The Vaselines
July 2010ZANI - From Glasgow.
A promo landed last week that took me right back to the late 80's, the record in question was "Sex With An X" by The Vaselines. I so very nearly discarded it onto the 'I may listen if I get time' pile on title alone. Something clicked into my brain that had me thinking hey I remember this kinda grungy band from Glasgow with that name. Further investigation of the packaging soon revealed that my memory was still intact and indeed it was the same Vaselines. Spinning the album I have become energised by the rather octane nature, indeed it feels fresh and so much better than the landfill Indie cluttering up the airwaves. Eugene Kelly and Francis McKee by all accounts never set out to be serious musicians. As Eugene himself mused. The Vaselines were born out of the bored and very sick minds of Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee. They were later joined by Eugene's brother Charles on drums and James Seenan on bass. We only wanted to have some fun. We were friends of Stephan from "The Pastels" and he introduced us to Sandy McClean with whom he had set up a label "53rd & 3rd." Stephan took us under his wing and produced our first two singles as we had no studio experience whatsoever. The first single was the first time we had ever been in a studio. We were camp and pretended to be sleazy and we were very drunk. Vaselines rehearsals involved meeting in the pub and talking. James would often turn up and realise his bass was locked in a bar we used to drink in. Charlie turned up once without drum sticks and then constructed some from bamboo sticks, two nails and lots of tape. We soldiered on until 53rd & 3rd went bust. The band split the week the album was eventually released with help from Rough Trade. We were bored, had no money and sick of it. We hoped someone would get the joke. They did and we live on.
This may well have been the end of the band had one Kurt Cobain over in Seattle not been a massive fan of the band. Nirvana ended up covering three songs from the band's ill fated one and only album Dum Dum, this kind of helped fuel a growing after the fact appreciation of their seedy two and a half chord garage pop manifesto.
So we fast forward to 2006 and after a 16 year hiatus the pair took to the stage together to promote their own solo projects and played a set of Vaselines songs. Such was the reaction that the reformation gradually gathered pace with members of Belle & Sebastian making up the live band. With support from the legendary Seattle label Sub Pop, the duo along with Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle, and Sebastian on Guitar and Bass and with Michael McGaughrin from the 1990's on drums they decamped to a studio outside Manchester. The album was wrapped in thirteen days in the studio, pretty amazing if you spin the twelve tracks on the album. It may have taken the the Valselines 20 years to get round to making this slice of good old fashioned surf rock. What I love is the fact that every track sounds as if they are having fun, it exudes clean smut with a twist of bitter. There are very few acts out there now making music that's fun. It seems to me many of today's kids could do a lot worse than listen to this album and learn. For those of you who may be interested the album drops September 14th on SubPop.
© Words – Mark Thorpe/ ZANI
The Vaselines MySpace Page
The Vaselines MySpace Live Page
