Joyriders Gazette

Two months after Oasis released "Wonderwall" in 1995, The Mike Flowers Pops released their own, easy-listening spoof version. Their cover reached #2 on the charts in the UK, six weeks after the original, however the spoof was jokingly promoted as "the original version" of "Wonderwall". Noel Gallagher talked about the song, and meeting the man behind Mike Flowers Pops, Michael Roberts, in an interview with the NME in 1998. "I was in one of those little record shops behind Virgin on Oxford Street, and there was this bloke behind me, 6ft 2ins, bald head, and I could feel him looking at me. He comes up with his wife and goes, 'Sorry to bother you, you don't know me, but I covered one of your songs once.' I thought he was a busker, or summat, and I was going, 'Oh, right mate.' And it's Mike Flowers! He's going, 'I'd just like to say thanks for letting us put it out.' I was going, 'Phhfft...

Dinner music: Today it's Dummy by Portishead.  I remember hearing this for the first time in about '95, hungover and broken the morning after a big night out. As I immersed myself in the soft cushions of a friend's sofa I found a copy of this CD balancing precariously on the arm of the chair. I placed it into the drawer of the CD player and settled back into my cushion-nest. My beer-fear-addled brain was not ready for what was to come next.  Eerie trip-hop music filled my ears for the first time, and the small dark pockets of post-excess-anxiety spiked. I almost turned it off as it didn't hit the indie vibe I was used to, but something kept me hanging on for each song. Its strangeness was jangling my nerve endings like a strung-out Spiderman, but something was calming and comforting underneath.  The album built steadily to the epic Glory Box, and I felt changed.  I bought a copy the next day, and it became a constant companion and recovery tool for the ex...

At the mid-point of the 1990s, Radiohead were having a crisis of identity. Having exploded into the public domain with indie grunge anthem Creep, the Oxford band were struggling with the question of what comes next.  They were eager to dive into experimentation, and shun with the more commercial spectrum of songs like Creep. Parlophone and US label Capitol were starting to think that Creep may have been a one-off moment of inspiration.  Though some songs on Radiohead’s second album, The Bends, had slow and painful births, one key track, Fake Plastic Trees seemed to originate fairly spontaneously from Thom Yorke one day in the studio.  As Colin Greenwood told The Nashville Banner in 1995."Usually, we write a song all together, compose it as a whole. [Fake Plastic Trees] was done by Thom just playing by himself, gradually adding one thing at a time. It's all very considered, in a good way,”  But, deciding what to do with it from an arrangement a...

Leisure was released 34 years ago today. On its release it received mixed reviews from critics but was a moderate commercial success, selling over 100,000 copies and earning Gold certification in the UK.  The album is now more favourably viewed, and often viewed in comparison with the band's later work. The cover photograph was taken in May 1954 by Charles Hewitt, for a Picture fashion feature on bathing hats, "Glamour in the Swim". The original version of "Sing", entitled "Sing (To Me)", was recorded as a demo in late 1989 under the band's former name, Seymour. This song was later used on the Trainspotting soundtrack. 

Oasis recently wrapped up the opening UK and Ireland leg of their reunion tour, and will now head across the Atlantic for a total of nine dates in the US, Canada and Mexico. There are no plans to change the setlist for international audiences. This news was revealed by Noel’s close pal Matt Morgan. Speaking on his podcast, Mprgan said: “It’s mad that they’re doing the same set. I thought they would vary it slightly. I said to Noel, ‘Don’t you just want to mix it up?’ He said, ‘No, I like it like that.’ He knows where he is. They bang it out. “I don’t think that’s coming from a place of laziness, it’s that everyone is getting the same experience. It’s over two hours so that’s a lot of songs. I thought they would rehearse 30 songs and then switch them out for different nights and vary it a little but they are resolutely sticking to that setlist.” Morgan continued “He looks so happy. He is. At various points I spoke to him in the last year about i...

"Every successful band has one song that kicks the door down. Before Sit Down was released, we played it in Paris, and a load of Mancunians had shipped themselves over. We started playing the song and one by one, everyone spontaneously started sitting down. By the song's end, the entire thousand-strong crowd were sat on the floor. Some of us cried. You remember those moments." So said Tim Booth in an interview in the Guardian with Dave Simpson in 2014, talking of the song that catapulted James into the mainstream. The song was released twice, once in 1989 when it only reached number 77 in the UK singles charts, and then again in 1991, when it spent three weeks at number two, held off of the top spot by Chesney Hawkes' one and only hit (pun intended!). "Larry Gott, the band's guitarist spoke about how the song was written in the same interview "Sit Down is one of those songs that encourages people to put their arms around strangers. As...

