Rollerskate Skinny

Born originally under the name of The Hippyshakes somewhere at the '80, the name Rollerskate Skinny was adopted only in 1991, chosen from a line in the famous "The Catcher In The Rye" book (which I'm a great fan of, just sayin'). They caught the eye of everyone by the time they changed the name due to one of its members, who was nobody less than Jimi Shields, younger brother of Kevin (this one you know very well, right?). With all the Loveless frisson going on back then, everyone was paying attention to RS, specially because they shared sonic similarities with Kevin's noise assemblage, which made comparisions, cynic or not, unavoidable by everyone.

Well, let's focus in what really maters, their artistic capacity. Of course, they did not make another Loveless, but they put a couple of solid Shoegaze/Noise Pop albums on the streets in the kidna short career. The first one, Shoulder Voices, was released at 1994 (recorded without the presence of J. Shields by then, since he left due to the insistent comparisions with MBV and his brother), and the second, Horsedrawn Wishes, came at 1996. Although it's easy to see many elements that characterize "the scene that celebrates itself" in RS art, they did not stick into it and incorporated many other influences to their sound sphere, relating them stronger to acts like The Boo Radleys, Mercury Rev and jangle pop genre.

To sum it up, RS is, if not one of the brightest bands around at an already-declining Shoegaze scene, one of the most innovative, and could very well survive this downhill as they were creative enough to make music "outside the box", but somehow they just didn't "make it". Lack of public, media interest, label coverage, doesn't matter the reasons now. The point is, RS remains a rather overlooked and unexplored gem, even for the most avid Shoegaze fans, therefore it's mandatory to have its name spread as far as possible, immediatly.

get it! (new link from Mega)

















get it! (new link from Mega)