The great thing about popular music is that it is popular. There are so many people doing it. And even if a lot of it is done badly, there is still always the possibility of new discoveries, of groups working away in hidden corners of the global village, diligently crafting their own uniqueness. Groups who spend time preparing precious melodies and messages for those in the outside world to hear, those who are willing to look beyond the TV screen, the radio knob, and the massed consumer racks of the production-line record stores.

The five groups interviewed here have made good albums this year. I say ‘good’ because I sometimes suffer from Hyperbole Disorder and need to work hard to keep it in check. Because when I listen to these albums I tend to go: ‘Jaysus! Fuckin’ brilliant! Incredible! Unbelievable! Album of the . . .’ Sorry.

In a world so consumed by the necessity to consume everything consumable, it is a joy and relief to find people who remain immune to the promises of the plastic nirvanas and who are instead consumed by their passion to create good music. Because all these groups have that passion and integrity about what they do. They may never sell millions of units. They may never change the world. But then the world is changing anyway.

As this old century hi-tecs its way into the new, as it revs up for its virtual trips down the information highways, as architecture shifts from designing buildings and bridges, to building children and androids, who knows where we will all end up? The future is being manufactured but it will be a long time before the programmers can create the software for the music these and many other bands have created. Because the brain may well be a machine, and the soul may be part of the imagination, but then imagination is what makes art, and these bands have imagination… and soul. Let ’em roll.

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

It has a deep, heavy rumble. Girls Against Boys like to think it’s driving. And it is. Music to drive with. Fast. Through the industrial heartland where large machines heave and grunt. Past streaming lights that are never bright enough.

It drives on, fuelled by determined human drumming, twin basses which plunder and pulverise the lower frequencies, and a voice etched with grit and hoarse, desperate feelings. With lyrics swiped from the swirl of urban landscapes and the five o’clock crush. It beats like a machine and it rocks like an animal. It’s Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby.

Girls Against Boys were formed in 1988 in Washington by Scott McLoud and Eli Janney from Fugazi. Initially, they were more of a studio thing than anything else. The, in my opinion, pretty misleading band name was chosen because they initially intended doing dance music.

“And in that light,” bass player Johnny Temple explains, “Girls Against Boys was a little more fitting. However, we never changed the name once we fell into this line-up because we sort of liked the fact that the name doesn’t fit the music, because I think it adds an element of ambiguity and unpredictability.”

Things developed and a gigging band was formed: Johnny Temple (bass), Alexis Fleisig (drums), Mr. Silas Greene (samples, vocals and bass), and Scott Mcloud (guitar and main vocals). In 1992 they released their first ep, 90’s VS 80’s (Adult Swim), with their debut album, Tropic Of Scorpio (Adult Swim), coming out that year too.

They moved to the highly respected and influential independent label Touch & Go for this year’s Venus . . . The album title was picked up from a slightly sleazy Spanish soap opera which the band were watching one night after a gig. “With that sort of title,” Johnny explains, “we were hoping to begin to create some sort of specific mood. Because a lot of the songs have playful romantic themes in them. And the name Venus Luxure, coming from this Spanish soap opera, left in our minds a sort of sleazy imprint. The two words, ‘Venus’ and ‘Luxure,’ seem to me to carry an element of grandiosity, a sort of overblown type thing. Which, in a certain sense coming from a stupid little rock band is sort of like a slightly sleazy move, to give yourself such a preposterous-sounding title.”

Girls Against Boys are anything but a “stupid little rock band.” Stupid band name, maybe, but their music is big, intelligent and rocking in overdrive. Live they are building up a reputation for allowing things to creak and letting out all sorts of sonic freaks. Johnny believes they’re trying to capture, “a sort of ambience of hard driving music that still creates almost a lounge feel. Music that would sound good driving down a highway, basically. Or that you could sit around and drink cocktails to.”

