Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

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In 1986 I was the tender age of 15 & had zero knowledge of the C86 cassette, but by ‘87 I started really getting into the independent music scene & became aware of the term C86. As detailed in the book it referred to a certain type of music; jangly guitars, played almost exclusively by young white males with bad haircuts. I think it was meant to be an insult, but I absolutely loved these bands & as a result was aware of the musical artefact they had appeared on. I think I still own records (up in the loft) of at least half the bands mentioned. Therefore, the book remains a real treat for indie music fans, whether you lived through the 80s and wanted to revisit it, just for a little while, or you’re from a younger generation and want to read about how it all began. That is why there is still an appetite for documentaries about Factory Records, for example. So, despite the increasing challenges for musicians across the country, it is lovely to see the legacy – and enduring appetite – for early indie music is still going strong, and it is books like this that help keeps that spirit alive. To conclude… One by one they agreed to be interviewed. Invariably, they would ask who else had confirmed. If, say, members of the Pastels or Age of Chance or the Mighty Lemon Drops were on board, that was enough for them. Some would tender old phone numbers of their former bandmates, keen for each of these missing persons cases to be solved. In the end, no band wanted to be left out, for their story not to be told. When I secured an interview with the drummer from the 22nd and last band to respond, I punched the air in delight. Relief, too.

Very few still make a living from music and the range of jobs they now have is the result of a careers officer having several strong coffees and randomly shouting titles from a work There were, though, no sirens trying to lure me to my death through song. The nearest I came was when sitting in on the first rehearsal since pre-pandemic times of the Birmingham five-piece Mighty Mighty, reconvened to play to an audience of just me. But five follicly challenged men on, or just over, the brink of turning 60 do not seductive sirens make. 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. I published my previous book (Document & Eyewitness: An Intimate History of Rough Trade ) through a mainstream publishing house, but I’ m going to try to crowdfund C86 & All That , as the new book is called, taking the independent ethic to its logical conclusion. I’ll keep everyone posted as to when that happens. For example, Sushil Dade, the bass player of The Soup Dragons, was a driving instructor for seven years. Among his customers were indie Glasgow musicians from bands such as Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits and The Pastels. In fact, it is thanks to Duglas T. Stewart from Teenage Fanclub for Sushil’s current career as a radio producer for the BBC. However, he hasn’t left music completely, as for years he had a side project named Future Pilot AKA. And he wasn’t the only member of The Soup Dragons to find a fulfilling career out of band life. Ross Sinclair became a professor of art and a multi-award-winning artist.

There’s quite a lot of regret over terrible decisions taken and opportunities missed. Quite a bit of wry, self-deprecating humour. A few, though happily not too many, premature deaths. A wide range of (mostly fairly middle class) post-band careers. A few low-key reformations. A lot of ‘I still make music but just for myself now.’ Some entertaining detective work from the author. Hann, Michael (14 June 2011). "NME releases a cassette that codifies music". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 October 2014. In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born. Cherry Red's 2014 expanded reissue was marked by an NME C86 show on 14 June 2014 at Venue 229, London W1; acts from the original compilation included The Wedding Present, David Westlake of The Servants, The Wolfhounds and A Witness. [28] By 1986, however, the politics of the magazine had changed dramatically. C86 was used as a weapon not only in the civil war within the paper, in but in the war between it and other music magazines. There was heavy competition around this time between music publications, with four weekly music mags competing for sales, each trying to pique reader interest by writing about new bands and trends. C86 aimed to create a new genre for NME to profit off, hoping to generate attention by ‘discovering’ and promoting a new genre. In achieving this purpose, the tape was a success. To this day, C86 is recognised as its own legitimate subgenre on RateYourMusic.com. But C86 was also used as a pawn in the so-called ‘Hip-Hop Wars’ going on in NME in the 1980s, a schism between fans of hip hop and guitar music enthusiasts. C86 was a tactic devised to reinvigorate interest in the indie scene, taking attention away from the burgeoning rap game. It was designed to be, as Ex-NME staffer Andrew Collins put it, “the most indie thing ever to have existed”. “The most indie thing that ever existed”

In 1986, along with many other dedicated NME readers, I sent off for their latest cassette compilation. I had them all. Every one. Didn't matter what the genre, I was all in. This one, C86, went on to define an era and probably marks the moment "indie" music was born. The independent chart had been going for some time but indie the genre ultimately became synonymous with white guitar pop. For some bands, the tape was the springboard for an illustrious music career. However, for others, it became the bane of their existence, leading them to lose their passion for their respective bands and acted a sign that they should change careers. With the book’s band-by-band structure, you get to read about a wide array of viewpoints on C86 – but most of those who have contributed to the book look upon it fondly. Alternatively, through their silence, those who refused to talk about C86 most likely view the whole thing differently. Where are they now? There really is something for everyone in this book, whether you’re looking for new music to discover, entertaining interviews about lives well-lived or info on where all of the good pubs are. This book really has it all. Thanks for reading!

