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Reviews
Caravan to Obscurity -
Stewart Lee - The Sunday Times (24th July 2005)
"The Teenbeat formed in Liverpool in the
mid-1990s, and are led by Adrian Shaw a dryly
amusing fellow often seen rattling the perimeter
fence of the London conceptual-art scene. The
band record in vast, incoherent jams, then
cherry-pick the best bits, which suggest Alan
Bennett fronting the Velvet Underground, or
George Formby singing Hank Williams. with a
little spit and polish, they could be as quirky a
commercial proposition as Pulp once were, but one
suspects The Teenbeat are reluctant to spoil
something secretly special." Rating: 4/5. |
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N.M.E.
- (29th July 2006)
The Teenbeat appeared In James Jam's Pick Of The
Week featuring bands from NME' online Breaking
Bands. "Look beyond singer Adrian Shaw's
glorious Liverpudlian (sic) mumble and
you'll find songs as charming as Pulp, as sordid
as the Velvets, and as magnificently maudlin as
Lambchop." |
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Caravan
to Obscurity - Lost Music (26th September 2005)
"The Teenbeat have been around forever.
Really. This 3 CD collection is just the tip of
what they have recorded down the years since
their inception. Forever is actually about 10
years. I first became aware of The Teenbeat when
I saw some of their London gigs in 2000. That
seems like a different lifetime now. So receiving
this colossal retrospective was both a surprise
and a joy.
Three reasons to love The Teenbeat.
1. Their songs. The sense of dispair and fun
which shine through in equal measure.
2. Their singer. Adrian Shaw. A man possessed of
a great lyrical turn of phrase that can conjure
funny, sick or sad images all at once.
3. Their music. Loose. Tight. Together. Apart.
This was a band that could play. And they did.
All the time. Gigs are less frequent these days.
But these 62 songs showcase the band in all their
settings, live, jamming and recording. It's like
hearing out takes of some great lost band.
Do you need more reasons than this? The band have
a DIY ethic that is admirable. They didn't wait
around to be found. They just did their own
thing. Making their own CDs and video's and
getting their own gigs and taking their kicks
where they could find them. They have made
countless CDR releases and have sold them at
their gigs and later online. Who needs the music
industry? You really can do it yourself.
Thinking I knew The Teenbeat reasonably well
before hearing this compilation, I now realise I
knew so little. My favourites like Stairways,
Aldi Girl, Shit Weather and Dead Bird all surface
on CD1. It's when you get deep into CD2 and CD3
that you actually realise there is so much more
to love and even more to hear from The Teenbeat.
This isn't a hi-fi recording. It's just a band
playing quirky and offbeat songs, brilliantly.
Apparently there is enough material in the can so
to speak, for a few more Teenbeat retrospectives.
That can only be a good thing.
You want me to describe the music? Tough call.
It's easier to head over to the website and
download a few tracks to help convince you to buy
this compilation. there are 7 tracks to be heard
on MP3. including favourites of mine I Got Big
and Aldi Girl." |
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Tonka
Toy - New Distractions EP Vol 1 - Penny Black
Music (2000)
"The Teenbeat from Merseyside debut with
‘Tonka Toy’, also taken from their
forthcoming debut album. Like their name suggests
they are very 60’s influenced and
‘TT’ features a ’96 Tears’
style organ riff." |
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A
Year in the Attic - Quirk - Zine (1999)
"Just how
great are The Teenbeat? Very. Sounding like The
Fall with more than one song this tape contains a
massive 32 different takes on their acoustic
lo-fi world. songs about teenage girls, weather,
and pullovers! More "real" than any
other band the lyrics are sometimes bitter,
sometimes fun. all wrapped up in terrible
production. big thumbs up!" |
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A
Year in the Attic - Splendid - Zine (2000)
"Bulimia queen, I bought you pop and crisps
from the vending machine... croons Adrian Shaw in
the ode to a sixteen-year-old whose name appears
to be Urina. Not a common name, admittedly, but
it does help the rhyming scheme later on when, in
a sad climax, she drinks… wait for it
…toilet cleaner. Such lack of respect for
taste and convention along with the irony-free
delivery are probably what makes this 90 minutes
of The Teenbeat such a joy. What the tape most
resembles is one of those cut 'n' paste collages
where sloppy editing, a Dadaistic sense of
context and plenty of hiss make everyone a
potential phono-terrorist. The difference here is
that everything, except for the odd John
Shuttleworth skit, is played by a band favouring
the spasticity of early Wire filtered through
Half Man Half Biscuit via Jim Reeves and the
leapfrog logic is the inside of Shaw's
head." |
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A
Year in the Attic - Chinchilla (2000)
"With a name like 'Teenbeat' I was expecting
a punkpoppower combo, thankfully Teenbeat aren't
part of this overpopulated genre but are
something quite different. It's a long album
clocking in at nearly an hour and a half and both
sides is different. The first side is a very
strange experience, it sounds a bit like the All
Seeing Eye, English eccentricism set to lofi
music. The songs are full of strange lyrics and
even stranger fills between songs. the other side
is a little more conventional, English country
best describes it. The tape starts to drag a
little but for something this long it still
manages to hold your attention, mainly you're
wondering, what the hell's going to happen
next?" |
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A
Year in the Attic - Blue Roses - Zine (Issue 4)
"This new band has a very different happy
almost pop sound. They are a band based partly in
Birkenhead and partly in Surbiton. The tracks
have a wonderful catchy, almost bouncy beat. The
lyrics are nice and there is a lot of
experimentation, some tracks have a kind of
Caribbean drumming, others are mostly guitar. As
the tape goes on the music gets fuller and more
mature, and the band prooves they can do some
more mellow stuff." |
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Robot
Mervin - Robots and Electronic Brains - Zine
"The Robot Mervin concept album they did for
Robots and Electronic Brains was fantastic.
