More Shoegazer Exhuming: TAKING SIDES: Curve vs. Lush

I would struggle to think of a song in my Lush POX that is better than *any* song in my Curve POX. Maybe "The Childcatcher", "Single Girl", or "Sweetness and Light", but nothing else would even come close.

Despite my slight preference for Curve over Lush, the fact that Miki Berenyi is a fabulous babe simply cannot be overstated.

http://www.curve.demon.co.uk/lush/img/miki1.gif

...but so is Toni

http://www.emotionmixer.org/projects/13mutilations/images/toni.jpg/adlesstoni.jpg

Curve-wise, I like everything up to and including Cuckoo, but Doppleganger would certainly suffice as a single record of theirs to pick up.

Hard as it is for me now to believe, I can actually claim to have danced around to Happy Mondays' "Step On" with Miki once, just prior to one of Lush's gigs.

That pic up there of Toni cannot be beat, though.

With Curve, there's a much greater wealth of high quality material. However, to play a bit of devil's advocate

-- "Doppelganger" is too same-y
-- "Cuckoo" has too many progged-out moments when not much is going on as the band tries their hardest to instill "tension" in the music
-- "Come Clean" sounds very much of its time (late 90's Curve ripping off oft-hyped "electronica" ripping off Garbage ripping off early 90's Curve) and is way, way too long
-- "Gift" contains half of a great album and half of a boring one (however, that great half is FUCKING GREAT and contains two or three of the ten best songs they ever recorded)

That leaves "Pubic Fruit", which is the POO Curve album (even though it's not a "proper" album). They were a great singles and EP band, that's for sure.

bleh, what I meant was: about half of every Curve album is essential, so take 1/2 - 2/3 of each Curve album X four Curve albums

xpost

Hahahahaha....ouch!

The only pre-Curve stuff of hers I've heard is the background vox she supplied for Robert Plant's solo records back in the mid 80's.

First indie gig I went to was Lush (with Th' Faith Healers) in a tiny pub in Brighton in about Feb 1990 and they were excellent. I think I'd just seen them on Snub TV, and heard 'Leaves Me Cold' on Peel, so I went out and bought the Mad Love EP. I've still got the tracklist (which I grabbed off the stage) somewhere in my parents' house.

I never bought any of their albums, but I taped Spooky off of someone and bought a few more EPs (Sweetnesss and Light, and one from about 1993/94 that I can't remember much about). Sweetness and Light was a bit weedy sounding, but half of Spooky was excellent - the ones with the chorus guitars and the vocal harmonies (Nothing Natural, For Love, Ocean, Untogether).

I always associate Lush with the whole 1990-92 shoegaze times, and I was mystified when the suddnely turned up in the charts in the whole Britpop era. It was as if the Pale Saints had gatecrashed the top ten in 1996 doing rockabilly.

I always thought of Curve as a manufactured group. It just seemed to be a couple of old musos trying to jump on the shoegaze bandwagon. I bought one of their EPs (don't know what it was called, but there was a song that went 'die like a dog' on it) but never liked them.

See, though that's the thing -- I don't think Curve really sounded like Ride or Lush or the Pale Saints or Chapterhouse or Moose (and oof did they ever suck a sock full of cocks), yet they were constantly lumped in with the Shoegazer scene (as were Blur initially as well). I always thought Curve sounded like an intriguing middle ground between the Eurythmics and the Sisters of Mercy.

Hahaha!

say what now? did you never listen to honeybee? it's the most perfect album ever recorded. xyz is great as well, and, well, every other album they've recorded (which only totals four). i'll grant you the early singles aren't nearly as good, but next to lush or curve, moose are gods.

That might be the silliest statement I've ever read on ILM.

Whatever happened to Miki?

dayjob

I would take the "next to lush or curve" part out.

Anyway to me it's Lush by far although I've only listened to a few Curve songs.

My Lush story: circa early 1990 I was walking through Coventry when I saw an advert for a Lush gig that night at the University for like five quid. Bought a couple of tickets and headed there with a mate for what turned out to be a student ball that they were flogging off spare tickets for. So there's us in jeans and t-shirts amongst a few hundred braying studes in tuxedos and ball-gowns .. sitting at the bar Miki comes up and bums a cigarette off me, we joke about the daftness of the situation. The barman sees us talking and assuming we are tour crew or something, we get free beer for the rest of the night. Lush play a short set to a drunken crowd who spend the evening yelling 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep'!!. Surreal.

Who here, meanwhile, remembers BLEACH (the band, not the shitty Nirvana album)?

Though I have much love for both bands, I personally think Lush's early EPs have aged slightly better than Curve's. As far as debut & sophomore albums go, Doppelganger pisses all over Spooky, but Split & Cuckoo might be an even draw. Tough call, this one.

I saw each band live only once. Lush were great, but Curve completely blew me away - so they win that one.

