The Giant Panther

I don't exactly know what possesses bands to try and remove the "UK" from their name once whatever US based band name conflict has been resolved, but I don't like it. You would think bands like the Charlatans UK and The Chameleons UK would wear the "UK" proudly. It sure does take the guess work out of where they come from right? It even sounds cooler. The Chameleons and The Charlatans are going by their non "UK" names these days (if they are going at all) and I'm not sure what the benefit is. Is it cheaper to make t-shirts with two less letters? They sound like they've been neutered to me. Once you go "UK" you can never go back. That's my motto (among others). OK, now that one of my pet peeves is out in the open let's talk cool alternative rock songs for $500 Jack.

The advent of the compact disc sort of immortalized a lot of these under the radar bands. By that I mean they are digitized for evermore. I can recall for a decade or more many lost classics were never available on CD. Sometimes the artist wasn't satisfied with the condition of the master tapes. Sometimes the labels were shooting themselves in their collective foot and sometimes the tapes were just plain missing, but a CD seems so much more permanent than some reel to reel tape to me. With that an avalanche of bands like The Chameleons UK were able to have what I consider to be a more permanent footprint in rock history. The CDs might go out of print, but at least there is a pristine copy out there somewhere if someone wants it badly enough. Albums got all scratched and neglected (not mine of course) and tapes are an even more shaky proposition. How are all those mixed tapes doing today that you made in the 80's and 90's? Pretty soon we won't be able to buy a machine to play them on I figure. The CD itself will probably be obsolete in ten years, but once they are converted to the MP3 format it shouldn't matter much in our lifetime. But that is not what I came to talk about today (if you can believe that coming from a tangent king)...

There were a handful of 80's and 90's "alternative rock" songs (whatever that means) that came from short lived acts on small labels that became hard to locate as the years went by. I can remember this Manchester band breaking up shortly after releasing their third album, Strange Times, back in 1986. I have to admit right here and now that I didn't buy this record then. It was only years later, after I kept hearing Swamp Thing on WFNX in the 90's, that I made it my mission to own this song. It is an exquisite piece of music for my money. It is ethereal, gothic, melancholy and gorgeous all at once. It is the kind of song that once made you buy a $16.99 import for a single track. It was that good. Fortunately the CD is very good as a whole and it led me to investigate their previous effort, Script of The Bridge, as well. I just checked the preaching to the choir review section of The Chameleons UK & Strange Times and you'd think they were the most influential band of all time. We know that is not true, but Swamp Thing is absolutely one of the greatest alternative rock songs you will ever come across. The fact that you didn't hear it that often and that is was hard to come by only adds to its mystique. I hope you see and hear it the way I do. Enjoy.

www.thechameleons.com