Scott Mcloud’s lyrics are a bit ambiguous and mood oriented, taking snatches of conversation and ideas, approaching things from the side. “You know, sometimes it doesn’t draw a very specific image to your mind,” Johnny agrees. “But what I like about them is that there seems to be a constant sort of chase going on between the singer, Scott, and either his partner, or his own grasp on reality. And knowing him very well I can say that his lyrics are written very honestly. They’re very reflective, I think, of who he is and how he looks at things.”

Three out of the four members of GVSB were in Soulside, a Washington hardcore band. (Hot Bodi Gram being their most notable release.) The move to more industrially flavoured rock ‘n’ roll style music with GVSB left many within the hardcore community unhappy. ‘Sell out’ and ‘only in it for the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ were criticisms disdainfully thrown at them.

Johnny doesn’t accept such criticisms, believing that they reflect a narrow, one-track mind set, where everything is judged by, “this very explicit political agenda. Where the validity of something has to be measured in political terms, and if the political agenda isn’t spelt out word for word in a very obvious way, you’re sort of damned for it. And that’s something we’ve run into in certain elements of the hardcore world. But not in all the hardcore world. I mean, there’s plenty of people who listen strictly to hardcore bands, who we get along fine with.”

Hardcore or no hardcore, GVSB make great bloody music. They pulverise the system, plundering over rhythms with a twin bass effect that is as low as you can go, squeezing meaning out of a modern sound and screeching their way around your head like it was only sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ industrial roll that matters. Which is alright. Because GVSB matter. And that’s enough.

LUNGFISH

“I stand by/Waiting for an impulse that/I am prepared to act upon,” Daniel Higgs sings on ‘Seek Sound Shelter,’ a song from Rainbows From Atoms (Dischord), an album which contains some of the deepest, most thought-provoking and beautiful poetry I have ever heard.

Rainbows From Atoms is an exploration of the reasons for living, the reasons for risking life in some quest, the reasons why we are what we are. It is also an exploration of fate and choice. Daniel Higgs seems to be saying that fate is a true understanding of ourselves and that if we have this honest understanding then choosing, while not always being easy by any means, will become a natural, almost inevitable, process.

Such outcomes will be ‘right’ for us, regardless of their particular consequences. For example, the lyrics to ‘Instrument,’ the opening track of the album, go: “Hey instrumental instrument of/Somebody or other’s free will to/Succeed or fail but be content with/The outcome of the action.”

The primacy of music in the nature of things is the pulse which throbs through Rainbows From Atoms. The band play a sympathetic, basic rock ‘n’ roll, rising when the mood requires, softening out when space is needed. While Higgs sings on the breath-taking ‘Creation Story,’ “It was music which gave the shove/And resolved in music/We shall breathe.”

“The music never stops,” Daniel explains. “There was music before there were humans. To me, if you’re playing music or listening to music or just thinking about music, or maybe you’re just hearing a song in your head, you know. When you’re engaged in that, that’s older than any of the other shit that’s going on, and it’s going to be older still. I don’t think too many people would argue against the point that music is good. You go to any part of the globe and most human beings will agree that music is a good thing.”

“Where I’m at with it, if the band didn’t work out anymore, I would still be playing. I play music every day anyway. Playing music in your house, you know, is one of the most satisfying things I can think to do. I would highly recommend to anyone, even if they think they can’t play an instrument, to go out and buy a bongo or a fuckin’ ukulele or something and have it in the house and play it whenever you get the chance.

“You know I think all these people who love music – they have tons of records – and then they say that they can’t play anything. I don’t buy that. Anybody that enjoys music can play music. Because that’s the only prerequisite to playing music is that you enjoy music. There’s nothing else required. That’s the major advice I’d give out to people I’ve never met. That’s the only sort of political advise I would give out to the public at large: Play some music.”

And if we did, we might treat our children better? Daniel believes that we must: “The kids that I know and am around, they’re pretty aware of all the bullshit that’s going on. And if you could present any of these complex issues to them in terms they would understand – without all the technical lingo and jargon and all these exclusive communication systems – they would probably have a pretty relevant opinion about it, and maybe even a practical solution.

