"More Please In 2001": the longtime G. to the E.N.I.U.S. of Milky Wimpshake

Milky Wimpshake are another of the best bands ever, of course, even if we're less convinced than some by their most recent material. Live, they've never done less than KILL us. It's a shame we weren't penning our odes to them when "The Deviation Amplification Spiral" came out, because that is one hell of an EP for sure, and when they followed it with "Bus Route To Your Heart" (in particular, the endless pop summer that is "I Wanna Be Seen In Public With You"), we were absolutely *SOLD*. And we'd later continue to big them up (we dealt with "Popshaped" here, for example).

But back to the crates. We may have missed the first couple of records, but in our rather staid early style, we did run the rule over a couple of their cusp-of-the-century singles. So "Home Is Where The Hate Is", on Libellous Vinyl, was:

"A fairly bitter and twisted take on life from Milky Wimpshake, who are clearly feeling the frustrations of their record label going under and the lack of finance to put records out. “Home” kicks off sounding like Sportique (wahay) before turning into a jolly enough mod song which castigates various categories of people that Pete Dale doesn’t like, with feeling but without any particular direction. The flip “Itchy Feet” is similarly inspired by the drudgery of daily life in a dead-end job, but has a tad more charm and humour, which leaves me more optimistic that Pete’s alright after all, though it’d be nice to be able to put my arm round him and make sure."

I think we rather undersold that: "Itchy Feet" was re-worked only this year, very effectively, for the latest Wimpshake LP, but I'm pretty sure I always liked "Home Is Where The Hate Is", ever since I picked the 7" up in Rough Trade one Saturday, rather more than that review implies. Oh well. I certainly still like it now.

As for "Dialling Tone", on Ferric Mordant, which we had to send off for, but which was and is on any level a completely classic single:

"“Your boyfriend is a jerk / Your relationship doesn’t work”: Rendered no less anthemic or lovable by the inevitability that Pete Dale probably wrote it in two minutes flat at a bus stop – it’s irresistible Buzzcocks-inspired flair, starring not many chords and a not-may-note lead guitar line. More please in 2001. The B side, a devout rendering of “True Love Will Find You in the End” seems to have garnered more praise to date – perhaps for the way it slips seamlessly into “Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste” and then back again – but it is more an affecting diversion and tribute to Pete’s impossibly impressive musical reference points rather than what they’re are best at. On this evidence I’m not terribly sure it’s necessary for the Undertones to reform."

This last line was then quoted in a few Fortuna Pop! press blurbs (which we were obviously more than happy about, FP! being an absolute mainstay in pushing the scene forward when nobody else used to, and hopefully now reaping some reward from that), with the closing Undertones reference being replaced by one to the band we'd mentioned in the previous sentence, Buzzcocks. We suspect that Sean was rightly recognising that was actually a rather better comparison.

When we saw them at some unspecified time around then at the Dublin Castle, third on the bill below Marine Research and Spraydog:

"Much like the Hope & Anchor, the main bar of the Dublin Castle is full of pretty things on a Friday night; a few Sarah diehards cluttering up the picture with our anoraks (“I Spy Harvey Williams – ten points”) but otherwise an androgynous sheen of barely twentysomething gleaming teeth and nails. A measure of the intimidation is that even the immaculate Dickon Edwards becomes, in this company, just another face in the crowd.

Much like the Hope & Anchor, the venue is dark and broody and resents its glamorous neighbour. At nine o’clock on a Friday night it probably doesn’t deserve the power-pop of Milky Wimpshake. There are three of them and they have harnessed the energy of punk and allied it to their underground manifesto of high-art and lo-fi. They make me feel young and they play “Nightclub Voyeur Cliché” and “I Wanna Be Seen In Public With You” which are my favourites: two minute half-love songs from their incomparably bushy and bright-eyed album. They even throw in a version of Electro Hippies’ veggiecore anthem “Sheep”, much as I doubt they would have been old enough to stay up and listen to John Peel when he used to play it."

