Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Slowdive

It's an awful, rainy day in NYC as I begin typing this. The rain has turned to sleet and the slick sidewalks will kill us all. That's why it's best to just stay inside, put on your one-piece pajamas with the the butt-flap, and curl up on the couch to listen to a bunch of dream pop, amiright? The point is, it's about time for another dispatch from the swirly netherland of post-punk/new wave/shoegazey dream pop that is the late-80s/early-90s (mainly) British music scene, which provides the soundtrack to my recent award-eligible memoir Sweet Tooth.

I'm here today to talk about Slowdive, a five-piece from the Thames Valley in England whose live shows in all likelihood inspired the derisive term "shoegaze," coined by a music critic commenting on the tendency for many bands of the time to constantly be looking down at their effects pedals rather than engaging with the audience. Slowdive's music had all the hallmarks of the shoegaze genre: feedback-drenched, squalling guitars, lovely but passionless vocals, an ethereal psychedelia, and an apparent reverence for My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins in equal measure. One of only a handful of shoegaze bands whose reputation has actually grown over the years (Ride and, well, Ride being the other one), Slowdive released three EPs in 1990 and 1991 that earned them a rabid UK following and ecstatic praise from the constantly hyperventilating UK music press.

Slowdive's music was said to be so gorgeous it would bring people to tears at their gigs. When I read that in a copy of NME in '91, I was sold--what skinny 18-year-old boy with terrible hair would pass up the opportunity for a good long cry? So I immediately headed down to The Record Exchange to order everything they had, just all of it, I'd mortgage my hair mousse if I had to. It turned out they only had the three EPs out so far--"Slowdive," "Morningrise," and "Holding Our Breath"--so I snapped those up with my sweaty teenage hands and ran all the way home. I still remember putting on the "Holding Our Breath" EP and losing myself in the staggeringly beautiful "Golden Hair" and "Shine" as I watched the record on the turntable go around and around and around into infinity.




Even better was the "Morningrise" EP, which was just, I mean, I couldn't, it was all too much, just bursting with beauty/truth, truth/beauty, poetry, sex, and pancakes. It made me feel all the things and all the things' things. That kids around my age were making music this drop dead gorgeous was embarrassing. I was thoroughly lacking in accomplishment--I had succeeded in getting a few poems published in our high school literary journal, but they were all terrible and deserving of epic mockery. But enough about me. Let's hear some more from Slowdive.




After such a stunning beginning, the band's first album, 1992's Just for a Day, was kind of a disappointment. They had stepped back from its wall-of-sound approach in favor of a generally hazy, low-key, sometimes barely-there atmosphere of plucked, reverby guitars, sleepy harmonies, and a listening experience that felt surprisingly insubstantial--especially coming on the heels of a batch of singles that announced their genius from the first few seconds. There were still some transcendent moments--"The Sadman" and "Primal," the album's final two tracks--but overall, it was a little bit of a bummer.



The UK critics were not kind to the album, and to make matter worse, the band's American label delayed its release for almost a year, meaning that when the band toured the states opening for Blur they had no album to promote. (How do I remember all this? I DON'T KNOW.)

Rachel is sad because there's no Slowdive album at the merch table.

Slowdive returned in 1993 with the "Outside Your Room" EP, which contained the spectacular single "Alison." It marked a return to the band's earlier glacial glory, with the icy atmosphere turned up to 11 on the chorus and singers Neal and Rachel telling a sad tale of this Alison lady who's sister is apparently missing or lost or in a coma or in the bathroom or maybe it's Alison who's missing I don't know she's not available for comment during the song itself but anyway, sadness sure is beautiful, which is the point of this paragraph.

Here, just shut up and listen:






"Outside Your Room" was followed by the band's second album, Souvlaki, which is the album that secured their place in the Shoegazing Hall of Fame. Souvlaki is bursting at the seams with cascades of white guitar squall and forlorn romanticism. The album even featured the great Brian Eno on a few tracks. Sadly, the UK press had already grown exceedingly tired of the shoegaze bands and moved on to grunge, so Souvlaki received no love, and, the album was delayed once again by the band's American label and ultimately released in the States about a year after the initial British pressing, with a few extra tracks tacked on, one of which is the band's gorgeous cover of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra's "Some Velvet Morning," and another of which, "Country Rain," makes my cat Stella cry.

