Curve

"I've come to break your face"

Who?
Vastly under-rated act who got sort of lumped in with shoegazing, probably becasue they drank in the mixer and were otherwise unquantifiable. Based round Dean Garcia and Toni Halliday - and briefly, Debbie who went on to be in Echobelly - the band were mocked for dodgy pasts (Dean briefly a Eurythmic; Toni having an Alanis/Tori style pure pop past) and, worse, because Toni looked like a model. The early 90's were funny times, it was okay to look attractive for indie women, but not if you looked like you'd be attractive to people who didn't go to the Syndrome. The band took a long hiatus and started to work together again towards the end of the last century, and have enough side projects going to keep them out of trouble.

Essential?
Die like a dog; the frozen ep; but again, you really can't go wrong

Obscure?
Balding boys in their late 20s will go misty eyed if they ever wore Doc Martens; beyond that market, barely a blip

Trivial details:
Curve once cancelled a gig because they couldn't get their wind machine onto the stage. This band was all about presentation


Not to be confused with:
The Cure, Robert Smith fronted Crawley goth survivors, or Curveball, a scouse band who nearly clambered onto the juggernaut of 'just up the m62 from Madchester' signings during the Happy Mondays era, but fell off when the juggernaut realised it had signed the Farm. According to a graffito in the toilets of Liverpool University Student Union, their lead singer sucked elephant dicks.