One of the sharpest bands to have blossomed amid the original Brit indie pop explosion was Talulah Gosh, formed in Oxford in 1986 and burning bright for just two years. Their output was considerable during that period, as collected on Was It Just a Dream?, which gets a fresh edition on December 11 from Damaged Goods Records. It arrives in conjunction with A Bout de Heavenly, the band spanking new singles compilation from Heavenly, the outfit that emerged after Talulah Gosh’s dissolution. Absorbed together, these releases document a journey from the twee side of ’80s guitar pop toward the ’90s indie scene to rub shoulders with Riot Grrl and even burgeoning Britpop. They deliver a helluva ride.
Was It Just a Dream? was first issued in 2013 as an expansion upon Talulah Gosh’s posthumous discographical compilation Backwash, which came out in 1996, fittingly via K Records. Like Backwash, Damaged Goods’ update requires four sides of vinyl (while losing nothing in the process), which should only underscore the prolificacy of the band.
Talulah Gosh commenced as guitarist-vocalist Amelia Fletcher, her drummer brother Mathew, guitarist-vocalist Elizabeth Price, lead guitarist Peter Momtchiloff, and bassist Rob Pursey, who was the first to quickly leave in ’86, replaced in short order by Chris Scott. Price departed the next year, with Eithne Farry stepping in.
It’s important to note that Talulah Gosh thrived as a singles band in the literal sense, as they never released a non-comp full-length album while extant, although 12-inch EPs expanding or combining 45s do figure in their catalog. That means Was It Just a Dream? helps conserve shelf space as it documents all the studio material and two radio sessions for the BBC; the additional cuts are four demos first released by Damaged Goods on a 45 for Record Store Day way back in 2011.
Those demos raise the track total to 29, which again, given Talulah Gosh’s lifespan is a concentrated dose of activity. And Was It Just a Dream? is just the kind of anthology that can foreground limitations amid the youthful energies and plummet the listener from anticipation of the exhaustive to being underwhelmed by rehashed ideas and decreased inspiration.
Happily, this isn’t the case here, as the record’s contents would’ve been wholly suitable for inclusion on the C86 compilation, though in fact Talulah Gosh was just a few months late for that, as the tape offered via mail order from the New Musical Express (shortly thereafter available in stores on LP through Rough Trade) dates from May of that year, while the band’s first 45, “Beatnik Boy” b/w “My Best Friend,” using Discogs as a reference, didn’t emerge until October.
Talulah Gosh had the jangle, and it was indisputable they were descended from punk, but they also flaunted a twee streak that would come into sharper focus later in Heavenly. But let’s not jump ahead. The story goes that the spark of Talulah Gosh’s formation was Amelia and Price, both wearing Pastels badges, meeting in an Oxford club.
And it was 53rd & 3rd, the label cofounded by Stephen McRobbie aka Stephen Pastel, that, save for one track from a split flexi with Razorcuts, issued all of Talulah Gosh’s output during their existence. That means they were labelmates with The Vaselines, The Boy Hairdressers, The Shop Assistants, BMX Bandits, and Beat Happening. These associations help place them solidly in their era, but they also stylistically point them toward the indie 1990s.
Due to the range of their good taste (the band’s name derives from a NME headline to an interview with Clare Grogan of Altered Images), one might misconstrue that Talulah Gosh didn’t evolve much in their two years, but with increased confidence and heightened instrumental skill they progressed from the lighter ’60s-ish jangle and Spector moves of their first couple singles toward a rawer (if not necessarily heavier) sound that mingled “X Offender”-era Blondie with early Ramones. It’s telling that the AGARR in 53rd & 3rd’s catalog matrix stands for “As Good as Ramones Records.”
“Testcard Girl” finds them in Vaselines-like form, but then sliding into cacophonous formlessness and then just as quickly back toward structure. Decidedly not a rookie movie. It’s followed on Was It Just a Dream? by “Bringing Up Baby,” a pop nugget, erudite yet not too sophisto, that effectively points the way forward to Heavenly. But in summation, any fan of The Primitives that isn’t already hip to Talulah Gosh should seek to remedy that situation with this 2LP/CD tout suite.
After the band’s demise the Fletchers and Momtchiloff wasted no time in forming Heavenly with Pursey, he of the hasty exit from Talulah Gosh, which can’t help but register as curious in the context of band breakups. It can also lead one to the erroneous conclusion that Heavenly is just Talulah Gosh under another name, and that’s decidedly not the case, as the 17 tracks collected on A Bout de Heavenly spotlight a substantial rise in maturity and ambition.
My introduction to Heavenly was made through their 1991 45 for K Records as part of the label’s International Pop Underground series and its spectacular B-side “Escort Crash on Marston Street.” I purchased this record prior to hearing Talulah Gosh, so that the music registered not as a continuation of anything but rather, though the pure delight of Amelia’s vocals, as similar to the work of fellow K Records artist Lois Maffeo.
Much of this comes down to sheer sweetness of tone, but like Maffeo, Fletcher’s delivery is never sugary, which keeps Heavenly from ever faltering into the cutesy. With this said, the group, which added Cathy Rogers on keyboards and backing vox for second LP Le Jardin de Heavenly in 1992, didn’t abandon twee pop but instead sorta ushered it into something comparable to adulthood. Part of this surely derives from the tackling of serious subjects, such as date rape in “Hearts and Crosses,” but it’s also down to the quality of the songwriting and the mingled richness and toughness of the execution.
Still, it’s basically impossible to hear Fletcher sing about building a treehouse in “So Little Deserve” and not think of Calvin Johnson, he of Beat Happening and K; notably, Johnson not only released records by Heavenly but guested on their third and fourth LPs, both issued in the UK by the Sarah label. Now, the relationships with Johnson and K and Sarah reinforce a connection to punk that’s made explicit in “P.U.N.K. Girl,” though it also roars out loud and clear in “Trophy Girlfriend,” “Space Manatee,” and the swankest cover of The Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down” this side of Yo La Tengo’s.
Finale “Art School” is as Ramones-y as a Magnapop track, which accentuates consistency of inspiration. That’s nice. But the a cappella “So?” is a dead ringer for a Stephin Merritt number, which underlines how the band sorta blended the urbaneness of Chickfactor magazine with the explosive imperative of Riot Grrl. It’s a combination that marks Heavenly as an underrated entity; hopefully, A Bout de Heavenly will change that.
Was It Just a Dream?
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A Bout de Heavenly
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