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The Vaselines Return with New Album, Tour
The influential group releases their first album in 21 years
The Vaselines at Primavera Sound (Photo: sarahrobertsphoto, via Flickr)
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“We’re called the Vaselines, all the way from Glasgow.”
The Vaselines only released one full-length album, yet they’re one of indie pop’s most legendary bands. How did this happen? Well, it helps when every song they recorded sounds like a twee sing-along. Receiving an endorsement from Kurt Cobain on national television doesn’t hurt, either.
Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee formed the Vaselines in Scotland in 1986. A year later, they released their first EP, Son of a Gun, followed by 1988′s Dying for It. Both EPs reached the UK Indie Chart, but had little impact in America. Not yet, at least.
The band’s only full-length record, Dum-Dum, was also heard by few, even though every track, from “Oliver Twisted” to “Slushy,” is a perfect-world pop hit. But the band did have one big fan in Aberdeen, Washington: Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who had just released Bleach (another perfect-world pop hit: “About a Girl”).
The Vaselines broke up in 1989, and may have faded into obscurity if not for Nirvana’s appearance on MTV Unplugged. Along with songs by David Bowie, the Meat Puppets and Lead Belly, Nirvana covered “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” giving many listeners their introduction to the Vaselines. Nirvana would also include covers of “Molly’s Lips” and “Son of a Gun” on the compilation album, Incesticide. The Vaselines even briefly reunited in 1990 to open for the group.
Although Kelly and McKee would stay musically active (he with Eugenius, she with Suckle), they didn’t get back together as the Vaselines until 2006. Since then, they have toured sporadically, including their first-ever U.S. date at Maxwells in 2008. But even when they weren’t on the road or recording new music, the Vaselines legacy grew, largely due to Sub Pop’s 2009 release of Enter the Vaselines, which contains every song the band recorded, plus a disc full of live tracks and demos.
And now, finally, over two decades later, the Vaselines (with some help from Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson) will release their second album, Sex with an X, also on Sub Pop. The record’s first two singles—“I Hate the ’80s” and the title track—are both vintage Vaselines; they sound sloppy yet undeniably catchy and funny (“You want the truth, well this is it/I hate the ’80s, ’cause the ’80s were shit” is the former’s chorus).
The Vaselines are playing Webster Hall on October 6. The tickets, which can be purchased here, cost $25, which is a small price to pay for one of indie’s most influential bands.