I never had 'idols' or 'heroes', I always considered it kind of sad to put people in bands on a pedestal. But there was one band I had, and still do have, a lot of respect for, and they were The Sea Urchins. I guess they were a band people either loved or hated - there were those who described them with adjectives such as 'arrogant' and 'despicable' - a view I never shared, obviously - and then there were those who were so influenced by them that they named their labels/bands after their songs. There was the Australian record label Summershine (now relocated to America, I believe), and there was a French band called Solace - I assume both of these got their names from Sea Urchins songs. I can't think of many bands who aren't household names who are this influential.
One of the things I found admirable about The Sea Urchins was that they wore 60s clothes when nobody else did. I'd worn 60s clothes since I was about 11 (not, I hasten to add, influenced by The Sea Urchins, I only got into them when I was 13), and I had suffered snide remarks for my taste in clothing, but I didn't care, I just wanted to be myself. I guess the fact that The Sea Urchins wore 60s clothes rather than any other kind of unfashionable clothing was important, cos they were the kind of clothes I liked. I know that image isn't, or shouldn't be, important in music (many of the bands I like are so obscure that I don't even know what they look like, and that doesn't matter), but when a band create their own image like that and make a statement about themselves, as opposed to being told what to wear by some fashion consultant, then that says a lot about them. I was also informed by a reliable source that The Sea Urchins wore those kind of clothes all the time, not just on stage or on record sleeves, and that is most important. I find it incredibly fake, shallow and two-faced when bands have a separate image for 'being the band' and 'being themselves' - if a band believe in what they do then there should be no distinction between being the band and being themselves.
These days (as Delta), they appear to have replaced things like pointy collared shirts for a more 90s interpretation of 'retro' (eg those trainers, you know the sort), and I feel this is a bit of a shame, but after all, it is the music which matters most, and they do sound genuinely inspired by the late 60s/early 70s (note that I wrote this before hearing the new-style, non-60s/70s Delta - more about them later), whilst also having a sound which is completely and unmistakably theirs, unlike many of today's supposedly 60s/70s influenced bands who blatantly rip off stuff from bygone eras as an excuse to be trendy. Delta have been compared by journalists to various existing bands/songwriters, such as Led Zeppelin, Primal Scream, Bob Dylan, The Verve and even Black Grape, but sound like none of these. They sound like Delta.
Anyway, back to The Sea Urchins. Another reason I could identify with The Sea Urchins was their obvious liking for Art Nouveau - the sleeve of A Morning Odyssey looked rather like something by Will H Bradley (or possibly Aubrey Beardsley, but I think it's more like Will H Bradley) * ; and they included Aubrey Beardsley in their 'Heroes And Villains' section on the cover of Stardust. The Art Nouveau theme continued when Delta had a gig poster which was based on Au Quartier Latin (1897) by Alfons Mucha - it was more or less the same picture, except the woman was holding a guitar. Art Nouveau is the style of art I like most - I've been familiar with it for as long as I can remember, due to relatives of mine having prints of various Art Nouveau pictures, and books on the subject.
The Sea Urchins were misunderstood by a lot of people - loads of people classed them as a cutie band, but I could recognise that there were tons of bands who were much more twee than The Sea Urchins ever were. Cutie songs tend to be excessively depressing or, more often, excessively joyful, and The Sea Urchins' songs were neither of these. Listen to the lyrics too, the lyrics of songs such as A Morning Odyssey for example are not twee. Whilst they were rather a poppy band, and very jangly, their songs had a certain something that cutie bands' didn't. It's possible to be jangly and not twee - I mean, there were loads of jangly bands in the 60s and their music is widely regarded as classic, not cute. Examples of real cutie bands are Strawberry Story, Fat Tulips, Bouquet - if you think The Sea Urchins sound like any of these, you need your ears syringed.
The Sea Urchins lost a lot of fans towards the end, from what I've heard, all the indie-kids who couldn't handle the idea of their later output being much more of a rock sort of thing. These people can't have listened close enough to the earlier stuff though - whilst much of it was essentially indie-pop (although The Sea Urchins would probably say otherwise), there was an underlying rockish element to some of their early songs, the most obvious being Solace and Day Into Day. It has to be said though, that songs like Low Scene were a tad too heavy for your average indie-pop fan. I wasn't put off though, I liked the rockish stuff, as heard on Live In London, as much as the earlier songs, and in some cases more than the earlier songs, although I do like every song I've heard by them (there aren't many, if any, other bands I can say that about).
