Britpop Changes a Life Forever.

Kanine Records have brought some truly amazing artists into the spotlight over their nearly 20 years of life, from Chairlift to Grizzly Bear, to Weaves and The Natvral. Lio captains the Kanine ship with his wife Kay and the anthemic phenomenon known as Britpop changed his life. Allow him to epically illustrate and explain…

Britpop was not just a phase, for me it was a gateway that lead to a strong love for music with a Touch of CLASS.

In 5^th and 6^th grade my music knowledge pretty much consisted of whatever my Pops played on our family turntable. He had a huge record collection with a wide range of stuff including records from the Beatles, Stones, the Who, Herman’s Hermits, Eric Clapton, Musical Youth, Donna Summer, Lovin’ Spoonful, Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen as well as Disney Soundtracks. By the way, I still have all of those soundtracks and they are great, my personal favorite being the “Mickey Goes Disco” lp.

This album went platinum so Lio wasn’t alone in his worship.

But it wasn’t ’til the summer between 6^th grade and 7^th grade that I truly got inspired by music on my own. I spent the summer with one of my best friends and his family in Stuttgart, Germany. Our days consisted of skateboarding, eating gummy bears, talking about girls and trying to do our hair cool. And at night we spent our time listening to the Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, INXS and OMD and dreaming about being invited to the disco that his older sisters snuck out to at night.

When summer ended, I came back to the States and hit 7^th grade with a newly spiked New Wave haircut, purple baggy pants, long green army jacket and high top Vans. I thought my skate buddies would be stoked to hear what I’d been listening to all summer in Europe. They were not. While I’d been away they’d all become obsessed with American Punk Rock and made it clear they thought my favored stuff was truly wimpy. Truly wussy.

Kevin, one of my best skate buddies at the time, was really into the Misfits, Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, 7 Seconds, Agent Orange and Black Flag so we’d spend a lot of weekends in his room listening to just that stuff. Though I admit I kind of began to love all of those bands musically, I still didn’t have a complete connection style-wise with what they were all about. It was like I was missing something.

Then in 8^th grade, something happened. I heard The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen (still my fave band to this day) for the first time and felt an instant connection. Yes, they all had a dark undertone to them, but their music actually made me feel hopeful.

The love you found must never stop…

Luckily, one of my other skate buddies had succumbed to these these sounds as well. Since he lived over an hour away, I’d take a bus to his every weekend and skate around downtown with him by day then soak up the newest bands coming from the UK on his cassette stereo at night.

9^th grade hit and I found a new love, namely the Wax Trax label. I was into the whole style of the scene they represented, from the cool dark clothes to, most importantly, the heavy synth beats they churned out. Frontline Assembly were my favorite band on the roster but I also especially dug Revolting Cocks, Ministry, and My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult…yet once again, especially after I started going to their shows, I felt that I was not entirely aligned with what they were thinking as in everyone into the scene seemed ultra-aggressive, dirty and unhappy.

See, I was spending my days in beautiful Florida, waking up to looking out my window at orange groves, then skating all day long in the sun. And so the aggression of the scene didn’t relate to my life, I mean I was not an angry teenager, I was still searching. Then in 10th grade something even bigger happened to alter my musical landscape. It was a TV show. Yes, really.

MTV’s 120 Minutes was on from 12am-2am every Sunday and hosted by this guy Dave Kendall. They would play the coolest new music from around the world, which back then was referred to as “alternative”. We used to call girls that were into it “Alter-Natives”, as those were the cool girls. I could never stay up that late and so I would set up my VCR to record it and the next day my sister and I would watch it after school. It was a ton of work as you had to fast forward through a lot of commercials and bad interviews but it was worth it to see an amazing new video from a band like Blur.

Here is 120 Minutes host Dave Kendall literally changing people’s lives in the late ’80s.

And that is where I first heard of the Charlatans, Lush, Stone Roses, Sundays, Inspiral Carpets, Soup Dragons and the Jesus and Mary Chain. I felt a strong and instant kinship with these bands. They had a punk spirit, great tunes and great style. It was love.

At that time Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and other U.S. bands were big on the scene but I couldn’t relate. I mean to me, Kurt Cobain looked like a homeless guy and sang about wanting to kill himself. I was like damn dude, life is great, just enjoy it.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt like an outsider as a teenager, like a lot of us do, but the way the Charlatans described it in ‘The Weirdo”, well that was what it was about. They spoke my language. It celebrated life and the fact that it was ok to be different. In other words, different was cool. Being happy was cool.

Fast forward to 1994. I had been hungrily following the UK music scene courtesy of the old NME magazines that I found at various record stores in Florida and Atlanta. Usually I would have to read year old issues, but I didn’t care as that was my only connection to what was going on in the UK. And hey, remember, there was no internet in the mid ’90s.

