Levitation - Need for Not

"You can be progressive without being pompous. It sounds like a cliché but I don't care - we are a progressive band and we're in the here and now."
Terry Bickers interviewed by Steve Sutherland Melody Maker April 27 1991.

"If people are tenacious enough they can dance to anything."
Christian Hayes interviewed by Steve Sutherland Melody Maker April 27 1991.

"I'd like to come back as an otter."
Terry Bickers

"Levitation are all the bands you ever wished for.."
Andy O'Reilly in Lime Lizard March 1992

There is nothing wrong with prog rock, with the exception of Muse. When guitarist and space cadet Terry Bickers was unceremoniously ejected from the House of Love tour bus to a train station. He formed the prog rock outfit Levitation. Their first album Need for Not, appeared on 4 May 1992 (the adverts for the album proclaiming “May the Fourth be with you”). It is a ambitious album, finding the guitars pushing beyond the melodic pop of the House of Love and into menacing metal rock. The churning guitars and pounding rhythm of Against Nature shows a darker and heavier side that is throughout the album. Levitation are more akin to Loop in their sonic exploration , than Bickers former outfit the House of Love.

Then all of a sudden it ended. After playing a bad-tempered fifty-minute set at Tufnell Park Dome in north London on May 14 1993, where the band were co-headlining with Eat, Terry surprised the audience and the rest of the band by announcing his intentions to leave.

“Levitation are a lost cause as far as I can tell. We’ve completely lost it haven’t we? Haven’t we?”

“This is the last time you’ll see me for a bit”.

Levitation : Need for Not
http://rapidshare.com/files/296261382/Need_for_Not.rar

Mercury Rev - Yerself is Steam

Yerself is Steam is the 1991 debut album by Mercury Rev. It feels chaotic and psychedelic, with distorted guitars throughout. Nowadays they write (rather good) lushly orchestrated, psychedelically-tinged pop songs.

It opens with Chasing a Bee an aggressive, haunting piece which is really whacked out. The guitar effects are mainlined into your ears. Next up is the grunge thrash of Syringe Mouth, straight from the Sonic Youth Sister era archive. Coney Island Cyclone tries to bring normality back but it is still a chaotic wall of sound. Even the down beat Frittering has a heavily fuzzing drone guitar in most of the song.

The version I have has the bonus CD with the Car Wash Hair single. Dean Wareham from Galaxie 500 makes an appearance on here.

I have seen Mercury Rev twice. The first time was in 1992 supporting Ride at Poole Arts Centre. David Baker came on and looked like Daz door step challenge Danny Baker and that is were the similarity ended. He rolled around on the stage floor and screamed into the microphone. That is all a really remember about that time. The second time was at V98 Deserters Songs had not been released and the band was at a high point. Car Wash Hair was a highlight, it even had a theremin being played in it.

One of these men was a lead singer in Mercury Rev. The other used to give housewives washing power, go out get hammered with Chris Evans and Gazza.

Mercury Rev : Yerself is Steam
http://www.mediafire.com/?j0a11xihz2ped41

Syringe Mouth
Coney Island Cyclone
Blue And Black
Sweet Oddysee of a Cancer Cell t' th' Center of Yer Heart
Frittering
Continous Trucks and Thunder Under a Mother's Smile
Very Sleepy Rivers

Car Wash Hair Bonus CD
http://www.mediafire.com/?b7ji1kogmarm0as

Car Wash Hair (4 track demo)
Chasing a Bee
Coney Island Cyclone (4 track demo)

(Untitled Hidden Track)

The Stairs – Mexican R‘n’B

Parody or pastiche? The Stairs Mexican R’n’B takes the sixties pop imitation to extreme limits. It is recorded in mono, the band said that, ‘if mono is good enough for Phil Spector it is good enough for us.’ They were completely obsessive about the early beat bands and they emulated everything about them. Edgar Summertyme the charismatic and colourful lead singer had big ideas about the band and their music. His voice was a gutsy growl that came out of a mouth the size of their home town of Liverpool.

The album has Mersey beat tendencies. The Stairs would not look out of place on the set of Ready Steady Go, with their sound or look.
In 2008, some songs from The Stairs unreleased 2nd album was released, entitled "Who Is This Is".

The Stairs : Mexican R'n'B
http://rapidshare.com/files/303333164/Mexican_R_nB.rar

Chapterhouse – Rownderbowt

Rownderbowt could be seen as squeezing the last penny out of the shoegazing movement, Chapterhouse only released two albums and a handful of singles. The compilation was put together without the bands knowledge. But instead of flogging a dead horse, this album brings the best moments of Chapterhouse out. The first disc has the lead songs from every single, some tracks from both albums and a few b-sides thrown in. From just this disc you can understand why there was such a dedicated following.

The second disc is a collection of demos,rarities, remixes and unreleased material. There is a version of I’m Losing Touch with My Mind, it is very good. I would confess to being the biggest Spacemen 3 fan ever and I like this cover. Chapterhouse’s take on the song is faithful to the original, that is why it is so good. If anyone is wondering why I never write about Spacemen 3, it’s because I am not worthy. I revere their work so much.

