China Drum – Live at Reading ’96 – August 24, 1996 – John Peel – BBC Radio 1 –
Going back to Reading Festival 1996 with a set from China drum, recorded and broadcast live on August 24, 1996 by John Peel.
China Drum were formed in rural Northern England in 1989 by brothers Bill and Dave McQueen, a guitarist and bassist respectively, and singing drummer Adam Lee. Then teenagers, the members first began rehearsing in a local farm’s empty pig shed powered by an electrical generator. After four years of extensive local and regional gigging, the band self-released their debut single, “Simple”, in 1993, which was championed by John Peel and other members of the British radio press. They were also heartened when Frankie Stubbs and his influential punk band Leatherface received the single warmly and covered the B-side track “Meaning” on their “Little White God” single the following year.
Their breakthrough hit came via a high-tempo cover version of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”, which received its first wide release as the B-Side to Goosefair’s lead single, “Can’t Stop These Things”. This inaugurated the band’s practice of recording punk versions of pop songs: they later recorded Crowded House’s “Fall at Your Feet” in a similar vein, and the theme tune to the television programme The Adventures of Rupert Bear also became a fan favorite at concerts.
They released their second album, Self Made Maniac on 24 April 1997, via the Beggars Banquet imprint the following year. The album received mixed critical reception: while The Washington Post critic Mark Jenkins praised the record’s balance of classic British rock and modern punk, Dean Carlson noted via AllMusic that the band’s sound had “ripened” but now lacked “fervor and melody”. In 1998 the group added former Compulsion drummer Jan Alkema to their live lineup, freeing Lee to act exclusively as lead vocalist during concerts.
They released the Diskin album via Mantra Records in this incarnation the following year. Diskin’s change of musical direction polarized fans and received lukewarm critical reviews, with NME noting the uneven results of the experimentation and awarding the album five out of ten stars. After being dropped by Mantra and embarking upon a poorly received tour in support of Suicidal Tendencies, The Drum ultimately disbanded in September 2000 due to financial and personal considerations.
In 2013 the band reformed with a line up including Lee, the McQueen brothers, and new members John Steel on guitar and Kate Stephenson on drums. Returning to the China Drum moniker and focusing mostly on early material, they played their first gig after reuniting at The Garage in London on 21 February with support by Midway Still and Vanilla Pod. Further concerts followed thereafter, starting with Newcastle University Students’ Union on 10 May and a subsequent tour of the United Kingdom. The band released the “Water” single in October 2014. They played dates without Bill McQueen in 2014, and entered a hiatus thereafter. They resumed playing live in March 2018.
For a reminder what they sounded like in 1996 – hit the Play button and dive in.
