ten little indie songs

james dean driving experience - sean connery - 1990
close lobsters - sewer pipe dream - 1987
the june brides - the instrumental - 1985
heavenly - tool - 1992
dolly mixture - side street walker - 1983
laugh - paul mcCartney - 1987
another sunny day - you should all be murdered - 1989
ultra vivid scene - special one - 1990
chapter house - mesmerise - 1992
the field mice - let's kiss and make up - 1989



seems that i have been obscure lately, my apologies. i've been busy with my band, hunters. we're playing a show july 9th at the knitting factory. its nothing like the music i play here at obscure classics... its kinda heavy. have a listen at myspace. i've been a huge fan of hunters since it formed. and fairly recently i was invited to play bass guitar for them, so it was a best case scenario, i'm pretty psyched!

so besides practicing my fingers off, i've been digging into a lot of indie and twee stuff. the first band, james dean driving experience, was apparently the next big thing in england in the late eighties, and i'm not sure what happened, they sort of trailed off or something. hearing their songs, i'm amazed and baffled that i'm just hearing about them now! and everyone i talk to is like "james dean who?" the happy ending is that they now have a myspace page, which says something about re-issuing their material on CD.

another one thats news to me is dolly mixture. having formed in 1979, their sound is kind of 10 years ahead of its time, considering the multitude of british indie bands in the late 80's that have a similar feel. these are the same girls that sing the backing vocals on captain sensible's wot, one of my personal faves. captain sensible being from the proto punk band, the damned - dolly mixture were girlfriends of the damned, or so the story goes. in 1995, bob stanley from saint etienne re-released dm's first untitled album as a CD on his label, renaming it "demonstration tapes", which features side street walker.

speaking of bob stanley, the song paul mcCartney, by laugh, is featured on a compilation he put together called CD86. i highly recommend it! its sort of an alternate version of the infamous C86 mixtape that NME magazine gave away in 1986. all of the bands on it were classic indie/twee pop and C86 became a genre tag of its own.

lets see, what else, i should mention that the backing vocal on the ultra vivid scene track, special one, belongs to kim deal of the pixies.

the last song, lets kiss and make up by the field mice, was later covered by saint etienne. for years i had thought saint etienne wrote it. hmm, why do i suddenly have a craving to listen to saint etienne? i'll have incorporate them into a mix at some point. until then.......