Elastica : Classic or Dud

Dud: Everything else

How long exactly should it have taken to come out with that cack- handed second album?? Considering the long history of addicts that have produced great albums despite their addiction, drugs are not a excuse. And neither is Damon. Sorry love, any sensible person would have seen the man for what he was from the beginning (namely, Satan) and stayed well away; so it's a bit difficult to feel any pangs of sympathy for relationship angst holding the album up. It just sounds whiny and self-pitying. Why didn't they just admit they were lazy?

Of course if it were a masterpiece, it might have justified all the years away. As it was, it was a collection of re-treads and noodling.

On the other hand, both albums have lots of filler. So that makes them neutral. But when you consider that Justine Frischmann is directly responsible for Damon Albarn writing "No Distance Left To Run" - one of the most painful musical atrocities ever - that puts them well into dud territory.

If you like that man-ish quality in a woman. I can barely hear M.E.S in The Menace mix of 'How He Wrote Elastic Man'.

I just think they're really... joyous. And succulent, insofar as scratchy skinnypop like this can be succulent. The evening session tracks that never got a proper studio recording/release were totally the clockwork-heaven-y music of the spheres and would OBVIOUSLY have turned them into greatestbandofalltime OBVIOUSLY etc etc. There were always so many bloops and pwtwangs and eeps and unfs layered under the records and this just made them more luscious than their contemporaries. Maybe. I dunno really but they were glorious and what I've heard of Klang isn't really but I eagerlyeagerly anticipate Justine's electropoptastical second(third?) coming.

but anyway.. ill toe the party line, first album classic, etc etc etc.

best looking band ever!

http://www.stutter.demon.co.uk/elastica/images/bw_promo.jpg

Didn't everyone think so in 1995?

the menace- one of the truly great albums of '00

Gosh.

Yeah I'd read something about that a few years back. Hey, if she's happy. Klang, her post-Elastica group mentioned above, had a good album, and then she saw the light etc.

Yeah, I think she does talks about the whole thing too, or at least she did one at a church in Perth a couple of years ago, there was always posters on the bus for guest talks at one of the more happy-clappy churches, people like her, lower league footballers, that sort of thing. Didn't go, funnily enough, figured there would be too much God and not enough music.

meanwhile Justine Frischmann got married in Boulder. Her bridesmaid Maya looks familiar.

For a second I'm all 'when did that...' and then I see it's from last year.

She looks great!

I hailed a cab for her once, when I was 18. Also she prodded me out of the way of her microphone. And then she doesn't even invite me to the wedding.

I like how "Waking Up" and "Connection" are the exact same video. It's an effective way to save money.. I kinda wish more bands would do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeJixp-zp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEfXU5Gsu0

that's the second/US-made version of Connection though, OG has toy cars and a white background IIRC

Weird! For a long train ride today from rural Pennsylvania back home to NYC, I took along Mojo's commemorative Britpop issue and read the Elastica item with rapt enthusiasm, revisiting that fantastic debut LP on my iPod in the process. Ample proof that the 90's weren't entirely crap after all.

I didn't even think "The Menace" was crap!

Mind you, that last single "The Bitch Don't Work" was certainly crap though!

The Menace was excellent, and The Bitch Don't Work was a great way to bow out.

excellent is a bit of a stretch but it's not a bad record. i think i would have a better impression of it if the 6 track EP wasn't almost entirely included on it

"How He Wrote Elastica Man" is super great.

i think i would have a better impression of it if the 6 track EP wasn't almost entirely included on it

by which i meant the remainder of the record didn't seem quite up to the same standard

yeah if I'd bought the EP I would have been mad disappointed

...with the much-later album

i don't understand how a heart is a spade

but somehow the vital connection is made.

Donna Matthews: wld siesta in her Ford Fiesta.

Stutter, still amazing

http://www.stutter.demon.co.uk/elastica/images/bw_promo.jpg

Was there ever a better looking band?

http://www.spinmag.com/gallery/spins-where-are-they-now?page=1

Was there ever a better looking band?

Sorry, generally too indie-androgynous for my tastes. Second from right is certainly doable though.

debut re-issued next year.

in the meantime..

