Moose – In Concert at The Marquee Club, London – September 3, 1991 – BBC Radio 1 –
Legendary band Moose in concert from The Marquee Club in 1991 tonight. The band credited variously as the ones who coined the phrase Shoegaze and launched it into the musical lexicon – although there are just as many detractors to the story – still, adds something to the mystique.
Probably the best bio on Moose comes via AllMusic, written by John Bush – an excerpt here:
Not so much underrated as unheard, Moose grew up in Britain’s distortion-heavy shoegazing movement of the early ’90s but soon shed the fuzzy wash of their compatriots to embrace a clean, acoustic-based style — inspired by ’60s icons Burt Bacharach and Tim Buckley as well as jangle merchants like the Byrds and R.E.M. — that still relied on the intense guitar effects which characterized the band’s early works. Moose was formed in early 1990 by the songwriting team of Kevin (K.J.) McKillop and Russell Yates (Yates had appeared in an early incarnation of Stereolab), plus drummer Damien Warburton and bassist Jeremy Tishler. The group signed to Hut Records (also the British home of Smashing Pumpkins and the Verve) in 1990, and began recording with producer Guy Fixsen (later of Laika).
Signed to Belgium’s Play It Again Sam Records, the band released their second album, Honey Bee, in early 1994. It wisely included a different version of “I Wanted to See You to See if I Wanted You,” but Moose appeared to be verging on overkill with yet another carbon-copy version included on the Bang Bang EP several months later. Perhaps signaling a stall in creativity, third album Live a Little, Love a Lot was released with no attaching single, though the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser did lend her vocals to one track. Four years later, Moose reappeared with an album (High Ball Me!) released on the English Nickel and Dimes as well as on the American Le Grand Magistery.
Hit the Play button and crank it up – tomorrow’s Friday anyway . . .
