Britpop in Ireland

Welsh Megaman

I'm currently reading 'The Last Party', John Harris's excellent book charting the rise and fall of Britpop in the mid-90's.

It got me thinking...how popular was Britpop in Ireland, if at all?

Did you Irish buy records and gig tickets for Pulp, Elastica, Suede, Sleeper and, er...Menswear?

Did you relocate to Camden Town to hobnob with members of Blur in the hope of getting a record deal?

Share your Britpop memories here!

iomega

Yeah, big fan. I tried to put a Brit pop tribute act together a few years ago. Wasn't a great response to it.
elastica's first album would still make my top 10 albums. Love suede as well. Sleeper's the it girl is one of the great albums of that era.
Oasis, the first two albums are obviously very good but I never found them all that interesting musically. The first menswe@r is not as bad as people would have you believe. Gene, some great songs, echobelly, Supergrass, great band.

The last party is great alright, especially the elastica parts.

iomega

I did up this brit pop compilation a while ago.

DIVISION TWO: GREAT SINGLES FROM THE LESSER LIGHTS OF BRIT POP

1 ECHOBELLY - KING OF THE KERB (1995)
2 THE AUTEURS - LENNY VALENTINO (1993)
3 BAWL - GIRLS NIGHT OUT (1996)
4 SPEARMINT - SWEEPING THE NATION (1997)
5 SALAD - DRINK THE ELIXIR (1995)
6 LONGPIGS - SHE SAID (1995)
7 LODGER - ALWAYS ROUND HERE (1998)
8 PERFUME - LOVER (1995)
9 GENE - FIGHTING FIT (1996)
10 THE AUDIENCE - A PESSIMIST IS NEVER DISAPPOINTED (1998)
11 POWDER - AFRODISIAC (1995)
12 BAWL - BEYOND SAFE WAYS (1996)
13 DUBSTAR - NOT SO MANIC NOW (1995)
14 EGGMAN - NOT BAD ENOUGH (1996)
15 SHED SEVEN - GOING FOR GOLD (1996)
16 MY LIFE STORY - KING OF KISSINGDOM (1997)
17 RIALTO - MONDAY MORNING 5:19 (1997)
18 MARION - SLEEP (1995)
19 DENIM - IT FELL OFF THE BACK OF A LORRY (1995)
20 BLAMELESS - BREATHE (1996)
21 GENEVA - NO ONE SPEAKS (1996)

**Bawl were from Finglas, so not technically "brit pop". They were one of those bands signed in the frenzy... and dropped. Some great tunes.

Welsh Megaman

iomega wrote: »

I did up this brit pop compilation a while ago.

DIVISION TWO: GREAT SINGLES FROM THE LESSER LIGHTS OF BRIT POP

1 ECHOBELLY - KING OF THE KERB (1995)
2 THE AUTEURS - LENNY VALENTINO (1993)
3 BAWL - GIRLS NIGHT OUT (1996)
4 SPEARMINT - SWEEPING THE NATION (1997)
5 SALAD - DRINK THE ELIXIR (1995)
6 LONGPIGS - SHE SAID (1995)
7 LODGER - ALWAYS ROUND HERE (1998)
8 PERFUME - LOVER (1995)
9 GENE - FIGHTING FIT (1996)
10 THE AUDIENCE - A PESSIMIST IS NEVER DISAPPOINTED (1998)
11 POWDER - AFRODISIAC (1995)
12 BAWL - BEYOND SAFE WAYS (1996)
13 DUBSTAR - NOT SO MANIC NOW (1995)
14 EGGMAN - NOT BAD ENOUGH (1996)
15 SHED SEVEN - GOING FOR GOLD (1996)
16 MY LIFE STORY - KING OF KISSINGDOM (1997)
17 RIALTO - MONDAY MORNING 5:19 (1997)
18 MARION - SLEEP (1995)
19 DENIM - IT FELL OFF THE BACK OF A LORRY (1995)
20 BLAMELESS - BREATHE (1996)
21 GENEVA - NO ONE SPEAKS (1996)

**Bawl were from Finglas, so not technically "brit pop". They were one of those bands signed in the frenzy... and dropped. Some great tunes.

Great choices there, especially the mighty My Life Story!

Undoubtedly my favourite band of the era...everything they recorded for Parlophone was superb-as with Oasis, their b-sides were just as good as, if not better than, the A-sides. Going to see them live in London in May with the full orchestra.

