Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

Product Information

Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? by Nige Tassell - Waterstones

Post Punk is where the action was when the generation of youth who had their minds scorched by Punk started to apply their own interpretation to music and culture.It’s really interesting to see the challenges and problems that each band had before, during and after C86, some complain of too much freedom, others of too much control, some sought mainstream, pop success, others were happy to remain obscure. According Martin Whitehead, who ran Subway (an indie record label) in the late 1980s: “Before C86, women could only be eye-candy in a band; I think C86 changed that – there were women promoting gigs, writing fanzines and running labels”.

C86 and All That: The Birth of Indie, 1983-86 - Goodreads

The joint venture was a success regardless of the variety of styles, selling 30,000 copies, encouraging NME to invest in more compilation cassettes in the future. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. There is a ‘there but for the grace of God’ poignancy to the tales of the lives and lifestyles of the band members that Tassell has sought out in compiling this labour of love.However, the book is well written, has a deeply personal touch via interviews with as many members as the author could find.

nige tassell - whatever happened to the c86 kids? an indie

I was a teenager when I sent off for the C86 tape and instantly fell in love with all the diverse groups, spent every penny I had on the records.The similarity between the titles of 14 Iced Bears’ and JAMC’s tracks isn’t likely intentional, but it’s eerily telling: again, the specter of introversion—of masking one’s mumbling sweetness behind sheets of lacerating, pseudo-psychedelic treble—is raised, and loudly. C86 was a tactic devised to reinvigorate interest in the indie scene, taking attention away from the burgeoning rap game. In the interests of fairness I should point out that I make a brief cameo in the Bodine's chapter - and that's obviously the best bit of a brilliant book. The retro thing even by-passed punk: the guitar thing harked back to the Byrds and Velvet Underground.

C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

On the other end of the gentleness spectrum, Meat Whiplash’s “Here It Comes” is Cure-indebted goth with a Metal Machine Music fetish, a bizarre formula that nonetheless feels as much like proto-shoegaze as anything on the 4AD roster in 1986.Based on primary source material – including scores of forgotten fanzines -it also draws in the views of many of the key players, opening a window on a period that, with its parallels, resonates strongly today. Still, they sounded just as sprightly and glorious as they had several decades earlier, even if they now needed to take fistfuls of painkillers afterwards to ward off the effects of a four-hour rehearsal.