Slowdive was an English alternative rock band that formed in 1989. The band was formed in Reading, Berkshire and primarily consisted of Nick Chaplin (bass), Rachel Goswell (vocals, guitar), Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar), and Christian Savill (guitar). Several drummers played with the band, including Ian McCutcheon, Adrian Sell, and Simon Scott.
Goswell and Halstead had known each other since early childhood in Reading, Berkshire, when Goswell was an obsessive fan of The Smiths. When Savill and Chaplin left the band after the release of Pygmalion, the remaining members renamed the band Mojave 3.
History
Formation & early EPs: 1989-1991
Slowdive was formed in Reading, England by Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell in October 1989. The two sang and played guitar, and had been friends since they were six years old. At a Sunday youth group, they began making music in an indie pop band called The Pumpkin Fairies. When the Fairies disbanded, Slowdive was formed with drummer Adrian Sell, formerly of the Fairies, and Nick Chaplin, his friend who played bass. A third guitarist named Christian Savill joined when he became the only person to answer an advert from the band. The ad called for a female guitarist, but Savill wanted to join so badly he offered to wear a dress. He was subsequently recruited.[1] The name "Slowdive" was inspired by a dream Nick Chaplin experienced.[2]
The band quickly recorded a demo and several months later played a show with a band called 5:30. Steve Walters, head of A&R at EMI, had attended the show. Afterward he approached Savill and requested one of their demos. Slowdive signed to Creation Records shortly after. The average age of the band was 19 at the time.[3] Sell felt things were progressing too fast and left for university.[1] He had been with the band for about six months.[4] Simon Scott took over on drums after his previous group, an alternative rock band called The Charlottes, broke up.[5]
A self-titled EP was released in November 1990 and received praise from music critics.[3] Slowdive was actually their original demo; the band had preferred the older recordings after feeling disillusioned with their studio craft.[6] In a glowing recommendation, NME staff member Simon Williams wrote "Slowdive have banished the barrier restricting creativity... When they really relax, Slowdive can make Cocteau Twins sound like Mudhoney." Melody Maker awarded the EP its "Single of the Week" award", an accolade the band's next two EPs received.[6] Morningrise and Holding Our Breath followed in February and June 1991, respectively.[7][8] Holding Our Breath reached #52 in the UK album charts,[4] while the single "Catch The Breeze" topped the UK indie chart.[8]
Just For A Day: 1991-1992
By mid 1991, Slowdive had been tagged a "shoegazing" band and part of "the scene that celebrates itself" by the British media.[3] The term shoegazer was applied to bands that followed My Bloody Valentine's example of abrasive guitars and ethereal vocals,[9] while "the scene" represented these like-minded groups and their social behaviour; shoegazers typically mingled at each other's gigs.[2] Slowdive toured with other shoegazing bands through summer 1991. The British music press became increasingly derisive of shoegazing as the Britpop and Grunge movements came underway.[2][3]
Production on Slowdive's debut commenced shortly after Halstead convinced Alan McGee, head of Creation Records, the band had enough songs written for a full-length album. Slowdive actually did not. The group began hurriedly writing songs in the studio. Experimentation with sounds and cannabis occurred during the process. Halstead drew lyrical inspiration from the abstract nature of the music. He recounts, "[We] went into a studio for six weeks and had no songs at the start and at the end we had an album."[6]
Their debut, Just for a Day was released in September 1991 and placed in the top ten on the UK indie chart.[2] NME gave the record a positive review,[10] but most of the press generally disliked the album as a backlash against shoegazing began.[2] As writer Peter Buckley put it, the album was "dismissed as dreary and lacking in ideas."[3] Melody Maker writer Paul Lester railed against the debut, calling it a "major fucking letdown".[10] This backlash worsened when critics reevaluated shoegazing after the release of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless in November 1991.[3]
A tour of the United Kingdom followed in fall 1991. Afterward, the group made their first visit to the United States and toured with alternative rock band Blur. A tour of Europe followed in February 1992.[11] Slowdive's US label SBK Records planned to release Just for a Day at the beginning of the year, but not before initiating a viral marketing campaign. The band's name was stenciled outside MTV and radio stations in New York. Fans stenciled their heads when Slowdive played in Manhattan. The campaign caused some controversy when a statue celebrating the end of slavery was unveiled and had the word "Slowdive" stenciled on it. SBK eventually pushed the release date back three months, which hurt the viral campaign.[12]
Souvlaki: 1992-1994
