Rhino records just realeased a CD called 21 singles that covers this groups entire span! It is fabulous! Does anyone know anything about this group, other than the fact they are from Glascow? Did I put this in the right forum or should it be in New Wave?

Don't worry, buddy...the JesusMary Chain fits as well in this forum as well as it would have fitted in the New Wave forum IMHO. ;)

Their live concerts were quite amazing...depending on the mood of the Reid brothers, they went through their repertoire at a normal pace (good mood...as far as someone can say about the music of J&MC ;) ), rather slow (sad or bored) or at double speed (pissed).

With "April Skies", they had a club hit here, but J&MC were mainly an UK thing.

I guess they could be considered borderline goth, but maybe a little new wave as well. This is a great group. I have the "Automatic" album which features the single "Head On". This is some info I found from allmusic.com:

Like the Velvet Underground, their most obvious influence, the chart success of the Jesus & Mary Chain was virtually non-existent, but their artistic impact was incalculable; quite simply, the British group made the world safe for white noise, orchestrating a sound dense in squalling feedback which served as an inspiration to everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Dinosaur Jr. Though the supporting players drifted in and out of focus, the heart of the Mary Chain remained vocalists and guitarists William and Jim Reid, Scottish-born brothers heavily influenced not only by underground legends like the Velvets and the Stooges but also by the sonic grandeur and pop savvy of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. In the Jesus and Mary Chain, which the Reids formed outside of Glasgow in 1984 with bassist Douglas Hart and drummer Murray Dalglish (quickly replaced by Bobby Gillespie), these two polarized aesthetics converged; equal parts bubblegum and formless guitar distortion, their sound both celebrated pop conventions and thoroughly subverted them.

In late 1984, the band issued its seminal debut single, "Upside Down," a remarkable blast of livewire feedback anchored by a caveman-like drumbeat; the record made the Mary Chain an overnight sensation in the U.K., as did their nascent live shows, 20-minute sets of confrontational noise (performed with the band's members backs to the audience) which frequently ended in rioting. The follow-up, "You Trip Me Up," further perfected the formula, and led to their 1985 debut LP Psychocandy, which gift-wrapped sweet, simple pop songs in ribbons of droning guitar fuzz. After a two-year layoff (during which time Gillespie exited to form Primal Scream, and was replaced by John Moore), the Jesus and Mary Chain returned with Darklands, a dramatic shift in approach which stripped away the feedback to expose the skeletal guitar-pop at the music's core. After a sprawling 1988 collection of singles, B-sides and demos titled Barbed Wire Kisses, they emerged with Automatic, which introduced a more tightly-coiled brand of feedback while jettisoning Moore's live drums in favor of synthesized beats.

After another long absence, the Mary Chain (minus Hart) resurfaced in 1992 with Honey's Dead, and earned greater U.S. visibility thanks to a spot on that summer's Lollapalooza line-up; the first single "Reverence" also won them renewed notoriety at home when Top of the Pops banned the song because of its opening lines "I wanna die just like Jesus Christ" and "I wanna die just like JFK." With 1994's gentle, largely acoustic Stoned and Dethroned, they even reached the U.S. pop charts thanks to the lovely single "Sometimes Always," a duet with Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval. Another collection of scattered sides, The Jesus and Mary Chain Hate Rock 'n' Roll, followed a year later, highlighted by the single "I Hate Rock 'n' Roll," a scabrous swipe which reclaimed the pure noise attack of their earliest work. Moving to Sub Pop, they returned with Munki in 1998. William Reid left the group during the subsequent tour, and in 1999, the Jesus and Mary Chain officially disbanded. — Jason Ankeny

My all-time fave band.... "21 Singles" is great.

It doesn't take me long.....I see "Psychocandy" is one of their songs :lol:

LOL... yes it is... hence my handle.. my fave songs by them:
April Skies
The Hardest Walk
Psychocandy (duh)
Taste of Cindy (duh again...)
Happy When It Rains
Sidewalking

I just remembered how all of those sounded as I read them.

thanks. :D

definitely an underrated band

:)

I'm not much of a goth, so the only song I heard of theirs was the one on The Crow soundtrack. It was good, and I've been meaning to pick up one of their albums for a while. I'll probably get 21 singles, to see what I like the best, then hunt down some of their old lps.

I saw them in concert in the mid - eighties (84?-85?). They played in the small but famous Metroplex (in Atlanta, Ga) anyway, the feedback from the guitars can be heard throughout the town!

My favorite songs are:
Who Do You Love (a cover - of course)
Happy When It Rains (a classic)
Sidewalking (just cool)

I only really started listening to them in the early 90s, but their album Stoned and Dethroned is brilliant, like so much of their music.

Did Garbage cover 'Happy When It Rains' or was that a different version out of interest?

Garbage did indeed do a song called Happy When it Rains, I'm not sure whether it was a J&MC song or not though.

My earliest memory of J&MC was when they made their - I suppose - TV debut on a music show called "Whistle Test" - they ended their set just smashing their guitars, reminiscent of The Who, I think they were only on for about 10-15 minutes total

Formerly "The Old Grey Whistle Test", yeah that was a great music show, I used to like David Peel as he was always finding some of the best upcoming bands around the North of England, here's a pic of some of the people that made it on the show...
http://www.kneeling.net/

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