In A Special Relationship

This is the story of my relationship.

With a particular band. 

There are many artists that I’ve discovered and loved. Some of them fell by the wayside as the initial burst of life was followed by the disappointment of diminishing returns later in their career. Others succumbed to my own changing and maturing tastes and I’ve left them behind. But the best ones have generated continued adoration and satisfaction from seeing their career thrive and evolve.

Today’s piece relates to a band I found right at the start and have maintained a deep relationship with throughout their career. There’s a number of acts that this applies to, but with a fresh new album and their early recordings filtering into the comments section at the mothership:

It’s Belle and Sebastian that I’m here for.

They’re an unlikely success story.

Their formation and early days were haphazard, they were out of step with the sounds of the time and have always followed their own path and done things their way. The main driving force was Stuart Murdoch, and the fact the band came together at all is unlikely given his circumstances.

Before it started he had spent seven years living with his parents and unable to hold down a job due to chronic fatigue syndrome. He wrote songs though and got together enough impetus and respite to form a band. Who were named after a French children’s novel and subsequent cartoon adaptation. This was at the height of Britpop, but they may as well have existed in another universe The name alone marked them out as different.

I can remember where I was the first time I heard them.

In June 1996, I spent a couple of weeks in London doing work experience as part of my university course. Mark Radcliffe did the 10pm to midnight show on Radio 1. It was a great place to discover a wide range of new music as well as having an eclectic approach to programming with a number of poets and authors that were regular guests reading from their works.

Belle and Sebastian were the perfect fit for it, and so it was that listening in bed in my London hotel room heard The State I Am In, the lead track from debut album Tigermilk.

I was hooked instantly. It felt completely out of touch with what was going on in the UK music scene. Quiet, intimate, fey and with an approach to storytelling that suggests intimacy and a wry take on the struggles of life. It deals with religion, struggle, outsiders and escape, all with a confessional aspect and all themes that would become classic source material for them.

It had the extra intrigue in that Tigermilk was an ultra-limited release: only 1,000 copies were made available, its release coming about as part of the college course in music business that drummer Richard Colburn was doing. The fact that getting hold of a copy was pretty much impossible made hearing their music difficult other than being lucky enough to catch them on the radio. It would be 1999 when Tigermilk got a mass re-release that I finally heard it in full for the first time. Fortunately, they were prolific, so that first flush of interest wasn’t dissipated by being unable to hear them.

The second album, If You’re Feeling Sinister followed before the year was out, only five months after Tigermilk, and in 1997 they gave us another album’s worth of material across three EPs.

By mid ’97 I’d left university with no thought to what came next. I pitched up in Leeds, and needing a job, randomly walked into a recruitment agency who directed me to the mail room at a large corporate monolith. Any similarity to Michael J Fox and The Secret of My Success ends there.

The job didn’t exactly take much brainpower, the task of filling envelopes had the dubious title in corporate speak of ‘Hand Fulfilment’ – feel free to make your own jokes here.

We were in a windowless bunker underneath the office. If it sounds dreadful, it could have been – except for the fact that it was staffed by plenty other recent graduates, or school leavers too lazy to get themselves a proper job. Our shift was early afternoon to 10pm so on most nights we’d go straight from work to the pub, and could wallow in bed wasting away the following morning before work.

We also had a stereo which gave full voice to our collective musical tastes while we worked, or rather while we chatted the shift away while doing just enough to satisfy the needs of our employer, being on tenuous temporary contracts. It was like an extension of being at university only without the arduous assignments and having a modest income to support the after work drinks.

We all kind of fell into a collective malaise, content with our lot until one of our group broke the spell by getting a real job, after which one by one, we all faced up to real life and found permanent employment.

One of the signature sounds coming from that stereo was Belle & Sebastian. Despite being something of a niche outfit at that time there were a number of us that were fans. Nobody had a copy of Tigermilk but If You’re Feeling Sinister was on heavy rotation. It generated many discussions about what the best track was plus disagreements about the one track that polarised opinion; Judy and The Dream of Horses. I know there are fans of it here but its always been my least favourite B&S track.

