Inspiral Carpets

After the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets were arguably the third most popular band to emerge from the late-'80s/early-'90s Madchester scene. Like the Charlatans UK, they weren't quite as innovative as the city's two standard-bearers, relying less on the contemporary dance club beats that became Madchester pop's identifying signature. They did, however, share a fascination with trippy psychedelia, particularly the Farfisa organ-drenched sound of Nuggets-style garage rock from the '60s, which set them apart from their peers. It also enabled them to tinker with their sound once the Madchester fad had passed, and the group continued to score hits right up to their mid-'90s breakup. Inspiral Carpets were formed in the Manchester-area town of Oldham by guitarist Graham Lambert, who'd been playing around the area since 1982. His group -- named after an area clothing store -- finally began to settle on a permanent lineup in 1986, when drummer Craig Gill and Farfisa organist Clint Boon joined up. They were soon augmented by vocalist Steve Holt and bassist Dave Swift, and built up a following around Manchester with their demo tapes (done in a '60s-influenced garage punk style). Clever merchandising helped the band out financially; they sold T-shirts featuring their smoking-cow logo and their slogan "Cool as F*ck," which got them media attention when a student wearing the shirt was arrested for violating obscenity laws. Their first national release came in 1988 with the Plane Crash EP on Playtime Records, but when that label's distributor went out of business later that year, the band set up their own imprint, Cow Records, which was financed mostly by T-shirt sales. The first release on Cow was the 1989 EP Trainsurfing, which got the band even more national...