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Magoo

Signed to label: Chemikal Underground
From: Norfolk, East England

The Magoo story began deep in the heart of Norfolk some time in the early 1990’s.

After a handful of inauspicious gigs, culminating in an audience free appearance at Norwich's in-door go cart track during Sound City, Magoo decided that this was the life for them and then spent the next few years writing and recording.

A batch of self financed seven inch singles received many favourable reviews, the NME thought Magoo "Brilliant”, the Melody Maker “A bewilderment of riches”, and also received sporadic airplay from John Peel, Mark Radclife and even Radio 3's Mixing It.

Continuing to write at an unhealthily rapid rate Magoo went back into the studio to record tracks for a brace of new releases including another seven inch single, an NME compilation CD, and Songs About Plucking a double seven inch package from Fierce Panda.

A short and unfortunately imposed break allowed Magoo to take stock after this flurry of activity and thus eventually hook up with Glasgow's superhip Chemikal Underground making them label mates with Mogwai, Arab Strap, bis and of course The Delgados.

The first fruits of this new relationship was A To Z And Back Again the precursor to their debut album The Soateramic Sounds Of Magoo. Possibly a large pill to swallow in it's entirety the album was said to be "the great lost English pop classic" by the Melody Maker, who we to be honest would never argue with.

With Magoo's star in ascendance they continued to increase their live profile by touring with the likes of The Delgados, Cable and Urusei Yatsura and also managed an appearance at the CMJ festival in New York.

After the release of their debut album Magoo took some time out to take on new personnel, record a split seven inch tribute to Black Sabbath with label mates Mogwai (for Fierce Panda) which reached number 60 in the hit parade, become the centre of a DSS investigation, and lastly pen and record their second album, Vote The Pacifist Ticket Today.

The first release from Vote The Pacifist Ticket Today , Holy Smoke went down a storm; John Peel loved the single inviting the band down for their third session for his show, Mark Radcliffe also picked up on it giving it play in his new afternoon slot, and XFM put it on their A-List. Magoo then went on tour with The Delgados again, played at the Glastonbury Festival and opened at The Meltdown Festival at the South Bank with Cornershop & Gorkys Zygotic Mynci. Swiss Border Escape followed up where Holy Smoke left off with more plays on Steve Lamacq and John Peel, Mr. Peel in particular was moved to exclaim that "this is the best thing the band have ever done" and went on to play the single seven times in eight programmes.

Vote The Pacifist Ticket Today eventually followed and was greeted with critical acclaim with The Guardian leading the admirers “Magoo continue to be resolutely indie but hugely ambitious, Vote The Pacifist Ticket Today is the nearest thing Britain has to the labyrinthine, mutant DIY thinking behind The Flaming Lips and Guided By Voices.”

After the release of Vote The Pacifist Ticket Today Magoo had another change in personnel, built their very own studio the Sick Room, changed record labels and wrote and recorded their third album Realist Week.

East Polar Opposite Can Dream was the first release from the new album and the first release on the new label and was quickly followed by the release of the album in August 2001. Again the album received much critical acclaim, Xfm made it album of the week, Uncut said it was “Magoo’s best album to date, full of wired beats, twisted falsetto and sand blasted rock riffs”, and the NME stated Realist Week was “proof that you don’t need a pad in Greenwich Village to make great guitar records”. Knowledge Is Power soon followed building on the success of the album and saw the band venture into the murky world of MTV for the first time with an unusual video which didn’t feature the band and at times not even the song !

Since Realist Week Magoo have been hidden away writing and recording material for album number four and recording records for Bearsuit, KaitO, The Broken Family Band, Helene and Luma Lane (amongst others) at their Sick Room studio.

The first taste of the fourth album was a very recently released double A side Can’t Get Off The Ground Today / Expansion Ride on their own May Go Zero label. The Scottish music magazine Is This Music said “If you look up Magoo in the dictionary it says “see ‘criminally underrated’””, we’ve checked it doesn’t actually but it’s nice of them to say.

Magoo’s fourth album may very well be released later this year.

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