“It just seems to me,” he goes on, “that… You open up the paper and look at all the headlines. You got wars; everybody knows that wars are wrong. You got murder and rape; everybody knows these things are wrong. You got some people starving while other people are eating more food than they need. We all know all these things are wrong. But I don’t think any of it is relevant, or any of it should even be addressed – any of it: racism, sexism, cloning, toxic waste in the ocean – I don’t think any of that should even be addressed until people can stop kicking the shit out of their kids for no reason.

“Which is happening right now. It’s probably happening on my block, and it’s probably happening in your neighbourhood. It’s real simple and it feels good to respect a child. Until our species as a whole can start doing that, I think they oughta just put everything else on hold.”

MARXMAN

Marxman would like to give a big shout out to, as rapper Hollis puts it: “Everybody in Ireland who’s supported us over the last year.” Sounds corny? Well, when I heard the name ‘Marxman’ a few years back, I thought it sounded god-awful corny. I put off buying the album for ages because I feared the worst: that I would get rhetoric, propaganda and tedious sermonising shoved through my ears.

33 Revolutions Per Minute (Talkin Loud) kicks arse. Its lyricism is intelligent, well-crafted, rooted in the personal experience, full of integrity, liberal and yes, proudly socialist. It is excellently produced, totally modern. Its beats are funky and fluently danceable. And it is indeed revolutionary in the way it takes trad ingredients – bodhrans, low whistles, tin whistles, banjos and uilleann pipes – and re-births and re-energises them in a hip hop bath of low, rumbling bass and hypnotic scratching.

Marxman – Phrase, Hollis and Oisín Lunny – manage to be political and hip, to be on the button and on the dance floor, to be educational and enjoyable. That’s quite a feat. So, when Hollis says he wants to thank “everybody in Ireland who’s supported us,” he means it.

Like when he talks about the growth of fascism, and zeroes in on what he believes is the core reason why fascism is on the rise in Britain right now. “I think, to be quite honest,” he states, “the main problem with racism in Britain is where it always was, which is with the Government. The British Government is a racist Government. Britain itself is a country based on racism.

“British history, as taught in schools, is a history that teaches that the days of Empire were the golden days of Britain. Which by definition means that it was right and proper that Britain should treat two-thirds of the planet like they were subservient and sub-human people, including Irish people. And so, because there’s never been a facing up to this in terms of the writing of history and everything else, these things will always re-occur. Because people are educated to be racists.”

Marxman arrived on the scene with a song called ‘Sad Affair.’ Opening up with verses from ‘Irish Ways And Irish Laws,’ it goes on: “I had a dream of days to come/When orange only meant the summer sun/And not this knife that cuts apart/A nation’s soul, a nation’s heart.” ‘Sad Affair’ was a brave move, considering it risked airplay suicide. However, for Marxman is was a great success in that it opened up debate on the whole Irish situation, among people – particularly minorities in Britain – who would have only been aware of ‘The Troubles’ from a highly biased media. For Marxman, the Northern conflict is about human and cultural rights. As Hollis puts it, “it could have been African ways and African laws; Indian ways and Indian laws . . .”

Hollis, who was born in Dublin and has lived for about eleven years in Britain, believes passionately that Southerners have abandoned Northern nationalists to their fate in a Unionist system of apartheid, and that their hand-wringing about the tragic situation ‘up there’ is merely a hypocritical way of covering up such a betrayal.

Marxman have a wide agenda. They encourage wearing condoms with the humorous ‘Father Like Son’, deal with the genocide inflicted on the Americas with ‘Ship Ahoy’, and recount tragic tales of drug abuse on ‘Do You Crave Mystique?’

With ‘All About Eve’, they became one of the first rap groups to deal with woman abuse head on. For Hollis: “Misogyny, in all music, or in any aspect of society is something that needs to be challenged and checked.” He is contemptuous of gangsta rap and particularly, “those people who cynically exploit the language of misogyny or racism in order to make money when that’s not really where their head is at. They know that that is going to sell because it’s the lowest common denominator, and it’s going to sell to pubescent youngsters who don’t know any better.”

