early nineties and beyond.
Now we jump back seventeen years from 2008 to the summer of 1991 to when we first came to fall in love with music the first time around. Back in sixth form I'd basically blown out 'indie' music mainly due to people who listened to it, instead I'd immersed myself in music from the sixties. It was the usual mix of Hendrix, Beatles, Stones but a lot of Doors. Obviously Morrison was the immediate attraction, if ever a frontman was the complete package it was he but as we delved further it was Manzarek's keyboards that really was the business. After I left school in the fall of 1990 a few out of town friends that I knew started passing me mix tapes and telling me about cool bands from here, there and everywhere. The first that appealed were the baggy bands, the keys of the Charlatans and Carpets were the link between the then and now. I'd then got some Cure stuff and then between the spring and summer of 1991 it all seemed to make perfect sense, the daily dinner time trawls of the local record shops began and the gigs soon followed. A friend loved early Ride and played them to death and then during the summer of '91 I was in town with a girl that I'd known from school who'd come back from Uni, she bought the brand new Slowdive album. 'Just for a day' was soon in my collection too along side 'Nowhere' and 'Whirlpool' the debut from, the final piece in what I consider the shoegaze holy trinity, Chapterhouse.
I'd started buying the indie bible, the NME every week and each issue that'd be more about what they christened 'the scene that celebrates itself', not only was the music just magical but they all looked just so effortlessly cool. From the fall of '90 I'd started growing my hair and by the time the summer of '91 it looked a bit like Mark Gardner's! Even more so as I'd added what I considered a couple of shoegazing outfits to me ever increasing indie wardrobe. This consisted of a bottle green T-shirt or the blatant blue and white hooped T-shirt along with nice blue jeans, a shoelace around the wrist and some 60's looking blue sneakers. I thought I looked the bollocks!!
What is missing really here is the music, yes they looked cool and Rachel Goswell always looked gorgeous but the music was just so different. It was a million miles away from baggy and a billion away from the grunge invasion from across the
During '91 we caught the holy trinity live. Ride were just excellent, Chapterhouse (with the dreadful 5:30) were stunning but Slowdive at Sheffield's Leadmill venue was simply dreamy, although I must admit I possibly did spend a tad too much time staring at Rachel!
During the year the band that is often referred to as the daddies of the shoegaze scene released their opus, years in the making and nearly bankrupting their label My Bloody Valentine brought out 'Loveless'. It was an absolute monster of an album, masses of guitars and feedback. It was worth every penny that McGee lost in it's making. It stands up today as a landmark album in the field.
Then the press decided they were all rubbish. In probably the biggest build them up to knock them down NME scandal of all time shoegaze became a dirty word, overnight it was uncool to listen to, buy records by or even admit to liking 'shoegaze' music. It was an utter disgrace that took well over a decade for the vitriol to subside.
Fortunately great bands don't listen to nonsense press and in 1992 Ride brought out one of the best records of all time. 'Going blank again' had its shoegaze moments but raised the bar so high that Ride never got anywhere near it again. A lot of the bands found a strange refuge in the states where shoegaze still has a great underground following. Chapterhouse went onto mix in elements of dance into their second album, 'Blood Music' which is criminally underrated and in 'She's a vision' has one of the finest shoegaze moments of all time.
As ever after '90 / '91 / '92 the musical landscape shifted and the word 'shoegaze' remained a dirty word, in fact a new term was introduced some time later to avoid it, enter 'dreampop'. Now the term seems to be used again and so it should, it does mean something different these days obviously. Back in the early nineties it was used to describe the live style of the bands, heads down guitars frenzies now it's more just a generic musical term. The whole scene these days takes influences from not just My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive and Chapterhouse but also the likes of Lush, Pale Saints and Swervedriver. There were loads of excellent bands who created brilliant soundscapes, a later band that were merely classed at the time as indie but now class themselves in retirement as shoegaze are Adorable. Their debut album 'Against perfection' (one of the great album titles) was a blinding guitar frenzied album but more 'normal' in structure than some of the shoegaze long players, worth trying to find a copy if you can.
Nowadays obviously there is no stigma to loving anything with the phrase 'shoegaze or dreampop' attached to it. There is so much to discover; guitars mix with electronica and ambient music, the boundaries of genres continue to be blurred with the internet and places like Myspace acting as a catalyst for this to happen.
