Category: Madder Rose

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#054: Madder Rose– ‘Madder Rose’ (Rockville Records ’92)

Hello friends,

first of all: THANKS VERY MUCH for all the nice comments you leave: they mean a lot to me, and they are the reason why this series continues by and large. Also our host would come over and kick my ass if I stopped it, I suppose, and I don’t want this to happen, of course!

Rather a short essay today, you’ll be relieved to hear – mainly because my right arm hurts like hell when typing (probably a herniated disc, the orthopaedist says, but we have to await the MRT results – or, if you’d rather: await a date next month when a MRT examination is at all possible within the next 150 or so kilometres …. “oh, it’s painkillers until then, sorry Sir”), but also there isn’t pretty much I can tell you about Madder Rose in the first place.

Now, owning their first single from 1992 could lead me to bragging about how much ahead of the game I had been again back then, because the band did not gain any attention before 1993, when they released their first album, which included ‘Swim’ … you will remember this hypnotic tune if you remember nothing else by Madder Rose. But I’m an honest chap, so the truth is: I also only discovered them in ’93, but not via their debut, instead through the appearance of today’s pick on ‘Unnecessary Niceness’, a somewhat boring compilation on Beechwood Music.

Fast-forward to 1994 and the second album, ‘Panic On’, which included the fantastic ‘Car Song’. By then Madder Rose were indie darlings, compared to Velvet Underground, Mazzy Star, My Bloody Valentine. They played Reading and could have become big big big … but they went dub and sort of tried jumping the trip-hop train, much to the dismay of their fans and the record company. I must admit I didn’t really follow them up after that, perhaps they changed again, which knows?

But either way, all I need these days is the first single, which – without any question – still is an object of beauty. Mainly because of Mary Lorson’s vocals, admittedly, but hey – I always was fond of voices like hers … Hope Sandoval could tell you a tale or two about me, promised!

mp3:  Madder Rose – Madder Rose

Enjoy,

Dirk

And so to another band that were introduced to me via a mid-90s cassette compilation by Jacques the Kipper.

Madder Rose were a four-piece band from New York. The main songwriter was lead guitarist Billy Cote, but the vocal duties were taken by rhythm guitarist Mary Lorson. They emerged in 1993 with a sound quite different from the grungy stuff that had dominated indie music for the proceeding 2 years, and a million miles away from Britpop that was shortly to take over. In other words, they were doomed to be no more than a cult footnote in history thanks to being in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

I don’t own too many of their songs – they released three LPs and handful of other singles/EPs before disbanding in 1999, but the dozen or so tracks I do have I thoroughly enjoy. Mrs V struggles to rate many bands with female singers, and Madder Rose she describes as ‘the sort of rubbish you fall for’.

Altered Images, Belly, Everything But The Girl and The Sundays are among many others that Mrs V would put in the same category….

These are the four tracks from a 10″ single released in 1994:-

mp3 : Madder Rose – Car Song
mp3 : Madder Rose – Johnny Take A Ride
mp3 : Madder Rose – The Widow Song
mp3 : Madder Rose – Holiday

Here’s another of their singles that I’m fond of, courtesy of an NME best of 93 compilation CD:-

mp3 : Madder Rose – Madder Rose

JC