Slowdive issued one more album--1995's Pygmalion--but, though the album is revered as a minimalist classic by many contemporary electronic artists, it was really a one-man effort, with Neal basically noodling around in the studio and recording the whole thing himself. I don't even think the band toured the album. Though it's not one of my favorites, Pygmalion has its moments, one of which is "Blue Skied An' Clear."

This time Rachel is sad because she's barely on Slowdive's last album.

And with that the story of Slowdive had ended. Neal and Rachel went on to play music as Mojave 3 for five or so albums of countrified folk, and Neal also had a pretty solid solo career. Then, last year, Slowdive was suddenly on Twitter announcing shows, ultimately regrouping for a reunion tour and basically executing it flawlessly, all over the dang place. I saw them in NYC in October and hoo boy, if it wasn't transcendental. Apparently they're working on new material and THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN RIGHT NOW, YOU GUYS, HURRY UP.

Anyway, here they are playing "Golden Hair" at the Pitchfork Music Festival back in August. And no, I'm not crying from the sheer beauty of the song or the knee-buckling cascade of crystalline guitars, or at even at witnessing the music of my youth make such a majestic return. I've just got something in my eye. (It's tears.)

Me Yammering on the Radio about the Book I Did

You guys, I did an interview with WUNC, one of North Carolina's NPR affiliates, MONTHS AGO and I never posted it, how irresponsible is that? I'm terrible. Anyway, WUNC's "The State of Things" kindly invited me on to discuss my book Sweet Tooth, and I didn't accidentally curse or vomit onto the microphone, so basically, I nailed it.

Listen and comment and demand that they invite me back immediately, thanks.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: The Sundays

Folks, it's time once again to ignore everything else on the Internet and reminisce about the good old days of 80's new wave-post-punk-gothicy-indie pop, aka the bands who hang out in the darkened corners of my recent book Sweet Tooth's new wavy mise-en-scene. Or something. In any case, let's take a quick buggy ride back to the year 1989, shall we?

The Smiths had broken up, and Morrissey had embarked on his legendary/notorious solo career with the high-watermark 1988 album Viva Hate. Meanwhile, Scottish dreampop weirdos The Cocteau Twins, who had been making some of the decade's most gorgeous and stultifying music since 1982, finally had a taste of American success with 1988's Blue Bell Knoll, their fifth album overall and their first to be available stateside. Enter a scrappy band from Reading who became the answer to the question all us sweaty Anglophiles didn't realize we should have been asking ourselves: What would happen if The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins rented a room, got nekkid, and made a baby?

The answer to that question, of course, was The Sundays.




Led by chipmunk-faced cutie-pie singer Harriet Wheeler, who apparently liked to dress in her mother's clothes, and her adorable boyfriend, guitarist and Johnny Marr lookalike David Gavurin, The Sundays nailed the exact sweet spot between wispy Smithsian guitar pop and ethereal, operatic flourishes straight from Planet Cocteau. But, though Harriet's warbly soprano did recall The Cocteau's Elizabeth Fraser, she tended, like Morrissey, to sing about much more mundane things, such as kicking boys ("When the weather's fine/when it's sunny outside/I think about the time/I kicked a boy 'til he cried"), visiting terrible places ("Hideous towns/Make me throw/Up"), and hating poetry ("Poetry is not for me"). And the mournful bassline from their song "Joy" (video above) also suggested a third post-punk antecedent: Joy Division. But The Sundays somehow transcended these influences and created something all their own, leading the British music press to start proclaiming them the Next Great Pasty-Faced Hope.

