Shoegazer (’89-’94) Midweekend *

* (restored)

 

Refreshers
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KtM407 said… I’m sorry, what what exactly does shoegaze mean? How do I know when a band is shoegaze? Is it just a dreamy, ambient, drawn-out style? I resorted to dictionary.com and it told me:

Main Entry: shoegaze
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: to play a musical instrument while looking at one’s shoes, esp. a guitar

I think I like shoegaze but I don’t really know… Explain this to me.

ejival said… Shoegazers were the fore runners to your indie Kids – they were the scruffy folk with a bone structure like Shaggy from Scooby Doo and in fact Shaggy may have been the first Shoe Gazer. Most ShoeGaze bands would play their music with a moody Dark attitude – staring at the floor and concentrating on the musical Atmosphere they were creating at the that time instead. The fans of this music could be seen in trench coats, loads of Black wool and messy hair.

Battlex said … Common musical elements in shoegaze are distortion (aka “fuzzbox”), droning riffs and a “wall of sound” from noisy guitars. Typically, two distorted rhythm guitars are played together to give an amorphous quality to the sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the central focus of most shoegazing songs. Vocals are typically subdued in volume and tone, but underneath the layers of guitars is generally a strong sense of melody.

Blessted said … The reason all those guitarists and bass players were gazin at their shoes, is because they had to, in order to create those wonderful sound textures while pressing the ‘flange’, ‘echo’ and ‘digital delay’ pedals on the floor. It was supposed to be a putdown and derogatory term for all those bands but for some reason it stuck and ended up staying and baptising a musical scene that always denied itself in being. If you are more interested in it’s history, please read Simon Reynolds enthusiastic “Blissed Out” book.

KevinShieldsShoe said … The name ‘shoegazer’ was coined in a review in Sounds of a concert by the newly-formed Moose in which singer Russell Yates read lyrics taped to the floor throughout the gig. The term was picked up by the New Musical Express, who used it as a reference to the tendency of the bands’ guitarists to stare at their feet (or their effects pedals), seemingly deep in concentration, while playing. Melody Maker preferred the more staid term The Scene That Celebrates Itself, referring to the habit which the bands had of attending gigs of other shoegazing bands, often in Camden, and often moonlighting in each other’s bands.

 

Sampler
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Despite Lush‘s shambolic live sets, the music press caught on, and 4AD offered them a record deal. Their first three EPs were jangly, swirling affairs, but Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie’s otherworldly production of 1992’s Spooky swamped the album in a hazy, golden mire. Their music subsequently became more pop and pristene, but they never manage to shake off the shoegazer fallout, and they dropped out of sync with the times. Their 1994 album Split plummeted in Britain, and Lush were deemed to be failures, has-beens, no-hopers. — Liz Evans, Select

Lush ‘De-Luxe’

 

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Slowdive was founded while its members were still in their teens. After sending in some demo tapes to various labels, they arrived at shoegazers’ heaven Creation Records – home to their contemporaries Ride and My Bloody Valentine – in 1990. The group released its debut LP, Just for a Day, in 1991. The band members pushed the envelope for 1993’s Souvlaki, a dense and swirling album that is generally considered their masterstroke. 1994 saw them progress in a more ambient, electronica-tinged direction, abandoning some of their shoegazing aesthetics. In 1995, Creation Records dropped Slowdive from their roster. The band called it a day, although two members, Goswell and Halstead, moved on to form Mojave 3.’ — rym

Slowdive “Souvlaki Space Station’, live ’94

 

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Medicine was a shoegaze/dream pop band from Los Angeles, USA. Formed in 1991 by guitarist and programmer Brad Laner, Medicine was considered the American response to shoegazing bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Chapterhouse. With a signature guitar tone, created by running Brad Laner’s guitar through a Yamaha 8-track recorder, Medicine’s music managed to distinguish itself from some of the more noisy and ambiguous endeavours of the shoegazing movement. — last.fm

Medicine ‘Never Click’

 

