Formed in London in 1992 by singer and songwriter David Christian, Comet Gain were originally inspired by early Creation Records, Television Personalities and mod culture, drawing from the same ideals as Dexys, The Style Council and Vic Godard, and from the lineage of The Velvet Underground, The Byrds and the 13th Floor Elevators. In the ensuing years they have released eight albums on such esteemed labels as Wiiija, Kill Rock Stars, What’s Your Rupture and Fortuna POP! that blend French New Wave with English kitchen-sink heart, Riot Grrrl with acid punk, and C86 with Post-Punk and Northern Soul, somehow outliving their peers and in turn inspiring a younger generation of DIY musicians. On this record, their second album proper for Tapete Records, Comet Gain are David Christian (vocals, guitar), Ben Phillipson (guitar), Rachel Evans (vocals), Robin Christian (percussion), Anne Laure Guillain (keyboards) and Clientele bassist James Hornsey, with additional vocal, brass and keyboard contributions from producer Sean Read (Dexys, Edwyn Collins, Rockingbirds).

So who IS the ‘Ordinary Outsider’? The wayward, hungry, tender, bruised, scared, defiant, shy but knowing, blessed with unseen magic, keeping their flames hidden away until needed, waiting for the time to let rip their powers in his age of hopelessness. In this TikTok narcissist era they hide from the spotlight but in their hearts are all reaching  for the total Whatever-It-Is. These songs are postcards to and for them - you can’t go wrong in hard times with a
 ense of belonging. After Comet Gain’s last LP ‘FIRERAISERS FOREVER!’ which was a necessary exorcism of the Moron Era that has in fact only got worse – they have put aside the fuzz drenched broken glass howls for a more immediate, toe-tapping rush of melody and intent. Sifted through from the library of songs David Christian Feck had been recording over the last couple years for Bandcamp LPs of homemade snap, crackle and POP and picked the best bunch and streamlined, improved and muscled up 8 or so and wrote new songs that would fit into a living thing - a jukebox of favourites playing somewhere in the background - evergreen sixties UK pop with tough edges, soul stompers with a slight tear in the eye, Alex Chilton, Gene Clark, ’Sound Affects’ Jam, euphoric melancholic folk rock, Hitchcock and Cope, The Fall when they made pop records, snarling freakbeat, yearning 80s baroque popness and jangled mornings and sad midnights - an alchemy mix to make something direct with hooks and hope and heart-looking back to look forward and looking forward to be in the NOW.

Songs about old buildings, old streets and the ghosts that live in them - when you’re gone does the house remember you, does it mourn you? Songs about clothes, the ones you don’t fit in anymore, the ones you only have photos of, songs about that time you used to walk by the Thames with the gang of ordinary outsiders at midnight singing Style Council songs into the wind - when you were younger and stronger, songs about that first band - the one that never made it anywhere but gave you the strength to carry on, about the scars that build up in your heart like punctures from darts that turn into a kind of forcefield to protect you from the sadness now, about the vibrant pound of blood as the beat of the song ricochets into your system giving you the strength you need, about the defiant, tender poets whose job it is to show us how we can get OUT of here, about the girl who walked through the factory door and changed your life, lifted your broken spirit and made the day beautiful again, about the new wildhearted outsiders – the next generation of weird lions and lionesses who will show the NEXT lot the way to get out, because y’know, maybe one day it’ll REALLY happen….

