Rocks In The Attic #153: Stereophonics - ‘Performance And Cocktails’ (1999)

I’m never been a huge fan of this band. I loved this album - and most of its singles - when it came out, but then fame and success seemed to do something to the band, and all of a sudden they started doing really lame stuff like singing Handbags And Gladrags on talk shows, sat moodily on stools.

In other words, they sold out. Their first album set themselves up as a rock band in the vein of early Manic Street Preachers; then this album, their second, pushed them over into the mainstream - mainly because of the five Top-20 singles that were pulled from the album. Unfortunately Performance And Cocktails follows the usual trend that record companies employ - stack all the singles on side one, and stick all the filler on the flip-side.

I don’t think they were even on my radar until I saw them performing Just Looking on TFI Friday. Not a bad song, I thought. I then caught their music video for The Bartender And The Thief, and I was impressed. That song in particular speaks to the rocker in me.

I’m always sceptical about music videos and the role they play in music these days, but the videos they made to promote this album are well worth a watch. The Bartender And The Thief pays homage to the Suzie Q / entertaining the troops scene of Apocalypse Now, Pick A Part That’s New parodies The Italian Job, I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio does the same for Easy Rider and Hurry Up And Wait takes inspiration from M*A*S*H.

I regret not seeing the band in their prime, supporting Aerosmith in 1999 at Wembley (I went to my first Glastonbury festival instead). I did catch them in New Zealand a few years ago, at the Powerstation - a tiny venue compared to the sort of places they would play in the UK. They might not have played Handbags And Gladrags, and they might have been dressed in leather jackets, but they still played a few too many of their catchy, post-2000, pop singles for my liking.

Hit: Just Looking

Hidden Gem: She Takes Her Clothes Off

Rocks In The Attic #108: Manic Street Preachers - ‘Generation Terrorists’ (1992)

It’s funny how your perception changes as you get older. I used to love this album when I first heard it - strangely after I had been introduced to Indie and Britpop (as it would have made more sense to have been into this when I was a fully-fledged rocker). I used to think this was a very edgy, attitude-driven album - but it sounds a bit tame these days.

When I first got into music and all I was interested in was rock, I used to read the likes of Kerrang! and Metal Hammer and I would see mention of the Manics all the time, but I hadn’t heard anything by them. I did have a rock compilation and Motorcycle Emptiness was on it, and it’s such a slick song that it’s no wonder that I wasn’t drawn in by it.

I remember I used to be able to get free tickets to gigs at The Academy and the three Manchester University venues, through a friend of the family. Once I was given tickets to see a band - I think it was The Almighty - and for some reason the ticket I was told to use was a Manic Street Preachers ticket to a gig at the same venue that had been cancelled. The ticket had a big black mark drawn on it. It got me into the gig fine, but I later worked out that it must have been originally for a gig cancelled when Richey Edwards disappeared in 1995. Using that cancelled ticket for a gig by a different band was probably the first time that the Manics came onto my radar.

I can’t remember what turned me onto them big time - it definitely wasn’t the ‘comeback’ album, Everything Must Go, that came out a year later. I didn’t appreciate that album at the time (too Indie / Britpop for me at the time). Whatever - or whoever - it was that turned me onto them did something major. I became obsessed with the band - well, with their first three albums anyway. I did eventually start to appreciate Everything Must Go, and I was probably besotted with the band the most when This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours was released.

I used to listen to this album - their debut - repeatedly while walking into University in my third year. It made a bit of sense walking through the red light district of Huddersfield (where the Yorkshire Ripper had picked up some of his victims), listening to some of the lyrics of this album. Although I like the out-and-out rock of this album and its follow-up, Gold Against The Soul, it’s really their third album, The Holy Bible that got to me. I’d put that album into my top-5 albums back then, and it’d still be in my top-5 now.

Generation Terrorists has one major drawback - and that is its length. It’s a double album - the band initially said they’d release this, their masterpiece, headline Wembley Stadium for one night, and then split up. The album would make a killer single disc (and a heap of decent b-sides), but there’s really too many average songs towards the end.

Hit: Motorcycle Emptiness

Hidden Gem: Nat West - Barclays - Midlands - Lloyds

Rocks In The Attic #34: Manic Street Preachers - ‘Know Your Enemy’ (2001)

I’m really pissed off with the record label for ripping off Manics fans with this record. Prior to this, each of their album releases on vinyl had been fine. Here, they cram 75 minutes onto a single disc. The result: a very low-fidelity and quiet album. It’s almost unlistenable. Generation Terrorists is just as long and that’s a double-LP.

I was a big Manics fan, probably up to this album. In their day - with Richey on board - they were fantastic, but something died in the band when he disappeared, and they lost their edge. Everything Must Go is a good album considering what they had just been through, but This is My Truth Tell Me Yours is just boring. This album is a bit more up-tempo than its predecessor, but mostly crap.

Know Your Enemy came out when I used to drive over to see my good friend Paul in Todmorden all the time, so it reminds me of making that long drive all the way from my parent’s house in Oldham.

Hit: Found That Soul

Hidden Gem: Miss Europa Disco Dancer