Teenage Fanclub - Pet Rockers

The artistic partnership between Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley began in the small town of Bellshill, in the Glasgow metropolitan area, back in 1986. The two musicians, barely in their twenties, were respectively frontman and lead guitarist of a pseudo-punk band called The Boy Hairdressers, destined for an early split after releasing just one twelve-inch, “Golden Shower”, for the cult Glasgow label 53rd & 3rd Records. Young as he was, Blake – namesake of an American bluegrass singer who had already served as a sideman for Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash – was certainly no novice, having already played in various outfits stylistically close to the legendary C86 scene: in Faith Healers (alongside Sean Dickson of the Soup Dragons), in Finding Faust (with Paul Quinn, also of the Soup Dragons), in Clouds (with John and Bill Charnley) and in Pretty Flowers, in cahoots with schoolmates Duglas T. Stewart and Frances McKee, who by then were already poised to launch their own new projects, Bmx Bandits (with the ever-present Norman among its co-founders) and Vaselines. Short-lived as it was, the Boy Hairdressers experience proved enough to earn the duo and drummer Francis MacDonald a decent following on the local independent circuit. When the band split at the start of 1989, Norman was working as a shop assistant in a record store, while Raymond was still working towards an engineering degree, and the still-green Francis was cutting his teeth behind the kit in outfits with a future that was dubious at best, Bmx Bandits excepted. Clearly these were not enough to contain the lads' musical ambitions. Before long the trio was joined by another university student, bassist and singer Gerard Love, whom they had recently met among the crowd at a Dinosaur Jr gig. Teenage Fanclub's moment had effectively arrived, and it took the Scots only a few weeks to land a deal with Paperhouse (a small Fire subsidiary) in the UK and with Matador in the United States, both recently founded labels.

An American education

Just as recording for the debut album was well underway and the band's popularity was growing exponentially back home – helped along by a run of incendiary, hilarious and extremely boozy live shows – Francis bowed out to join a true local institution, the Pastels. His spot was filled in no time by another nineteen-year-old from the area, research assistant and makeshift drummer Brendan O'Hare, who had made himself known to his new bandmates as a fervent admirer back in the Boy Hairdressers days. By December the record, produced by the band together with Ted Blakeway (trusted engineer for the aforementioned Soup Dragons and Bmx Bandits) and titled A Catholic Education, was all but finished, though it would take another six months before it finally saw the light of day.

Riding the wave of noisy alternative rock of the era, somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr, this debut proves more than promising. The care for melody, beneath a crust of feedback that at times leaves the vocals struggling a bit in the background, already seems admirable. Single “Everything Flows”, which in this context feels mostly like a luminous exception, is only the first of a very long run of unforgettable refrains, amid dry riffs and fairly venomous instrumental digressions: a brilliant ride through college-rock, lo-fi and dream-pop (reworked three years later in drum'n'bass form by Saint Etienne), by turns moody and sweet, since the Fannies show no intention of disproving those who'd file them under indie-pop, and indeed they sound too jangly (or not nearly furious enough) to earn a place in the shoegaze cauldron. Candour is their best calling card, along with a happily unruly streak, somewhere between sloppy and larkish, which — especially on “Everybody's Fool” — strikingly anticipates similar poses struck by Pavement a few seasons later. The band sounds energetic, full of drive, but shows enough good sense not to abandon discipline and simplicity. The songwriting is basic, tidy but never academic, an indispensable quality when the goal is nimble, fun easy-listening that still wants to leave a mark somehow (just listen to “Critical Mass”).

The ingredients on which they would build a fantastic career within just five years are already in place, and clearly recognisable; they work best on the tracks that live less on exasperation (“Eternal Light”, for instance) and that make the most of that blend of melancholy intonations and tousled yet tender guitar work, which doesn't shy away from more elaborate detours. All in all they stick to the essentials and move at a brisk pace, with few frills – though Gerard's soft, bouncing bass line does get its moment to shine – as if underlining that need for kinship with the new American-style indie-rock wave: in the title track, for instance, they recall the dishevelled early Yo La Tengo, “President Yo La Tengo” above all. The electric froth of “Too Involved” is trendy, but doesn't muddy what is, all told, a clear sound. There's still plenty of shyness on the vocal front but, in keeping with the aesthetic quirks of the era, this can hardly be counted among the record's faults — if anything, it seems entirely like a deliberate device, chosen because it works.

“Don't Need A Drum”, they declare in the title of one of the tracks, almost foreshadowing that the drum stool will remain vacant (if not downright secondary) for large stretches of their two-decades-plus career. In this particular case, what prevails is indeed the understated, not-too-raw temperament found in certain of their later work (Thirteen will become its paradigm), with the monotonous repetition of the same pattern making up for the rhythm section's lack of exuberance. They come across as livelier (though still direct, almost reticent) only on “Every Picture I Paint”, where they edge closer to the Sonic Youth of the preceding three years and reveal a curious vocal correspondence with the anti-spectacular style of a Lee Ranaldo. The debt is obvious but remains a venial sin, if you stop to consider it for the homage it ultimately is. On the two tracks titled “Heavy Metal” they ape the genre in question with mock seriousness, simulating a nastiness that is as fitting as it is foreign to them, and coming across as convincing in their own boyish prank. The Scots' tasty parody pokes fun at the obtuseness of a musical world and its unchanging poses, without cynicism and, on the contrary, even with a certain delicacy.

The Scottish band's guitar-pop on their debut deserves applause, then, because it presents a group skilled at reworking, with real personality, stylistic cues that are certainly not original, without ever coming across as a pointless facsimile, and indeed hinting at expressive potential of real substance. Partly for this reason, A Catholic Education (together with the following EP, God Knows It's True, released in the autumn of 1990) immediately won Teenage Fanclub the favour of critics: rightly or wrongly, Chris Mundy of Rolling Stone called it “an astonishing genuflection to American alternative rock and grunge”. There was certainly no British band at the time who sounded so American, and that didn't go unnoticed on the other side of the Atlantic. After making a strong impression at New York's annual New Music Seminar, the band ended up on Geffen's radar, who already had a contract ready. Something similar happened back home, where Creation, a Sony partner, pushed insistently to sign them. Meanwhile the band, together with producer Don Fleming (who had already worked with Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Hole), was well into work on their first album for a major label. There remained, however, the contractual knot that still bound them, overseas, to Matador for two LPs rather than just one. The workaround came in the form of The King, a grandiose title for a collection recorded and thrown together quite casually, deliberately, in order to break free without penalty from the New York label's grip.

Although Norman and co. have since denied it, attributing the record's ramshackle nature to the chaotic, improvisation-friendly approach Fleming brought to the studio, it's clear that their second effort should be understood as the fruit of a clever ploy, cobbled together in the scant leftover time at the end of the sessions for the album that would be released afterwards (and only because the studio was already paid for a few more days), rather than as some accidental mishap. Almost as if to underline the record's larkish (and mischievous) character, the Scots don't miss the chance to continue the run of parodies launched with their previous record, whether through a deranged pastiche of distorted guitars, drunken sax and sunshine-pop choruses (“Heavy Metal 6”), or through hallucinated send-ups somewhere between prog and space-rock, emulating the early Flaming Lips (“Heavy Metal 9”). And true to what its title suggests, “The Ballad Of Bow Evil (Slow And Fast)” amounts to a mere playtime exercise in which the lads have fun flexing their muscles or losing themselves in unlikely, grotesque stretches of noise.

"Mudhoney" is a response to those who had wrongly lumped them in with the grunge wave, and at the same time an implicit tribute to the wild spirit and filth of the American band of the same name but also, by extension, to the turbulence of the Seattle scene as a whole. It's the longest, most whirling, raw and pounding episode of a deliberately marginal collection, conceived almost as a joke later effectively disowned by its own creators, and which deserves to be remembered mostly as a simple divertissement for completists (when it isn't — as with the shapeless title track — more like a recycling bin of the most indigestible noise-rock junk). Even so, setting aside the chaos and a weirdness clearly played up for comic effect, the band's dizzying potential still comes through. The cover of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" sticks to the usual rotten-sounding guitar work, somewhere between unapologetic lo-fi and a pinch of healthy psychedelic scrounging, served with just the right amount of cheek and a fitting dose of purging feedback. The prize for most vicious title of the bunch, though, goes to a "Robot Love" that's one of the most sadistic, miserable garage-rock hairballs around.

