sound of the suburbs

Having served his apprenticeship as a member of BMX Bandits, Sean Dickson Formed the Soup Dragons in the mid eighties, the name comes from the UK children's TV program 'The Clangers'. There is a nice parallel to be drawn between them and another c86 band, Primal Scream, they both had strong indie roots then recorded something altogether harder before finding the chart success that they craved with an indie dance rock hybrid, which they followed up with a back to the roots Stones influenced album. For the Soup Dragons their indie years were summed up by 1987's 'Hang Ten' a voyage through the singles that they had released during the 2 previous years. 1988's 'This Is Our Art' was a mixed bag described at the time as a schizophrenic collection of songs and at times dangerously close to Black Sabbath for comfort. With the new decade it became obvious that their hedonist side was gaining the upper hand as they aligned themselves with the Acid House dance scene and all that went with it drugs included. 'Lovegod' was unveiled in 1990 and rewarded them with an international hit with their reworking of the Rolling Stones 'I'm Free'. Mixing rap, reggae, funk and ragga, they were aided by toaster Junior Reid from Black Uhuru, the song soon became a floor filler classic at discos around the planet. The album like many from this period has not dated very well, with certain notable exceptions such as 'Mother Universe' and the title track but no one ever claimed it to be a classic or did they? Two years latter they came back with 'Hotwired' a more classic rock influenced album drawing heavily on Jagger and co, as to be heard on 'Divine Thing', many consider this to be the band finest hour. From here on in it was to be downhill as Dickson kept the bands name but went to all intent and purposes solo recording a final album, 'Hydrophonic' using name artist session musicians, variously described as soggy, limp or plain stupid it failed miserably on both artistic and commercial terms. Their biggest seller 'Lovegod' is still on catalog and as for their other albums you will have very little trouble finding them second hand and at reasonable prices.