I for one am glad that shoegaze is coming back out of its exiled shadows and the critical and commercial success of the reunion of My Bloody Valentine is testament to this. There is a load of new and old bands doing great music, clubs playing great music (sonic cathedral for one), internet sites writing good stuff and fans listening to great music all under the banner of shoegaze. It's back but for us it never went away, once heard never forgotten.
Colin @ shaddersonline.com August 2008
What does shoegaze mean to you?
Daniel Land and the modern painters
In 1998 I was so out of touch with guitar music that when a friend loaned me a copy of the Cocteau Twins Milk & Kisses, I thought it was quite a 'normal' Indie record. It took me a few repeated lessons to see what the fuss was about - and even then, I would naively put the record on at parties, expecting people to get excited about it (most people were listening to things like Black Grape and the Manics).
I had grown up listening to things like Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno, and I had been making pulseless, guitar-less ambient music for five years, so I was not well versed in guitar music at all. I suppose I also found the guitar itself somewhat suspect, redolent of too much posturing and a kind of machismo I couldn't identify with. I liked music that floated.
Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie was the first person I ever heard who could make a guitar float, and this was such a revelation to me that I pretty much listened to nothing but the Cocteau Twins for the next three years.
It took me a long time to get into shoegaze per se, and by the time I did (2001) it was deeply, deeply unfashionable - something of a dirty word in the United Kingdom in fact (as a 2007 Guardian article says, it was "A byword for naffness and overindulgence" and "A type of music that Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers had said he 'hated more than Hitler'.") But I was in a long distance relationship with someone who was the biggest shoegaze nut, and he gradually hooked me on it via a series of (yes, it was a long time ago) compilation cassettes. I thought most of it was shite, to be honest, but I loved early Verve (after much resistance; I was expecting an early version of Urban Hymns and didn't even bother listen to it for months) and my ears pricked up totally when I heard Slowdive. I'm so glad that they did, because if I hadn't heard them I probably wouldn't be in a band now.
Even more than the Cocteau Twins Milk and Kisses, no album has caused me to reassess my views as much as Slowdive's Just for a Day. Don't get me wrong, I would never argue that it is a classic album. In fact, I'm not even sure if it's a very good album - although I love it like a child. No, Just for a Day showed me that it was possible to fit that floating, ultra-ambient, Guthrie-esque guitar within the confines of "real" song - i.e. a song with a melody, English words, and a pretty normal male voice. That's the very reason why some Slowdive purists hate that album; but for me, focusing on the songs (rather than on sonic experiments) was the biggest revelation. And, like most revelations, it was the most blindingly obvious thing to do - I had just never thought of it.
It took me five years to get a band together, during which time I had amassed a career's worth of unreleased songs; so long in fact that I started to lose faith with shoegaze, and I was unaware that, starting in the states and filtering over to the UK, there was the biggest new shoegaze scene emerging.
It wasn't clear to me quite how big this movement was until I heard Ulrich Schnauss's DJ set at The Big Chill in August 2007. He played probably twenty of the best shoegaze tracks I'd never heard - and I couldn't believe that there was so much good, new shoegaze music in the world; bands that I'd never even heard of.
And what's good about this new, flourishing shoegaze scene is that it seems to have escaped the "dirty word" status of old. Even though it still bemuses some critics, there is no doubt that there is a much more receptive climate to shoegaze now, something that I am sure My Bloody Valentine (probably the most improbable reunion of recent times) are savvy enough to realise (a reunion in the late 90's would have been unthinkable). And I think it's a testament to how far the genre has come that the term shoegaze is applied to acts as varied as (to pick two random examples) Auburn Lull and Amusement Parks on Fire, bands who to all intents and purposes are polar opposites of each other. I suspect that this is because the term "shoegaze" has passed out its original, specific, meaning (Thames Valley Indie bands in the early 90's) and become a synonym for a particular approach to sound - one that has global resonances and many ways of applying, much as the term "Ambient" originally meant something very specific (Brian Eno's environmental music) but has since grown and evolved into many different areas.
The early shoegaze records of the 1990's were seeds that took a decade and a half to grow. And whilst recent film soundtracks (Lost in Translation for example) and creditable artists (Ulrich Schnauss) might have speeded shoegaze's return, history points out that people connect more with dreamy music at times of word crisis - note for instance how psychedelic music flourished during the Vietnam War. There are many similarities between that time and this, actually, as we enter the sixth year in what becomes increasingly evident is an unwinnable, unpopular war in
Danny @ Daniel Land and the modern painters, August 2008
What does shoegaze mean to you?