The hidden gem "Opal Inquest" saves the day, a searing ride that doesn't skimp on fury, rough edges and acid-tinged surges, ending up sounding like an ulcerated version of Seventies hard rock, a good twenty years ahead of Ty Segall's playful detours. Even better is the reworking of Madonna's "Like A Virgin" (following the same path as their cover of "The Ballad Of John and Yoko," released as a single the year before), the only sung track on the album, which indulges in reverb but creates a thoroughly delicious short-circuit with the original's sugary vein, veering fearlessly toward far more blatantly bittersweet territory. The handful of inspired moments, however, aren't enough to justify picking up the sophomore album. At the time, that was made fairly difficult anyway by Matador boss Gerard Cosloy, understandably dissatisfied with the result (a disappointment later generously compensated for by Geffen's emissaries, who "freed" the musicians for good) and adamant in his decision to pull it from shelves on the very day of its release, August 27, 1991, to the point that the few copies that did get out became prized items for serious collectors. The outcome in the UK was paradoxically different: the deal between Creation and the band, which called for a maximum of a thousand copies to be sold at half price, was ignored by the label, which pressed and sold full-price copies, at record speed, twenty times over. Quite unexpectedly, the frankly modest The King pushed Teenage Fanclub to within reach of the top fifty on the British charts.

Bigstaresque

But the twist is just around the corner. What the quartet and Don Fleming put together at Amazon Studios in Liverpool is both a faithful homage to and a reinvention of the guitar-pop of acts like Big Star, Badfinger and Orange Juice, an extraordinarily timely revival, elevated by an accessibility that very few of their generation can claim. What "The Concept" heralded is a surprising comeback, far sharper than the lead-up suggested. The formula of "Everything Flows" has been dusted off and refined, trimming the songwriting of superfluous noise-rock digressions to let a pop core of proverbial effectiveness shine, then given a marbled electric sheen without sacrificing its immediacy, melodic payoff, or underlying power-pop charm.
The balance of sweetness and roughness reaches striking heights on Bandwagonesque — an ideal middle ground between jangly and fuzzy, elevated to paradigm status — partly echoed later by its more elaborate successor. But this remains, without question, the band's revelation record, for a group that mythologizes the Seventies, still has roots in the Eighties but its nerve endings firmly planted in the present — a thoroughly modern sensibility evidently akin to what was coming out of Seattle (just listen to "Satan" to be convinced) but also to an indie-pop scene that wasn't new but was clearly on the rise, from Biff Bang Pow! and Beat Happening on down.

If A Catholic Education had been almost entirely signed by Blake (with occasional help from McGinley here and there), it's Love's increased prominence, credited with as many as seven songs here, that's the real added value of a record that manages to sound airy and well-ordered, yet where even the grace-kissed ballads (the strings on "December," for example) don't silence the drafts, lively ferment, spacey abstractions (the intro to "Star Sign") and an impulsiveness that, all things considered, can only come across as a blessing. The tousled single "What You Do To Me" is a killer earworm, as scruffy and sweet as a fizzing candy, infectious as few others in its couple of minutes. There's no superstar posturing here, though — the tone is the same brisk, good-humored one as fellow countrymen the Vaselines, and that, decisively, makes all the difference, instantly earning the quartet the goodwill of the press and an audience that, from here on, would never abandon them. Also memorable is the stylized sack of money on the cover art, drawn by Sharon Fitzgerald, which later became the subject of a dispute with Kiss's Gene Simmons, who had already registered a similar logo and was subsequently compensated without a fight by Geffen's lawyers (according to Simmons himself in his autobiography "Sex Money Kiss").

In keeping with the strategic nonchalance, with the blissful disenchantment of the era, the Fannies have no magic formulas to offer beyond their candid, choral alt-rock, delivered on the tip of a Rickenbacker. As Rolling Stone's Mundy again points out, at a time when anger, grand gestures and a certain infatuation with heavy sounds were branding the indie scene, Teenage Fanclub reveal a pulsing sunshine-pop heart beneath their T-shirts and regulation flannel shirts. "I Don't Know," for instance, looks to the lessons of the Beach Boys and the Byrds but transcends it thanks to a spirit that's thoroughly of its own time, musically speaking, and one that could lay claim to a far from marginal spot on the soundtrack of the emerging Generation X.
Tender and vibrant, the band is too joyously pop to be welcomed among the revered figures of the shoegaze phenomenon, and too noisy and scruffy, so to speak, to try to break through with the squeaky-clean college rock that had been selling well for at least five years (it's no coincidence that, praising their intelligence and ambition, Spin's reviewer Jim Greer called the band "God's gift to college radio"). But it's the result of a deliberate choice, and our heroes don't seem to suffer in the least from not falling in line with this or that trend.

This time the explicit metal reference (in the title "Metal Baby") doesn't foreshadow the usual parodies but rather an easy-listening sweetness and infectiousness that no longer hides itself: songs like delightful quickies, compulsive, ecstatic refrains with the addition of a couple of nasty guitars thrown in purely for dramatic effect, perfectly suited to hook even slightly more uncompromising listeners on leave from their grunge hangover. Their "Pet Rock," at least nominally an update of "Pet Sounds" in the Wilsonian tradition, is a tousled (actually very disciplined) alternative stew that flirts with bubblegum, Byrds-ian name-dropping ("Sidewinder"), and every kind of mushiness now blithely filed under indie-pop: quite a surprising mash-up for its time, only properly historicized today, thanks largely to their own commendable work.
Blake outdoes himself with the two already-mentioned singles and with the gem "Alcoholiday," shot through with irony and irresistible ease, carried along by his own naive rebelliousness destined to become a trademark, by killer backing vocals and that temperament of good lads perpetually lost in their never-ending playtime — a tendency that would earn the band the newly minted label of slacker rock. There's also the obligatory McGuinn-Crosby-style oblique electroacoustic number, set gently ablaze bit by bit ("Guiding Star"), while closing out proceedings is an instrumental joke that sounds like Irish traditional music filtered through a very Eighties new wave sensibility.

Bandwagonesque turns the Scots into minor legends. Quite incredibly, it's crowned best album of 1991 by Spin magazine — thanks to editor Steven Daly, former Orange Juice drummer, who proves to be a remarkably effective champion of the record — beating out the far more celebrated "Nevermind", "Loveless" and "Out Of Time." Rolling Stone's blessing quickly follows (naming the Fannies the hottest name for 1992), along with a call to appear on Saturday Night Live and an endorsement from Nirvana, who insist on having them open several dates of the "Nevermind" tour. Kurt Cobain would never miss a chance to praise them in interviews, going so far as to call them, flat out, the "best band in the world." Unfortunately, commercial radio doesn't get as excited as college radio did, and sales remain modest — 70,000 copies in the UK, little more than double that in the United States — resulting in a disappointing No. 22 at home and an even more meager No. 137 across the Atlantic. During this fleeting honeymoon period, critics particularly praised, among Blake and co.'s many virtues, their valuable unearthing of Alex Chilton's artistry, with some going so far as to almost affectionately nickname the album "Big Star's 4th." Ironically, though, rather than serving as a launchpad toward high-level stardom, the record ended up helping to reignite interest in Chilton's priceless back catalogue.

The Memphis singer himself, flattered by the sincere admiration of his young European colleagues, accepts their invitation to record a couple of songs together for a single ("Free Again/Bad Seeds"), with proceeds going to the victims of the war in the former Yugoslavia. For the Fannies, it's a priceless opportunity to collaborate with one of their idols, whose rediscovery after years of near-total, almost criminal neglect is itself an incentive for Chilton.
After a split single with Viva Saturn, the other beloved act of Steven Roback and Matthew Piucci, ex-Rain Parade members, which in 1992 also confirms the Glasgow boys' standing within the jangle-pop revival, the experience is repeated the following year with another single, this time shared with the reunited Big Star ("Mine Exclusively/Patti Girl"). And proof that their love for their idols never wavers comes with the choice to title their long-awaited fourth full-length record after one of the songs on "#1 Record," Thirteen.

The band's perfectionism, in its feverish pursuit of a record truly worthy of being hailed as "definitive," doesn't quite justify the eight months spent working at Cava Studios in Glasgow. What really proves to be a mistake is their assumption that they could manage entirely on their own, a problem eventually patched up only by the technical assistance of Andy McPherson and future Belle & Sebastian mentor Tony Doogan, after the record had already been recorded, redone and scrapped countless times. Gerard Love, once again the majority songwriter and vocalist, tells Melody Maker that the troubled gestation perhaps costs the final result some purity, resulting in a record that's inevitably less impulsive and more lucid, but where, Blake insists, the songs work brilliantly. And indeed, the album represents in many ways the peak of their career: on one hand for the unmatched mastery of power-pop mechanics shown by all three songwriters, on the other for their substantial renunciation of the noise-for-noise's-sake logic so fashionable at the time, in favor of focusing exclusively on the hardest task any musician faces — writing simple pop songs that verge on perfection. And without any ready-made messages to hand down to younger listeners, whether uplifting or deplorable, because, as Brendan O'Hare puts it in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "We're not a very rock 'n' roll band. We don't take drugs and we don't try to corrupt young people. Sad, really, but true."