And who better to glue all this together than Sean Read (Dexys, Edwyn Collins, Rockingbirds, The Loft, etc etc) who not only breathed vivid life into these postcards of song but added his golden touch with vocals, brass sections, keyboards etc so the songs stomp, shimmy and soar. Comet Gain also welcome new drummer (and old comrade) Robin Christian (no relation/ex Male Bonding etc) to the gang whose fire and skill propels these new hymns along. Truly this is one of the best of the Comet Gain LPs - a concise mix of all their bags of tricks but in a way where everything fits like close friends that finish their own sentences - pop singles, garage snarl, midnight ballads, morning floor shakers, folkrockers, obtuse angles and direct hits. Just good things to hum for the Ordinary Outsiders every-where as they watch the world falling down around them… because sometimes that’s all you can do.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Ballad Of The Lives We Led
2. If They Can't Find The Way Then There's No Way Out
3. Beat Of The Veins
4. We Were Paintermen
5. Threads!
6. Yeah, I Know It's A Wonderful Life, But There's Always Further  You Can Fall 
7. Do You Remember 'The Lites On The Water'
8. Danbury Road
9. Buildings
10. Hearts Of Scars
11. Ashtray Cult
12. Maybe One Day It'll Really Happen

COMET GAIN had actually disbanded in 1997 but David Christian didn't want to let the dream die and carried on. Old name, new band. And a new album! ‘Tigertown Pictures’ was first released in 1999 by Fortuna Pop/Where It's At Is Where You Are in the UK/EU and Kill Rock Stars in the USA and is now being reissued worldwide by Tapete Records. Tigertown Pictures is a wild ride through all things post-punk, diy, Indie POP, international pop underground, lo fi, garagebeat and folk & rock. Boy/girl vocals, scratchy guitars, sweet noise and rough melodies, enthusiasm and pain, even some unidentified electronic stuff. It's all there. Tigertown Pictures is one of those records you put on and finally feel alive again.

Comet Gain are a British Indie Pop band, who have been making beautiful noise since 1992. Formed by singer-songwriter and guitarist David Christian (aka David Feck/Charlie Damage) and Phil Sutton, with musical influences including Post-Punk and Northern Soul, Pitchfork called them "one of the most underrated contemporary indie bands in the UK"..

The two recordings on this 7" record were recorded in the Spring / Summer of 1996. Shortly after, Comet Gain disbanded as it was, with the majority forming the band Velocette, leaving David Christian to continue Comet Gain with new members.

The second release in Tapete’s great series of radio sessions are the collected BBC recordings of COMET GAIN, the rough diamond of the International Pop Underground, the indie punk Monkees, the noise pop collective Numero Uno! RADIO SESSIONS BBC 1996 - 2011 contains three John Peel sessions from 1996 and 1997 as well as a Marc Riley session from 2011. One thing is for sure: a world in which such a great, anarchic, idiosyncratic band, simply perfect in its imperfect- tion, is invited to Abbey Road Studios for radio sessions by the country's biggest broadcaster, among others, can't be that bad. All those who are already fans of COMET GAIN should get this album, and everyone else too.

BBC Sessions Sleevenotes

Session 1
John Peel! Abbey Road! The Fabs! The Fall! what are we doing here? Did they make a terrible mistake? Young, eager, dumb, like an indie punk Monkees - Sam is Nesmith - talented and sarccy, Phil is Pete Tork - wide eyed and excited, Sarah a smiling Davy Jones, I'm a more sullen, inept Dolenz and Jax is Jax - stoic and beyond monkeehood, 3 songs! Why? I dunno... big white room, men in lab coats, school canteen vibes, "will they tune our instruments for us?", wandering St. Johns Wood in awe - is that David Hemmings eating a sandwich with some sherry on the bench? I think I saw Marianne Faithfull poke her head round when you did that guitar solo, 'Say Yes' becomes 'Say No'... "is the guitar supposed to sound like that at the start? The laboratory man says "uh....yeaaa...I guess" - I wonder what Peelie will say after our songs - (all these years later I totally forget even though this was such a part of it - yet I recall his "that young man certainly has some rum thoughts running through his head" (or something) after a Julian Cope song. Well, we made Peel Session at Abbey Road and half of us are signing on and I have no idea what these chords are called and how to tune this bastard thing. Thank fuck for punk rock!

