Formed in the late '80s, Glasgow's The Vaselines gained notoriety in the ‘90s when Kurt Cobain mentioned liking them and had Nirvana cover three Vaselines songs: “Molly’s Lips”, “Son of a Gun”, and “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam”.
Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly were already well known in indie-pop circles for their scrappy but sweet songs that combined bubblegum melodies with lo-fi recording techniques and fuzzy guitars found on their early EPs, “Son of A Gun” and ”Dying For It” and only LP, Dum-Dum.
Enter The Vaselines
In 1992, when interest in The Vaselines was peaking for the first time, Sub Pop released the compilation The Way of the Vaselines, featuring most of the band’s recordings, including a stunning cover of Divine’s “You Think You’re a Man”. Now, Sub Pop has expanded upon that original collection and given it the title, Enter The Vaselines.
Re-mastered and re-mixed, Enter The Vaselines includes the songs found on The Way of The Vaselines, plus demos and live recordings from London and Bristol in the ‘80s. Among the live recordings is a cover of Gary Glitter’s “I Didn’t Know I Loved You (‘Til I Saw You Rock ‘n’ Roll”).
Sub Pop 20
While The Vaselines reunited to open for Nirvana in the early ‘90s, they have not been an active band in almost 20 years. However, last year, when Sub Pop celebrated its 20th anniversary with a weekend-long concert in Seattle, Kelly and McKee flew over to be part of the celebration, along with other key figures in Sub Pop lore, including Mudhoney, Green River, Beechwood Sparks, and Canada’s own Constantines.
At the time it seemed like The Vaselines’ performance was an exciting one-off event, but now, with the release of Enter The Vaselines, the duo is heading out across North America on tour. This will be the first chance for most of their fans to see them live. By the time The Way of… was released, The Vaselines had disbanded and Kelly was playing under the name Captain America.
Life After The Vaselines
Glasgow's music scene has long been a source of inspiration, from Orange Juice, Josef K and The Pastels to Teenage Fanclub, Franz Ferdinand and Belle and Sebastian. With The Vaselines’ posthumous popularity continually on the rise and the past few years finding numerous bands reuniting, it may not be a surprise that The Vaselines would get together for the sake of their fans.
However, Kelly and McKee have continued to make music: Kelly as a solo artist and with Captain America , which was later changed to Eugenius for copyright reasons, and McKee with Suckle.
 |
