What happened to LUSH?

Lush matters so much more to me than Slowdive. Sorry everyone else who likes shoegazer.

(and high-five Masonic Boom)

::high five back::

They were one of those bands that I did actually see quite a bit back in the day - they made a habit of slogging through second tier markets in the States to actually play loads of gigs in a way that so many workshy shoegazers just didn't. Saw them on some hideously inappropriate bills, though - supporting Janes Addiction (at the cusp of their jock-rock success), on Lollapollooza...

I know this is probably HERESY to some, but I really just wanna see them get in there and remaster or remix Spooky and take off all the Robin Guthrie over-processing and put the rough edges back in.

Actually, I think Lush was on the second Lollapalooza with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Ministry. I don't think of Jane's as jock-rock. They would have been a pretty good match-up for Lush, considering how jangly they both are.

1991
Location: North America

Main Stage: Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Living Colour, Ice-T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes, Fishbone, Emergency Broadcast Network

1992
Location: North America

Main Stage: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Lush

They were two different tours. They toured as the support act with Janes Addiction during the Ritual de lo Habitual tour - just as "Been Caught Stealin'" was breaking on MTV and that gig was CHOCK A BLOCK full of horrible horrible jock-rock types. I was right up front for Lush as I loved them, and kept getting beer poured on my head by awful idiots who kept just shouting SHOW US YR TITS through the whole set. I wanted to cry.

The music might well have been really compatible, but the crowds were SO not.

Then Lollapolooza was the year after that. You have to admire Lush for getting back up and going back into that kind of scene after the treatment that they got on that JA tour.

It always seemed like they got so "*wow*" when they got produced into this big noise under RGuth, and it took until "Split" for them to get confident enough to appear as "themselves"

...and by the time they were confident enough to appear as the spikey pop band they'd always been, people were all "WTF is this Britpop shit, we want Cocteausaur Jr back!" :-/

can't win, can you?

Mind you, the "shit britpop" album is probably the one I still listen on the most regular basis. I mean, Ladykillers, 500, Single Girl - I eat that stuff up. With a spoon.

19 years later, I am still all about "De-Luxe"

20 years dude. 20 fuckin years.

Yeah, we had that nice 7" single in the clear plastic. (and the CD singles! Pudding! and, um the next track!)

Need to dig it out again for our Alice.

I bought Gala in 1991, so it's 19 for me.

Oh my goodness Spotify - I've never *heard* Topolino, thank you for bringing that to my attention!

My Italian stepmother told me that Topolino "means little mouse in Rome and Turin"... it was the only Lush album I could find in Toronto for a long time!

"And I wish I lived in a different universe, one where Lush had survived and been rediscovered and lionised the way excreble bands like Slowdive eventually did in the critical evaluation of shoegaze. :-("
obviously I disagree with your view of Slowdive, but I also disagree that Lush are underappreciated. Not by anyone I know, anyway; they're ranked right up there.

Gala was the third CD I ever bought (Gish by Smashing Pumpkins was #1 & She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star was #2. I remember when Spin or Alternative Press ran a two-page spread ad for the Lush/Ride tour in '91. It said "LUSH" really big on on side & "RIDE" on the other. I wanted to go to that SOOO BAD, but I was 13 & there was no way..

Topolino = Mickey Mouse innit?

Agree totally about much said here re sheen vs edges, in fact "Bitter" off Gala is often my favourite Lush track of them all. Quite fond of the "shit britpop" too, yes.

Shit, i'm going to have to have a Lush fest tonight.

Topolino = Fiat 500 = the car that the lovesong/single "500" was about

http://carsandbikesindia.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/olf500.jpg

Oh my mum had a light blue one of those.

Did not know it had a name.

But of course they're the one band that *can't* reform, and never will, so we'll never see that.

Isn't this exactly what we say before each and every reformation that we never in a million years think will happen, but then people stopped buying music and bands need $$$ and they reform and the rest is history?

I said that on account of the deadness of a certain integral member rather than anything else.

Other amazing b side = Cat's Chorus.

Yes, I know, but since when has a dead band member prevented any reunions that *really* had to happen?

xpost

I don't think there's Led Zeppelin-sized cash interest enough to make it happen, you know?