The band barely had enough songs to fill an album when they released their debut, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, in 1989. It contained their very first single "Can't Be Sure," as well as the infectious, breezily insistent "Here's Where the Story Ends," the song they are still probably most famous for. The video ended up as a staple on MTV's 120 Minutes and even found its way onto the network's regular daytime rotation.



I saw the band in Raleigh in 1990 and they were lovely and immaculate. They were so well received that they were coaxed back onto the stage for a second encore, something they were wholly unprepared for. "We have no more songs, actually," Harriet said sheepishly, smiling. So they launched back into "Can't Be Sure," which they'd of course already played. We were all fine with it.

It was hard to be a Sundays fan, though, because they worked incredibly slow, especially compared to their British compatriots, who were trotting out singles and EPs and albums and special compilation tracks endlessly like a bunch of jittery manic depressives. The British music press, as was their wont, quickly moved on to the next big thing, which was probably the Soup Dragons or some shit. We'd have to wait until 1992 for the band to reemerge with their second album Blind, and the single "Goodbye." It was a solid follow-up, with the guitars even more lush and spangled and Harriet's voice in fine form. It wasn't too much of a departure from Reading, though in interviews Harriet wryly insisted the band had evolved, and as proof pointed to the fact that the first album had 10 songs and the second had 12. Hard to argue with that.

Blind also contained a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," which some slagged them off for, but which I think is just lovely, so suck it, haters.

The band's rate of output, sadly, actually diminished after Blind. They toured the world and made a great go of it, then returned to England, where Harriet and David started a family. It would be another five years before their third album, Static and Silence, emerged in 1997. It's this album where the band kind of lost me. It's not that it was bad. It had some great moments, like single "Summertime." But overall it was just dull and uninspired (I STILL LOVE YOU HARRIET AND DAVID.), leaving one with the impression that perhaps here was where the story should end. (Ba-dum-bum.) (Sorry.)

As it turned out, that album was where the story ended. After touring the world again with Static and Silence, The Sundays completely disappeared into the English ether, and there's been no sign of the band in the last 17 years. At least there hadn't been until, bizarrely, they reemerged earlier this year in an issue of American Airlines' in-flight magazine American Way after that mag's editor, a Sundays obsessive, tracked them down like a boss. Of course, even though they'd been found, they were still as elusive as ever, though they did confirm they've been working on new material (OH MY GOD) and have kind of sort thought about maybe touring again or something.

So, maybe the story continues, who can say, can't be sure, HURRY UP HARRIET AND DAVID.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Depeche Mode

 

You guys, it's been forever since we took a trip down memory lane and visited the glory days of pasty white folk emoting into the ether while sporting hairstyles that defied the laws of physics and good taste, aka my book Sweet Tooth's Greek chorus of new wave awesomeness. Let's get back to it, shall we?

Up next is Depeche Mode, a band that at first blush comes off as a gaggle of gay dudes who wouldn't know what to say to/do with a female if she showed up with cue cards and a map to her ladygarden. I mean, admit it, when you were dancing to "I Just Can't Get Enough" back in 1981 in your bedroom while fantasizing about lead singer David Gahan feeding you Fruit Rollups like a boss, you didn't even think for a minute that the fey fingertips hitting those synths behind him belonged to anyone but a first-tier nancyboy, amiright? Well you were wrong! That sissy's name was Martin Gore, the mastermind behind the band, and he's actually just a straight dude who liked to dress like a weird new wave lesbian, so there.

Now, there's not one person among us who has watched this band's legendary live show documentary Depeche Mode 101 and not come away thinking that David Gahan's butt has seen some serious man-action. Look how happy it is, wiggling all around like that. It was just bound to happen at some point, at least a few times, backstage, after the show, in a hot tub, while the other band members did each other's hair. But by all accounts, the men of Depeche Mode are all straight, which is one reason I've always had such shitty gaydar, because come on.

Anyway, enough about David Gahan and his tight white jeans. Let's talk about the music, which, for the purposes of this blog post, will concentrate on the era up through the band's high watermark, 1990's Violator.