There are a few variations of how Gorillaz got their name. Gorrilaz are a cartoon-based virtual band dreamt up by Damon Albarn, and Jamie Hewlett.  Albarn said of starting the band "This was the beginning of the boy band sort of explosion... and it just felt so manufactured. And we were like, well let's make a manufactured band but make it kind of interesting." The band's visual style is thought to have evolved from The 16s, a rejected comic strip Hewlett conceived with Tank Girl co-creator Alan Martin It's been said that initially, the band was called "Gorilla," which is a pun on the collective noun for gorillas ("band") and also a nod to the fact that both Hewlett and Albarn were born in 1968, the year of the monkey. My favourite story is that the band name comes from a comment Liam Gallagher of Oasis made during the height of the Blur v Oasis, battle of Britpop dates.  An interviewer compared the feud between the bands, to the su...

So when did Britpop go mainstream?  Journalist, and DJ Stuart Maconie used the term Britpop in 1993, but it was not until 1994 that Britpop started to be used by the UK media about contemporary music and events.     Two magazine covers featuring a Union Jack flag background have also been described as key moments in the Britpop era, the first from Select magazine in April 93 features Suede's singer Brett Anderson. The second, from May 94's Face magazine features Damon Albarn. The image, coupled with the "Brit up your ears" tagline, positioned Blur as central to a new, confident British pop scene.      In terms of music, when the Parklife album was released, its first single, Boys & Girls was played on the radio on an almost hourly basis.      This album like its predecessor modern life is rubbish, had something quintessentially British about it, not seen since the Clash, the Jam, or maybe even the Kinks "Village Gr...

      I've recently seen this question asked: What was the first Britpop song released? While it's always difficult to comprehend where a new scene develops from, popular opinion says that the first Britpop song is generally considered to be one of two songs      "The Drowners" by Suede, released in May 1992, was seen as a turning point in music. It marked the start of the Britpop movement, which influenced other bands to develop their own take on the Britpop sound. The song's impact was immediate, with both NME and Melody Maker naming it their song of the year in 1992. Blur's "Popscene" is usually mentioned as a song that started the Britpop movement. It was released a bit earlier in March 92. Of the two songs, "The Drowners" is often credited with embodying the Britpop sound more fully than Blur's "Popscene" song. Blur's hangover from their involvement in the shoegaze scene is evident in their son...

What do Ricky gervais and suede have in common?  Well for a while, Ricky Gervais was Suede's manager! In 1983, while he was in his final year at the University College London, Gervais and his best friend Bill Macrae, tried their luck by forming a new wave pop duo Seona Dancing. While they did release two singles with ‘More to Lose’ and ‘Bitter Heart’ after being signed by the London Records. But despite promoting the singles on a variety of shows, the babd never got the traction they needed to become a success.  Later, Gervais worked at the University of London Union (ULU) at the same time as Suede members were there, In order to stay in touch with his pop world dream, Gervais briefly managed the Britpop band Suede shortly before they became successful in the 1990s. He helped them book gigs and even introduced them to their drummer, Simon Gilbert. He also passed their demo to Saul Galpharn of Nude Records, who ultimately signed them.  B...

This is not a post about that shop in the high street that you can smell half a mile away, and you buy your sister bath bombs from for Xmas, but the shoegaze turned britpop band of the 90s. Side note: there was a great both bomb related joke at the Edinburgh festival this year by comedian Ian Smith:  "People who say bath bombs are relaxing have clearly never tried to carry one home in the rain."  But I digress, Lush (the band!) was formed in London in 1987. The original line-up consisted of Miki Berenyi (vocals, guitar), Emma Anderson (vocals, guitar), Steve Rippon (bass guitar), and Chris Acland (drums). Phil King replaced Rippon in 1991. They were one of the first bands to be described with the "shoegazing" label. In 1989, the band signed to 4AD Records and released their first recording, Scar, a six-track mini-album. Critical praise for Scar and a popular live show established Lush as one of the most written-about groups of the late 1980s/...

Despite finding favour with music critics, with Melody Maker anticipating "a fairytale future of Oasis-like proportions", the band Rialto were famously dropped by their label EastWest, a month before the release of their heavily promoted debut album, denting the group's chances of major commercial success.  The record label, EastWest, which had been acquired by Warner Music Group (who had also previously dropped the band), was thought to have signed too many bands leading to a re-evaluation of their roster. Rialto were one of the acts EastWest felt to no longer fit in with their other acts.  Despite the drop, the band's debut album was still released on July 13, 1998, but not by EastWest. They signed with China Records, who released the album.  It did achieve some commercial success and was reviewed favorably by the weekly music papers.  Critics noted that Rialto were "among the most critically acclaimed and highly tou...

