Elastica
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Here's a band I know a lot about: Elastica. I have all their singles, EPs, albums, bootlegs and miscellaneous releases (booklets, playing cards, etc). I was a pretty massive fan, I guess.
I felt that I fortunate to have followed their career very early on, unlike bands, such as The Smiths, that I had discovered very late into the game had to track down records one at a time and uncover that mystery. For Elastica, at the time, the story unfolded in real time.
As I was getting into Sleeper, Echobelly, Lush, and here comes Elastica with their magnificent Stutter in 1993, followed by Line Up in 1994. All the weeklies (Melody Maker, NME) and monthlies (Q, Vox, the short-lived Raw) were talking about them, hyping them up as the best thing since sliced bread. The more they loved Justine Frischmann, the more I fell in love with Donna Matthews.
Sadly, you might probably know them as a "one-hit" wonder with Connection, which I never understood the logic behind why this song was ever that popular. I don't think it was the flashy video, I much preferred the one-take, all white background of Stutter, but this video never really did well (even after a second boost at trying to make the follow-up single in the US after "Connection".)
By the time their self-titled debut album came out, it was possibly the best thing I've ever heard at the time. Forty minutes of perfection. I knew all the songs, from start to finish. From the Wire-inspired "Line Up" to the fast and furious/one-take "Annie" to the bassy "Car Song" to the funky "Hold Me Now".
The song that my friend Jenny and I used to sing all the time was "All Nighter". We never figured out the lyrics, but I think we figured it out eventually: "Got to go to the garage/Got to get some fags and make some tea/Can you lend me enough wedge?/Do you want to walk up there with me?
I take it back, not all the forty minutes were perfect, I'd always managed to skip over "Indian Song". Don't know why, just never really liked the song.
Obviously with success, came the lawsuits. Several bands sued them for plagiarism, particularly Wire ("Connection" and "Line Up" bore huge similarities to Wire's "I Am The Fly" and "Three Girl Rhumba").
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They decided to lay low for a while, and after a very long break from the music business, they were reported working on the difficult sophomore album - five years too late, in my opinion. Prior to the album, a 6 Track EP came out with a collaboration with Mark E Smith, from the Fall.
When they asked Smith why they had asked him to appear on the single, he jokingly said something to the extent that if they were going to rip off the Fall, they might as well have the real thing. It was a good collaboration, although the five other tracks were either hit or miss for me.
Once The Menace came out, five years later, I think people were pretty much felt disinterested in Elastica. They tried to write all original material, but it felt more or less cut and paste for me. The only songs that I really liked off The Menace was a overproduced "Generator" (the demo version is more punchier), "How He Wrote Elastica Man" (a different mix), "Your Arse...My Place" (this is a fun song), and "Love Like Ours" (a rough and superior version appeared on Volume earlier).
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They broke up a year later, with their final single, appropriately titled The Bitch Don't Work in 2001. The Radio One Sessions was also released shortly, collecting all their BBC sessions. I believe most of these songs appeared in one or or another as B-Sides on various singles - but it is very nice to have them all on one CD.
I was fortunately enough to catch them on tour for The Menace and even bought an overpriced concert T-Shirt, which I've never regretted. It's one of my favorite shirt, a dark navy blue with the classic "Elastica" logo on the front.
After the breakup, I didn't really follow too closely to where everyone went to. Frischmann went to Colorado, of all places, schooling, after a (very public) breakup with Damon Albarn of Blur. Matthews went on to be the frontswoman for Klang (I have a few 7" releases). Bassist Annie Holland disappeared, she's no longer in the music business, while drummer Justin Welch eventually married later member Mew.
Below, you will find some classic singles from Elastica: Justine on Line Up (US version), Donna on Connection, Annie on Stutter, and Justin on Stutter (Australian version).
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Links:
www.elasticated.org
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