One of my colleagues at work told me a nice story this week about seeing Pulp support St Etienne at Portsmouth Pier in 1993. She said that she knew nothing about Pulp before the gig and they were totally amazing. She then spent months, in those pre-Internet days, trawling round record shops trying to track down Pulp's music. Made me realise how easy it is now to instantly access music.
Anyway, that got me thinking about St. Etienne. They're one of those bands that I've always thought I should like but I've never got round to exploring. Where should I start? What are you recommendations?
-- Edited by Deborah on Saturday 24th of September 2011 03:16:08 PM
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Her house was very small with woodchip on the wall
The album Fox Base Alpha was well thought of by Pulp and the press back then. Too Young To Die is a useful singles compilation and there's a very good remix album called Casino Classics.
The first two albums are quirky things, Foxbase Alpha and So Tough - some great pop, more danceable house-influenced tracks (which now sound rather charmingly dated) with ''found samples'' and soundclips from all sorts of things (among them Richard Whitely on Countdown) spliced into the mix quite a bit. They seemed to get lost in the midst of Britpop. I really enjoyed their last(?) album, Tales From Turnpike House aswell.
And of course Bob Stanley, championed Pulp for many years.
Thank you! I've listened to Pulp and Jarvis side projects almost exclusively all summer and am danger of overdoing it. Good to explore something new to me.
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Her house was very small with woodchip on the wall
Are there any singles by them I'm likely to be familiar with. I've heard of them (did they do a 'Trip' compilation or am I getting confused?) but not even certain of their style of music. I like music with weird samples though so definitely going to check them out!
Coincidentally am just listening to Foxbase Alpha just now. Apart from that Saint Etienne are more of a singles band (get Too Young to Die or the Smash the System Double CD), though Finisterre and Tales from Turnpike House are both great albums too.
I once interviewed Bob Stanley who told me that when they were gigging with Pulp Jarvis gave him a postcard of Park Hill flats in Sheffield.
