C86 (music)

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C86 is the name of a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine New Musical Express (NME) in 1986, and later the name of a musical subgenre. Almost a term of abuse on release, and criticised for its associations with tweeness and underachievement many now argue that it was a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK.<ref> Stanley, Bob Sleevenotes to CD86 </ref>

1 The C86 Cassette
2 The C86 Genre
- 2.1 Influences
- 2.2 Today
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
- 5.1 Articles and books
- 5.2 External Links

[edit] The C86 Cassette

The C86 Cassette Sleeve. It was designed by former NME Art Editor; Joe Ewart

The tape was a belated follow up to C81, a more diverse collection of new bands, released by NME in 1981 in conjunction with the label Rough Trade. C86 was similarly designed to reflect the new music scene of the time and compiled by NME writers; Roy Carr, Neil Jones and Adrian Thrills who licenced tracks from labels such as Creation, Pink, and Ron Johnson. Readers had to pay for the tape via mail order although an LP was subsequently released on Rough Trade in 1987. This was the 23rd NME tape although its catalogue number was NME022, C81 had been dubbed COPY001. The rest of the tapes were compilations promoting labels' back catalogues and dedicated to R&B, Northern Soul, Jazz or Reggae. C86 was followed up with, of all things, a Billie Holiday compilation; Holiday Romance.<ref> I Love Everything Forum http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=2077178 </ref>

The C86 tape, despite its subsequent association with a genre of the same name, had a much harder punkier shambling sound featuring early tracks from as many as 5 bands from the Ron Johnson label; The Shrubs, A Witness, Stump, bIG fLAME and The Mackenzies. Their loud quirkiness was completely at odds with the Byrdsy guitars and fey melodies of what came to be known as 'C86' bands. NME promoted it in conjunction with London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, who staged a week of gigs in July 1986 which featured most of the acts on the compilation.

[edit] Follow Ups

In 1996 NME continued the tradition of compiling a new band album (this time a CD) by releasing C96. Yet this time it had little impact and has been almost forgotten.<ref>Tim Footman, Tangents blog, 2002, http://www.tangents.co.uk/tangents/main/2002/dec/c96.html </ref>

To mark the 20th anniversary of the tape, a download-only compilation, C06, of contemporary bands inspired by those on the original C86 cassette was put together by the indie-mp3 site in July 2006 and a retrospective inspired by C86 (though biased more towards indiepop), named CD86<ref> Press Release, CD86 Myspace Profile, http://www.myspace.com/cd86sanctuaryrecords </ref>, was released by Sanctuary Records in Oct 2006. In the same month the ICA hosted "C86 - Still Doing It For Fun"<ref> ICA website, C86 - Still Doing It For Fun, Oct 2006, http://www.ica.org.uk/?lid=12257 </ref>, an exhibition and 2 nights of gigs celebrating the rise of British Independent music.

A documentary film marking the period; Hungry Beat; is in production directed by Bob Stanley and Paul Kelly.<ref> Tangents blog; Hungry Beat, The Sun Is Shining, July 27 2006, http://unpopular.typepad.com/unpopular/2006/07/hungry_beat_the.html </ref>

[edit] Legacy

Ex NME staffer; Andrew Collins summed up C86 by dubbing it "the most indie thing to have ever existed".<ref> Andrew Collins, Wan Love, Indie RIP; Word Magazine, October 2006</ref> Bob Stanley; a Melody Maker journalist in the late 1980s and band member of Saint Etienne similarly claimed in a 2006 interview <ref>Bob Stanley, Uncut Magazine, Feb 2006</ref> that C86 represented the "beginning of indie music...It's hard to remember how underground guitar music and fanzines were in the mid 80s; DIY ethics and any residual punk attitudes were in isolated pockets around the country and the C86 comp and gigs brought them together in an explosion of new groups". Martin Whitehead, who ran the Subway label in the late 80s (whose first release was from The Shop Assistants) confirms this view <ref> Hann, Michael Fey City Rollers http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1325674,00.html</ref> believing it to have had a political influence. "Before C86, women could only be eye-candy in a band, I think C86 changed that - there were women promoting gigs, writing fanzines and running labels".

Some writers however regret the influence the tape had over the music scene of the time and subsequently. Everett True, a writer for NME in 1986 <ref>Everett True, Plan B blog http://planbmag.com/blogs/staff/2005/07/22/friday-22-july/</ref> called it "unrepresentative of its times (as opposed to the brilliant C81 comp) and even unrepresentative of the small narrow strata of music it thought it was representing." Alastair Fitchett, editor of the long running music site Tangents goes further, despite being a fan of many of the bands on the tape.<ref> Alastair Fitchett, C86, Tangents, http://www.tangents.co.uk/tangents/main/2002/nov/c86.html </ref> "(The NME) laid the foundations for the desolate wastelands of what we came to know by that vile term 'Indie'. What more reason do you need to hate it ?"

