This may be a continuing series of posts, I’m not too sure.

Around the time that Radiohead released OK Computer in 1997, I got heavily into British music. I loved that record, but for some reason I seemed to believe that it wasn’t Radiohead that I loved, but the fact that they were British.

At the time, popular radio was playing little that I liked, and I was digging around for something new. The internet wasn’t available to me (I didn’t even have a computer until 2001), so I had to read magazines to find out information on new bands. I picked up a copy of Britain’s Select magazine purely for its Radiohead cover story, and began to read about characters like “Stuart Murdoch” and “Goldie”. I became an ardent Anglophile (more on the Stuart Murdoch side than the Goldie side; who as far as I could tell just had gold teeth and talked a lot about ‘E’). I didn’t tell people I was going out for “pints wi’ me mates” or any such posturing, but if it was from the U.K., I’d try to find something I liked about it.

Anyway, it got to a point where the only bands I listened to were from the United Kingdom.

There are a few albums from this period of my life that I loved then, but will never ever play again. I can guarantee that I won’t voluntarily listen to Be Here Now by Oasis or Performance and Cocktails by the Stereophonics ever again. (Actually, I’m tempted to list the Stereophonics as the biggest “what was I thinking?” band of my entire life. I once spent $30 on a Stereophonics bootleg called Kelly’s Heroes. That might be the most unnecessary CD purchased by anyone, ever. They were really terrible).

There was a lot of great music as well; 1977 by Ash is the official soundtrack of my seventeenth year, the Verve’s A Northern Soul is still a masterpiece, and I undoubtedly listened to the Manic Street Preachers’ the Holy Bible much more than I read the actual Holy Bible (and I was an Irish-Catholic altar server – but that consisted more of holding the Holy Bible for Father Dan to read when I wasn’t fainting on the pulpit or listening to my brother’s friend whispering serial killers’ names into my ear from the pew behind me – “Chikatilo” was a favourite, mostly because the name sounded really evil when whispered).

But I digress…

There were a few bands most people would consider a mere footnote in British rock history that I took a liking to. Cable (they were on the same record label as Ash), Adorable (it’s still a crime that they aren’t more widely acclaimed), and the 60 Ft. Dolls are all lesser known bands whose records’ were (and are) worth searching for.

The 60 Ft. Dolls - The One

The Dolls were a Welsh Jam-like trio who would probably have hit it big had they formed in 2001, as their image and music were custom made for the 70’s punk resurgence of that year. They released two albums, The Big 3 in 1996 and Joya Magica in 1998. Unfortunately, they broke up in 1999 after being dropped from their label, and I think one of them is a hairdresser now (that’s probably a lie, it just seemed fittingly pathetic).

I lost interest in most British music around the Radiohead-clonage craze of ’01. Also, I was influenced upon my acquiring the internet by the suggestions of people (I had never actually met) on chat rooms (that weren’t physically rooms), that I delve more into “indie” music (most of which was on major labels).

I guess I just stopped giving bands a chance simply based on geography.

Since then I intermittently listen to records from that era, but I usually find myself wondering what made me buy it (apart from the fact that it’s, y’know….British), or find myself still sick of it after not having heard it for six or seven years. I’ve never really gone through a phase that dedicated to a specific country since.

(Pretend that last part was read by Daniel Stern over the strains of “the Universal” by Blur).

-kevin.