Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

Product Information

In retrospect, we were probably slightly more established than most of the other bands, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. We were just honored to be on an NME tape, having read the magazine for years, and perhaps a bit guileless about how it might affect us. But I can understand why, say, the June Brides didn’t want to be on the tape, and how some of the less established bands might be pigeonholed by it, especially when the scene seemed to have run its course.

C86 cassette helped create the British How NME magazine’s C86 cassette helped create the British

It’s really interesting to see the challenges and problems that each band had before, during and after C86, some complain of too much freedom, others of too much control, some sought mainstream, pop success, others were happy to remain obscure. We really get a broad range of personalities too, those who remain proud of their contribution and others who wish to distance themselves from it and are determined not to be defined by it. Following on from acclaimed histories of the British punk upheaval of the late 1970s (Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming) and the post-punk ferment of the early 80s (Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again); Neil Taylor’s new book takes the story forward to cover the next wave of groundbreaking musicians, dubbed the “C86 bands” after a now-legendary cassette compilation released by music weekly NME, whose work paved the way for the commercial breakthrough of indie later in the decade. The music was actually quite varied. People now see C86 as all jangly indie pop, but Bogshed and Big Flame were nothing like that – they were much harder. I guess we rode that divide: there were elements that were very jangly and Velvet Underground-ish, but we had a much harder edge. C86 slowly but surely became the NME’s best-selling ever compilation, selling an estimated 40,000 copies and eventually being reissued on LP and cassette by Rough Trade the following year. C86 prompted a week of shows at the ICA and would come to embody a whole musical style and era.In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born. In 1986, along with many other dedicated NME readers, I sent off for their latest cassette compilation. I had them all. Every one. Didn't matter what the genre, I was all in. This one, C86, went on to define an era and probably marks the moment "indie" music was born. The independent chart had been going for some time but indie the genre ultimately became synonymous with white guitar pop.

C86 - The cassette that marked beginning of Indie - Indie is C86 - The cassette that marked beginning of Indie - Indie is

Michael Hann (14 March 2014). "C86: The myths about the NME's indie cassette debunked". The Guardian . Retrieved 2015-06-11. There were, though, no sirens trying to lure me to my death through song. The nearest I came was when sitting in on the first rehearsal since pre-pandemic times of the Birmingham five-piece Mighty Mighty, reconvened to play to an audience of just me. But five follicly challenged men on, or just over, the brink of turning 60 do not seductive sirens make. Still, they sounded just as sprightly and glorious as they had several decades earlier, even if they now needed to take fistfuls of painkillers afterwards to ward off the effects of a four-hour rehearsal. THAT PETROL EMOTION - Mine 22.THE TURNCOATS - One Breath * 23.A RIOT OF COLOUR - Skink (Flexi Version) *Hann, Michael (14 June 2011). "NME releases a cassette that codifies music". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 October 2014. Ex- NME writer Andrew Collins summed up C86 by dubbing it "the most indie thing to have ever existed". [16] Bob Stanley, a Melody Maker journalist in the late 1980s and founding member of pop band Saint Etienne, similarly said in a 2006 interview that C86 represented: Following on from the cult success of C81, NME or anyone else couldn’t possibly have predicted just how seminal their C86 compilation cassette would become. But even today, nearly forty years on a whole generation and then some, know exactly what you mean when you say the words C86. In 1996, NME continued the tradition of compiling a new band album (this time a CD) by releasing C96. This had little impact, with Mogwai and Broadcast being the only acts on the compilation to subsequently enjoy mainstream success. [23] Three other bands on the compilation - Babybird, The Delgados and Urusei Yatsura - had brief success in the United Kingdom after the compilation's release.

Italia 90 – Magdalene – Records I Like

C86 & All That: The Creation of Indie In Difficult Times comprehensively documents the rise of indie during the socially-divisive 1980s, tracing its ancestry out of Post Punk, Neo Psychedelia, Anarcho Punk, Garage, Trash and Goth and on to the landmark compilation C86 in the spring of 1986. Yet, while the pursuit of long-lost musicians can often manifest as earnest hagiography, Tassell's unique, light-hearted approach makes this a very human story of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on pop - or, more precisely, after pop gives up on you. It's a world populated by bike-shop owners, architecture professors, dance-music producers, record-store proprietors, birdwatchers, solicitors, caricaturists and even a possible Olympic sailor - and let's not forget the musician-turned-actor gainfully employed as Jeremy Irons' body double...If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Very few still make a living from music and the range of jobs they now have is the result of a careers officer having several strong coffees and randomly shouting titles from a work

book on the truth behind C86 and mid eighties indie Great new book on the truth behind C86 and mid eighties indie

The C86 name was a play on the labelling and length of blank compact cassette, commonly C60, C90 and C120, combined with 1986.Others were found farther afield. The Mighty Lemon Drops’ guitarist Dave Newton was hunted down to California where he’s a record producer for hire, operating out of the studio in his double garage. He even once formed a covers band – the C86 All Stars – to play the indie hits of the mid-to-late 80s. Dave was clearly still happy to be associated with C86. For many of the bands, the cassette provided their careers with a springboard, often involving signing for a major label. For others, it was a millstone that was hard to shed, a pigeonhole impossible to escape.