By July 2002, Marine Research were dissolved and Amelia was fronting Tender Trap at the Bull and Gate, and this time the Wimpshake had moved up a slot to main support, their place as second support taken by some outfit called the Futureheads (wonder what happened to them) who we described with our usual originality bypass as "a feisty combo - if we had to pick a fistful of adjectives, "rhythmic", "intense", "fractured", "manic" and "staccato" would fit the bill". The underrated Reverend Pike were fourth on the bill. But anyway, let's focus on MW:

"a fortuna pop! double headliner / tender trap album launch party extravaganza thing, no less, inopportunely (sound)clashing with bristol rovers f.c.'s "annual fun night" (we particularly like the way that the fun is only annual - certainly, evening matches throughout the season itself never bring anything remotely approaching joy to the fan populace). so we sacrificed the bliss of the south-west funfair for the uncertainties of the north london night on tube strike day...

the slammin' milky wimpshake, of course, are a more familiar formula. lead shaker pete dale gave a shout for solidarity with the tube strikers (rightly), albeit to a muted reception from the tory apologists in our corner of the b&g. although some of the audience were paying equal attention to the way that shambling siren amelia fletcher was dancing with evident delight to their pop nuggets, m.w. were as usual divine, as if by playing songs like "i wanna be seen in public with you" or "dialling tone" (a great way to finish) they could be anything but. new song "don't get down, get even" sparkled the more it went on, its title, at least, putting us in mind of the great ice cube:

"i never tell you to get down / it's all about coming up"

for real. every tune was a blinder - "philosophical boxing gloves", "scrabble", "weirdo", "2nd gen mc dropout", however it was "clicking it" that took us to heaven - we could feel st peter closing the pearly gates firmly behind us as mr. dale sang "i'm carrying a torch for you / i'll carry your suitcase too, if you want..."

so fret not. all in all, it proved well worth the four nightbuses and the (very) early morning walk that it took to get home."

And actually, it says here that we'd seen Milky Wimpshake at the B&G in March 2002, too: headlining, no less, this time with Reverend Pike again and the intriguing Partition on the undercard. We used the opportunity to review their new "Lovers, Not Fighters" LP at the same time (by now, Sean was rather generously sending us fine records like this for review, as if we wouldn't have torn down walls to buy them if he hadn't), and we obviously felt the need to go on about the Buzzcocks again into the bargain:

"the trip home from kentish town, across the city and the thames (well, under the thames, anyway) seemed to go by in a flash. was this because london underground have finally developed the rattle-free, supersonic train ? no. it was because we passed the journey with buzzcocks, authors of so many songs both immortal and irresistible, on the walkman. now if there's one band going that could probably stake a claim to matching those hallowed tunez and halcyon days, it's m.w. - but before we consider the hypothesis further on the evidence of the album, let's detour into gig review mode.

tonight was a much younger crowd at the b&g than the last time we were here. always makes us feel kinda uncomfortable, especially at the handful of gigs we go to, like this one, where there's no sign of harvey williams...

and so to milky wimpshake. a name designed to invite the sneers of workmates when you carefully explain that you are going to a "gig" and they always insist on asking who you're going to see on the basis that they "might have heard of them". after you tell them, of course, just silence and smirking. the 'shake, of course, ambled into our particular adoring gaze with the no-fi standard "the deviancy amplification spiral", a pop! artefact deserving of the exclamation mark as no other, before announcing more considered intentions of world domination with the "bus route to your heart" album on the sadly-disparu slampt! label, chock-full of utterly unashamed and unselfconscious pop / punk songs which reacted against the leaden sludge that was bulldozing through the scene in 1997 (thanks nme).

live, it's difficult to imagine how the power-trio could ever truly disappoint, as they don't exactly rely on studio effects or multitrack trickery for their sound. instead, bassist christine and drummer grant provide the fuel, while pete, the original "fastest wide-eyed implement", sings and strums. in true showbiz style he always grins widest and raises his eyebrows highest when delivering his best lines and / or rhymes - so when he croons "your boyfriend seems so dull / he was probably born in Hull", said eyebrows almost hit the ceiling, as if a TOTP camera had just been thrust in his face. the cheeky chappie routine could only really have been enhanced by winking at the audience too - perhaps next time. they sign-off a thoroughly pleasurable trawl through new and old albums - oh, and the divine "clicking it" - with their stirring 'medley' version of "true love will find you in the end". it's a rousing, heartfelt way in which to bring the curtain down on an entertaining evening.