The opener "Hang On" is noisy, frothing and, despite the band's supposed fussiness and drawn-out production process, not even all that polished. But that shamelessly grunge-y intro takes less than a minute to flip into pure alt-pop lifeblood the moment Gerard's voice comes in, like a caress. The packaging is thus far from immaculate, but it's overshadowed by a prodigious delicacy and warmth, right up to the flute-and-strings finale that anticipates a trick soon overused by many Britpop starlets. On the subject of wonderful genre mash-ups, "Commercial Alternative" is every bit as good, with its pocket-sized hard-rock swagger, its thank-you note to a loved one delivered as pure unconditional surrender, and that unruly jangle-pop that bucks before settling back down. "The Cabbage" shows they haven't strayed far from their predecessor's tighter formula, though the band displays a heightened self-awareness and a melodic instinct now bordering on the sublime, scratching and softening in equal measure, winning listeners over with the anti-rhetorical enthusiasm of its ringing, utterly unpretentious guitars. With "Radio," a classic, instantly gripping single good enough even for the most unforgiving listeners, they bend toward a triumphant revival, with an almost festive confidence that, at such levels of accessibility, they'd never quite reached before.

The fourth knockout in a row across as many tracks bears Blake's name imprinted right in the title. Despite its endless outro, "Norman 3" is the emblem of the band's adolescent romanticism, hitting home with the immediacy of a positively devastating nostalgic refrain, with acid-tinged guitar surges, a truly unforgettable velvety bass, and the forthrightness of someone able to make an excellent pop song sound like the most obvious of creative pursuits. Thirteen sounds like an antidote to the prevailing cynicism, often just skin-deep, that sells so well. And they even dedicate a song, explicitly, to the most cynical among us, a slow-paced ballad that shines through the honesty of its perspective and its affectionate tone, delicate but never saccharine. Sentimental without ever risking coming across as sentimentalists: that's how the Fannies speak to the listener's heart and offer themselves up as authoritative bedroom companions, rough when needed but sensitive at just the right moment. The acoustic quilt and McGinley's raspy voice on "120 Mins" are striking for the sweetness of a declaration of intent unmarred by any artifice, and even moving in its (deeply human) fragility. But Ray has even better in store. As the title suggests, "Escher" is a multifaceted little gem, soft and celestial like sunshine-pop but sharp as a razor, and it enhances its easy-listening splendor through its oblique nature, its elusive charm, like a creature both graceful and venomous at once.

The finesse of the new Teenage Fanclub is stunning for its anti-spectacular qualities and for an underlying sincerity that rejects any hint of formal adulteration from the outset. The enchantment lies in its transparency, in an emotional bent that never reeks of affectation and instead plays at mimicry as deftly as a fencer's touch ("Fear Of Flying"). As if tucked away in the most hidden compartment of an ideal jewelry box, the heart of the record carefully holds the gems that most encourage the listener's empathy, lured in by the sparkle of earlier earworms and here invited into an enthusiastic (if happily naive) identification that serves as its own reward. The masterpiece, in this sense, is the fleeting sketch "Tears Are Cool," with perhaps the most touching dedication of all ("When I see you cry I think tears are cool") and the one closest to poetry set to music, radiant, alive with luminous, languid revelations. The subtle reverb remains a precious accompaniment, a signature that very fittingly evokes the tender rebelliousness of youth but takes nothing away from a substance made of passion, purity and kinship.

"Get Funky," O'Hare's only solo writing credit in his three years with the band, is little more than a joke. Scruffy but great fun, it serves to introduce the emotional high point of the closing "Gene Clark," a heartbreaking ode (in the vein of the most crepuscular Neil Young) to a reclusive songwriter revered by the band but sometimes wrongly remembered by popular consensus as a mere second-tier figure, with Gerard's voice bursting in after nearly four minutes, carrying the depth of a reassuring benediction. On the side, the band doesn't miss the chance to pay tribute to its own sources of inspiration with heartfelt covers, from the Flying Burrito Brothers' "Older Guys" (the B-side of "Norman 3") to Phil Ochs's "Chords Of Fame" (the B-side of "Radio"), not to mention Love's "Between Clark & Hilldale," later lent the following year to the Arthur Lee tribute album, "We're All Normal and We Want Our Freedom."

Despite the album's dazzling quality, reviews are rather lukewarm, especially the one that appeared in the once-enthusiastic pages of Spin. Luckily for the Scots, the public responds better than the press, and the record reaches a respectable No. 14 on the British charts. 1994 opens with the most improbable of collaborations: for "Fallin'," a single meant for the soundtrack of the film "Judgment Night" (released in Italy as "Cuba Libre"), the Fannies lend themselves as the backing band for De La Soul's rap (complete with a sample of the backing vocals from Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'"). At the end of the Thirteen promotional tour, Brendan O'Hare, who had been dismissively dubbed "Monkey without portfolio" by NME, leaves the band, joining first the Telstar Ponies, then Mogwai, and finally his own project, Macrocosmica — all debut-era acts. He'll contribute to the acclaimed "Young Team" with a track that reeks of unmistakable vindication: "With Portfolio." Taking his place is ex-Soup Dragon Paul Quinn, who had already played with Norman in Finding Faust.

In February of the following year, with the new album already in the finishing stages, the old Paperhouse label tries to ride the wave of the band's growing popularity by releasing a collection of B-sides and rarities dating back to their earliest days, Deep Fried Fanclub, ideal mostly for die-hard completists. The compilation kicks off, almost inevitably, with the "Everything Flows" single and its accompanying material: the paper-thin "Primary Education," stumbling and lo-fi, essentially a nibbled-at, amateurish sketch of the Fannies in full singalong playtime mode; the homespun instrumental trinket "Speeder," charmingly typical of the period; and a muscular, reasonably spirited cover of "Don't Cry No Tears," from Neil Young's "Zuma." The alternate version of "Critical Mass" is, if anything, better than the already-released one, being bloodier and more corrupted by reverb, while the cover of "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" (released as a standalone single in 1990) sounds ramshackle, choral and almost deranged — a joyful romp entirely in keeping with the irreverent, lively spirit of the band in its early days.

The excellent EP God Knows It's True follows in full. The title track is one of the most convincing songs of this phase, cut from the same cloth as "Everything Flows": blazing in its hungry, brash guitar work yet softened, once again, by the vocal shyness of a Blake whose ideas remain crystal clear—another triumphant twang-pop gem in the mould of the debut album.
If "Weedbreak" is a pitch-black, swirling episode, a fine instrumental chaos, as piercing and unwholesome as needed and emblematic of the Scottish band's more tormented (marginal, on closer inspection) soul, "So Far Gone" stands out as the very first track to carry Gerard's sole signature exclusively—a naive promise, perhaps, but anything but limited in emotional candour, still within the generally furious standard set by Norman, much like the dishevelled snapshot of "Ghetto Blaster", lively but dispensable. Rounding out the picture is the charity single released with Alex Chilton in 1992, an almost devotional reinterpretation of "Free Again", paired with a rendition dripping with decay of Beat Happening's "Bad Seed".

In pop's Formula One

On May 14th of the same year came an EP drawn from a radio session recorded by John Peel, in which the band served as the backing band for Frank Black, featuring unreleased material of his and a couple of covers of Del Shannon and Otis Blackwell & Jimmy Jones. Not even two weeks later, Creation and Geffen sent the first copies of Teenage Fanclub's fifth LP into stores, titled Grand Prix, its cover featuring a "customized" car from the hapless Simtek racing team, active in Formula One right in the 1994-95 biennium. The band got back on track with a newfound, brighter confidence, a power-pop grown even rounder and bolder, shedding the last traces of shyness to flaunt instead a romantic shamelessness, a polish and a meticulousness of high-end craftsmanship never shown before at such levels. The push toward an all-round easy-listening sound would condition much of the press (including the Italian press, rather lukewarm at the time) in its crude, superficial attempt to draw parallels with the then-fashionable Britpop—a critical stretch the band made no secret of resenting.