Adrian Shaw is a special kind of deranged
genius." |
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Fly
to the Sun - Robots and Electronic Brains - Zine
"The Teenbeat's world is small but viewed at
a very high resolution and with full zoom. they
deal with the details in life, the tiny facets of
the everyday that pass most of us by. Theirs is a
childlike perception of often adult concerns, but
also of a childhood past with layers of grown-up
reflection. take the garages at the end of the
alley that runs down the back of our terrace.
Looking back, the garages were more than just
automobile repositories, they were somewhere to
smoke surreptitious fags, conduct furtive
rendezvous with the girl from the youth club,
trap boys from the other local school and sling
rocks at them with a catapult, spy on a
neighbour's wife hanging out her just-washed bras
and panties, drink home-brew filched from a
mate's dad's loft while he's on the evening
shift, throw up, marvel at the skins rool
biro-and-compass tattoo across the forearm of the
chap from over the road's teenage squaddie son,
oggle at the almost unbelievable pictures in a
torn copy of razzle found on the waste ground
over the back, lie in the summer sun and spin
tall tales of future fame, lie in the summer
evenings and spin tall tales of future
girlfriends, play football, tennis and cricket in
season, cough uncontrollably after a first joint,
avoid the kids who sometimes come round to sniff
glue, cry quietly (and alone) after a playground
rejection, experiment with petrol, matches and
the tramp's mattress while he's away down the
town centre for more booze, lay glass across the
front of the garage rented by the posh bastard
from up the road, fumble with the unexpected
complexity of the undergarments belonging to a
girl from the next street... when you enter The
Teenbeat's world you're treated to these
macroscopic views of the back of the garages or
Anglesey, or the local club, or work or whatever
else is on the mind of Adrian R. Shaw - the man
at the helm, in a loose kind of sense - while the
rest of the band make shadowy and awkward Beat
Happening noises. You won't want to leave." |
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Four
Track Demo - Creme Anglais- Zine (1999)
"Adrian (vocals), Kev (guitar), Neil (bass),
Lee (drums) are mates from Birkenhead. They've
been together for a couple of years now and hope
to build a proper shrine. The Teenbeat shrine is
presently in a wood in a tree hollow where they
leave a special object each time they go. They
know their singles will probably never be
available in the shops, but who cares? With their
battered 4-track, a guitar and a computer,
they're perfectly capable to create great tunes
like the cool and nonchalent Stairways or Tonka
Toy. These two tracks are taken from their debut
album." |
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Hey
Hey The Teenbeat - The Original Sin - Zine (July
1999)
"Is someone taking the piss out of me? Is
someone playing an insane game with me by sending
me the unreleased solo album by Damon Albarn?
Hhhhmmm, am I such a dickhead to think Damon
would be sending it to me? Nooo, I'm listening to
The Teenbeat who are very DIY-ish band. Most of
the stuff is acoustic stuff... 'isn't acoustic
stuff very boring?', I hear you ask. Well if
MTV-Unplugged is your idea about acoustic stuff
then it is... but here you'll hear a band who can
hold my attention for 90 minutes (...there are
about 30 songs on here!) with a minimal of
technical equipment... not all the songs are as
strong, there are some moments you're thinking
you've already heard it before, but most of the
time I'm in fine company... and if you're a
Teenbeat fan, may I recommend you their Doorstep
zine? It's hilarious... oh yeah, if I would have
a record company I'll immediately release Shit
Weather as a single, heartbreaking stuff! But
same can be said about Scarborough ...you already
have two singles then!" |
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Demo
CD - The Indiependant - Zine (Summer 1999)
"The demo tape proves them to be not the
twee, glittery teen-c pop combo their name may
suggest. and forget lo-fi - this is absolutely
horizontal-fi: Tonka Toy sounds like it's been
recorded on one. But then toys are fun, and so
are The Teenbeat. Their simplicity is charming,
and carried through to their observant and
logical lyrics - 'you're a girl and I'm a
boy...'. B-side is a country-style tribute to the
"premier rock venue in the northwest"
which is in Birkenhead, goes by the name of
Stairways, and one can apparently "lose
their innocence" for the price of a drink -
a snip at 5op". a CD of 43 minutes of pure
aural gold with more hidden gems." |
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Gig Reviews
Notting Hill Arts Club - Silver Juice - Zine -
31s August 2002)
"The Teenbeat, headed by the fantastic
Adrian R. Shaw are art-rock at it's finest.
