Every Conversation: The Story Of The June Brides & Phil Wilson

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Total Tracks: 29   Total Length: 90:43

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Mike McGonigal

eMusic Contributor

Mike McGonigal is editorial director for YETI publishing and the author of three little music books. He lives in Portland, OR, where he spends his time assembli...more »

11.28.06
Belle & Sebastian's secret forefathers; cheery, recombinant pop to spazz out to when no one is looking
2005 | Label: Cherry Red Records / IODA

When I first heard Belle and Sebastian, my first thought was, "Wow, this sounds like a mellower version of June Brides!" I said as much aloud dozens of times, louder and louder each time, hoping to get an "Amen" from some fan of vaguely obscure British indie pop. Instead, everyone in the record store just moved further and further away from me. I was a little bit right, but who cares? The June Brides were an up-tempo, guitar-based pop band with a violinist and a horn player. Their music was catchy and smart and had sophisticated lyrics and arrangements, but it also was super-hummable — the kind of thing you dance around like a spazz to when no one's looking. At the time, they sounded like a collaboration between Burt Bacharach and Big Flame. Though lumped in with the C86 scene, they'd actually been around a few years before that infamous NME cassette — and the Brides had better songs than most of their contemporaries. Phil Wilson wrote a dozen songs that should have been huge, international hits: "We Belong," "Sick Tired and Drunk," "Every Conversation," "I Fall," "Enemies" — these are such happy, life-affirming numbers, so much… read more »

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A Gem of an Album

mconroy7000

Put on the first track, and just let it play all the way through ... you won't regret it.

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They Say All Music Guide

Though the June Brides are usually pegged as one of the C-86 bands that permeated the U.K. indie underground in the mid- to late ’80s, they actually predated that scene by a few years. In reality, the June Brides, like the Pale Fountains and the Blue Aeroplanes, were a bridge between earlier post-punk acts like Josef K or the Television Personalities and the C-86 bands; they also favored a more polished sound than the bands that came before or after, with an expanded lineup that featured both a trumpeter and a viola player. The comprehensive double-disc anthology Every Conversation: The Story of the June Brides and Phil Wilson, contains 41 tracks (including an entire disc’s worth of BBC sessions) that comprehensively cover both the 1983-1986 tenure of the June Brides, including all of their singles and their sole album, 1985′s There Are Eight Million Stories, as well as the handful of solo singles singer/songwriter Phil Wilson recorded for Creation Records in that influential label’s early days. Though the June Brides lacked that one classic single that summed them up in three minutes or less (though both the title track and their first outing, 1984′s “In the Rain,” come very close), the material here is unfailingly solid. Wilson’s yearning, boyish (and occasionally pitch-poor) vocals were strongly reminiscent of Josef K’s Paul Haig, a connection that the jangly minor-key shuffle “Josef’s Gone” seems to nod to, and the band’s blend of the third Velvet Underground album’s moody charms and the wide-eyed winsomeness of the nascent twee pop aesthetic proved hugely influential to the generation of D.I.Y. bands that followed. Best of all, the June Brides didn’t last long enough to attempt any misbegotten stylistic makeovers: even Wilson’s solo singles stay close to the shimmering guitar pop template of his former band, so much so that one has to look at the liner notes to see which songs are credited to whom. – Stewart Mason

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