While they toured in early 1992, the band began writing songs for a followup album, but the negative coverage Slowdive received in the press affected their songwriting. "[It] did affect us as we were all teenagers at the time," said Scott in a 2009 interview, "[We] couldn't understand why people were so outraged by our sound that they had to tell the NME or whoever that they wanted us dead!"[13] Around 40 songs were recorded and rerecorded as the group became very self-conscious of their writing and how it might be received. When McGee listened to the new material, he subsequently dismissed it, stating "They're all shit." The band discarded all the music and started over.[12] In a 2009 interview, Halstead vividly recalled the incident, "I remember going to start the record in a studio in Bath. Spiritualized had just been there and left a huge Scalextrix in the live room. I remember thinking this was the height of indulgence! Ironically we scrapped everything we recorded...we had to start the record again back in Oxfordshire. We should have just played with the Scalextrix for a month."[14]
When the band returned to the UK, they wrote a letter to ambient visionary Brian Eno and requested he produce their second album. Eno responded and told them he liked their music, but wanted to collaborate not produce.[12] Halstead later called the recording session "one of the most surreal stoned experiences of [his] life."[14] "The first thing he did when he walked into the studio was to rip the clock off the wall and put it by the mixing desk," Halstead remembered, "He then said 'Okay, you're going to play the guitar and I'm going to record it. I don't care what you are going to play, just play something...'" Two songs from the collaboration arrived on the ensuing album: "Sing", which was co-written with Eno, and "Here She Comes" where Eno played keyboards.[12]
Creation Records wanted Slowdive to produce a commercial sounding album.[15] Halstead agreed, "We wanted to make a 'pop' record but it took a while to record."[14] At one point, Halstead suddenly left in summer 1992, seeking seclusion in a Welsh cottage. Savill and Chaplin were left in a recording studio in Weston-super-Mare, and while waiting for Halstead's return recorded some "joke songs". To their misfortune, McGee acquired them and became despondent, by which time Halstead had arrived with new music.[12] The band named their second album Souvlaki after a skit performed by the Jerky Boys, an American comedy duo that recorded prank phone calls.[11]
Souvlaki was released in May 1993 alongside the Outside Your Room EP,[3] a few months after Suede dropped their popular debut and the Britpop movement began.[16] Critical reactions, like their previous album, were generally negative. NME writer John Mulvey gave an ambivalent review. Despite noting their dated and "unfulfilling" sound, he did call it an "exemplary product". Dave Simpson writing for Melody Maker, declared "[This] record is a soulless void [...] I would rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again."[16] To make matters worst, Slowdive booked a tour with fellow shoegazers Catherine Wheel for a tour of the United States, only to find SBK had pushed the album's US release date back eight months. The band recorded an EP, entitled 5 EP, and started a modest tour through Europe with another shoegaze band, called Cranes. Scott did not like the electronic feel of the new EP and quit the band in late 1993; He feared being replaced by a drum machine.[17]
A marketing campaign was started in early 1994 to promote Souvlaki in the United States, which Allmusic writer Andy Kellman stated would "undoubtedly go down in industry history as one of the laziest ever"; SBK sent fans a release flyer and were told if they copied and posted 50 flyers around town they would receive a free copy of Souvlaki. Fans who participated had to document their progress with photographs to prove they actually performed the activity.[2] Halfway through the Souvlaki US tour, SBK pulled their funding and left Slowdive to pay the rest themselves. In 1994, the band funded two small tours of the United States using money raised through the sale of a live tape and a tour program that mocked the record label.[17]
Pygmalion: 1994-1995
Drummer Simon Scott left amidst creative differences in 1994 and went on to become a session drummer including a brief stint in Chapterhouse. In 2004 he formed Televise taking the ambient shoegazing sound and pushing it into electronic fields similar to Fennesz. He was, however, replaced on drums by Ian McCutcheon. By the recording of their final album, Pygmalion, Halstead had moved Slowdive away from the dreamy guitar sound and warm yet solemn tone of earlier Slowdive to a newer, more acoustic minimalist extreme, similar to heavily-ambient bands such as Seefeel, A R Kane, and Labradford.
Slowdive was dropped by Creation a week after the release of Pygmalion (as were Swervedriver not long after); Halstead had been warned before the recording of the album that the relationship with the label would end unless Slowdive delivered a "pop album."[citation needed] A legend arose that the band was dropped due to the Gallagher brothers refusing to sign Oasis to Creation if Slowdive and their counterparts remained on the label's roster, although Oasis had in fact released their debut single almost a year before Pygmalion.
