Indie rockers The Chase began issuing digital singles in 2018. Over the course of the next three years – and amid a global pandemic – they kept up an online presence by drip feeding their audience new material sporadically, one track at a time. Each new tune seemed to suggest bigger and better things, leading to high hopes for a full release somewhere down the track. With gigs back on the table for many bands by the beginning of 2022, things started to fall into place, and The Chase eventually released their debut EP, ‘Not The F*cking Game Show’ in May.
Tag Archives: britpop
REAL GONE GOES OUT: Martin Rossiter – Kentish Town Forum, London 20/11/2021
Goodbyes can be drawn out. None more so than the arrival of Martin Rossiter’s farewell London show. The ex-Gene frontman’s final curtain call was originally set to take place in June 2020, but it shifted date – and venue – more than once, before finally settling into its final resting place at the Kentish Town Forum in November 2021. At this point, larger gigs still haven’t made a full return following months of Covid related restrictions and cancellations so, understandably, for some, this night comes with a certain amount of unease. Fortunately, Rossiter quickly puts that right, firstly with a self-curated playlist in place of a traditional support band (his choice of tunes, heavily weighted to rarer Northern Soul bangers is excellent) and then the main event.
Salad return with new single and video ‘Things In Heaven’
Salad were one of the most underrated indie bands of the nineties. With one foot in the noisy indie camp – leading to more than one support slot with Carter USM – and the other within the Britpop family, their quirky lyrical concerns and melodic vocal phrases gave them the potential to be huge. Although the band never really rose above cult status, those who liked them absolutely adored them.
RECORD STORE DAY 2021: Real Gone’s Top Picks (Drop 1)
After living through something that’s felt like a perpetual groundhog day, it’s felt like a long year, to say the very least. In other ways, it really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since the scramble for David Bowie related items during one of the Record Store Day events of 2020.
This year, the RSD shenannigans are held across two days – 12th June and 17th July – with a varied selection of items available during each event. As always, we can’t tell you where your desired goodies will be stocked or how many copies will be floating around, or give you a definite price (anything quoted below is an educated guess), but we can offer an opinion on what we feel are the year’s coolest collection fillers.
These are our top picks for the June event (RSD Drop 1).
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Martin Green Presents: Super Sonics – 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats
To the Average Joe, the Britpop movement is likely best remembered by two major incidents: the Blur vs. Oasis rivalry which reached its peak in a race for the #1 spot in August 1995 and Jarvis Cocker’s stage invasion during Michael Jackson’s appearance at the Brit Awards in 1996. Neither had anything to do with the music itself, but were both big enough to over-excite the tabloid press. Those with more of a musical interest might also associate the period with great music from The Bluetones and Cast; hit-makers that managed regular chart appearances, but due to neither band having a tabloid friendly loudmouth a la Noel or Liam, weren’t always so sharp in making themselves known outside of the music papers. Both deserved much bigger success than Oasis.
For regular readers of NME and Melody Maker, Britpop covered a wider range of things and among the many indie bands that both helped shape that movement and subsequently rode on the coat-tails of the scene’s big sellers, there were a whole host of other guitar-driven heroes. For every two that made the charts, there were a dozen that were often left chasing that big breakthrough, despite regular press. In many ways, ‘Super Sonics’ is their story.