There's much to love about Depeche Mode's '80s output. They were your secret boyfriends (and by "they" I pretty much mean David Gahan), the romantic loners you met underneath the bleachers to smoke weed and discuss hair products with before trying to get into their pants. Did you want something fun, dumb, and gay to dance to at the discotheque? Try "Just Can't Get Enough," "What's Your Name?" or "Boys Say Go!" Were you in need of some vaguely menacing yet melodic electro-industrial nonsense? Put on "More Than a Party," "Something To Do," or "Behind the Wheel." Or did you simply want something dark and sexy to listen to while lying on your bed with the black light on wondering if David in gym class was actually gay or just homoerotic? Try all of Violator, but particularly "World in My Eyes," "Personal Jesus," and "Blue Dress." If you were a youth growing up in the last decade of the Cold War, when we all thought it was possible we were going to bite it in some sort of idiotic nuclear fury, Depeche Mode's naked emotionalism and high, hilarious drama just kind of made sense, what can I say?

Depeche Mode was always a heart-on-their sleeve kind of band. And in their songs they asked all the important questions that all teenagers in the eighties had: "Why can't we all just get along?" ("People Are People") "Aren't rich businessmen the worst?" ("Everything Counts") "Wanna do some S&M?" ("Master and Servant") And, of course, "Would you please just shut the fuck up?" ("Enjoy the Silence")

And they did cheeky, idiotic things like rhyme "career" with "Korea" and got away with it! If I'd done that in my high school creative writing class I'd have gotten laughed out of the room, but then again, I wasn't David Gahan in tight white jeans. I was Tim, with the stupid curly hair in my face and the tight polyester pants. Amazing the difference that made.

Anyway, over the course of the decade, Depeche Mode quietly amassed a huge fan base in the U.S. by the time of 1987's Music for the Masses, without much by way of hit singles or blockbuster albums, and somehow ended up playing to sold-out crowds in stadiums across the country like they were U2 or something. I remember reading an item in Rolling Stone about the inexplicable popularity of Depeche Mode among squeaky clean college kids. It was kind of weird. Had they not heard "Blasphemous Rumors"? Maybe they had and they agreed that God had a sick sense of humor? Sure.

By the time the highly anticipated Violator rolled out in 1990, Depeche Mode were one of the biggest bands on the planet. "Personal Jesus" preceded the album and its video featured the band members hilariously visiting a brothel-type place in the wild west. And why not, I say? Might as well step that blasphemy up a notch.

I kind of lost track of the band after this album. Their next one, Songs of Faith and Devotion, dropped during grunge mania and the video for "I Feel You" featured my precious David Gahan writhing around with long hair and a Beetlejuice suit, but it came off like he was trying a little to hard to keep up with Alice in Chains or Soundgarden or some other early-'90s terrorism, and I just had to say "no." Really should give that album another try, now that it's twenty-one years later and we've all grown up a little bit.

In conclusion,



Read all Sweet Tooth Jukebox posts here.

Sweet Tooth on The Huffington Post, What?!

You guys, my stupid mug ended up on Huffington Post the other day when Sweet Tooth got some love from their Gay Voices (not a horror movie title) section. I was just one row over and a slot-and-a-half down on the landing page from John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight on HBO! This means I'll soon be getting my own cable show, which I will call Tomorrow's Just Two Days Away or something, on which I'll discuss treats.

Anyway, read the article and watch the promo video I put together, hurry up!

My iPhone Camera Will Not Be Denied: Folsom Street Fair East, NYC

Folks, do you ever wake up on Sunday morning and think, "I just don't feel gay enough?" Or "You know, it's a white hot sunny day, it'd be great to see some barely clad old men in leather"? Or maybe just "butts"? It happens to the best of us. In fact, I was thinking all three of those things and more when my cat Stella woke me up this morning by slashing me across the neck. Thankfully, today was the Folsom Street East leather fantasia in Chelsea, NYC. When I found out it was happening, I rode my tricycle up yonder and took some photos so you wouldn't miss out. You're welcome.

