Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

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One common complaint which seems to afflict most of these acts, was how unhappy they were with the choice of song they put on the compilation. Most famously, the mixtape opened with a track from Primal Scream – 1 m 22s ‘Velocity Girl’ which featured a young Bobby Gillespie on vocals.

Now with a massively successful US tour opening for sweet soul darlings Thee Sacred Souls behind him, 2023 is sure to be a propitious year for Daptone's newest signee. Some became pop stars: Primal Scream’s Screamadelica won the first ever Mercury prize in 1992, the Soup Dragons played to 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden and the Wedding Present scored 18 Top 40 hits. If, say, members of the Pastels or Age of Chance or the Mighty Lemon Drops were on board, that was enough for them.I reached in and there was the treasure I sought: a cassette tape, battered and scratched, but its gold cover nonetheless shining through the murk of the attic. Told with warmth, compassion and humour, this is a very human account of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on music - or, more accurately, after music gives up on you. This is a very sympathetic account and is both a snapshot in time and an account of what happens after giving up on music. Bookplates are official labels which are signed by the author and then fixed to the title page of the book.

Tassell has done a fine job, his informal and relaxed style works really well and this makes for a great trip down memory lane for fans of the era or an ideal introduction to newcomers, into one of the most important Indie albums to be released in the UK in the 80s. Over the last few months he has disarmed packed rooms of rowdy concert goers, leaving them silent as they hold fast to every syllable sung.For those who aren’t aware (or old enough) the C86 was a cassette that the New Musical Express (a music paper) released in 1986, that had the intention of representing the state of independent music in the UK, across 22 tracks by 22 bands.

He even once formed a covers band – the C86 All Stars – to play the indie hits of the mid-to-late 80s.So it’s important to not let too much revisionism creep in or try to simplify a more complex history of things. For the past twenty-five years, Nige Tassell has written about music, popular culture and sport for a range of titles, including The Word, The Guardian, the Sunday Times, The Independent, Q, Esquire, GQ, Rouleur, the New Statesman and The Blizzard. 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. On C86, many readers got their first introduction to The Wedding Present, Half Man Half Biscuit and more. The book deconstructs the imagined glamour of life in a Peel session / NME single of the week / top 10 indie chart hit band to the point where you feel almost fatherly to the young groups of 36 years ago.