Post-Slowdive endeavours: 1995-present
Shortly after being dropped by Creation, Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon recorded an album of country-influenced songs, and were signed to label 4AD, changing the band name to Mojave 3 to reflect the new musical direction. This group is no longer active.
In 2004, Simon Scott (once the drummer of Cambridge band The Charlottes) formed Televise, a group which has an ambient electronic focus and in 2007 Morr Music signed his new band Seavault which was formed with Antony Ryan from Isan. He also performs as second guitarist for The Sight Below (on Ghostly International). Scott has a new solo release debut coming out Fall 2009 on the Norwegian label Miasmah (aptly titled "Navigare")[18].
Savill went on to form Monster Movie, a dream pop group that has maintained much of the older Slowdive style. They have released four albums and an EP to date. Pre-Slowdive, Savill was in a band called Eternal, which also included Monster Movie member Sean Hewson.
Halstead and Goswell have both released solo albums on 4AD.
Musical style & influences
Legacy
Following 2004's Catch the Breeze compilation, all of Slowdive's albums were reissued in 2005. Just for a Day included a bonus disc with all tracks from the first three EPs, and the three songs recorded for a John Peel session on 26 March 1991. Souvlaki included a bonus disc with all the remaining EP tracks, and "Some Velvet Morning." Pygmalion, which had become a collector's item in the years since its release, never having been issued in the U.S., contained no extra material.
Italian dream-pop-based magazine Losing Today was named after an early Slowdive b-side.
An electronica-themed tribute album to Slowdive was released in 2002 on Morr Music (now home of ex drummer Simon Scott`s new band Seavault), entitled Blue Skied an' Clear.
"Dagger" was covered in 1998 by Mojave 3 labelmates The Hope Blister. "When the Sun Hits" was covered in 1997 by Dutch band The Gathering.
Writer/Director Dustin Lane has called his first short film "Blue Skied an' Clear" after the track of the same name on "Pygmalion".
In 2005, The Gathering released a cover of Slowdive's song "When the Sun Hits" on their collection release called Accessories.
Director Gregg Araki is a huge Slowdive fan, using their music in many of his films. Splendor includes the song "Shine". "Alison" is played in The Doom Generation and "Blue Skied an' Clear" is played during the closing credits. "Golden Hair" is played during the opening credits of Mysterious Skin and "Dagger" and "Catch the Breeze" are also played in the film. In the same movie, the character of Avalyn Freisen, played by Mary-Lynn Rajskub, is named after the song "Avalyn I". "Avalyn II" is played during the opening credits of the film Nowhere.
Discography
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Studio albums
Compilations
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EPs & singles
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References
Bibliography
Notes
- ^ a b Watson (2005a), p. 2
- ^ a b c d e f Kellman, Andy. "Slowdive biography". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=SLOWDIVE&sql=11:h9foxqe5ldje~T1. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ a b c d e f g Buckley, Peter (November 2003). The Rough Guide To Rock (3rd ed.). Rough Guides. p. 956. ISBN 1843531054.
- ^ a b NME staff. "Slowdive biography". NME. http://www.nme.com/artists/slowdive. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ Kellman, Andy. "The Charlottes biography". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:kjfyxq8gldke~T1. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ a b c Watson (2005a), p. 4
- ^ Kellman, Andy. "Morningrise review". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kcfexq9jldse. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ a b Kellman, Andy. "Holding Our Breath review". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hvfqxqrkldke. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ Allmusic staff. "Shoegaze". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=77:2680. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ a b Watson (2005a), p. 6
- ^ a b Watson (2005b), p.2
- ^ a b c d e Watson (2005b), p. 4
- ^ Gourlay, Dom (2009-04-23). "Shoegaze Week: DiS talks to Simon Scott about his time in Slowdive". Drowned in Sound. http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136609. Retrieved 2009-08-23.
- ^ a b c Gourlay, Dom (2009-04-22). "Shoegaze Week: DiS meets Neil Halstead". Drowned in Sound. http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136653-shoegaze-week--dis-meets-neil-halstead. Retrieved 2009-08-23.
- ^ Tudor, Alexander (2009-04-23). "Shoegaze Week: Slowdive: "ecstasy without the clubbing"". Drowned in Sound. http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136640-shoegaze-week--slowdive--ecstasy-without-the-clubbing. Retrieved 2009-08-23.
- ^ a b Watson (2005b), p. 6
- ^ a b Watson (2005c), p. 2
- ^ http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2009/09/navigare/
External links
