The Bluteones – Bluetonic
Had a good rummage recently?
Well Davy H, from the truly excellent Ghost of Electricity started rummaging about in his 90s CD singles last week, and wrote this. Following that we had Mick from Raiding the Vinyl Archive, with his contribution. And this weekend everyone’s favourite superannuated Weegie – JC from The Vinyl Villain – has got stuck in as well.
So now I have had a rummage through my own box of 90s CD singles, and unearthed a gem. The CD single is a much-maligned animal, the distant, buck-toothed cousin to its urbane vinyl counterpart. But it had something of a heyday in the 90s, before the re-birth of the 7″ and after the cassette tape had been effectively seen off. I didn’t have a record player anyway so I had a huge pile of these things, and of course the 90s was when I first started getting into music with real determination.
It’s not an original purchase I’m afraid, because most of those were stolen when someone broke into our Glasgow basement flat, but it is one of many I have since painstakingly re-acquired with the aid of eBay and Amazon Marketplace in the years since. There were many choices I could have made. Gene would be an obvious example, I had Pulp’s masterpiece Common People too, and the unbelievably good Where the Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave, but I thought I’d go for The Bluetones.
The Bluteones, like Gene before them, were the quintessential singles band. Their albums were disappointing, but there was a period in about 1995 when a couple of superb singles had us all convinced that they were going to be the next massive thing in Britpop – a scene which had already peaked, but which still very much dominated the musical landscape. The Bluetones have proved to be oddly long-lived actually, and still release albums today to a hard-core of dedicated fans, so it’s unfair to imply that they couldn’t cut the mustard. One thing is for sure though, they have never ever matched the heady hype of those first few singles, and Bluetonic was the first and the best of the lot.
Rough Outline, a collection of their singles and b-sides can be bought from Amazon unless you want to scour eBay where there are both some vinyl and CD versions knocking around.
The Bluteones – Bluetonic
The Bluteones – Colorado Beetle
The Bluteones – Glad to See Y’Back Again
Actually, Mike Lupica over at WFMU has been running a weekly podcast for over a year with this idea in mind.
http://wfmu.org/playlists/AS
Well, kind of. He focuses on more underground, 7″ singles. But they’re 1990s singles! And they’re almost always awesome. The show is pretty great.
Nice one. Most folk would probably have expected ‘Slight Return’ or ‘Solomon Bites The Worm’. This however, is just about obscure enough to be worthy of the Toad treatment.
I’m off to queue at the Post Office for my pension. Using my free bus pass to get there.
Nice one ktvo – I was thinking of doing something similar on one of my own podcasts actually – 90s singles b-sides. I’m not sure I’ve got enough to make it a whole podcast concept though!
I didn’t realise it was an obscurity thing JC. May have leaped before looking, there. Not sure I have that many really obscure ones actually – I was only just getting interested enough to start owning really obscure stuff at that point.
Well, it’s a pretty short podcast — each week he has 3 songs. So we’re not looking at an hour-long program. You should think about it; his podcast is pretty awesome, and I’m sure yours would be as well.
By obscure, I suppose I mean it was less of a cahrt-hit than most Bluetones singles.
I didn’t realise that either actually. I remember this being the famous one that got me into them in the first place. Mind you, by ‘famous’ I could mean anything!
Nice one Matthew. I also recently revived my Bluetones singles for a similar feature, and these first 3 singles – all totally ace – particualrly Are You Blue or Are You Blind? The first album was pretty good too, but I lost interest after that. I was surprised to find out they were still going today…
I actually knew a guy in London who was a member of their smallish but determined band of devotees. I made some off the cuff remark about them disappearing in the nineties and got a two hour monologue about how great they still are. It was quite touching really.
I have never even heard Are You Blue or Are You Blind. It had sold out and was a collectors item before I heard of them properly. I wonder if eBay can help…
Isn’t that cover art great? Really like it.
I have no way of squeezing sounds out of my home PC at the moment (Apart from a really loud system fan) so I’ll check out the tunes at work tomorrow.
What I recall of the Bluetones is a fairly run-of-the-mill workmanlike baggy/indie band. Pleasant, but not exactly loin-stirring.
I’m looking forward to playing these tomorrow for a nostalgia trip – and possibly to find out I’ve underestimated them.
