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A Scene in Between: Tripping Through the Fashions of UK Indie Music 1980-1988
The mid to late 1980s indie scenes in Britain--from C86 to Shoegaze--are a neglected moment in music history. There's been much coverage of punk, postpunk and the acid-house rave era of the early 90s, but the scene surrounding independent guitar-based music of the mid-80s has been largely overlooked. "A Scene In Between" looks at Britain's fashions, personalities and youth cultures from that era. Bands featured include Television Personalities, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smiths, The Pastels, The Vaselines and more obscure bands such as The Shop Assistants, The Flatmates and countless others. Author Sam Knee has reconnected with a vast network of people and resources to unearth literally hundreds of previously unpublished photographs of the bands, fans, clubs and street fashion of the time. Taking a sartorial angle, he looks at anoraks, oversized jumpers, leather trousers, bowl-cut hairdos, blouse shirts, stripey tees and box jackets. Dave Conway of My Bloody Valentine and Douglas Hart of The Jesus and Mary Chain contribute reminiscences.
196 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 31, 2019
In the summer of 1984 I worked my one and only year in a busy fish and chip shop on the Esplanade of an English seaside town. One day I walked into the kitchen and heard a song playing on the radio that stopped me dead. Unusually for me, being a criminally shy and hopeless 14 year old, I asked "What is that song?" The guy who owned the cassette said "Reel Around the Fountain" and the rest of my cultural life fell immediately into place.
I don't doubt that I would have discovered The Smiths by other means had I not worked in that restaurant at that time, but it would have been much later and far messier. And when I think what that one question led to in terms of my outlook on music, literature, politics and the arts...well let's just say that I picked a good time to open my mouth for once.
This book let me dive right back to the start again and visualize my teen years in an extremely direct way - this book is essentially my formative years on paper. My only regret is that the first band I was in, the one where I played guitar and wrote the music while my friend, who understood everything because we both loved the same music, wrote the lyrics and sang, did not last. Maybe we could have been in this book? Maybe. But the ones who are here got me through that time and are still favorites now.
I don't doubt that I would have discovered The Smiths by other means had I not worked in that restaurant at that time, but it would have been much later and far messier. And when I think what that one question led to in terms of my outlook on music, literature, politics and the arts...well let's just say that I picked a good time to open my mouth for once.
This book let me dive right back to the start again and visualize my teen years in an extremely direct way - this book is essentially my formative years on paper. My only regret is that the first band I was in, the one where I played guitar and wrote the music while my friend, who understood everything because we both loved the same music, wrote the lyrics and sang, did not last. Maybe we could have been in this book? Maybe. But the ones who are here got me through that time and are still favorites now.
April 7, 2015
One question: where are 'the kids'?
So, this is a book that purports to be about the [anti]fashions of UK indie music of the 1980s; in actual fact, it's a scrap-book of photographs of a handful of the author's favourite bands. The fans - the indie kids themselves - are completely absent. True, I suppose there was very little distance between the '80s indie band and its audience, so what's the diff, you might say; but to ignore the youth tribe in a book supposedly about their style feels like a great missed opportunity to me. The most fascinating parts of Morrissey's "Hulmerist" film now are the lengthy shots of the fans - all those mini-Mozzers - congregating around the venue before his debut solo gig in 1988, with their 1988 haircuts and Doc Martens and everything. What this book needed was some of that.
'88 happens to be the year that author Sam Knee sniffily cuts off the time-frame for A Scene In Between, due to his disdain of the "ghastly" advent of the dance-inflected Madchester. Like all scene gatekeepers, he keeps a tight check on who is deemed worthy of examination, and, by-and-large, only the jangliest and 'shambling' of the C-86-ish guitar bands make the cut. So, The Pastels, The Vaselines, Orange Juice, The Shop Assistants, and so on, are all here, captured in hazy snapshots and posed band photos; glowering sullenly from under thick fringes of hair or moodily staring off into space. Of course no-one is smiling.