Session 2
We're supposed to be pop contenders now? I think the label thinks so - shit, we know more chords too, Sam and Sarah's songs stretch out and flower, mine hide in my grouchy beatnik cave, Subway Sect! Dub basslines! Oh, we're in a smaller studio now, no Beatles for us contenders, the hippy engineer takes us to the pub for rock advice, I hummed 'Bortsal Breakout' to myself and missed it all - shit! Our second LP's done and it's gonna be a hit! Except it never comes out and we break into 2 groups instead, small whiffs of squabbling kids permeate the BBC air but it's all good now,' songs we never released – that's good right? That's what Peel sessions are supposed to be! 'Love And Hate On The Radio' wrote the day before and not heard again by me for 20 years, I wonder what clothes we were wearing, did we make a BBC effort? Did we go to blow up afterwards and drink champers with all the other pop-stars-in-waiting? Did we hear the sound of one door closing and another collapsing. Brit Pop. New Mod. Riot Grrrl. International Pop Underground. New wave of new wave. Romo. Mojo. Skol. Mad Dog 20/20. What are we? What should we do? It's funny that something that started in an arc of almost always falling apart comes together so wonderfully just to fall apart this time from the heart. But good, solid, golden, eager, yearning, learning times for weekend groovers like we was.

Session 3
Hey kids its - a new Comet Gain! This time let's make it jagged and randomly ripped, our moment's gone so fuck it! Sweet skinhead Blair our secret weapon - he knows how to play his guitar! Darren, Rachel, Kay and me are learning on the job, although Kay is already some kind of immoveable fuzz bass machine, one old(ish) song and 3 new ones written in a midnight speed trial, stretch em out or rush to the finish, was Jon there? Jon was always there but sometimes he wasn't, y'know, actually there, or he'd turn his amp off so he could just hang out onstage looking like a young lion, I don't remember the session at all, perhaps we got drunk in the nearest old pub first, sure we'd be all nervous, the nervousness of pouring out all that eager electricity in one burst of ragged YEAH, "we don't need to rehearse - it'll sound better", we kept to that method forever, 'back to the restart' that one goes out to chrisser and the peechees, new friends new family found in an unexpected insane US tour, reignited, full of purposeless purpose, ok guys, it'll never happen for us now thank god, so let's enjoy the amble into beautiful obscurity! Upwards, onwards and down, down, down! Yeah!

Session 4
Ah so much time has passed, so, we have a 'body of work' now, they put the word 'cult' in front of our name now (I THINK that's the spelling) so many stories, so many rings on that tired old tree, who are we now? Most of the faces have changed yet again, James, Woodie, Ben, Anne-Laure though they've been here forever pretty much, we have to go to MANCHESTER?! and play a gig the same night! Whose idea was...oh was it... oops, Marc Riley! The Fall again, nice dude, cheap pints in the beeb, we are professional now, well I'm not but standards need to be maintained, the birth and death of groovy Tony, I didn't know we had to TALK! And not swear? Oh shit, we are so ingrained in the rock behemoth machinery now we actually 'play songs from our new album' and a golden oldie with a side order of the seeds, I can't hear my guitar but I'm not allowed to turn it up to ear destroying levels this time, its the BBC doncha know, all in a circle waiting for the Riley nod, then a quick 'seeya mate' - 'yeh seeya mate' and its off for fish n chips and a gig then a bottle of baileys in the back of the van back home, next stop Coney Hatch Lane and sleep - working in Soho tomorrow, see you guys the next time the rock gods call 'yeh seeya mate', is this what it's come to? Almost acting like a normal band, we could even tune our guitars ourselves, well I say let's not do THAT again.

My recollections of all these pivotal points in the ever winding road of shame that is Comet Gain are as you can see sparse and pointless, we lived in those small moments, those fast and scorched afternoons pouring our ashes into the BBC air, I mean it's not like anyone is ever gonna want to put this shit out on a RECORD, ha! No, let's leave these precious lost days and spontaneous exhort- ations where they are buried, never to bother those nice people out there...