I was entranced with the UK music scene : it seemed like a magical place. I talked so much about wanting to go to London that one summer that I ultimately convinced my Dad to take us there. My sister, Mom, Dad and I stayed in London for 3 whole weeks. I was in heaven.  The mission for my sister and I was to hit as many record, clothing and shoe stores as possible (Dr. Martens were hard to come by in Florida, so of course we couldn’t leave without picking up some).

 Lio on his mission to bring all of London home with him.

I remember there were posters of Oasis all over town. We ourselves peeled a huge Blur Parklife subway poster off a wall. It had a big picture of a beer in the middle and so I naturally loved it and had to have it (p.s. I still have it, and it’s since been displayed in bunch of different apartments I’ve lived in). We also bought as many music magazines as we could as they were also hard to get in the States at that time. Within those magazines I discovered even more cool, new bands to get excited about. Pulp. Suede. Echobelly. Shed Seven. Placebo. Sleeper. The Auteurs. Marion…and on and on.

Once we returned home, I was stuck by myself listening to this new crop of music from the UK as my skate buddies were now firmly, officially stuck in Punk Rock land. Cool for them but by then I was hanging Morrissey posters on the wall. I can remember a few parties at my house where I had to witness my drunk friends actually spitting on my Moz, Primal Scream and Elastica posters. Spitting. The one and only band spared from their hatred was Supergrass who they thought “rocked” and “had jams”. Once again, I felt separated because of my music taste…but I didn’t care. I had this little, happy place of music in my head, from a “magical land” and it was far, far away from boring flannel and torn jeans and the negative sounds that went with them.

A tiny piece of Lio’s collection. Also, has there ever been anyone cooler than Justine Frischmann (no).

The rest of my college years I spent all of my time saving up money to take trips up to Atlanta to see the occasional British band play and raid Wax n Facts record shop for all of their British Imports. On one crazy trip I ventured up to see the band Gene and got to meet Martin Rossiter, the singer, in person hours before the show. At that time I dressed in a pretty similar style to the guys in these British bands I loved, so much so that the night of the show I was having pints in the upstairs bar and one of the bouncers grabbed me and said “Dude it’s show-time you gotta go downstairs and play”. He then ushered me past the door guy into the room. I didn’t even have time to react. I just let it happen. I was so excited that he thought I was in the band and that I got in for free to see one of my favorite English groups play. I took a picture of Martin singing that night and to this day it hangs in my office framed. Gene’s “Olympian” was the song that got me through many hard years in college and is still there for me every time I need it. Their self-titled debut album remains one of my favorites of all time and I never get tired of listening to it.

After that show, we went to an underground club called MJQ that specialized in MOD/Britpop. I walked in the door and instantly, I was in heaven.  Everyone was dressed super Mod, Britpop and cool. No flannel shirts or torn up jeans or dirty hair anywhere. Everyone dressed up to come out and party and dance to their favorite bands. I was stoked. It was heaven. Right then I knew I had to move to Atlanta, just as soon as I finished college in Florida.

Lio is totally psyched to be amongst the “Common People” like him.

Once I migrated to Atlanta, I managed to score an apartment across the street from my new, beloved Brit/Mod club MJQ. I would spend hours after work listening to my favorite new singles from the UK while watching the early birds go into the club. Then at 12am my buddies would pile into my apartment for pre-drinks and we’d all walk across the street like a gang into the club, ready to dominate the dance floor. Each year I would save a ton of money so that I could venture to the UK to buy mountains of records (and they had to have the “Made in UK” stamp on them, that was important) and see bands. I went to the Reading and Leeds Festivals twice, T in the Park and some other amazing ones. It was a great thing to see the bands that you love, in their homeland, where the people “really got the music”. After spending years in Atlanta, I realized that there was more out there and ventured up to NYC, driven by my strong love of Britpop/Mod Culture. Once there, I started my own club night called “Crashin’ In” (named after The Charlatans song) to share my musical love, which lasted well over 13 years. I even worked in an indie record store called Rebel Rebel that specialized in carrying UK band imports so that I could be closer to the music that I love (and spend my weekly paycheck with way too much ease).

And so you see, Britpop was not just a phase or a fad, not for me it wasn’t. It remains my inspiration to this day and that will never change.

Lio in his “record room” aka heaven.

Lio’s made an INSANE playlist featuring his most beloved Britpop and Britpop adjacent tunes. Check it out on Spotify below ! Plus enjoy a bonus YouTube playlist with the songs that aren’t available on Spotify but are part of Lio’s essentials !