HELLO GOODBYE
They began when shambling indie reigned. But house music and other people’s songs put a stop to the fun.
First it shambled, and then it became twee. Amelia Fletcher recalls the rise and fall of Talulah Gosh.
HELLO NOVEMBER 1985
I was part of the scene that was happening in London, going to all the gigs even though I lived in Oxford. I was a big fan of the Soup Dragons and The Pastels and Primal Scream, and everything on Creation. Part of what was really good about it was that it felt possible, and not very hard, to do what they did. They seemed to be getting by pretty well with attitude and passion. I guess I just wanted to be a part of it, and to write perfect pop songs with a very personal quality.
I cajoled my boyfriend Pete [Momtchiloff, guitar], and my brother Matthew [drums] to be in my band, but I really wanted more females. I couldn’t find anyone in Oxford, and I eventually walked up to this girl [Elizabeth Price] at a Here Comes Everybody gig at Jesus College [on November 22, 1985] because she was wearing a Pastels badge. She said, “Well I can’t play anything, but my boyfriend’s just given me a guitar, so why not?” When we asked around for a bass player, a friend of a friend suggested a guy called Rob [Pursey], and me and Elizabeth went to his house, looked at his posters and his records and said, “You’ll do.” [Reader, she married him, and currently plays with him in The Catenary Wires].
Sometimes we practised at my parents’ home, and there was a practice room close to Elizabeth’s bedroom in Jesus College. We made a horrible racket and one day we found a note outside the door saying, “You Are Really, Really Terrible, Please Don’t Practise Here Again”, ha ha! I think we were pathetic and thought, Oh, we better not then.
It did happen remarkably fast. I’d already written a few songs, Elizabeth just picked up a guitar and wrote amazing songs, and in a very short space of time we got offered a gig supporting The Razorcuts, Elizabeth’s boyfriend’s band, in Oxford [on March 7, 1986]. Loads of people on the scene came up from London and Bristol. I remember being absolutely terrified, and we were pretty ramshackle, but I guess the audience got what we were trying to do and from that moment it grew really fast. We got a gig in Bristol, then London, and then we were on page three of the NME!
GOODBYE FEBRUARY 1988
Very early on, playing to people in our scene, the term was “shambling”. It meant, we don’t put a premium on being able to play, we put a premium on ideas. But as the press pushed us, we played bigger gigs to people who weren’t so understanding, and we got quite a bit of heckling. The term “twee” was created and we started getting slagged off in the music press. Some people bought into a certain macho aesthetic, and I think we were undermining that, I suppose.
It was part of a whole set of things, though. I had it in my head that you shouldn’t be in band after you were 21. I was in my third year of university and had to concentrate on my exams, a very boring reason… another thing was everyone was more prolific than me, and I felt quite uncomfortable singing their songs. It was too democratic. Another thing was, in 1988 everybody who had been into indie was suddenly into house music. It looked like this thing I’d loved was coming to an end, and I didn’t want to be plugging away at some kind of music. So I thought, Stop.
The worst thing that I did, and I still don’t quite forgive myself for this, was I organised a final gig at the London School of Economics [on February 5, 1988], but I hadn’t told the rest of the band! I must’ve told Pete, because he was my boyfriend, but there was never the right moment, and they saw it in the press beforehand. I think Chris [Scott, bass] and Eithne [Farry, vocals] were fine, but I do remember my brother being very unhappy with me, which was fair enough! It was a great gig, absolutely, brilliant fun. There were more people on-stage than in the audience by the end. The last thing was probably Testcard Girl, a great racket to end on.
I was determined I wasn’t going to do a band again, but Rob and Pete started one without me. I was incredibly jealous. That’s when Heavenly started. In Heavenly, the rule was that I wrote all the songs… I’m a control freak basically. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to give up being in bands. It’s interesting, but I don’t think we’d [do Talulah Gosh] again, though it probably would be quite a thing.
The Catenary Wires’ new album Birling Gap is out on June 18, and is reviewed on p88.
AMELIA FLETCHER “We found a note saying: Please Don’t Practise Here Again.”