Ah wait, I've just got an email from Tapete - I'll be with you in a minute .......oh bugger...
DAVID CHRISTIAN, LACANAU, MAY 2023

TRACK LISTING

A1) Say Yes Kaleidoscope Sound
A2) Stripped
A3) Pier Angeli
A4) Strip Poker
A5) I Can't Believe
A6) Chain Smoking
A7) Love And Hate On The Radio
B1) Emotion Pictures
B2) Tighten Up
B3) Young Lions
B4) We Are All Rotten
B5) Working Circle Explosive!
B6) Thee Ecstatic Library
B7) After Midnite, After It's All Gone Wrong
B8) Saturday Night Facts Of Life

Since 1992, the collective around David Christian has been stoically producing unique noise pop. Comet Gain are Comet Gain, a band in which the Swell Maps and the Undertones shake hands in the Wigan Casino. Admittedly, a skewed picture. But as with every outstanding band, one fails to describe the sound of Comet Gain. You just have to hear it.

When the Corona shit hit the fan in 2020, David Christian, who now lives in the beautiful south of France, had the leisure to dig through the considerable Comet Gain archive and presented the astonished Comet Gain community with new compilations of outtakes, demos, live recordings and simply forgotten and never released hits every Bandcamp Friday. "The Misfit Jukebox" is now a compilation of these compilations, the toppermost of the poppermost from a hitherto unseen or unheard part of the CG universe. First time on LP and CD.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Weekend Dreams (Doble Vida Version)
2. Pinstriped Rebel
3. Never Die
4. When?!
5. My Time Tunnel
6. Herbert Huncke Part 3
7. Only Happy When I'm Sad
8. Even This Could Be Beautiful
9. This Line Has Been Drawn
10. Like A Sparrow
11. Your Just Lonely
12. Post USA
13. Goodbye Part One
14. The Fists In The Pocket (Demo)
15. No Spotlite On Sometimes
16. Skinny Wolves (Demo)
17. Letting Go

Here comes the beat of the broken street…

'Fireraisers' as in those with flames in veins – had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and religious/political hypocrisy– the inexorable rise of the moron mind and those sleepwalking in their lazy hives letting THEM do this to US... a modern rite to burn away all this to the ground and see what nice flowers rise up from the ground… we imagine an army of disenchanted, beaten down kids becoming modern anarchist magicians drawing dumb sgylls of dada retribution ... 'if we all spit together we can drown the bastards'.

The last LP was a gentler, inner, melancholic hug at 2 am and perhaps we would’ve continued to go down a sweeter road but the state of the world has meant we were compelled to turn the fuzz up and make something more brutal and instant. In defiance to our last LP – now it’s late night sadness turns to the angry morning. First take beats ethics. Two weeks of late afternoon 45s listening parties with The Rationals/Nerves/Messthetics/Back From The Grave garage/Fading Yellow comps/The Jam/Dead Moon – whatever had the urge. Trying to figure out how Rufus Thomas would sound if he joined the Swell Maps … condensing it all mixing and absorbing then forgetting it all and propelling the psychic mix tape into an albums worth of angry pop drops and slow howls.

Recorded in a living room in North London with James Hoare (The Proper Ornaments/Ultimate Painting) with the help of Joseph Harvey-Whyte (Hanging Stars) pedal steeliest. Then turned into the record it is by drummer/producer M.J. Taylor who also produced our LP 'Realistes' – the closest cousin to this one ... songs about the evil greedy mirage of world religion, Victor Jara and those poets and teachers killed for believing in love and words, about the forgotten who are blamed for everything and can't rise up from their knees to fight back, about the high street Kali-Yuga, occult terrorists with low IQ but high ESP, about the Godfrey Brothers, about Lou Reed’s mourning dog on a road trip trying to bury his masters mullet somewhere in the desert, about those stuck in the glory days of their past myopic of the present and all the other usual losers and romantics we always bang on about – with added melody and stomp … giving no real answers but pointing fingers and prodding you in the back ... in defiance of just staying silent and letting the morons win.

