Wednesday, August 08, 2007

A Great, Lost Single #7



Bang Bang Machine 'Geek Love' (Jimmi Kidd Records, 1992)

As old-school British indie-kids (i.e. were into indie before Britpop) know, this song was No.1 in John Peel's Festive Fifty in 1992, the annual poll where Peel's listeners would vote for their song of the year.

Hailing from Evesham, Wocestershire in England's West Country, this song was their debut single. The band would go on to release two albums Eternal Happiness and Amphibian before they called it a day in 1996.

How to describe BBM? This track -and this is meant as a compliment - is a shoegazing epic with goth overtones. Even considering what a rubbish year 1992 was for music (and if you disagree, leave a message saying why!) it would be nice to think that this would have done well in the Festive Fifty in any year. John Peel said that even if they never made another record they would have achieved more than most of us do.

Bang Bang Machine -'Geek Love.' mp3

A Bang Bang Machine fan-site is here and their Wikipedia page is here. Try to buy the track if you can, on Amazon or ebay, there are no tracks available that I can see on iTunes (UK anyway).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! back from Holidays in Oregon with the kiddies and very much loving Bang Bang Machine!

However:

1) Nirvana changed the music scene in 1992 with the release of Nevermind. Rock became rock again and the punk DIY ethos came to the forefront.

2) Ash and Elastica became bands in 1992 and their music kinda rocked...

3) there is no number 3, I guess the rest kinda sucked ;)

Ed said...

Hi Juan glad you had a good holiday and are enjoying Bang Bang Machine.

I should probably clarify the comments about 1992:

Nevermind was released in September 1991, in the UK anyway, so I see it as an album from that year (famously beaten to album of the year in Spin magazine by teenage fanclub's Bandwagonesque!)

Ash and Elastica certainly rocked, but they didn't release any material that year, in the UK anyway.

And to be fair, The Cure released Wish, Curve released Doppelganger and Suede released their first two singles. But there was a lot of dross!

Anonymous said...

Your Arsenal came out in 1992, so for the Morrissey fans it was a banner year. Too bad about everyone else.

Ed said...

True, whatever Morrissey's antics on stage at Finsbury Park (very misguided, and I have been a Mozzer fan for twenty years), it was a great album. Though I personally think Vauxhall and I in 1994 was better. And sonic Youth did 'Dirty', and Curve's 'Doppelganger' and Ride's 'Going Blank Again' I suppose. On the other hand, memories of godawful covers all over the radio (in the UK, remember no internet radio then and the UK didn't have 'alternative' radio in the way that North america did), the likes of 2 Unlimited, KWS, Take That...I still shudder fifteen years on.

Anonymous said...

Ed,

Can I ask a cheeky of you?

Could you possibly email me an mp3 of 'Geek Love'?

It's for a show we're doing on the 1990s.

Cheers mate.

DC