Never has the songwriting proven so carefully considered, the fruit of three months of dedicated work followed by five weeks at the Manor Studio in Oxford alongside producer Dave Bianco (formerly assistant to George Drakoulias). And never has the division of tracks been so balanced, with five titles for Blake and four each for Love and McGinley. If everyone seems in fine form, Gerard shows himself truly at the peak of his powers, and both "Sparky's Dream" — with its infectious Beach Boys-style aura — and "Don't Look Back" prove it unequivocally. The hooks are tremendous, every detail is in the right place, the production could not be cleaner or more fitting, and the sound astonishes for its flawless balance between grace and determination, genuineness and refinement. Especially in the latter, with its shifting procession of chords, its poignant nostalgic intonation and its friendly frankness. Love's slight, touching voice brushes against magic just like the guitars, back to scratching but with infinite gentleness, for a wonder impervious to the passing of time.

Blake responds in kind with the crystalline acoustic weave and whisper of "Mellow Doubt", a dry yet luminous return to the candour, simplicity and suspended time of the Byrds. Even without fanfare, youthful swagger or theatrical overreach, the lads surprise and charm through the sheer clarity of their harmonies. But Norman does even better with the personal masterpiece "Neil Jung" (dedicated to his friend Duglas T. Stewart, already his comrade in the Bmx Bandits days), an apotheosis capping a run of unrestrained earworms, an oblique tribute to a personal idol and a superb display of wit lent to entertainment, with its fine jukebox-ready refrain. The Scots hit the mark with that unrivalled bittersweet streak, that melancholic vein that never collapses into self-pity or sterile, showy poses, but reacts with frankness and a touch of healthy electric nastiness when needed (or else leaves the burden to its understated stepsister, "Tears", which likewise refuses to be crushed by bitterness and manages to translate it into tender introspection, in the manner of a Ben Folds). "Verisimilitude", just before it, plays by the same rules with an equally sparkling melodic ease, confirming the Fannies as a band not only exquisite but also witty, smart, and as incisive as few others.

After such a strong start, a slight dip in the second side is perhaps inevitable, held up mostly — blasphemous as it may sound — by the sheer craft of the three Glasgow musketeers. Starting with the always-fine Love-penned pop-rock of "Discolite", more well-spent sweetness, and even more so with "Going Places", which sounds almost like a blueprint of his quiet impressionism, forever chasing David Crosby and Gene Clark. Not far behind is the serene folk solipsism of McGinley on "Say No" and "I Gotta Know", his own personal replies to "Mellow Doubt", which nonetheless add nothing significant to an album that is, after all, already more than accomplished by its midpoint. As for Norman, "I'll Make It Clear" deserves a mention, another display of high-level showmanship, with yet another mildly devastating chorus tucked inside and an aftertaste à la Beatles that impresses less only because of its out-of-the-way spot in the tracklist. The final joke of "Hardcore/Ballad" revives the parodic (and metalinguistic) quirk the band had almost overindulged in on the fringes of their early releases.

Hailed by the British press as a remarkable return to form, Grand Prix earns Teenage Fanclub their first spot in the UK top ten (at number seven), finding a heavyweight endorser in the star of the moment, Liam Gallagher, who with tongue-in-cheek irony calls the Scots the second-best band in the world (after Oasis, of course). Disappointing sales in the United States, however, convince Geffen to drop them, and once again it's Sony, via the Columbia imprint, that steps in to patch things up.
At year's end come an EP of acoustic reinterpretations, "Teenage Fanclub Have Lost It", and the sole single by Famous Monsters, a supergroup made up of Norman, the usual Duglas T. Stewart, and Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines (who a few months later would put together a similar one with Gerard and Raymond, the Astro Chimp).
In July 1997, Songs From Northern Britain was released, its title containing, by the band's own admission, a playful dig at the Britpop scene and at all those who, out of naivety, had lumped the previous record in with it. Recorded once again with Dave Bianco, this time between the Surrey countryside and the legendary Abbey Road studios in London, it stands out effortlessly as the Fannies' most polished work, with extremely layered harmonies and explicit nods to the America of songwriters three decades earlier (rather than to present-day Scotland), to CSN&Y and Buffalo Springfield besides the ever-present Byrds.

The reduced clarity of the vocal parts shows how, for once, the overall picture seems to matter more — that is, the airy guitar textures that act almost as context: a choral dimension that serves mainly as atmosphere, with a purely landscape-like value, if one follows the spirit of the title, which inevitably flattens the differences and pays less attention to detail, to depth. In this way the songs start to resemble one another, and the gap between one songwriter and another tends to become rather marginal. The superior quality is of course beyond question, and "Ain't That Enough" proves it, but on this occasion the lads seem more interested in the overall effect, that underlying pleasantness and that jangle-pop grace which, even more than on its predecessor, work to rein in the electric guitars within an almost aestheticizing discipline, leaving little real room for distortion.

"I Don't Want Control Of You", the new face of Teenage Fanclub, is a heartfelt, slightly saccharine hymn to kindness, which sees the lads maneuvering with undoubted professionalism and with the usual catchy refrains, but never straying from the surface of things, never warming the heart or cutting as deep as they had always managed to do in the past. "Take The Long Way Around" is enjoyable without breaking the mould: the album thus takes shape as a collection of big late-sixties West-Coast-style ballads, rounded, jubilant rides that retain nothing of their old fury and only rarely — and always on Gerard's initiative — nod to Brian Wilson.
Blake, for his part, is undeniably in good form, and the remarkable "Planets", with its radiant strings, lovely acoustic quilting and the keyboards of co-writer Finlay MacDonald, says so with some authority. He is, perhaps, the one who most tries to stand out against the backdrop, thanks to that voice of an old friend and confidant, even if in the end he too cannot escape this harmonic formula that leans amiably toward idyll and in which very little is risked.
In a shamelessly elegiac atmosphere, the episodes that are at least on paper more nervous and streaked bear McGinley's signature ("I Don't Care", "Can't Feel My Soul"), though they amount to no more than a variation on the theme, slightly more shadowy fragments of a fresco that smacks of new pastoral, free of slip-ups or glaring flaws but almost never truly thrilling. In "It's A Bad World" Ray's mewling vocal actually struggles a bit to come through, especially since the track is among the liveliest of the bunch. The overall impression remains fairly self-congratulatory, and even the solos, doled out by the pound and placed exactly where one would expect them, fail to dispel a pervasive sense of predictability that, for the ever-luminous Fannies, cannot help but sound like a warning bell.

Where autopilot kicks in, the ride is nonetheless perfectly comfortable, with the necessary guarantees of reliability and songwriting, at levels still prohibitive for most of their ideal competitors (not all of them, mind you, since in those same months Yo La Tengo — to name one — pulled a genuine masterpiece out of their hat, rather than a sumptuous gallery of reassuring little scenes). The farewell of "Speed Of Light", for instance, is thoroughly pleasant, openly in search of a direction and with few certainties, but rock-solid ones.
Honesty, once again, is not something they lack; there's simply less hunger or, more simply, youth has been filed away and a new season has begun, with its own fair share of unknowns to navigate. Despite its limits, Songs From Northern Britain is so well-liked in Britain that, with its third place on the sales charts, it becomes the Scottish outfit's biggest success ever. And once again, as if that weren't enough, it earns the praise of a cult figure: in this case the writer Nick Hornby, quite generous with his praise for the album and the band in his "31 Songs" (where he cites "Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From" and "Ain't That Enough" among his all-time favourite songs).

Fair Game

By the end of the year, former Bmx Bandits keyboardist Finlay McDonald joined the band permanently as its fifth official member. He is not the only lineup shake-up of this period, since, before production of the new album was actually finished, drummer Paul Quinn left his bandmates to start his own power-pop project, Primary Five, which went on (between 2004 and 2008) to produce three thoroughly enjoyable albums riding the same wave as the Fannies, Big Star, the Go-Betweens and the Lemonheads (proving he'd learned several classy tricks by heart). Behind the drum kit returns none other than Francis MacDonald, one of the band's founders. The Glaswegians' seventh LP, Howdy!, hit stores in October 2000, recorded at the famous Rockfield Studios in Wales, initially distributed only in Europe (by Columbia, after Creation's closure) and co-produced by the quintet and Nick Brine (who had previously worked with Stone Roses, Superfurry Animals and Ash).

