The Vaselines
 

Love em or hate em?

Ever heard of them?

Anyone?

****

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thu...the_finger.jpg

The Vaselines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stock photo fail!

To answer your second question, yes I've heard of them.

This forum is filled with threads about an artists where the OP just says 'do you like them? what are your favourites?' without even going into a discussion about whether they like them and what they like about them.

Hardly an incentive for creative discussion.

The band formed in 1986, and released two short EPs, Son of a Gun, which featured a reworking of Divine's "You Think You're a Man" on its B-side, and Dying for It, which featured the songs 'Molly's Lips' and 'Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam', both of which Nirvana would later cover. In 1989 they released their only album, Dum-Dum, on 53rd and 3rd Records. The band broke up shortly after its release. They briefly reformed in 1990 to open for Nirvana when they played in Edinburgh.

Though they were not widely known outside of Scotland during their short career, their association with Nirvana brought exposure to the band. With their songs "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips" covered on Nirvana's album Incesticide and "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" covered on MTV Unplugged in New York, the band gained a new audience. At the 1991 Reading Festival, Kelly joined Nirvana on stage for a performance of "Molly's Lips".[1] In 1992, Sub Pop released The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History, a compilation that contained The Vaselines' entire body of work.

Kelly went on to found the band Captain America (later renamed Eugenius after legal threats from Marvel Comics), supporting Nirvana on their U.K. tour.[1] He currently performs solo and released a solo album 'Man Alive' in 2004. McKee founded the band Suckle and released her first solo album, Sunny Moon, in 2006.

In summer 2006, McKee and Kelly took to the stage together for the first time since 1990 to perform a set of Vaselines songs, as part of a joint tour to promote their individual solo albums.

The Vaselines reformed on the April 24, 2008 for a charity show for the Malawi Orphan Support group at Glasgow's MONO venue. Invitation was by word of mouth with no press announcements and the Vaselines played to a packed, enthusiastic audience. On May 7, 2008, it was announced in NME and Exclaim! that the Vaselines would perform on May 16 at Scotland's Tigerfest.[2][3] The band have stated that members of Belle and Sebastian will support their live set. The band will also perform at Sub Pop Records' 20th Anniversary SP20 music festival on July 12 at Marymoor Park just outside Seattle WA. As a warm-up to the SP20 festival, The Vaselines played two New York City area shows. Their performance at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ on July 9, 2008 was their first-ever U.S. performance.

Love Wikipedia.

Quoting a bunch of stuff from Wikipedia isn't going into a discussion about whether you like them or not. Anyone can look them up on Wikipedia. It would be better if you had given a little of your own insight into the group. Hence why noone has bothered replying to this thread.

Alright... my god this thread is just embarressing now. I just wanted general opinion of them...

Wow, nobody else gave on opinion of this wonderful band. Anyways, I absolutely love them. Probably the only band I love were I prefer a compilation (The Way of The Vaselines) to a a regular album. It was this band that made me get into others like Beat Happening and Talulah Gosh.

Yeah I just wanted to talk to some other fans... instead I got ridiculed. :D

Never going to listen to something with SUCH a *** name like The Vaselines :laughing:

I know but give it a chance man, its good stuff ;)

SONACE. Trolling simpletons allowed (seriously, somebody put a muzzle on it), the Vaselines are great, I thought more indiepop muppets on here would be into them. I have 'the Way of the Vaselines' collection, and it's not a stretch to say it's 19 tracks of perfection (bar some EP stuff this collects the entire recorded output of the band).
Their style is simple and amateurish but not in a contrived, 'indier-than-thou' way a la Beat Happening, IMO.

Most people here will know them via the Nirvana covers of Son Of A Gun and Molly's Lips, but they are Scottish so automatically own Nirvana AND they were mates with the Pastels. Could you ask for more?

Surely one of the first boy/girl pop/indie duos to achieve notoriety? I can't think of any earlier ones at the momo

edit: haven't listened to them in a while but at least four of their songs were quite dirty, they never overcooked the 'twee' thing

Yeah I was also quite surprised there wasn't already a thread on them. I also have the Way of the Vaselines and (preparing for backlash) I think it owns all of the Indi stuff we have today.. but then again I haven't bought an Indi record since 2007.

i would say that's not an outlandish claim to make, without wanting to get into another discussion about the 'definition of indie'. There has been loads of indie pop worth buying since this, but then it all sounds the same so who's to say? The Vaselines brought together several different strains on that one record though - shoegazey stuff, slightly grungey Subpop stuff, twee lo-fi ditties.... they had it all really.
And I like bands who left us with one easy-to-digest collection of great songs then had the good grace to bugger off.

I will say though that the Vaselines had quite an edge to them, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee play off eachother really well - Kelly sounds like that guy from Spacemen 3 (name?) and McKee provides the kind of angelic/generic female vocals you can hear in hundreds of 80's indie bands.

Fave songs? Mine are Son of a gun and Monsterpussy :D

I think his name is Jason Pierce, could be wrong though.

I definetely dig Molly's Lips and Rory Rides Me Raw, and the song you posted is one of my favorites too.

For me, one point of contempt with this group can be their lyrics..

Example:
"Man boy, Man boy"

But I don't really mind this because their lyrics seem to jump from really medicore to really good.. and by the time it's medicore I'm too into the song to care.