Whatever Happened To The C86 Kids? - Nige Tassell

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE C86 KIDS? - AN INDIE ODYSSEY -

NIGE TASSELL

C30 C60 C90 - go! C86 on the radio - or on the Janice Long or John Peel show at least and, of course, in the NME who in 1986 produced a cassette tape collating into one place a selection of happening bands of that year, awarding it the title of 'C86'. Whether or not it was the intention of the NME to try and create and label a scene (as was always the wont of the music press) is beside the point as these things like a Frankenstein's monster often tend to take on a life of their own, becoming something other than what was originally envisaged or intended. 

Was C86 meant to be a celebration of independence from 'the music biz'? It certainly gave that impression even if it was all being done by smoke and mirrors. For sure, all the featured bands had only ever released anything on an independent label as opposed to a major one but for a fair few this wasn't out of any ideological stance, it was just that no major record label had ever approached them. For a fair few, having a record released on an independent label served a dual purpose: Firstly, it being the only way they were ever going to get a record released at all but secondly, serving as a potential stepping stone to a major record deal that they'd have no qualms about jumping at.

The meaning of 'independence' at this point began to get distorted, particularly when the word was shortened to simply 'indie' and began to be used as a description of a type of band - a style, an aesthetic - rather than a state of being and an attitude in the way that Crass, for example, had been doing. John Peel preferred to call them 'shambling bands', particularly in regard to Bogshed but with the weight of the music press behind it, the term 'indie' stuck.

The C86 cassette tape proved to be for the A&R departments of major record companies a godsend. Here for the princely sum of £2.95 were twenty-two newly endorsed-by-the-NME bands, already brought to the attention of the music-buying public through simply being included on the cassette tape in the first place. The featured bands were all pretty much easy pickings, a vast number of them still only teenagers with no business acumen in the slightest. 

So what could possibly go wrong?

Whatever Happened To The C86 Kids? - An Indie Odyssey by Nige Tassell is the story of those bands and of what became of them after being thrown so suddenly into the spotlight. Or rather, what became of them after being thrown to the wolves.

1986 was an interesting year when it came to music and the pop cultural wasteland it inhabited. The punk rock free-for-all was practically over and its various threads unravelling though not without leaving tidemarks, sediment and noxious smells of the kind to sniff in the vain hope of getting high on. It was also on the cusp of the Dance, House and Rave tsunami that was about to swamp everything. It was the year of the non-sexist haircut and the casually shabby. It was the year that Primal Scream - the band that most successfully straddled all these things - first came to much wider attention, essentially by their inclusion on the C86 tape with Velocity Girl, their song and ode to Edie Sedgwick.

If the shambling bands, as Peel called them, were an unspoken riposte to 'rockism' and the testosterone-fueled, boorish attitudes that came with it then Velocity Girl was the antithesis of everything rockism stood for. It also happened to be the opening track of the C86 tape, acting therefore as a kind of masthead. Ironically, however, Primal Scream were probably the worst band of all on the tape to represent any anti-rockist sentiment as they quickly morphed into would-be rock stars themselves, espousing and trying to conduct their affairs in a similar fashion to any Led Zeppelin-style rock band from the Seventies. Unfortunately for Primal Scream, their lead singer Bobby Gillespie with his lank hair, awkward dancing and rubbish hand-clapping wasn't really suited for it, looking more instead like a bus conductor from the 1970s ala the guy from On The Buses. Tickets please! Moreover, according to Tassell's book, Bobby Gillespie's middle name is Bernard, one of the most un-rock'n'roll names imaginable.

In his book, Tassell talks to Gillespie but he also talks to Primal Scream's tambourine player from their earliest incarnation who jumped ship (before being pushed) around the time of the recording of their debut album, Sonic Flower Groove. Between the two, the tambourine player sounds like he would have made for a much better rock star.

For all that, Velocity Girl was and still is a classic song as were others on the tape such as Therese, by The Bodines. So whatever happened to The Bodines? "We signed to Magnet Records - home of Roland Rat and Alvin Stardust. It was tragic." comes the reply from the guitarist.

And Stump? "We signed to Chrysalis and despite all their press officers, we got no coverage. And when the press stops, everything stops." Prior to their signing, Stump were constantly in the music press due to them knowing a lot of journalists and phoning them up all the time hassling them for interviews, a tactic for some reason Chrysalis told them to stop doing. 'Leave it to the professionals', was what Chrysalis were essentially saying but it obviously didn't work out very well.

And Age Of Chance on signing to Virgin? According to their lead vocalist "The thing with being on a major record label is that you're getting money thrown at you. It's just that it's your own money. You realise that way too late."

And so on and so forth.

It's understandable why a band would want to sign to a major record label - the main reason always seeming to be the need for support in the form of distribution and funding - and only purists and idealists would condemn a band for doing so. And besides, it seems like most independent labels operate in the same way and have exactly the same ethics as a major but just on a much smaller budget. So, there isn't actually a lot of difference between them.

The problem with many of the C86 bands signing to major labels was that 'roughness' and 'independence' was part of the bands' initial appeal. It was part of their brand, their shtick, and part of the reason why they were liked to begin with. On signing to a major they immediately lost their 'independent' guise and their music smoothed out by better production in a bid to appeal to a wider audience but in doing so the baby was being thrown out with the bathwater. Hence why so few of the bands who appeared on the C86 tape failed to cross-over into the mainstream.

There's a lesson in this, of course, and it's something to do with mountains and Mohammed, borne out by the success of Half Man Half Biscuit and We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Going To Use It who through not compromising anything both ended up having the mainstream come to them rather than them chasing the mainstream.

There were twenty-two bands that appeared on the C86 tape and there are twenty-two stories and then some within the pages of Nige Tassell's book, among them being a lot of personal stories of what became of various members of those bands. Ultimately, it's the personal aspects of these stories that makes the book so engaging. These are stories of what Warhol called '15 minutes of fame' but followed then by a lifetime of obscurity. These are stories of those who went on to success in other fields of work and activity, stories of those who returned to their bedrooms to continue making music and who have been there ever since, and there are stories of those who have now passed away.

And then, woven in between all of these stories is the story of the author himself tracking down the bands and their individual members, how he goes about it and where he ends up. All in all it's a veritable odyssey but an odyssey of an unexpected kind. The author himself calls it an 'indie odyssey' but actually it's slightly more than just that. It's a looking back at a time in his life that obviously meant something not only to himself but to all the other participants be they individuals within the bands or within the audience. It's a coming to terms with that period and a coming to an understanding of what it was all about. It is an indie odyssey but it's also very much an unpretentious, heartwarming spiritual one.

John Serpico