First thing I should say is that I really gotta stop running into my ex like this.

What's even more awkward is that we were wearing the same thing. I KNOW!

I was relieved to find that there were games to be played at this fair. Like this one, which I'm just going to assume is called Dildo Rings.

You guys, there were also some branded Lucas Entertainment boy toys on hand to be photographed, so I did that.

And lest you think things weren't freaky deaky enough, here's a nice young man with a snout.

There were some great amenities, too. Like this one, where a brother could get his patent leather knee-high boots shined like a boss.

There were butts.

This shot looks a little more hostile than it actually was. They were nice!

The crowd was balls deep.

I don't know about you, but I'm hungry for some sausages now. Oh look.

I'm not actually sure what this guy's animating issue was, but he's a "bitch" and a "master," so who am I not to take a picture of him?

On the stage were a fun queen, a dude in his Sunday best, and an interpreter for the deaf. So much like my wedding reception.

In conclusion, I'll leave you with this one of my new friends who agreed to pose for me. I don't know their names, but in my defense, they don't know mine either.

The Sweet Tooth Launch Party Happened, and Here's Proof!

Guys, I'm finally putting up some photos from the Sweet Tooth launch party, what took me so long, the damn thing was on May 28, good Lord. Anyway, it was a great crowd and a fun vibe, and there were Sweet Tooth candy bars and some beer and wine and cheese and pound cake and crackers and vegetables with dippin' sauce, and lots of lovely peeps. Thanks to everyone who came out to support me and the book. And thanks bunches to Wix Lounge for hosting us and not tossing us into the elevator when we stayed too late.

For those of you who weren't able to come, here's a taste of what you missed:



Aren't you aSHAMED? Yes you are.

Oh, and look, more photos.

Yes, I was wearing a headset because I needed both hands free to hold my book and also fondle my invisible backup dancers, which I guess is what I was doing in that first one. The reading was basically a cross between a Britney Spears Vegas show and a TED Talk. There were treats.

And beer in buckets.

And books.

And signings.

Sexiest party on a Wednesday night in Chelsea ever. Wait, no that's probably not right. Sexiest party on a Wednesday night in Chelsea that started before 8? Okay, fifth sexiest--yeah, I'm probably safe saying that. 

Lastly, check out the hotties in the audience smiling and laughing and being awesome. Who did I wanna go home with, you ask? All of 'em, Katie.

My Cousin Is Famous for Loving Hillary Clinton, You Guys

Folks, my cousin Sean Brennan has just endured his (first) 15 minutes of fame for being the very first person in line at the first stop on Hillary Clinton's book tour, the Barnes and Noble in NYC's Union Square. He's been all over the news (seriously, Google him), interviewed by everyone from ABC to another ABC to Yahoo Finance to the UK's Telegraph to National Journal to Business Insider to NBC Chicago. (Sean, I wish I'd known you were doing this, I'd have given you a copy of Sweet Tooth to hold up for all the cameras.) He lined up at 2 pm on Monday and a mere twenty-some-odd hours later, in walks Hillary to say hello.

Take a look at this awesome photo of Sean getting down to the business of telling Hillary that, seriously, she needs to run for fucking president. I love his stance--hands on the table as if he's giving her an offer she can't refuse (that offer: unbridled adoration, which it appears she, in fact, did not refuse). 

Well done, Sean! You know my mom's gonna be so conflicted when she hears about this...

Book Expo 2014, You Guys: In Which I Sign Books and Maybe Look a Little Confused

So, you guys, my YA publisher, Charlesbridge, invited me to sign copies of my latest YA historical fiction novel Ocean of Fire at Book Expo in New York this past weekend, and I jumped at the chance. I was just a few booths down from Grumpy Cat, who has a new book that has already sold more copies than all human books combined, yet there was enough attention to go round--I was supposed to sign for two hours but we ran out of books in 30 minutes! Sure, they were free books, but still! Here, enjoy some photo evidence:

See? And I'm not even Lena Dunham! 

