Shoegazing was awesome - famously killed by NME etc with the whole "scene that celebrates itself" because members of some shoegazing bands turned out to see other shoegazing bands.
ah well....
<long boring story>
A group of us started an ill-fated, yet fun and largely terrible fanzine called Mind Your Decorum. It all sort of started by accident but it was a laugh. Because we didn't know what we were doing AT ALL, we started off with a lie/blag and managed to get an interview with Pop Will Eat Itself. Which is where we assumed it would end - we didn't even think we'd actually create a fanzine. In our stupidity, we called up the agent who we'd dealt with to sort out the interview to say "hey, thanks for sorting that out - it was great". The response was basically "... no one ever calls up to say thank you. lol" but because of that we started getting other bands that we -really- had no right to interview : Sleeper, The Charlatans, Gene, Therapy?, Ash, Catatonia, etc etc. It all got crazy a bit crazy... but anyways.... </long boring story>
i was a huge Catherine Wheel fan and i got to interview Rob and the band. I was pretty nervous as i'd met a few bands i'd liked and discovered to my horror that they were pricks. But Rob and co were amazingly fun and down to earth.
Anyways, Catherine Wheel managed to evolve all the way from Shoegazing to a more grunge-rock band and then, somewhat disappointingly, into straight up rock. Here's the progression anyways - there reamined good/great songs, but the direction changed.
The Start : rough shoegazing
First Album : shoegazing
Second Album: heavier sound
Third Album : Poppy alt/rock
Compilation of off cuts : edging more rock
Fourth Album : Rock time
The end : Rockity rock
I am STUNNED by this piece of news though :
"The Big Takeover magazine named Adam and Eve its album of the year for 1997, with Radiohead's OK Computer at #2."
Basically - i think the cut off is Chrome. The rest get a bit patchy. As a rock band they were okay-to-good, but around Chrome they were pretty awesome. RIP Catherine Wheel.
The Verve is closer to Oasis than to MBV.
pretty much - except for the first EP and , partly, album. All in the Mind could have slid onto "Isn't Anything?" - all you'd need to do is get Richard to mumble the lyrics.
