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Gomez (band)

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Gomez

Gomez are an English indie rock band from Southport. Their first album, Bring It On, won the Mercury Music Prize in 1998.

Early career

The genesis of Gomez was the meeting of four friends from Southport. Guitarist and vocalist Ian Ball and drummer Olly Peacock had previously played together in a local heavy metal band called Severed. They joined with guitarist / vocalist / keyboardist Tom Gray and bassist Paul Blackburn. Ian Ball met vocalist / guitarist Ben Ottewell from Matlock Bath in Derbyshire at Sheffield University, where they were both studying.

The band played their first gig together in late 1996 in Leeds without a formal name. The band left a sign out for a friend of theirs whose surname was Gomez to indicate that it was the site of their first gig. People saw the sign and assumed that the band's name was Gomez - the name stuck.

The band started recording four-track demos in a garage in Southport soon after. A bidding war erupted when they sent the demos to recording labels, with the band finally signing with Virgin Records' subsidiary, Hut, in 1997.

Bring It On - career success

Gomez entered the recording studio in 1997 to turn their demos into a full-length album. The band spent the next three months in the studio and touring the United Kingdom with Embrace. Their first single "78 Stone Wobble" was released in March 1998, while their debut album, Bring It On, was released a month later. The album received excellent critical response from both sides of the Atlantic, with Spin Magazine calling it a "damn beautiful album". Sales of the album in the United Kingdom were bolstered when Bring It On won the 1998 Mercury Music Prize for best album, beating out favorites such as Massive Attack's Mezzanine and the Verve's Urban Hymns. "Get Myself Arrested" and "Whippin' Piccadilly" were later released as singles, while Gomez toured the United States with Eagle Eye Cherry. Despite the critical acclaim, however, Bring It On is thus far the only Gomez album not to find a place on U.S. album charts.

The band's second album, Liquid Skin, was released in 1999 lending Gomez further success on the British and Australian album charts, as well as making the Billboard Heatseeker chart for the first time.

A collection of B-sides and rarities, Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline, was released in 2000.

The group's third album, In Our Gun, was released in 2002. It made the top 10 on the United Kingdom charts as well as the top 50 on the Australian charts. The single "Shot Shot" charted in the UK top 40, the top 20 in Portugal, and the Billboard Heatseeker chart.

While Gomez's first three albums had been self-produced, the band entered its new recording studio in Portslade in East Sussex with Tchad Blake as producer. Blake had previously produced albums by Tom Waits and Crowded House and pick of the dozens of tracks produced during the 18 month in the studio became their fourth album Split the Difference released in May 2004. This album reached the top 40 in the UK and Australia. The first single "Catch Me Up" entered the UK top 40 in March 2004 and "Silence" was released as the second single.

Split the Difference received a good critical response, with the All Music Guide rating it as four and a half stars out of five and BBC Internet Music Reviews describing it as "one of the finest releases of the year so far. If you were one of those people who wrote them off two years ago, it's time to get listening again." [1]

In an effort to build their popularity in the US, Gomez has been touring extensively in the past few years. They played at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2003. With Ian Ball relocating to Los Angeles with his wife, the band played at venues across the US in 2004 and were originally slated to be a part of the cancelled 2004 Lollapalooza tour. Spring 2005 saw the band join Cake as part of the Virgin Records Megatour of American colleges. In June 2005, Gomez released a double disc live album, Out West, compiled from shows recorded at San Francisco's Fillmore Theater in January 2005 on ATO Records.

In January 2006 the band performed on Jamcruise before returning to the studio to put the final touches on "How We Operate." After playing the SxSW music festival in Austin, Tom, Ian and Ben debuted material from the upcoming release in several US cities. The band's 2006 spring tour included stops in Asheville NC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Portland, OR. They also performed at several large outdoor festivals, including stops at the Beale Street and Bonnaroo Festivals in Tennessee, the Jazzfest in New Orleans and Sasquatch Festival in George, WA.

The Gomez studio album "How We Operate" was released on May 2, 2006. The album's title track was featured in the Grey's Anatomy episode "Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response." They were also one of the many bands featured on a John Lennon Tribute aired on BBC Radio2 to mark the 25th anniversary of the singer's death. Gomez performed "Hey Bulldog" by The Beatles, and "Instant Karma" by Lennon.

Personnel

The lineup has not changed since the band's beginning in 1996. Instrumentalist Dajon Everett is listed as a de facto member of the band on their official website.

Most Gomez songs feature more than one vocalist, but this is a breakdown of the lead vocalist on each track from the CD How We Operate [2]:

  • Ian: Notice, Hamoa Beach, Charley Patton Songs, Cry On Demand
  • Ben: See The World, How We Operate, Chasing Ghosts With Alcohol, Tear Your Love Apart, All Too Much
  • Tom: girlshapedlovedrug, Woman! Man!, Don't Make Me Laugh

Discography

Albums

Title Year UK Chart US Heatseeker US Billboard 200
Bring It On 1998 #11 - -
Liquid Skin 1999 #2 #30 -
Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline 2000 #10 #44 -
In Our Gun 2002 #8 #37 -
Split the Difference 2004 #12 #11 #191
Out West 2005 #145 #46 -
How We Operate 2006 #69 #1 #106
Five Men In A Hut (CD) 2006 TBA TBA TBA
Five Men In A Hut (DVD) 2006 TBA TBA TBA

EPs

Singles

Title Date UK Chart
78 Stone Wobble April 6, 1998 # 44
Get Myself Arrested June 8, 1998 # 45
Whippin' Piccadilly September 7, 1998 # 35
Bring It On July 5, 1999 # 21
Rhythm & Blues Alibi September 6, 1999 # 18
We Haven't Turned Around November 22, 1999 # 38
Shot Shot March 11, 2002 # 28
Sound of Sounds / Ping One Down June 10, 2002 # 48
Catch Me Up March 15, 2004 # 36
Silence May 17, 2005 # 41
Sweet Virginia September 6, 2004 # 42
How We Operate April 17, 2006 N/A
Girlshapedlovedrug May 29, 2006 # 66
See The World September 4, 2006 # 107
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