Its one of those occasions where the music is intertwined with life and that period. No responsibility; the invincibility of youth; it may have been a dead end job but it didn’t matter, as each day brought the the joy of the inconsequential, nothing really mattered. The connection of those memories to the band elevates the music and deepens the bond as it carries extra emotional resonance. If You’re Feeling Sinister in particular is fixed with the golden glow of nostalgia to that time.

tnocs.com contributing author jj live at leeds

Then there’s the fact they’re a band that give an intimate family like feel. Across their career, straight from Tigermilk many of their releases include extensive sleeve notes generally written by Stuart featuring stories, essays, discourses on the band. It all helps make being a fan feel like part of a club, a community.  The sleeve artwork has evolved over time but remains in its own distinctive style and universe and its rare to see any of the band pictured within the artwork.

The prolific burst of creativity continued in ’98 with third album The Boy With The Arab Strap. Still recognisably B&S but much more confident, more ambition and coming to terms with what they were capable of. To my mind, it’s their signature album, and the title track is their signature song. Its the one that moved them from a cult concern to, well, still a cult concern… but reaching out towards the mainstream: their first album to make inroads on the charts entering at #12.

This period marked the first time I saw them live; September ’98 just before the album’s release. It was at Leeds City Varieties, an intimate old music hall that at that stage was showing signs of wear and tear. Seemed like the perfect venue for them. At this point they weren’t really a live concern, there was a definite reticence when it came to performing. Their website lists their live history and despite being more than two years from Tigermilk’s release this was still only their 23rd gig.

It was a long time ago and I don’t have a clear memory of their performance but they didn’t exactly have much stage prescence.

Other accounts from those early days of their live performances, including from band members, describe them as shambolic. The BBC Sessions album is a great document of their progression as a live act, taking in radio sessions recorded between 1996 and 2001 and a concert from 2001. Those early sessions are rough and ready, the band as work in progress is my take on them. Not without their charms but they aren’t go to versions of any of the songs.

What stood out most for me that night in Leeds was actually the support act: Elliott Smith. On his own with just an acoustic guitar. This was around the time of the XO album. I was aware of him thanks to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, and he was great. His understated and unassuming performance perfectly fitted the occasion. The memory is one of those where the elasticity of time comes to mind. Time extends and contracts, it feels a long time since that night but the realisation that its almost 20 years since his death feels wrong somehow, like, “no way can it be that long ago,” but that’s what the facts say.

The forward momentum stalled around the millennium. Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant is not a bad album but it feels more withdrawn, with less ambition and doesn’t build on The Boy With the Arab Strap. It still put them in the album charts top 10 for the first time but musically its a mis-step to me. It was even more disappointing as it had been preceded by standalone single Legal Man which put them in the singles top 20 and on Top of the Pops. A joyful summer anthem harking back to the 60s channeling the likes of The Lovin’ Spoonful. None of that exuberance was on show on the album.

After that there was the Storytelling album, nominally a soundtrack album to accompany the Todd Solondz film but the band have spoken about their frustrations with it as little of the music made the final cut. They released the album anyway but for me its the most anonymous of their records and not something I go to. Having put in the work I get that they didn’t want to waste it but within the context of the rest of their career it gets lost.

In this same period they also had line up changes with two members leaving to pursue their own projects.

One of these, Isobel Campbell, left under a cloud. Despite the label stating it was an amicable departure, the circumstances spoke of turmoil within the band. Isobel and Stuart had been an item romantically for four years but split up around 2000. Its more remarkable that she then stayed in the band so long after their breakup as for her last two years they communicated only through others rather than directly. Finally in 2002 while on tour the situation became untenable and she left going onto create some great albums of her own particularly with Mark Lanegan.