"Untogether" has been stuck in my head ever since this thread popped up on site new answers.

I remember when Spin or Alternative Press ran a two-page spread ad for the Lush/Ride tour in '91. It said "LUSH" really big on on side & "RIDE" on the other. I wanted to go to that SOOO BAD, but I was 13 & there was no way..

Hate to make you jealous but...

Knew the car was Topolino, but thought explaining the little mouse line from 500 would be intrsting.

http://new.assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/4017/lush_1270066354_crop_550x450.jpg

http://thequietus.com/articles/04017-lush-interview-mad-love-20th-anniversary

So have they thought of reforming? Giving it another go? Berenyi says: "Funnily enough, some guy at All Tomorrow’s Parties offered for us to do gigs playing Spooky. We got quite excited, but then he came back to us and said he had listened to the album and realised he never really liked Lush so he’d changed his mind about the gigs. Call me petulant, but that kind of flaky cuntishness puts me off wanting to return to the music business."

Liked the story, but if ham-fisted attempts at Britpop were such a major deal-killer for prominence in the 'gaze pantheon, Ride would have nowhere near the critical legacy they do. TBH the idea of Britishers not rating Lush among other like bands is news to me. As I've generally experienced, the yank version of the same story has them (rightfully) ranked alongside Ride & Slowdive as A-list players (just under MBV obv).

History has vindicated Swervedriver, leaving The Pale Saints & The Telescopes as the true unsung heroes of the genre.

btw atp dude, if u are out there somewhere: you are the fucking worst

^^^

If My Bloody Valentine’s experimental but calculated aural sculptures are Jackson Pollock or Damien Hirst

They sound like a noted abstract expressionist or maybe a twat who put a shark in a box.

Bassist Phil King (ex-Felt & currently in the Jesus & Mary Chain)

wot.

no mention of Union Jackson ?

cracking article .. time to go a diggin' in the archives.

History has vindicated Swervedriver

When?

Why? How?

But Lush, yes, absolutely Lush. Fuck an ATP anyway, they should reform off their own bat, do some gigs etc. There's a growing audience for 90s indie nostalgia anyway.

And the Pale Saints.

An over-defensive article based around the idea that they are validated because lots of well known people said they liked them. Should've just talked about what they meant to the writer. Then again...

Lush’s Spooky album is a bona fide masterpiece.

It's their worst imo. It might've had a chance if it wasn't buried under a thick layer of Robin Guthrie varnish. Gala is their best release, but I prefer both Split and Lovelife to Spooky.

And I don't know who is having these discussions where Chapterhouse and Echobelly(!?) are favoured over Lush, but anyway.

i also think spooky is their worst but it's far from a bad record.

surely no fucker really favours echobelly

leaving The Pale Saints & The Telescopes as the true unsung heroes of the genre.

Never really dug The Telescopes much beyond the first singles, but Pale Saints grow in my affections with every year that passes (and I loved them at the time anyway). I know a lot of people dismiss the post-Masters stuff, but some of Slow Buildings is fucking amazing.

some of Slow Buildings is fucking amazing.

Eh, I felt the "Fine Friend" single pretty much summed up that period.

Saying some of slow buildings is amazing is most not otm statement ever.

it's not the horrific disaster some make it out to be, unlike say rachel goswell's solo material

it's not the horrific disaster some make it out to be, unlike say rachel goswell's solo material

Yahhh! That's so true, I couldn't believe how bad Rachel's solo stuff was!!

Meanwhile, by chance, my latest Not Just the Ticket entry...

Good work Ned - I only saw Lush a couple of times a bit earlier in their career, but Spotify has enabled a fair bit of retrospective listening recently. I've some photos from a gig at the Manchester Boardwalk in 1990 that I'll try to scan and upload soon (in the process of moving house currently so everything's packed up, but will get on it once settled).

i know the production on spooky gets a bad rap, but imo if there was ever a band built to withstand (nay, prosper) from guthrie's sugary winterblast it was lush circa '92

argh end parenthesis after from

Yeah, I often found the production on their previous stuff was a little thin, which is not an accusation that could be levelled at RG's maximalistic approach.