There are a few short, though not especially insightful selection of interviews and captions and bits of text. Mainly, though, it's just the photographs. Fittingly, these are often barely above photocopied fanzine level, which makes admiring the bands' cool threads a little difficult at times. Fortunately there are a enough good pics not to make the book a complete bust (all the ones featuring The Pastels, Strawberry Switchblade, Talulah Gosh, and The Jesus and Mary Chain are worth a look), and someone unearthed a few previously unseen ones of The Smiths, which provided the book with a decent scoop (they're all over the Internet now though - check yr Tumblr feed.)
Sam Knee of course repeats the canard that the charity-shop chic of 1980s indie was a reaction to the flashy clobber of the New Romantics and the severely shoulder-padded Thatcherites. That he also wants to celebrate this scruffy look in this glossy coffee table book is quite funny and also oddly touching.
The core look for girls, it seems, echoed a kind of kitchen-sink drama/Rita Tushingham/Cathy McGowan 1960s; for boys it was basically Hamburg or Rubber Soul era Beatles, with leather jackets for those who wanted to try and dilute their inherent nerdiness, or anoraks for those who decided, fuck it, I'll embrace it and try and make a virtue of it. Later on in the decade, and post Psychocandy, a Velvet Underground darkness falls over the scene just as the music becomes more intense.
It's this section, towards the end of the book, when the likes of Loop, My Bloody Valentine, and Spacemen 3 show up, that things get a bit more interesting. Maybe that's my own personal nostalgic fondness for the end of the decade talking, but I do find it a shame that Sam Knee closes the book here. If I had anything about me I would compile a further volume myself, covering the bands - and the fans! - of 1988-1993 (stopping short of the ghastly Britpop years, obviously).
So, this is a book that purports to be about the [anti]fashions of UK indie music of the 1980s; in actual fact, it's a scrap-book of photographs of a handful of the author's favourite bands. The fans - the indie kids themselves - are completely absent. True, I suppose there was very little distance between the '80s indie band and its audience, so what's the diff, you might say; but to ignore the youth tribe in a book supposedly about their style feels like a great missed opportunity to me. The most fascinating parts of Morrissey's "Hulmerist" film now are the lengthy shots of the fans - all those mini-Mozzers - congregating around the venue before his debut solo gig in 1988, with their 1988 haircuts and Doc Martens and everything. What this book needed was some of that.
'88 happens to be the year that author Sam Knee sniffily cuts off the time-frame for A Scene In Between, due to his disdain of the "ghastly" advent of the dance-inflected Madchester. Like all scene gatekeepers, he keeps a tight check on who is deemed worthy of examination, and, by-and-large, only the jangliest and 'shambling' of the C-86-ish guitar bands make the cut. So, The Pastels, The Vaselines, Orange Juice, The Shop Assistants, and so on, are all here, captured in hazy snapshots and posed band photos; glowering sullenly from under thick fringes of hair or moodily staring off into space. Of course no-one is smiling.
There are a few short, though not especially insightful selection of interviews and captions and bits of text. Mainly, though, it's just the photographs. Fittingly, these are often barely above photocopied fanzine level, which makes admiring the bands' cool threads a little difficult at times. Fortunately there are a enough good pics not to make the book a complete bust (all the ones featuring The Pastels, Strawberry Switchblade, Talulah Gosh, and The Jesus and Mary Chain are worth a look), and someone unearthed a few previously unseen ones of The Smiths, which provided the book with a decent scoop (they're all over the Internet now though - check yr Tumblr feed.)
Sam Knee of course repeats the canard that the charity-shop chic of 1980s indie was a reaction to the flashy clobber of the New Romantics and the severely shoulder-padded Thatcherites. That he also wants to celebrate this scruffy look in this glossy coffee table book is quite funny and also oddly touching.
