Here we are at December 9th and edging closer to the visit of the big, bearded, red-coated house burglar on 25th December. That also means that it is day 9 of this years advent blog posts. The theme if you are not a regular reader is the ABC of British bands and day 9 means that we are at the letter ‘I’. What delightful British band do I have for you today? Well it’s none other than the marvellous Inspiral Carpets.
The band was formed in Oldham in the early 80s by Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt. Strangely I went to school with a Stephen Holt and I worked with a Graham Lambert; sadly different people from the founders of the Inspiral Carpets though. The band’s biggest success came between 1989 and 1995 when they had 14 UK top 50 singles. The biggest of those was 1992’s “Dragging Me Down” which reached number 12. They were dropped by their label, Mute, in 1995 and they broke up a little while after that. They reformed in 2003 and are still together now.
You may know that the band once had a certain Noel Gallagher working for them as guitar tech/ roadie. Obviously before his Oasis days. The Inspirals drummer Craig Gill formed another band after the break up. That band were named after a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Proud Mary. That band were eventually signed to Noel Gallagher’s Big Brother record label. Another Inspiral Carpets roadie, Mike Collins, went on to bigger things too. He joined the Charlatans in 1991. Collins also went to school with Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs off of Oasis.
My favourite Inspiral Carpets song ever is “Saturn V”, what is yours?
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 