IMS_Blog

I’ve googled that word and it seems he’s just coined it (in a truly humerus universe it would have return just one result, to get close to being a sort of Googlewhack, a Googlewhackblat, but Google indexes the blog’s feed too…) He uses it to describe a night watching the Inspiral Carpets play live. In context it obviously means nostalgia for the sound coming out of the “Madchester” scene of the eighties/nineties (no, don’t ask me about the exact differences between all these arbitrary musical labels). I quite liked the word—though maybe manstalgia would be better, and it’s possibly a little restrictive in its period. It did remind me of something I was thinking about the other day (inspired by a conversation in a pub which had reminded me of something else I’d said to someone earlier). It must be a some sort of sign of age when all the bands of one’s misspent youth are reforming/reappearing/suddenly touring (to be clear I’m not just thinking Madchester here—basically anything which could have been dropped in the SU when I was there; so add Britpop, grunge and a million other labels). Or am I just noticing more?

I suppose this thought process began with James (strangely enough I don’t think it really occurred when I saw The Charlatans—so maybe it is increasing). Heck, Echo & The Bunnymen played an open air gig thing in Newcastle/Gateshead a couple of months ago (though I was in Nottingham at the time). While some bands never really left, simply faded from their former glory (I suppose the most notable example of that would be Oasis), and just keep on going (and as if to emphasise this entire point, there’s a tenth anniversary (!) edition of the Foo Fighters’ The Color and the Shape out ahead of their new album), it does seem that others keep popping back up. Shed Seven (of all people) are doing a one off “greatest hits” tour. Kula Shaker [sound warning] have a new album, having vanished before we were even in the naughties. And not that I knew this until I started writing this entry, but it seems like The House of Love are sort of around again.

Okay, that does it…on writing about The House of Love I turned to other fairly obscure bands I don’t expect people to know. Turns out Buffalo Tom actually have a new album. I give up. Need to go listen to music now.