Late 80's 90's Indie rock.

Ah these were the days going to gigs with 20 people in BTW mostly Northern Manc music here

Anyhow I bet most of these no one has heard of.

The wedding present..Kennedy.




Inspiral Carpets....Mooooooo!!!



Northside...My rising Star.



Roses..All across the Sands.



BTW way lovely lyric "How can a pretty painted shell send them all packing off to hell?"

Teenage Fanclub Everything flows.



Eeee brings it all back, long hair, flairs, different girl every night, Off me head and the ability to sleep for 3 hours do a 12 hour shift and go and do it all again

Oh and one from across the pond.


Pavement...Frontwards.

Brilliant choices you mad their mate,I grew up to this music.
As Morrissey would say "Manchester,so much to answer for."

First link,Milltown Brothers-Here I Stand.
Second link,The Farm-Steppin' Stone.
Third link,James-How Was It For You?

reply to post by glen200376


Cheers mate you too.
I take it you like TF then? when they were recording the album 13 I bumped into the drummer in the street and for the next month or so I got wrecked every night with them
Brendon the drummer is/was a crazy cool guy.

The La's-There She Goes.
Another Classic.

reply to post by boymonkey74


I recently got an album ripped to mp3 called 'Manchester,North of England'
Some good artists on it like The Waltones,Pebbelkade,James,Milltown Brothers,Bradford,Inspiral Carpets and the Railway Children.
Seemingly not many were printed,indie label,late eighties.
I got the album from a James fan site called Egoiste.You have to register then go to the shared file repository where there are lots of James rarities and bootlegs.Worth a look.

Being american, I missed out on madchester, but I love the music that came out of that era, and if I could time travel my first stop would be the hacienda in 1989.









And I know technically this band doesn't count, as they were not part of that time period but since they are one of my favorites and they were the band that new order grew from and hence the hacienda itself...well, I can't resist....

reply to post by Mijamija


It was the first club I ever went to at the age of 16
Cool music choices BTW have you seen 24 hour party people?
www.imdb.com...



Tony was a family friend so it was great to see this film...If you have not watched it watch it funny as Moooo!!

reply to post by boymonkey74


ummmm....you really have no idea how green with envy I am right now!

I would have just about killed to be at the hacienda when I was 16! Unfortunately for me I was 14 in 1989 and living in Germany, with no ability to get over to England, but I wanted to very badly! I heard alot of the music and really didn't know at that time exactly what it was, or the impact it would have. It just seemed like really amazing, beautiful, creative music that spoke to my soul. Of course it helped that the boys in the bands were often terribly gorgeous, what teenage girl wouldn't fall in love with them?

Did you have any clue at that time that what you were a part of would go down in music history? It must have been so amazing, I'm sure you got quite a few stories to tell

And yes, I have seen 24hour party people. I loved how they explained Bez from the Mondays...how he was an alien from outerspace that just showed up! It was great! I really dont know what I'd have done if I had ever met Tony Wilson...probably make a total fool of myself! That man did so much to help put Manchester on the music map. It is a true shame he is no longer with us, but his legacy will live on.

these are more of the shoegaze style, but I figured I'd add them since they were around that same time period.





and this one is recent but you can clearly hear the influence of the early 90's in it:



i think it is cool how the bands from the early 90's have gone on to influence the new generation of bands.

Been looking for an old thread that I posted quite a bit in which had lots of music from this era etc in it, unfortunately I can't find it yet.

In the meantime here's The Mock Turtles and Can You Dig It.


Bit of trivia - lead singer Martin Coogan is actor / comedian Steve Coogans brother.

I went to The Hacienda a few times back in '89 / 90 when my brother lived in a couple of places in and around Manchester.

Great music and great times - it was when we all stopped kicking lumps out of each other and started getting loved up.

Thought I'd add a Scottish band from the era,The Jesus and Mary Chain-April Skies.

I was a regular at the Hacienda round about 82/83 - queued up the length of Whitworth Street to get in every Thursday night.

I was a student nurse at the time and a group of about 6 of us would go together - one of us would withdraw most of that months wages and pay for everything and the next week somebody else would do the same and so on, until next payday.