So Comet Gain is still alive longer than we should – still trying to be a collective and an idea emerging every now and then with the same grumpy erratic sounds – this one’s louder than the last one but sometimes maybe quieter. It’s made from an amazement that the hate mind is winning and we're not doing anything about it – we're still voting for these bozos and not burning the whole ugly facade to the ground. And it’s filled with love and rage. And its about 40 minutes long which is always a good thing.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clashing, snarling punky guitars and peaking percussion meets sleazy alt-rock before pulling things back for gorgeous swooning slide guitar and brittle acoustic ballads. Comet Gain are pushing things rapidly forwards while still retaining their post-punk roots and superb melodic sensibilities. Brilliant stuff.

TRACK LISTING

A1 We're All Fucking Morons
A2 The Girl With The Melted Mind And Her Fear Of The Open Door
A3 Bad Nite At The Mustache
A4 Society Of Inner Nothing
A5 Victor Jara, Finally Found!
A6 The Godfrey Brothers

B1 Your Life On Your Knees
B2 Mid 8Ts
B3 The Institute Debased
B4 Her 33rd Perfect Goodbye
B5 Werewolf Jacket
B6 I Can't Live Here Anymore

EXCLUSIVE DINKED 7“ BONUS SINGLE:
C1 Chain Smokin'
D1 Even This Could Be Beautiful

Fearlessly passionate and fiercely intelligent, Comet Gain return with their finest album to date. With production by Edwyn Collins and Ryan Jarman of The Cribs. Led by songwriter David Feck, Comet Gain have released a string of critically acclaimed records on Kill Rock Stars, Track & Field and What’s Your Rupture establishing the band as one of the most fearlessly passionate and fiercely intelligent British bands around. The current line up comprises David Charlie Feck (vocals, guitar), ex-Huggy Bear bassist Jon Slade (guitar), Rachel Evans (vocals), Kay Ishikawa (bass), ex-Morrissey/The Meteors drummer Woodie Taylor (percussion), Anne Laure Guillain (keyboards), and Ben Phillipson of The Eighteenth Day Of May (guitar).

Unapologetically literate and emotional, Comet Gain seek out inspiration as much in the music of girl-group era pop, heartfelt Americana, British post-punk, and 60s psychedelia, as in the words and images of the beat poets and in the cinema of both the British and French new-wave of the late 50 and early 60s. From Goffin and King, The Modern Lovers, The Seeds, Dylan, The Impressions, Big Star, Julian Cope, and the Flying Nun and Creation labels, to Kerouac, Pynchon, Shelagh Delaney, and Godard. The aesthetic they have made their own has chimed with and galvanized a slew of iconic bands and musicians; from artists like The Make-Up, The Yummy Fur, Jens Lekman, and Herman Dune, to a younger generation of DIY musicians like The Cribs, Let’s Wrestle, Male Bonding, Love Is All, Veronica Falls, and Crystal Stilts, Comet Gain’s influence remains a traceable and tangible thing.

"Howl Of The Lonely Crowd" represents the fruition of the affection with which Comet Gain are held: further production work was undertaken by Brian O’Shaughnessy (My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream) and Alasdair Maclean of The Clientele, who also contributed guitar. With added input from Matthew Sawyer (The Ghosts), Helen King (Shrag), and a blast of Terry Edwards’ legendary trumpet on the rousing mod anthem “The Weekend Dreams”. On this record, with the patronage of their esteemed friends, acolytes and collaborators, we find one of the most treasured and exhilarating British bands around in full realization of their creative capacities.

TRACK LISTING

1. Clang Of The Concrete Swans
2. The Weekend Dreams
3. An Arcade From The Warm Rain That Falls
4. She Had Daydreams
5. Yoona Baines
6. Working Circle Explosive!
7. Herbert Huncke Prt 2
8. After Midnite, After It's All Gone Wrong
9. A Memorial For Nobody I Know
10. Ballad Of Frankie Machine
11. Some Of Us Don't Want To Be Saved
12. Thee Ecstatic Library
13. In A Lonely Place