No. 30 Bettie Serveert - Tom Boy

OK, so this whole blog project is (partly) an exercise in nostalgia, despite my fairly frequently expressed distaste for the whole 'heritage' music scene. It's fair to say though, that if I were to look all wistful about a particular year, 1992 would be a strong contender. It has always seemed to me that this was a good time for music, with lots of good bands releasing their best work. However, on reflection I'm not convinced this is actually the case - my suspicion is that I have particular fondness for 1992, because it was a time of plentiful gigs, frequent festivals and a degree of underemployment that left me with enough money to buy music and enough time to peruse shops, both new and secondhand, and actually acquire the stuff.

So this was part of the rush of great music that, for me at least, made 1992 a vintage year.

Bettie Serveert were/are the most well known Dutch post-grunge rockers from this period. They toured with the likes of Buffalo Tom and Dinosaur Jr, produced a cracking debut album, Palomine, which came out in the UK, on Guernica, the short-lived 4AD off-shoot, then switched to (the also ill-fated) Beggars Banquet and are, it would seem, still active. Tom Boy was their first single, backed by a decent b-side, Smile. Well worth a listen if you don't know their stuff, well worth wallowing in the nostalgia for 4 minutes and 21 seconds if you do.