"lovers not fighters", apparently recorded in - gasp - the last century, builds on past office favourites like "home is where the hate is" and the recent standout 45, included here, the ferric mordant single "dialling tone". at its best, "LNF", even apart from that song, shatters any illusion that the relative age of the recordings might reveal any lack of freshness.

so, pop highlights flash before your ears from the off: they include "scrabble" (a peerless rendition of the live staple, to kickstart proceedings): "philosophical boxing gloves" (pete's j'accuse, "you use your cynicism as protection", whilst thrilled skinny frolic with the vapors behind him): "2nd generation middle class drop out" (a lithe and addictive younger brother to i ludicrous' equally disaffected "autobiography?"): "didn't we ?" (it's the morning after bubblegum splash!'s "if only", and pete has tipped last night's chord pattern onto the bed, along with a glorious sprinkling of keyboard and harmonica): "too much, too drunk" (the primitives' "thru the flowers" shambling through the haze of several percent ABV): "lemonade" (a thoroughly rewarding romp through the ace spraydog popchoon)... oh, you get the idea.

look. the infectiousness on display on such songs is on a plateau only previously reached by the likes of shelley (pete not percy bysshe), maher, devoto and diggle in their legendary one-take early recordings. it truly is right up there with the best of the er, old wave of new wave - every chord, every drum roll, every bass run seems designed to make you want to hop, skip and jump the way through your day. verily - especially with pete's "i was young in the 70s" memories - it is the soundtrack to kids with bowl haircuts racing their raleigh choppers: to parka-clad urchins scaling the municipal climbing frame with gay abandon: the thrill of hearing the ice cream van wending its way around the corner on a sunny day in the long summer holidays: even for us old people, the sound of two hearts beating wildly, on the reunion with the long distance lover or the long lost loved one.

the only times that i find myself pining for the more visceral days of pete's erstwhile indie guitar troupe razorblade smile (tunes like "it kills me inside" and the especial "special") are when the album is raided by folksy elements: a cover of phil ochs' "do what i have to" only suggests to me that ochs was a less talented songwriter than dale is, while as for "white liberal guilt", draped in cloying banjo, the nearest analogy i could make would be to recent-ish half man half biscuit (e.g. "new york skiffle"). the song is so HMHB - the resemblance positively leaps from the speakers, especially the backing vocals nr the end - that as such it becomes uncomfortably close to being a pastiche of a pastiche, which though ambitious is probably at least one step removed from the truly palatable. and christine and grant are missed on the proto-billy bragg "jack ass"(he thought that if he had an acoustic guitar, it meant that he was a protest singer...) these songs seem to have replaced the more pussycat trash-style punka toons like "bar code punk" and "electric shock" on the previous lp.

but but but. given the sort of trax that we've been a bit sniffy about, closing cut "lovers not fighters" shouldn't by rights succeed: yet in fact it gets the folk / indie crossover absolutely right (yes - "it can be done!"), coming over like the great american band x-tal but with bonus self-depreciation like only pete can do it: "wimpshake are not fighting men / the truth is we are lovers and not fighters". and with that they are gone. aaah.

so. pete is both an astute practitioner of studied social contempt and a whirlwind pop genius (his ear for a good tune and striving for a better world were never better summed up than when he sang "i love noam chomsky... and also the ramones" with such sweetness on the last album.) when the two forces combine - like good early jam, milky wimpshake are untouchable. for that, for the skillz which he has as a writer, and for the stop press news that one of our writers once stayed over at pete's place and has pronounced him a totally great bloke, you should never dismiss this band."

Staying with the Buzzcocks comparison angle, we finished the review with the following list of our favourites (we never lost that love of lists, and it would kind of overwhelm us in time). But we'd stand by this today. And yes, it *was* a tape we actually made and listened to!!

in love with these times in spite of these times springtime power-pop c60, then: side one milky wimpshake "hey! brother mine" / "clicking it" / "roll a disco" / "yeah, it's true" / "i wanna be seen in public with you" / "i love you, you weirdo" / "nightclub voyeur cliché" / "dialling tone" / "scrabble" / "philosophical boxing gloves" / "didn't we ?" / "lemonade". side two buzzcocks "breakdown" / "boredom" / "drop in the ocean " / "love battery" / "o. addict" / "what do i get ?" / "oh shit!" / "i don't mind" / "love you more" / "ever fallen in love ?" / "promises" / "fast cars" / "get on our own" / "nostalgia".

