Inspiral Carpets

All Music Guide:

After the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets were arguably the third most popular band to emerge from the late-'80s/early-'90s Madchester scene. Like the Charlatans UK, they weren't quite as innovative as the city's two standard-bearers, relying less on the contemporary dance club beats that became Madchester pop's identifying signature. They did, however, share a fascination with trippy psychedelia, particularly the Farfisa organ-drenched sound of Nuggets-style garage rock from the '60s, which set them apart from their peers. It also enabled them to tinker with their sound once the Madchester fad had passed, and the group continued to score hits right up to their mid-'90s breakup.

Inspiral Carpets were formed in the Manchester-area town of Oldham by guitarist Graham Lambert, who'd been playing around the area since 1982. His group -- named after an area clothing store -- finally began to settle on a permanent lineup in 1986, when drummer Craig Gill and Farfisa organist Clint Boon joined up. They were soon augmented by vocalist Steve Holt and bassist Dave Swift, and built up a following around Manchester with their demo tapes (done in a '60s-influenced garage punk style). Clever merchandising helped the band out financially; they sold T-shirts featuring their smoking-cow logo and their slogan "Cool as F*ck," which got them media attention when a student wearing the shirt was arrested for violating obscenity laws. Their first national release came in 1988 with the Plane Crash EP on Playtime Records, but when that label's distributor went out of business later that year, the band set up their own imprint, Cow Records, which was financed mostly by T-shirt sales. The first release on Cow was the 1989 EP Trainsurfing, which got the band even more national attention. At this point, Holt and Swift -- not keen on professional careers involving lots of time and travel -- decided to leave, and were replaced by vocalist Tom Hingley (ex-Too Much Texas) and bassist Marty Walsh. With their arrival, the band's Madchester-compatible style began to crystallize, as evidenced on the new lineup's first release, the swirling, organ-driven psychedelic tune "Joe" (May 1989). The single caused a stir in the indie underground that only intensified with the follow-ups "Find Out Why" and "Move," and after being courted by several major labels, the band wound up signing with the large London-based indie Mute.

Inspiral Carpets' debut album, Life, was released in the spring of 1990. Their first single for Mute, "This Is How It Feels," hit the British Top 20 and landed them a TV appearance on Top of the Pops; the follow-up, "She Comes in the Fall," reached the Top 30. The band recorded sessions with DJ John Peel and appeared at that year's Reading Festival, helping make Life a sizable hit. After releasing the Island Head EP late in the year, the band completed its next full-length, the darker The Beast Inside, which appeared in the spring of 1991. For the supporting tour, the band hired future Oasis mastermind Noel Gallagher as a roadie. Inspiral Carpets scored their biggest chart hit in the spring of 1992 with "Dragging Me Down," which appeared on their third album, Revenge of the Goldfish, released later that fall. Although it produced three more Top 40 singles and got the band a bigger overseas audience, the album proved to be their worst seller to date, possibly because the Manchester scene's moment was perceived to have passed. In response, the group returned to a more basic garage/psychedelic sound for their next album, 1994's Devil Hopping. It was generally well received, with the singles "Saturn 5" and "I Want You" (the latter a duet with the Fall's Mark E. Smith, who did not appear on the album version) returning them to the Top 20. In late 1995, Mute released a compilation called The Singles, and soon after, it was announced that label and band were parting ways. Inspiral Carpets called it quits not long after; Boon formed the Clint Boon Experience, while Hingley formed a group called the Lovers with Jerry Kelly of the Lotus Eaters. Hingley went solo in late 2000, issuing the album Keep Britain Untidy.

Wikipedia:

Inspiral Carpets are an alternative rock band from Oldham in Greater Manchester, England formed by Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt in 1983. The band is named after a clothing shop on their Oldham estate. Their sound is based around psychedelic keyboards and guitars.