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Catherine Wheel formed in 1990, comprising singer/guitarist Rob Dickinson, guitarist Brian Futter, bassist Dave Hawes, and drummer Neil Sims. Hawes had previously played in a Joy Division-influenced band called Eternal. They took their moniker from the firework known as the Catherine wheel, which in turn had taken its name from the medieval torture device of the same name. The band was often included in the shoegazing scene, characterized by bands that made extensive use of guitar feedback and droning washes of noise, as well as their continuous interaction with extensive amounts of effects pedals on the stage floor. — Wiki

Catherine Wheel ‘Flower to Hide’, live ’92

 

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The 90s band Majesty Crush can be found on plenty of shoegaze playlists right now, at home alongside icons My Bloody Valentine and newcomers like Glixen and They Are Gutting A Body Of Water. With their swirling guitars, dreamy vocals, and cavernous production it is easy to understand why they have become a favorite among both shoegaze crate diggers and new converts. The Detroit band’s only studio album, 1993’s Love 15, plus a collection of singles, EPs, and rarities under the title Butterflies Don’t Go Away, have recently been reissued. — David Renshaw

Majesty Crush ‘Pretty Head’, live in Detroit, 1990

 

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The debut album by Chapterhouse was one of the finest shoegazer/ dreampop albums, though the little known Reading, U.K. band only made one more supposedly less successful follow up (Blood Music) before breaking up. In their sound, big drums that propel a propulsive rhythm, a jangly layered guitar melody, and of course dreamy vocals that mostly serve as another instrument rather than to elucidate concrete, readily identifiable lyrics. — sfloman

Chapterhouse ‘Whirlpool’

 

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Lilys are an immensely influential indie band from the 90’s, pioneers in the US Shoegaze scene with incredible records such as ‘In the Presence of Nothing’ and ‘Eccsame the Photon Band’, not to mention the wonderful tracks off their split with Aspera Ad Astra; UK Shoegaze god Kevin Shields himself cites this band as a favorite, and their ‘gaze and Indie work alike created massive ripples of inspiration that can still be felt today in many local scenes along the West Coast and beyond. — Impendin

Lilys “Your Guest and Host’

 

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In 1989, Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain heard a copy of Ride‘s demo that was in the possession of the DJ Gary Crowley, and this led to interest from Mary Chain manager Alan McGee who signed them to his Creation Records label. The band’s first album Nowhere was a critical and commercial success, reaching #11 in the UK, and the British media dubbed Ride “The brightest hope” for 1991. In February 1992 the band broke into the UK top 10 with the single “Leave Them All Behind”, and the following month saw the release of the band’s second album Going Blank Again. The strain within the band was already apparent, guitarist Andy Bell stating “By the time the second album came out we were touring too much. We were tired. We then took time off, but it was too much time off”. — Steve Taylor

Ride ‘Vapour Trail’, live ’92

 

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The band who brought the car song into the shoegazer era, Swervedriver was formed in Britain in 1990 by vocalists/guitarists Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge. Initially associated with “shoegazing”, their heavier rock & roll style also related them to the grunge genre coming from the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The band’s mix of storming and swirling guitar experimentation often crossed into psychedelia, coupled with mystical lyrics that often praised the nihilism of sports cars, racing and the open road. — sodahead

Swervedriver ‘Rave Down’

 

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Ethereal pop band the Pale Saints formed in Leeds, England, in 1987. Categorized within the current shoegaze scene with My Bloody Valentine and Lush, their sound had just about all the features of the subgenre, as well as a bizarre experimental bent. Masters’ boyish vocals also stood out, not needing any production treatments to carry a wispy, levitational quality. the band called it quits prior to 1997. — Lucius Kwok

Pale Saints ‘Hunted’, live ’91

 

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Criminally overlooked as one of the best American shoegaze bands of the 90’s, Alison’s Halo formed in 1992 in Tempe Arizona, and went on to play shows with the likes of Half String, For Against, The Verve, and the Boo Radleys. — Manufactured

Alison’s Halo ‘Dozen’

 

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Nowadays critics argue that Curve were not really shoegaze, but rather the foreparents of the dense, crosshatched pop of the current day band Garbage, and while Curve’s influence on Garbage is so obvious as to seem borderline litigious, I say to them “pah, I was there in London at the time. I have the stagediving scars to prove it”. While the band became more commercial and suspiciously trend-hopping with every new release, during the height of the shoegaze era, Curve produced a cacophony of noise that still makes our ears bleed. — HistoryLesson