The core look for girls, it seems, echoed a kind of kitchen-sink drama/Rita Tushingham/Cathy McGowan 1960s; for boys it was basically Hamburg or Rubber Soul era Beatles, with leather jackets for those who wanted to try and dilute their inherent nerdiness, or anoraks for those who decided, fuck it, I'll embrace it and try and make a virtue of it. Later on in the decade, and post Psychocandy, a Velvet Underground darkness falls over the scene just as the music becomes more intense.
It's this section, towards the end of the book, when the likes of Loop, My Bloody Valentine, and Spacemen 3 show up, that things get a bit more interesting. Maybe that's my own personal nostalgic fondness for the end of the decade talking, but I do find it a shame that Sam Knee closes the book here. If I had anything about me I would compile a further volume myself, covering the bands - and the fans! - of 1988-1993 (stopping short of the ghastly Britpop years, obviously).
April 15, 2018
Cool book recounting British C86 like pop from 1981-1988. Sam Knee includes great photos and interviews from band members as well.
September 10, 2022
This is a wonderful book about UK indie rock fashion in the 80s. I read the revised edition from 2020, featuring 9 new pages. The photography boasts the unique colour palette of the era as well as dusty black and white. The fashion is endearing: polo shirts and cardigans, skinny jeans and doc martens, back combed bird nest hair and sunglasses. I’ve always enjoyed this era for how geeky, teenage and cliquey everyone looks, there was a real community, the influence of the music is undeniable. I could just cry looking at picture of The Pastels, for Stephen really was such a beautiful man in his prime. Nearly every page dares you to admit “I wish that was me!”. Yes, even about the pictures of Morrissey. Sorry…not sorry.
I wish there was a little bit more writing to this book, but I wanted a photography book to yearn and cry on the pages of bygone punk rock, shoegaze and guitar pop, and that’s what I got. Here’s a drinking game, take a shot every time you see someone smiling. You will be very thirsty.
I wish there was a little bit more writing to this book, but I wanted a photography book to yearn and cry on the pages of bygone punk rock, shoegaze and guitar pop, and that’s what I got. Here’s a drinking game, take a shot every time you see someone smiling. You will be very thirsty.
March 25, 2024
Dat bepaalde muziekscenes in de muziekgeschiedenis een totaal eigen stijl hadden is iets wat we allemaal wel weten als we nog maar denken aan punk ten tijde van The Sex Pistols of aan het kapsel van The Beatles. Ook de indiebands uit het Verenigd Koninkrijk in de periode van 1980 tot en met 1988 hadden qua kleding en looks ook een geheel eigen stijl. En laat het nu net dat zijn waar Sam Knee in zijn boek A Scene In Between – Tripping through the fashions of UK indie music 1980-1988 op focust. Hij verzamelde hiervoor prachtige foto’s van bands als The Smiths, Orange Juice met Edwyn Collins, Marine Girls, Josef K, Television Personalities, The Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream en Spacemen 3 om er nog maar enkele op te noemen. Het levert een erg knap boek op waarin ook enkele interviews staan met muzikanten die bij een aantal van deze bands zaten. Een erg mooi boek en een enorme meerwaarde voor de muziekliefhebber.
November 17, 2019
A little too interested in the clothes and styles of the eighties indie bands and their noisier proto shoegaze friends at the end of the decade to fully resonate with me but a fascinating snapshot of a scene I still find endlessly interesting. I’d like a book on the more mundane bands and fans as a comparison, but it’s still a vital and hugely enjoyable book
June 20, 2022
Very cool look at the UK indie fashions, culture and music scene of the 80s.
I made a playlist of all the bands mentioned in the book: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OD...
I made a playlist of all the bands mentioned in the book: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OD...
February 5, 2025
Great little book of photos of obscure 1980s indie bands. Lots of names I’d forgotten about and lots more I’d never heard of. Floppy fringes everywhere. The Razorcuts - brilliant, The Sea Urchins - brilliant….🕺🏻🕺🏻
June 3, 2023
The enthusiasm of a zinester and the integrity of an archivist. Sam Knee's books are fun vintage counterculture gold.
