The Charlatans (UK) on Vinyl

how is the sound/pressing of "Up At The Lake"?

 

I only spun it once when I got it but I recall it sounding decent. I'll do a short writeup when the reissue shows up.

 

oh I thought that was a reissue. I'm on the verge of buying this. Bought Wonderland in advance (fantastic record) and at the moment I'm a bit skint to pull the trigger on UATL. I reckon it is their last truly great album.

 

Well done for starting this thread: it was really missing for one of the best British bands of the 90s. The Charlatans were super stars of their day one of the biggest bands of the Manchester boom (only to be compared with other royalty like the Mondays and Roses), but the impressive thing with them is that they evolved and continued producing amazing music (and they still do). The pivotal moment for the band was the death of Rob Collins who was responsible for the addictive organ sound of their first albums, nevertheless their sound evolved and matured after that. All of their albums are good and worth collecting + their 12” EPs, the 2 to start from is “Some friendly” and the self titled double LP (“The Charlatans UK”).

The singer Tim Burgess is also a super cool character having done solo work, established an interesting record label (Ogenesis), a vinyl fanatic (he owns an LP12) and having written a nice book that (unsurprisingly) he called “Vinyl adventures” talking about his times with the band. I have seen them live plenty of times and they’re always good, they play with passion and they love what they do, the mere fact that they never splitted and they make music for 30 years is a testament to this. Lastly one of the few bands that don’t repeat themselves but rather prefer to evolve and try new things, what’s not to like?

 

I feel that the Charlatans have a tremendous sense of sincerity that permeates their catalog and in carrying on in such a manner they truly honor their lost members.

 

All that talk about music, yet nobody's mentioned Tim Burgess' excellent autobiography "Telling Stories" yet? A fantastic read!

 

Finally got a chance to slice the shrink on my Up at the Lake reissue. The only issue is the glossy inner sleeve left a nice line of debris on side 2. Most of it came off with the swiffer but I'll probably have to hit it with the alcohol and q-tip and I'll probably give it a full clean at some point. Otherwise it's cleanly pressed. The glossy inners look nice but they are just unnecessary and quite literally sticky. Only a couple of songs into side 1 but I really like it. Dynamic and detailed and based on my memory it's either equivalent or slightly better than the original (I'll need to pull that and the cd out for an a/b/cd).

 

The download code for UATL gives you .wav files so that's nice as well.

 

I was just thinking about how The Charlatans did such a great job of adapting the late ’60s and early ’70s sound in their music during their middle period (which is maybe roughly around the self-titled album through Us And Us Only). This is really evident in their b-sides from that time, where they moved away from the ravey Manchester sounds and into something more earthy and loose (and interesting). A track like “Don’t Need A Gun” is a good example. Seems like a lot of their contemporaries were doing the same, but with less success (Ride, for example). I think a lot of Charlatans material from this period is outstanding.

 

When you look at tracks like "Just when you're thinkin' things over" they sort of went through a full-on Stones phase. Even "Jesus Hairdo" to some degree with that slide guitar of sorts. I absolutely love "Clean Up Kid" because Tim lets his voice crack and it's such a wild and raucous vibe. They are able to play so many styles of rock with such effortless skill that I would be tempted to call them the world's greatest session band. Whatever the case Tim has done a masterful job of keeping they're work classy and out of the foolish and campy.

 

In fact everytime I put on the Songs from the other Side comp it just straightens up my mood.