Hi, We are Travis - and You Are?
Travis is a band that I have loved for over 7 years now. Their careers started out with a huge Indie push. While people like me went out and snarfed up the new "Good Feeling." and devoured it, most people found it to be akin to a flaming duck taking a shit while falling out of the sky. I found it to be quite original in some parts. You could hear Fran's voice wanting to be softer and then harder. You can tell Andy was going to be a great guitar player if he only had the right songs to do it.
Well "The Man Who" came along and everyone peed themselves 2 years later when "Why does it always rain on me?" hit the airwaves. Now I had Travis fans coming out of the woodwork but something very strange was happening. No one knew it was Travis. They were always saying ,"Oh I love this song." or 'Oh my God this song is so good." And I squirmed and worried that my band would be known as "that band". They would fall into the same cateogry as Simply Red or Rick Springfield. So for years I carried the banner and armed with burned cds and a big mouth I proclaimed to spread the word as much as possible.
While in Britain they exploded, here in the states they floundered and clung on to college girls attention spans the same way a pimply face kid hangs on to the controllers while staying in the 'Adams' dorm. And that was their fan base, 50,000 college girls wanting to fall in love with a wee Scotsman who sang about love and video taped himself pooping and holding his baby, and me. Always me at these concerts surrounded by girls in big sweatshirts with hats and acne. AHHHH! But alas -they came out of that unmarred as well.
The Internet thievery was in full swing and while fighting the hordes of Randy 'Travis' fans out their on the mp3 circuit I managed to procure enough live shows that if rolled into pieces of paper could choke a donkey. I sold these online and became a Travis aficionado. I was organizing meet ups before gigs and got to meet Fran and Andy a couple times.
Sooner or later the trend of 'Why does it always rain on me?' faded away. They were brought back to the tunes. They toured again without a new album. They chose Remy Zero as their opening act and I followed them to 3 more shows and loved every second of it. They combined their first gnarled mean album and this sad bastard album and came out with a set and a sound that was equivalent to the Stones or Oasis. And what was better is that these guys were modest, honest, down to Earth, fun people to watch put on a show. They were my favorite band for a couple years.
The last two albums, 'The Invisible band' and '12 memories' weren't as radio friendly, or maybe they had just been run over by the Coldplay bus and two sappy European bands couldn't handle the airwaves in the big ole' USofA. But, it didn't matter to me - because I could still be in any bar, at any house, in any harem and like a dog smelling bacon 3 houses over, rise to my feet and say to anybody next to me, "This is fucking Travis mate.". And I would sing every line. The sad part is - that person will start singing as well only to look back at me and say -"Who is this again?"
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Travis has an album out now called "Singles" - if you don't own a Travis album - I would not be ashamed of anyone buying this and I recommend it with the utmost fever. If you like Travis - these are some other bands you may not know but may really like -
Remy ZeroDovesSouthElbowThe 88Turin Brakes
