Gene

Chances are you don't really remember Gene, plucky underachievers of the Britpop 90's...singer Martin Rossiter was smeared (er, fairly) as a Morrissey copyist, but their first album Olympian [1995] stands almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the first Smiths LP; in fact, it's better. Flashes of Queen and Small Faces commingle with chain-swinging counterfeits of their Manchester heroes' tunes, and "Be My Light, Be My Guide" (an early single added to the US version of the LP, wahey!, Smiths-style) is as good as any early Smiths song.

Go figure that these guys hung on until 2002! Likely sat around the Fleece and Ferkin hoping someone would buy them pints. Their final, self-released Libertine is as good as the debut and the band stretches out and basically does whatever the hell they want. They sound less constrained than on the intervening Olympian follow-ups and actually seem like they are having (gasp!) fun. Check for "Walking in the Shallows" if thou dost think me a liar. This is a surprisingly great record, all the better for the fact it doesn't need to exist.

"Be My Light, Be My Guide"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B6nrfR3hY8&feature=related

[PS - A youtube commenter says: It might interest you to know that Martin Rossiter is now a music teacher in Brighton. He teaches me at college. I'd never heard of him so it's really wierd* to see him in professional videos since I know him really well. He's really good at piano and music theory, but he often makes jokes that aren't funny and laughs at himself :/

heh.]

* nice spelling, prat