Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene. Their sound is reminiscent of Californian bands like the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and their seventies counterparts Big Star. Originally a noisy and chaotic band, their first album A Catholic Education, released in 1990 on Paperhouse, is largely atypical of their later sound, with the possible exception of "Everything Flows". The King, their next album, received critical reviews; it consisted of a number of self-confessed shambolic guitar thrashes and a cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin".[1]

Their next album, Bandwagonesque, released on Creation Records in the UK and Geffen in the US, brought Teenage Fanclub a measure of commercial success. Bandwagonesque was more deliberately constructed, the hooks became stronger, the guitar riffs were brought under control, and the harmony vocals took shape.[1] Bandwagonesque topped Spin magazine's 1991 end-of-year poll for best album,[3] beating Nirvana's Nevermind, their Creation stablemates My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless, and R.E.M.'s Out of Time.

The subsequent, Thirteen, received mixed reviews on release. Brendan O'Hare left Teenage Fanclub during this period because of "musical differences", to be replaced by Paul Quinn (formerly of the Soup Dragons).[1]

Grand Prix, Teenage Fanclub's fifth album, was both a critical and commercial success in the UK, becoming their first top ten album. In the United States however the band failed to regain the ground that Thirteen had lost them. Around this time Liam Gallagher of labelmates Oasis called the band "the second best band in the world" — second only to Oasis.[4]

Songs from Northern Britain followed Grand Prix and built on the former's success. It became their highest charting release in the UK and contained their biggest hit single to date, "Ain't That Enough".[1]

The follow-up album, Howdy!, released on Columbia Records in the UK after the demise of Creation, continued the sound of Songs from Northern Britain. Francis MacDonald rejoined as the drummer in place of Quinn, who left the band after recording his parts for Howdy! and before its release in order to focus on his family.[5] Quinn went on to form The Primary 5.

In 2002, they released Words of Wisdom and Hope with Jad Fair of Half Japanese.

Their final release on a Sony label, Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds – A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub, collected the Fanclub's best songs along with three new songs (one from each member).

Their next album, Man-Made, was released on 2 May 2005, on the band's own PeMa label. Man-Made was recorded in Chicago in 2004, and produced by John McEntire of Tortoise.

In 2006, the band held two special concerts (in London and Glasgow) playing their 1991 album Bandwagonesque in its entirety.

The band began work on their ninth album in August 2008, booking an initial three weeks at Leeders Farm recording studio in Norfolk.[6] The album was called Shadows, the first to involve keyboardist Dave McGowan as a full-time member, and was released on the band's own PeMa label. It became available in Europe, Australasia and Japan on 31 May 2010, and was released by Merge Records in North America on 8 June 2010.[7]

Teenage Fanclub are influenced by Big Star and Orange Juice. They performed a cover of Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" with Edwyn Collins. In December 2010, at the ATP Bowlie 2 music festival, they performed as the backing band for Edwyn Collins. Teenage Fanclub were regularly name-checked in interviews by Kurt Cobain, who described them as "the best band in the world".[8]

Juliana Hatfield covered the song "Cells" on her 2012 self-titled album.

In May 2015, Teenage Fanclub played support for the Foo Fighters at their Old Trafford Cricket Ground gig.

Their tenth album, Here, was released on 9 September 2016.[9]

The story of Teenage Fanclub's early days features in the 2017 documentary Teenage Superstars.[10]

On 25 April 2018, the band announced the 10 August release of vinyl and digital reissues of their five Creation Records era albums which had been remastered at Abbey Road Studios. To celebrate the reissues, the band also announced Songs from Teenage Fanclub: The Creation Records Years, a four-city U.K. tour during late October to mid-November in which they would play three nights each in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London, with each night's setlist covering different periods of the Creation-era discography.[11]

On 20 August 2018, the band announced that Gerard Love would be leaving the band following a performance at the Electric Ballroom in London in November, which was the last show of the band's Creation Records Years tour.[12] In a statement, the band said that Love was to separate from the band because of differences in opinion on their future touring plans. In the same press release, the band also announced that former members Brendan O'Hare and Paul Quinn would be participating in the Creation Records Years tour,[12] in which both drummers would respectively perform the albums and b-sides they had originally recorded.[13]

In a statement on his personal Facebook account, Love cited his unwillingness to fly for the band's February 2019 tour dates in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and his reluctance to fly frequently around the world in general, as the catalyst behind his and the band's decision to part ways.[14]

On 16 January 2019, Teenage Fanclub announced that Euros Childs had joined the band on keyboards and vocals, with Dave McGowan switching over to bass and vocals.[2] Though McGowan initially joined Teenage Fanclub to play keyboards, his primary instrument is bass – which he also plays in Belle and Sebastian – and so it made sense for him to switch. Meanwhile, Childs had long been a band associate on tour and in the studio, and had previously joined forces with Blake in the group Jonny.[15] Blake also confirmed that prior to tour rehearsals, the band had been recording material in Hamburg for a new album.[15]

Norman Blake formed the two-person band Jonny with Euros Childs. Bassist Dave McGowan, who has also played with Teenage Fanclub, also plays on the 2011 eponymous debut album. As of 2012 Norman Blake has also formed a Canadian-based supergroup with Joe Pernice and Mike Belitsky called The New Mendicants.

McGowan became Belle and Sebastian's touring bassist in 2011, and appeared on their 2015 album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.[16] On 3 November 2018, he became an official member of the band.[17]

Gerard Love released his own solo album Electric Cables in 2012 using the alias Lightships.

Raymond McGinley joined Dave McGowan's folk group Snowgoose, whose debut album Harmony Springs was released in 2012.

Francis MacDonald released an album of minimalist classical music, Music For String Quartet, Piano & Celeste, in 2015. MacDonald played piano and celeste, with strings by members of the Scottish Ensemble.[18]

• Official website