Remember the teeth-grindingly bad teen adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew (not one of Shakespeare’s better efforts to begin with) called 10 Things I Hate About You?

Once you’ve all quite finished sniggering, if there is one thing I remember about that movie it is this: in order to prove how cool they were to The Kidz(TM) they had to have the protagonist – the Kate character – like a really cool underground band, and they chose The Raincoats.

I look on this choice with a degree of amused sympathy for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, an ex-girlfriend of mine once gave me a mix-tape with Don’t Be Mean by The Raincoats on, so I actually knew who they were.  It is with a strange mixture of smug pride and utter humiliation that one recognises the cool band in a movie aimed at American high school girls, but there you go.  The other reason of course, is that the Raincoats were one of those resolutely underground band who, despite the enthusiastic endorsement of the (warning, controversial statement approaching) hugely over-fucking-rated Kurt Cobain (oh get over it, Nirvana just weren’t that good) steadfastly refused to become famous and pretty much ceased realeasing stuff at all around that time.

The other thing that struck me is that The Raincoats were a pretty high-credibility alternative band – how the fuck did they persuade them to appear in that crummy little film? Jesus, money must talk. Either that or it looked way better on paper than it ended up being in reality.

Just goes to show, eh, no matter how much you research and think you know about popular music, the vagaries of bands themselves and the whims of the general public defeat the best of us.

The Raincoats – Lola

[Disclaimer: I am actually on holiday at the moment, probably fucking up my brother's wedding by swearing too much in the best man's speech, so it's all a bit minimal at the moment.  Normal service will be resumed after we return on about the 25th July]