| My Bloody Valentine | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | Dublin, Ireland |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock Shoegazing Post-punk Noise pop Dream pop |
| Years active | 1984–1995, 2007-present |
| Label(s) | Creation Sire |
| Members | |
| Kevin Shields Bilinda Butcher Debbie Googe Colm O'Ciosoig |
|
| Former members | |
| Dave Conway Tina (last name unknown) |
|
My Bloody Valentine are an alternative rock band formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1984 and predominately based in London. The founding members were guitarist/singer Kevin Shields and drummer Colm O'Ciosoig. The band's lineup during their heyday also included singer-guitarist Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe. The band's use of guitar distortion, tremolo, and digital reverb placed them as part of the shoegazing movement. Their 1991 album Loveless took two years to make, but once released it was critically acclaimed. Since Loveless My Bloody Valentine became inactive and Shields scrapped albums worth of follow-up material.
Contents |
History
Early history
O'Ciosoig and Shields met in the late 1970s as teenagers when they both answered advertisements placed by another musician. The two joined the band in question, The Complex, and soon discovered they shared an interest in punk rock. The pair quickly became friends and played in many bands around Dublin over the next six months, including a band with Liam Ó Maonlaí, later the lead singer for Hothouse Flowers. Toward the end of 1983, Shields and O'Ciosoig formed their own band along with Dave Conway, known as Burning Peacocks. The band was filled out by various members and split up and reformed on several occasions during 1984. Also during this period, Conway was traveling through Europe and, on the strength of the band's home recordings and the contacts he made on these travels, had managed to book the band a concert in Holland. The three recruited Conway's then-girlfriend Tina to play keyboards; adopted Conway's suggested name based on the Canadian horror movie of the same name, My Bloody Valentine, for the concert; and then moved to Holland. They stayed in Holland for three months before a dearth of opportunities and a lack of correct documentation meant they had to leave. The band then moved to Berlin, where they recorded the mini-LP This Is Your Bloody Valentine for Dossier Records. The record failed to have the expected impact, and, after four months, the band left Berlin, returning to Holland briefly before settling in London around the middle of 1985.
Settling in London
After a period when My Bloody Valentine members lost contact with each other as they looked for places to stay, the band regrouped and decided to audition bass players. The band lacked a regular bassist and Conway's girlfriend had decided to leave the band, not feeling confident in her abilities as a keyboard player. Having been given the telephone number of a bass player in London, Debbie Googe, they invited her to audition, and, ultimately, to join the band, fitting in rehearsals around her day job. At this point the band were rehearsing at Salem Studios, which was connected to the record label Fever Records. Impressed by what they heard, Fever agreed to release an EP. On the strength of this, Googe left her job, and the EP, titled Geek! was released in December 1985. The band soon began to play on the London gig circuit, but the record failed to make as much of an impact as the band had hoped. With the band's slow progress, Shields contemplated moving back to New York, where some of his family were living. However, Joe Foster, an associate of Creation Records, had decided to set up his own label, Kaleidoscope Records, and persuaded the group to record for him. The EP, The New Record by My Bloody Valentine, was the result, released in early 1986. The band also began to step up their live appearances, developing a small following and venturing outside London for gigs. The band's next record was Sunny Sundae Smile, an EP released in February 1987 by Lazy Records, which also managed The Primitives. The label had been interested in My Bloody Valentine for a while, and the band turned to them this time due to Foster's indifference. The band then spent a few months performing in London and managed to secure a support slot with the Soup Dragons. During the shows with the Soup Dragons, Conway announced his decision to leave the band; he had been ill for a while and felt he was not reaching his potential with the band. Conway has since pursued a career as a writer.