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "why isn't Tim signing copies of Sweet Tooth, his latest book for Amazon Publishing?" The answer is: well, apparently, Amazon Publishing doesn't see much value in having a booth at Book Expo, because why would you want to have your authors make appearances at a humongous trade show full of book lovers and book industry folks? So counterproductive! Better just to steer clear and hope for the best. So, yeah, no Sweet Tooth signing. :-(

Okay, okay, so here's your Grumpy Cat paparazzi picture, courtesy of me:

Also, I almost got blowed up by Boba Fett, for your sins.

So, all in all, a pretty decent Book Expo, except for the total absence of any hot Sweet Tooth action on the trade floor. Maybe it all happened in the toilets.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Lush

Hi, you guys. Time for another dive down my book Sweet Tooth's musical rabbit hole. I've already written about some of the big names of '80s post-punk but haven't yet touched on the genre from the late-'80s/early '90s that came to be known as "shoegaze." Really should do that. How about right now?

Shoegaze was a term coined derisively by a UK music critic to describe a scene of bands playing heavily effected, wall-of-sound guitar rock that had them constantly looking down at their effects pedals and rarely at the audience. Shoegaze bands took their cues from the reverb-laden and often gauzily romantic music being made by bands like My Bloody Valentine, the Cocteau Twins, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. It was defined by indulgent use of guitar effects pedals, very slight and sometimes barely-there vocals, and a dreamy, psychedelic airspace perfect for lying on your bed dreaming of the perfect boy. Or, you know, something.

One of the earliest of the shoegaze bands was London's Lush, a four-piece formed in 1989: two girls, two boys. The girls--flame-haired singer/guitarist Miki Berenyi and guitarist Emma Anderson--ran the show, writing all the songs and handling all vocals. I first encountered the band on MTV's 120 Minutes, when the program aired their first video, "De-Luxe," from the Mad Love EP. I immediately fell in love. It was as if Molly Ringwald and Wynona Ryder had ditched Hollywood and moved to Camden Town in London, telling themselves "Fuck it, we're gonna do this now."



After playing only a handful of gigs, the band caught the eye of 4AD, the seminal British post-punk record label that brought the world Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, the Pixies, and, yes, Modern English. Their first recording for 4AD was the mini-album Scar, a sublime debut that somehow found that undulating sweet spot between Cocteau Twins and Sonic Youth. It was loud, spiky, and spindly, but it was also freaking gorgeous.

Their next release was the aforementioned Mad Love EP, on which the band collaborated with their hero, Robin Guthrie, guitarist from Cocteau Twins. The result was more spooky madness: there's "De-Luxe," whose gleefully abstract lyrics detail a psychedelic trip of some sort ("When we're wrapped in polythene/What's that supposed to mean?... When I'm up you're coming down"), and on one track, "Leaves Me Cold," Miki recounts a sex dream she once had on a tour bus. In the dream she's shagging one of the band's roadies or something, and, after being shaken awake by a bump in the road, she turns and sees the guy she'd just been dreaming about sitting next to her. "I'm coming but I wake up and it leaves me cold," she sings in a high-pitched, sing-song twitter, her passionless delivery a chilly counterpart to the aggressive shards of guitars exploding all around her and stuff. Capping off their early period, the band followed up Mad Love with a single that, in my humble opinion, is the desert-island shoegazer anthem, and the band's high watermark: "Sweetness and Light."



The band came off wonderfully self-effacing in interviews. Miki routinely referred to her own singing abilities as "crap," and would correct interviewers if ever they implied she had a good voice. ("Leave it out," she said in one article.) And they pretty much immediately became darlings of the UK music press, with one NME cover actually proposing the idea that Lush were the next ABBA. (Yes, the UK music press is often dumb.) The band had a nifty response to that over-the-top comparison when Scar, Mad Love, and Sweetness and Light were all collected onto an album for the American market called Gala, which contained a couple new tracks, one of them, "Hey Hey Helen," an ABBA cover. Which, you know, is the shit.