Angular, confessional reality rock with songs
that aren't just a soundtrack to ya life, but
which become part of it... What was immediately
noticeable was how mentally in tune with each
other the band were. Adrian faced drummer Lee and
guitarist Kevin... they seemed to be vibing off
one another in a semi-telepathic manner. Adrian
pens songs of life in a northern town ...songs of
dead seaside towns and sex in cheap nightclubs.
There's more than a touch of the poet to Adrian's
muse and his style is often literary. The tunes
are sometimes immediate, sometimes not... but
they all wiggle their way into your consciousness
in the fullness of time. Adrian is a true star of
a frontman. Magnetic and very funny. The band
have been around for a long time now, but every
live performance is played as if it's their first
and last gig. They always sound fresh and
vital." |
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Dead or Alive night at the
Metro Club - Silver Juice - Zine (24th April
2002)
"A solo outing for one of this country's
most talented songwriters. If you haven't heard
of him, then shame on you because music as
well-observed and moving as this should no longer
go unnoticed. Papers such as NME should be
absolutely ashamed of themselves... giving
coverage to teenage metal nonsense from all
corners of the globe, when such pure unsullied
talent is right on their doorstep. The Teenbeat
have been Bull & Gate regulars for some time
now. They are a treat to watch live, but to fully
appreciate the shaw songwriting talent, you have
to catch the man live ...voice and acoustic
guitar is all that's needed to transport the
listener into a world where life's grim realities
can be looked upon as something other than mere
negativity. but it's not just the music. In the
flesh, Adrian communicates with the audience
between each song, a dour sense of humour fully
intact and what seems like a full-bodied naivety
ever-present throughout his monologues. Songs
such as Shit Weather, Urina and Pizza Girl are
not about the american "rawk"
experience ...they're about everyday life in a
small town in England. Real stories about real
people, transformed into poetry, but never
distorted beyond that into the realms of
Hollywood idealism. Adrian pens songs with tunes
that are hardly difficult to penetrate. There's a
hint of Jake Thackray here and another of Dylan
there. He's from the north, but doesn't use this
as a gimmick. His accent compliments his work,
but he doesn't base the work solely on the
accent. This man has presence and charisma in
tenfold. He's the new Jarvis Cocker and nobody
knows it yet. Someone with influence such as
Domino or Too Pure need to take a risk and put
this man's work out. If The Teenbeat/Adrian stay
a cult act, then we should all take a long look
at ourselves and ask why Stereophonic-tosh is
still given blanket coverage and the Barnsley
charmer given merely one column inch ...if
that." |
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Bull & Gate, Kentish
Town, London - AI (1999)
"They're The League Of Gentlemen doing The
Violent Femmes, they're Hefner's jam-friendly,
funny northern cousins, they are The Teenbeat,
but to start with it's solely Adrian and his
acoustic, coming on after Captain Beefheart's
'Ice Cream For Crow' to sing "kum ba yah my
lord, we're gonna get stoned". When the rest
of the band turn up they deliver some sad songs
that make me happy, even their ode to loving a
butcher with a big knife (Butcher) might make a
vegetarian's eyes water (if not their mouth), in
sympathy or with laughter at the black comedy.
Some songs like the ace Shit Weather drag on too
long but there's also frantic numbers like the
catchy Doorstep howled at us. Adrian gets himself
so worked up in this way that he has to be mopped
down with a towel but takes a break for Richard
Spontane's friend Claire to come and sing The
Delgados-ey Urina (nice name), then he ends the
epic, hilarious and harrowing Here Comes Neil on
the floor and has to be carried off. Filled with
spririts not only of the song." |
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Oxton Charity Shop -
Evergreen Issue 33 (20th April 1999)
"Oxton Charity Shop saw the arrival of
Teenbeat a local band with a deceptive name which
originated from a popular 1960s magazine.
Although late they proved to be worth the wait
performing original songs about Birkenhead such
as Stairway." |
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