Joyriders Gazette

I've seen the Charlatans twice now. Once in Valencia in 1995, and once completely by accident in 2008, when they played for just under an hour in the basement of Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street. On both occasions, they captivated the audiences in front of them, leaving the thousands watching in Valencia feeling as enthused and connected to the band as the lucky hundred or so who had seen them in the grey bunker-like basement room in London.  But it could have been so different if lead singer, Tim Burgess had not joined the band back in 1989. Tim Burgess spoke to James Simpson in The Guardian about joining the Charlatans, and how their first hit "The Only One I Know" came about.  I was in a band called the Electric Crayons and we managed to get a gig supporting the Charlatans. They had a different singer, Baz Ketley, then. I ended up jumping on stage and singing one of their songs. Shortly after that, I got a call from the band. They didn’t ask me to audition...

I was clearing out an old box of the collected debris of my youth a few years ago.  Amongst the poor school reports, Star Wars bubble gum cards, and pogs, was this wonderful compilation tape, Happy Daze, Volume 1. In 2019 it was sadly beyond all repair, the tape mangled, and wound around its plastic cassette carcass. Not even a pencil could help rewind and repair that carnage (youngsters, ask your parents). As I looked at the tape I remembered the sadness I had felt as I had retrieved the tape carefully from the stereo of my first car, a blue Ford Escort Mark 2, back in 1992. I carefully retrieved its guts from the inside of the car stereo, but to no avail, it had played for its last time. Before its demise, the tape had been played every day since the summer of 1990. Other than "World in Motion" by New Order, the Happy Daze cassette had been my summer soundtrack. The first camping trip with my friends, the journeys to and from gigs, and unmedicated nights out, ha...

"Girl from Mars," a song by the band Ash turned 30 years old on July 31, 2025.  A song the band wrote and recorded while still at school.  In April 1994, when the band members were 17 years old, they signed with Infectious Records.  Because they were under 18, their parents had to sign the contract on their behalf, and they also needed permission from their school headmaster, Jack Ferris. Tim Wheeler, the bands singer and guitarist, wrote "Girl From Mars" at 16, inspired by a TV listing for a similarly titled film, and a recent breakup with his first girlfriend.  He spoke about it  in an interview with Dave Simpson of The Guardian in 2020. "I’d broken up with my first girlfriend, which was very intense, first love. I’d always been a happy child but for the first time was experiencing teenage angst, which I poured into the song. Aged 17, I was already nostalgic for those happier times. The previous summer, I’d gone on a family holiday...

Parklife is one of the most important Britpop singles of the 90s. But to quote Michael Caine in Alfie "What's it all about?" According to Graham Coxon in an interview with the Guardian in 2012: "A lot of people thought it (Parklife) was a celebration of Englishness, but it was actually very sarcastic. The 'Parklife' single wasn't about the working class, it was about the park class: dustbin men, pigeons, joggers – things we saw every day on the way to the studio (Maison Rouge in Fulham). It epitomised what Blur were about – having fun and doing exactly what you want to do. Damon Albarn said he took a lot of inspiration from London Fields, a 1989 novel by Martin Amis. In the August 2005 issue of Q magazine, he explained: "London Fields inspired 'Parklife.' That book changed my outlook on life." Damon wasn't comfortable singing the verses. He thought it would be better to get in a celebrity, so Coxon suggested the actor Phi...

Over the years, Sir Peter Blake has created a number of iconic album covers, including one of the most recognisable album covers of all time: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles. He created the album cover for 1995's platinum-selling album Stanley Road. The album's cover features a conceptual painting of a young Paul Weller holding an image of his adult self.  After Ian Dury's death in 2000, a tribute album was released, a re-recording of “New Boots” by guest artists under the title of “Brand New Boots and Panties”. Peter Blake did a painting of Ian for the front cover. Two album covers for The Who, Face Dances (1981)  and the more recent WHO (2019) He created the artwork for the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" And the poster for Live Aid in 1985 And he also designed this variation of the BRIT award, for the 2012 ceremony. ...

Some consider Stanley Road to be the best album in Weller's solo career, with its strong collection of songs, and collaborations from several notable collaborators, including Noel Gallagher, who appears playing acoustic guitar on "I Walk on Gilded Splinters", and Steve Winwood (formerly of the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic), who performs on the songs "Woodcutter's Son" and "Pink on White Walls". Weller is also joined by long-time collaborators Steve Cradock (co-founder of Ocean Colour Scene) and Steve White (the Style Council). The album's cover collage was created by the artist Peter Blake, co-designer of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's album artwork. It features a conceptual painting of a young Paul Weller holding an image of his adult self.  In an interview with Lois Wilson from The Independent in 2005 he said of the album: "Initially I wanted to call the album Shit or Bust, because that's how I f...

Space are another band who had constant airplay in the 90s, but now seems to have disappeared from a lot of people's recollection of those times. They were a regular feature on TFI Friday, appearing throughout the decade, with performances and appearances in filmed sketches. Their music incorporated elements of electronica, sampling, hip-hop, techno, post-punk, ska, lounge music, and even film scores, to showcase the diverse tastes of the band members.  Critics in the music press often labelled their style "queasy listening" due to the "sometimes unsettling and of their lyrics and themes." The band from Liverpool, and formed in 1992 initially as a trio, featuring Tommy Scott (vocals, bass, guitar), Jamie Murphy (vocals, guitar) and Jamie Island (drums), who was later replaced by Andy Parle in 1993. Keyboard player Franny Griffiths joined the line-up a year later, and the band signed to Gut Records. The hits of their you may remember are "Fem...

