Hitting play on a piece of music is an act of magic. The noise may be entering your own space and filling up your ears, but in fact it’s the other way around; it drags you, willing or otherwise, to a world usually much more interesting than your own. Over a quarter-of-a-century on, pressing play on the C86 mixtape still has that transporting impact – it opens up a portal to a different world. The book casts an eye over a period when indie was a passion not a brand, and places its rise firmly in the context of the turbulent political times. Based on primary source material – including scores of forgotten fanzines -it also draws in the views of many of the key players, opening a window on a period that, with its parallels, resonates strongly today.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

NME promoted the tape in conjunction with London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, who staged a week of gigs, [7] in July 1986 which featured most of the acts on the compilation. C86 slowly but surely became the NME’s best-selling ever compilation, selling an estimated 40,000 copies and eventually being reissued on LP and cassette by Rough Trade the following year. C86 prompted a week of shows at the ICA and would come to embody a whole musical style and era. I’m guessing the book had a fairly niche audience but I found it hugely enjoyable and also it led me to explore some of the bands that I didn’t know so well, with the help of Spotify. Reynolds, Simon Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 (Faber and Faber, 2005) ISBN 0-571-21569-6 There was an upside as well as a downside,” concludes Stephen McRobbie, of the Pastels. “There’s no doubt that it helped us to reach a larger audience. We probably benefited. But it became more of a signifier than any of us imagined … ”

Magnus Crawshaw

In 1986 I was the tender age of 15 & had zero knowledge of the C86 cassette, but by ‘87 I started really getting into the independent music scene & became aware of the term C86. As detailed in the book it referred to a certain type of music; jangly guitars, played almost exclusively by young white males with bad haircuts. I think it was meant to be an insult, but I absolutely loved these bands & as a result was aware of the musical artefact they had appeared on. I think I still own records (up in the loft) of at least half the bands mentioned. The music was actually quite varied. People now see C86 as all jangly indie pop, but Bogshed and Big Flame were nothing like that – they were much harder. I guess we rode that divide: there were elements that were very jangly and Velvet Underground-ish, but we had a much harder edge.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey - Goodreads

These bands felt so cool and untouchable to me as a teen - now I'm older I can relate to their various struggles and the odd paths their lives take them down. The book deconstructs the imagined glamour of life in a Peel session / NME single of the week / top 10 indie chart hit band to the point where you feel almost fatherly to the young groups of 36 years ago.Neil Taylor co-compiled C86 and is the author of Document & Eyewitness: An Intimate History Of Rough Trade. Since the 1990s he has worked in publishing.

Women of the 80s Indie Boom - One Touch Football

Following on from acclaimed histories of the British punk upheaval of the late 1970s (Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming) and the post-punk ferment of the early 80s (Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again); Neil Taylor’s new book takes the story forward to cover the next wave of groundbreaking musicians, dubbed the “C86 bands” after a now-legendary cassette compilation released by music weekly NME, whose work paved the way for the commercial breakthrough of indie later in the decade. Very few still make a living from music and the range of jobs they now have is the result of a careers officer having several strong coffees and randomly shouting titles from a work You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

Others were found farther afield. The Mighty Lemon Drops’ guitarist Dave Newton was hunted down to California where he’s a record producer for hire, operating out of the studio in his double garage. He even once formed a covers band – the C86 All Stars – to play the indie hits of the mid-to-late 80s. Dave was clearly still happy to be associated with C86. For many of the bands, the cassette provided their careers with a springboard, often involving signing for a major label. For others, it was a millstone that was hard to shed, a pigeonhole impossible to escape.