Jackie's still sad about it

Wrong time, wrong place. Gordon Brown knows all about that, though history will ultimately be rather kinder to him than the media and the ballot box was. The same will be true of one of the finest bands you’ve probably never heard of, Diesel Park West.

A glorious guitar band just at the point when indie was on the wane in the late ‘80s, when baggy was in and every band had to pretend “there’s always been a dance element to our music”, the Diesels stuck to what they believed in and sold only a fraction of the number of albums they should have before heading back to obscurity.

Diesel Park West were the band that should have been Oasis. More technically accomplished, a better songwriter in frontman John Butler, a sound with more heart and greater depth, with a truly political edge, the Diesels were highbrow to Liam’s unibrow. But they ran straight into a music press that only had ears for the, admittedly magnificent, Stone Roses.

Ironic then that the Roses and the Diesels were different heads of the same coin, both drawing on jangly, psychedelic ‘60s roots, both built around a guitar sound that owed much to the Byrds and The Beatles, yet only the Roses prospered. They played the game more cleverly perhaps, courted controversy superbly and created a commotion where the Diesels simply plugged in and played anywhere that would have them, building a loyal audience but not commandeering the necessary column inches.

Those that failed to listen closely enough simply cast them aside as ‘60s retreads, though that never stopped Oasis once the tide of trends had turned again and guitar groups were back in vogue. But where the Gallaghers crafted an entire career from “I Am The Walrus”, the music of Lennon, McCartney, Stills, Young and other acid drenched creators of rock music’s handbook, Diesel Park West used it as a starting point and took the music elsewhere.

Never afraid to engage with the grotesque realities of Thatcherite destruction of the country, nor the hypocrisy of the press or religious leaders, Diesel Park West had a relevance and a bite that music needed but the arbiters of taste looked instead to the Soup Dragons and the Mock Turtles for guidance. With an aggressive musical edge that you’d expect from three front line guitarists, their souped-up take on acid rock pointed the way towards BritPop, the denizens of which mopped up the money after dance music had crashed and burned and indie kids returned their roots.

Wrong time, wrong place. But records were made and they will endure, and people will return to them again. No effort in life is ever wasted. Mistimed, temporarily misplaced perhaps, but never wasted. Diesel Park West left their mark, most notably with “Shakespeare Alabama”, and continue to do so. Maybe their time might come, they might be rediscovered the way Big Star were. In the meantime, Liam and Noel owe them as big a chunk of their royalties as they ever owed John, Paul, George and Ringo.

www.dieselparkwest.com

All the myths on Sunday