The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain were a Scottish alternative rock band that revolved around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid. Hailing from East Kilbride in Scotland, they released a constant string of albums, singles and EPs from their formation in 1984 until their demise in 1999.

The early years

The Mary Chain originally revolved around the songwriting partnership of its two main members. To fully realise their vision of the band, the Reid brothers recruited bassist Douglas Hart and drummer Murray Dalglish. The latter was quickly replaced in favour of Bobby Gillespie (who would go on to front Primal Scream), and the band recorded their debut single, "Upside Down", released in October 1984 on Creation Records. Though the single received universal critical acclaim from the British music press, and the band was championed fanatically by the NME, it was their live shows that drew them the most attention.

Notoriety

The Jesus and Mary Chain's early gigs have become the stuff of legend in indie circles. Playing in front of small audiences, the Mary Chain earned their notoriety by playing very short gigs, some lasting no more than 10 minutes and consisting of a constant wall of feedback and distortion, as well as playing with their backs to the audience and refusing to speak to them. Many shows culminated with the Reids trashing their equipment, which was often followed by the audience rioting. All of this delighted manager and Creation Records boss Alan McGee, who obviously found it very easy to get attention for the band. He would simply make sure people from the music press were present while these events occured, which ensured blanket coverage in the music papers.

The violence that followed the band's every action culminated in an event that is now a part of indie folklore. On March 15, 1985, the Mary Chain played a gig at the North London Polytechnic in front of one of their largest crowds up to that point. Support band Meat Whiplash had stirred up violence before the Mary Chain even set foot onto the stage by throwing back into the audience a bottle thrown at them. By the time the Mary Chain started their short set, the audience was already in the mood for violence, and because of the size of the audience (the venue was oversold), the riot that occurred was far bigger and wilder than any other that had occurred at a JAMC gig (footage here).. The fans trashed the venue and the band's equipment resulting in four people being taken to hospital. An estimated £8000 of damage was caused. The music press were present at the show, and this event subsequently became known as "The Jesus and Mary Chain Riot".

The same year, the band signed to Blanco y Negro and released the singles "You Trip Me Up" and "Never Understand", which were soon followed by their debut album Psychocandy. The album fused together the Reid's two primary influences, the indie guitar noise of The Velvet Underground with the '60s pop leanings of Phil Spector and The Beach Boys. It has been noted that the band were very fond of the drug LSD and that the drug influenced the ear-piercing, screeching feedback, which later became their trademark. The record received unanimously positive reviews and is now considered a landmark recording.

Not a group to stay out of trouble, the Mary Chain were thrown out of their record company's offices after a fight broke out and Reid was arrested for possession of amphetamine in Germany. This earned them the now infamous comparisons to The Sex Pistols by the U.K press and led to numerous appearances in the equally infamous tabloids. Like the Pistols' "Anarchy" tour, the Mary Chain were banned from Plymouth, Birmingham, Sheffield, and removed from a Glasgow concert for swearing onstage. The final date in Brighton was attended by 600 fans and an impressive army of police, but fortunately the band and the crowd behaved themselves.

Two months later, the WEA pressing plant refused to handle the Mary Chain's third single, "You Trip Me Up", because some of the staff considered the B-side, "Jesus Sucks". to be obscene. However, the band wanted to originally call the song 'Jesus Fucks', but were forced to replace the cut with "Just Out of Reach."

Post-Psychocandy

After Psychocandy, the band recorded and released the single "Some Candy Talking", which is commonly misunderstood as being about heroin use. In a 2005 interview with Jim Reid featured in Filter Magazine, Reid noted that: '"Some Candy Talking" had nothing to do with drugs, actually. It was just something a radio DJ picked up on, and it was banned in all the major radio stations in the UK.' Following the release of "Some Candy Talking", Bobby Gillespie left to front Primal Scream on a full time basis. He was replaced with John Moore, though he was gone as well by the release of the band's second album, Darklands, in September 1987. (Moore went on to form John Moore and the Expressway, released a solo album before forming Black Box Recorder with Luke Haines). Moore was replaced by Dave Evans, former Mary Chain soundman and bass player with Biff Bang Pow! (which also featured Alan McGee and Dick Green of Creation Records). Featuring a more melodic sound, the album was recorded almost entirely by the Reids themselves, replacing live drums with a drum machine, and received overwhelmingly positive reviews by the British music press.

