My Life In Music Part 4:1993 - 1999

So, after a bit of a break we're back to my life in music, the self indulgent ride through time that possibly only I could get any enjoyment from. And we're up to 1993, so let's crack on with it

1993: Last Splash - The Breeders
Only God could put this band together, well, God and Kim Deal, and with their second album we see the definitive line up form to produce their definitive album. Lead single Cannonball is great, but it's the marvelous Saints and Driving on 9 that really make the album. Twin girls with guitars is always gonna do it for me, but with the catalogue to back it up, it's excellent. Only one thing was missing from the album, Tanya Donnelly, who'd left the band to do Belly, but more about her later.

Happy birthday me, I'm 21, I've got the key to the door. I spend it in Bradford before we go to London for the Sunday, forgetting there's a thing happening called the London Marathon. We can't park, and end up in Camden where signs read "Happy Hour, Heineken £2.50 a pint." I also move to the shitty Lancashire town of Barnoldswick, and the first signs of my problem with depression rears it's head when I lock myself away for days on end. On the plus side I start releasing my own comics, and meet some like minded people I'm still friends with 15 years later.

1994: Showbiz - Cud

The second major label outing for Leeds' finest and it turned out to be the one that killed them. A&M didn't know what to do with them so we get washed out Cud, chart friendly mass appeal cud. However it has Neurotica on it which is fucking aces, and the beautiful balladry of Once Again are enough to knock both Vauxhall and I and His 'n' Hers into silver and bronze positions.

My depression comes back and it's worse. I'm working in a shit pub, dealing with knobs and constantly pissed off. Along with my mates Tiff and Franky I discover Ecstasy, it helps. I rediscover Snakebite and Black which doesn't.

1995: Different Class - Pulp

And so they finally made it, after many albums on many labels by many line ups, Pulp finally hit the big time. Suddenly we are swamped with Jarvis-alikes who wouldn't have a clue. But the music is so good. And what a year to make it as we also have massive favourites from Radiohead, Belly, Elastica, Sleeper, Supergass, Moz and Blur. However Live Bed Show tips the hat to the Sheffers

Meanwhile I'm banged up at her Majesty's pleasure for 4 weeks due to Poll Tax Evasion. Thatcher had taken away the milk form the kids, the work from the Miners and my freedom for believing in a principle. Thankfully I'm not bumfucked in the potting shed, or koshed with a pool ball in a sock.

I also pack my bags and leave the North for the sights and sounds of Southsea as I bunk on a mates floor for a while and decide to stay for the next few years,but in a house, not on his floor, to clear my head and sort out my life. It kind of works

1996: Golden Mile - My Life Story

Glam pop becomes a big thing for me and MLS are one of the main exponents of it. A brilliant mix of guitars,bass and orchestra, Jake Shillingford puts on a showman's masterpiece of pomp and bluster that he manages to take to the live show. It may appear to be art school nonsense and rich kids' toys, but it's bleeding good and brings the fun back to music.

1997: Work Lovelife Miscellaneous - David Devant & His Spirit Wife / Lovesongs for Underdogs - Tanya Donnelly

No way to separate these two. DD&HSW continue in the art glam pop vein with tongue stuck so far in cheek it makes them look like the Rocky guy from Mask. Big favourites of TVs The OZone, they produced bloody good pop songs. Pity they burnt so brightly.
Miss Donnelly on the other hand was coming off the back of Belly with her solo album, and it was a mix of indie pop and rockier stuff, however the song Mysteries of the Unexplained is so haunting it stuck with me for years after the rest of the album disappeared. However, they don't have it on YouTube, so make do with this aces track Bright Lights



1998: This Is Hardcore - Pulp

The best thing they've done as a whole, and nobody got it. people were expecting another Different Class, and instead they got the dark, sleazy side of showbiz. Deliberately slower, seedier and by far better than Different Class, with fewer singles - Party Hard being the most blatant, it is their masterpiece of an album. It's seen by some as Jarvis sticking two fingers up at the world, and if it is, it's a victory because we get this




And what do you do for an encore, Jarvis?

I pack up and move back North to a flat in Bradford and a job with the Bradford and Bingley Building Society. Wonder what's happened with them, I haven't heard much recently.


1999: Much Against Everyone's Advice - Soulwax


So we round of the century and the millennium with music from Belgium. And that's surprising but this is the band that I've seen live the most, the band that I fell for seeing them supporting The Wannadies before they took on world domination in various forms. Musicians, producers, djs, remixers, tv hosts, there is little the brothers Dewale took on that they didn't succeed in, and before fucking off to be 2Many DJs they made rock pop into an art form and they did it live too. I got so many people turned on to this band that my place in Heaven is surely fixed, with St Peter chauffeuring me to my cloud come the day of reckoning.



Being late with everything I finally go to university in Sheffield. I'm ten years older than most of the people on my course, and I'm living with two hot chicks and a gay guy. But I'm gigging like a motherfucker and I'm seeing bands I'd fall in love with and others that I'd detest. It's the start of a new era but will I be blown up by the end of the year? Find out next time on My Life In Music*





*Well obviously the answer is no.