It’s a funny thing, but people have been announcing the death of hip hop since the days it was born, way back in the Seventies. If there’s a funeral, nobody has told Marxman. Although Hollis agrees that British and Irish rap has a long way to go before it can in any way be compared favourably to the American standard, he believes it has set down firm roots on these islands and is ready to grow.

Marxman should have a new album out by next summer. In January they’re going to America to promote the launch of their debut there. As Hollis puts it, they’ll be, “selling snow to the Eskimos.” But Eskimos love snow! On with that funky Celtic socialist groove thang!

SCRAWL

It’s happened to us all at least once. We fall in love and for a while the world becomes that person. Everybody and everything else seems irrelevant. We neglect our friends, like the character in ‘Tell Me Now, Boy,’ neglects her’s: “Boy, no one’s asking me out anymore/Can you tell me what’s gone wrong?/All the friends I used to hang out with don’t seem to be any fun/When you’re talkin’ I can’t hear anyone else’s words/And when we kiss I could ask you to stop but it never would occur.”

Scrawl were formed about eight and a half years ago by Sue Harshe (bass, vocals) and Marcy Mays (guitar, vocals, lyrics) in Columbus, Ohio. After gigging sporadically for a couple of years, they came to the attention of Rough Trade and were offered a contract. Sue Harshe laughs ruefully as she thinks back on it. “We made two records with them. And then they went bankrupt,” she remembers.

It was not simply the bankruptcy which hurt Scrawl but the entire way they had been treated by the label. (In fact, they had left Rough Trade a year before they went bust.) However, having to borrow money and buy back their recording rights at an auction which was selling everything from master tapes to office furniture certainly didn’t help.

It was enough to test the very spirit of a band. “We were completely frustrated after Rough Trade,” she states. “We felt very betrayed by the whole industry and the alternative thing. But I don’t really think we ever thought of breaking up as much as, we just didn’t know what to do. But there was never really a thought of not making music.”

For most of their history Scrawl were an all female trio. However a year and a half ago, they got Dana (a man) Marshall on drums. “I think when we first started initially it was probably a lot more conscious to have a female drummer,” Sue explains. “Because Marcy and I had been in bands with men and it just felt like there were a lot of reins on us. I think just having a female drummer meant that we didn’t feel intimidated at the time. Now, because we are a lot more proficient in our instrumental and our song-writing abilities, it didn’t really matter.”

It would be easy (and lazy) to lay the label ‘riot grrrl’ on Scrawl. But while their attitude is always confident, their music is not about carrying banners or singing liberationist anthems. “I think that riot grrrl is good for young women,” Sue points out. “We certainly don’t really have an alignment with them. Partly because we are older and we started out a long time ago. And so it really doesn’t hold anything for us.”

Sue thinks that all the scrutiny and publicity female bands get these days has its good and bad sides. “I think that it’s easier in that if there’s any kind of public eye on anything like riot grrrl or fox core or whatever, then yeah, they are going to have that foot in the door,” she states. “But at the same time it can be much more difficult. Because there is not like what I would consider a natural progression in, you know, growing as a band.”

Scrawl play a minimalist rock ‘n’ roll: guitar, bass, drums. It’s all that’s needed really. And in Marcy Mays they have a lyricist with genuine style and insight. The opening track of their 1993 album Velvet Hammer (Simple Machines) is called ‘Your Mother Wants To Know:’ “Your mother wants to know if you ever wished that you were dead/She wants to know if you’ve ever wished that she were dead.”

“ It’s about how a small problem, if not addressed, can grow and become something much larger. “Yeah, yeah, that is it, pretty much,” Marcy agrees. “And just the fact that even if it may not have been anything that bad, that lack of acknowledgement and lack of communication builds a wall in a lot of families, I think. And between generations.”

