I can honestly claim to have supported Idlewild from their first release, the 7″ ‘Queen Of The Troubled Teens.’ I picked it up out of curiosity in the record shop in Canterbury, Richard’s Records, where I spent much of my time (not to mention money) as a student when I was there. It was a sound so raucous that the NME famously declared it ‘the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs.’ Fast forward five years, the band were on their third album, signed to EMI (or a subsidiary thereof), having massive hits, making videos with Wim Wenders. And me? Well, I was working in a bookshop in Edinburgh, with none other than lead singer Roddy Woomble’s sister, as featured (uncredited) on the cover of that debut single.
This cover of Cliff Richard’s ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ is noisy by comparison to their later efforts and no doubt offensive to some. To me, it sounds bloody awesome!