What is it about 90s indie bands and Confederate imagery?
Today it's Action Spectacular; last week it was A, but I assume the immediate influence was the hipper-than-thou Primal Scream, who used the Stars and Bars in neon (a detail from Eggleston's Troubled Waters) for the cover of their Give Out But Don't Give Up album.
Eggleston was an American from Tennessee, and his work is often garish, nightmarish and troubling: there's an implied critique in his photography that isn't there in the good-time blues stylings of Primal Scream (a talented band without a brain cell) nor in these lesser bands' appropriations of Southern imagery. OK, these were British bands and so distanced from the daily impact of pro-slavery culture and Jim Crow in its home setting, but even back in the 90s we knew that the Confederacy were the bad guys.
I only own this one single by Action Spectacular: even back then I must have decided that for all their craft, they had nothing to say beyond borrowing clothes without a second thought. Clearly the band or their record labels have belatedly decided that 'General Lee' is inappropriate: while their albums are on iTunes, this song is nowhere to be found. Instead you'll have to make do with their oh-so-witty 'I'm a Whore', in which some young men discover that work isn't entirely brilliant while being unable to decide what musical sub-genre they prefer.
'General Lee' isn't any better.
Oh well. Adventures in Stereo tomorrow.
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