The other day in the Uncut office, we were examining an old copy of the Creation comp, “Doing It For The Kids”, from 1988. It provided a reminder of what “indie” used to be: often skewed, a little fey, self-consciously adversarial to the rock mainstream. But nestling among the excellent trac...
The other day in the Uncut office, we were examining an old copy of the Creation comp, “Doing It For The Kids”, from 1988. It provided a reminder of what “indie” used to be: often skewed, a little fey, self-consciously adversarial to the rock mainstream. But nestling among the excellent tracks was a song which heralded a new wave of ultra-ambitious indie bands, keen to aim for a bigger stage.
That song was the glowering “Christine” by The House Of Love and fortunately, it still sounds hugely impressive today. The House Of Love, though, never became quite as big as they initially promised, thanks to the feuding and excessive characters at the heart of the band, frontman Guy Chadwick and guitarist Terry Bickers.
Amazingly, the pair reunited in 2005 for a rueful and uncommonly fine album, “Days Run Away”. I imagine, though, that their Saturday night Latitude slot at the Uncut Arena will be heavily weighted in favour of those intense, tremulous anthems from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
Altogether now: “Sh-sh-sh-shine on!”