Cath Aubergine
September 2004, In The City, the busiest weekend of the year for a
The summer of 1991 had seen the end of my first year at university. I had failed all my exams after deciding that following Sonic Boom's first solo tour around the country, the love of a beautiful boy with flowers in his hair and a considerable appetite for recreational pharmacology were more important to my life than revision. (I passed second time around, and wouldn't change a thing). I saw them all - the splinters of my beloved Spacemen 3 in the form of Spectrum, Spiritualized and The Darkside; the big three from the Home Counties Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive; the second tier from the vastly underrated Swervedriver to the rather average Revolver; and one of the few Northern representatives, Leeds-based Pale Saints. (My hometown was still in recovery from the previous couple of summers' raving, and didn't contribute a great deal). A summer job put proper money in my hand for the first time and I amassed quite a collection of twelve inch vinyl albums with the requisite left-field still-life sleeves, and still had enough left for a ticket to Reading Festival where many of my beloved bands were on the bill...
And then, suddenly, it was all over. The American invasion force came from nowhere, its first strike right there, at the heart of shoegazing's
There were others. Literally days later, from East Anglia came a demo for review, a new band called Sennen, and one listen strongly implied to me it was the Ride B-side (one of my favourites of theirs) as opposed to a small area of Cornwall which inspired the name. Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine gradually ceased to be, in the eyes of lazy journalists, "the band Spiritualized's Jason Pierce started out in" and "the band who nearly killed Creation Records" and instead started to acquire tags such as "seminal", "pioneering" and "influential". Elsewhere the likes of Ulrich Schnauss and then Maps were taking the spirit and sounds of the shoegaze era and mixing them up with techno and electronica; I can't have been the only first-wave shoegaze fan driven into rave and techno clubs by the sorry state of guitar music in the mid-90s who found this the most exciting musical development for years.
And somewhere in the south of
Neither of those two bands from that hazy 2004 afternoon is still with us - trailblazers who burnt out before their time. Some of Lycasleep now play in Exit Calm, tipped for great things not just in traditional spacerock/shoegaze circles but by sources as unexpected as The Sun newspaper and Tom Clarke from NME favourites The Enemy. And The Second Floor's Nolan Watkinson resurfaced in June 2008, playing bass in Sonic Boom's latest incarnation of Spectrum. And suddenly, over the course of four weeks or so, this revival that had been slowly building over the past four years and gathering pace since last summer, exploded overground in a glorious coming together of the old and the new.
Spectrum supported My Bloody Valentine on their reunion tour, and over the two nights at Manchester Apollo I lost count of the number of members of other bands in the crowd, most not old enough to have seen the legends before. I had, but this was something else. The feedback break was like nothing I have experienced in many years of gig going; standing in front of the speaker was like being in a wind tunnel as the sheer force of the sound blew people's hair around. At the end a friend who's just finished his first year at university, the age I was in that long ago summer of 91, was so blown away he could hardly form words. Two weeks later, Oxfordshire's Truck Festival turned its indoor stage over to Sonic Cathedral for one day. The almost criminally young and fresh-faced Kyte created walls of sound worthy of all manner of flowery prose, The Early Years sounded more like Spacemen 3 than Spacemen 3 ever did (with a side order of Faust and Suicide), Spectrum threw in some Spacemen classics, and Ulrich Schnauss proved you don't even need guitars these days to create the perfect dreampop soundscapes. The headline set by Maps remains one of the single greatest musical performances I have seen this year. At the end, as Ulrich Schnauss returned to join them stage, a long lost old friend of an unmistakeable bassline emerged from the beautiful mass of electronics and guitars: an outstanding 21st century take on Ride's "Leave Them All Behind", the sound of past, present and future colliding. After that, the secret special guests were a bit of an anticlimax - a lot of the crowd had got the idea into their heads it was going to be Ride, and whilst I was aware that it wasn't, as I said earlier, despite one or two brilliant songs I always considered Chapterhouse to be Ride's understudies. And they didn't even do the brilliant songs. No matter. Five years ago they'd have been lucky to get a booking at their local.
The Ride reunion surely can't be that far off - word has it Mark Gardener and Andy Bell are talking again, although
Cath Aubergine, September 2008
Co-editor of www.manchestermusic.co.uk and unrepentant shoegazer