The band's live shows, at one time considered the most exciting element of the band and the reason for most of their success, were now overshadowed by their records. In 1987 and 1988 they toured without a drummer, instead employing a roadie to play a tape of drum tracks through the PA system. The gigs were very poorly received and they quickly reverted back to live drums, drafting in Richard Thomas for two years, subsequently replaced by Steve Monti in 1990. The fluid nature of the Mary Chain's line up continued throughout their entire career, with a revolving door of drummers, bassists and guitarists being recruited for TV appearances and gigs whenever they were required, the only constants being the Reid brothers.

The band's dangerous reputation culminated oddly enough at a gig at the RPM club in Toronto in November 1987, when Jim Reid allegedly hit two fans with a microphone stand for spitting on him. Jim was arrested and spent a night in jail. He was subsequently given absolute discharge after agreeing to give £500 to charity.

Following the odds-and-sods collection Barbed Wire Kisses (1988) and constant touring, the album Automatic was released in September 1989. Boasting heavy use of synthesized bass and keyboards, the album was not received quite as well as its predecessors. It contained the singles "Head On" and the Dylan ode, "Blues From A Gun". By this time, the violence that was originally associated with the band was practically non-existent and the Reid brothers were being less antagonistic and aggressive in general. It seemed that they had calmed down.

The 1990s

After cooling down, the band proved their detractors wrong with their next single, "Reverence". Spitting feedback and punk rock bile in every direction, the track was banned from radio and the video was banned from being broadcast on television, due to its potentially offensive lyrics ('I wanna die just like JFK, I wanna die in the USA'.) The single was followed by the release of the album Honey's Dead (1992), which was considered a return to form; keeping their distinctive ear-piercing noise, whilst also drawing in influences from the huge British dance scene at the time. Following the tour to support the album and the release of another compilation of odds-and-sods, The Sound of Speed, they returned to the studio to record their fifth album proper, the largely acoustic Stoned & Dethroned which would see release in 1994.

Munki (1998)

Following the final album in their odds-and-sods trilogy, 1995's Hate Rock N' Roll, the Mary Chain parted ways with Blanco y Negro, their record label of over a decade, and signed to American indie label Sub Pop. For Sub Pop they recorded 1998's Munki album, which would turn out to be their last before splitting the following year. The album is often thought of as sounding 'divided' due to the Reids' crumbling relationship, Jim Reid recalls: 'Me and William weren't really getting along at all. That last year we barely even spoke. Munki is one of my favorite albums, but it was really divided. William would go into the studio with the rest of the band and record while I wasn't there, and then I'd go in with them when William wasn't there.'

Though it was not until October 1999 that the split was made official, on September 12, 1998, William had a falling out in the tourbus with guitarist Ben Lurie before they were to play a sold out gig at the famous Los Angeles House of Blues. Jim and William had a falling out about 15 minutes into their set, resulting in William leaving the band following that show. The show was considered one of their worst; William had left, and Jim recalled being extremely drunk. It was deemed terrible enough that the audience were refunded their tickets. The band finished up their U.S. and Japanese dates without William, but from that point, it was clear that the band was at its end.

Post-split

Immediately after the split, William Reid went solo as Lazycame and Jim Reid founded Freeheat, although neither acts received much attention or found any success. In October 2005, it was announced that the Reids were reunited; Jim Reid's track "Song For A Secret" was released as a single, paired up with Sister Vanilla's "Cannot Stop The Rock", which was written and produced by William Reid and the brothers' younger sibling, Linda . The single was released by Transistor Records on October 17. Jim Reid promoted his side of the single with a very rare solo gig at London's Sonic Cathedral club on John Peel Day , Thursday October 13, 2005. He finished this rare live appearance with a performance of the early Mary Chain classic "Never Understand".

