I could have started writing about so many bands, maybe a real all-time favourite but I figured maybe we'd start with someone who the vast majority of you wont know.
There was a Derby band called The Little Explorer who played a raw brand of British rock and for a very long time I was emailing back and forth about putting on in Cambridge for a show. For whatever reason it just never happened, I never got to see them live and the next I'd heard, they'd split up.
I really hate it when that happens. I'm still kind of living in tiresome hope that Fugazi, Guided By Voices and At The Drive-In sort their acts out and play some more shows. I'd even pay dumb reunion prices. I don't care if they got fat and apathetic like Frank Black, that's fine by me, so long as I get to say I saw them, at least just the once.
Now, I'm not saying even a fraction as many people mourned The Little Explorer but, straight up, they were a solid band who never really got much attention. One of many, many bands in that ilk and that era who took the DIY route and sacrificed any of the potential diversions of real recognition in the process but never took a knock to their integrity.
When they were together they also played in an instrumental side-project called The Jesus Years. I guess you'd call it math-rock but it's nothing too complex or taxing, it's just well crafted, organic sounding indie-rock. There's a real warm sound to their record. You'd guess they did it in just a few takes. Nothing overtly clinical, just some songs that maybe they wrote for The Little Explorer and thought, hey, let's not sing over these ones. Whatever inspired them to put together a second, not entirely dissimilar sounding band, the end result - their 2004 album "Are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" - is a testament to their short lived glory.
I point you in particular to the song "My Dancing, What The Fuck Are You On About?" which has a lead riff as memorable as its title.
Oh, and it was my ringtone for a good few months about five years back. Beats Crazy Frog hands down, I'm sure you'll agree.
Played a good few gigs with little explorer, I have a live set of theirs from one them, recorded onto a tape deck by elv' from Lords/ twinkie, in an amazing little venue in Derby. Also did some solo shows with Biff there too. Top chaps. Played with the jesus years once too, opening for Rainer Maria. Didn't do as much for me as TLE, but again nice guys!
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