Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 23/10/06
Label: Sanctuary

Twenty years ago, the NME put out a cassette tape featuring a collection of DIY, fey, often androgynous, guitar scratching groups; part of a 'scene' that had, for two years or so, been forming bands, playing local gigs, touring pubs and recording, without any industry input or guidance. No managers, no A&R men, no big labels. Just a desire to get up and make music.

This 48-track CD version gathers most of those bands and songs together - with two decades of separation - for us to marvel, reminisce, scratch our heads, laugh and, finally, to realise that those of us who were part of this 'scene' actually left some bloody good music behind. Oh, and some dross.

Guitars strum over-excitedly - though the early Creation bands, Primal Scream, The Loft, Bodines, seem to have a relaxed confidence - drummers tie themselves in knots and singers do their level best to sing in tune. These were bands inspired by 'the greats': the Go-Betweens, Orange Juice, The Ramones and the first Velvet Underground album. The Servants' "The Sun A Small Star" is pure Go-Betweens while the Weather Prophets even had Lou Reed's leather pants to add to the delicate guitar lines on "Like Frankie Lymon".

The girls got a look in too. The Primitives', with their Ramones attack on "Really Stupid", and the Darling Buds put the sex into "CD86", but the 'scene' had more than its fair share of earnest, no-nonsense, Audrey Hepburn indie-girls who picked up guitars and formed the indie doo-wop of the Siddeleys, the shaggy Shop Assistants and the impossibly twee Tallulah Gosh.

The highlights? The Wolfhounds' "Anti Midas Touch" still sounds fresh with a mature arrangement, while McCarthy's "Frans Hals" hinted at great things to come. The Wedding Present were out of the blocks with the frantic pop of "This Boy Can Wait" - one of only three tracks of the 48 here which appeared on the original tape - while the brilliant Chesterfields recorded the only song about the scene itself with "Ask Johnny Dee".

So, well done St Etienne's Bob Stanley for not simply replicating the original release - how would you like to have to track down 48 teachers/social workers…whatever these musicians are up to now, to ask for permission. Just sit back, put your pointy boots up on the sofa and recall student grants, fanzines, button badges, Rickenbackers and Thatcherism. Ah, those truly were the days…

    by Andy Strickland