Screamfeeder + Midget + Butcher Birds @ The Troubadour

Even at the time, 1996 was one of the best years of my life: my PhD was beginning to take shape but was in a worry free stage, still years away from having to write up a thesis, living in an amazing share house with great friends, a beautiful hot summer, a feast of football on the TV every night, the amazing night of jumping up and down of the sofa watching this, the Saturday afternoon barbeque a few days later and the place erupting when this happened, followed by the mandatory trip to the park straight after for a jumpers-for-goalposts drunken kick-around, my weekly lustful date with Anna, the amazing Phoenix 1996 line-up, a line-up so good that if you put it on in 2009 it would still be better than most of this year’s festivals, and of course Reading 1996, when for the first 60 seconds of ‘I Wanna Be Adored‘ everything in the world was perfect. 

Of course not everything was perfect; everything apart from those first 60 seconds of the Stone Rose’s Reading performance, for example, and there was of course the dastardly Britpop Pavlovian experiment, where in the combined efforts of the UK music and mainstream press, Chris Evans and Radio 1 were engaged in a war of attrition against the British public, convinced that if they wrote about and played enough Cast and Ocean Colour Scene they would be accepted amongst the upper pantheons of British musical culture.  Sadly far too many were convinced of their and other Britpop also-rans’ greatness and many still are, even to this very day. 

Obviously until a few years ago Screamfeeder meant nothing to me.  So tonight I find myself at The Troubadour for the launch of their re-mastered/deluxe edition of their apparent classic 1996 album ‘Kitten Licks‘, an album which of course means nothing to me and I’ve never even heard, and a ‘Don’t Look Back‘-style run-through of the whole album. 

It’s a slightly strange feeling; feeding off other people’s version of 1996 nostalgia.   Strange and yet it seems so natural and is so easy when there’s such a noticeable and infectious mood of happy reminiscence to less complicated and happier days.  You can’t help but be caught up in it.  Even though ‘Kitten Licks’ is not the soundtrack to my 1996, it has such classic indie rock, hook-laden songs that it just sounds like it should have been or could have been; in a lot of ways it has an eerie sense of a long-forgotten but happy memory. And it would have made the perfect soundtrack to my Summer of ’96, much preferable to being forced to endure the seemingly inescapable likes of Shed Seven and The Bluetones on TV and radio.

More photos on Flickr.

Screamfeeder

Midget

Butcher Birds

One Response to “Screamfeeder + Midget + Butcher Birds @ The Troubadour”

  1. cool write-up justin

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