• Tindersticks
• Placebo
• Unbelievable Truth
• Arab Strap
• The Strokes
• JJ 72

Stuart Staples - Vocals, Guitar David Boulter - Keyboards Neil Fraser - Guitar Dickon Hinchliffe - Violin Mark Colwill - Bass Alistair Macaulay - Drums

Tindersticks play moody melodic music that sweeps through the listener and quietly takes hold. Simply through the strength of their records and live performances they are building a word of mouth following that has them touring Europe to sold out houses and has American record buyers haranguing their local record stores for import copies of their 21-song debut double album.

Tindersticks have avoided a number of pitfalls that have plagued English bands of late - mainly too much hype too soon. They've quietly released a series of singles and EP's and politely avoided offers to appear on the covers of the British weekly music magazines. As lead singer Stuart Staples told Melody Maker, "If I was that desperate to be on the cover of your magazine I'd be sitting here in a fucking dress." Melody Maker went on to name "Tindersticks" as their Album of the Year (beating out Nirvana and Pearl Jam).

Tindersticks caught alight late '92 with the release of their debut 7" single "Patchwork b/w Milky Teeth", released on their own Tippy Toe label. Limited to 500 copies, it sold out within two weeks. The band quickly followed with another single, a limited edition 10" which sold out (2000) within one week.

Tindersticks started to grace the stages of various UK clubs, only to be met with more rave reviews from all corners. A 7" single, "A Marriage Made In Heaven" was released on a Rough Trade singles club compilation and made "Single of the Week" in the NME. The band dedicated the single to Lee Hazelwood, "A father to us all!" A second single, "Unwired" for Domino Single Club, would also receive "Single of the Week" status, this time by Melody Maker. Tindersticks would inevitably go on to record their first album which was released on October 4, 1993 in the U.K. The album which is also currently available in the U.S. on Bar/None Records has been critically acclaimed in both America and Europe.

There's a texture to that voice, deep-throated, soft, like the skin on his arse. Fragile looks and hard stares, stood in corners keeping itto the back of his mind, two drinks later could see him on his back,a roll of the drum, a flick of an eyebrow and off we go. Fake vibes, fake maracas, hotel-room dancing, pretend sax players sway before him, "I could drive to this if I'd had enough to drink..."

"We like to provoke strong reactions in people," admits 24-year-old bassist Stefan Olsdal. "Indifference is something we try to avoid. Sometimes that leads to confusion, or anger, or interest -- but you can never really predict the outcome."

Now Olsdal and his bandmates -- 25-year-old vocalist Brian Molko and 27-year-old drummer Steve Hewitt -- take that provocative stance to new heights. Without You I'm Nothing, their Virgin debut, expands upon the sound of Placebo's earlier eponymous disc (released in America on Caroline Records) S

With its crushing groove and instantly identifiable vocals, debut single/video "Pure Morning" (which debuted on the UK singles charts at #4) introduces the album on a bold note. Through a dozen tracks, the mood varies from bruisingly confrontational (e.g. "You Don't Care About Us," "Every You Every Me," "Scared Of Girls") to wistfully introspective ("Ask For Answers," "Summer's Gone").

Molko readily acknowledges the personal nature of his lyrics, delivered with a variety of thematic twists: "Most of these are love songs where I'm trying to come to grips with relationships. They're frequently told from the point of view of ex-lovers, so at first it may seem like I'm being arrogant, but actually I'm eating humble pie. I'm cutting open a vein and letting it bleed for you."

Without You I'm Nothing represents a thematic progression from the group's auspicious debut. "The first album was a very sexual record," says Molko, "packed full of youthful vigor and lust. The new album is introverted, more of a post-coital depression: the comedown. It deals with an ever-pervading heartbreak and loneliness that seems to be in the air. The morning after is usually more analytical than the night before, and it's often more painful."

More importantly, Without You I'm Nothing shows the group realizing the huge potential demonstrated so powerfully on 1996's Placebo. The growth process has been punctuated by live shows: Tackling a busy schedule of international touring throughout late 1996 and 1997, Placebo's itinerary included numerous European dates supporting U2 on the Popmart Tour. The group's U.S. touring was highlighted by a January 1997 show at New York's Madison Square Garden as special guest on the bill of David Bowie's 50th birthday party.

Beyond music, Placebo's members were invited by executive producer Michael Stipe to play parts alongside Ewan McGregor and Eddie Izzard in the upcoming film "Velvet Goldmine" due for release later in 1998.

On Without You I'm Nothing, the trio attacks their musical pursuits with renewed focus and energy. "There's two years between the two albums, and there's been a hell of a lot of living going on during that time," admits Molko. "In many ways it feels like a different band. This is our first album with Steve on drums, and the band dynamic has changed. It can seem a bit schizophrenic, but we're just trying to take it as far as possible in each direction: stretch it, and aim for a wider scope."

In the Without You I'm Nothing -creative process, Molko writes the lyrics, and all three bandmembers contribute to the sonic flow. "The first album was pretty much written by Brian in his bedroom," nods Olsdal. "This album has been a three-way collaboration."

"Pure Morning" typifies Placebo's approach: "It started out as literally about five seconds of music," says Olsdal, "and by the end of the day we had a full song. It felt like it was handed to us on a plate." "It was purely accidental," laughs Molko; "we went in to do some b-sides after the album was already completed and delivered. Suddenly we had a new song -- it happened before we even had time to think about it."

The balance of raw spontaneity and sharp introspection infuses each track on Without You I'm Nothing -- and reveals yet another layer of delicious ambiguity which surrounds Placebo and its music.