I saw The Bluetones in Cardiff Uni when my mate Anthony Reynolds’ band Jack was supporting them. Well, when I say saw I actually mean I watched Anthony limply hurl wide-of-the-mark Wildean attempts at insults at an underwhelmed crowd of grumpy students, casual weekenders & indie fluff throughout the whole of Jack‘s 20min set – as he downed a whole bottle of whiskey, mouth to mouth, throughout the set – then snuck back stage with Jack, just as The Bluetones were finishing their first number, to work our way through The Bluetones‘ rider.
Security twigged on one of the band’s third visits to the toilet, via TB‘s dressing room, when he staggered about tryig to remember where Jack‘s dressing room was, clanking bottles of wine & beer stuffed down his trouser legs & up his top.
We were promptly thrown out (luckily their gear had already been packed by TB‘s roadies) & ended up in the now dead, but then legendary, Metro nightclub, where Anthony took it upon himself to introduce me to any woman that fluttered by as “a man of whiskey”.
I woke up about a week later & didn’t listen to another Bluetones record again. Until now.
Cheers for the nostalgia.
DC
I actually remember Jack, you know. I remember one really good single they released and then not hearing anything else about them ever again. That was in about 1996/7 or so. Same lot?
Oh, and Dylan, I think that describes them perfectly, but their first couple of singles were really rather good.
Probably.
Jack were massive in Europe, Japan & parts of the States; to a lesser extent in the UK, but they do maintain a massively loyal cult following.
In fact, & here’s a name drop, I introduced Robin Ince to Anthony because he once confessed to me he was a HUGE fan – & I mean HUGE. I know Robin from my repeated travels to Edinburgh & the fringe over the last 7 or so years & hanging around the same bars, knowing the same comedians, etc.
As a result of the introduction they’ve become firm freinds & Anthony is do the music & a documentary for Robin’s next stand up DVD (which was filmed at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff).
Jack‘s trouble was Anthony & his incredulous toot & gargle excesses (well, the band were no saints either) that saw them dropped from pretty much every label who attempted to tame them.
There are legendary stories of them stepping off private jets &, without so much as a “hello, we’re/I’m…”, demanding that particular country’s record label A&R go find them some super strength nose candy & some young fanny. Too Pure drop-kicked them into relative obscurity after that incident.
They recorded 3 albums (& christ knows how many EPs) under Jack, then 2 under Jacques — a side project, which saw them collaborating with Momus (& saw him at the desk producing), which was weirdly taken as fundamentally flawed despite its meagre output being far superior to band proper.
Anthony has also released a handful of albums, singles & EPs under Anthony & Anthony Reynolds. His latest, out a few months ago, called British Ballads, has received extraordinarily good reviews; the only bad one, as far as I can tell/see, was in Uncut, (who once counted Jack as a favourite band & had their songs on the cover mounted CDs in the past), which described it as (I paraphrase) moribund, overly lush & sentimental, trying too hard to sound like Scott Walker (+ others) & lazy. Which is quite funny, really, because all of his previous incarnations have released records exactly in this vein.
So, yes, probably the same one.
On an entirely different note: I finally finished all the editing/artwork/ftp-ing/etc. for the 3 pre-records at 5am this morning – Jesus H., I need a fucking holiday. Oh, hang on, though… I’m off to Vegas in an hour
)
Catch you in about 2 weeks.
DC
…ended up in the now dead, but then legendary, Metro nightclub
Metro’s is dead?!!
No!!
God, even I could pull in there!
And the music was great too.
“everyone’s favourite superannuated Weegie” Arf!!
Yeah, don’t tell him I said that or he’ll come through and glass me, or whatever it is those nasty Glaswegians do to express annoyance.
we chib you……
Having been described as ‘truly excellent’ by consistently magnificent Song, By Toad it can only be downhill for me now….Mind you, I’m glad I popped in, not so much for the biggin’ up and RISPECK, but more because I was going to post ‘Slight Return’ tomorrow. BLAST.
I aim for ‘epoch defining’ actually Davy, if you don’t mind!
Why is posting slight return a problem? I’m sure our readers don’t cross over to the extent that this would be a bad thing. After all, more early Bluetones is a good thing, surely?
Ah, you know, I likes to keep it fresh. You just keep on defining that epoch boy, that’s what you’re good at.
You can kiss my epoch is what you can do dammit.
does that mean your epoch has five toes??