Lush made a second video for "De-Luxe" for the US market in 1990. It had a much bigger budget, and the result was a swirly, candy-coated, psychedelic fantasia, much like all of my contemporaneous teenage sex dreams.

Gala fits together amazingly well as an album, and it's one that I still return to frequently. It really showed the band at its best, starting off with the anthemic "Sweetness and Light" and that single's B-sides "Sunbathing" and "Breeze," both of which meshed dreamy guitar textures with sweet melodic hooks. Elsewhere there was the fun kiss-off "Bitter" and the kicking "Second Sight," with its whiplash time signature change and excitable drumming from Chris Acland. It also featured one of the band's best tracks, "Etherial," the title of which is an amalgam of the two people who are the subject of the song--Ethan and Merial--and a clever nod to the adjective most often used to describe the band. With Gala being released in the US in 1990, the band ventured out on a co-headlining tour with fellow shoegazers Ride, with the two bands swapping slots each night. (Ride was a bigger name in the UK at the time, so the whole co-headlining idea was annoying to singer/guitarist Andy Bell, who remarked that it was like the Beatles opening for Petula Clark--funny and also VERY RUDE!) I saw them on that tour in Chapel Hill when I was a senior in high school and it was freaking awesome. Miki had charisma to burn and when there were some technical difficulties she invited people up to tell jokes while they dealt with them.



The band toured a lot during the next year, so it wasn't until 1991 that they released any new material. The Black Spring EP came out in October, and its lead single, "Nothing Natural," was a stunner. Its video, sadly, was kind of lame. Miki and Emma were done up like the Bangles, inexplicably pressing their heads together throughout the song (probably because the video director was gross). They looked like sad, sapphic, porcelain muppets. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the gay stuff (and muppets), but the video just seemed to cast the ladies in a "save me I'm a girl" role that me didn't like much.

In advance of the release of their proper debut album, the band put out the For Love EP. The single was another solid slice of dream pop, and the B-sides, one of which was a gorgeous cover of Wire's "Outdoor Miner," backed the track up nicely.

That much-anticipated album, Spooky, came out in 1992, and it marked the moment when the band was sucked completely into the 4AD-Cocteau Twins industrial complex. Producer Robin Guthrie smothered the band in a swirl of slushy guitars and processed vocals and drums; he rounded off all the rough edges, effectively stifling the spunk that had made the band stand out on their early releases as much more than just pretenders to the Cocteau's throne. On Spooky, Lush sounded like Cocteau Twins clones without the benefit of Elizabeth Fraser's amazing pipes. Though the album starts off strong with the one-two punch of "Stray" and "Nothing Natural," things get boring very quickly when the cloyingly singsongy "Tiny Smiles" and flatly melodramatic "Covert" rear their heads. It should be said that there are some great moments on the album: tracks like "Ocean," "Superblast," and "Monochrome" are particular standouts. And if the bar hadn't been set so high with the Gala material, I'd probably hold Spooky in higher esteem. I always thought that Alternative Press's Dave Segal nailed it, though, in his review when he wrote, "While Spooky will likely be better than, oh, 90% of 1992's recorded output, one senses that it could've been so much more daring."

Lush toured the crap out of the album and were hand-picked by Perry Farrell for the second Lollapalooza tour in the summer of '92. They were the first band on, so they had the privilege of warming up a crowd that was really just there to see Pearl Jam, who was on next. By all accounts, the band had a blast on the tour, and tracks from Spooky did come alive, er, live.

As far as recorded output, Lush was silent for the next two years, finally reemerging in 1994 on a 4AD compilation called All Virgos Are Mad, which contained the Lush track "The Childcatcher," a summertime slice of pop-punk bliss that boded well for the band's forthcoming material. Their next album was preceded by two EPs, Hypocrite and Desire Lines, released on the same day and showing two very different sides of the band. "Hypocrite" was all jagged anger and spleen, while the dirge-like, 9-minute "Desire Lines" took its time unspooling into a gorgeous, cascading midsection, though the back end of the track kind of goes on forever and ever. It was an odd choice for a single, and sadly, neither track charted very highly. (Quick shout-out to "Hypocrite" B-side "Cat's Chorus," which, like "The Childcatcher," showed the band at their zippy finest.)

