{"id":6901,"date":"2025-03-05T18:28:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T18:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6901"},"modified":"2025-03-05T18:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T18:28:24","slug":"issue-161-the-sea-urchins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6901","title":{"rendered":"Issue #161  \u2013 The Sea Urchins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>THE SEA URCHINS burst onto the DIY indie-pop scene in 1987, shaping the sound of jangle-pop with chiming debut single \u2018Pristine Christine\u2019. Whilst commercial success proved elusive, their influence became far reaching, their reputation notorious. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>In our exclusive two-part story, PAUL RITCHIE and ex-band members ponder what went right, what went wrong and what might have been<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6902\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6902\" style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6902\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/P8263302-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6902\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James, Simon. Patrick, Robert at Sandwell Valley Country Park 1989<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In August 1987 \u00a0The Sea Urchins entered Birmingham\u2019s Rich Bitch Studios to lay down three tracks, including the soaring, clarion call of \u2018Pristine Christine\u2019, the lovely lullaby melody of \u2018Sullen Eyes\u2019 and the dreamy \u2018Everglades\u2019. The quality of \u2018Pristine Christine\u2019 astounded everyone. Clearly inspired by Primal Scream\u2019s \u2018Velocity Girl\u2019, the song channelled classic \u201960s pop with an exhilarating sense of charm and confidence. With its dreamy vocals, plaintive melodies and chiming guitars \u2018Pristine Christine\u2019 is one of the greatest indie-pop singles of all time. Bob Stanley made it Single Of The Week in the <em>NME<\/em>, enthusiastically describing it as \u201cmusical menthol\u201d, imploring readers to \u201cpurchase at once\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Sea Urchins - Pristine Christine (1987)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DbGjLFpsuKU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u201cI remember being in WH Smith at about nine in the morning and reading it,\u201d says James of Stanley\u2019s coverage. \u201cIt was played on Peel and Janice too. It was unbelievable. As kids at the time, that was it for us. We\u2019ve done it, finished! We&#8217;d been sitting in our bedrooms listening to those radio stations and picking up the <em>NME<\/em> and reading reviews of The Loft and The Pastels and thinking, \u2018Oh, <em>we\u2019re<\/em> like that now. That\u2019s good!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u201cGetting SOTW in the <em>NME<\/em> changed everything of course and suddenly we had a lot of fans around the country,\u201d agrees Robert. \u201cThe downside was that egos became inflated and an arrogance quickly started to develop within the band. We were quite young after all and now we were very minor pop stars, behaving outrageously seemed to be justified in some of the members\u2019 eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Things started to get out of hand when the band supported Talulah Gosh at a show at ULU in London in February \u201988. Patrick and Darren threw food everywhere in a classroom that was doubling as a dressing room. When somebody from the college entered the room they asked, \u201cAre you animals?!\u201d to which everyone replied with animal noises.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt seemed funny at the time, but looking back now I think we were starting to gain a reputation that wasn\u2019t exactly favourable,\u201d notes Robert.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Please Rain Fall\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uhfiV8-bE7M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For their second single, Joe Foster was drafted in to produce. Joe was a co-founder of Creation Records and their in-house producer. He\u2019d also been a member of Television Personalities, whose pop-art influences impressed everyone. The group released the tougher, mod\/garage-flavoured \u2018Solace\u2019 as the A-side, adding the introspective folksy ballad \u2018Please Rain Fall\u2019 on the flip in \u201988. Bob Stanley again made it Single Of The Week.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u201cWe were all pleased with the results and it\u2019s a real shame we didn\u2019t get to make an LP with Joe producing,\u201d says Robert. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure there was talk of us signing to his label as we shared very similar tastes. The fact that we didn\u2019t get to make an album at all in the five years we were together still mystifies and saddens me greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>To read the full article order the magazine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverbackpublishing.rocks\/product\/shindig_161\/\">here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"synved-social-container synved-social-container-share\"><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F6901&#038;t=Issue%20%23161%20%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Sea%20Urchins&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F6901&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F03%2FScreenshot-2025-03-05-at-14.11.04-6.png&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Issue%20%23161%20%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Sea%20Urchins\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F6901&#038;text=New%20post%20on%20our%20site\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-mail nolightbox\" data-provider=\"mail\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share by email\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Issue%20%23161%20%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Sea%20Urchins&#038;body=New%20post%20on%20our%20site:%20https%3A%2F%2Fshindig-magazine.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F6901\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail\" title=\"Share by email\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/mail.png\" \/><\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE SEA URCHINS burst onto the DIY indie-pop scene in 1987, shaping the sound of jangle-pop with chiming debut single \u2018Pristine Christine\u2019. Whilst commercial success proved elusive, their influence became far reaching, their reputation notorious. In our exclusive two-part story, PAUL RITCHIE and ex-band members ponder what went right, what went wrong and what might [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-music-videos","post_format-post-format-video"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6901"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}