Shoegaze - The Thread That Celebrates Itself

[Mike Boom]

Alcest. This band is more associated with metal than other bands posted on this thread, but it's basically shoegaze in every respect. And quite beautiful.

Very cool, great stuff

Not a particularly shoegazey track of theirs but I am obsessed with this Lilys track from the Recollection album



"....And you can’t come to Hunting Park without getting married to the wind and the rain and the dark."

Man, the LIlys have so many winners.

They sure do. I only have the above ep, but correcting that oversight now!

[C]

I loved Ride

Catherine Wheel even more so







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[Mike Boom]

Obv

[C]

Obv

Great stuff

Great band

I saw them live twice




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[Walk In My Shadow]

Good thing I never was a Shoegaze fan.

[Mike Boom]

Obv

Great stuff

Great band

I saw them live twice




.

Yeah, me too C, only concerts I ever wore earplugs !

[BARON CORNY DOG]

Longtime readers will know I hold the Boo Radleys Everything's Alright Forever record in high esteem. I know that they reached higher and struck gold with Giant Steps and then I gather they had a pop hit or two in the UK, but I still love this one. Here are two . . .

[Mike Boom]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/entertainment/my-bloody-valentine-trnd/index.html

Two new MBV albums coming apparently


Love Giant Steps and Everything's Alright

[C]

Yeah, me too C, only concerts I ever wore earplugs !

Mike, it was the 11 minute white noise bit that did me!

The first time I just about got through with my fingers in my ears!

The second time I knew it was coming and spent 11 minutes in the toilet!

Great stuff though!




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[J]

Nice thread!


The Telescopes - Flying

[C]

Two new MBV albums coming apparently

Great news - please keep us posted




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[J]

Miki Berenyi of Lush has written an autobiography (published recently by Nine Eight): "Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success".
A couple of online reviews:
The Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/24/fingers-crossed-by-miki-berenyi-review-trauma-stage-dives-and-stardom
Louder Than War : https://louderthanwar.com/fingers-crossed-by-miki-berenyi-book-review/
Others are available.

Apart from telling of her time in music, the book also covers what seems to have been a troubling and somewhat shocking childhood.

Remembering Lush :

"Scarlet", from "Scar" (1989 6-track mini-album)

[Deebank]

I always liked the idea more than the actual music.

MBV obviously are head and shoulders above the rest. Kitchens of Distinction were good but not really shoegaze (broad church?) Ride had their moments but again, more rock n roll than typical SG stuff.

Cocteau Twins are the well spring and like MBV leave the copyists in their slipstream, Slowdive built a career on that Simon Raymonde bass line from Aikea Guinea. I remember hearing a Slowdive EP at a friend's house when utterly stoned and thinking it was the best thing ever. Sober reflection proved that it was OK, but a bit bland .

There's a doc about the scene (is it called Beautiful Noise?) I must check on our various subscriptions to see if it's available.

[Mike Boom]

[Mike Boom]

Another great track from Chapterhouse

[never/ever]

Lush has been a band haunted by bad memories, not in the least with the tragic suicide of Chris Acland.
Will search out that autobio. Thanks!


Current fave:

[Deebank]

That shoegaze doc is called Beautiful Noise and it is up on You Tube, here's a link



One of the 'new' shoegaze artists mentioned at the end is/are Mahogany. This is good (produced by Robin Guthrie natch)



Well over a decade old now mind.

[Deebank]

Should have read the thread

[BARON CORNY DOG]

I was 16 when Loveless came out and it was so perfect and exciting, I gobbled up everything I could that was Loveless-adjacent. It was so exciting to have modern psychedelic music I could relate to. Of course, I heard all these things in a vacuum. It seemed to be knocked dead by Britpop and I certainly didn't understand Oasis at all, their records were very dull to me (and overhyped). It was only on Mojo and BCB that I learned that many of my new friends who agreed with me about so much else turned their nose up at this stuff. I determined that some of this had to do with people's hangups about class, and the shoegaze people were sort of derided as middle class students, something that never would have occurred to me in 1991. Addled, maybe. Anyway, I thought of this again recently due to all the press Miki Berenyi's book has been getting (maybe it's not getting a lot of press and I just follow her on social media). I remember she mentioned something about this on one of the interviews she did.

[Mike Boom]

Yeah it didn't last long, most bands had broken up by 96,97 as Britpop and Grunge became the new flavor of the day, but it was musically way more interesting than either of those genres in my book as it was genuinely something new, but it was quickly dismissed, and still is.
Both Nowhere and Loveless are top ten albums for me.