"I Need Direction" and "I Can't Find My Way Home" mark, right from their titles, an ideal bridge to the pleasant disorientation that had characterized the close of the previous effort. On the surface, the house jangle-pop sound has grown more minimal and restrained, but listen closely and the Fannies' music still carries a prodigious magic, warmth and candour, nicely distilled here in the sugary Beach Boys-style backing vocals. On the latter in particular, McGinley scratches gently and intoxicates at just the right moment, with a melodic confidence usually expected from his bandmates' songs. The three musketeers split the tracklist evenly and retreat toward a more private, bedroom indie-pop (with its fine pastel tones, Finlay MacDonald's keyboards), the kind favoured by fellow Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian, to be precise, who that same year would feature a Norman cameo in the video for "The Wrong Girl". It's exactly this more contained, affable, domestic dimension that wins hearts, something the more ambitious predecessor might have needed. The voices come back to the fore while the guitar lines are well defined, their colouring perhaps subdued but once again very precise. Speaking of fellow townsmen on the rise, Love's introspective "Cul De Sac" recalls the celebrated Stuart Murdoch of "If You're Feeling Sinister", amid gentle field recordings and dimmed studio lights, as if to remind us that his status as the genre's ideal godfather was earned in the field, and earned in full.

For his part, Blake offers fans at least one true little gem, the Wilson-esque pearl "Accidental Life". The proverbial summer begins to fade, melting softly into an autumn that smacks of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci (not for nothing is violinist Megan Childs among the guests, alongside trumpeter Mick Cooke of the aforementioned Belle & Sebastian), and the coordinates remain roughly the same even when Gerard strikes up the more ecstatic and rarefied (yet never subdued) ballad "Near You": the hottest season may have passed, but the Scots' sun is still very much present to cheer the faithful with its honest, comforting warmth, a reassurance anything but to be dismissed. Norman also returns to play with the happy pop formulas he loves ("Dumb Dumb Dumb") or the buddy-like hugs and confidences ("Straight And Narrow"), and the stylization afforded by the electric guitars proves more than functional in an easy-listening framework that looks to immediacy without forgetting the good flesh of the instruments and the elegant packaging, never gaudy or needlessly over the top. Sure, the intensity isn't remotely comparable to that of years past, but it's offset with a few precious ideas (mindful of the Hollies' lesson), including a final bit of disguise in the first track, worthy of the child that lives inside Mr. E.

Embracing the parallel suggested by a title like "The Town And The City", the lads now embrace the calmer perspective of an ideal small town, without however disavowing the untamed pleasures of the days when their horizon was the thousand lights of the American adventure. So this little gem penned by Love sounds like an almost necessary hymn to nostalgia, festive yet free of regret, from someone who knows there's a time for everything. In "The Sun Shines From You", right after, one can savour an air of serene gratitude, a delicacy of feeling that shifts their stance from resignation to peace, and which, with all the grace they're capable of, wins you over from the first listen. This is a McGinley in great form. And he proves adept at not hiding a few subtle shadows (in a "Happiness" curiously more shadowy and fragile in its lovely acoustic dress) or at embracing a reflective folk-pop, with the slow pace of well-considered choices and a mantra with hazy, flou glimmers ("My Uptight Life"), proof that no shade of emotion is denied citizenship and that Teenage Fanclub still know how to work their fine craft to perfection.

Sincere humanity and that anti-star disposition come, for the five Glaswegians, before anything else, almost as though it were a matter of loyalty to their most devoted listeners. And it's in this light that the affectionate farewell of "If I Never See You Again" should be understood, a caress that candidly exorcises the not-so-remote possibility of a goodbye. Contrary to hopes, Howdy! is met with a lukewarm reception from critics and audiences alike (it doesn't even crack the top thirty in the UK charts). As if that weren't enough, Sony refuses to release it overseas, where it will arrive a year late and only thanks to the small label Thirsty Ear. The disappointment is evident and contributes to a slowdown in creative activity, after a particularly intense decade lived under the banner of both quality and quantity. At year's end, Norman joins the cast of a sizeable ensemble of British musicians, The Reindeer Section, which puts out a couple of collections over a two-year span and includes, among others, Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines, Lee Gorton of Alfie, Colin MacIntyre aka Mull Historical Society, John Cummings of Mogwai, Roddy Woomble of Idlewild, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, and Belle & Sebastian's Bobby Kildea, Richard Colburn and Mick Cooke.

The next release, a collaboration with Half Japanese frontman Jad Fair, has the feel of a lighthearted digression, but it only saw the light of day in 2002, three years after it was recorded, on Stephen McRobbie of the Pastels's Geographic label, a Domino subsidiary. Words Of Wisdom And Hope is exactly what it promises: a little Fair showcase whose spoken word pieces are fuelled by the instrumental horsepower of the Glaswegian outfit. The songs laid out by the Fannies sound polished and fairly spirited, in line with their work from the period and, if anything, even livelier. Of course, those unfamiliar with the American singer may sense a certain emptiness, an unsatisfied longing, beyond the broadly pleasant communal feel of the project. On the single "Near To You" the house power-pop sound reappears, complete with sugary vocal reinforcements, to which Jad's performance adapts not without a certain sense of displacement, like a foreign body. "Love Will Conquer", a more placidly ecstatic and jangly passage, only underscores the meaning embedded in the collection's title. The focus, not by chance, is fixed on the words, with their load of sincere hope and good sense, and from this angle the music can only serve as a crutch, a conduit, always and in any case in a subordinate, instrumental role. Which is somewhat the limit of a record that is, for all its amiably picturesque quality, like this one.
In the second half, the crew tries to shuffle the deck, sharpening the project's dazed tones. Emblematic, in this sense, is the licentious, chloroformed soul-blues of "Secret Heart", boozier thanks to the Hammond organ but not terribly engaging; or else the stranger, earthier "Vampire's Claw", a wobbly fanfare that indirectly recalls Gorky's Zygotic Mynci once again (albeit in a "yawn attached" version). Fairly long and jagged songs like "Crush On You" mark an ideal return to the more phlegmatic Yo La Tengo, geared toward recreation for diversion's sake, thanks to the rediscovered pleasure of distortion and a greater vocal kinship with a singer as unmelodic as Ira Kaplan. And while "You Rock" recycles the nocturnal echoes of an "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out", but with the original's poetic abstractions replaced by a rather unstimulating indolence, "Love's Taken Over" doesn't register the same resounding debacle in comparison (and its emotional crescendo is convincing), even if the expressive debts grow rather heavy.

The result, more cerebral than usual for the Scottish band, isn't without interest, and keyboardist Finlay MacDonald's contributions show significant growth, confirming the trend launched by the previous Howdy!. Without the usual choral harmonies, though, the songs lack their true liberating power, the circularity of the songwriting prevails, reducing the music to pretty wallpaper, and the refrains never get the chance to hit their mark.
There's not much to smile about in the subdued "Smile", which only intermittently catches fire and is literally dominated by Half Japanese's confiding whispers, just as the domestic "I Feel Fine" is perhaps too introspective to convey a genuine sense of well-being. Jad's controlled yet highly expressive spoken passages lend this work a certain underlying fascination, while the British bandmates handle the tenderness as expected. Still, the listener's mood needs to be just right, because at times there's a risk of a sense of tedium creeping in — subtle, certainly, but given that we know Teenage Fanclub by far higher standards, also fairly damning.

Our heroes would go on to collaborate again with Jad on a reworking of “My Life Is Starting Over” by Daniel Johnston, included on the successful tribute compilation “Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered” (2006), while more recently Norman alone would join his American friend on the albums “How Many Glasgow” (2014, featuring Japanese guests Tenniscoats) and “Yes” (2015), both released on Joyful Noise. Meanwhile, in February 2003, the time came for some well-earned self-celebration. The group releases — via Poolside in Europe and Jetset Records in the United States — their first compilation collecting the cream of their output: Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds (a title alluding to its running time) assembles fourteen singles plus seven other tracks, three of which previously unreleased (one for each songwriter/singer).

An Autumn in Chiaroscuro

Without a label once again, the Fannies take another two years to get back into the studio. After founding their own imprint to distribute them across the European market, PeMa, they surprisingly choose post-rock guru John McEntire, already a mainstay of Tortoise and Sea And Cake, who hosts them in his Chicago studio for over four months. The result, Man-Made, is released in May 2005 (in the United States by the prestigious Merge).

