The Wave Pictures

The trouble with the neo-Brit-pop explosion of the last half of the first decade of the 2000s, whatever one might call it, is that far too many of the bands have taken either the Kinks and the Who or Blur and Oasis as their conceptual starting points, ignoring all that came in between. The Wave Pictures, however, start with the tongue-in-cheek confessionalism of the Smiths and solo Morrissey on the one hand and the scrappy D.I.Y. aesthetic of the C-86 school on the other, and take it from there. The Wave Pictures originally formed in 1998 in their hometown, the tiny rural village of Wymeswold in northern Leicestershire, in Great Britain's East Midlands. Heavily influenced by both their parents' classic rock record collections and John Peel's indie-centric radio show, the teenage trio consisting of lead singer and guitarist David Tattersall, bassist Franic Rozycki, and drummer Hugh J. Noble was originally saddled with the remarkably naff name Blind Summit, until a name change to the Wave Pictures coincided with Noble's university-bound departure from the band.

Eventually, the Wave Pictures took their final form with the addition of drummer Jonny "Huddersfield" Helm. For the first eight years of their career, while the three members attended different universities, the Wave Pictures were a part-time affair that stuck strictly to the D.I.Y. circuit, eventually recording a total of six albums that were self-released in tiny CD-R pressings sold at gigs and traded with likeminded artists like Herman Düne, the Mountain Goats, Jeffrey Lewis, and Darren Hayman (ex-Hefner), all of whom the Wave Pictures collaborated with live and on record. In 2006, with Tattersall, Rozycki, and Helm all out of school, the Wave Pictures moved to London and signed with the indie label Moshi Moshi Records, which released the trio's first proper album, Sophie, the same year. The Wave Pictures' second album, Instant Coffee Baby, followed in 2008.