DUSTBALL
LIKE MONKEYS DO
Release Date: 21st Jun, 1999Cat No: DISCO9906
Format: CDS
QUALITY BUT HERS
Release Date: 4th May, 1998Cat No: SHIFTY9802
Format: CDA
Tracks: Owe it all to... ~ Let me lie ~ Rude me out ~ Ten feet small ~ Such an eyesore ~ Useless ~ Flusher ~ My life thrill ~ Mind ~ Sent apart ~ Talkback back ~ Intravolvo
SENOR NACHOS
Release Date: 27th Jan, 1997Cat No: DISCO9701
Format: CDS
In 1995 Jamie, James and Tarrant formed a rock and roll band. Their first review said they shouldn't have bothered.
Too young for punk rock and too old to be allowed to play on the wobbly horse ride in the local park Dustball grew their hair and rapidly blossomed into the feistiest fighters in Oxford's teeming music scene. The kids came, the kids saw and the kids came back for more. Some even brought their parents with them.
It wasn't long before they started getting themselves watched and pointed at by all manner of sweaty old blokes with cheque books but it was local indie label Rotator who made the first move and put them on OXCD, a compilation of the best new bands in the Oxford area. That Rotator were the oldest and sweatiest blokes of all more than made up for their lack of a cheque book.
"Yeah Yeah Yeah" which barged its way onto OXCD was a cheeky little taster for what was to come as Dustball paradoxically got heavier and poppier at the same time and when Oxford-based Shifty Disco set up their new singles club the mighty power trio were a natural choice for the first release. `Senor Nachos' , an everyday tale of male pregnancy, was a punk-pop mortarblast and rapidly became an anthem for adolescent tearaways the world over.
Soon afterwards, Damaged Goods brushed aside the slavering corporate A&R pack (yeah, right) to release a four track 7" EP in the Summer of 97, `Egg Man, Like Your head', Dustball were picked as one of the four local priority bands to be recorded and broadcast on Steve Lamacq's Evening Session as part of Radio 1 Sound City and a joint CD EP release with fellow Oxford guitar abusers Nought was released to coincide with Sound City, attracting the attention of John Peel who proceeded to declare a kindly uncle type of love for the band who have since recorded two sessions for his show.
The band finally released their debut album, `Quality But Hers' , in April 98, again on Shifty Disco, the label that had nurtured them and protected them from chill winds and corporate label meltdown with warm blankets, hot chocolate and unopened final demands.
Since then, Dustball have split their time between academia and discovering Fugazi. Their last single, `Like Monkeys Do', tends more towards the latter. The band sadly decided to split, and played their last ever gig on 13th November at The Point.
"The spirit of the Undertones infused with DC hardcore dynamics and Television's subtley warped fretplay, Dustball throw out sweet curveballs but there's a belligerent hormonal anger behind everything they do. If they weren't so pale and skinny, they'd be terrifying."- NME '99.
"Here's a band so full of the spirit of rock & roll and all the fiery exuberance of punk that they seem fit to explode" - Nightshift Magazine