The Bluetones
are an English indie rock band, formed in Hounslow, Greater London, in 1994. The band's members are Mark Morriss on vocals, Adam Devlin on guitar, Scott Morriss on bass guitar, and Eds Chesters on drums. A fifth member, Richard Payne, came on board between 1998 and 2002. The band was originally named "The Bottlegarden". [1]
The band's biggest hit, "Slight Return", was released in 1995 (as a double A-side with "The Fountainhead") and re-released on its own the following year. They have achieved thirteen Top 40 singles and three Top 10 albums in the UK charts.
The Bluetones' commercial success waned after the fall of the Britpop movement, yet they have continued to tour and release new records and are therefore often labelled as "Britpop survivors".
In September 2008, the band announced that they would be embarking on a five-date tour in December, taking in Lincoln, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham. The tour saw them playing their debut album, Expecting to Fly
, in full. Some further dates were subsequently announced for February and March 2009.
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THE BLUETONES TICKETS
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History
After the release of two singles on
Fierce Panda Records, they released
Expecting to Fly
on their own
record label named
Superior Quality Recordings. The album (one of only a few debut albums to enter the charts at
number one) featured the singles "
Bluetonic" and "
Slight Return", with the latter being beaten to number one by
one-hit-wonders
Babylon Zoo's "
Spaceman". Following the touring and promotional duties for
Expecting to Fly
, the band released standalone single "
Marblehead Johnson" to bridge the gap between albums.
The second album,
Return To The Last Chance Saloon
, was released in 1998 and possessed a decidedly Mexican flavour. While failing to generate the commercial success of their debut, it did spawn hits in the form of "
Solomon Bites the Worm" and "
If...."
Whilst many of their mid 1990s peers had disbanded by 2000, The Bluetones released their third album,
Science & Nature
, which again reached the Top 10 and featured the hit singles "
Keep the Home Fires Burning" and "
Autophilia". Due to lack of press (most notably from the
NME
) the album failed to generate the commercial success of the previous efforts.
After releasing a best-of album in 2002, the band followed up with
Luxembourg
, somewhat stylistically spikier and less jangly than previous efforts and highly influenced by the bands of the day, such as
The Strokes. The album received little attention in the
music press.
A three-album deal was signed in late 2005 with the
Cooking Vinyl record label, promptly followed by the release of limited release E.P. "
Serenity Now" and a full UK tour.
In early 2006, Universal issued a comprehensive
box set of all The Bluetones singles and B-sides released between 1995 and 2003,
A Rough Outline
.
A single, entitled "
My Neighbour's House", was released in the United Kingdom on 18 September 2006. The single is taken from their
self-titled album, which was released on 9 October that year. Despite largely positive reviews for the album, it failed to chart in the
UK Albums Chart after its first week on sale. The album was also released in the
United States, the first such occurrence since their debut. On 1 October 2006, it was announced that a planned nine-date tour of
North America and
Australia had been scrapped.
[2] No reason was given.
On 1 November 2006, the band began a month-long tour of Europe in support of their new release, including two sold-out nights at
Glasgow's King Tuts.
In February 2007, the band released
BBC Radio Sessions
containing tracks recorded for the BBC between 1994 and 2000. This was followed in June with their first full live album, entitled
Once Upon a Time in West Twelve
, recorded at the
Shepherds Bush Empire on 18 November 2005, and was followed on 29 October 2007, by a live
DVD of the same
concert under the title
Beat about the Bush
. 2007 also saw the release of a
compilation album of early
demo recordings, entitled
The Early Garage Years
. They also released a DVD under the title
Blue Movies
.
In January 2008, the band began a mini-tour of
Scotland, playing five cities (
Stirling,
Dunfermline,
Aberdeen,
Glasgow and
Edinburgh) in as many nights.
May 2008 saw the band hit the road again, on a ten-date tour which covered
Cambridge,
Whitehaven,
Sheffield,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
Birmingham,
London,
Bristol,
Manchester and
Darwen, including one of the last few concerts at the
Astoria.
They recently played a show with Brit-pop rivals
Dodgy on 17 May 2009 at a secret London venue to benefit the homelessness charity Crisis as part of the charity's 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness. http://www.crisis.org.uk/hidden/
The band's next album is expected to be released in the spring of 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
- Expecting to Fly
- 12 February 1996 - #1 (UK)
- Return to the Last Chance Saloon
- 9 March 1998 - #10 (UK)
- Science & Nature
- 12 April 2000 - #7 (UK)
- Luxembourg
- 12 May 2003 - #49 (UK)
- The Bluetones
- 9 October 2006 - #100 (UK)
- ?
(2010)
[3]
EPs
- A Bluetones Companion
- 25 September 1995 (Japan only)
- Mudslide
- 30 October 2000
- Serenity Now
- 14 November 2005 (mail-order-only release)
Compilations
- Are You Blind?
- May 2000 (limited edition promotional CD)
- The Singles
- 8 April 2002 - #14 (UK)
- A Rough Outline: The Singles & B-Sides 95 - 03
- 7 March 2006
- The Early Garage Years
- 30 July 2007
- The Bluetones Collection
- 21 April 2008
Live
- BBC Radio Sessions
- 26 February 2007
- Once Upon a Time in West Twelve
- 25 June 2007
Singles
All chart positions are for the
UK Singles Chart:
- 1995 - "Slight Return/The Fountainhead" - limited edition 7"
- 1995 - "Are You Blue or Are You Blind?" - #31
- 1995 - "Bluetonic" - #19
- 1996 - "Slight Return" (re-issue) - #2
- 1996 - "Cut Some Rug/Castle Rock" - #7
- 1996 - "Marblehead Johnson" - #7
- 1998 - "Solomon Bites the Worm" - #10
- 1998 - "If..." - #13
- 1998 - "Sleazy Bed Track" - #35
- 1998 - "4-Day Weekend" - did not chart (mail-order-only release)
- 2000 - "Keep the Home Fires Burning" - #13
- 2000 - "Autophilia (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Car)" - #18
- 2002 - "After Hours" - #26
- 2003 - "Fast Boy/Liquid Lips" - #25
- 2003 - "Never Going Nowhere" - #40
- 2006 - "My Neighbour's House" - #68
- 2006 - "Head on a Spike"
- 2007 - "Surrendered"
Video/DVD releases
- 1997 - Mondo Concerto
- 2007 - Blue Movies
- 2007 - Beat about the Bush
- 2009 - Expecting to Fly Live
Television
Mark Morriss has made cameo appearances in the British comedy shows
Spaced
,
Little Britain
and the
Adam and Joe Show
.
References
- with a little charm...: faq: band history
- :: The Bluetones ::
- British Hit Singles & Albums