Curve ‘Horror Head’

 

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Moose have been credited by some as being the first band to be called “shoegazers” which was inspired by an early gig of theirs at which Russell Yates read lyrics taped to the floor. Despite a strong critical response, Moose’s albums sold few copies. Not so much underrated as unheard, Moose grew up in Britain’s distortion-heavy shoegazing movement of the early ’90s but soon shed the fuzzy wash of their compatriots to embrace a clean, acoustic-based style — inspired by ’60s icons Burt Bacharach and Tim Buckley as well as jangle merchants like the Byrds and R.E.M. — that still relied on the intense guitar effects which characterized the band’s early works. — slowconfetti.com

Moose ‘Suzanne’, live ’91

 

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Boo Radleys became the shoegazer success story in the mid-1990s by riding on the coat-tails of Britpop with the Wake Up! album, which featured among the most commercially successful Britpop albums of 1995. Subsequent albums C’mon Kids and Kingsize saw the band shed the new fans (and record company loyalties) overnight, before splitting up in early 1999, ending a decade together. Martin Carr now records as Brave Captain on Creation Records’ Dick Green’s Wichita label. — 3amMagazine

Boo Radleys ‘Does This Hurt?’

 

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The British group Cranes were often lumped in with the shoegazers during their early years but were more indebted to the industrial and gothic dream pop spectrums due to the childlike and almost creepy vocals of Alison Shaw and the sometimes brutal sounding backing tracks. The group’s 1991 album Wings of Joy received acclaim in Britain and American for its dark tone and Shaw’s distinctive voice. Their followup, Forever became known as their became known as their best work with its mix of shoegaze and gothic rock akin to bands like The Cure and Bauhaus yet filtered through a more melodic styling. — Alan McGee

Cranes ‘Starblood’, live ’90

 

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The Swirlies, a Boston shoegaze band, were founded in 1990. The band’s juxtaposition of noisy, chiming guitar and dreamy, floaty pop songs on their first albums, 1992’s What to Do About Them mini-LP, and 1993’s Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, was often compared to late-period My Bloody Valentine. Blonder Tongue Audio Baton added analogue synths and found sounds to the mix, however, making for sounds reminiscent of musique concrète. After a series of line-up changes, the Swirlies released 1996’s They Spent Their Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons, sporting a new singer, Christina Files, and more electronic influences. — The Agit

Swirlies ‘Jeremy Parker’

 

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Starflyer 59 are hands down the best American shoegaze band of the ‘90s! Their first three albums are monumental – the heavy Sabbath-y riffs mixed with the catchy and dreamy choruses. I could listen to the outro from The Zenith on repeat forever and never get tired of it. Been a huge fan since sometime in the 90s when my guitar player friend turned me on to them and made me a mixtape. — yabs

Starflyer 59 ‘Monterey’

 

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Progenitors of the shoegazing scene, after the seminal and genius-like Isn’t Anything (1988) and Loveless (1991), My Bloody Valentine entered a well-documented and much-mourned period of silence, only emerging briefly in 1996 to contribute a track to a Wire tribute album. Kevin Shields lent his considerable talents to ex-Spacemen 3 frontman Sonic Boom’s Experimental Audio Research side project and J.Mascis’ post-Dinosaur Jr solo album More Light (2000), as well as taking on production duties on Primal Scream’s Xtmntr (2000) and Evil Heat (2002) albums. Debbie Googe, after a year of being a London cabbie, formed Snowpony with Katharine Gifford (ex-Stereolab), who released The Slow Motion Adventures of Snowpony in 1998 and Sea Shanties for Spaceships in 2001. Colm O’Ciosoig is now a member of the Warm Inventions with Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval. — 3am Magazine

My Bloody Valentine ‘When You Sleep’, live ’91

 