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Finally it looks like the definitive C86 will be released with nearly all the bands that made up the underground scene in the mid eighties in the UK included on a key release. The legendary C86 is to be expanded into a double CD and released on Cherry Red in spring 2014 with extensive notes and a book from NME writer at the time and key player and compiler with the original C86 release, Neil Taylor, who is interviewed here for LTW. Michael Hann (14 March 2014). "C86: The myths about the NME's indie cassette debunked". The Guardian . Retrieved 2015-06-11. Indie music and festivals - C86 review of c86 week". Indie-mp3.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2015-09-08 . Retrieved 2015-06-11. As eclectic as C86 is, by no means does it try to encompass the entire British indie scene circa 1986. As Taylor recounts in his liner notes, “The aim […] was to take an aural snapshot of the moment. Were these acts representative of the state of a certain kind of indie music at that time? Very much so. Was C86 intended to be the be-all and end-all of independent music at that time? Of course not”. In fact, some bands refused to be included, fearing it would lead to being pigeonholed—like the June Brides, one of the major players in the admittedly loose-knit scene that C86 gathered together. That’s been rectified by the reissue, with the June Brides’ horn-punched, Burt Bacharach-like gem “Just the Same” serving as the first song on the box set’s first bonus disc. And some bands that were surely nowhere near being seriously considered in the first place— such as Happy Mondays, whose undercooked “Freaky Dancin’” is a minor skirmish of the dancefloor havoc they’d go on to wreak— serve more as a historical curiosity than a corrected omission.

Reynolds, Simon Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 0-571-21569-6 The C86 name was a play on the labelling and length of blank compact cassette, commonly C60, C90 and C120, combined with 1986. Neil Taylor co-compiled C86 and is the author of Document & Eyewitness: An Intimate History Of Rough Trade. Since the 1990s he has worked in publishing. One common complaint which seems to afflict most of these acts, was how unhappy they were with the choice of song they put on the compilation. Most insist that they thought it would be more along the lines of C81, which was released to celebrate five years of the Rough Trade label and the wider Independent music scene in the UK in general. So most of the bands approached it with low-expectations, believing that this set-up would be along the same lines in terms of audience and impact. But of course hindsight is always 20/20 and no one was to know just how significant and popular the tape would become.This is a very sympathetic account and is both a snapshot in time and an account of what happens after giving up on music. It's a wonderful, life reaffirming exploration of C86's surprisingly wide-reaching legacy. The book casts an eye over a period when indie was a passion not a brand, and places its rise firmly in the context of the turbulent political times. 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. There was an upside as well as a downside,” concludes Stephen McRobbie, of the Pastels. “There’s no doubt that it helped us to reach a larger audience. We probably benefited. But it became more of a signifier than any of us imagined … ” 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. We really get a broad range of personalities too, those who remain proud of their contribution and others who wish to distance themselves from it and are determined not to be defined by it.

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. ( June 2015) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) The line between C86’s jangly, dreamy representatives and its more distortion-smothered counterparts is blurred by bands like 14 Iced Bears. An oddity both then and now, the group’s song featured here, “Inside”, alchemically combines droning noise, hushed melancholy, and a nearly nauseating aura of discordance that presages My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything by two years (a time when MBV themselves had barely begun to absorb the influence of C86). But 14 Iced Bears aren’t the only group on the box set that prophesied shoegaze: “Go Ahead, Cry” by 14 Iced Bears’ Sarah Records labelmate, St. Christopher,is underlain with an atmospheric smear of static that might as well be a wormhole to the next three decades of noise-pop. Then this year Sam Knees excellent book A Scene Between came out, collecting together indie photos throughout the 1980s. Looking at some of the shots was like watching the BFI films that Mitchell & Kenyon found from the start of last century: the images portrayed were a lost world. And in those photos people seemed to be having such fun. Again, it is a myth that the music and the people at the time were miserable. It was the biggest blast ever. Maybe I blame The Smith, or maybe I blame those journalist s who find the period hard to tag and end up labelling it the ‘era of bad music’.You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.