The Indelicates

Formation The Indelicates were formed in 2005 in Brighton, UK, by Julia and Simon Indelicate, who had met five years previously at a poetry slam. The pair created several independent and joint artistic projects, which they promoted through their individual MySpace pages. Julia was also a documentary photographer and Simon had been a performance poet on the cabaret circuit. Simon also wrote a musical based on the Book of Job. The band began playing venues in September 2005, Ed Van Beinum later took over from Stone. Demos and recognition In late 2005, the band released several songs as free downloads on its own website, including "Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die". The song helped the Indelicates build a fanbase, In its 2005 yearbook, NME chose the song as its "most controversial pick of the year". Hancox went on to praise "Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die" as "a bitter-sweet, folk-tinged bit of acoustic soul searching typical of this fascinating new band." Author Neil Gaiman said of the song, "I was hooked in one, as they took apart, with bitter grace, the media/academic obsession with and delight in the downfall of stars and idols." The Indelicates also made available "Burn All the Photographs", "Vladimir" NME described "New Art for the People" as "stunning", and Exclaim! said that the song's "unmistakably twee ... delivery" made it "beguiling" and "distinctive". Sad Gnome The Indelicates' website also featured an early recording of "We Hate the Kids". It was Sad Gnome Records' first release. Hancox had called the first version of the song the Indelicates' "most exciting ... a cynical, disaffected, lo-fi anthem", and in September 2020, God Is in the TV listed it at No. 67 in its list of 100 songs deserving to be rescued from the indie rock "landfill" era. The band's last release while signed to Sad Gnome was the EP "The Last Significant Statement To Be Made in Rock'n'Roll", on 12 February 2007. Jetzt chose "Sixteen" as one of the most interesting song releases of the week, calling Julia's vocals irresistible and complimenting the song's brevity. The magazine also praised the EP as a whole, in particular the way in which Julia and Simon "complement each other, support each other, drive each other on ... they harmonize so perfectly". ==Weekender years==

Touring and singles Through 2007, the Indelicates had continued to play venues in the UK and Europe. In Germany they headlined several times and played support for Art Brut, By mid-year, the Indelicates had left Sad Gnome to join another independent label, Weekender Records, and in July released "Julia, We Don't Live in the 60s" as a CD single and 7" vinyl. The latter featured "Point Me to the West" as a B-side, while the CD release added to that song a live version of "Unity Mitford". Artrocker magazine called "Julia ..." "intelligent, poetic indie-rock". Gigwise, reviewing a live rendition of the song, cited its "soaring riffs" and "wry, nostalgic and deliciously doom-laden" lyrics. Julia said that "'Sixteen' is a song about people never growing up, and behaving like little kids for as long as possible, even when it bites them in the arse (at the age of 29)." Several industry publications, including Rolling Stone, had predicted mainstream success for the Indelicates for several years, On 24 March 2008, the band released its fourth single, "America" on CD, 7" vinyl and digitally. The vinyl release B-side "No Religion" was joined by "The Last Bombed City" on the CD release. Clash magazine called the song an "entertaining polemic, whose lack of subtlety extends to the suitably big, brash rock musical soundtrack." Room Thirteen said the song was "truly refreshing ... a great track which is up-beat and powerful" and said that both Simon and Julia's vocals were "excellent and certainly complement the political nature of their music." The reviewer also praised both B-sides, saying the release added up to a "knockout combination". American Demo "America" preceded the Indelicates' first album release, American Demo on 14 April 2008. Produced by Brian O'Shaughnessy at Bark Studio, and issued by Weekender on CD and as a 12" vinyl LP, the album featured 14 tracks and included new and previously released material. The album was released simultaneously in Germany through Weekender's sister label. George Bass, writing for God is in The TV, called American Demo "rewardingly consistent" and said that it "breaks none of the promises [The Indelicates] have spent the last three years making". Bass remarked that while the album might look like "most machined poprock" it was "deeper than your average post-rock gatefold." He singled out critical favourite "New Art for the People" in particular as the band's signature track, "a raw monolith that's lost none of its veracity in the jump from the stage to the studio." Neil Jones of MusicOMH called the album "a broad set of tracks that which spit immaculate bile here, vintage melodies there, and its very first track is a musical statement if ever I’ve heard one, Julia ... etching out a violin contrapuntal to make the hairs stand on end." Jones complimented the way the album married the album's "sweet" melodies with the more barbed lyrical content, and concluded, "Corrosive performance poetry and pop music passion, this is an album on immaculate themes. American Demo really is the aesthetic arm of the outsiders, and The Indelicates right now are pretty much unbeatable." To support the album's release, the Indelicates toured Europe, notably Germany. They also headlined a stage at the Frequency Festival in Austria. The band played venues in the United States, including support for The Vaselines in New York, and at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Mayer Nissim, writing for Digital Spy, later said that American Demo had been "one of the best guitar-pop albums of the decade", while noting that "inevitably it didn't exactly set the charts alight". The Indelicates said that the album "didn't sell terribly". ==Corporate Records==