And while this piece was - of course - written in 2010, we can exclusively predict that Milky Wimpshake will play a storming set at the Wilmington Arms in June 2011, which will show (a) that they are still writing excellent newies, one of which ("Worthless Person") will grab us by the lapels and veritably yell "SINGLE!" and (b) that everyone from about halfway back - students, hipsters, scenesters, losers - are far more interested in talking loudly than listening to the band they are near-drowning out. Grrrrrr.

If I Should Die Before I See The Wake...

[photo from ltmrecordings.com]



...then there is going to be upset. "If I Should Die Before I Wake", of course, being probably Biggie's best posthumous tune, and also one of Beanie Siegel's greatest moments. Can't remember if we got round to telling you that we finally established last year exactly who killed Biggie, but we did (it was the same night we found out in an impromptu, rather "axe"-related lock-in at the Sutton Arms - the one on Carthusian Street, not the nearby but rubbish one a little further north, possibly on Great Sutton Street - that the landlord christened his daughter Iommi after his guitar hero, and then his punter mate nominated Billy Gibbons as his, and then we were forced to volunteer the view that David Gedge bossed both of them, at which point things became a bit fractious: we should really have said Pete Salowka). Anyway, on the Biggie murder thing, we'll tell you face to face who it was, but not here. We're still working on solving Pac's.

Aie. The point of this post was to mark our moping, in that we found out waaaay too late, as "in the loop" as ever, that none other than the truly very mighty Wake were playing at the London Popfest. Missing them is the most galling thing that's happened to us in years, frankly - the last time we got so upset was probably when Ronnie Maugé got his leg broken in the Gold Cup - but as we tried to pick up the pieces we remembered this, our 2002 attempt to cobble together all our warmth of feelings for the many incarnations of the group in one fell swoop. It didn't quite get there, but it's brought us back to some of our favourite Wake numbers again and hopefully it at least shows that we're serious in our admiration for them. Buy everything they've ever done.

* * * * *

"the wake "harmony and singles", "here comes everybody and singles", "holy heads", "assembly" (ltm)

you wait for years for a wake reissue, and then four come along at once. not that we're complaining - we've always rated them, the terminal unfashionability of the wake never having bothered (i mean, we got laughed out at school for liking mccarthy instead of thousand yard stare) nor even remotely surprised us: being ignored is a constant corollary of bands being ahead of their time. in alternative pop's accepted wisdom, the wake only seem to merit a couple of trite epithets - "that gloomy 80s factory band" and "that sarky band on sarah" - in fact, in the capacity of their stint on the latter, they suffered the double whammy of (a) losing credibility with factory-types ("wot no peter saville associates sleeves ?") for being on the same label as the poppyheads, golden dawn etc and (b) being spurned by many sarah recs fans (hello colette) despite contributing, in our hackneyed view, some of that label's greatest tunes and certainly lyrical moments ("carbrain" being a glowing example on both counts).

but as strangely befits a band who were always out of time, a slew of compact disc thingies are, in this palindromic yr 2002, brought to you by the artful james nice's les temps modernes label.the "harmony" set from 1982, their first album, mixes "movement"-era new order tributes like "heartburn" with proto-goth ("judas"), proto-sarah ("testament") and sterling early-80s alt-pop ("an immaculate conception"). history watchers observe - it's the second best lp that bobby gillespie (iffy bass duties) has ever played on (see ? even in having gillespie as a member, the wake were ahead of their time - the only band who never managed to capitalise on their association with the press darling).

top music journalist (remember them, nme ?) dave mccullough infamously described one-riff opener "favour" as better than new order and potential top 40, which although not his most eccentric pronouncement, must rank close - "favour" is insistent and dripping with promise, but lest we forget, new order had just unleashed "procession", arguably their best ever single. bonus tracks on the cd include a contemporaneous john peel session in which they joined the new wave obsession with "the drill" as song title - theirs being an affectionate eulogy to new order's "everything gone green" as if played by josef k - and two other singles, including their rather cute pre-factory debut, "on our honeymoon", which fair prickles with the bashful ingenuousness of a fledgling pop band.