The Sea Urchins split up about a year after I'd found out about them, but I wasn't upset by that revelation because I knew that three of them would be back with their new band, Delta. The first Delta single was a 10" called Sugared-Up, which was out on Che in 1993. The Che people were kind enough to send me a copy of it, just because I was 'such a fan' (Nick's words). It really made my day when it arrived in the post! The next three singles appeared on Dishy Records. The first of these was Gun, followed by All My Life, followed by Make It Right, a song I'd always liked since I saw them live for the first time at the Jug of Ale - whenever that was. When I heard that there was going to be another Delta single on Dishy (after All My Life), I knew it was going to be Make It Right for some strange reason, and I'm glad that it was! Make It Right is still my favourite Delta song, although like The Sea Urchins, they've never released any songs I don't like. I subsequently heard a rumour that they'd signed to Acid Jazz, and I didn't believe it because Delta do not sound like the typical sort of band on that label. Turns out they were actually on Acid Jazz sublabel, Focus. They released one single on this label, I'm Getting Darker, although I'm not convinced that it was ever available on general release because I, and various correspondents of mine, couldn't find it anywhere. I guess it was just a promo thing for the music press. Either that or it was extremely limited edition. I did get to hear it though as I knew someone who knew someone who had a promotional copy. All four songs on it are very different to each other, and this is something they have always been able to get away with. Many of their songs have very different moods but each one sounds superb. I still haven't been able to get a copy of I'm Getting Darker - if anyone knows of any mail order places or shops which have it in stock, let me know.
More recently I found out that Dishy Records are planning on releasing a compilation of Delta songs (mostly demo stuff), followed by the first album proper. I for one am very keen to hear both of these. (Since writing this, the demos/b-sides compilation, Laughing Mostly, has been released, and it's without a doubt my favourite album of 1999).
* Since this article appeared in Aq 17, I have confirmed the picture is by Will Bradley; it's part of a larger picture, Pausias and Glycera from Fringilla (1895).
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Since writing the above, I saw Delta and Daniel Rachel live at the Jug of Ale, Moseley (October 16th 1999). Daniel Rachel, who I believe is/was in Rachel's Basement, is a solo singer who played folk songs in an early 70s style. I liked his songs, but I'd not gone specifically to see him. It had been almost 4 years since I'd seen Delta live so I thought it was about time I saw them again. Well, a lot has happened in 4 years, they are hardly the same band. They have changed so much that some of the things I wrote previously no longer apply (although I decided not to scrap what I'd already written as it's all still true for the records that have been released to date).
Before they came on stage I mentioned to my friend who was with me that night that I had a hunch that Robert had left. And you know what, I was right. They now have a keyboard player instead of him. Instead of early 70s-ish rock, they are now playing a much more tame kind of music that sounds rather more mainstreamish than the earlier stuff. It's not exactly pop or indie but isn't rock either. My friend said they're not a rock band any more as they don't have a lead guitarist any more, and he's right. The songs weren't anywhere near as memorable as the earlier stuff, but maybe songs like this need a few listens to really get into them, as opposed to earlier songs like Make It Right - that song deeply affected me as soon as I heard it and even to this day it remains one of my all time favourite songs. It's too early for me to say that Delta have gone downhill, I need to hear the album before I make a judgement like that.
As well as sounding somewhat different, they also looked different. I recognised James but the other three had changed quite a bit in 4 years. As mentioned earlier, something I found admirable about The Sea Urchins, and early Delta, was their obvious disregard for the concept of wearing something just because everyone else is doing so. Whilst Delta didn't exactly look like a bunch of trendies the other night, they certainly didn't have a well-defined image like they used to. I suppose this makes sense, they don't sound 70s any more so it would be highly inappropriate for them to look 70s.
I was curious as to what happened to Robert, so my friend picked out some people in the audience at random and asked them whether they knew (I was too shy to do so myself!) Turns out one group of people were only there cos they knew the bass player and the other two were friends of the keyboard player. They had only recently heard the band and had no idea about what they used to sound like or who was previously in the band. There was only one way to find out what had happened to Robert and that was to ask James. My friend was on speaking terms with James some years back, and James remembered him (I'm not convinced that he remembered me but that's not much of a surprise as I'd only met him a couple of times, about 6 years ago). James' words were "I just don't like him any more, he's not my friend!" I didn't get to find out if Robert was in another band or what, James said he didn't even know if he was still in the Birmingham area.
The new sound of Delta is not bad, there are much worse bands around. I'm still interested to hear the album (the album proper that is, not Laughing Mostly) but the band just don't sound the same without Robert and this will take some getting used to.
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