Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

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The ICA hosted " C86 - Still Doing It For Fun", [27] an exhibition and two nights of gigs celebrating the rise of British independent music. As eclectic as C86 is, by no means does it try to encompass the entire British indie scene circa 1986. As Taylor recounts in his liner notes, “The aim […] was to take an aural snapshot of the moment. Were these acts representative of the state of a certain kind of indie music at that time? Very much so. Was C86 intended to be the be-all and end-all of independent music at that time? Of course not”. In fact, some bands refused to be included, fearing it would lead to being pigeonholed—like the June Brides, one of the major players in the admittedly loose-knit scene that C86 gathered together. That’s been rectified by the reissue, with the June Brides’ horn-punched, Burt Bacharach-like gem “Just the Same” serving as the first song on the box set’s first bonus disc. And some bands that were surely nowhere near being seriously considered in the first place— such as Happy Mondays, whose undercooked “Freaky Dancin’” is a minor skirmish of the dancefloor havoc they’d go on to wreak— serve more as a historical curiosity than a corrected omission. Q: There has been a fair amount of debate about who should and shouldn’t have been on the tape. Do you think you got it right at the time ? It’s really interesting to see the challenges and problems that each band had before, during and after C86, some complain of too much freedom, others of too much control, some sought mainstream, pop success, others were happy to remain obscure. We really get a broad range of personalities too, those who remain proud of their contribution and others who wish to distance themselves from it and are determined not to be defined by it. These bands felt so cool and untouchable to me as a teen - now I'm older I can relate to their various struggles and the odd paths their lives take them down. The book deconstructs the imagined glamour of life in a Peel session / NME single of the week / top 10 indie chart hit band to the point where you feel almost fatherly to the young groups of 36 years ago.

Very few still make a living from music and the range of jobs they now have is the result of a careers officer having several strong coffees and randomly shouting titles from a work I absolutely loved reading about what happened to these artists after C86. Some still tour with their C86 bands, and some have started new music ventures. And for those who left the music game altogether (albeit sometimes briefly), some of them opened up bike shops, became driving instructors or exchanged rainy England for sunny Los Angeles. Ex- NME writer Andrew Collins summed up C86 by dubbing it "the most indie thing to have ever existed". [16] Bob Stanley, a Melody Maker journalist in the late 1980s and founding member of pop band Saint Etienne, similarly said in a 2006 interview that C86 represented:

A unique journey into the legacy and afterlives of the artists who featured on the legendary NME C86 tape.

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.But, this book is fascinating. Featuring new interviews with one or more members of all 22 bands on the original tape, focusing on that time and their lives since. As such It works as a sort of companion piece to Exit Stage Left from last year – interviews with musicians post-fame – but in the case of C86ers most of them didn’t even get famous in the first place. For many, C86 was the pinnacle. In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born. There was an upside as well as a downside,” concludes Stephen McRobbie, of the Pastels. “There’s no doubt that it helped us to reach a larger audience. We probably benefited. But it became more of a signifier than any of us imagined … ”

I think this might actually be my favourite music related book of recent times. It’s not so much a book about C86 as a genre, more a book about youth, ambition, hope, dreams, obstacles, frustration, coping and compromise. It really is, maybe inadvertantly, a superb book on middle age and how that can make you reflect on your life, the bits you enjoyed before the demands of career and family took over, forcing you to “put away childish things.” The C86 name was a play on the labelling and length of blank compact cassette, commonly C60, C90 and C120, combined with 1986. In 2022, journalist Nige Tassell published the book Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey, based on interviews with members of all 22 bands that had appeared on the cassette. It outlines the "many and varied paths through life" these musicians took over a period of more than three decades. [22] Follow-ups [ edit ] The 30-year anniversary of C86 saw the original compilation issued in a deluxe gatefold sleeved double- LP edition for Record Store Day 2016. [29] Following the success of the three-disc compilation, ‘ The Sun Shines Here’ (which documented the roots of Indie Pop from 1980-84), the prequel to C86, C85 combines “name” bands with many obscurities making their debut on CD. Several acts on C85 would eventually feature on that NME’s C86 collection: Primal Scream, The Wedding Present, the Mighty Lemon Drops, etc, who all had singles released in 1985.I’m guessing the book had a fairly niche audience but I found it hugely enjoyable and also it led me to explore some of the bands that I didn’t know so well, with the help of Spotify.

In 1986 I was the tender age of 15 & had zero knowledge of the C86 cassette, but by ‘87 I started really getting into the independent music scene & became aware of the term C86. As detailed in the book it referred to a certain type of music; jangly guitars, played almost exclusively by young white males with bad haircuts. I think it was meant to be an insult, but I absolutely loved these bands & as a result was aware of the musical artefact they had appeared on. I think I still own records (up in the loft) of at least half the bands mentioned. The tape that inspired ‘a thousand indie bands’. The tape that launched a whole genre. Even ‘the beginning of indie music’ (it may be taboo here, but for the sake of discussion I will refer to ‘indie’ as a genre category in this article). These are just a few descriptions of C86, a compilation cassette put together by NME in 1986. The tape was intended as a showcase of mid-80s underground guitar pop, but it was more than a just a reflection: it became a genre itself, launching the careers of bands such as Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain and The Wedding Present, as well as becoming the first collection of indie pop songs. The Story of C86 Neil Taylor co-compiled C86 and is the author of Document & Eyewitness: An Intimate History Of Rough Trade. Since the 1990s he has worked in publishing.Reynolds, Simon Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 0-571-21569-6 Following on from the cult success of C81, NME or anyone else couldn’t possibly have predicted just how seminal their C86 compilation cassette would become. But even today, nearly forty years on a whole generation and then some, know exactly what you mean when you say the words C86. Various Artists (26) - C86". BBC Music. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-05-13 . Retrieved 2016-07-04. For those who stayed in the music industry, Keith Curtis from A Witness has become a successful promoter and tour manager for more than 200 acts, with a roster of artists including Arlo Parks, Bauhaus, De La Soul, Kaiser Chiefs, Kano, Lewis Capaldi and Orbital. And you can still see The Pastels and Close Lobsters perform live, among others featured. This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. ( June 2015) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)