I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE VASELINES-The Way of the Vaselines (1992).

I had never heard of The Vaselines until Kurt Cobain praised them so much back in 1992.  SubPop quickly issued Way of the Vaselines, a fairly comprehensive collection of their recordings.

I bought it and thought it was okay.  Not revolutionary or anything, but decent indie pop.  And I think my lackluster response is in part because I often react the same way to what you’d call originators of a scene when I’ve already been in the scene for a while.  Once people have blown the fundamentals away, it’s hard to appreciate the fundamentals anymore.

And so I’ve given them a new listen with more appreciative ears.  I also enjoyed poppier music a lot more now than I did in 1992 (it’s funny how poppy The Vaselines are and yet how noisy Cobain was).

The songs really hold up quite well in a Velvet Underground way (“Rory Rides Me Raw”), or the left field dance anthem cover of Divine’s “You Think You’re a Man.”  They also have some fast punk songs (“Dying for It”).

Nirvana covered three of their songs, “Son of a Gun” and more famously “Molly’s Lips.”  (The Vaselines version of “Molly” is much cuter (with a bike horn in the chorus)).  And, perhaps most famously, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” (which is pretty close to the original).

The Vaselines sang a lot about sex, (“Sex Sux,” “Monsterpussy”) that was disguised in a largely pop context.  But they also had inclinations towards fuzzy punk.

I think what’s so wonderful about this collection is that it’s four Scottish kids who had good pop sensibilities (and some talent) playing what they liked.  They’re an amateur love to the whole disc, and yet for all of their lo-fi ness, the songs sound good–even if you can’t always understand the lyrics. (Sub Pop remastered and re-released the package with bonus tracks as Enter the Vaselines, but I’ll not be getting that).

Were they, as Allmusic says, the best pop band from 1986 to 1989? I don’t know.  But they sure played some great songs.  I’m don’t think I need to hear their reunited selves, because there’s something about the charm of these Edinburgh kids playing these songs in something of a vacuum that I rather like.  It only took two listens to this record (probably the first time in ten years) for me to see how much was here.

[READ: April 16, 2011] “Underachievers Please Try Harder”

The subtitle of this article is “Indie Rock Reunites on the English Coast,” and I’m mentioning it because it got me to listen to the Vaselines record again.

It was an interesting article about the state of music and “festival” tours, specifically All Tomorrow’s Parties.  (This year’s ATP spinoff, I’ll Be Your Mirror will be in Asbury Park, New Jersey! and features Portishead, Mogwai and A Silver Mount Zion among others–were I 20 years younger, I’d be there).

Anyhow, this article has Samuels meeting Stuart Murdoch, lead guy from Belle and Sebastian.  Murdoch worked at a Butlin’s holiday camp in the 1980s (Butlin’s is where the ATP Festival was held).  The entire ATP festival series was sort of conceived by Murdoch.  It was then taken over and morphed into its new form by promoter Barry Hogan.  (This particular festival featured B&S, The Vaselines, New Pornographers, Teenage Fanclub and Dean Wareham (among many many others)).

The article discusses the greatness of early B&S recrdings (including a chat with Sarah Martin the main female singer since Isobel Campbell left).  She is a fascinating character and is full of interesting details about the personality struggles in the band.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me about this festivals is that the bands camp and stay on the same grounds as the fans, and interaction is all but assured.  Indeed, one of the highlights (at least to me) of the festival would be the Scrabble tournament in which the audience winner ultimately plays Murdoch himself (winner gets free tickets to an upcoming show).

Samuels has a conversation with Dean Wareham who comes across as a sort of jaded, unhappy guy, but who can laugh at his situation (being an old indie rocker).  The end of the article is about The Vaselines.  Samuels loves the Vaselines, and gets to interview the two main Vaselines, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee.  Kelly describes their music in a much more concise way than I could above: “drunk and exuberant” (although Frances calls it “suicidal.”  They seem nice enough and bemused by their “sudden fame” (which has lasted almost two decades now, evidently).  Although Frances’ announcement from the stage that they have a new album and “you can go buy it if you want, or you can stick it up your arse,” may sum them up pretty well.

The most fascinating thing about the article is the ending, which is quite hostile.  Samuels has conveyed a strange feeling of detached unhappiness throughout the festival (not least of which I’m sure is because of the mopey bands).  He seems out of his element, even though he clearly loves the music.  So this ending only intensifies the attitude of the rest of the article.

Rather than emphasizing the music and the fans and the love of alt rock, the final paragraph explains how ATP is a business.  Barry Hogan, the festival’s producer states matter of factly that new music is mostly crap and that what fans want is to hear the old musicians play their old songs just as they appear on the record–preferably in the right order.  He explain that he tried to get Echo & The Bunnymen to play Porcupine .  They wouldn’t do it for ATP, but they decided to go and do it on their own tour instead.  Barry notes that Ian McCulloch can’t hit the high notes anymore, oh, and if he’s reading the article Barry says: “Fuck you.  You’re dishonest.  You’re an asshole. You’re a fucking moron.  You really should have gone with us.”  That seems to sum things up pretty well.

It’s rather a bummer of an article, but it confirms once again the idea that you should never meet your heroes.