The unreleased material was what the band could of become had they not split up. There is a remix of Picnic from Blood Music, and the Chapterhouse oddity Die, Die, Die. I had a black Chapterhouse t-shirt with DIE, DIE, DIE in white letters across the front. That was one of my favourite long-sleeve t-shirts of the time.

Disc 1
http://www.mediafire.com/?rc4xq72q3sbqas3

Falling Down
Sixteen Years
Something More
Satin Safe
Rain
Pearl
Sherriff
Mesmerise
She's a Vision
We Are the Beautiful
Frost
For What It's Worth
Breather
Don't Look Now
There's Still Life
Then We'll Rise
In My Arms

Disc 2
http://www.mediafire.com/?u059ga1u7fgaure

Losing Touch with My Mind
Ecstasy II
Dream On
Until You Try
Kane
More Than I Can Take
Brighter
Feel
Don't Look Now [Sitar Trance Mix]
We Are the Beautiful [Spooky's Ugly as Sin Mix]
Picnic
Die, Die, Die

The Darkside – All that Noise

My first experience of The Darkside was watching the Brit Awards in either 90 or 91. It was the one where Jonathan King proclaimed his fondness of Carter USM. The Darkside appeared in a Live Music Weekend type event. It was a 10 second clip of them and I was blown away. While the other shoegazers were gangling away The Darkside were going for the audio jugular.

The two main members of The Darkside cut their teeth with Spacemen 3 which is a apprenticeship to be proud of, otherwise band members changed constantly. They were like a 90s indie version of The Doors, with a bit of Jimi Hendrix which is not bad. This adds to the psychedelic feel of their work. This is psychedelic in a garage rock way, rather than floaty and trippy.

It was a miracle that All that Noise was recorded with the constant lineup changes, but the instability does not show in the album. Opening with an instrumental is quite daring, but Guitar Voodoo is a perfect start to the album. A slow drum shuffle and rumbling bassline with jangly guitar riffs that build up to a heavy stoned out sonic wah. Found Love sounds triumphant, you can really feel the ecstatic emotion in it. The other standout psychedelic tracks are Waiting for the Angels and All that Noise.

The Darkside : All that Noise
http://www.mediafire.com/?z9lmh65px80827l

Northern Picture Library – Postscript

Northern Picture Library rose from the ashes of the mighty yet twee Field Mice. This short extract from Wikipedia does more justice to them then all my mumblings. 'Northern Picture Library was a British Dream pop group formed in 1993 by Bobby Wratten and Annemari Davies, both former members of The Field Mice. They were soon joined by former Field Mice drummer Mark Dobson.

The group adopted a more abstract, ambient and synthesiser-based sound than the more instantly-recognisable guitar-pop approach of The Field Mice. Their debut single, "Love Song For The Dead Che", was a cover of a song by 1960s psychedelic group United States of America, and both it and the following album, Alaska, won critical acclaim, however sales were poor, even compared to the Field Mice's records. The group members' personal problems (various members succumbed to depression, stagefright and substance abuse) made touring difficult, and thus also made it difficult for the group to promote their records effectively. Two more EPs followed before the group was dissolved. Wratten later went on to form Trembling Blue Stars, with Davies also joining the group in a later incarnation.’

Northern Picture Library : Postscript
http://www.mediafire.com/?5ndtcf5nr5knm4o

Chapterhouse – Sunburst

This is a mature sounding EP from Chapterhouse considering this was one of their first releases. The lead track Something More was not produced by The Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie he did the softer version on Whirlpool. This is the heavy original that is as good as anything by Ride. Rumbling breakbeat drumming, dub bass line, with both droning and jangly guitars with angelic vocals on top of everything

Satin Safe, six minutes of noise that would be associated with Loop rather than Chapterhouse, saturated in feedback. Rain is a Beatles cover, if you think of the fab four on a delay and reverb overload, that is about the size of it. Feel the Same completes the EP and it brings the listener back to what are good at soft vocals and dynamic guitars. Towards the end of the track there is a bit too much of a wig out, the Marychain would of been proud of this one.

Chapterhouse : Sunburst
http://www.mediafire.com/?il0zhxafsmzk8gw

Something More
Satin Safe
Rain
Feel the Same

House of Love - Feel

The Feel EP is one of the gems of the Babe Rainbow era. It still has it's feet in the earlier classic era, even though it came out after the album. There are at least half a dozen versions of the single, the one I have contains two cover songs.

The other song on the EP that is penned by Guy Chadwick besides Feel is Let's Talk About You. This is a petty revenge song that he wrote about, Terry Bickers (it must be at least three weeks since he was last mentioned in this blog). They must have buried an entire hardware shop full of hatchets to get the House Of Love back together.

It's All Too Much is a Beatles cover, which appeared on the soundtrack to Yellow Submarine.
The influence of the Beatles through the work of the House of Love is apparent, most obviously through their tribute song Beatles And The Stones.

The last song is the House of Love's take on Cream's Strange Brew. I would not really associate them with Cream, but this is a very good cover. It sometimes sounds like the House of Love, and sometimes doesn't. A strange audio experience.

The House of Love : Feel
http://www.mediafire.com/?djgf9rwjt2fr4kq

Feel
Let's Talk About You
It's All to Much
Strange Brew