Perhaps.
I am not feeling too chatty tonight. That, or I'm simply not as deeply familiar with the band at hand tonight, or full of a wealth of useless nuggets as I am for other bands. But who says every post has to be my blathering?
Everything's Alright Forever is just a great, GREAT out of print record by a band that quickly escaped this classic sound just as the backlash started. When the UK press beat down the 'gazers, the Boos put out Giant Steps - a record that sounds like Britpop played by shoegazers, with a bit of the classic Rough Trade dubby catalog mixed in.
Giant Steps receives all the critical accolades, but this record is better. And the dynamics are utterly amazing - you can HEAR the volume swells.
Incidentally, I have an unused ticket (number 001) from November 1992 for the cancelled Sugar/Boo Radleys gig that was to be held at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I ran the college's live music committee, I booked Sugar who were bringing along the Boos as support (they were both on Creation in the UK), and then the Colorado voters passed a hateful anti-gay-rights constitutional amendment that forced Bob Mould to cancel all Sugar gigs in the state. So the interview for the college paper I conducted with singer Sice that fall, which was never published due to the gig cancellation, remains unpublished. It was on micro-cassette and I no longer have the cassette, or a micro-cassette player even if I did have the tape, so his musings are forever lost to history. A damn shame because it was a great interview!
Regardless, I never got to see the Boos live so I hope they were as good as the record is!
THE BOO RADLEYS Everything's Alright Forever
(1992 Creation Records CRECD 120)
01 Spaniard
02 Towards The Light
03 Losing It (Song for Abigail)
04 Memory Babe
05 Skyscraper
06 I Feel Nothing
07 Room At The Top
08 Does This Hurt?
09 Sparrow
10 Smile Fades Fast
11 Firesky
12 Song For The Morning To Sing
13 Lazy Day
14 Paradise
one file! grab it here!
"Regardless, I never got to see the Boos live so I hope they were as good as the record is!"
ReplyDeleteThey were!, a lot scrappier live as you may imagine but we had great times following them around in 91/92. Taped a fair few gigs also. Tock.
Will have to respectfully disagree. While I do quite like Everything's Alright Forever, I think Giant Steps is the superior album. The band manage to tackle a wide range of styles without coming off too pale in the process. It's their London Calling.
ReplyDeleteI really love this band, they're one of my
ReplyDeleteall-time favourites and their music
brings back sweet memories.
I never had the chance to see them live in concert, but should they ever re-unite ...
Brilliant- haven't listened to this in years. A shame about the CO shows- would have been incredible to see the Boos at CC...
ReplyDeleteRegards,
jb
This is an incredible album! It's art, which is so very rare to find in music today! A song like "Losing It(song for Abigail)"....bands don't even record tracks like that any more! And I have to say, Giant steps is the ultimate follow up! This band was sooooo under rated! Also check out "learning to walk" a compilation of covers and B-sides.
ReplyDeletefor the record : file has been deleted.
ReplyDeletemy favorite track from them is lazarus, a song which i still work into my dj sets to this day.