Weekender split In 2009, the Indelicates split from Weekender and in 2010 set up their own label, Corporate Records. The band had come to believe that Weekender's promotion of American Demo was ineffectual and did not account for the changing shape of the record industry, especially with regard to finding new fans, which the band said came about only through "the free, internet-based things that they did themselves." They went on to say that when their label ran out of money in December 2008, the removal of the album from sale prevented its chances of reaching a larger audience at Christmas after it appeared on some online best-of-the-year lists. The Indelicates continued to play shows in the UK and Europe, and supported Amanda Palmer In early 2009, they released the download-only single "The Recession Song", which also featured Art Brut's Mikey Breyer. Author Laurie Penny said of the song, "I have been stamping around to it all day; it takes a very special song to make my heart hammer like a tiny flywheel, and this is it." In early 2009, Weekender had said that it intended to move away from record production into artist management, In January 2010, the label closed its UK operations entirely. Corporate Records was a joint venture with musician Keith Top of the Pops, who had produced the studio version of "We Hate the Kids". After deciding to self-release their second album, the band decided that the label could serve a wider audience than just themselves. The Corporate Records website invited artists to "promote, share and sell their work" and let fans download work on a pay-what-you-like basis. Apart from a PayPal charge and 20% "server costs and admin" the Corporate Records contract promised 80% of the proceeds of sales to artists. The album was produced by Ed East and recorded at Studio East in Berlin, with additional recording by Keith TOTP at Dean Street Studios in London. The band released the CD version on 2 June, and a 12" vinyl special edition followed. Simon said that musically the album better represented what the band heard in their heads, and that American Demo had been compromised through being produced under the constraints of a label. Julia said that Songs for Swinging Lovers was a more personal album, citing "Savages" in particular. In Digital Spy Mayer Nissim wrote that Songs for Swinging Lovers lacked "a bit of the coherence and gloss 'n' polish" of American Demo, but that it was "an assured, aggressive follow-up". He said that, as with their debut, "The Indelicates' trick is to suck you in with hooks that have you either dancing or swooning before the lyrics smash you in the chops." Nissim singled out "Roses" as the album's standout and "Sympathy for the Devil" as an "odd misstep", concluding that while the Indelicates were doing nothing new musically, Songs for Swinging Lovers showed "that it really is what you do with it that counts". In 2018, The Quietus ranked Songs for Swinging Lovers at No. 72 on its writers' poll list of "The Top 100 Albums of the Quietus' Existence" (2008–2018), calling it a "pop masterpiece". Digital rights campaigning In early 2010 the Indelicates became outspoken critics of the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010, which allowed the blocking of sites used or even likely to be used for activities that involved copyright infringement. Having encouraged fans to share songs via their blogs and on social media, the band said that filesharing had "directly benefited" them, David Koresh Superstar David Koresh Superstar is a concept album about David Koresh and the Waco siege in 1993, during which 82 members of the religious sect Branch Davidian (including their leader, Koresh) and four personnel within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) law enforcement were killed. The album was released in the UK on 16 May 2011 and in the US on 24 May, through Corporate Records. ). and later self-published David Koresh Superstar: An Unfilmable Screenplay. To promote the album ahead of its release, the band made available preview track "Something's Goin' Down in Waco", and created a video game, Super David Koresh Attack. In Christian news magazine World, Arsenio Orteza wrote that the album "[gets] to the core of cult and conspiracy-theory mentality" and that the songs "A Single Thrown Grenade" and "I Don't Care If It's True" "articulate megalomania and its discontents at their most sadly poignant." Contrasting the album with the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, Orteza said that where that musical mocked its subject matter, the Indelicates' intention was to understand, and that "The extent to which they succeed is chilling." David Koresh Superstar was written before Songs for Swinging Lovers, as the band had initially wanted to release a concept album to avoid difficult second album syndrome. Diseases of England Diseases of England, the Indelicates' fourth album, was initially released in three parts, each consisting of four songs. The band recorded and released Part II first, in October 2012. The remainder of the album was recorded later, after a successful crowdfunding campaign and funding from pre-orders. and completed the album with the release of Part III on 25 April 2013. The Indelicates also ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the 12" vinyl edition. Author and journalist Kieron Gillen singled out "Not Alone" as one of his songs of the year, "their Everybody Hurts, but with all the necessary cruelty to make us cynics swallow it." Maria Schurr of PopMatters said that Diseases of England "is as grand as anything in the duo’s back catalog" while being somewhat "slower and less reliant on humour" than the band's previous albums. She also noted the different tone of the first two tracks, from which the album moves to a more deliberate pace replacing their "youthful defiance" with "potent revulsion". Schurr said that while approximately "90% of the songs on here evoke filthy streets mottled with contaminated rainwater ... the Indelicates are the band that can make such unsavory visions inviting". She concluded that the album was "a grimily beautiful release worthy of the heart that was put in to it". The Indelicates also released music videos for "Not Alone", "Everything Is Just Disgusting"—which features puppets of the band—and the machinima "Dovahkiin", which was created using the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In October 2013, the band also released Part IV of "Diseases of England" as DLC, consisting of four new songs recorded at Dean Street Studios with Keith TOTP, and ten demo versions of other songs from the album, recorded at Simon and Julia's home. Elevator Music By 2013, the Indelicates remained somewhat popular and acclaimed in Germany, but had still found success in the UK elusive. In 2014, the Indelicates worked on creating a musical, but found the logistical challenges at odds with the band's availability, especially after Julia became pregnant with the couple's first child. Instead, they decided to work on recording and releasing a new album, Elevator Music. Julia said that recording of some of her vocals had to be delayed until after she gave birth "as you lose a lot of lung capacity when pregnant". At the same time as creating the album, Simon had acquired a virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift, and said that the album and the technology "fed into each other" with virtual reality "a big part of the album’s songs and story". Maria Schurr of PopMatters, while praising the innovative marketing, said that the song "deserves repeat plays in its own right, with the sort of vital generational commentary that so many current bands fail to provide". Schurr also said that the song's "lush and orchestral" style represented a musical evolution for the band. The CD and double vinyl editions were released on 20 November. As with the band's previous Corporate Records album releases, also available were several special edition packages, including the usual in-person live recording where the copyright for the recording would be handed over to the buyer, and a "Mark of the Beast" edition for £666, for which the band said they would "re-record all the vocals for you with metal-style screams and send you the results". To coincide with the album's release, the band made a video for "Beyond the Radio Horizon" as a 360-degree (or "spherical") video, which would allow users to look around as the video played. To promote the album, the band played venues in London and Brighton and toured Germany, where they were supported by London indie rock band Fightmilk. Heather Newton took over on violin for the tour. Writer Kieron Gillen named the track "Everything English Is the Enemy" from the album as his #9 song of 2017. ==Other work==