The 80s - the decade that fashion forgot.

Happy days....

reply to post by ironorchid


Here you go,especially for you.
James-Stutter,live at the Hacienda 1982.

Perhaps from a year or two after the heyday of Madchester this an absolute belter of a tune from a collaboration of some Hacienda greats.

Sub Sub had previously been known for their Dance music - after a fire in their studio's they changed their name and direction and became Doves - this is clearly very Doves like - like I said this a cracking tune and relatively little known.

reply to post by Freeborn


Always loved that track. Was just thinking the other day that life seems to have been sanitized since the 90's.

Almost forgot this, remember being in a club and the dj played it as the last track. One of those moments

reply to post by Freeborn


Ah! I have never heard of this band or the doves...missed out on it sadly. I guess it is because of my own personal bias toward joy division. I have always focused more on joy division than new order. And while I do like new order, I never researched them in depth to know about their side projects or guest appearances on tracks with other bands. This was a nice surprise for me, thanks for sharing it!

One of the things I love best about this style is how much of it is upbeat(although the shoegazy stuff is great too). It's the jangly tambourine cutting through the edgy guitar and the solid beat of it, overlaid with these beautiful British voices that sound so pure and heartfelt, who ever said Brits were stiff and conservative obivously never heard of madchester!

reply to post by woodwardjnr


I'm curious about your comment that life seems sanitized since the 90's...do you think the current trends in music are reflective of this?

I have often felt that in today's world, current music reflects that sanitized quality. I think it has a lot to do with the technology that many, but not all musicians now use. The computer revolution has made a huge impact on music in many ways, some obvious, some more subtle. Musicians can go into a home studio and with certain computer programs and other tools and equipment, fine tune the sound of their music like never before; it has this processed effect that makes it sound so sharp, so perfect that all flaws are erased and it lacks the quality of its flaws. I kinda like hearing music with certain flaws, it gives it more warmth in a way.

Many bands now even incorporate this technology into their live sets, and it seems the less processed and unprocessed music of the past might actually be a thing of the past completely as the march toward building a better machine continues. I wonder if a hundred years from now, when people hear the old music in its original form, it they will admire the flaws, or not?

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Yeah you're right mate - sanitized, and generally speaking pretty crap.

Given my ecelectic taste in music etc I've got to say there aren't many new bands / acts around at the moment that I rate - it's all pretty much of a muchness and bland to say the least.

I'm old enough to remember the impact Punk had back in '76 and '77, (I wasn't quite a teenager but....) and how it effected society as a whole.
Once the major music labels, who are obviously interwoven with the major corporations etc, realised what was happening they tried there best to undermine the do-it-yourself ethos and 'nothing is sacred' attitude by swamping the market with pale imitiations of the real thing - plastic punk we called back then.
And that pretty much killed off punk for the majority and the corporations went back to making obscene amounts of money and controlled what the public would see and like.

But as is the way of the world youth continuously changes and challenges with new styles and 'cultures' etc - but that's ok as long as the major's make their money and it's nothing TOO controversial.
With a few noticeable exceptions the '80's were pretty much crap - thankfully there's always drink and other distractions!
This about sums it up;


But then came Rave and The Hacienda.
We went from roaming around the country trying to kick the crap out of each other to meeting in out of the way disused warehouses etc and having a brilliant time causing no-one any trouble at all.
Everyone who was there will tell you it was an absolutely great time - the second summer of love.

But the major's didn't like it because it had a bit of the Punk D.I.Y. ethos and 'screw you' attitude - and most importantly they weren't making money and controlling people.

So what did they do?
They got the authorities to ban the parties and undermined the whole dance scene and infiltrated it with boring, banal imitations of the 'real thing'.
And they've never let go since.

Sure there's a few good bands out there but back in the punk era or the 2-Tone / Mod revival or Madchester times there were great bands all over the place and youth had a vibrancy about them.

Where have youth sub-cultures gone?
Sub-cultures and new music go hand in hand.

At the end of the day music is but a reflection of society - bland, unchallenging and mediocre are pretty good descriptions of today's music and society in general.

Seems I'm in a bit of a rambling sort of mood tonight.