BOTW: A Brush with Lush

Imagine a time with no Internet and just 31 channels on your TV, one for each Baskin-Robbins flavor.  You just got MTV (a few years later than your friends) and you are deep into INXS and The Cure, because for god's sake, they aren't Madonna and Taylor Dayne.

Some of the songs you like get some pretty serious run during the daytime ("So Alive", "Peek-a-Boo", "Orange Crush"), but for the most part its a lot of Poison and Winger and Paula Abdul and...barf.  And then you discover coffee and you hear some of the VJ's (how quaint!) tell you that  Robert Smith from The Cure will be in studio for 120 Minutes, the only show dedicated to the type of music you like and you think, "OK, I have to check this out", which means lots of caffeine since it isn't on until midnight MST Sunday night.  Hmmm, as the Pet Shop Boys so eloquently said, "Was it Worth It?"

Two words:  Life-changing.


It was like a gained an audience with the Dalai Lama of good music and he enlightened me to what was out there.  It was there that I first got into Sonic Youth, The Sundays, Jesus & Mary Chain, Chapterhouse, The House of Love, The Pixies, REM, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Nirvana (before they blew up), Smashing Pumpkins (ditto), Blake Babies, The Church, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc etc etc.  Some of these bands became all-time favorites, including this weeks BOTW:  Lush. 



Wiki link with the perts:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lush

I fell in love with Miki Berenyi and Lush the first time I heard "Sweetness and Light", just such a dreamy, ethereal song. 

I had a rule back then that I wouldn't buy a new tape(!!!) unless I heard three songs that I liked, but this may have been the first band where I broke that rule.  Plunking down the $12 to order Gala at Budget Tapes, I found that I loved the rest of the album and remained a devoted fan, even after the band broke-up in 1996 following the tragic suicide of drummer Chris Aclund.  One of my great concert regrets is that I didn't stay the couple of extra days in Pittsburgh following graduation to see them play.

While My Bloody Valentine gets the acclaim as the gold standard of shoe-gazing bands (an alt-rock subgenre typified by significant use of guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blend into the creative noise of the guitars), I always had a preference for Lush, probably because I had  a major Lush crush on Miki Berenyi (the redheaded Japanese-Hungarian).  Teamed with Emma Anderson, they weren't just pretty faces - they had a killer sound as well:

At least one guy shares my opinion:  http://web.thequietus.com/articles/04017-lush-interview-mad-love-20th-anniversary


And perhaps my favorite Lush song:

And last but not least, I have to post a bonus song that is a cover from a well-known but controversial band.  I've always loved Lush's version (so fun!), so I'm curious to listen to the original.