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/mar/14/justine-frischmann-elastica-interview-volta-art-fair?CMP=fb_gu

Oh, goodie! I liked their cover of 'No More Heroes'! :P

Justine Frischmann ‏@thefrisch
Brett liked making me eat citrus fruits. I told him, "Don't feed me a lime, boy".

Justin Welch's Facebook has pictures of the whole band (minus JF) at Abbey Road this week. Probably just a remastering job thought I guess....

Even Donna? I suppose she's come to more peace with her past.

I re-listened to the first LP the other night and I still think it holds up, even if one can detect the Wire and Stranglers, uh, "influences"

Oh sure, but then I liked the 2nd album, after a fashion..

http://www.vanyaland.com/2017/01/21/they-hadnt-seen-each-other-for-20yrs-elastica-are-back-in-the-studio/

Wow, Donna's looking really well!

I thought Donna was a nun?

In fact, both Donna and Justin look really well, really healthy. Annie, on the other hand...

So, I'm listening to The Menace again for the first time in more years than I'd care to count, and... it hasn't aged very well, has it? A couple of the tracks sound good to me ('My Sex', which sadly isn't a cover of the Ultravox classic even if it nicks the chord progression and feel) but on the whole I think the lukewarm reviews it got were OTM. The debut still sounds lemon fresh and packed full of great material and performances, but this album sounds like an anti-drugs advert.

I never thought it was as bad as people said at the time, but I'm fully prepared to accept that it wasn't as good as it should have been.

The EP they released shortly before The Menace is far, far superior IMO.

This one - https://www.discogs.com/Elastica-6-Track-EP/master/91191

At the time I thought it was weird that they included Donna material on the album after she left the band long before the release. Seemed like an admission of (good) material shortage

Wasn't most of that ep on the album?

And they missed out "Bar bar bar" which was silly of them.

Elastica were one of the few Britpop bands I liked at the time and still do. Probably because they were much more punk influenced than most of them I suppose. But I've never actually heard the Menace. I saw them live a couple of times around that time so I have heard some of the songs, and I think I've listened to the 6 track EP once but years ago.

I liked the demolish one on there. Funny how it's very like "Kidney Bingos" tunewise..

The album had inferior rerecorded versions of several of the EP tracks.

Think I could put together a pretty decent second LP by combining the EP, some session tracks from 96 and perhaps one or two tracks from The Menace

Whole EP is up here for anyone feeling in the mood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzssCSvI5Jc&list=PLUo1lRxNwvLUa-0k0ZS9tE4glTw9AjhbL

I revisited the debut today and it still very much sounds like one of the better of the '90s British guitar pop stuff... as much as I like The Great Escape, Elastica is a far better record. Yes, you can detect the influences here and there but so what? They had great influences.

As for The Menace, I could see what Justine was trying to do - bring in more electronics, go further down the post-punk route, but the material isn't as good and it doesn't sound like their hearts are in it... the constant touring of the first record, the smack addictions, the Donna and Justin thing, the pressure to follow up the debut, the line up changes and indecision... it all had a negative effect on the band and they may as well have knocked it on the head, to be honest because it would have been a miracle if the second album had been any good.

What made it worse, and this often gets forgotten as the popularity of British guitar music would start to surge again as a new wave of bands came along, but by 2001 it was too late as a lot of Elastica's '90s British guitar music peers had either split or were perceived as being on the slide.

Damon's heart was in Gorillaz and not Blur and Think Tank would not have been made if he hadn't felt obligated to do so. Pulp's We Love Life didn't generate any huge hits and their greatest hits would chart poorly. Suede were fumbling through the making of A New Morning with a newly sober but still not with it Brett Anderson and would soon split. Supergrass still retained their audience but their chart success had long faded. Oasis were down to two original members and had slid in popularity immensely. The Verve had split, The Boo Radleys had split. Ash were doing well, though.

https://i.imgur.com/IvjHvUn.png

Justine with Liam, 1995

nah Swing Out Sister innit

https://michaelputland.com/swing-out-sister-1992/

haha what a bizarre revive

A breakout, you could say.

I just learned that Justine appears on Pete Townshend's "White City" outtake "Night School," and the video, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WMOnfiu40k

Apparently she was boarding school roommates with Pete's daughter?