Has anyone here heard the State of Play record? (pre-Curve Garcia and Halliday)

Would that be through a big MOOSESOCK, Alex? I really liked Moose for about 5 minutes in the Spring of 1991. I remember seeing them on Snub playing Jack (was it called Jack? The one that starts 'We almost laughed, we almost cried'), then I bought their first EP and saw them live (I think supporting Throwing Muses). The only thing that really stuck in my head about them was that they could play chords faster than anyone. Then I completely forgot about until somebody lent me an album of theirs a couple of years later which was basically country music. I didn't like it.

Who here, meanwhile, remembers BLEACH (the band, not the shitty Nirvana album)?

Yay! Got the first two EPs, saw them live a couple of times (first time supporting Ride in Oct 90). I've never heard Killing Time. By the time it came out it was all over. As somebody said further upthread by the Spring of 1992 the whole shoegaze thing had been dropped by the music press in favour of Nirvana (and even Guns 'n' Roses). I remember Bleach being derided as a group that had only got any press because Everett True fancied the singer. I remember seeing the Pale Saints and the Boo Radleys play a double-header at a half-empty Astoria - both groups seemed miserable, both had new albums (In Ribbons and Everything's Alright Forever) that were underselling, and it just felt like it was the end of the road for most of these groups. [My mood wasn't helped by the fact that the Tories had won the election everyone thought they were going to lose the night before, and when we got out of the gig we found there were no trains because the IRA had blown up The City].

Which she is.

http://www.nndb.com/people/578/000056410/miki03.jpg

No?

OK, put it like this: it's like Amanda Platell for shoegazers!

both were played extensively on australian radio and music television.

Yeah, and all those people who bought their records and paid money to go see them perform live and whatnot --- that was all payola too, wasn't it. IT'S PART OF THE GREAT SHOEGAZER ILLUMINATI CONSPIRACY ISN'T IT!!! `FESS UP, YOU'RE A MEMBER OF THE SHADOWY FREEMASON STAR CHAMBER THAT ORGANIZED IT, AREN'T YOU!!

I was also among those who thought that Cuckoo was better than Doppelganger - though neither really lived up to the early potential on Pubic Fruit.

Argh, I have promised to do a half-shoegazing (half bubblegum) DJ set for Clique Trigger and have just realised how woefully lacking in shoegazer CDs I am! I don't have any Curve in this country, and only the best of Lush CD.

Hahahaha. Good point.

Which would be an unfortunate combination, because if they're blind, how are they supposed to work out which direction the cliff's in so they can run towards it and hurl themselves off?

Yes, I agree with Tim and Kate. I usually pretend that "Pubic Fruit" was the debut album.

"Unreadable Communication" is a great slice of prog, but they tried to repeat that formula on a couple of other songs which is one reason why the album drags a bit.

I also feel that MBV are a bit overrated. I enjoyed them quite a bit at the time but they were pretty low on my list of shoegazer bands. Loveless has nice tunes, but I preferred them when they were a bit more raw, with more dynamics - i.e. "Isn't Anything". I was thinking about "Ecstasy & Wine" the other day and how I don't have the vinyl of it with me anymore. That would be kindof interesting to hear again.

Yes I remember Bleach. I still have the second EP (I think it was the second). It has a light blue sleeve with a leaf on it. I can't be arsed to dig it out and tell you the title, but it had a song called "Dipping" on it that was really good. By the time "Killing Time" came out, I'd lost interest. Kindof surprised I never saw them live, as it seems to me I saw most every other shoegazing act back in the day, either here or in Britain. Did Bleach ever even come over and do shows in the U.S.?

Don't understand the vile hatred for Moose, though it's fair to say I did lose interest in them pretty quickly. The first EP was great, the one with "Jack" ("we almost laughed/we almost cried") though I confess I no longer have it. And I still remember that one song on the third EP when they finally tried country..."This River Never Will Run Dry"? Something like that anyway, and I did quite like that one. They did a Peel session around that time that was so much better than the actual record. (Don't you bloody hate it when that happens?) But I too bought XYZ and was rather bored by it. I never looked back.

Fuck yeah it was the second one because the first one had a black sleeve with a picture of a bird's nest on it. I just remembered this! Yeah I had the first one on vinyl but not with me right now.

Re-encoding CDs to better bit rates this week and was listening to both. I love both bands dearly (for me, Lush = The Byrds - Curve = The Who).

Still have to vote Curve though.

Well this is prompting me to play some Curve again oh darn.

yeah, oh darn.

Five years on, Moose still kicks the ever-loving shit out of Curve, Lush and MBV.

I've heard this about Moose, but then I listened to them and decided it's not true.

It's so true it's Everett True.

Lush has the better melodies, but Curve hits harder. I listen to Lush the most, though.

I pick Curve because they lean closer to the dancefloor.

(btw do not think this means I am not also picking Lush because I totally am)

smelly and arsey

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