Sounds From The Junkshop #45 - Delakota

 

"Become part of nature's plan, where you is is where ya stand" - Delakota - 555

As with a few bands we've covered in the post-Britpop era, it was mainly the presence of a former member of the Senseless Things (yup, them again), in this case drummer Cass Browne, that drew me to Delakota. After the Things had split, Cass had filled in on drums for Urge Overkill* (see footnote at end of article) before deciding to strike out on his own with guitarist Dez Murphy.

I seem to remember the group kind of being shoehorned in with the "skunk rock" movement that the NME was trying to push in 1998 or so which was basically indie-dance for the post-Britpop generation and included other bands like the Regular Fries (good), the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars (less good) and Campag Velocet (really not good) who were clearly using Primal Scream's Screamadelica album as their main touchstone. To my ears at least, Delakota were comfortably the best of the four - there was definitely a fair bit of electronica at play but their songs sounded like, y'know, actual songs rather than ultra-stoned jams which kind of meandered around without ever really getting to the point. Their debut single The Rock was a regular presence on the radio show I was presenting for KUBE FM in Stoke around this time - a lovely woozy summer anthem with its languid guitar riff and Cass' gentle vocals (I always thought he sounded a lot like Tim Burgess from the Charlatans which is no bad thing). It picked up plenty of plaudits in the alternative music press and it looked like the band were on their way.

By the time of the group's second single, the Michael Jordan sampling C'mon Cincinatti, Cass and Dez had been joined by another ex-Thing in Morgan Nicholls fresh from a spell with Vent 414 and also producing his own music on the side under the M Organ moniker. Unlike The Rock I seem to remember I wasn't quite so jazzed about this one as like some of the aforementioned other skunk rock bands it actually did feel more like a studio jam that had been stretched out to single length. The group's album One Love would surface in the dying days of 1998 and although it was one that required repeated listening to really get into as most of the songs were over the five minute mark, it gave you plenty of reward when you persevered with it - certainly the likes of I Thought I Caught, On The Trail and Hook, Line And Sinker were good stuff indeed.

The group would put 555, easily the obvious choice for a single, out as their next release in early 1999 and it agonisingly missed the Top 40 by a whisker. They played some live shows around this time including a well received one as part of the NME Brat Awards. Then...nothing. The group literally just faded from view and never returned. I remember reading an interview with Cass many years later where he said that a sudden family illness had forced him to step away from the band and ended up taking up nearly all of his time at this point hence Delakota's sudden disappearance just as they looked to be on the verge of breaking through.

Cass and Morgan would both go on to bigger things as session musicians with the former becoming the live drummer for Damon Albarn's Gorillaz project (he got the gig through Albarn's collaborator in the band Jamie Hewlett, famous for the Tank Girl comic who was also responsible for the awesome artwork on a lot of the early Senseless Things singles) while Morgan would join Muse as their live bass player just as they made the step up to the stadium circuit. He's also filled in on bass for the Who at a few gigs in recent years (his dad is frequent Who collaborator and good mate of Roger Daltrey Billy Nicholls). More recently, Cass would reunite with Mark Keds on the second Deadcuts album as well as drumming for up and coming alt rockers Loup Garoux (who have put out a series of good singles over the last year or two and whose album I'm very much looking forward to reviewing when it lands here). And of course there would be the, as it turns out, final Senseless Things gigs in 2016 which were an awesome experience for those of us lucky to attend them.

As for Delakota, One Love is a bit of a tricky one to get into due to just how all over the place it is at times but it's definitely well worth a look and will give you plenty of enjoyment if you just persevere with it. Go take a look and see for yourself.

* QUICK FOOTNOTE

I very nearly did an entry on SFTJ for Urge Overkill but after attempting to write it, I realised that apart from the awesome Positive Bleeding single (which a friend included on a mixtape for me back in ‘93/‘94 sort of time, see the Love/Hate SFTJ entry for further details) and the cover of Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon which to be honest I was never that big a fan of, they kind of passed me by a bit at the time (I always meant to check ‘em out in a bit more detail after hearing Positive Bleeding but I just never quite got round to it) and it was only about 5-10 years later that I sort of discovered them retrospectively. Saturation, Exit The Dragon and their excellent 2010’s comeback album Rock ‘n’ Roll Submarine are all good albums though and there’s every chance they may crop up on a future Garbage Days Revisited. Watch this space…