Book of Job: The Musical was written by Simon and has been performed by Simon, Julia and others since 2005. Described by Simon as "an Andrew Lloyd Webber type Biblical musical done in a very threadbare way, with the narrator describing what would be happening if the show had a Lloyd Webber style budget for sets, cast and effects" the musical is usually performed with a cast of six people and with one acoustic guitar. The band revive the musical "every couple of years" and have performed it at venues around the UK, including Brighton, London, the Edinburgh Festival, Cheltenham Literary Festival, The Indelicates released a two-part recording of the musical through the Corporate Records website—the first part on 28 February 2011 and the second on 7 March. Recorded at Dean Street Studios by Keith TOTP, the release featured Simon, Julia and Alastair from the band, plus Mary Hampton, Chris Hodges, Sarah Pinkney, Laurie Penny and Michael Parker. Mikey Georgeson of David Devant and his Spirit Wife cameos. In 2015, Simon and Julia also created a children's show, Goblins Live, for which they made the puppets and set decoration, and which they performed at local venues. For Fringe Review, Robin Manuell said that the musical was "the most all round entertaining show I have had the pleasure to see" and that the songs were "excellent". He also praised director Lex Lake and choreographer Roger Duncan for "the quality of the ensemble work". Manuell said that while the cast all had moments of excellence and the singing was of a high standard, during the performance he saw "not all the performers can keep this up all the time" and some were "patchy". He nevertheless concluded that Paradise Rocks was "an outstanding play and an outstanding production". == Discography ==

Albums • American Demo – Weekender Records – April 2008 • Songs for Swinging Lovers – Corporate Records – April 2010 • David Koresh Superstar – Corporate Records – May 2011 • Diseases of England – Corporate Records – 2013 • Elevator Music – Corporate Records – 2015 • Juniverbrecher – Corporate Records – 2017 • Avenue QAnon – Corporate Records – 2024 Singles • "We Hate the Kids" – Sad Gnome Records – July 2006 • "Julia, We Don't Live in the '60s" – Weekender Records – July 2007 • "Sixteen" – Weekender Records – October 2007 • "America" – Weekender Records – March 2008 • "The Recession Song" – Corporate Records – February 2009 • "Something Going Down in Waco" – Corporate Records – 2011 • "I Am Koresh" – Corporate Records – 2011 • "The Generation That Nobody Remembered" – November 2014 • "Beyond the Radio Horizon" – August 2015 • "Top of the Pops" – June 2017 • "Cold War Bop" - January 2024 • "4CHAN (There's something going down on /POL/)" - June 2024 EPs • "The Last Significant Statement To Be Made in Rock'n'Roll" – Sad Gnome Records – February 2007 ==References==