Chart entered : 20 June 1992
Chart peak : 67
Number of hits : 12
This lot's moment in the sun seemed to pass in the blink of an eye so I'm quite surprised they qualify.
The band were formed by guitarist Martin Carr in Wallasey in 1988 with his childhood friend, singer Simon Rowbottom. Another friend, Tim Brown , joined on bass. They picked up a drummer in Steve Hewitt, later of Placebo. They named themselves after the mysterious neighbourhood recluse in To Kill A Mockingbird. Their influences can be summed up as altenative guitar rock from the mid-eighties onwards : Jesus and Mary Chain, C86, House of Love , My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Junior.
They released their debut LP "Ichabod and I" in July 1990. It was self-produced ( for want of a better word ) and released on the independent label, Action Records. It comes across as an eight track tribute to My Bloody Valentine. Songs like "Eleanor Everything" and "Walking 5th Carnival" show some glimmers of melodic potential but the album fall between two stools. It's too noisy to be pop and too badly-recorded for the guitar abuse to be impressive.
The album got them a deal with Rough Trade, by which time Rob Cieka had replaced Hewitt on drums. They recorded three EPs for the label. The first was headed by a re-recording of the track "Kaleidoscope" from the LP, the improved production only serving to highlight how weak Simon's vocals are. The other three tracks show them moving away from being noiseniks to the more reflective end of the shoegaze spectrum. The second one "Boo Up !" from 1991 sees them shifting towards employing both approaches in the same song so that first track "Everybird" has a barrage of noise as a middle eight between two langorous sections. The third EP "Every Heaven" has them groping towards a more commercial sound with producer Alan Moulder shaving off the rough edges. "The Finest Kiss" was their best dong to date with a fine melodic bass line.
Unfortunately, Rough Trade went belly up shortly after its release and there was little promotion. The band were rescued by Alan McGee who snapped them up for Creation. Their first release was the "Adrenalin" EP in early 1992. Headed by the very short "Lazy Day" , it's four tracks of scuzzy indie rock, on all of which Simon's vocals are so low in the mix he's practically inaudible.
For their next release, the group simultaneously released a 12 inch EP "Boo! Forever" and a 7 inch single containing these two tracks. "Does This Hurt ?" is a riff looking for a song. The combination of Martin's reproachful girl-done-me-wrong lyrics and Simon's weedy vocals give it a certain nerdy appeal but it needs a chorus. "Boo Forever" does have a chorus but once again Simon's vocals are mixed so low you could miss it. It's a slow grind of a song not too far away from the sound of Creation's most successful act but they could certainly have done with borrowing that band's singer.
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