Tuesday 21 February 2023

Namesakes #22: Linoleum


Last week, we had a bunch of Valentines. If you received one that made your heart flutter, you're the real winner.

This week (following on from Felt, a fortnight ago) here's another material you can cover your floor with. Can there really be more than one band named after Linoleum?

Yes, there can.

LINOLEUM #1

Caroline Finch, Paul Jones and Emma Tornero formed the crux of our first slab of Linoleum back in 1994 in ye olde London Town. Their first two singles were released with linoleum sleeves. And their drummer was called Dave Nice. Not to be confused with his namesake...


I was reminded of this particular Linoleum as a result of Martin's second volume of Thank You For The Days. Here's the song I'd nominate for that feature. It fits very much into the Elastica / Sleeper stable, and the video features Caroline making a call from a red phone box. Like we used to do back in the good old days...


LINOLEUM #2

Skip forward a year or two and across the world to Melbourne where our next Linoleum released two albums of "tuneful indie powerpop" in the late 90s, one of which gets extra points for being titled "Floored".

No video, I'm sad to say, but here's a link to their bandcamp...


LINOLEUM #3

And here we have some pretty cool Indonesian punk rock from 2010...

I also found a Bulgarian punk band with the same name from a couple of years later... can't seem to find any of their music online though.


Which one would be in your festival line-up... and which one do you think should lie low?


9 comments:

  1. All three are pretty good but I'm a bit disappointed that there is no band from Kirkcaldy the former linoleum capital of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are we allowed to vote for None Of The Above?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spoiled ballot papers will be announced in the count.

      Delete
  3. Crikey, the fact I had never heard of any bands called Linoleum is probably because none of them recorded anything very remarkable. #1 for me though if pushed.

    As CC said, the home of linoleum was Kirkcaldy in Scotland and as a child our floors were covered in the stuff - great for playing at sliding across the floor but not so great if you were an older person and your Persian style rug took off when you stepped on it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pity Ernie's on holiday this week, Alyson... you couldn't rely on his support!

      Delete
    2. I know - I'm all alone and having to think independently.

      Delete
  4. As Alyson says, none of them very remarkable, but at the same time I do quite like them all. A toss-up between 1 and 2 for me I think - let's say 1 (kind of St Etienne gone goth!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Number 1 for me, i bought this when it came out just on spec when HMV and Virgin used to sell new release 7" singles for 99p. I bought a lot of Indie type singles around then just taking a chance, some hits and some misses.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm going for the Indonesian Punk, and take my hat off to you for your research

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...