"have you heard the good news / everybody works so hard"

next set, "here comes everybody" received a poor reception when it came out in 1985. a reception which effectively stalled the wake at the time when their star had seemed to be in the ascendant. sadly, it's not too difficult to see why, as it is an album which is horribly cleanly produced, all eight songs being drowned in unsubtle new musik-style keyboards and spluttering in their sameness - despite some obviously affecting lyrics and attractive melodies struggling to get out, the effect is of eight rather lesser versions of the preceding singles ("talk about the past" - a treasured 12" here at in love with these times in spite of these times towers and a worthy companion piece in 1984 to new order's similarly melodic, electronic and sprawling "thieves like us": and "of the matter", a much more pint-sized pseudo-pop creation - both bonus tracks on this cd reissue) messily coagulating. so "here comes everybody" itself, "world of her own" and "sail through", for example, all sound lame compared to their incarnations in radio one session form.

oddly, however, the main historical import of the album - apart from it being the soundtrack to the denouement of the wake's critical acclaim - seems to be the fact that it is a record without which the field mice circa "for keeps" simply could not have existed. in their normal prescient way, the whole album, especially the basslines later purloined by michael hiscock, sounds like mid to late period - i.e. post-peak - 'mice, or early northern picture library. "melancholy man" in particular is a frighteningly accurate premonition of field mice '91.

this cd also features four other tracks - the "something that no-one else could bring" ep - later famously referred to on their sarah records cut "joke shop" ("when we released our 4 track EP / it could not be found in the Megastore"). one is tempted to say, especially after hearing "plastic flowers", that must be because all the copies had been bought up by a young and obviously hugely impressionable bobby wratten. nevertheless, the ep - their factory recs swansong - was a real step up, leading with the swoonsome "gruesome castle" (can it really be 15 years since we first heard it, courtesy of the usual source, one j. peel, esq, of peel acres ?) on the evidence of which you can see why sarah records would have had no obvious qualms about in saving the wake from their increasingly loveless relationship with tony wilson et al.

"and he's so proud of the club, but it's just a glorified pub"

the sarah days were great days because the wake appeared to have been freed from the shackles of caring any more. and the "holyheads" cd combines the wake's third and fourth albums, both issued to critical whimper. no. 3 was the "make it loud" mini-lp: 8 tracks of offhand sniping, including "joke shop" and the commuter portrait "henry's work" ("you're the kind of person who used to be a laugh / now you're the kind who reads the daily telegraph"). no. 4, their last recorded work, was "tidal wave of hype", built upon the orchids' rhythm section and belting out to a grotesquely uninterested world great songs like "i told you so", in which caesar rails about ex-labelmate mike pickering (of quando quango non-fame and later m people notoriety, though he may also require a ceremonial kicking for introducing the happy mondays to tony w's attention) and no-one should ever even think of doing a sarah compilation tape to try and impress a beau - come on, we all have - without putting on "provincial disco": "i know everyone has to have an interest / but i draw the line at white soul". even if you then find out (s)he's a level 42 fan and that's the last time you get to walk them home, at least you've done yourself a favour in the long run. oh, and "crasher", which is adorable as its subject, er, isn't.

"of all the crashing bores i've had the pleasure to know, he takes first prize"

finally, the body of the "assembly" cd is a live set from ayr in 1983 which flames into life with the unreleased tune "recovery" and the definitive version of "uniform" (from the peel session), which respectively ooze the anger and the sadness that new order were also trying to achieve at that time. the bills the two bands shared that year must have been towering indie face-offs. the cd also includes a surprisingly poppy 1984 kid jensen session (the first three tracks of which, including a truncated first go at "talk about the past" and 2 of those songs that later got smothered by the production of "here comes everybody" are excellent): best of all though, because they didn't quite fit on "holyheads", you get the two sarah 45s. first is the impeccable sarah debut, the bittersweet duet "crush the flowers" c/w "carbrain", an adorable pop rumble which apart from anything else knowingly incorporated the previous sarah fanzine titles "cold" / "lemonade" into its wonderful lyric. the second sarah single, released between the albums that make up "holyheads", saw two musical variations on "henry's work": "major john" for once was not ahead of its time, over-optimistically celebrating the imminent departure from office of a certain prime minister (as we know from 1992, that didn't actually happen and in fact, he actually outlasted them): on the flip, "lousy pop group", whilst musically indistinguishable from the a-side, continued the sequence of music industry hate songs which the wake are, frankly, as entitled as anyone to market.

2 conclude. we would have to say that if you've ever had a soft spot for new order or the field mice, it would be a crime not to reserve one for the wake. especially when you now have, at last, the perfect opportunity."