The band's sound shows more body than ever, partly thanks to the fine percussive work of returning member Francis MacDonald. The songwriting has also undergone a further, evident streamlining, a pruning-back that this time around seems to have robbed the quartet of a bit of its sparkle: beyond the greater formal care, a few admirable harmonic tricks, the usual easy-listening reflexes and the mannered solos embellishing and igniting the codas, the group seems to be coasting rather lazily through a not-too-encouraging authorial mediocrity, which isn't helped either by an occasional, revived rock muscularity (which in “Time Stops” almost clashes with the slight presence of an ever-courteous Gerard Love). The “Nowhere” Ray evokes is then more telling than one might think, and helps shape the record as a pretty trinket, elegant and colorful, but ultimately soulless, strangled by a pragmatism that cools even the best ideas (the guitar jangle, in this case) and by a circularity that for once truly resembles a weary, empty spinning in place.
In this case, the usual warm, reassuring faces aren't enough to save the day, nor are the most polished guitars of their entire output, if what we're talking about is the fair of the already-heard. The album, in fact, is born already flat, already lukewarm and predictable, despite the Scots' good will in a few spots: the opener “It's All In My Mind” still cuts a fine figure with its disciplined power-pop, stripped of any useless dross to showcase the house's luminous melodicism; “Cells” nearly stands out for its tidy recovery of its folk-Byrds-ian ancestry, even if, outside this context, it doesn't go much beyond business as usual and a stretched pass mark; Gerard's single, “Fallen Leaves”, alongside the more unbalanced and vital (even giddy, given the rest) “Born Under A Good Sign”, is still winning and doesn't skimp on radiant suggestions, electric polish or bite, easily ranking among the record's best tracks.

Norman seems to be the only one putting in a bit more conviction and temperament (“Slow Fade” is another example), even though the tracks he pens still struggle to keep pace with the few autopilot numbers he'd offered across all the previous releases. His “Flowing” almost feels like an answer to a fast-rising band of fellow townsfolk and disciples, Tracyanne Campbell's Camera Obscura, but, beyond its finesse and polish, it certainly doesn't outshine the best work of these young epigones. Here and there, there's an attempt to replicate yesterday's melancholy. Ray gives it a try at least, though his attempt on “Only With You” (featuring the producer on piano) comes off muddled and a touch cold, if sincere. The lads haven't lost the class of their touch, but this time their magic appears rather blurred, subdued, dried up, and it's McGinley in particular who offers the least reassuring contribution. Despite some sumptuous guitar work, his “Feel” is truly pale, and the yawn-inducing closer “Don't Hide” does no better, reverb aside.
Man-Made lacks the flashes, the bolts of inspiration the Scots had accustomed us to, and even their considerable craftsmanship isn't quite enough as consolation. For Italian fans, at least, there's the chance to see them live for the first time in the Boot, since the tour in support of the album includes no fewer than four dates on our shores in October 2005.

The following five years are spent by the band in a state of substantial absence, save for a couple of enjoyable collaborations (Norman and Francis's cameo on the late Kevin Ayers's last album, “The Unfairground”, and a series of shows as backing band for one of their idols, Edwyn Collins). The return to the studio alongside Nick Brine, with Dave McGowan replacing Finley MacDonald on keyboards, thus happens almost under the radar. With expectations effectively at an all-time low, Teenage Fanclub's ninth LP, Shadows, is released once again by PeMa and Merge in May 2010, and turns out to be a lovely surprise.

The honesty of this new work is such that the incipit of “Sometimes I Don't Need To Believe In Anything” alone is enough to suggest a clear general idea, one destined to receive a string of confirmations over the following minutes. The tone has returned sweetly intimate, the imprint has recovered its polished elegance and velvety softness and, at just the right moment, those radiant illuminations reappear, certifying the band's remarkable technical, authorial and emotional good health.
As they reach their ideal middle age, Teenage Fanclub ratify and bring to fruition an expressive repositioning that had only been sketched out in broad strokes on the previous effort, but without the necessary conviction and clarity. Now there's exactly the right measure, a kind of serene contemplation from people still fully open to the healthy infection of wonder, to genuine amazement, and who know how to translate it into songs that are fresh, optimistic and never banal. For the first resounding confirmation, one need only wait for “Baby Lee” with its prodigious chord progression. Blake pulls a gem out of his hat, an adorable power-pop ballad that, from a slightly more removed vantage point, recaptures that same bright sunshine of the good old days. The leap in inspiration compared to Man-Made is plain to see, making clear that it was, in every sense, just a now-filed-away detour.

There's a comforting sense of peace that greets the listener like an embrace, an ecstatic gaze, a harmony of colors in soft, shifting tones, that enchants and soothes (“Into The City”). The group's humanity is contained in the infinite gentleness of this dozen winning little vignettes, a craftsman's finish carried out by the three songwriters (and their two associates) with flawless skill. The immersion into bygone times of “The Past”, for instance, isn't weighed down by nostalgia, but leans on a proud frankness and a disenchantment that's not at all bitter, nicely garnished by McGowan's keyboards and a just-ironic-enough banjo. The Fannies have immediately rediscovered that extraordinary affability of theirs, at once intimate and convivial, and once again make simplicity and enthusiastic candor their winning weapons. With poise the band paints an uninterrupted, idyllic flow that lulls and enchants without preciousness or insincere artifice. The strict order followed in alternating the songwriters is, as already in Howdy!, a crucial factor in keeping the album from tipping too far one way or the other. And while Blake is, as usual, the most radiant and on-form of the performers, his good-natured disposition still blends perfectly with the shadings contributed by his bandmates. He even lets himself be influenced by them when, thanks to the decisive autumnal cameo of Euros Childs on “Dark Clouds”, he already hints with authority at the alluring attractions of the shared project under the name Jonny, in the near future.

Escorted by choirs, little organs and violins, as if immersed in a new, glistening spring, the Gerard Love of “Shock And Awe” is even more lovable than we remembered, and the polished electric-guitar touches enhance his unmatched finesse. On “Sweet Days Waiting” he confirms himself a master of the art of soft focus and, in hindsight, almost seems to be running a dress rehearsal for the solo debut he'd deliver less than two years later under the moniker Lightships, marked by a gentle impressionism. The occasionally acoustic cut, tidy and lean without ever sounding cramped, also proves well suited to McGinley, who on “The Fall” indulges in outpacing the mildly crepuscular R.E.M. of their late maturity, while with “Live With The Seasons” he looks to British folk classics and the Canterbury sound without reverential fear, offering a precious stylistic vademecum for the group's new season — elegant, relaxed and sparkling, just like him and his bandmates. With “Today Never Ends”, an emblematic title, it's he who gets the honor of an impeccable closer, sketched by slide guitar lines and resolute in the sweet illusion of a magic moment lasting forever.

Looking for alternatives

It took no less than twenty years, but in the end Glasgow's three musketeers decided to take advantage of an unofficial pause in the main band's activities to put together a series of extracurricular projects worthy of the name. It only takes a handful of months, devoted to dreams they didn't even remember having nurtured, for the circle of eternal jesters to ideally shut up shop. Ideally, as in, in jest. As a simple gamble of semantic chiaroscuro or a bold proclamation penned in political double-speak. At a quick glance, Teenage Fanclub still seem frozen in place. Three bells still lined up side by side on the table, but with no more balls hidden underneath to find. Pop's joyful con trick splinters into the solo offshoots of its conjurers and relocates to different sidewalks.

The first to make a move, and as ever the most active, can only be good old Norman. For the Jonny adventure, he chooses to team up with another songwriter who, just like him, wrote some of the most significant pages of British indie-pop-rock in the nineties: former Gorky's Zygotic Mynci frontman Euros Childs. The two men's friendship goes back to the year (1997) their respective bands shared a stage on a long world tour. In 2001 Blake was then a lavish guest on a few tracks of Gorky's seventh album, “How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart”, treated as something of an added member, and the idea of a collaboration was formally sketched out. Despite some home-recorded Glaswegian sessions from 2006, intended for an EP that in fact never saw the light of day, Jonny effectively came into being only three years later, curiously stealing their name from the photo later chosen as the cover of their self-titled full-length debut, which followed a four-track mini-album made available as a free download at the end of 2010, simply titled “Free”.

It would be far too easy, with personalities of the caliber of Blake and Childs, to sketch out a map of relevant musical influences, not least because the two souls behind the Jonny project play with their cards on the table, drawing freely from their respective back catalogues. Of Teenage Fanclub, for instance, there's an evident pop schematism typical of their recent output (“You Was Me”), but also no shortage of the classicism and intimate tone of their more easygoing work (“Circling The Sun”), nor of nostalgic veils, deeply Blake-ian autumnal garb as in the closer, “Never Alone”. At the same time, Euros alternately dusts off the gentle freshness of the romantic Gorky's and the scaruffo-esque vitality of their more emphatic incarnation. Hidden in the stylized baroque flourishes of “Bread” as much as in the shifting Lennon-esque psych attitude of “Goldmine”, imbalance is always around the corner, though perhaps that's precisely where the beauty lies. And in this game of obvious references, it's impossible not to recognize the Beatles as the most significant source of inspiration for the duo's music (backed in the studio by trusty Dave McGowan and Stuart Kidd of Bmx Bandits). Too easily predictable, some will say. A track like “Waiting Around For You”, whatever one thinks of it, is there precisely to prove it. From this continuously streaming easy-listening reel, the only thing left out of the catalogue is the ten-plus minutes of “Cave Dance”, a lunar hybrid between verdigris-tinged sunshine pop and psychedelic minimalism, just like the hermetic Gorky's obsessed with Gong in their “Bwyd Time” days. 