In some ways, you could say Picturehouse were a 'britpop' band - especially 'Sunburst' with it's 'ba ba ba's' and sunny optimism. It wouldn't sound out of place on Blur's 'Parklife' or 'The Great Escape'.

iomega

Oasis were one of the last bands I can remember that were just huge. 1995,96,97 you could not avoid hearing them, even if you never owned an album you knew every song.

Picture house, yeah a decent pop band. Perfect pop in a way, I can't say I found them interesting beyond that.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Oasis were mega in Ireland, in the book "Brothers From Childhood to Oasis" the author the boys elder brother Paul Gallagher devotes a whole chapter to their gigs in Ireland. This builds from early chapters in the book and the childhood visits to their parents homes in the country. I'd say that goes far to explaining their popularity, the Irish love claiming immigrant sons who did well, just look at JFK. :pac:

3DataModem

Lot of the smaller britpop bands toured here at the time, playing the Tivoli mainly. It got to the stage where it was the same heads going to the gigs week in week out. That's where I first saw Oasis, Elastica, Gene, etc. Shed 7 played the Colombia Mills and a few played the SFX. Bluetones at Whelans was my personal highlight.

Saw Oasis like the first 4/5 times they played here, also Blur. Supergrass, Bluetones and Cardigans played a triple-header in the SFX. Awesome.

Memories.

iomega

I saw elastica in the TBMC when the released the menace. They were a bit shambolic. Muse were the support band. Suede in the olympia, 1999 I think. Great gig. Brett had dropped all the posturing by then.

Welsh Megaman

Anyone here see Oasis at Maine Road or Knebworth?

mosstin

iomega wrote: »

Yeah, big fan. I tried to put a Brit pop tribute act together a few years ago. Wasn't a great response to it.
elastica's first album would still make my top 10 albums. Love suede as well. Sleeper's the it girl is one of the great albums of that era.
Oasis, the first two albums are obviously very good but I never found them all that interesting musically. The first menswe@r is not as bad as people would have you believe. Gene, some great songs, echobelly, Supergrass, great band.

The last party is great alright, especially the elastica parts.

Correct, except it was much, much worse than that. Appalling stuff on every level. This revisionist crap about bands that were crap to begin with does my head in. The passage of time makes Menswear seem worse, not better.

iomega

I found meself liking a few tunes on the menswear album.
I though there were worse bands....gay day, northern uproar,

iomega

Anyone get Common People: The brit pop story compiled by Bob Stanley?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-People-Brit-Story-Box-Set/dp/B0027WJEDS

It's quiet good, although he doesn't seem too fond of most of it himself. No blur or Oasis on it which seems to annoy alot of people. I can see their point but I was more interested in finding those one or two good songs by the less worthy bands. Hence my compilation above.

Those shine compilations go for £0.01 secondhand on amazon. Comes to around €2.25-ish with P&P.

Welsh Megaman

iomega wrote: »

Anyone get Common People: The brit pop story compiled by Bob Stanley?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-People-Brit-Story-Box-Set/dp/B0027WJEDS

It's quiet good, although he doesn't seem too fond of most of it himself. No blur or Oasis on it which seems to annoy alot of people. I can see their point but I was more interested in finding those one or two good songs by the less worthy bands. Hence my compilation above.

Those shine compilations go for £0.01 secondhand on amazon. Comes to around €2.25-ish with P&P.

A few curveballs in that compilation, bands like S*M*A*S*H and These Animal Men would be classed as 'New Wave Of New Wave' rather than Britpop.

Elcka are another great long-lost band from the era, their only studio album 'Rubbernecking' is a Britpop classic - cheap and easy to find on ebay, Amazon etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ncaLqCpa8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDMDCNrVXlU

iomega

The Marbles from Sligo, I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMOCfpjsFPM

The Young Offenders, from Cork

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcj4L8vAMg

Welsh Megaman

Honourable mentions also go to...

David Devant And His Spirit Wife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWCi7Xg7UeQ

Silver Sun (who toured with Young Offenders)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVja3OCbXs8

Carrie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzY4I60_oKE

loyatemu

iomega wrote: »

The Young Offenders, from Cork

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqcj4L8vAMg

Ciaran Young Offender went on to become Simple Kid, who's second album is a lost classic (sadly he seems to have quit the music business recently).

The Tivoli was a great venue in those days - saw Oasis, Ride, Supergrass, Saint Etienne & Gene (I think) there. Also a post-fame EMF, with about 10 people in the audience.

Pighead

iomega wrote: »

The Marbles from Sligo, I think.

