My Bloody Valentine – Feed Me With Your Kiss

This was one of the EPs that was released before Isn’t Anything, the other was You Made Me Realise. The guitar effects that would become the My Bloody Valentine sound are evident throughout, but it also has the Ecstasy and Wine stylised noise which is more in keeping with their early work. Feed Me With Your Kiss and appears on the album and is the title track, but the others are just as strong. Emptiness Inside was a long standing number in their live set.

My Bloody Valentine : Feed Me With Your Kiss
http://www.mediafire.com/?heu1u5j5guk3xcv

Feed Me With Your Kiss
I Believe
Emptiness Inside
I Need No Trust

Christmas Competition

The question was... this blog is called ‘I was a Teenage Shoegazer’, but this is a phrase that I did not coin. Who in 1994/95 in an interview with the NME said, ‘I was a teenage shoegazer and used to listen to Ride all the time.’

The answers ranged from Noel Gallagher, Thom Yorke to the slightly obscure Nick Berry. I can almost imagine a shoegazey version of Every Loser Wins.

The answer was Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy in an recent interview he talked about the single Indie Disco, ‘It was a bit of a tribute to my teenage years, when I was a massive indie kid. Pixies were my major idols, and My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive . . . all those shoegaze-y bands. I think what I liked about them was the sort of doomed, melancholic romance.'

Thanks to all those who took part.

Belle and Sebastian – Tigermilk

Tigermilk is the debut album from Belle and Sebastian. It was originally released on Electric Honey Records, a label formed as a course requirement for Music Business and Administration Degree from Glasgow’s Stow College, because this was an amateur project there was only 1000 vinyl LPs produced. It was recorded in a mere five days in 1996. Thankfully it was rereleased to stop bootleggers.

It was recorded on a budget and with limited time, this suits the shambling style that Belle and Sebastian have. It starts with The State I’m In, this is fantastically sarcastic. It sets the tone for the rest of the album. Songs about failure, tragedy, loneliness and alienation, with an upbeat pop melody. Expectations a sad tale of teenage life, rejection, the incessant pain of normality. This story is told on the way to school on Monday morning.

With the exception of Electronic Renaissance the album style is very Belle and Sebastian, eventhough there are a variety of instruments and styles used. Hamdclaps, organ, brass, keyboards and strings. There is even a passage read from Rip Van Winkle.

Belle and Sebastian : Tigermilk
http://www.mediafire.com/?z9s0mppa3jh5cs2

Catherine Wheel – I Want to Touch You

My favourite Catherine Wheel song ever, and the single has some great b-sides. Ursa Major Space Station appears on here first, before it was later reworked and rereleased on the album Chrome. This is a stripped down original version, it reminds me of Pearl Jam a bit.

The tone becomes even heavier with the dirty metal grunge riff of Collideoscopic. The single ends with Our Friend Joey a thrashy punk stomper that only lasts for a minute and a half.

Catherine Wheel had only been formed for two years when I Want to Touch You was released and it shows that Catherine Wheel had severed all links with the shoegazing fraternity and had gone to a rockier shore.

Catherine Wheel : I Want to Touch You
http://www.mediafire.com/?xu8knw7v2tpil14

I Want to Touch You
Ursa Major Space Station
Collideoscopic
Our Friend Joey