7" Heaven: Gene - For The Dead

Okay. Back on track. Amazingly my internet started working earlier tonight, so I can get posting straight away. I've been listening through a load of old 7"'s recently, and thought I would post a few of them here.

The first one the debut single from Gene: For The Dead. The inspiration for this one actually came from my journey up to Minehead for the Dirty Three ATP. I stupidly booked my ticket to Taunton (the town nearest to Minehead where the festival is held) so that I arrived about 3 hours before any other living soul would get there, and thus had a lot of time to kill. So I decided to take a walk around the rather rundown and quaint town that is Taunton, a place that like certain other areas of Britain (hello Sheffield city centre, hello Portsmouth!) seems to not have changed a bit since the late 80s/early 90s. Lots of cafe's, lots of boring shops, a few badly named clubs and three or four sex shops. Overall very seedy, and very britpop.

This then, is what inspired me to metaphorically dig out the first Gene album from my mp3 player and give it a spin. Now anyone that knows me will know i've got somewhat of a big big thing for certain Britpop bands. The Manics, Suede, Mansun, The Auteurs. Basically anything from that time that's hopelessly ambitious and romantic and very British. Therefore Gene, despite not being half as good as any of those bands were, are one of those bands that sometimes I just can't help but listen to. Even at their best they weren't quite amazing, but in places they really did sum up a sort of mid 90s, post-thatcher mood of teenage boredom that I find endlessly enjoyable, and which made for perfect listening as I walked around rainy grey Taunton.

Although none of their albums was truly brilliant throughout, singles like Haunted By You, Olympian, We Could Be Kings and even later stuff like As Good As It Gets are utterly enjoyable. I also find it particularly amusing that the video for Sleep Well Tonight chose the wonderful Bentall Centre in Kingston as the sight for its scenes of consumer repetition and moody fringe wearing.

So the 7" i've got for you is the band's debut single. For The Dead was released as a limited edition 7" (limited to 1994 copies) on the 25th April 1994, and reached number 76 in the charts. Please enjoy it (and it's bside) in all their underachieving, shoddily transferred from vinyl scratchy joy!

Gene - For The Dead
Gene - Child's Body