Moose …xyz
When you’re writing a blog that’s predominantly about music, you’ve got to pay your dues. Knowing your blog onions is essential. You can’t just start typing any half-baked thought, as there’s always someone out there who has already baked a similar thought for slightly longer.
For a band who had the radar-avoiding qualities of a submarine shaped like a bloody big fish, the blogosphere is surprisingly awash with lovers of Moose. So here is my three-quarter-baked Moose item, hopefully with a slightly different take on proceedings.
Moose were great. I loved Moose. They were guilty though, of a massive stylistic shift that alienated their original fanbase and bemused their record company. Like when Dylan went electric or when Cheggers did that naked gameshow, the expectations of their audience were cast aside, however – like Dylan but unlike Cheggers – their abilities shone through.
Both the fans and the suits thought they were getting a woozy, shoegazey, effects-laden guitar band, as showcased on their opening three singles (Jack, Cool Breeze and Reprise).
But, bolstered no doubt by a decent recording budget and the inspired appointment of Mitch Easter as producer (responsible for REM’s debut EP and first two albums), the band had greater ambitions and made a record that attempted to emulate the influences they had absorbed during their day jobs at the Record & Tape Exchange.
With echoes of Glen Campbell, the country-tinged pop of this record remains a huge joy, some 17 years after its release in 1992.
Lead single ‘Little Bird’ manages to couple an irrepressively jaunty tune to the sound of someone desperately trying and failing to extricate themselves from a doomed relationship
Oh I need so much more than you, but in your eyes it’s getting more wonderful
If you could see the things I do, you’d know that it’s all for me
I’d like to reach some distant shore, I won’t be looking over my shoulder,
Then maybe I’d have something more, something more than getting older,
Little bird, are you happy in your cage?
There’s a cover of Fred Neil’s ‘Everbody’s Talking’, done with far more grace and panache than the Beautiful South, who butchered it and left it panting on the floor, blood-soaked and barely clinging to life in 1994.
A flick through the sleeve notes shows how far they’d come from their shoegazey beginnings (early aim – ‘Husker Du playing Tim Buckley’), with flute, trumpet, piano and a string quartet all filling out the rich sound.
Of course, with old fans cast aside, a befuddled record company and a nation that was swamped with hairy men from Seattle making loud noises, a record as precious as this was always doomed to fail.
Moose were dropped by Hut almost instantaneously after the release of …xyz, but continued to plough their own interesting furrow across a further three albums.
One of the joys of the Steve Show was getting a response to records that you played that you thought other people had forgotten about. I played The Whistling Song from …xyz in the early days of the show, and was amazed by the number of emails we got from people who loved the band, hadn’t heard them on the radio for over a decade and were trying to get hold of the old records.
At the time, odd copies of …xyz were changing hands for about £35 on eBay, but the album has been recently re-released on Cherry Red Records, including a selection of tracks from their early EPs. You can buy it in shops, or on the internet. You can probably download the songs electronically. You should do at least one of those three things.
In the meantime, why not enjoy I Wanted To See You (To See If I Wanted You), the highlight from second album Honey Bee?
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