Conway departs; Butcher joins
Conway's departure left the band without a vocalist, a situation they decided to remedy by placing advertisements in the music press. This process proved torturous, Shields noting, "It was pretty dangerous, I made the mistake of mentioning The Smiths because we liked their melodies, the whole thing was disastrous and excruciating, you should have seen some of the fruitballs we got." The band eventually turned to recommendations and experimented with having two vocalists: Bilinda Butcher and a male vocalist named Joe. It soon became apparent that Joe was unsuited to the band, and Shields took on second vocalist duties alongside Butcher; he noted she "sounded all right and she could sing one of our songs which sounded fine, we just had to show her how to play guitar." Under pressure from Lazy Records to produce an album, the band compromised, citing the need for time to stabilize their line-up. The band agreed to record an EP followed by a mini LP. The EP, Strawberry Wine, consisted of three tracks and was released in August 1987. The mini-LP, titled Ecstasy, followed soon after. The EP has been described as "certainly the better of the two releases." Ecstasy has been criticized as showing "a group who appeared to have run out of money halfway through recording," which was indeed the case. Ecstasy also suffered from production difficulties, as Shields described errors in mastering the recordings. These hardships were not surprising as the band were paying for the recording. The deal with Lazy was that they do the promotion, the band pay for the recording. Nonetheless, the tracks 'Strawberry Wine' and '(Please) Lose Yourself In Me' were their own versions of 'C86', carried by Butcher's backing vocals.
Creation Records
The band was approached by Creation Records and, upon being told "not to worry about anything, just do it," they signed, entered the recording studios, and emerged eight months later with the EP You Made Me Realise, which was the band's breakthrough release and was voted 6th in John Peel's Festive 50 and 2nd in Melody Maker's editors' poll for 1988. The group followed with the EP Feed Me with Your Kiss and the LP Isn't Anything (1988). The multi-layered guitar sound developed by My Bloody Valentine became a major influence on a number of new bands who the British music press grouped together under the shoegazing label. Around this time, Shields said in an interview with Melody Maker that he really liked Suzanne Vega. The follow-up LP Loveless (1991), the best known LP of their career, is generally considered representative of their sound: a distinct blend of warped, effects ridden guitar sounds and ambience. This time the main vocal duties were taken by Bilinda Butcher. In 1999 Pitchfork Media declared Loveless to be the greatest album of the 1990s;[1] in their 2003 revision of the list it moved only to number two, swapping places with Radiohead's OK Computer.[2] Shields also has been described by Alan McGee as "a genius artist. A visionary.",[3] while an NME review of Loveless declared, "...however decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect."[4] In late 2006, Mike McGonigal, founder of Chemical Imbalance fanzine, wrote a book on Loveless for Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series.
Post-Creation
After leaving Creation Records in 1992 and signing with Island Records, the band has not produced another release, and their latest recorded song made available for release was a cover of "Map Ref. 41N 93W" by Wire, appearing on Whore: Tribute to Wire in 1995. Rumors spread among fans of albums being recorded and then shelved. Debbie Googe left the band to form Snowpony. Colm O'Ciosoig eventually left and recorded an album with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star. Shields collaborated sporadically with other artists, most notably Experimental Audio Research, Curve, Dinosaur Jr, Sugar, The Civilians, Gemma Hayes and Primal Scream. He claimed in an autumn 2003 NPR interview that Island Records had stopped financing My Bloody Valentine after they had spent half a million pounds of Island's money.
Reunion
In an interview in the January/February 2007 issue of Magnet, Shields claimed that My Bloody Valentine will record another album "100%" . . . "unless we die or something...".[5] In a 30 minute interview made on Monday, Nov. 12 as part of the second season of Soft Focus (www.VBS.tv musician interview series hosted by fellow musical artist Ian Svenonius), he spoke, albeit briefly, about the band’s return to the studio and how a new record is due sometime before the end of this year. "...We were making a record in the 90s, around when the band broke up in 1995… and I continued with Bilinda. We kinda made... we made most of an album… It’s going to be this ‘96/‘97 record half-finished record finished, and then a compilation of stuff we did before that in 1993–94, and a little bit of new stuff. I pretty much know what the one that’s going to come out this year is going to sound like because its already pretty much 3/4’s done already…it sounds like what we sounded like – different but not radically different. People will go, yeah, it sounds like My Bloody Valentine...".[6] In August 2007, internet rumors claimed that the band were negotiating a performance at the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival or were planning a world tour. Vinita Joshi, Kevin Shield's manager, said that "there are no confirmed shows at all."[7][8][9] On November 15th 2007, My Bloody Valentine announced three upcoming live gigs in the UK for 2008. On Friday 20th June they will play at The Roundhouse in London, on Saturday 28th June they play the Apollo in Manchester, and on Wednesday 2nd July they will play at Barrowlands in Glasgow. [10] The shows sold out respectively in under 1 minute, 6 and 15 minutes and, as a consequence of this, the band added two further London shows at the Roundhouse on Saturday 21th and Sunday 22nd of June, as well as an extra date in Manchester and an extra date in Glasgow. As of November 19, 2007, a fourth London show is scheduled of 23 of June, due to the other two dates selling out as well. A full US tour is expected to follow. According to the festival's website [1], they are also confirmed as part of the 2008 edition of Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, which will be held in Spain, between july 17th and 20th. While Shields claims a My Bloody Valentine album is due later this year, he gives no indication of exactly when or how it will be released. When the group split up in 1995 they had already left Creation Records and signed a legendarily ill-fated deal with Island, but it is unlikely that the contract remains in effect after all this time. The band recently activated mybloodyvalentine.co.uk and Shields’ manager confirmed the the site is being built by Debbie Googe, the band’s bass player. It was rumored that the album would see an independent, internet-only release. This was later denied by the band's management, citing the band's feelings that digital downloads are inferior to other media.
