Way back in the mists of time, before there was ever an Arctic Monkeys, oh, just under a decade ago, there was a Brit Award for Best Newcomer that didn't turn out quite as expected, thanks to a bit of fan-rallying on the interweb. The hot favourites for 1999 were Steps, who were protegés of Pete Waterman, the 'Hit Man' himself who'd introduced the world to Rick Astley, Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue. But the winners on the night were an obscure (ish) indie band from Glasgow called Belle and Sebastian.Waterman cried foul, perhaps not without some justification: at the time of the awards, the winning 'newcomers' were in the studio working on their third album. They were so sure they wouldn't win that they sent their drummer and trumpet player 'down' to London, so that they could at least have the chance to schmooze a bit and maybe guzzle some free champagne.
With a bit of hindsight, a marketing mind as adroit as Waterman's must have seen the demographic inevitability of this: B&S were an indie band, beloved of students, who would have been more likely to have internet access (especially back then), while Steps fans were probably out buying clothes, or alcopops, or sitting around in tanning salons, or something.
The indie kids went online and voted en masse for their favourites, and lo and behold: an obscure band on a minor independent label were surprised in the studio by a Scottish news team looking not so much like award winners as maybe small furry nocturnal animals who'd been spooked by a flashlight. The violinist lamented that her mum would be mad at her for not going down to the ceremony and putting on a nice dress; the keyboard player expressed utter bemusement, and the guitarist kept throwing things at the TV, on which the awards ceremony was playing. A nice, refreshingly ordinary wee bunch of boys and girls.
It all turned out okay in the end. The following year, the Brits introduced a new award for Best-Selling Most Awesomest Popstars In The Universe Ever, or some such, and Steps won hands down. Such was the enormity of their achievement that the award was immediately retired after that, so that history will remember Steps as the only ever winners. (And that's about all they'll be remembered for.)
A few years later, Belle and Sebastian signed a major label deal and decided that they'd make an album with a Real Producer at last.
Someone with a real proven pedigree in the pop charts.
Someone who'd produced guaranteed, epoch-defining smash hits.
Someone who wasn't Pete Waterman.
So Trevor Horn, the man behind Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Propaganda, tAtU, the man who gave us Seal, the man who'd made "hip-hopera" fusion records with Malcolm McLaren, the man who Replaced Jon Anderson In Yes forcryingoutloud... the man who gave us The Buggles... manned the boards for Belle and Sebastian's major label debut. (Well, it was Rough Trade...)
In some quarters, the indie kids wept and gnashed their teeth. What were they doing, making proper sounding pop records when they should have been enabling the lifestyles of arrested adolescent hipsters everywhere? They were even sticking in Thin Lizzy bits... what was going on?
Belle and Sebastian were growing up, is what was going on. They were playing the same music, but it now sounded much brighter and punchier, as though a fresh pair of ears was subjecting every note to careful scrutiny and putting everything in the right place so that it worked more effectively, which was exactly what was going on.
Not so long ago, I was browsing the racks of the local emporium when I came across the band's DVD. It looked interesting, it was reasonably priced and I had enough disposable income (that weekend) to spring for it. The cover of the DVD said "Fans Only", though, which gave me pause. I liked some of the band's stuff, but did that really make me a fan? I mean, fans are people who play records over and over again. They sit in coffee bars with other fans talking about the band incessantly. They nick setlists after gigs. They choose their friends according to who likes "their" band and who doesn't.Unfair of course. That definition of "fan" is based on my own stereotype. And the fact is, even though I never considered myself a "fan", over the years I've found myself defending the music of Belle and Sebastian to anyone who puts them down. But it's not as though they haven't produced music that I can't stand. They have done this, and they have done it, oh, several times. When I'm Waking Up To Us came out, for instance, I figured that B&S were finished as a band, and that they knew it. Why else would they put out a song with a bright, snappy arrangement, a catchy melody, and what sounded like the most whiningly adolescent, self-pitying post-breakup lyrics ever?
