8. The FeeliesThe Good Earth
I probably discussed this around the time it came out, in 1986, and I don’t remember how. It must have just been recommended by one of the record shops that I frequented in Sheffield or in Chesterfield. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I don’t know if their first album [Crazy Rhythms] was really available still at that time, or if it was around or known and appreciated as it is now. Again, it sounds like a band. They wear their Velvet Underground influence on their sleeve, but it has this amazing gentleness to it. The vocals are sort of whispered most of the time through it and it just didn’t seem like anything else that was going on at the time. They weren’t touring so I didn’t get to see them until the next album came out, Only Life, which was a few years later and quite different. What was also unusual was they had a drummer and a percussionist [Dave Weckerman]. This seemed excessive in a small band, small in commercial terms and small in terms of the numbers, but it does add this extra layer of interest.
They also had these spin-off bands, like Young Wu, The Willies and Speed The Plough. That seemed pretty interesting, that you could be in a band that had some kind of minimal level of recognition, but you could also be in other bands and make records under other names. It was a new idea for me at the time.
