|
|
|
|
The Atom Seed |
In 1989
my
first professional gig arrived in the unlikely shape of the Atom Seed
(with Paul Cunningham- vocals, Simon James- guitar, Amir and later Jerry
Hawkins- drums). Although
being described as "Slam diving, crotch
grinding, they’re fucking brilliant" Metal
Hammer; or depending on your view
"sound-alike brain drainers, excellent musicians wasting their time
on pre-school mentality songs" Factor
X,, we were signed after only three gigs to the
soon-to-go-bankrupt label FM/Revolver.
|
|
The Atom Seed Live at Buckley Tivoli |
Our
first EP ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ was described by Metal
Hammer as a "truly mind blowing debut" but
by Melody Maker as "trying
to give the impression that you can take acid and make great metal.
Apparently they ‘have the keys to the doghouse’ Makes you feel sorry
for the dogs, leave them alone you filthy hippies"
yet with constant touring supporting the likes of Red Hot Chilli
Peppers, Wolfsbane, Napalm Death, Pop Will Eat Itself and the Electric
Boys we somehow picked up a healthy UK following. |
|
Chris live with Atom Seed at
Nottingham Rock City |
Our
follow up album ‘Get in Line’ got unexpectedly good reviews- "This
is the soundtrack for urban British Rock music in the 1990’s" Metal
Hammer, "Utterly superb...Dale is
an avalanche of awesome funk metal" Kerrang!
, and even "the Seed simply explode in a
welter of Chris Dale’s coruscating veloci-funk bass." Sounds.
(to save everyone’s time I looked up "coruscating" in a
dictionary, but was still none the wiser). The band
continued touring constantly now as headliners in the UK, and in Europe
as support to Bay Areas Thrashers Mordred. All was well, so far. |
|
Atom Seed live at Metropolis Festival
Rotterdam |
When the clueless British Music Industry saw the press reviews and
energetic live shows they mistook our band for a promising one and
without hearing any demos or new songs an A&R frenzy occurred in
which, the label with the most money and least sense was sure to
win. The unlucky winner of this absurd competition was London
Records. |
|
Atom Seed with new drummer, Jerry
Hawkins looking pleased |
From here on
we
were doomed, but well off and doomed at least.
Amongst London Records many stupid-but-true suggestions to us were- "Why not use Lisa Stansfield’s remixer?",
"You shouldn’t go on a US tour with LA Guns, it wouldn’t do you
any good", "Could the singer shave his chest?", "You
shouldn’t do any gigs for quite a while" and finally "We
should delay the release of your second album until Britain’s in a
stronger position economically" - hence it remains unreleased to
this day awaiting an upsurge in interest rates. In the meantime we
released a last EP ‘Dead Happy’ ("vicious
and rubbery" said Kerrang, "dyspeptic,
more like" said Melody Maker), then spent our ill-gotten
money, argued aimlessly with ourselves and anyone else who’d listen,
and finally split up with an unreleased
album in the can. |
See the
Atom Seed website
for more including unreleased MP3s |