Rather like the similar Admiral Radley project the year before — half Grandaddy, half Earlimart — the contribution of the artists involved stands out with striking clarity in the final result, both in terms of writing and performance, offering nostalgics full satisfaction but also betraying a certain lack of daring. As a meeting of kindred yet distinct artistic sensibilities, Jonny can be compared to the famous layered drinks, those multicolored cocktails made by stacking liquids of different densities (the best known being the B-52). Supporting the metaphor, it's worth noting that even on this first album by the British pair, aesthetic gratification asserts itself as the true purpose of the collaboration. The songs are simple but well written, genuine two- or three-minute pop tokens that stir the listener along the thread of memory without being crushed by comparison to the past and without promising the moon. The album testifies to both musicians' good creative health and their irrepressible craving for lightness. In more than one passage, anyone who loved the two reference bands experiences the illusion of being back in mid-nineties bedrooms, in the company of a couple of old friends, perfectly at ease and reassured. Setting aside the unlikely country sketch “I'll Make Her My Best Friend”, not exactly essential nor all that convinced of itself, the superb work of melodic craftsmanship put together by Euros and Norman results in an enjoyable, highly immediate record. In the rare cases where the blend truly comes off, everything works even better: that's the case with the leadoff single “Candyfloss”, a track farmed out to the Gorky's of “Spanish Dance Troupe” with a refrain subcontracted to the most canonical Teenage Fanclub, but also in a filler track like “I Want Be Around You”.

In April 2012 it's Raymond's turn — who with his guitar acts as something of a mother hen on the debut of the Scottish dream-team Snowgoose, backing singer Anna Sheard — and above all Gerard's, leading man of the also-debuting Lightships project, with Tom Crossley (International Airport), Bob Kildea and yesterday's and today's bandmates Brendan O'Hare and Dave McGowan as prized guests. For the most good-natured bassist in the universe too, the time has come for the fateful step forward without his bandmates, something that wouldn't even have happened without the gentle pressure of a few enthusiastic devotees at Domino, eventually accepted by our man after retreating for cover behind the reassuring masks of a romantic alias and a carefree little circle of friends. In recent times he'd limited himself to playing with colored pastels — sorry, with the Pastels — on the small stages of a few European clubs. A meeting of kindred spirits soon translated into complicity, including a shared fondness for soft colorations or vague yet insinuating harmonies.

In keeping with his own shifting emotional landscapes, and almost as a tribute to his surname, evergreen Gerard chooses to christen this new incarnation of his Electric Cables, one of those albums that the critical pundits would be quick to call "atmospheric" or "languid", boldly flaunting all the unbridled imagination they're capable of. For once, they wouldn't even be far from the truth. Love takes care to stage a single, relaxed fade. He paints with an impressionistic, elusive touch, with a calm bordering on the pathological, and the brushstrokes really do merge into scenes of soft, suspended, dreamlike grace. Perhaps too composed in the constraint of that discreet manner of his, with the basic melodic line marked out by keyboards that by their very nature lean toward a low-calorie weave. Such is Love's indie-pop, stripped of uncle Norman's crackling verve and wordplay, the irrepressible ham behind "Alcoholiday" and "Neil Jung". Diaphanous, submissive, unadulterated. But also finely chiseled: modest decorations of horns, tremolo picking and nimble trimmings of pedal steel. The consistency of style commands admiration. Restraint is a courteous host here, and it doesn't undercut the appeal, on listening, of the Fannies' most beautiful voice, that reserved sweetness of a falsetto that in over twenty years of career has never once pandered to the baser lures of saccharine excess. In the same way, the songwriting too doesn't skimp on rewarding the more patient listener, letting itself be recognized — however stretched out into an elegiac key — as an uninterrupted fascination, replayed in slow motion.

Even without the radio sheen or the populist punch of “Don’t Look Back” or “Sparky’s Dream”, the new songs hold to their own fragile but miraculous balance, as unhurried as a decanted wine and yet amiably sparkling. Vineyard and vintner are the same as ever, but the fermentation has slowed, without entirely ruling out, along the way, the satisfying, fleeting pleasure of an illusion. At times the masterful, easy nonchalance of the ice-eyed boy resurfaces with the light breezes of the Howdy! era, attentive to detail yet with its sense of immediacy fully intact. The man who once sang of the urgency of a firm direction seems finally to have found his balance, finely calibrated between the silvery enchantment of his solo present and the ringing, fuzzed-out vitality of his band’s golden glory days. Gold and silver, extreme shades in what is also an excellent meditation on the luministic qualities of music.
An impeccable master of soft focus, unerring in rendering, through blurred edges, the hazy glow of morning or the pale but affectionate sun of memory, Gerard reveals on Electric Cables a synaesthetic gift that is anything but common. The closer “Sunlight To The Dawn”, naturally, is brilliant proof of this, as well as the most successful concession to his own past. He lingers only briefly on the beauty of yesterday, keeping the calm, unruffled gaze of the contemplative, like savouring again the dusty frames of a Super 8 reel in a mood of relaxed escape, without any particular nostalgia. But it’s “Photosynthesis” that best captures the adult, silent peace of the new Love. The imperturbable purity of transformation. Honest chemistry. Filtered light turning into sap. A quiet, industrious calm, indifferent to the world’s petty worries. And all of this within the span of a single, modest “walk in the park behind the house”.

Norman Blake, meanwhile, who in 2010 had been part of the host of superstar guests (alongside the ever-present Duglas T. Stewart, Eugene Kelly and Stuart Kidd) on an album of Bacharach-esque reinterpretations by South Korean singer and keyboardist Yeongene, and four years later was part of the cast of folk-revival supergroup Sound Of Yell (featuring, among others, Stevie Jackson of Belle & Sebastian and Alastair Roberts), makes another significant move with the new venture of New Mendicants, shared with the frontman of Pernice Brothers, Joe Pernice, and the drummer of Sadies, Mike Belitsky.
Into The Lime sees him return to American landscapes fifteen years after Songs From Northern Britain. This time, though, instead of the West Coast radiance à la CSN&Y, our man sets out a more understated (but luminous) Americana, in the company of local colleagues with impressive résumés. He moves deftly from spare, stripped-down numbers to limpid, intimate ballads like “Follow You Down”, penned by Pernice but admirably counterpointed by the Scottish artist, with an untiring sense of wonder as the common thread. In effect this is a modest little album that serves as Norman's American baptism, five years after moving to Ontario with his Canadian wife, but it's also substantial confirmation of his sparkling form, in the unexpected comfort zone of this elegiac roots rock after the psych-pop playground of the Jonny project: co-author of a work of superb craftsmanship, old Blake sees his credentials as an omnivorous talent and all-round, top-class songwriter further bolstered (listen too to a “High On The Skyline” that juggles the star-spangled folk-rock formula admirably, without ever smelling of crude imitation).

His touch is unleashed with unmistakable charisma right from the big single “A Very Sorry Christmas”, which sounds like a kind of ideal, tangy cross between the Jayhawks and latter-day Teenage Fanclub, under the banner of a stripped-back but blazing power-pop. The dry harmonies chasing after Olson and Louris, and even further back the Everly Brothers, genuinely impress on “If Only You Knew Her” too, while “Out Of The Lime” broadly replicates the watercolour jangle-pop of the Fannies' middle years, done with character and no sloppiness, in the manner of the best Minus 5. The energy Norman brings to the table proves a formidable tonic for the Pernice Brothers' leader too, called upon to embrace, in the unfamiliar role of easy-going mate, the youthful rock of the Glaswegian on “Shouting Match”, and he's good enough to match him for electric drive. The closing “Lifelike Hair” is a weird-pop jape sketched out by Joe's son. It smells of laid-back Wilco and gives the most eloquent account of the thoroughly relaxed mood in which the collaboration unfolded. The understated cover of the Zombies' “A Butcher's Tale”, released afterwards as the B-side of “Shouting Match”, follows, in the end, the very same line.