Placebo's Brian Molko explains a few of the key tracks on Without You I'm Nothing: "Pure Morning" -- "It's a celebration of friendship with women, kind of immortalizing a couple of my friends. It's also about that time of the day when the sun's coming up and you're coming down; and everybody else is getting ready to go to work and you're feeling incredibly dislocated from the rest of the world; and all you reallywant is for a friend to be there to put their arms around you and help you ease into sleep."

"You Don't Care About Us" -- "It's about an ex-lover having a furious rant at me for not caring and being wrapped up in my own head. Unfortunately, that's how I used to conduct my relationships: I was always imagining the end just as it was beginning." "Brick Shithouse" -- "A disembodied soul floats overhead, observing the living. It's a ghost story, about somebody watching their lover make love to the person who killed them." "Scared Of Girls" -- "It's an investigation into male heterosexual promiscuity. Do male flirts do it because they really love women or actually because they're actually scared with women and themselves. I'd say that they are scared of girls."

Named after the film by American indie favorite Hal Hartley, Brit-pop trio the Unbelievable Truth was formed in Oxford, England in 1994 by singer/guitarist Andy Yorke (the younger brother of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke), bassist Jason Moulster and drummer Nigel Powell. Debuting in 1997 with the single "Building," the group built a growing fanbase on the strength of a series of EPs including Stone and Higher Than Reason before issuing the full-length Almost Here in 1998.

The Scottish post-folk duo Arab Strap was formed in mid-1995 by vocalist Aidan Moffett and multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton, longtime friends who after years of exchanging cassettes of their respective bands decided to finally begin collaborating together. Upon signing to the hip Chemikal Underground label, they issued their debut single, the stark, downcast "The First Big Weekend"; the song was a major critical hit, with Britain's Radio One declaring it the best record of the decade. In late 1996, Arab Strap issued their full-length debut, The Week Never Starts Round Here, followed a year later by the EP The Girls of Summer. In 1998, after scoring a hit with their remix of David Holmes' "Don't Die Just Yet," Arab Strap issued their second LP, Philophobia.

Equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and John Lennon as well as the attitude and angular riffs of fellow New Yorkers Television and the Velvet Underground, the Strokes were also equally blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype -- particularly from the U.K. music press, whose adulation for the group rivaled their fervor for Oasis in the early '90s. Barely in their twenties by the time their debut album Is This It? arrived in 2001, singer/songwriter Julian Casablancas, guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., bassist Nikolai Fraiture, and drummer Fabrizio Moretti's success wasn't quite of the overnight variety, but it still arrived pretty swiftly. Casablancas (the son of Elite modeling agency kingpin John Casablancas), Moretti (who began playing drums at age five), and Valensi started playing together in 1998 while they attended Manhattan's private prep school Dwight School. Soon after they met Fraiture, who attended the Upper East Side's Le Cest Francais, and added him to their ranks. Hammond (the son of singer/songwriter Albert Hammond, whose songs include "It Never Rains in Southern California," "When I Need You," and "To All the Girls I've Loved Before") came from Los Angeles to attend film school at N.Y.U. and was invited into the band by Casablancas; the two met at L'Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland when they were kids. Casablancas officially christened the quintet the Strokes in 1999, and the group spent most of that year writing and rehearsing material in New York City's Music Building. They made their live debut that fall at the Spiral, and word of mouth about the Strokes' incendiary live show propelled them to gigs at venues like Under the Acme, Lower East Side clubs such as Arlene Grocery, Baby Jupiter, and N.Y.C.'s Luna. The band's December 2000 dates at the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom not only gained them a manager (Ryan Gentles, who booked them at those clubs), but also helped Strokes-mania reach critical mass in New York. Rough Trade released the group's three-song demo as The Modern Age EP in January 2001, which sparked a bidding war from which RCA emerged as the victors. Meanwhile, the Strokes' acclaim reached the U.K. and grew to massive proportions over the course of the year. NME quickly championed the band, profiling them several times that spring and summer as the Strokes' live act and singles like Hard to Explain (which debuted at number 16 in the U.K. charts) won them a rabid British following. That spring, the band also completed their first U.S. tour as the opening act for the Doves and proceeded to play dates with Guided By Voices and And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead in the U.S. and the U.K. The group's popularity continued to snowball in the U.K., with a side stage slot at the NME Carling Weekender changed to a main stage performance for fear of people trampling each other to see the band. In late summer of that year, Rough Trade released Is This It? with an album cover featuring a sexy, Helmut Newton-esque photo of a woman's nude behind and hip with a leather-gloved hand resting on it; the U.K. chains Woolworth's and HMV objected to its controversial nature. The U.S. version of Is This It? was released in October and featured a few changes from the U.K. edition. The Strokes opted for an abstract pattern on the cover and removed the song "NYC Cops," feeling the song was inappropriate in the wake of the terrorist attacks that struck New York prior to the album's release; the planned B-side "When It Started" took its place. The group closed out the fall with an extended tour of the U.S., culminating with a Halloween gig at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom.

The Irish-based indie guitar trio JJ72 first crawled out of their Dublin nest in 1997, as lead singer Mark Greaney and drummer Fergal Matthews found each other in the city's Belvedere College mostly due to a mutual admiration for Joy Division, Nirvana, and what Matthews called Greaney's "cool jacket." After going through an assortment of bass players, the two of them locked onto a young actress by the name of Hilary Woods to fill out the band. With all the members in place, the newly formed trio finally had the opportunity to start sending out demo copies of the band's "Oxygen" to a number of radio stations and press outlets. Despite these slow first steps, DJ's and music journalists quickly stopped wondering what the band's name meant (most common theories being a type of washing machine or even Janis Joplin's weight in stone) and even started to champion the band as one of the brightest hopes for indie guitar music in 2000.