Teenage Fanclub: Wanna Net?

Teenage Fanclub play The Zoo on Monday.

“Can you hang on, I’ve got to stop the bath. I’ve got it running.” And with that Teenage Fanclub founder and main songwriter Norman Blake disappears. When he returns, it’s with a quip: “It’s the first bath I’ve had in a week.”

He’s only joking, of course, but then Norman’s always had a bit of a sense of humour. The Glaswegian’s first single as member of the Boy Hairdressers - that included fellow Fannie, Raymond McGinley - was the delicate ditty, Golden Showers (1988). Before that he’d been in the seminal-but-crap BMX Bandits, a band better known for its quirky sense of humour than any real musical ability or song craftsmanship.

Indeed, the first Teenage Fanclub album, A Catholic Education (1990) wasn’t much to shout about either, embracing Dinosaur Jr’s proto-grunge feedback and melody ethos with varying degrees of success. A little under two years later, having signed with the shoegazing, ethereal, Creation label, the real Fannies emerged with Bandwagonesque (1991). It was the first of what was to be a run of four stunning records. Embracing Big Star (with whom they made a joint single Mine Exclusively/Patti Girl in 1993), the Byrds, the Beach Boys and Buffalo Springfield, Teenage Fanclub offered beautifully-crafted pop songs full of languorous harmonies and chiming guitars.

Over  the next six years that formula was revisited and refined - Thirteen (1993), Grand Prix (1995) and Songs From Northern Europe (1997) are all marvellous, robust, insouciant records. And if Howdy (2000) seemed slightly less enervating, it is only marginally so by comparison with some of the glories that inhabit its predecessors. Now there’s Four Thousand Seven Hundred & Sixty Six Seconds: A Shortcut To Teenage Fanclub, a kind of a ‘best of’ that includes three lovely new songs. Good heavens, is it the end, you ask? Have the Fannies finally succumbed? Is one of Scotland’s finest merely to become a voice on the eternal wind that blows over Loch Lomond?

“No, I don’t think so,” Norman says, from Norwich, England, the latest stop on the band’s highly successful UK tour. “I definitely think we’re going to hang around for another album then we’ll see. This record is still part of the Creation, even though the company was wound up a while ago. It’s administered now by Sony which bought the company, so it’s a nice way to finish our relationship with Creation - with grace. Truth is though, I’m happy we’re leaving. It hasn’t been the same since the real Creation folded and Alan (McGee, founder) left. Funny thing is, Alan is still our publisher and a good friend of the band.”

“Alan said he was trying to compete with the majors but it proved impossible. He said, ‘How can you compete with a competition that spends a couple of million dollars on a TV campaign for Travis?’ You obviously can’t.”

McGee now has the quirky Poptones. “Kind of like an early Creation with the Internet bolted on,” Blake chirps. “Everybody has their URL on their album sleeves these days and it’s obvious that the Net is a market that’s really opening up. Selling online from your own label is an excellent idea. I’ve spent the last couple of months redesigning our website. I think selling our records from our own website is a real option for us.”

And then there’s eBay and the way the Net has become the new home for fans searching for vinyl, CDs and memorabilia.

“Oh yeah, I’d been looking for a record by Gary & the Hornets (perhaps their cover of Baby It’s You or Party Girl) that was included on a tape given to me by Calvin Johnson (presumably of Beat Happening and K Records fame).”

“For groups like us though the whole Website option is a way forward. There have been a couple of good articles in Wire about the death of the major record labels, its likelihood. There was also a good article about the battle within Sony between the hardware - MP3 players, midisc players and so on - division and its music division.”

Blake’s a modest kind of bloke. Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream (who embraced the Rolling Stones back catalogue so masterfully on Screamadelica) were the vanguard of the early 1990s Brit retro movement that thoroughly exhumed the ghost of the 1960s. It is no surprise that in 2003 they are virtually that movement’s only survivors.

“That’s true, although I suppose you could include Blur, as well,” Norman says. “I guess most groups don’t last very long though. The Beatles only lasted eight years. It’s obvious when you jam four to five personalities and egos together it’s going to be difficult to get on. We’ve had a few Spinal Tap moments, especially with drummers. Our original drummer, Francis Macdonald is now back with us. It’s the first time we’ve played together. He recorded the first album with us then went to University!”

So here’s to the Fannies, a great bloody pop band. “Ta, when we were doing the compilation album we had to listen to all the albums. I think they’re good. We’re pretty lucky. We’re still talking. Still together, we’ve travelled the world, done some great things, met and played with some great people - and we toured with Nirvana!”v