Despite, or because of the upheaval, they came out of this difficult period with a renewed sense of purpose. Dear Catastrophe Waitress was the first album with an outsider as a producer and going all out to change things up it was Trevor Horn at the controls. His polished pop smarts couldn’t have seemed much further from their home made aesthetic but it worked wonderfully. There’s the same lyrical idiosyncrasies but the sound is invigorated in comparison to the last couple of albums. As a fan from the start it was so satisfying to listen to and have the concerns that maybe it was only heading downhill alleviated.

The relationship with a band that you love goes so deep. One poor album you can maybe write off as a disappointment and move on but two in a row and I felt like I was having to convince myself this was the same band I loved and they could turn it round.

I’ve been burnt before when a band I love had turned in an album where the spark has been lost and I’ve carried on buying each subsequent album hoping it will be the longed for return to form before finally having to admit that its just not the same.

tnocs.com contributing author jj live at leeds

DCW is one of those joyful listens that reinvigorated my love for them. Since then each album has carried that on, its impossible for me to rank them as they’re all great, I can’t pick a favourite. The gaps between albums has gotten longer but every new one is still a happy occasion for me. They’ve come a long way from the early days, Tigermilk was recorded in 3 days and they were still working out how to be a band. Stuart’s writing arrived fully formed with his own individual style right from the beginning but the others took time to bring their own songwriting to the fore.

They’ve played with styles as they’ve grown as musicians and writers, there’s been elements of glam rock, disco and straight up pop and all the while the lineage of the lo-fi gentle folk sound has been carried along.

I met my wife in 2005 and the following year took her to her first B&S gig, they were touring The Life Pursuit. I’d seen them at Glastonbury festival in the interim but this was the first time I’d seen them in their own right since that early Leeds gig and they were unrecognisable from that. This version knew what they were doing, knew their instruments and they had stage prescence. Where before they shied away from the crowd, now they wouldn’t stop talking between songs, cracking jokes, telling stories and showing off an easy confidence. It all added up to another way of connecting with the audience, inviting us in and making us feel closer to the band.

I’ve seen them 6 times now. Mrs. J came with me again in 2011 on the “Write About Love” tour.

It was their last night on the road after spending much of the previous year touring. There was a party atmosphere, the set list had the usual mix of new and old but each band member also chose their own personal deep cut to play. Mrs. J was 5 months pregnant at that gig, the last she went to before 3 became our magic number. There turned out to be quite a number of pregnant ladies at that gig. It was noticeable just how many bumps were in attendance, I’ve never known a gig like it but there’s that family feel again.

When its not been my wife with me at gigs, its been my friend Tony. He was there in that mail room listening to B&S as we passed the time away distracting ourselves from work and it was him I went to the City Varieties gig with. Those personal connections they bring again.

Last time I saw them they played Boy With the Arab Strap towards the end. The stage filled as the crowd were invited up to dance. It was 5 minutes of joy. I stood there with a big grin watching it all unfold, I may have heard the track countless times before and seen them do it live at all of their gigs but I could never tire of it. In that moment nothing else mattered, everything was right with the world.

As I finish writing this I’ve just listened to the new album; A Bit Of Previous, for the first time. My initial reaction is that its yet another great album. Its recognisably them and it continues the same mix of sounds and genres they’ve developed particularly since Dear Catastrophe Waitress but with a bit more besides. Unnecessary Drama stood out to me, a muscular guitar driven pop song in a similar vein to New Pornographers (another band I love, so win-win). That adds yet another element to the B&S sound. I look forward to getting acquainted better with the whole album.

There’s a line in This Is Just A Modern Rock Song:
We’re four boys in corduroys,
We’re not terrific but we’re competent.

Notwithstanding the early fluid membership that meant the four boys was instantly out of date, its a lovely self deprecating line. I’d argue that their terrific-ness comes from that competency. They weren’t flashy but within the confines of their limitations, they built a brilliant career that grew as they grew as musicians.

I’d love to know what acts you have that special connection with, especially the ones that have been a constant right from the moment you first heard them. 

Let the author know that you liked their article with a “heart” upvote!