Song(s) of the Day # 2,122 The Bardots

In my second year at university I shared a house with a couple of Post Grad science students for a couple of terms. In addition to their studies, they made up half of a gigging band named, (I kid you not), The Legendary Gazelles. I saw them a couple of times, they played sprightly, no frills New Wave music. Essentially unpretentious and likeable, like the two themselves.

They shared Norwich stages and equipment occasionally with a young band called The Bardots who were altogether of a different stamp. Decked in paisley, coiffured and slightly preening, if only in a Norfolk sense, in contrast with The Gazelles where pretty much everything was throwaway, you got the feeling there was a lot more career ambition and drive at work here, though always in a strictly provincial sense. 

After the Gazelles and I parted company with them, The Bardots went on to gain a certain amount of national attention, music press and evening radio play over the next few years without ever really threatening to break big. They released an album in 1992 called Eye-Baby, which still stands up reasonably well at the same time as sounding utterly of its time. Like flies in aspic. Taking me back to watching them brooding onstage in dank Indie clubs the first time round with Andy, my gig going mate of the time. 

Listening to the record the other day for the first time was a strange experience, transporting me back to my younger self. The Bardots are almost but not fully formed. Clearly small town unrealised youth, reminiscent of contemporaries The House of Love and The Telescopes but most obviously of Suede, the band who were emerging at the same time and would come to encapsulate all of this brooding suburban tension and frustration and fly it to the stars.

The Legendary Gazelles used to scoff at The Bardots and their pretensions. You can hear why. Their songs never quite break through to the sunlit meadow that they are aiming for. Still. I wouldn't wish to be uncharitable. Like I said, they remind me of my gauche younger self. At least they got it sufficiently together to give us this.