My current reading on the bus is a book called THIS IS POP: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A FAILED ROCK STAR, written by Ed Jones. THIS IS POP is a perfect companion piece to my Bill Drummond and Julian Cope books. They’re the men that made it on their own terms. Ed Jones did not make it. Ed Jones was the bassist for my favourite band ever, the Tansads. The Tansads are notable for having been supported in their day by bands like by The Verve, Cast, Kula Shaker and Dodgy, and yet despite being better than any of those bands, never getting the kind of acclaim and recognition they deserved. They got unlucky. They were marketed in all the wrong ways, and fucked about by their record company in a wholly rotten manner. They vanished without trace, like so many others.
And this is why I love them – because they never got a chance to keep going, never got a chance to go downhill. The music is perfectly preserved indie-pop-rock, with a hint of Levellers-esque crust (which is probably what killed them – to crusty for the normal people, not crusty enough for the crusties). It’s bouncy, happy and fun, and will remain so despite the fact that they never got anywhere.