Although no Ultimate bands were playing the Phoenix Festival in 1994 we got tickets and went along anyway as Dodgy had a couple of slots – their Dodgy Club headlining the Melody Maker stage on the Friday night and and also a gig for themselves on the Sunday Vox stage.
We threw ourselves into jump-rope with enthusiasm. Delighted with the songs we had recorded at Bark the previous month, we set about organising the pressing of 1,000 7″ singles. We were getting wrap-round sleeves in clear plastic bags, like the classic early indie singles we loved.
Danny found an image of the Battle of Little Big Horn and I hand wrote the band name and song titles on top.
I was sending two song cassettes out to venues and journalists, and it was going very well.
We were offered a gig supporting a band we loved, Yo La Tengo, at The Garage in North London and were delighted when Michael Bonner at Melody Maker gave us this review:
‘…as welcome as a cold drinks dispenser in Hell, and twice as cool.’
We had a photoshoot at the rehearsal studio in Vauxhall with Tim Paton. I had known Tim for ages and he had taken many wonderful photos for me, both of bands I was in, plus various gigs at The Buzz Club.
I’m playing a Les Paul here – a bit cheeky, someone had left it as the studio, so I thought I’d have a go…
I’m wearing a pair of second hand blue cords I got in Brighton, a tee shirt from Rokit in Camden and my Airwalk trainers, from Slam City Skates in Covent Garden.
I had a strip of leather I put a sliver ring on and wore round my neck. Extra pieces of the leather are round my wrist. My nose is pierced.
Here I also have a track suit top I got for £2 from Camden Market.
21 July – Tony Blair wins the Labour Party leadership election defeating John Prescott and Margaret Beckett.
At work, Submarine had been offered a massive European tour support with American rock band, Tool. On July 21st we headed over to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire to see them. Submarine were brilliant.
I asked Neil, main man in Submarine if he has any memories of the tour:
1) Amsterdam the Paradiso and Rage Against the Machine
2) Maynard (singer of Tool) generally ha ha
3) David Coverdale and getting bottled in Wolverhampton
4) Cologne and Munich nightmares
5) Berlin and the 5 grand bar bill
6)The Magic Fridges
7) How we got the tour in the first place
Oh and 8) chucking a telly out the window of the Colombia Hotel with Martin Carr and Sice from the Boo Radleys
…and being told to fuck off by Van Morrison ha ha
Oh …and 9) getting a lifetime ban from every Holiday Inn in the world!!!! 😂
It was quite a tour!
I think this deserves a longer post at some point!
Oasis carried on getting bigger and bigger…
Driving back from rehearsals we used to hear this great track on the radio.
Pavement ‘Cut Your Hair’
Weeks went by, rehearsing, throwing a frizbee at the back of the studio to clear our heads, working and getting everything ready for our debut jump-rope release. We were hanging out with Pusherman who had started recording demos and were getting ready to play live.
Below Pusherman– Martin, smiling, back of Tony‘s head and friend of the band, Irish Harry.
They made their first appearance at the Grand in Clapham on 21st August, supporting The Verve. The perfect band for them to open for.
Danny and I went along and they were jaw droppingly good. Lots of their friends from Portsmouth had made the journey up and this was the first time we met Richie Greentree who would later join The Beta Band. We stayed for the after show, everyone was in a great mood and then made the very long journey, through the night, to Holyhead, to catch a ferry to Ireland.
The car was starting to splutter a bit, but Danny managed to get it on the boat. However, when we arrived at the port of Dublin, the car was having none of it. The starter motor had gone and, our humiliating arrival in Ireland was getting pushed down the ramp by a couple of unimpressed crew. It was 6am and so we had to wait in the car park for a few hours until we managed to get hold of a local garage / AA man to come and get us fixed up and ready for the journey to Connemara on the west coast.
My parents were staying in a cottage there for a couple of weeks, with two of my Irish aunties. We had been invited to join them for a few days. We enjoyed the fresh air and wonderful countryside, along with getting treated to a couple of pub lunches by my Mum and Dad.
Arriving back in London the following week, there were lots of messages on the ansaphone. The NME had a left a couple – they were keen to write an On piece about jump-rope, plus In The City (music convention) were offering us a slot. All very exciting!
