The Badgeman are a four piece indie rock band from Salisbury

Salisbury

Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...

, Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

 formed in 1988 by John Packwood (guitar), Tim Kerley (drums), Neale Hancock (vocals/guitar), and Simon Wigglesworth (bass). The band has been variously categorised as shoegazing

Shoegazing

Shoegazing is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted there until the mid 1990s, with a critical zenith reached in 1990 and 1991...

, indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

, psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

, and post punk. The band is notable for having released two albums on an established independent label with a roster of other notable artists, and for having appeared on two compilation releases, again from well established independent labels, along with notable artists such as Nirvana

Nirvana

Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...

, Lee Ranaldo

Lee Ranaldo

Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...

 of Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

, Echo and The Bunnymen, and The Wedding Present

The Wedding Present

The Wedding Present are a British indie rock group based in Leeds, England, formed in 1985 from the ashes of the Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four to more varied forms...

.

The bands initial release, "Go Insane!", appeared on a two track shared flexi disc

Flexi disc

The flexi disc is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable...

 along with a contribution from fellow Salisbury indie pop band The Mayfields. The disc was distributed by several popular fanzines, including Sowing Seeds, and led to The Badgeman being signed by the well respected independent label Glass Records

Glass Records

Glass Records was a British independent record label which operated from 1981 to 1989, if GLASS 001 and GLASS 002 were issued in 1979 and 1980 respectively.Glass was one of the circuit of key London-based indie labels of the 1980s...

 (other artists on this label included Spacemen 3

Spacemen 3

Spacemen 3 were an English alternative rock band, formed in 1982 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Peter Kember and Jason Pierce. Their music was "colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s; instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia"...

, The Pastels

The Pastels

The Pastels are a group from Glasgow, Scotland, UK.Their early records for labels like Whaam!, Creation, Rough Trade, and Glass Records, had a raw and immediate sound, melodic and amateur, which seemed at odds with the time...

, Jazz Butcher

Jazz Butcher

The Jazz Butcher, also known as The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy and The Jazz Butcher And His Sikkorskis From Hell, are a British musical group founded by Pat Fish.-History:...

, and Mayo Thompson

Mayo Thompson

Mayo Thompson is an American musician and visual artist best known as the leader of the avant-garde rock band Red Crayola .-1960s:...

) during 1989. No recordings exist from this period, but when the label dissolved, its founder David E. Barker signed The Badgeman to his new venture Paperhouse

Paperhouse (record label)

Paperhouse Records was a British independent record label which operated from 1990 to 1993.The label was a short-lived joint venture by Glass Records owner David E. Barker and Fire Records owner Clive Solomon...

 (along with Walkingseeds

Walkingseeds

Walkingseeds were an alternative rock band from Liverpool, England, formed after the Mel-o-Tones split up in 1986.-History:Frank Martin , Bob Parker , and John Neesam had previously worked together in the Mel-o-Tones, who released a mini-LP and an EP on Liverpool label Probe Plus...

, Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...

, Phil Shoenfelt

Phil Shoenfelt

Phil Shoenfelt is an English musician and author who lived for many years in New York and who now lives in Prague, Czech Republic....

, Don Fleming

Don Fleming (musician)

Don Fleming is an American musician, best known for being the frontman of Velvet Monkeys, B.A.L.L., and Gumball.-Biography:...

 and Gumball

Gumball (band)

Gumball was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1990. The original lineup consisted of Don Fleming , Eric Vermillion , and Jay Spiegel . In 1992, a fourth member was added, Malcolm Riviera who had previously played with Fleming and Spiegel in the Velvet Monkeys.-History:After Fleming...

) a subsidiary of Fire Records

Fire Records (UK)

Fire Records is an independent record label in London, England. The label was founded by Clive Solomon in 1986 and is currently run by James Nicholls.-Current roster:*Giant Sand*Guided By Voices*Howe Gelb*Josephine Foster*Wooden Wand*Bobby Conn...

 of London.

A single, "Crystals", and album, Kings of the Desert, were released c.June 1990 to favorable reviews and articles in NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

, Melody Maker

Melody Maker

Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...

, Sounds

Sounds (magazine)

Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...

, Ptolomaic Terrascope, and the first issue of Select magazine (which awarded the album 4 out of 5). The general critical consensus at the time appeared to describe The Badgeman as a 1960s inspired indie rock band, whilst after one of several plays on his radio show, the DJ John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

 described their single, "Crystals", as "prog rock".

At the end of 1990 The Badgeman recorded four tracks which were to appear during 1991 as the Curse of The Badgeman EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

. This release, according to Moody and Nash in their book Endless Beat, was regarded by the band as a huge step forward artistically. During the same year Imaginary Records

Imaginary Records

Imaginary Records was an independent record label based in Heywood, Lancashire, England, which specialised mainly in indie rock and post-punk. It was created and owned by Alan Duffy, known for his lyrical contributions to Porcupine Tree's first two albums, On the Sunday of Life and Up the...

 (home to The Bachelor Pad, Cud

Cud

Cud is a portion of food that returns from a ruminant's stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time. More accurately, it is a bolus of semi-degraded food regurgitated from the reticulorumen of a ruminant. Cud is produced during the physical digestive process of rumination, or "chewing the...

, and The Mock Turtles

The Mock Turtles

The Mock Turtles are a Manchester based indie rock band, formed in Middleton, Greater Manchester in 1985, who enjoyed some success in the early 1990s...

) released a version of "Sister Ray

Sister Ray

Sister Ray may mean one of the following:* "Sister Ray", 1968 song by The Velvet Underground* A fictional enormous laser cannon in the video game Final Fantasy VII* Sister Ray , a punk rock band from Youngstown, Ohio...

", recorded by The Badgeman during 1990, as part of a three volume tribute to The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...

 entitled Heaven & Hell. This recording resurfaced during 2010 as part of another VU tribute, Unpiecing The Jigsaw, released by Ozit Records.

The final LP by The Badgeman appeared on Paperhouse c. early 1992. Entitled Ritual Landscape, this album was a critical and commercial failure at the the time of its release but has since come to be regarded as an artistic triumph. The album's most notable champion, the musician, writer, and historian Julian Cope

Julian Cope

Julian Cope is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator...

 went so far as to make Ritual Landscape his Unsung Album Of The Month in December 2007 on his highly regarded Head Heritage Unsung website, describing the band's sound in such terms as "post punk..folk..muscular..heathen racket".

Albums

• Kings of the Desert (1990), Paperhouse
  Paperhouse (record label)
  Paperhouse Records was a British independent record label which operated from 1990 to 1993.The label was a short-lived joint venture by Glass Records owner David E. Barker and Fire Records owner Clive Solomon...
  
  
• Ritual Landscape (1992), Paperhouse

Singles

• "Go Insane!" (as 'The Badgeman?')/The Mayfields - "All You Ever Say" (1988), Compact & Bijou - flexi disc
• "Crystals" (1990), Paperhouse
• "English Road Song" (1992), Paperhouse

External links

• The Badgeman at Fire Records