There is still time to squeeze in a holiday before the sun sets on summertime. If you are like me, you'll need a few books to get you through the long hours spent on a sun lounger, in between the moments the kids say, "Hey dad, watch this." And then doing something they've already shown you a thousand times that day... Here are six of the best books about Britpop you might choose to pack or download.  1. "Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs" by Miranda Sawyer: Miranda Sawyer uses 20 songs to explore the Britpop era, offering insights into the artists, their music, and the culture of the 90's.  2. "Britpop!: Cool Britannia And The Spectacular Demise Of English Rock" by John Harris: An encyclopedic look at the Britpop scene, covering its rise and decline. It delves into the cultural context of the bands that defined the era.   3. "Coal Black Mornings" by Brett Anderson: This is...

On Division Street,  Sheffield, in a florist's window there is a blue plaque-like sticker that reads; “Jarvis Cocker. Musician. Sustained a broken leg due to clambering out of a window above this site. 1985. In his book Good Pop, Bad Pop, Jarvis' says that it was the moment that changed everything, calling it his "Road to Damascus’ moment. “One night in early November 1985, I went to a girl’s flat in the centre of Sheffield and tried to impress her by going out onto her window ledge and then re-entering her living room via the next window along,” Cocker recalls. It was a move he’d been planning for a while having seen a guest at a different party perform the trick before and being, in his words, “very taken with it.” Having severely overestimated his strength, Jarvis found himself hanging off the window ledge. Without the strength to pull himself back through the other window as he’d planned, he realised he would have to do what he considered ...

Alright by Supergrass, was seen as a teen anthem when it was released in 1995. The song, and especially the video was everywhere that summer.  The song, with its upbeat lyrics and cheerful piano and Monkees-esque video, which always seemed to be playing on a music channel, (when they used to actually play music!) seemed to epitomise British youth culture at the time when Britpop was at its height. The band's youthful appearance, lead singer Gaz Coombes was 19 at the time of its release, added teeth (nice and clean) to the lyrics. However, Coombes said in an interview around October 1995, "it wasn't written as an anthem. It isn't supposed to be a rally cry for our generation. The stuff about 'We are young/We run green...' isn't about being 19, but really 13 or 14. and just discovering girls and drinking." "It's meant to be light-hearted and a bit of a laugh, not at all a rebellious call to arms." with Danny Goffey also saying: ...

When a lot of people look back at the 90s now they think of what has more recently been described as the big four. In fact a recent AI picture on Twitter (no one calls it X Elon, get over it!) Shows Mount Rushmore with the faces showing as Liam Gallagher, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, and Brett Anderson as the key players of this thing named Britpop, from their bands, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, and Suede respectively.   But that period of music history has so much more to offer than just those bands, so here is the first in the series of posts about bands that a lot of people may have forgotten.  1. LONGPIGS The song "She Said" is still one of my favourite songs of the decade, its one of my go-to 90s songs that will be heard blaring out of my car windows during long summer days along with the Seahorses "Love is the Law", see an earlier post for details about that band!  Longpigs were comprised of Crispin Hunt (vocals, guitar), Richard Hawley ...

Wet Leg recently replaced Oasis' Time Flies' greatest hits from the top of the album chart with the release of their second album, Moisturiser.  On their Instagram page, Wet Leg's singer Rhian Teasdale was shown holding a copy of their new album and a dumb and dumber style Oasis t-shirt pictured above. On their stories, they posted, "Yay, eat shit Oasis hehe."     Here's why that's a good thing.  Bands should trash everything that has gone before them. They should rip apart the legend of the older people and show them as out-of-touch, show how their music is of now, and show that everything that went before is dated and dead.       Oasis did it themselves back in the '90s, to their musical peers.       The Sex Pistols mocked musicians and bands they felt were archaic, as well as the monarchy and establishment figures.      The Clash sang, in their song London's Calling, "phoney Beatlemania has bitten ...

In a TV interview in 1994, Damon Albarn said, "There is no doubt that the majority of songs on that first album are about Justine or me." Justine, meaning Justine Frischmann, lead singer of Elastica, who was Damon's girlfriend for seven years. Before that, she was with Brett Anderson, lead singer of Suede, and a founder member of the band. The crossover period between the two men is, let's say, blurred.     Suede are considered one of the founder members of the Britpop movement in the 90s. In 1992, Melody Maker dubbed them the best new band in Britain. They had a raw sound that stood out from the pop blandness of Whitney Houston, who had dominated the charts of that year with her Dolly Parton cover "I Will Always Love You."     Yes, the Madchester scene was at its high point in 92, but Suede offered something different. An intensity missing from a mainstream indie band since the Roses had imploded. Justine says, " I first saw Brett...

      As someone (uncredited) said, every band should make just one album and then split up. The Seahorses were one band that did this, splitting after releasing one album, Do It Yourself.      But why did they split up? And is there any truth in the rumours that the only reason that band founder, and former Stone Roses member, John Squire called them Seahorses, was because The Seahorses was an anagram of He Hates Rones?      When John Squire left the Stone Roses in 1996, he began looking to start a new band. In 2002, Squires admitted this was a rash reaction to leaving his previous band rather than a carefully considered next move.      Squire recruited bass player Stuart Fletcher, who he saw performing in York for a local covers band, The Blue Fins. Stuart was a stand-in for their usual bass player, who couldn't play the gig due to illness.      Next to join was Chris Helme, the band's lead sin...