With August, comes the Reading Festival and Senser were on the main stage! The album’s success saw a massive crowd gather to watch them and throw themselves around.
Danny and I did our usual parking the car in the streets at the back of the festival site and went in through the guest list, Mean Fiddler entrance. Loads of people we knew were there, fun was had. This year a few of the soon to be band, Menswear were also hanging around and being fairly arrogant. Times were certainly changing if these guys were getting taken seriously. Britpop wasn’t all good, that’s for sure. Money was getting splashed around with this band getting a publishing deal of £500k based on seven average songs a few months later.
Anyway.
The next day, this was released.
‘Definitely Maybe‘ was an immediate critical and commercial success in the United Kingdom, having followed on the heels of the singles ‘Supersonic‘, ‘Shakermaker‘, and the UK top-ten hit ‘Live Forever‘. It went straight to number one in the UK Albums Chart and became the fastest-selling debut album in British music history at the time; it went on to be certified 8× platinum by the BPI for sales of over 2.4 million units.
The Water Rats gig had been in January 1994. Crikey.
Volume cds / magazine were great. Fab music, interesting articles and interviews with the bands. I was delighted to get Senser on this one, from August 1994 – this is the N.M.E. advert.
September – Lidl, a German discount food supermarket chain, opens its first 10 stores in Britain.
2 September – Television entertainer Roy Castle, who became best known to British viewers as the long-running presenter of the BBC children’s series Record Breakers, dies from lung cancer at the age of 62.
2–4 September – The first Whitby Goth Weekend takes place in Whitby, North Yorkshire.
jump-rope played a gig organised by the NME to coincide with the article they had written about us. It was supporting Guy Chadwick‘s (The House of Love) new band The Madonnas at The Water Rats / Splash Club in King’s Cross.
We got another great review! This time from the NME.
‘The best guitar POP! group in at least the last five years’
The next day me and my pal Paul (above, with Amanda) were in a newsagents in Camden, flicking through a magazine, which featured Paul in a photo story, when Evan Dando (The Lemonheads) walked in. Evan had clearly had one too many sherries and immediately started talking to us. He was getting a reputation for being seen off his head in a number of circumstances and not long afterwards, I got a call from ‘Vox’ magazine, asking me what happened…..
He claimed, the ‘snot on the sleeve’ was Kurt Cobain‘s…
When I shared this story on social media in 2023, two people got in touch to say they were at the Underworld that night, for the Bill Janovitz gig. Thanks very much to Gordon Hymus, for the ticket.
And thanks very much indeed to Joe Mahon for photos of the night, including Evan in the coat (as mentioned in the ‘Vox’ story above).
Joe remembers that Evan sang his song ‘Purple Parrallelograms‘, which I’m fairly sure he said he had written for Noel Gallagher..
Evan’s above (sorry) and Bill‘s below below.
Prolapse, on Cherry Red, where Danny was label manager released ‘Doorstep Rhythmic Block’.
On 12th September, ‘Crowded Day‘ by jump-rope was released.
It got reviewed in ‘Melody Maker‘!
‘Crowded Day‘ got played on Gary Crowley’s BBC GLR Sunday lunch time show a few weeks in a row – very exciting for us.
Our ‘NME’ On piece came out.
We played a gig at the Dublin Castle in Camden, supporting Tara from 5:30‘s new band, The Nubiles. (You can see us at the bottom of this advert in small writing).
A couple of days later,we drove to Manchester to play at In The City music conference. It seemed, the whole of the London music industry had decamped to attend and certainly, while we played, most of them were in the bar at the Crowne Plaza. Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley were hosting the Evening Session together on Radio 1 and Steve had said ‘I’m looking forward to seeing this lot later’ and played ‘Crowded Day‘! Sadly though, Steve didn’t make the not crowded throng of eight people who did see us play. They had already announced the Band of the Conference before we went on, we were pretty much the last band on the last evening to play! Oh well. At least we got a little mention in the ‘Melody Maker’ round up..
30 September – Aldwych, North Weald and Ongar railway stations on the London Underground close permanently after the last trains run.
Indie Through The Looking Glass 
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