I’ve just got back from Wales Goes Pop - where I saw the lovely sight of Radhika (21 last week and daughter of one of the Soup Dragons) talking with Rachel Love of Dolly Mixture.
Our daughter was down the front for Heavenly (and grabbed a set list) - 36 years ago they headlined the first gig I put on.
(I can also claim partial responsibility for the indiepop-L mailing list, or at least for the more goth people on the 4AD list suggesting we found another place to talk Creation and Sarah)
FWIW - my personal starting point would be Orange Juice, Dolly Mixture, TVPs and Marine Girls. At least in the U.K, I think between them they invented the ‘twee’ aesthetic. Although it’s a bit retrospective, at the time didn’t really separate it out from the rockist fuzzy Mary Chain noise stuff or early Pastels like Baby Honey which wasn’t very twee at all.
i hear you - my initial draft started out with television personalities as the progenitors of it all, and i still think of your others as proto to the genre. the article was already so, so much longer than it needed to be, but could still have used a part 0 to explain that. still, i wanted to send people to the twee as fuck piece for the history rather than rehash it, and to pick a core set that embodied the k/sarah 'true' twee of the late 80s/90s (even though they weren't necessarily the foundations). i guess i failed. i'm not an expert, just a lover of the genre!
I think that’s fair - Sarah was really the point where I think it became self-consciously something, that specific subset of C86 that fans and critics think of as C86 music.
Like the difference between Velocity Girl (the song) and Pristine Christine.
I don't think the idea of calling them dark/light would have come to me, but I totally get the K/Sarah distinction that you're making!
My favorite twee bands that didn't get a mention, by era, are Cub and Blueboy for the first decade, Vivian Girls for the 00s/10s, and Paper Jam for the present day, probably?
"My Chinchilla" has been stuck in my head all week, and this piece was getting so long I had to cut the reference tying my early mention of Neko Case to Cub. Paper Jam is on my new bands long list and Vivian Girls is of course a mainstay of the second wave, if we're calling it that .. they probably deserved an entry but man was it hard to choose what to cut this all down to 😅 I'm worried next week will just end up being an alphabetized index lol
A great list of bands to explore, and a real blind spot for me. As I mentioned yesterday, my only reference point is the Juno soundtrack. But reading through this I wondered if Our Constant Concern by Mates of State would fall into the twee ecosystem. That album was different from most of what I was listening to back then, but if it had been a tape I would have worn it out. It has the sweetness, earnestness, and DIY ethic that you're describing.
I’ve just got back from Wales Goes Pop - where I saw the lovely sight of Radhika (21 last week and daughter of one of the Soup Dragons) talking with Rachel Love of Dolly Mixture.
Our daughter was down the front for Heavenly (and grabbed a set list) - 36 years ago they headlined the first gig I put on.
(I can also claim partial responsibility for the indiepop-L mailing list, or at least for the more goth people on the 4AD list suggesting we found another place to talk Creation and Sarah)
FWIW - my personal starting point would be Orange Juice, Dolly Mixture, TVPs and Marine Girls. At least in the U.K, I think between them they invented the ‘twee’ aesthetic. Although it’s a bit retrospective, at the time didn’t really separate it out from the rockist fuzzy Mary Chain noise stuff or early Pastels like Baby Honey which wasn’t very twee at all.
i hear you - my initial draft started out with television personalities as the progenitors of it all, and i still think of your others as proto to the genre. the article was already so, so much longer than it needed to be, but could still have used a part 0 to explain that. still, i wanted to send people to the twee as fuck piece for the history rather than rehash it, and to pick a core set that embodied the k/sarah 'true' twee of the late 80s/90s (even though they weren't necessarily the foundations). i guess i failed. i'm not an expert, just a lover of the genre!
I think that’s fair - Sarah was really the point where I think it became self-consciously something, that specific subset of C86 that fans and critics think of as C86 music.
Like the difference between Velocity Girl (the song) and Pristine Christine.
That's a good way to put it
I don't think the idea of calling them dark/light would have come to me, but I totally get the K/Sarah distinction that you're making!
My favorite twee bands that didn't get a mention, by era, are Cub and Blueboy for the first decade, Vivian Girls for the 00s/10s, and Paper Jam for the present day, probably?
"My Chinchilla" has been stuck in my head all week, and this piece was getting so long I had to cut the reference tying my early mention of Neko Case to Cub. Paper Jam is on my new bands long list and Vivian Girls is of course a mainstay of the second wave, if we're calling it that .. they probably deserved an entry but man was it hard to choose what to cut this all down to 😅 I'm worried next week will just end up being an alphabetized index lol
For another new band, you should check out Good Flying Birds. Talulah's Tape is maybe my favorite record from last year. Goes well with Sharp Pins.
Yes, they are great, and I always kind of wondered if the name was a reference to Talulah Gosh
A great list of bands to explore, and a real blind spot for me. As I mentioned yesterday, my only reference point is the Juno soundtrack. But reading through this I wondered if Our Constant Concern by Mates of State would fall into the twee ecosystem. That album was different from most of what I was listening to back then, but if it had been a tape I would have worn it out. It has the sweetness, earnestness, and DIY ethic that you're describing.
The Loneliers’ newer album is heavier, but they’ve got some solid twee in their catalog!