Sounds From The Junkshop #40 - Midget

 

"I know this small town can really get you down. But I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna see you through..." - Midget - The Day Of Your Life

There's no doubt in my mind that if Midget had broken through about two years earlier they'd have been perfectly positioned to land a ride in Ash's slipstream and guaranteed chart success. Unfortunately they crashlanded on the scene just as Britpop died off and left behind at least one overlooked classic album and some pretty nifty tunes across their other three.

I think the first I heard of them was when their second single Kylie And Jason started getting played a bit on Steve Lamacq's radio show. Allegedly written after one of the band was working as a barman in West London (although the group originally hailed from the Stamford/Peterborough area) and ran into Peter Andre, then best known for being in Neighbours who told him he was over in England because he was about to release a single (the drudge-fest that was Mysterious Girl) it's a brilliant two-minute spiteful slice of anti-manufactured pop punk. Soon afterwards, I was lucky enough to see them supporting Carter USM on what turned out to be Jim Bob, Fruitbat and co's final tour before they split towards the end of '97. They had a real energy, enthusiasm and (yes!) sense of humour to them (they'd frequently start Kylie And Jason live by churning up the riff to a hoary old '70s rock song like Smoke On The Water or All Right Now before screaming "F**K THIS BULLS**T!!" and careering into the breakneck opening riff of their own song)

The group had actually made their recording debut a few months previously on a Fierce Panda (there's that label again...) EP featuring several of the bands who would go on to be grouped in to the ill-fated "Teen C" movement in the NME a month or two later including fellow SFTJ alumni Symposium and Snug who rather bizarrely featured a pre-cult fame Ed Harcourt. Midget's contribution, Parting Shot, was one of the stronger cuts on there, a bitter diatribe against a younger friend/sibling with the payoff line "Just 'cos you're sixteen, you think you're invincible".

Midget would plug on through 1997 with further singles - Camouflage was a solid, if unspectacular, follow-up to Kylie & Jason while Welcome Home Jellybean would see them developing a bit, a solid slice of Ash-style pop-punk with a standout guitar solo and a funny video which saw the group alternately dressed up as East 17 and Motley Crue. A mini-album, Alcopop! (which later gave its name to the cult record label - Midget were actually on their roster for a bit when they briefly reformed about ten years ago) collated the best bits of the singles with a few new tracks and was a promising, if slightly inconsistent, effort.

It was their fifth single, Optimism, that really showed what the band could do though displaying a much poppier sound than its predecessors. It was given a Single of the Week award in Melody Maker who described it as sounding like some great punch-up between the Foo Fighters and Steps! It should've been a huge hit but in an era where the Britpop backlash was well and truly in full swing, it agonisingly just missed the Top 75.

The situation would be remedied by the group's next single All Fall Down which became their biggest hit, albeit peaking at a lowly number 57 in the charts. I saw them live a few more times around this era and they were growing all the time, packing in the same sort of frenetic energy as Symposium with the cheerful self-deprecating humour of Kerbdog and were great fun. I remember once in Leeds some time around the summer of '98 seeing them detonate the Cockpit with their support group being another band who'd just put a couple of singles out that had just missed the Top 40, namely Idlewild...but that's another story for another time (maybe this week's Garbage Days Revisited, who knows, hint hint)

The group's next single Invisible Balloon made the lower reaches of the Top 75 and showed their pop sensibilities continuing to develop complete with a horn section and a bouncy Madness style verse giving way to a full-on riff fest chorus. The Day Of Your Life, which followed that, should have been a huge hit but the label screwed it up by releasing a radio edit which bizarrely chopped off the acoustic led first verse in favour of playing the second verse twice and pretty much ruined the song, a real shame. I genuinely think that with the right treatment they'd have had a hit on their hands with that one but hey ho, what can you do?

Midget's debut album proper Jukebox would surface in the summer of '98 and would be on my stereo for most of the rest of the year. Marking the point where Britpop fizziness mixed with snotty Britrock attitude and a healthy dose of power-pop thrown into the bargain, it was brilliant from start to finish with frenetic riff fests like Ben Wants To Be A Secret Agent, A Guy Like Me and On The Run mixing brilliantly with slower more thoughtful numbers like Magic Lamp and You Cope. I remember at the end of year review we had at the campus fanzine where I was at Uni being asked what my album of the year was for a feature and nominating Jukebox - my ed looked at me like I'd gone mad or something but I still stand by it 22 years later, it remains a fantastic album.

Unfortunately, behind the scenes things were far from rosy - the band's record label Radar were in serious financial trouble and went under a matter of weeks after Jukebox was released. Luckily the group had built up enough of a hardcore live following (and had managed to break through to genuine chart success in Japan) that they were able to secure a new one fairly quickly. However, the experience had clearly left a nasty taste with them and when their new single Artwork emerged in early 1999 it was a much angrier beast, swirling through on a grinding grungy riff (I have to be honest and say I much preferred its excellent B-side Twice As Shy which annoyingly isn't on Youtube). The next one The Gullible And The Appetite was just anonymous and the subsequent album Individual Inconsistent, while it did have the odd moment that reminded you what the band were capable of (These Things You Throw, I Am The Government, Bugs In The Cookie Jar) wasn't a patch on its predecessor frankly. Disappointed, I wandered off.

A third Midget album, The Milgram Experiment, did surface in 2001 but it was a Japanese only release and by this time my tastes had moved on a bit anyway. Soon afterwards, the band called it a day although there was a brief reunion some time in the late noughties which resulted in a few gigs but no new material. Surprisingly, two of the band remain active in the music business - singer/guitarist Rich Gombault is now in recently-revived Britrockers Janus Stark and bassist Andy Hawkins is part of Chris Catalyst from the Eureka Machines' solo band as well as working as a producer. Drummer Lee Major I've no idea. But it does mean that the prospect of another reunion maybe isn't that unrealistic and I'd certainly be interested in listening to a fourth Midget album if one were to surface.

I guess when you look at things in the cold light of day, Midget only really did one great album (Alcopop and Individual Inconsistent do have a few good tracks each but there's a bit of filler also) but feck me, what an album! Although it's not on Spotify, Jukebox is well worth hunting down a second hand copy of and shelling out for - it's proper sunshine pop-punk (before the frat-punk brigade turned that whole phrase into a dirty word) for summer days. Superb stuff.