Rounding out the picture is a heartfelt rendition of Sandy Denny's “By The Time It Gets Dark”, which, rather than the extroverted reinterpretation already dared some twenty years ago by a prickly Yo La Tengo, opts for the polished, philologically correct tones of the original — and it doesn't disappoint — along with yet another contagious exercise in retro-pop (“Cruel Annette”, where the Beatles' lesson is delivered with the necessary nonchalance), as familiar as you like but carried off with the usual class and an enthusiasm that many celebrated revivalist colleagues lack today.

Hic et nunc

And finally, here we are in the present. There's a sort of polite modesty in the fade-out to which Teenage Fanclub seem to have, by design, consigned their once-dazzling star. The energy isn't what it was at twenty, interests have diversified, and the creative drive has inevitably cooled. Hence the meagre tally of three albums released over as many decades, compared to the astonishing run they clocked up during their five golden years. The six-year wait to reach the tenth chapter of their story (not counting mini-albums, collaborations and compilations) has even nudged the average gap up a notch, but it at least finds a practical justification in the commitments that have kept the triumvirate of Norman Blake, Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley occupied in more or less recent times. Recorded with David Henderson between Carpentras, in Provence, and Raymond's house in Glasgow, then mixed in Hamburg, Here presents the Glasgow band once again as the five-piece of the previous Shadows, with David McGowan's keyboards and former Bmx Bandits drummer Francis MacDonald confirmed as full members. And so here are the Scots again, with their gently acoustic jangle-pop built on airy, carefully weighed refrains, the same approach already tried successfully back in the days of Songs From Northern Britain (“The Darkest Part Of The Night”). On close listening, this is the classic guaranteed-quality used car, the reliable kind that never wears you out, even without promising revolutions that might in any case seem out of place.

If the band's weapons had long seemed blunted, the new effort openly chooses to put them away in an imaginary cupboard. The electric guitars refrain from biting, instead busying themselves carving out the odd aestheticizing flourish, a tasteful touch of class now and then while the melodies work their intoxicating spell. The record offers no particular surprises, but has the merit of sounding sufficiently inspired and can boast a freshness that isn't merely simulated. It's a work crafted with the usual grace, placid, good-natured and never pandering, that plays its cards well in terms of winning over loyal listeners (one example among many, yet another endless mantra in “Hold On”, for once credited to McGinley rather than Blake). The brushstrokes are soft, impressionistic, like the most serene and relaxed Yo La Tengo (“Steady State”, which recalls the aquatic adventures of “The Sound Of The Sounds Of Science”, or perhaps those of Bradford Cox on “Parallax”), with just a soft trail of reverb by way of a signature.
Writing credits and vocals take turns as always, but they belong to the same old friends, with their usual freight of promises, accounts, plain-spoken philosophy and, why not, playful suggestions. The playful dimension is dusted off here and there on the second side, but once again without overdoing it, keeping the lights low and steering clear of garish temptations even when Belle & Sebastian-esque horns raise the sugar and charm levels (“The First Sight”). The intimate tone, on the other hand, remains a small but precious certainty. Though resistant to change, Teenage Fanclub's music proves once again immune to the most fashionable expressive pollution and stays true to its own personal idea of purity. This is confirmed, in particular, by the caressing “I Have Nothing More To Say”, a delightful antidote to the vulgarities of the present that has the shape of a secluded refuge, rather like the whole album itself.

Cruising speed, in the Fannies' sense of the term, is an authoritative outpouring of easy-listening reflexes, the kind that might not hit you with a blinding impact but which nonetheless know how to slip in unnoticed, gently forcing past the defences of even the least cynical listeners, as if calling them to a moment of recognition. As if whispering in our ear: “Here we are again, an indispensable fragment of the soundtrack of your lives”. And this minor epiphany, this simple act of finding oneself again, is worth the ticket price on its own, modest as it is. With “I Was Beautiful When I Was Alive” the pace slows further still, the mood seemingly suspended in an idealised past that the hazy tones render almost magical. It replicates the wonderful luminosity of certain side projects by the band members, Lightships in particular, for a portrait that aspires, above all, to be exquisitely sentimental. It's still all a matter of signs, they insist. The old “Star Sign” is replaced by new, quieter revelations (“It's A Sign”), just as the Byrds seem to have knocked Big Star off the top spot as most beloved masters, at least on this occasion. In the closing stretch the slowdown is pronounced but even fitting, as when words become something no longer necessary and what prevails is the pleasure of simply being together, sharing the harmony of a moment, a landscape, a special bond. Here thus presents itself as an amiably reflective, autumnal work, yet reassuring in its own way. A fine lesson steeped in maturity, offered by a band in the mood for lightness and with nothing left to prove.

Five years on from Here, the band returns to the scene with an unwelcome piece of news: tired of life on the road, Gerry Love has left the band; in the meantime Dave McGowan has taken over on bass, and former Gorky's Zygotic Mynci man Euros Childs, already drafted in by Blake for the Jonny project, has joined the line-up.
Endless Arcade (2021) is a sign of time passing, a moment of reflection and possible new beginnings, a project that doesn't dim past glories but rather grinds over what's already been sown, leaving flavour and fragrance intact. It's without doubt the most intimate and confessional album the band has ever made, but despite the underlying veil of unease, Teenage Fanclub capture that old magic on more than one track.
Opening the proceedings is “Home”, a bittersweet ballad that sacrifices arpeggios and chord changes in favour of a jangle-pop groove providing the backdrop for a long guitar solo that grows ever more incandescent. The impassioned “The Sun Won't Shine On Me” revives all that power of interlocking guitars that made Kurt Cobain fall in love, and that redrew the very idea of the love song, and the two minutes of “Warm Embrace” are pure ecstasy, a concentrate of pure Byrds, new wave and psychedelia. Alongside these aforementioned gems penned by Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley counters with the decisive weave of the title track, featuring a sparkling ELO-style synth solo, the irresistible riff of “In Our Dreams” and two more intimate confessions, “The Future” and “Silent Song”.

Perhaps Endless Arcade doesn't fully satisfy fans' craving for those jangle-pop forays capable of stirring body and soul, even if “Everything Is Falling Apart” would be perfect for a new summer of love; still, it confirms that behind the apparent lightheartedness of Teenage Fanclub's music there's still plenty to discover. It's not the new cornerstone of the band's discography, but it's certainly the one richest in promise for the future.
The following album, Nothing Lasts Forever, is the classic transitional record: Teenage Fanclub keep reaching for a continuous link with the past, the scratchy guitar of “Foreign Land” and “Tired Of Being Alone”, before introducing new elements, the piano on “I Left A Light On” and the driving “Self-Sedation”, and the keyboards and guitars on a cosmic-psych trip on “Falling Into The Sun”. The normalisation arrives through a skilled but ordinary compositional flair that ultimately comes across as lukewarm and not entirely convincing; the band's by-now well-tested signature sound remains pleasant, but the prevailing sense is that Norman and co. are searching for new sources of inspiration — Nothing Lasts Forever doesn't go beyond being a commendable exercise for fans and lovers of jangle-folk and power-pop. 

The inexhaustible compositional vein that has allowed the band to push past the thirty-year mark with few dips in tension and a surprising artistic consistency once again takes centre stage with Do Not Dare To Dream, a project marked by a change of register, defined by more introspective lyrics and a folk-pop vein with pastoral, deceptively simple tones, where the gripping jangle-pop riffs give way to soul and psychedelic touches as delicate as they are precious. The Scots' new record is a succession of light and shade, where shadows and brightness echo with 1970s textures (“Be With You Tonight” and the harmonious “A Day In The Sun”); the flowing melodies reach the listener unfiltered thanks to songs as direct as “There Was You” and as touching as the flute-laced psych-folk ballad “Take Time”. The Scots face maturity with ease and renewed creative drive. Between elegant chamber-folk touches (“Over And Over”), intense soul-psychedelic vibrations (“Somewhere To Land”) and melodies as understated as they are gripping (the title track), Teenage Fanclub pick up the thread of that little romantic gem from 1997, Songs From Northern Britain. Naturally, fans of the livelier Big Star/Byrds spirit will find plenty to sink their teeth into with the boisterous “Tomorrow People”, and incurable romantics will find comfort in the lovely vocal harmonies and gentle keyboard touches of “The Same Air”; everyone, though, will be granted a melody to treasure before finally accepting, without reservation, the final surrender of a band that has accompanied a generation's dreams. A band that watches helplessly as illusions and hopes crumble, without crying out in pain, but seeking further comfort in small things, in a set of ten songs as comforting as they are stirring.

Contributions by Gianfranco Marmoro (“Endless Arcade”, “Nothing Lasts Forever”, “Do Not Dare To Dream”)

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