Every Scrawl song has a story and an insight that is intriguing and beautifully fashioned. But their’s is not an easy ride. Songs like ‘Face Down’ have a primal surge of depressive despair to them: “On my back like a bug kicking in the air/Another push, another jab, another round/I’m not on my knees, I’m face down.” However, despairing or not, there is a jagged, rough-hewn vitality to the song which is energising.

Maybe it’s because Scrawl’s music has the capacity to reach towards a point of truth. Because Velvet Hammer is at an edge, cutting its way through despair, opening up possibilities with rock ‘n’ roll melodies.

TINDERSTICKS

Made with love, really, is the best way I can find to describe the Tindersticks self-titled debut on the This Way Up label. Midnight love. Love that has edges. Love that, in its total sense of giving to the moment, is aware of its nature, its frailty, its obsessive potential. Love like we all understand, basically. Or that we all search for in our dreams and day-dreams.

And this is why the Tindersticks strike a chord in the universal orchestra of desire, longing and fulfilment. Because they approach music, not as some technical device, but rather as some alchemist’s tool, as language’s and sound’s linkage between hearing and believing, between logic and lust, between what we know to be facts and what we know to be truth. Because each truth has its moment and when that moment passes so, very often, does that truth.

Tindersticks make music with whiskey melodies, with occasional trumpet, bazooka, oboe, clarinet and soprano sax, with late-night, smoke-filled bar chords, and with the rhythm of heartbeats skipping and missing, and thud-thud-thudding on the ear drum. They are not musicians but rather songsmiths. They play with emotion. As singer and songwriter, Stuart Staples puts it, their music “is more to do with what we can actually hear rather than what we can actually do. It was done for ourselves. It wasn’t done with any sort of thought for markets or anything. I think that’s why it has got that sort of freedom about it. We’re just letting things go the way they want to go.

“The songs are just sort of moments,” he continues. “They’re never the whole story. And that’s why there’s lots of different sides on it. That’s why I don’t see it as very depressing. It’s just to do with moments really. And I don’t sort of write ‘write.’ I mightn’t do anything for months and then something will make me write it. I don’t sort of work on paper or anything. It’s just sort of ideas.”

Tindersticks music feels like it has aged before it was born, like it has matured in the mind inside the house of dreams. “Some of the songs are from dreams,” Stuart agrees. “Every so often you have a dream that just won’t leave you alone. And you remember every bit of it in great detail. There’s a couple of songs on the album that are actually from that sort of thing.”

The best music is rarely made in the padded studio. It takes seed outside and feeds outside. The eighty minute Tindersticks debut was recorded in twelve days and took six days to mix, costing £20,000, a high-tec, modern-day pittance. They could record so much so quickly because they understood what they wanted to do.

“I think that’s like true,” Stuart agrees, “because we do most of our work in a practice room. So, if somebody has an idea, we start to work on that idea, between the six of us. It kinda happens really naturally. People just join in and see the song in the same way, or someone will see it in a different way, and it’ll help it because it will dislodge it somehow. So the songs do take on a life of their own and they go past the original idea.”

Tindersticks are fashioning their own trademarks. Their music has become more than the six individual parts. “Oh, definitely,” Stuart says passionately. “That’s our strongest point. We don’t tend to think about things very much. We don’t have any sort of philosophy or anything. We just sort of do things that are natural to us.”

When I heard the album first, I got this American bluesy, jazzy feel off it (they’re based in London now but are actually from Nottingham.) And in Stuart’s voice, there was the smoke and late night rumble of a Nick Cave, whom they recently toured with.

“I’ve always been interested in that sort of music,” Stuart replies, “along with lots of other types of music. But I mean, the main thing about the Bad Seeds and The Triffids is that I think they teach you that there isn’t any set rules to follow. They encourage you to take risks because as a listener you get so much out of those risks that they actually take. There’s something within their whole attitude to music. Nick Cave follows his own rules. And I think that the more we go along the more we follow our own course, and we get a lot of satisfaction from being ourselves.”

Tindersticks have whatever it is worth having. It’s hard to believe that their’s is a debut album, so rich is it in experience, moods and emotions – but it is. The sky is the limit. Light it up!