In 2005, some six years after the Mary Chain split up, their track "Heat", taken from the Sound of Speed compilation, was used in a television advertising campaign for Coors Beer in the UK.

In 2006 five albums will be reissued through Rhino Records: Psychocandy, Darklands, Automatic, Honey's Dead and Stoned & Dethroned will be re-released on July 11, 2006. Each album will be released with a DVD containing three promo videos from that particular album. ^*

Influence

The Jesus and Mary Chain are easily one of the most influential bands in indie circles. Their debut album Psychocandy, along with the Cocteau Twins, largely influenced the British Shoegazing movement of the late 1980s as well as numerous American alternative rock bands. Other hugely influential acts, such as My Bloody Valentine, The Butthole Surfers and The Stone Roses cite the Jesus and Mary Chain as primary influences, and The Pixies covered "Head On" (from Automatic) on their album Trompe Le Monde. The Mary Chain's influence remains to this day, an influence that has been confirmed by the numerous cover versions of Mary Chain songs. Contemporary bands such as The Raveonettes, Skywave, Alcian Blue and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are heavily indebted to the influence of The Jesus and Mary Chain. However, it could be said that the Mary Chain's great legacy was the realization that punk rock/industrial noise was not diametrically opposed to pop melody, that the two could be woven together into music far more than the sum of its parts.

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	UK	US	Notes
1985	Psychocandy	31	188	-
1987	Darklands	5	161	-
1988	Barbed Wire Kisses	9	192	B-Sides and Rarities Collection
1989	Automatic	11	105	-
1992	Honey's Dead	14	158	-
1993	The Sound of Speed	15	-	Second B-Sides and Rarities Collection
1994	Stoned & Dethroned	13	98	-
1995	Hate Rock N' Roll	-	-	Third B-Sides and Rarities Collection
1998	Munki	47	-	-
2000	The Complete John Peel Sessions	-	-	-
2002	21 Singles	-	-	-
2003	BBC - Live In Concert	-	-	-

Singles & EPs

Year	Song	UK singles	US Hot 100	US Modern Rock	Album
1984	"Upside Down"	-	-	-	-
1985	"Never Understand"	-	-	-	Psychocandy
1985	"You Trip Me Up"	-	-	-	Psychocandy
1985	"Just Like Honey"	-	-	-	Psychocandy
1986	"Some Candy Talking (EP)"	13	-	-	-
1987	"April Skies"	8	-	-	Darklands
1987	"Happy When It Rains"	25	-	-	Darklands
1987	"Darklands"	33	-	-	Darklands
1988	"Sidewalking"	30	-	-	Barbed Wire Kisses
1989	"Blues From A Gun"	32	-	1	Automatic
1990	"Head On"	-	-	2	Automatic
1990	"Rollercoaster (EP)"	-	-	-	Honey's Dead
1991	"The Peel Sessions (EP)"	-	-	-	-
1992	"Reverence (EP)"	10	-	-	Honey's Dead
1992	"Sugar Ray"	-	-	22	Honey's Dead
1992	"Far Gone And Out (EP)"	23	-	3	Honey's Dead
1992	"Almost Gold"	-	-	13	Honey's Dead
1993	"Sound of Speed (EP)"	30	-	-	The Sound of Speed
1994	"Sometimes Always"	22	96	-	Stoned & Dethroned
1994	"Come On (EP)"	-	-	-	Stoned & Dethroned
1998	"Cracking Up"	35	-	-	Munki
1998	"I Love Rock and Roll"	38	-	-	Munki

Trivia

The song "Just Like Honey" was used in the ending scene of the film Lost in Translation (2003), directed by Sofia Coppola.
"Reverence" was used in the film Pet Semetary II (1992).
"Snakedriver" was used in the film The Crow (1994).
Independent filmmaker Gregg Araki is a big fan of the band and their music: he named his movie The Living End after the Mary Chain song of the same name; "Head On" is used in his subsequent film, Totally F***ed Up; "Sometimes Always" and "Penetration" are used in The Doom Generation; and "In The Black" appears in Nowhere.

Samples

External links

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