September 4, 2025
Excellent photo book of the early 80s UK indie scene, your favorite bands, known and unknown...
January 23, 2025
THE fashion index and one of the best gifts from my last relationship.
July 21, 2014
i literally cannot express how excited this book made me ***wow***. 80's*, indie, bands, THE FASHION.
like wow.
read it today.
was slightly disappointed, mostly bc i expected the text to be on fashion. so this is what it was:::
:the little text there is, is always on the band/music, (which was actually cool, fleshing out my music education...) UNLESS
:it's one of the couple interviews with a band member, in which case there is a bit about the clothes
:to get the fashion side, you have to look at the pictures. and maybe take notes on what you observe and like. the photos ARE the BOOK. and the photos are so fun. love them.
i am even more expired by 80s* fashion now than i was before. (and like really i am. my mom regularly says that her teenage (in the 80s) self would be so jealous of my wardrobe. hip hip hurray)
*i realize that when you hear '80's' you are probably thinking about a huge buttload of UGLY.
when i think 80's, i think Denise Huxtable and big sweaters and skinny jeans and combat boots. a huge buttload of cool.
which this book is more geared towards.
like wow.
read it today.
was slightly disappointed, mostly bc i expected the text to be on fashion. so this is what it was:::
:the little text there is, is always on the band/music, (which was actually cool, fleshing out my music education...) UNLESS
:it's one of the couple interviews with a band member, in which case there is a bit about the clothes
:to get the fashion side, you have to look at the pictures. and maybe take notes on what you observe and like. the photos ARE the BOOK. and the photos are so fun. love them.
i am even more expired by 80s* fashion now than i was before. (and like really i am. my mom regularly says that her teenage (in the 80s) self would be so jealous of my wardrobe. hip hip hurray)
*i realize that when you hear '80's' you are probably thinking about a huge buttload of UGLY.
when i think 80's, i think Denise Huxtable and big sweaters and skinny jeans and combat boots. a huge buttload of cool.
which this book is more geared towards.
August 7, 2014
It'll only take you a couple of hours to read, but you'll spend way more time than that pouring over the (largely) unpublished photographs of various indie 'stars' and never weres. With a bias towards the floppy fringed, annorak wearing, '60s throwback children of the British '80s Indie scene, you'll be disappointed if you were expecting any pictures of Goths, Psychobillys etc. But by staying focussed and true to itself the book works a treat. The Smiths, Mary Chain, MBV and Pastels pictures in particular are a scream.
I'd love to see a volume two taking in the period '89-'94, since that's when I was drinking snakebite and watching bands in sticky-floored venues. One can but dream.
I'd love to see a volume two taking in the period '89-'94, since that's when I was drinking snakebite and watching bands in sticky-floored venues. One can but dream.
December 15, 2013
A Scene in Between is fantastic, a real trip down memory lane. I'm an American who moved to England in 1985 when I was 20. As an Anglophile I would try to cop the looks of bands I'd see in NME and Melody Maker but when I moved to England I took my obsession to a whole new level, fully immersing myself into the scene. I can't tell you how many fashions and haircuts I ripped off from kids and bands like the ones portrayed in Knee's book. To this day I still rock Chelsea books and skinny jeans and my favorite bands remain the Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Loop, Spacemen 3 etc.
December 15, 2015
Many thank yous to Stevie who made me aware of this volume and to Dominic who remembered me pointing it out to him at Rough Trade East one day and kindly bestowed it upon me on the day of my birth this year. Up there with other forever fave Forming: The Early Days of LA Punk for perennial source of inspiration and just being such a well assembled little book.
December 7, 2013
Drooling. Falling in love w/someone on every page.
October 23, 2013
Simply super.
January 26, 2014
porn for wimmen
March 7, 2014
If I was skinnier, this would be my fashion bible.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews