OBSCURE ALTERNATIVES #1

For as long as there has been recorded music and a music industry there have been musical artists who, despite hype and promotion, have underperformed or sank without trace. Since i began reading the (now sadly defunct) music weeklies in the early nineties there was barely a week without a new band or solo artist being excitedly talked about as "the next big thing" . Before, during a and after Britpop this went into overdrive as record companies fought to sign the next Oasis/Blur/Pulp/Stone Roses etc, acts coming and going, sometimes without a sniff of chart success. On rare occasions bands would be declared "your new favourite band" before they'd even recorded a note! (Menswe@r spring immediately to mind.) Too often, a promising new act would be signed on the strength of a couple of raved about independent singles only for their new paymasters to demand changes to their musical style to make them more marketable to a mass audience: edges smoothed off, more experimental or avant-garde leanings suppressed, shiny radio friendly production. Great ideas would be tossed aside in search of a "hit". If you were signed to an independent label, you would probably have control over your artistic vision; if it was a major label, they would expect big hits and sales to return their investment. As British guitar acts dominated the charts in the mid-nineties, loads of fair-to-middling bands were given record deals with high expectations: Northern Uproar, Menswe@r, Heavy Stereo, Powder, These Animal Men and countless more. The upside to all this interest in "alternative" music was that some genuinely talented and idiosyncratic acts were given the opportunity to shine: the downside was that, next to the bright lights of the headline grabbing bands of the day, they were akin to fireflies. Record company expectations often led to promising acts being snuffed out before they had any chance to fulfil that promise. Dropped by their labels, they usually split up or quit music altogether. I'm going to feature some of these acts in this occasional series. 

Formed whilst they were still in sixth form, Isabel Retes-Feeney (vocals/bass), Annie Tierney (guitar/vocals), and Lucy Clarke (drums/vocals) put out their first EP, Criminales, Coches, Pistoles Y Chicas on the independent Supremo label in the Summer of 1998 to enthusiastic reviews in the weekly music press, Record of the week on Steve Lamacqs' Radio 1 show, and plays on daytime radio courtesy of Jo Whiley and Mark Radcliffe. Their mix of poppy but punky guitars, manga and comic book culture references saw them feature on Jo Whileys tv series, and support act slots with alt giants Sonic Youth, Manic Street Preachers and Fun Lovin' Criminals, Ash and Idlewild. They were soon offered a deal by DreamWorks, After a headline tour of their own they were invited to play at the NME Awards shows in early '99. Another EP appeared in the Spring, Little Monkeys With Lots Of Money, and later they had their biggest audience yet at the Reading Festival, before setting off to Philadelphia to record their first album. Royal Trux were to produce the tentatively titled Chicks Do Philly. They returned to Dublin to record some more tracks, but DreamWorks weren't happy with the results and sat on the album. In 2000 Chicks asked to be let go, and the rights to the recordings reverted to the band. They split up, the members going to college and playing in other bands in the following years. Chicks Do Philly was lost for a few years but finally saw a release in 2008, but only in Singapore on Rambutan Records. It's a shame that they weren't able to reach their full potential; their collected recordings are on a YouTube channel, and the album tracks show how quickly they were growing musically. I recently got hold of their two EPs through Discogs, and their buzzsaw brevity still sounds fresh today.