4.52am Issue: 043 20th July 2017 The Only Echoes Remain Issue

TAPED: THE WOODENTOPS
Giant
Back in the mid-1980s, The Woodentops
were one of those bands that you
genuinely expected to go the whole way.
Championed, like James, by the then
omnipotent Morrissey in the music
papers, Rolo McGinty sang and wrote the
songs which went far beyond the usual
strummy indieness of the time, and
incorporated a variety of musical styles
and instruments in a way very few other
bands were risking.
From the start they were never afraid to
experiment, but their debut album,
‘Giant’ suppressed this somewhat,
distilling all that was good into a beautiful
collection of songs. And this really is a
wonderful album, artistic in the best of
senses and whilst at times it was on the
cusp of earnest, we (and he) never
seemed to mind as the results were so
cool.
The band of course was never likely to
stick to the formula of their critically
acclaimed early success and I can
remember being shocked when I heard
their live album a couple of years later
as it seemed as though it was played at
double-the-speed of the original
recordings. It was of course, but that
was only one way that the band was
evolving. In many ways the Stone
Roses and Happy Mondays three years
later claimed all of the credit for the
Indie / Dance crossover of ‘Baggie’, but
The Woodentops were way ahead of
them with their Balearic tinted music
filling dancefloors across Europe and
the U.S whilst us monochrome indie
kids were wondering WTF was going
on.
The Woodentops on record and live
were an awesome band and in ‘Giant’
they created one of the finest debut
albums of the ‘80s. Sorely missed.