Embed and breakfast man: Pinkshinyultrablast

Some Russian shoegaze - that's not a dirty word - from Pinkshinyultrablast. Imagine if, after Rachel Goswell had done the woo-woo on that Chapterhouse, she'd somehow become infected with that band's approach and then cross-infected Slowdive. Actually, don't imagine. Watch this instead:

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet - Shoegazing

Drowned In Sound are currently celebrating the scene that celebrated itself, with a week of Shoegazing. How can you object to an idea which allows you to embed Telescopes videos?

Today, Scot Causer explores the links between shoegazing and psyche:

Don’t believe me? Listen in to early Verve and there’s no mistaking the influence of Barrett-era Pink Floyd in their sound. I hear The Cure crystal clear in Slowdive and Curve. My Bloody Valentine, The Telescopes and Spacemen 3 are all bands who clearly took psychedelia and shoegaze beyond the realms of conventional imagination and into other dimensions. All in all, it's great music which has carried forward its influence today in a number of acts who have been breaking into the mainstream recently.

Embed and breakfast man: Moose weekend

How better to spend a late autumn weekend than by looking at some of the work of Moose, a band who should have been a lot more popular than they were but somehow managed to be eclipsed by Chapterhouse. Yes, it's more shoegaze this weekend, but superior shoegaze - and we'll dip into the more jangling, countrified stuff, too. The stuff that made Hut drop them like a hot burrito.

Let's kick off with I Wanted To See You, To See If I Wanted You:



Moose loose about the cyberhoose
Wikipedia
Unofficial official site
Last FM

Buy
Moose's entire back catalogue is cussedly out of print, so your only hope is second hand
Honey Bee
...XYZ
Reprise
Live A Little, Love A Lot

More Moose video across the weekend
Suzanne live at the Marquee
This River Will Never Run Dry
Little Bird

Quiet gets noisy

A semi-random slice of mp3age: The Hush Now - Sadie Hawkins Dance. It's Bostonian Shoegaze (the sweet joy of this end of the first decade is the way bands embrace shoegaze and don't see it as a term of abuse).

Find out more about the band (and go "oh..." a little at the photos) on their MurdochSpace.

Taking the Miki

With Rhino records releasing a compilation of British indie in the US, UnderTheRader took the excuse to track down Miki Berenyi, formerly of Lush, to catch up with what she's been doing since the band split. It's a lovely, nostalgic piece, where she rules out any chance of a permanent comeback:

UTR: Are you aware of the online Bring Miki Back/We Miss Miki campaign (www.mikiberenyi.com, www.myspace.com/mikiberenyi)? How do you respond to this?

Berenyi: I guess it’s flattering that anybody gives a shit. Not sure how enthusiastic the support would be if they realised that bringing back Miki Berenyi would deliver a 40-year-old office employee with graying hair whose still struggling to shift the weight from her last pregnancy.

... and she's a little dismissive of the Box Set, too:

I’m afraid I’m going to come out with the stock answer of anyone who’s ever been in a band and throw a tantrum about being labelled as part of a ‘scene.’ Britpop? I remember Blur hated Oasis and Oasis hated Blur. And that Blur won the battle but Oasis won the war. But then later Oasis won the battle and Blur won the war. Several people embarrassed themselves by shaking hands with Tony Blair.
I think our contribution was to stand at the sidelines (being ignored) with stunned bemusement at this desperate attempt to create an advertisable brand of Britishness that seemed to represent a minuscule stereotyped sector of the U.K.

...not to mention, of course, that Lush were - if anything - shoegazers/scene that celebrates itself rather than Britpop anyway.

It feels like it's been something of a weekend for old friends and old faces. Perhaps it's the onset of Christmas.

[via Chromewaves

Carlos D: Classics stole my shoegaze years

Carlos D out of Interpol has confessed - not that there's anything wrong with it, like - that he spent his teenage years listening to classical music rather than rock:

When I got bored of banging my head and pumping my fists as a teenager, I turned to the opposite extreme, which for me at the time was listening to classical music. I was looking for a sound that would take me away from my surroundings and transport me to places that the four or five-person rock band ensemble simply wasn't equipped to do. Because of this, and somewhat regrettably, I missed the boat on a lot of excellent 90s rock like shoegaze, Britpop, and even some grunge that I've come to adore over the years. I had immersed myself so much in the structure and history of western classical music that I was painfully ignorant about modern rock's state of affairs.

Curse you, Ludwig... I could have been listening to Feral all this time.

Now, it seems, Carlos has returned to his first love, having tired once more of rock. Which is fine, but there is a hanging question that, if you don't cant stand to eat burger and chips, is it right to be running a McDonalds franchise?