Forgot about 'The Marbles'. Used to adore this song of theirs. Have the CD single at home somewhere. Cracker of a tune.

nlgbbbblth

Rhino's Brit Box [with flashing lightbulb] is an interesting snapshot of the era.

Beechwood's Indie Top 20 [Volumes 19 to 23 esp.] also features some classics from Tiny Monroe, Magnapop, Compulsion, Heavy Stereo, Collapsed Lung, The Gyres and Northern Uproar.

It was popular here; the Oasis gig in the Tivoli was great and the was a healthy demand for the era's 7"s [bucking the mid-90s trend of depressed vinyl sales]. Virgin and Abbey Discs were good places to go when the likes of Freebird, Comet and Borderline sold out their stock.

The first Suede gig here was immense. Saturday 27 March. The album was due for release on the Monday and unusually I wasn't able to get a copy until the release date.

A classic from the era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJSaRw1vjxM

blastman

iomega wrote: »

I found meself liking a few tunes on the menswear album.
I though there were worse bands....gay day, northern uproar,

Northern Uproar a worse band than Menswear?!? That's...interesting. And by interesting I mean wrong.

Welsh Megaman

Thread bump!

BBC celebrating 20 years (!) since Britpop with a series of TV and radio programmes next month across 6music, Radio 2 and BBC Four.

See Skid's post in the Beebrock thread...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=89498860&postcount=1986

nxbyveromdwjpg

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

Anyone here see Oasis at Maine Road or Knebworth?

Páirc Uí Chaoimh '96 was the Irish equivalent :cool:

fiachr_a

Brit pop was the acid jazz of indie music. Retro but not as good as the original music e.g. Elastica copying Wire.

SilverScreen

fiachr_a wrote: »

Brit pop was the acid jazz of indie music. Retro but not as good as the original music e.g. Elastica copying Wire.

Who did Suede, The Auteurs and Pulp copy?

thesultan

Thought and still think that Ocean Colour Scene were a great Britpop band

eviltimeban

Yes, it was as popular here as any British bands are now. The thing to remember is Top of The Pops was still on back then, Thursday evenings, and everyone watched it, and Britpop bands were always on it. I bought Melody Maker every week for about 5 years, during this era, and they were all about Britpop (to the point where it was over-saturated).

I was 19 in 1994 and Oasis got me out of my "grunge" phase and into a Britpop phase... I remember in early '94 making a compilation tape for my brother in America called "Britain Rules OK" or something, with a picture of Tim Burgess standing in the sea, and it had all the great early Britpop singles on it.

I remember queuing for tickets to see Oasis in the Tivoli in '94 but then I saw that Ride were playing, so I opted to get Ride tickets instead. Didn't care, was a massive Ride fan and that was a great gig. I heard the Oasis gig on the other hand wasn't great; still, it would've been good to see them in that time.

Remember that Noel twice appeared on the Late Late - that's how big they were. Once was after a gig in '97 were he had to do all the singing - I was at one of those gigs, in the Point, during the Be Here Now tour.

Also a lot of other things were going around at that time - stuff like Portishead and Massive Attack, it all went into the stew. That really was a great era for British music. I also loved the "Logical Progression" style drum n' bass, which was also British, and of course this was the era of the "super clubs" like Cream and Renaissance, which were also British.

By 95 I was more into Jamiroquai and Brand New Heavies and dance music than guitar pop, though I did have one last flirtation with Britpop with Be Here Now, Tellin' Stories, and the like, in '97, which is when it was beginning to turn. By '98 it was pretty much all over.

Temaz

eviltimeban wrote: »

Once was after a gig in '97 were he had to do all the singing - I was at one of those gigs, in the Point, during the Be Here Now tour.

.

I was at that gig and Noel was amazing that night. It's one of the best Oasis bootlegs in my book, always have it on my Ipod ready to go. Fade In/Out was a real rocker and his acoustic set was a huge communal sing along.

eviltimeban

Temaz wrote: »

I was at that gig and Noel was amazing that night. It's one of the best Oasis bootlegs in my book, always have it on my Ipod ready to go. Fade In/Out was a real rocker and his acoustic set was a huge communal sing along.

And it was the only time he did an acoustic set on that tour.

Temaz

eviltimeban wrote: »

And it was the only time he did an acoustic set on that tour.

He played a few acoustic numbers in Japan for the 1998 leg of the BHN tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOg7X8ObOM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7efsGIL0do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk6jhve4_EI