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A fiercely loved shoegaze band from the early 1990’s, Adorable formed in Coventry, England, in 1991. Although generally considered seminal shoegazers, the band often attempted to downplay the genre, despite their being a ferocious noise-pop group featuring the destinctive vocals of Piotr Fijalkowski. The band’s unusually brash behavior often led to bad press, and perhaps their ultimate downfall with the fickle English press. The band broke up in 1994. — Rick Taylor

Adorable ‘Sunshine Smile’

 

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Seefeel formed in 1992, when guitarist Mark Clifford and drummer Justin Fletcher met vocalist Sarah Peacock and bassist Darren Seymour. They released their first EPs on the Too Pure label in 1993. Stylistically situated at the intersection of dream pop/shoegaze and ambient electronic/IDM, their music has a distinctive sound. This might have contributed to the band getting a contract with the seminal electronic label Warp Records in 1994. Since 1996, the band has been on an open-ended hiatus. Its members, however, have continued to release new material under different aliases. — last.fm

Seefeel ‘industrius’

 

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The duo known as Loveliescrushing first came together in the early ’90s, when vocalist Melissa Arpin and multi-instrumentalist Scott Cortez decided to try their hand at the emerging shoegaze scene. They began to send out demo tapes of their bizarre, heavily layered music to labels until Projekt finally contacted the band about releasing a single. 1994’s “Your Eyes Immaculate” was the result, a single that so impressed the label that a year later they released the full-length Bloweyelashwish. The album was a mix of ethereal textures, wordless female vocals, and repetitive droning that set them apart from many of the label’s gothic artists. Cortez would speak out loudly about how the music was all formed from guitar sounds, something that he was proud of if only because he was accused so much of using keyboards on the album. — Bradley Torreano

Lovesliescrushing ‘Crushing’

 

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While exiting a Ride and Lush show in 1991, Eric Shea was handed a flyer that read, “Band seeking guitarist and singer. Influences include Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Xmal Deutschland, The Byrds, Lush, Pale Saints.” Not even a week after calling the number listed below, Shea brought his Rickenbacker over to Mike Prosenko’s home. After admiring his vintage Fender Jaguar and talking about music, Shea and Prosenko plugged in and began creating the music that would become Ozean. As with many young bands of the early 1990s, Ozean disbanded too soon. But an accidental rediscovery of these 1992 recordings begged for a reissue. Unfortunately, the original DAT master was nowhere to be found. — juvan baldeo

Ozean ‘Scenic’

 

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Like Catherine Wheel, Revolver were always coincidentally members of the shoegazing set, although the band had more worldlier aspirations. Their second album, 1993’s Cold Water Flat (named after the minor US band of the same name, fronted by the brother of Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janowitz) attracted favourable reviews. The band did not survive much further past that point however, as vocalist Matt Flint joined with ex-Drop Nineteen Paula Kelley and future Jack Drag frontman John Dragonetti to form Hot Rod, who released the Speed Danger Death album on Caroline that year. Flint later took up bass duties with electronica duo Death in Vegas. — 3amMagazine

Revolver ‘Cradle Snatch’

 

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On their early singles and records, The Telescopes helped forge the sound that would later be termed Shoegazer, but they were by no means somnambulant Brits of a feather. Their songs, although vaguely dreamy, were hardly soothing, and much more in the vein of early Jesus and Mary Chain or Spacemen 3’s barely reined cacophony. During their tenure at Creation Records, they gradually stripped away the feedback walls, leaving a psychedelic core smoked over in unexpected layers of jazz. By 1992, the Telescopes had broken away from any tangential connection to shoegazing by becoming a band Marlene Dietrich could take drugs to. — Pop Matters