Discography
Albums
- Isn't Anything - November 1988, Creation Records
- Loveless - 4 November 1991, Creation Records - #24 (UK)
EPs
- This Is Your Bloody Valentine - January 1985, Tycoon records
- Geek! - December 1985, Fever
- The New Record by My Bloody Valentine - September 1986, Kaleidoscope Sound
- Sunny Sundae Smile - February 1987, Lazy records
- Strawberry Wine - August 1987, Lazy records
- Ecstasy - November 1987, Lazy records
- You Made Me Realise - August 1988, Creation records
- Feed Me with Your Kiss - November 1988, Creation records
- Glider - April 1990 UK #41, Creation records
- Tremolo - February 1991 UK #29, Creation records
Compilations
- Ecstasy and Wine - November 1989, Lazy Records (Compilation of Strawberry Wine and Ecstasy EPs)
Singles
| Year | Title | U.S. Modern Rock |
|---|---|---|
| 1991 | "Only Shallow" | 27 |
References
- ^ Pitchfork Media Top 100 Albums of the 1990s at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
- ^ Top 100 Albums of the 1990s Redux (2003). Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Paul, Lester. "I lost it", The Guardian, March 12, 2004.
- ^ Fadele, Dele. "Loveless review", NME, November 11, 1991.
- ^ Kevin Shields: MBV Will "100%" Make Another Album. Retrieved on January 16, 2007.
- ^ Cohen, Jonathon. "Shields Confirms My Bloody Valentine Reunion". Billboard, 07 November 2007. Retrieved on 08 November 2007.
- ^ Believe It or Not: My Bloody Valentine reuniting for Coachella 2008?. Retrieved on August 28, 2007.
- ^ My Bloody Valentine Reunion Likely!!!!. Retrieved on August 30, 2007.
- ^ My Bloody Valentine reunion? Amen!. Retrieved on August 30, 2007.
- ^ http://www.mybloodyvalentine.co.uk. Retrieved on 15 November 2007.
- Brown, Nick. "My Bloody Valentine" Spiral Scratch, February 1991.
External links
- Official website
- The Daily Swarm November 06, 2007 New Album & 2008 Tour Article - Contains a link to the "Soft Focus" interview recently posted online
- Torben Sangild: Noise - Three Musical Gestures - Academic article with analysis of My Bloody Valentine's "introvert" music
- My Bloody Valentine at Discogs
- My Bloody Valentine discography at MusicBrainz
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Bilinda Butcher · Debbie Googe · Colm O'Ciosoig · Kevin Shields | |
| Albums | Isn't Anything · Loveless |
| EPs | This Is Your Bloody Valentine · Geek! · The New Record by My Bloody Valentine · Sunny Sundae Smile · Strawberry Wine · Ecstasy · You Made Me Realise · Feed Me with Your Kiss · Glider · Tremolo |
| Compilations | Ecstasy and Wine |
| Labels | Creation Records · Island Records · Sire Records |
| Related articles | Shoegazing |
