Often we see posts about bands coming from certain Cities/places in the UK and putting that place on the map for all the right reasons. Obviously the Beatles from Liverpool then all the Madchester bands etc. From my home city Black Sabbath, Moody Blues etc. But what about the bands/artists that we wouldn’t want to own up to. This was inspired by a comment Stuart Maconie made on 6 music this afternoon when he mentioned about Sade Cafe being from Manchester. Hardly a claim to fame for Manchester I would say. So which bands would we prefer not to be associated with our home towns?
Bands that give places a bad name
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Glass~gow: Travis, Texass, pomp era Simple Minds, Del Amitri (sorry Dave), Franz Ferdinand, Glasvegas and… give us a kickin’ Mogwai
Nearest band ( I use the term loosely) to me. I give you Black Lace.
Brighton seems to produce plenty of mediocrities but very few genuine talents. Among the mediocrities I can think of the Kooks, the Maccabees, British Sea Power, Transmission Vamp. Oh, and Simon Cowell seems to originate from the place. Brakes and Fatboy Slim were pretty good though.
Norman Cook was from Bromley and was raised in Reigate, Surrey and broke through with a band from Hull.
Goalposts are being moved here. It’s like saying Andy Partridge is a Maltese artiste.
“It’s like saying Andy Partridge is a Maltese artiste.”
– yes, and Jackson Browne is German!
Brakes were pretty good though. Happy now?
Ok – but please don’t mention the godawful Kooks in the same sentence as the mighty British Sea Power.
Apologies. I wanted to love BSP – great name, lots of ideas, all of those British cultural references. But the music was the acid test. For me it was the same “let’s play all of our instruments all the time at the same level. For every song” approach that the Arcade Fire have. Which is rather tiresome when it’s not just plain mediocre. To me.
Nobody is allowed in 2015 to describe any band with the prefix ‘the mighty’ except Gary Crowley.
Not even the mighty mighty mighty bosstones?
Splodgenessabounds Great Yarmouth.
We also gave the world Mylene Klaas (Spelling?)
I left in 1983!
Splodge? A bad name? They were great! Granted Two Pints of Lager got a bit annoying, but their first album had some moments of genius. Listen to this, for example (chorus: “The state of the economy makes me spew, but what can you do when the vicars wank too, John?”):
Or how about “I’ve Got Lots of Famous People Laying Dormant Under the Floorboards of My Humble Abode”:
Somebody sticking up for Max Spodge & his pals. Arrows up!
Reading spawned Mike Oldfield, and in the words of the 1970s Orbit Chewing Gum advert “Taht Ain’t Bad”.
But it also gave the world Bennet
I quite like that Bennet track though.
I shouldn’t knock Pinner’s only superstar, but I’d happily trade in Red Dwight for the Pet Shop Boys.
With Being Boring and Suburbia they actually wrong songs that described life in my home town.
None of this Philadephia Freedom stuff for them.
ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Ipswich, i give you NICK KERSHAW
I thought Nik (without the ‘c’) Kershaw came from Colchester? Anyway, leave this innocuous man alone.
I hark from East Grinstead and we had Cutting Crew and Right Said Fred.
Ha ha, they both had massive international hits, the f**king losers!
nah, he’s from ipswich. if we lose him then all we have left is that the beret wearing twat from Curiosity killed the cat went to school here
Really struggling to think of anything suitably naff for Sheffield. Even Def Leppard aren’t quite naff enough! What a heritage the city has…Joe Cocker, Pulp, Heaven 17, Human League, Arctic Monkeys, Richard Hawley, Comsat Angels…possibly Reverend and the Makers (who I think are fairly crap), but they are far from being as embarrassing as Black Lace and Nick Kershaw.
It’s ‘NIK’ Kershaw
FFS!
I grew up in London, E17. So did East 17 give my ‘hood a bad name or was it the other way round?
I also went to the same school as Blazin’ Squad (with Kenzie out of Celebrity Big Brother 3). I take relatively little pride in that.
Wigan? We gave the world Limahl – do we win?
