Come with me if you will to 1990 & the heady days of Fraggle, probably the most significant music scene in Britain since the shoegazing period of 1989 & an era of musicianship & creativity not to be surpassed for a good week & a half. Bestriding (is that a word?) this scene like a mighty colossus was, er Neds & Carter (Colossi?), then there was the Megas & Senseless Things. Among a number of bands (Broccoli, Midway Still, China Drum, Identity, Sink) vying for Third Division play off places were Drive.We were a three piece from Liverpool.
Someone once described us as proto-emo, he's dead now of course. Someone else said we sounded like Busted!
We played about 140 shows mainly in England & got to play with the likes of The Dickies, Leatherface, Mega City Four, Fugazi, Lemonheads, Therapy? Gorrilla Biscuits, Carcass all of which were very cool and Manic Street preachers & Birdland who weren't.We released two singles 'No Girls' & 'Greasegun', then in a cynical ploy to rip off the kids these were repackaged as a mini album called 'Greasegirls' with a 'Bonus' extra track. This track clocked in at an epic 50 seconds & had no lyrics! This was followed by a 1991 single 'Go Out Be Happy' which earned the review "This Is Shit" from that esteemed organ the NME. There was also an LP called 'Out Freakage' in 1992, around which point I was chucked out.
Anyways, we never made it & I for one am bitter as hell. I'd love to tell you that I've channelled this bitterness into something cool like substance abuse or petty crime but sadly I've slipped into a downward spiral of proper jobs resulting in middle management.This space belongs to Dan the bassist & possibly does now reflect the views of the rest of the band since through the magic of Mr Murdoch's myspace we are now speaking & even played a few gigs in the UK August 2006 & then a short tour of Japan in 2007. Not sure if we'll ever do it again at this stage but then I said the same thing after the Liverpool show & we ended up in Japan so who knows. I always fancied the States but I'm not sure that's doable without stupid amounts of van time & anyway I think it's only baltimore that would wanna see us.
The discography came out in August 2006 & includes everything we ever released including the covers from the free 7". Boss Tunage/ Waterslide are releasing it in Japan & Discographic through Forte are doing it everywhere else. It doesn't seem to be all that widely available in the big shops but you can get it from www.bosstuneage.com in their online shop for about £8. The video at the top was recorded by the short lived but rather excellent SNUB TV on the BBC (& I'm guessing they own the copyright), it's been up on Kei's Japanese site for a while, in fact it was him that forked out to digitise it for me. Since some fool has gone to the trouble of You Toobing it I figured I'd sling the link in. Ta to Kei & sabbs whoever he is. Kei also digitised this rather embarrassing promo to the dreadful 'Go Out Be Happy' (almost my least favourite drive song) & John You Toobed that so 'enjoy' but have a bucket handy. Finally, as I've said, the other two members of drive are now my myspace buddies...use your skill & judgement to work out which ones they are & start cyber stalking...Enjoy! .. ..
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Kazu of Waterslide records has just sent me the link to this vid of us at Jam, Tokyo in May. We got to Tokyo with a set list prepared & rather stupidly asked Kazu what his favourite song was. Turns out it was 'Feeling's Real'...I think this was literally the fourth time that we had played it in 15 years. If you listen carefully you will hear that Iain actually taught me the wrong notes for the double chorus bit at the end. To be fair tho' I am quite capable of fucking up on me own.
