Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Shoegaze Memories - Curve


The case against:

The Indie Eurythmics - mates of Dave Stewart's; singer Toni Halliday had less than credible past as big-haired pouting 'rock' wannabe; guitarist Dean Garcia as a session guitarist. Gained attention by tapping their music biz connections and got lucky by surfing the 'shoegaze' zeitgeist. Waned along with it, though continued to release records no-one bought. Inspired Garbage. Despised by NME.

The case for:

Fused big brutal hardcore beats (and sometimes even rap) with My Bloody Valentine/post-grunge/industrial noise, angsty neo-goth lyrical content and infectious melodic hooks. Frequently brilliant live (Reading 1991, Glastonbury 1992). First two (pre-LP) EPs flawless and still sought after. Made big siren noises! Inspired Garbage. Despised by NME.

The evidence before the court:

From the Blindfold EP (1991)

Curve - 'Ten Little Girls'
Curve - 'I Speak Your Every Word'
Curve - 'No Escape From Heaven'

From the Frozen EP (1991)

Curve - 'Coast Is Clear'
Curve - 'Frozen'

The verdict 16 years on - yours.

(Official site here; fan site here; EPs compiled here).

11 comments:

  1. 'one of the great lost, kind of forgotten acts of the 90s.'

    That's what I said about them a couple of months back, and I stick by that opinion.

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  2. PS

    Check out their amazing cover of 'I Feel Love' (yup the Donna Summmer/Giorgio Moroder effort). Give me an e-mail address and I'll pass it on if you don't have it..

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  3. Have taken you up on that kind offer JC, thanks hugely.

    Am planning more Shoegaze Memories over the coming weeks.

    I know! The suspense!

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  4. HI Davy, thanks for your comment on my blog! Yours is no slouch either...some fantastic stuff I've never heard. Keep up the good work.

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  5. I agree - their cover of I Feel Love rocks out (in a heavy eye-liner kind of way). Cool band, but lost the plot.

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  6. Hey Anon, good post idea...'Cool Bands That Lost The Plot'...

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  7. count me in the FOR camp. love that shoegaze guitar sound

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  8. Kind of 'drenched' isn't it Brent? Thanks for dropping by and stay tuned - will be posting more shoegazey stuff soon...

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  9. Curve was brilliant IMO. Nobody else ever melded hard, heavy beats and shoegaze as successfully -- this was a whole new, aggressive world of sound compared to other shoegazers. I never thought they lost the plot except for parts of the Come Clean album -- they recovered later and put out some great material on the albums "Gift" and "The New Adventures of Curve."

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  10. I confess I don't know the later Curve stuff at all Ike - one thing about them though, they were always interesting weren't they? Thanks for dropping in here and trawling the post archive!!

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