The album Split came out a few weeks later to decidedly mixed reviews. Though in the intervening years it has gained a reputation as the band's strongest (it is not; that would be Gala), the musical climate had shifted dramatically in the two years since Spooky, with all the world just wanting grunge, grunge, and more grunge. And though Split was a much more varied record than anything they'd put out before, alternating among attitudinal aggression, lush orchestral numbers, and sun-kissed pop, the album failed to gain traction beyond the band's loyal fan base.  :-(

Lush reemerged again in 1996 with a new batch of songs that were decidedly more radio-ready than anything they'd done before. This wasn't too surprising, since in the intervening years Britpop had exploded in all the sad British faces, and in London Lush were surrounded by other bands--some of them really awful, like Dodgy and Cast--that were having top ten singles and albums. I imagine that by this point, Lush wanted them some of that for themselves. So they went all in on the pop.

The first taste of the new Lush was single "Single Girl," which had begun as a B-side but then was moved up to top billing by the record label. What to say about "Single Girl"? Hmm. Well, it was super catchy and playful, with the kind of simple melody that burrows into your head and stays. It was also... well, kind of dumb. But hey, pop is allowed to be dumb, and the band was rewarded for the being kind of dumb with a #21 UK chart placement, their highest ever. Lush were officially press darlings again. The next single, "Ladykillers," was even more of a departure, with Miki singing in her lower register and channeling her inner Elastica.



The song was a smart, punchy "f*ck you" to a series of men that Miki had been approached by, and rumor had it that one of these gentlemen was Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Homoerotic Chili Peppers. Again, the single reached #21 in the UK charts, and the video received tons of airplay on MTV, which was still a few years away from re-imagining itself as the teen pregnancy channel.

The album Lovelife came out in March 1996, and though it was generally well reviewed, it's really not my thing, baby, and it's got a few cringeworthy songs ("Ciao," a duet with Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, and the godawful "Tralala" being two of them) that send me scrambling for the skip button. Many of the B-sides to the singles, which were collected on the compilation album "Topolino," were stellar, though ("Ex," "Dear Me," and "Piledriver" were particular standouts), and they proved that the band still had it in them to serve up the pop hooks and infectious harmonies. The band also covered the Magnetic Fields' "I Have the Moon" and Elvis Costello's "All This Useless Beauty," both of which were Lush at their absolute loveliest. And though Lovelife didn't really do much for me, it did seem that the band was in an exciting transition, and I still held out hope that they still had it in them to top the shambolic majesty of Gala. It wasn't to be.

Lush released one final single, "500 (Shake Baby Shake)," which hit #22, before tragedy struck: guitarist Emma Anderson, exhausted from the band's incessant touring and feeling overwhelmed by the demands being placed on the band by their American label, announced she wanted to leave the band, and two days later, drummer Chris Acland, always such a delight in interviews and by all accounts a happy guy, hanged himself in his parents' house in the Lake District. He was only 30 years old. The remaining members were obviously devastated--Chris wasn't just a bandmate, he was a close friend and Miki's former boyfriend. (Miki herself has said she'll never understand why he did it.) With the death of one of their core members, Lush disintegrated, officially disbanding in 1997.

Sadly, Lush has been largely forgotten in the years since their breakup, and they are now little more than a footnote in the histories of the shoegazing and Britpop scenes of the '90s. This is a total bummer, and one hopes that with the resurgence in interest in shoegaze in the past few years, the band will finally get some respect. Gala alone deserves the world's attention. It was their purest musical expression, the sound of a young band downing some shots, hopping in the pool, and splashing around gleefully. It's one of my top 10 favorite albums. (That's right, I said it.) The band never topped it.

Miki once said in an interview that she would be dead before anyone said anything nice about Lush. I hope this modest post, at least, goes even the slightest distance toward proving her wrong.