Expecting to Fly,  the debut studio album by The Bluetones has to be one of my favourite albums of the 90s, from the resplendent peacock on the album's cover, and the initial sound on side A: the fading drone of a distant jet engine, through to the last jangling chords of Time & Again on side B. I loved it then and still love it now.  The album was released on 12 February 1996, knocking Oasis (What's the Story) Morning Glory off the number-one spot in the UK Albums Chart,  for a week anyway..  It sold 82,000 copies in its first week, following on from the success of three singles, "Bluetonic", "Slight Return" and "Cut Some Rug". The album was certified platinum by the BPI in March 1998 for sales of 300,000. Mark Morriss spoke to the XS noize podcast about the album for its 25th anniversary in 2021: "It was all very surreal,  we didn't anticipate the success that a slight return would foreshadow. It felt like it was ...

The Blur "Life" trilogy. The three albums recorded in the 90s before they changed direction with their self-titled album.  First came Modern Life is Rubbish, then Parklife, and then finally The Great Escape. Originally, Blur wanted The Great Escape’s title to contain ‘Life’, like the two albums which preceded it, but they were running out of time to make a decision, and so The Great Escape was quickly chosen. The Great Escape featured Country House, which is possibly one of Blur’s best-loved tracks and the victor from the Oasis vs Blur battle.   The Universal, and its amazing Clockwork Orange-style video. There is the song Dan Abnormal – an anagram of Damon Albarn – one of the most autobiographical songs on the record. And then one of my favourites from the album Ernold Same, which I still cannot believe features then-MP, and future Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone as lead performer!!  Of the trilogy, this album just might be my favourite. 

Faster was the first song released on the Manic Street Preachers' 3rd studio album the holy bible.  It's a song that critics always name as one of their favourite Manics songs, but why did the band receive 25,000 complaints, a record number at the time, when they performed it on Top of the Pops?  Emily Mackay named it as the 5th best Manic Street Preachers song at The Guardian. Mackay opined "Its darkly rushing chorus is a perfect example of how Bradfield's music lifted Edwards' lyrics into something that, though harsh, was also full of an almost joyous energy, a mile-a-minute thrill and a sense of limitless audacity."  James Forryan of HMV selected the song as one of the band's 5 highlights, who regarded it as among the best examples of Edwards' "peak of his powers as lyricist." The controversy was not because of the song, but because of their appearance on Top of the Pops promoting the song.  James Dean Bradfield tol...

One of the unanswered mysteries of the 90s for me is why wasn't Shed 7 a bigger band than they were?  They are always spoken of favourably now for those of us who remember that time if music keenly.  But why weren't they bigger in the 90s? Don't get me wrong, people like them in the 90s, but they were not many people favourite band. Third favourite maybe, but never quite at the top of the pile.  They had the hits. Thumping great singalong tunes like going for gold, disco down, getting better, chasing rainbows to name just a few.  So what was the issue?  Was there something amiss with the band itself?  The initial press attention was highly positive reviews of their live shows, coupled with complimentary comparisons to The Smiths.  In March 1994, an article by Dave Simpson of MelodyMaker, stated that "...Shed Seven's beautifully posed, epic music is different. Not so much New Wave of New Wave as post-Smiths, they're taking the in...

Pulp caused a media storm in 1995 with the release of their single Sorted for E's & Wizz.  The song was first performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995, where Jarvis Cocker explained his inspiration. "'Sorted for E's and Wizz' is a phrase a girl that I met in Sheffield once told me...she went to see The Stone Roses at Spike Island and I said 'what do you remember about it?' And she said: 'Well there were all these blokes walking around saying 'Is everybody sorted for E's and wizz?' And I thought it was a good phrase."  It was single sleeve artwork though, which caused controversy.  It included origami instructions on how to fold a paper into a "wrap" often used for drugs. The Daily Mirror newspaper ran a front-page story with the headline written by Kate Thornton, "Ban This Sick Stunt!", and "Chart stars sell CD with DIY kids' drugs guide."  Which of course was nonsense, ...

Maxi Jazz's face dominates the screen, and his voice booms out over the crowd, lasers shooting overhead, "Let me dream of making mad love to my girl on the heath, Tearing off tights with my teeth..." Faithless handle Maxi's absence well. Respectfully. No one can replace him on these anthems, which we have grown up hearing, so no one does. He is there on the screen, looking down on us all, reciting the words burnt into all our souls from opaque nights 30 years ago, like a monolith to our collective lost youth. It seems fitting to be hearing it stood there on the grass, as I'm sure the first time I heard it was in a field or barn somewhere in Essex in late 1995.  This time, it's in front of the stand on Newmarket race course as part of their Newmarket Nights sessions. It's a weird mixture of spectators, some who have been there all afternoon, dressed in suits, and dresses, there for the racing, and Faithless is their after-party. Then those of ...