— Johnny Dee
It's interesting how bands can alter their identities. Freur (ie the band whose actual "name" was in fact a "squiggle resembling a poorly tapeworm") evolved in M|A|A|R|S. Colorbox eventually retooled as Underworld. If at first you can't make a go at being a "proper" band, why not try out this house stuff everyone was going on about at the end of the eighties?
The case of The Shamen is somewhat different though forged along much the same lines. Between 1985 and 1991, a great deal had changed for the Scottish group. A total of eleven individuals counted themselves as members of this organization, a turnover rate that was excessive even by the standards of struggling indie outfits. And why did so many people come and go? I'm sorry to say that little of it appears to be down to old rock faves sex and drugs but from boring old musical differences — and death in one instance. They had previously been known as Along Again Or, an on-the-nose nod to sixties' LA group Love which signaled where they were coming from, something they were slower to rid themselves of than disgruntled bandmates and guitars. The music changed but the approach hadn't.
Coming in between "Move Any Mountain" and "Ebeneezer Goode" (the two singles anyone remembers from The Shamen), it's inevitable that "L.S.I." would have slipped through the cracks. I actually assumed that it was only really remembered because of its full title which seemed prone to being misheard. And as opposed to "hold me closer Tony Danza" or 'scuse me while I kiss this guy", interpretations vary. On the excellent Back to NOW! podcast, host Iain and guest Catrin Lowe discussed possibles like "Love, Sex and Chatterpants" and "Love, Sex and Teletext". My sister had initially thought it was "Love, Sex and Janet Jacks" (which I was happy to see had also been misheard by at least one commenter on YouTube). But I haven't been able to find much else. I thought up "Love, Sex and Taller Gents", which appeals to me as a guy of considerable height but it's clearly a stretch. (That said, it was nice to hear that others thought that fellow chorus line "comin' on like a seventh sense" was in fact "comin' on like a set of stamps": you can never predict just what people will manage to get wrong)
In a bubble, "L.S.I." is a perfectly good dance-pop record. It's catchy, it's a lot of fun and if you enjoy clubbing or raves or any of that stuff, it'll get you on the dancefloor pronto. As a Shamen release, however, it's a bit of an anticlimax. The liner notes from Now That's What I Call Music 22 state that it's the "long awaited follow-up to "Move Any Mountain", a single that had been in the Top 5 way back in the summer of '91 when people still weren't utterly sick to death of Bryan bloody Adams. Having been a chart afterthought for over six years, you would think that The Shamen would've hastily put out something to cash in on finally having a hit on their hands. Instead, fans were just going to have to wait while they dealt with the aftermath of the tragic death of member Will Sin who had drowned in Tenerife while they were shooting the video to their breakthrough single.
"Move Any Mountain" had proved that they could translate their sixties' influenced psychedelic rock into a house-dance rave up and not miss a beat. (It hadn't been their first attempt but it was easily their most successful) This was the way that the acid house of A Guy Called Gerald and 808 State had been meant to sound. (Ironically, The Shamen ditched the guitars just as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were starting to "do" house music with old school instruments) "L.S.I." does have a smattering of subcontinental mysticism but little else to connect it to their roots. It's a perfectly fine dance number but didn't they have more in their trippy vault to share?
Apparently not. "Ebeneezer Goode" was certainly soaked in drugs but its contents have much more in common with the more intense and thrashy school of dance music of overlords The KLF and The Prodigy, with rapper Mr. C beginning to sound more like the late Keith Flint. If this was the sound of rave culture and the Ibiza bars in '92 then they were being taken over by a harder element, one that would become a fixture of Britpop, Cool Britannia and the lad mags. This was no longer about blissfully floating away among a tribal congregation of zonked out youths in a field in Kent but of getting the aggression out without the hassle of having to play an instrument or bash someone's head in. By the early nineties, a generation had changed every bit as much as The Shamen.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Aztec Camera: "Spanish Horses"
The summer of '92 was pretty crummy (at least it was on the Canadian prairies where I hail from) but the Barcelona Olympics were a ray of sunshine. After decades of Games ruined by politics, cheating, corruption, jingoism, terrorism, poor planning and doves being burned to a crisp, the Games of the XXV Olympiad were fun, exciting and made the Spanish city look like a whole lot more than just the place that Manuel came from. As if sensing this, Roddy Frame had the appropriately Iberian "Spanish Horses" released. Johnny Dee predicts a hit which it might have been had Frame handed it over to someone more fashionable. (Amazing how someone who was still only twenty-eight years old could have been considered passe but that's the world of pop for you; fun fact: Frame is four years younger than 100 meter gold medalist Linford Christie) Yet another musical artifact that commemorates the Spanish Civil War (as conflicts go, it's been well-represented), it isn't quite Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain or The Clash's "Spanish Bombs" but it is good enough that it should've been this issue's Single of the Fortnight Best New Single, even if it isn't quite premiership-level Aztec Camera.