My Life In Music part 3: 1986 - 1992

So we're up to the mid 80s and taste has given up hope to be replaced by gaudy, neon bilge. On the side of cultural superiority Moonlighting has been on a year and we see Bruce Willis can act, and does comedy very well, which is a shame because he goes on to appear in Blind Date which is shit to say the least.


Myself, now in the third form was developing an eclectic taste in music as we shall see as we venture into the past that we like to call Metcalfe: the Gay Disco Years


1986: Disco - Pet Shop Boys


I was a latecomer to the PSB, around the time of release my mum and sister loved them, I wasn't too sure, but a few years later I would get a tape of Disco and it was never out of my Saisho personal tape player. At only 6 tracks it's short, and it's a remix album - NOT a compilation but interpretations of songs from Please and B-Sides. Now if you're gonna get shirty about the rules, I've put another album below for the year so be happy.

It starts in fine style with In The Night remixed by the genius Arthur Baker who was doing great things with New Order, as was Shep Pettibone who turns up on Love Comes Quickly and West End Girls, but the album is shit hot for the genius Paninaro and Opportunities, which was great in the first place, but the remix just kicks it out of orbit.

And for those of you being moody about the rules:


1986: The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths

Because no matter how hard you try you can't beat There Is A Light That Never Goes Out as the perfect pop song, and Moz gets funny with Vicar In A Tutu and the title track. Still prefer Strangeways... though.

This was the year I discovered I wasn't doing O-levels but some new fangled GCSE thing. I wasn't too impressed.

1987: Out Of The Blue - Debbie Gibson

I had a massive crush on Debbie Gibson at a time when it was De rigour to fancy Tiffany. I was always an odd one, but Gibbo seemed to have it all, she wrote and produced her own stuff, she wasn't a yank and she seemed quite attainable in the great scheme of things.

And I was convinced Shake Your Love was about wanking.

Meanwhile I was getting into Gay Disco and HiNRG music, a field where classics are ten a penny, but rarely good. With The Circus Erasure took the mantel from The Communards and Bronski Beat with catchy tunes and political-lite lyrics, but it's bloody ace and the start of my last year at school was soundtracked by these two albums at a new school as we moved to Shipley. Down to Nab Wood Grammar for me and my sister on a continental time system but there was one thing more important than claret school jumpers - I was educated with girls - 16 year old girls. Blimey!

1988: Viva Hate - Morrissey


And so Moz goes solo and produces a classic first single with Suedehead and a classic first album with Viva Hate. The bleak world view is still there, and someone started to notice a predilection with Asian culture that would later start the first claims that he had slightly racist tendencies to be blown up by the NME twice. Still, Everyday Is Like Sunday is a piece of genius and he would only better it on the next album .

It's the second summer of love and we move back home to Skipton, meaning I have to resit my fifth form, and not with sixteen year old girls. It was, to my hormonal sixteen year old self, the equivalent of being in Hiroshima the day the bomb dropped.

1989: Technique - New Order

And so New Order go to Ibiza, get fucked up and become pioneers of guitar/dance fusion long before Prodigy. The comeback album was a diamond, and the track Run2 pissed off John Denver enough to sue. Here's the relaunch single Fine Time with it's rambling on about girls with teeth to an Italio house tune

And so I start work in the rates office of the local council. Hated it but went clubbing and learnt to play crown green bowls. It was also the year I went on strike with the union. The first of several.

1990: Leggy Mambo - Cud

Along with The Wedding Present and Ooberman Cud were the pinnacle of West Yorkshire Indie before the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and The Cribs came along. Leggy Mambo was their second album, following on from the indie opera concept album When In Rome, Kill Me. This was the album that got me addicted to the band, and they were the first band I started to obsess over buying 7", 12", remixes, cassingle, CD, and every version of their stuff. Saw the tour last year in Birmingham Barfly and they were still as good a show as they were in 1990.

I've become a man. Happy 18th to me. I'm working in accounts. Boo.

1991: 30 Something -Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine

Crusty hit the world of pop, and Carter USM twat Schofield on the Smash Hits awards. I loved the word play in CUSM songs, and the political message was sometimes corrupted by the puns worthy of Whitley on Countdown. But it was a great time and a great album.

I head off to art college in Bradford and discover the glories of life drawing and 60p a pint nights at Tumblers. I also fall big time for Janet Clegg but never tell her. Tosser.

1992 - Bricks Are Heavy - L7
Barnoldswick/Colne on the Lancs border, I'm working pubs, living off yogurt and baked beans (not together and listening to indie when I discover Faith No More. I then discover L7 and I'm in love. Girls who don't look like they've washed suddenly become very attractive. Then I se them on The Word and dirty takes on a different meaning. Great album, angry as fuck and they look like they'd rip your nads off than look at you. Fan-tastic.