[edit] Tracklisting

The full tracklisting for the C86 compilation was:

[edit] Side one

Primal Scream - Velocity Girl
The Mighty Lemon Drops - Happy Head
The Soup Dragons - Pleasantly Surprised
The Wolfhounds - Feeling So Strange Again
The Bodines - Therese
Mighty Mighty - Law
Stump - Buffalo
Bogshed - Run To The Temple
A Witness - Sharpened Sticks
The Pastels - Breaking Lines
Age of Chance - From Now On, This Will Be Your God

[edit] Side two

The Shop Assistants - It's Up To You
Close Lobsters - Firestation Towers
Miaow - Sport Most Royal
Half Man Half Biscuit - I Hate Nerys Hughes ( From The Heart )
The Servants - Transparent
The Mackenzies - Big Jim (There's no pubs in Heaven)
bIG fLAME - New Way (Quick Wash And Brush Up With Liberation Theology)
Fuzzbox - Console Me
McCarthy - Celestial City
The Shrubs - Bullfighter's Bones
The Wedding Present - This Boy Can Wait

[edit] The C86 Genre

Over time C86 became a shorthand for a movement within the British indie scene, often derided for its twee or "cuteness", jangly guitars and the bowl haircuts of its singers and male fans. Many of the bands now referred to as being 'C86' were left off the compilation, such as The June Brides and Biff Bang Pow!. Some later became associated with the sound but had yet to emerge such as Talulah Gosh, Razorcuts or the BMX Bandits who in 1990 released an album called C86. The entire Sarah Records roster was dogged with associations with C86 although the label's first release wasn't until 1987.

The link between the genre and the C86 tape is often disputed by journalists and bands on the tape. Everett True has argued that "C86 didn't actually exist as a sound, or style. I find it weird, bordering on surreal, that people are starting to use it as a description again"<ref>Everett True, Plan B Magazine Blog, July 2005 http://planbmag.com/blogs/staff/2005/07/22/friday-22-july/</ref>. Geoff Taylor from Age of Chance agreed. "We never considered ourselves part of any scene.I’m not sure that the public at large did either, to be honest We were just an independent band around at that same time as the others."<ref> Taylor, Geoff, interview, ireallylovemusic vs Age of Chance, http://www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk/interviews/irlm_vs_aoc.html </ref>. Bob Stanley acknowledges that participants at the time reacted against lazy labelling but insists they shared an approach; "Of course the "scene", like any scene, barely existed. Like squabbling Marxist factions, groups who had much in common built up petty rivalries. The June Brides and the Jasmine Minks were the biggest names at Alan McGee's Living Room Club and couldn't stand the sight of each other. Only when the Jesus and Mary Chain exploded and stole their two headed crown did they realise they were basically soulmates." <ref> Stanley, Bob Sleevenotes to CD86 </ref> Nicky Wire remembers that it was the bands' very independence that gave the scene coherence; "People were doing everything themselves: making their own records, doing the artwork, gluing the sleeves together, releasing them and sending them out, writing fanzines because the music press lost interest really quickly."<ref> Wire, Nicky The Birth of Uncool, The Guardian, Oct 25 2006, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1930836,00.html</ref>

[edit] Influences

In his book Time Travel, pop historian Jon Savage traced the origins of C86 and Twee pop to the Velvet Underground's eponymous third album. Simon Reynolds talking about the political/cultural aspect of the scene referred to a "revolt into childhood". Perhaps a more obvious influence was the pop side of post punk rock: bands such as The Television Personalities, the Swell Maps and Dolly Mixture. C86 was also rooted in the Scottish post-punk bands of the early 1980s on the independent Postcard label: Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, The Fire Engines and Josef K (although those bands soul/funk/disco influences were usually forgotten). Other influences were the DIY punk ethic represented by fanzines from the period such as The Legend!, Are you Scared to get Happy? and Hungry Beat! who often featured flexis of bands who then became associated with C86. The movement continued to hold sway into the 1990s with many of the riot grrl bands citing C86 as an influence and finally reached a commercial peak with the success of Belle and Sebastian.

[edit] Today

In 2004 the Rough Trade Shops compilation Indiepop Vol 1 effectively documented the history of the sound acknowledging that it pre- and post-dated 1986. Labels such as Matinee, Siesta and websites like Indiepages, Twee.net and Indie-MP3: Keeping C86 Alive continue to be influenced by the C86/Indiepop sound. As well as releasing or showcasing tracks from new bands, they have reissued and repackaged much of the material produced at the time. British clubs such as How Does it Feel to be Loved <ref> Hann, Michael Fey City Rollers http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1325674,00.html</ref> continue to air tracks from the tape and is dedicated to indiepop from 20 years ago and today. Its, however Sweden where the sound has most taken hold with a raft of labels and new bands claiming C86 and Sarah records as their inspiration. <ref> Rogers, Jude Stockholm Syndrome http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1872154,00.html </ref>

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Articles and books

Bladh, Krister Everything went Pop!, C86 and more, A wave and its rise and wake (pdf) 2005
Cavanagh, David The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize (Virgin Books, 2000) ISBN 1852277750
Fitchett, Alastair, C86 (Tangents Blog, July 25 2005)
Hann, Michael Fey City Rollers (The Guardian, 13th October 2004)
Pearce, Kevin A Different Story; The Ballad of the June Brides(Tangents, March 2001)
Reynolds, Simon Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 0571215696
Stanley, Bob, Where were you in C86? (The Times October 20 2006)
True, Everett C86 Q&A(Plan B Blog July 22 2005)
Wire, Nicky The Birth of Uncool(The Guardian, Oct 25 2006)