The Telescopes ‘The Perfect Needle’, live ’89

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominick, Hi!!! Oh, I think I like to read sitting mostly. In a chair, or I like reading on trains. I do sometimes prop myself up in bed and read, but I’m the sort of person who uses a bed only to sleep and never go near it otherwise, I guess. Ugh about the bookkeeper. The producers did finally get back to me, and we’re doing a Zoom on Friday to try to hash things out. Love will look insane on a morgue table, G. ** Tosh Berman, Victoire! ** _Black_Acrylic, Ha ha. You’d be a tough master, Mr. Robinson. PTv2 is going to be my May Day celebration modus operandi today. Excited. I hope your meeting with the neurologist was the smooth bit of sailing you predicted. I’m of course looking forward to your end of May. ** Sarah, Hi, Sarah! It’s great to see you! Thank you about ‘TMS’. No, I didn’t know about the anti sex subreddits. Huh. Well, I will definitely go anonymously check them out. Maybe I should a post about those people for a refreshing change. Thanks, pal. I hope you’re doing really great across the board. I know, time does seem to be in hurry of late. Hm. xo. ** Darby🍵🧆, My eyes can’t see what’s on that platter, but I’m going to hope it’s a pile of donut holes. I know Austin Spears, yes. I’ve studied their … work. They are wild, and they look great. Absolutely. So, I’m on your side in that debate. A piano? You got one? Where did your put it? Sure, I’d dig seeing it. Congratulations on the self-friendly month. I’m, of course, very happy to hear that. Your hands are needed. Uh, it’s May Day, so everything is closed today, so I will eat what’s in my refrigerator, which means a chunk of seitan, a kind of nutty veggie patty thing, and some microwaveable mashed potatoes. What descended into your belly? ** jay, Hi, jay. Welcome! Drone has become quite a common and popularly used term in the sorts of sites where I search for those slave people. Seeking mindless lack of control has long been a favored slave goal, but now they have a way to ask for that without getting too wordy. There are about four S/M hook up sites where I find the slaves. I can’t remember which one that slave came from. I never make a note. How are you? ** Harper, My guess based on my years of experience searching those sites is that the great majority of the slaves are fantasists with their hands in their crotches. Or I should say the slaves I select are. Most of the slaves on those sites are just looking to get spanked and fucked and so on, and I guess those are probably real or real-ish. I admire the slaves’ literary talents quite often. I’ve even been known to swipe some sentences and phrases. I haven’t heard the Cindy Lee, but I’ve been reading a lot about it in the last days. I’ve been meaning to test it out. I’ll put that plan in motion, thanks. Sounds pretty cool. ** Steve, There are slaves who seek the kinds of things you suggest, I just skip them, although I think a Taylor Swift reference might get me to grab the referencer possibly. But, no, I haven’t thought of doing a vanilla slaves day. I honestly think thats a better concept than something that would play out interestingly. What’s the name of that lesbian separatist cult if you remember? ** Justin D, There definitely is gold in them there slave hills. On the better or worse question, I think it’s a tie? That doc about me was online for a few years, but I think it’s completely gone now. It was made by the Dutch art/culture TV channel VPRO. Summer’s inevitability is so depressing. I maintain a great curiosity about what Paris will be like during the Olympics, especially in my neighborhood, which will be at very active center of the shebang. Apparently I’m going to need a pass to even be able to walk down my street. ** Dev, It caught me off guard too. If there’s a way to jump up and down whilst sitting in desk chair, I was doing that when I found it. I really don’t think ‘Princess Mononoke’ will be a waste of your time. New Orleans it is! The future is generally described! Congrats! I’m a great fan of Togawa Jun, yes. She’s amazing. And Yapoos. I keep waiting for something new from her/them. The last thing I have is ‘Suspicious Behavior Of Yapoos The 1st Year Of Reiwa Era’ from 2019. Is there anything newer, do you know? ** Bill, Hi, B. I love puzzles in video games. I wish there was video game that was just puzzles to solve set in some highly rendered, mysterious explorable real-ish world. I hope Jeff sees your recommendations. I guess he’s there or in transit now. Thanks, pal. ** Oscar 🌀, Hey x 100 to you! It’s a rare day when it doesn’t rain in Paris, even in the summer. I’ve been exploring those fetish sites for years, and I had never come across a BIID fetishist there before, or even heard of that condition before I found that guy. It was a big score, as such things go. There are about four sites where slaves seek masters and vice versa. You can probably find them with a search. The biggest one is called recon. I find most of the slaves there, push comes to shove. Happy May Day! ** Okay. A couple of people here requested that I restore the blog’s Shoegaze post from about 10 years ago, and I was happy to do so, and today’s the day. See you tomorrow.