History

1983-1995

Schoolfriends Lambert and Holt recruited drummer Craig Gill, and formed Inspiral Carpets in 1983, originally as a garage punk band. After various other members had come and gone, by 1987 the line-up included bassist David Swift and organist Clint Boon (whose Ashton-under-Lyne studio the band had been using for rehearsals). The band released two albums worth of demos in the 1980s, Waiting for Ours and Songs of Shallow Intensity, including songs that would later be re-recorded.

They came to prominence, alongside bands like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, in the 'Madchester' scene of the late 1980s. After a flexi-disc featuring Garage Full Of Flowers given free with Manchester's Debris magazine in 1987, followed by the Cow cassette, their first release proper, the 1988 Planecrash EP on the Playtime label received much airplay from Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who asked the band to record a session for his show. At the time of their initial success, the band earned some notoriety for their squiggly-eyed cow 'Cool as Fuck' T-shirts; a student at Oxford Polytechnic was prosecuted on obscenity charges for wearing one. They reworked their single "Find Out Why" as the theme tune to the 8:15 from Manchester. As their popularity grew, Playtime's distributor Red Rhino Records went bust, leading the band to form their own label, Cow Records in March 1989, the labels' first release being the Trainsurfing EP. In the same year, Holt and Swift departed to form The Rainkings, with the band recruiting Too Much Texas singer Tom Hingley and Martin "Bungle" Walsh of The Next Step to replace them. After a handful of singles on their own label, the last of which, "Move", came close to the UK top 40, they signed a deal with Mute Records, and immediately had their first top 40 chart success in the UK with "This Is How It Feels", which is a song about unemployment and touches on themes of domestic violence. The single reached #14 in the singles chart, and debut album Life reached #2 in the album chart, both in 1990.

The following year's The Beast Inside was less well-received by critics, but still achieved a top 5 album chart placing. The "Caravan" and "Please be Cruel" singles only reached #30 and #50 respectively, and an attempt to crack the American market largely failed. The band did, however, gain a strong following in Portugal, Germany, and Argentina, with the band's 1992 album Revenge of the Goldfish becoming their most successful in those countries. The album peaked at number 17 in the UK, and spawned four UK hit singles. The next album, Devil Hopping (1994) reached number 10 in the album chart, with "Saturn 5" and "I Want You" giving them top 20 hits, from that LP. (The latter's single version featured Mark E. Smith). Next single "Uniform" stalled at #51 and in 1995, after the release of a Singles collection, the band were dropped by Mute, and split up soon after.

Post-split activities (1995-2003)

Hingley formed a new band, The Lovers, along with Jerry Kelly of The Lotus Eaters (the band later featured Steve and Paul Hanley of The Fall), while Boon formed The Clint Boon Experience, releasing a string of singles on his own Artful label. Gill also formed a new band, Hustler who eventually changed their name to 'Proud Mary' naming themselves after a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Proud Mary signed to Noel Gallagher's Big Brother label some years later, while Walsh moved into production, largely working on techno-dance music. Two of the band's roadies enjoyed musical success themselves; van driver Mark Collins joined The Charlatans in 1991, while guitar technician Noel Gallagher joined Oasis.

Reformation (2003-2011)

They re-formed in 2003, releasing a new single "Come Back Tomorrow" (recorded in 1995), a couple of sold-out tours and a number of new compilation records, most notably the Cool As box set. They have toured sporadically since, reuniting yet again in 2007 to tour in support of an iTunes only compilation of their b-sides and rarities. They played a tour in 2008 under the banner "Return Of The Cow", announcing that their own Cow Records label was to be revived.

Hingley departs and Holt returns (2011)

In February 2011, Tom Hingley announced on Twitter that the Inspirals had split up. Clint Boon responded "Inspiral Carpets have not split up. It appears that one member has chosen to leave". In August 2011 they announced a reunion with original singer Stephen Holt. Their website states "Inspirals will be recording their first material in 15 years coupled with worldwide live concerts".

Line-ups

Original line-up

Height of success

Guitarist Graham Lambert states in an interview on the Cool As box set that the band had tried numerous bass players before settling on Martyn Walsh, who was their thirteenth bass player.