Article Response: Jesus And Mary Chain

I can't think of any comments that sound non-gushy, it is a damn fine review. Especially the first two paragraphs.

And it makes me want to check out "Cracking Up", which I probably wouldn't have been compelled to do before.

Oh yeah apologies to Hans Christian Andersen!

Who cares about non-gushy? "Fuzz, snarls and yearning", "feedback wrestling match" and yeah, "Cracking Up" - I gush, I gush.

Very cool, indeed a bit of an energy recharge for me and thinking about talking (and writing!) about music! Hurrah for Tom! And they certainly did make some good noise, that band. :-)

Fave JAMC moment -- Jim Reid in the sun at Lollapalooza 1992, getting very annoyed at the departing hordes from the Pearl Jam set, speaking in broadest Glaswegian: "Look! The way out's over there, you FUCKING COCKSUCKERS!" Petulant, yes, but I sympathized.

(very much look forward to reading the review, when have time later)

This is great! I pretty much agree with Tom's assessment of Psychocandy, with the proviso that at high volume and with the right amount of cheap booze in me, Never Understand,or one of the albun tracks - The Hardest Walk say, still kicks me in the head in the way it *should* do. Perhaps in a similar way to The Ramones. I didn't bother with them after a cursory listen to Darklands, but I really, really want to hear 'Cracking Up'.

"these tracks are the crooked spine of 21 Seconds, getting ever-more ground-out, boxed-in, stubborn, and self-hating as the 90s dragged on and the Mary Chain found themselves slipping ever closer to the margins."

this typo amuses me.

good review. especially the last two paragraphs.

the first JAMC song i heard was cracking up actually. I taped it off the radio and listened to it, fascianted by this band (it's a great single). had chased SY and a few 80s bands but that was their come back single for creation (and that's how I heard them) and from there i worked back to Psycocandy which is wonderful rock n'roll.

I just don't have this completist string in me. so i read a few things and I got this idea that the fuzz levels dropped down when i thought they should have gone up. I always wanted them to make 'metal machine music' type cover versions but they wanted to be pop stars so I never bothered.

A colleage at work back in england has every mary chain alb bar one (i think). i'll be surprised if he doesn't get this.

Oh no! I made that typo SO OFTEN when I was writing it (and doing the HTML, indexing etc.) - I thought I'd caught them all! Still there's another bootleg idea.

The JAMC were one of my favorite highschool bands, unfortunately they also stayed there for me. They wrote basic pop gems, they were a Ramones for 1985. I still think the Demo version of On The Wall is one of the best songs ever. Something I Can't Have from the German version of the Sound of Speed EP is brilliant too. I do think they really lost the plot when they did Stoned and Dethroned.

I don't think you can slag them off, because you are too far away from what those songs were there for. If you are trying to approach those songs from the perspective of a clever music journalist you are never ever going to get it. I am not dogging you Tom, I think the review is brilliant, but unless you hear Never Understand at top volume when you are 15 years old, you can never understand why JAMC were genius.

Plus the most important thing about early JAMC that you never mentioned was how fucking great they looked in those leather trowsers. Bobbie Gillespie mincing around in leather pants in the You Trip Me Up video explains exactly why the band were important. They were so goddamn fucking sexy in 1985. That is all rock and roll should ever be, sexy sub-verbal early 20 somethings singing about sex and angst. Forget the records, they were brillaint just because of the videos.

I take your point mt (I rather cynically suggest that WHATEVER you hear at top volume at 15 is going to sound brilliant but that's whats good about rock so so what) but actually the piece kind of was written from a p.o.v. of 'being there' - when I was 15 the JAMC had already settled into this surprisingly long and grumpy rock and roll career and I thought it would be interesting to focus on that not really on the earliest records - which get lots of attention anyway. Because most indie bands who make that kind of first-album impression then break up and the Mary Chain didn't.

I'm always keen to read being-there stories but I'm almost keener to read about the impressions of latecomers or casual listeners, cause its a less represented perspective.

Tom, a very well written, but supremely depressing take on their career trajectory. It ruined my day. I learned how to play guitar to Psychocandy and Darklands (my early teens) and went to their insane LA show at around the same time and they pretty much formed my rock experience (didn't you say something about first=favorite rock). I didn't listen to anything post-Automatic, so maybe I'll try "Cracking Up" again. But it's just like that girl you fell in love with at 18, you might know where she is now (you've Googled her, of course), but you just don't want to know what she's done without you - I mean you would've heard about her from friends if it was good, right?

I will take issue with this specifically: Was it really a new gesture? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. Maybe they did have a masterplan – what was it, Velvet Underground noise meets Beach Boys harmony, some bullshit line like that.

Is there really something wrong with that formula/mission-statement? I seem to recall them saying their goal was to simply redo "I Wanna Be Your Dog", but without the "f-ing terrible solo at the end".

I'm rambling, but I still think they wrote perfect pop songs (and you deride their craft as type-1, type-2 JAMC assembly line), and put this amazing noise all over them, and then were featured in Smash Hits - pimples and all. That's got to count for something.

Oh, and Tom, you've un-ruined my day on numerous occasions.

But why the Mary Chain hate? What have they ever done to you other than inspire a truckload of the bands on your best albums/singles of the 90s chart?

Are you really getting hate from the review, Spencer? I'm sorta confused! I didn't sense that at all -- a measured take on a variety of different approaches, but hardly a condemnation.

Sorry Spencer - the review is not meant as a slam, I liked the album and said so. The "bullshit line" bit is because I think those kind of handy X + Y formulations (usually formulated by journalists not the band) are really harmful in terms of how groups are perceived - and since most of the JAMC's tracks sound nothing like that such a 'summary' would indeed be bullshit.

Smash Hits then was a v.different thing from Smash Hits now - I first heard about Foetus and Nurse With Wound from SH!

(My favourite Tom Ewing article ever, Tom.)

''Smash Hits then was a v.different thing from Smash Hits now - I first heard about Foetus and Nurse With Wound from SH''

NWW on SH! how times change. nowdays, only the wire would acknowledge their existence.

i first learned about foetus and nurse with wound (and throbbing gristle and cab volt!) from...wait, for it...guitar player.

i think there's a good story here.

it was the "alternative rock" special. the early-mid 90s were a weird time.

My experience, despite being nowhere near 15 when I first heard them, was of extraordinary impact and excitement, and rushing out to buy Never Understand (the 7" in that red sleeve is within arm's reach as I type) the next day. My interest declined with hardly a blip from then on, and I haven't even heard Cracking Up. I'm not sure that I want to, because they have a very clear and simple shape in my mind, and I don't know if I want that distorted.

But you tempt me - this is another tremendous piece of writing, Tom.

I stopped reading or being able to respond in any kind of fuctional sense the moment I read the line Bobbie Gillespie mincing around in leather pants in the You Trip Me Up video explains exactly why the band were important.

Thanks, I need a cold shower now.

It wasnt a full-page feature in Smash Hits or anything - they had an occasional little box for "wow look at these weirdo bands" in the front section (Bitz!) and NWW and Foetus were featured.

I reread the article and like it much more now. I feel very personally (I'm a big dork) about their lack of success vs. their impact, as in people abandoning your religion. I now see the parts where you say that they had more song-types than most bands etc.

Also, I do have a smash hits with a full page picture of Jim and William next to the lyrics to "Some Candy Talking" - which despite what Alan McGee says, is not about heroin but actually about the conflation of heroin and cunnilingus!

Jesus! I was a big jerk to Tom on this thread. sorry dude.

Foetus and Nurse With Wound!