It was almost as though they were trying to sabotage their career, to take themselves apart in public as a final self-destructive statement, much like the Beatles did with Let It Be, or the way drag artists smear their makeup when they finish the act. (I was wrong. IWUTU is a fine track, and you just have to take the lyrics with a pinch of salt. It's a pithy and funny examination of the bitchy and ill-considered things people say when they break up, is all.)
The truth is, it took me many years to stop worrying and love the Belle and Sebastian band. Bear in mind that most people I know who like the group like their newer stuff, the post-Jeepster, post Trevor Horn, "frog in my throw-it" stuff, and are glad they grew out of those wispy-sounding old indie records that I sometimes play them.
And they have a point. By some trick of time, or of the marketplace, or a bit of both, or maybe just inevitable maturation, Belle and Sebastian have become a very different band since they left Jeepster Records. Some fans welcome this, some don't; some would sooner sit around and listen to Tigermilk over and over again. (Personally, my own choice would have been If You're Feeling Sinister, but then I'm not a "fan", am I?)
At whatever stage of their career, though, the band has made the most of the fact that they're a unique blend of different, equaly cardinal, personalities. The band's titular leader, Stuart Murdoch, does most of the singing and writes (or originates) the bulk of the material, but in terms of the group he is merely playing the "singer-songwriter instrument", in the same was as Stevie Jackson plays the "rootsy-guitarist instrument", or Sarah Martin the "quiet but effective multi-instrumentalist" instrument.
Fans Only, anyway, is a DVD retrospective of the band's Jeepster years, from the Dog On Wheels EP (when the band consisted only of the two Stuarts, trumpeter Mick Cooke and some session players) through to the Storytelling album (which was nominally a soundtrack album, though most of it was never used in the film). And you know what? It's quite a lot of fun. You get the snappy pop singles like Legal Man and you get the early, funny stuff - flickery, studenty looking films with a lot of gooning around and acting silly. In those far-off early days, Belle and Sebastian didn't do interviews or press photos. People assumed they were a male/female duet or maybe just a bunch of students having a laugh.
The official tracklisting of the DVD gives you the impression that it's a roughly chronological compendium of the band's videos; this is a cruel and callous trick. What you really get is a deftly put together cut-and-paste documentary of the band's career, including bits from an early BBC documentary, TV appearances (that Brit awards thing in full) and vignettes from the band's various tours, all in between (yes) the promotional videos. Sometimes there's a rude, home-movie feel to it, or even (gasp) the very occasional song you may not like, but overall, it's a film to sit down and watch all the way through; it tells a tale.
Before your very eyes, watch keyboard player Chris Geddes transform from a gangly bespectacled chap into a fully fledged Monster Soul DJ! See cellist Isobel Campbell change from a cute indie schoolgirl with a floppy dog into a self-assured and capable arranger, performer and filmmaker (she directed quite a few of these vids). Tremble in amazement as Bowlie bard Stuart Murdoch transmogrifies, before your very eyes, from a bookish church warden into a gunslinging groupie magnet, while managing to look Exactly The Same! Thrill as snooker ace Richard Colburn swaps his cue for a pair of drumsticks and a bowl of pasta and chicken soup surprise! Most of all (in my own case), yelp with delight as guitarist Stevie Jackson makes an amazing job of the Beach Boys' Darlin' in front of an ampitheatre full of sundazed Coachella concertgoers...
Fans Only follows the group from their earliest incarnation as a self-described "product of botched capitalism" to a bona-fide hit making machine in their own right, and by the time the closing credits roll you realise you've been following the story of this band for almost two hours. Depending on your temperament, you may even want to do it again. For a band who've never really been too concerned with pushing themselves out in front or drawing too much attention to themselves, they've managed to carve out their own niche in the world of popular musicianry, and good on them for it. Watching Fans Only feels like cheering on your local team, even if you come from half a world away.