Which brings us back to Stuart Maconie…
Maconie is quite frankly a mercurial figure. Wow, you champion everything, man!
I come from Cumbernauld.
We gave the world The Fratellis. They have a song called “Got Ma Nuts From A Hippie.”
I win.
Also a song called “Cuntry Boys and City Girls.” I have not mistyped this.
God, they were dreadful.
Didn’t they do Chelsea Dagger? That was good.
They did. And it wasn’t. Sorry.
According to Wikipedia Jon Fratelli remains resident in Cumbernauld. If your music career cannot extricate you from a place like Cumbernauld then sadly, it has failed.
Like any Cocteau Twin ever went back to Grangemouth…
Hmm? Hello?
Hmm, so replying to an individual comment on the mobile site doesn’t seem to work then.
I’m from Barnsley, we gave the world Saxon and CJ de Mooi (something he rarely mentions).
Can we give them back?
America.
As if The Eagles weren’t dire enough, along comes their idiot drooling attic dwelling tribute cousin. Denim Coked Bubblegum Hippie Evil.
Fuck all wrong with hippies Rob, well some of them.
Of course not. I’m one as are many of my friends. I prefer the term Head though. More encompassing and exact. I can’t be doing with the ‘take a long cool deep swim in lake me’ New Age Californian type half wits though. They tend to like The Eagles as well. See the connection ?
Great putdown of Californian hippies, Rob! Deadheads and Airheads, eh? A frighteningly humourless bunch.
Which leads me to ponder where man of your sparkling wit fits into the whole head scene.
Then again, I do know some very amusing heads too.
Deadhead can be cool, although some are obsessively boring tie dye nerds. The type I’m referring to tend to go by the name of Indigo Starchild, the US equivalent of idiots who bury themselves in woods, sorry, ‘rebirth’., and who tend to like The Levellers, smell, and will nick your stash as soon as your back is turned. Indigo Starchildren like James Taylor, and The Eagles.
‘Nuff said.
And what is wrong with Brightons finest adopted sons and their dogs on strings, M/sier Cardigan?
They make a jolly fine row to my ears
Wannabee Waterboys lite unhygienic stash stealers. Where’s Ollie Cromwell when you need him ? They’re always prattling on about beanfields. The undesirable side of hippie and the equivalent of zippos aloft bores.
Hah, what do you call a waterboy wearing glasses?
A walterboy, that’s what!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_K1NqCpmQI
Wasn’t their lead singer born in Harrogate?
The Zombies were from my hometown of St. Albans, and they were, of course, fab.
Tim Hart out of Steeleye Span was from St. Albans, too. His dad was the vicar at the church down the road from where we lived.
Who else?
Well, there’s Tony Hendra, who played Spinal Tap’s long-suffering manager Ian Faith. Whaddya mean – that doesn’t count? That’s just nitpicking, isn’t it….
I saw Steeleye Span at the Prog3 Festival on Saturday, still trying to figure out what is prog about them. They were good in a folkrock kind of way.
Early Span’s a belter.
I’m not sure when I’m from, having moved around.
But let’s remember that they were called The Guildford Stranglers. It was that or Camel. Or The Vapors.
From Romford, the charmless Five Star (but The Wolfhounds also used to live around here).
And the neighbouring Gidea Park was also the name of a terrible Beach Boys covers band.
The six months I spent in the tenth circle of Dante’s Inferno known as Romford are six months of my life that I will never get back. All Level 42 fans, thick builders, grey hound racing Millwall yobbos and Kray Twins tea towels.
My home town Middlesbrough produced my favourite rock singer Paul Rodgers (who still talks as if he never left), and his teenage bandmates Micky Moody and future Attraction Bruce Thomas (actually from Stockton on the wrong side of the Tees, but I’ll claim him).
Suppose I also have to acknowledge the less than exciting Chris Rea – he should have stuck to the family business, his dad made the best ice cream in the North.
Reo Speedwagon.
I burnt my marraccas in disgust.
Kansas.
Equally dull, flat as fuck and seems to go on forever.