IN PRAISE OF THE OCEAN BLUE'S "CERULEAN"

It's not unheard of for me to find an album I like in the car and play it endlessly for days, weeks, up to a month. This era's album is Cerulean by The Ocean Blue.

I should hate The Ocean Blue. I can't adequately explain why I don't. Cerulean rocks the house, it's so clean and the playing is so great. All the songs are catchy & inventive and the lyrics aren't the usual 'oh baby' crap.

Not that I approve necessarily of lyrics like "a pocket full of poseys, she's my marigold". In fact I might still have to deliver the only beatdown of my life if I ever meet the singer of The Ocean Blue.

It goes like this. I think it was 1990, Dave B. conned me into going to the Newport to see John Wesley Harding, The Ocean Blue and The Mighty Lemon Drops. Usually I (like many people, I bet) did whatever Dave suggested. Without really knowing why, I guess he just was good at pushing me around in a good way.

I wasn't a fan of any of the bands before the gig, though I believe one of my early penfiends had sent me a dub of some Mighty Lemon Drops material which I liked okay but wasn't crazy about.

Let's see, the gig. John Wesley Harding was great at capturing the moment but nothing more than that. It was just him with an acoustic guitar, very ironically, very knowingly, very Britishly "here I am with my acoustic guitar". He had a witty song about Live Aid that was actually kind of shocking to me because I'd never considered Live Aid to be anything but... y'know, a force for good. And here was Wes kind of funnily poking holes in it. Nice one!

Then came The Ocean Blue, who was likely touring on their first album. The one with "Drifting, Falling" which is still one of their greatest moments. What blew me away about them was how there were no distorted guitars, no Marshall stacks (this might've been one of the few non metal shows I went to at that point) & yet they were strangely powerful. Wimpily powerful? The singer, with his awful awful stringy blond bowl cut hairdo. That's all I remember about their show, his stupid hair.

The Mighty Lemon Drops, no lie, went totally over my head. I get into 'em now because I understand what they're about. But at the gig there was no chance! It was more information than I could process. I remember them playing very enthusiastically and being bombarded by g0th girls in the balcony with .... wait for it..... lemon drop candy.

Spring 1991 and The Ocean Blue releases Cerulean. It blew me away then and it still blows me away. The production, the album cover, the songs, it's all so great. Horribly cheesy in more than one spot, embarassingly pretentious, but ya know... that's a small price to pay for spine tingley goodness. And that's also a small price to pay for being able to enjoy something so much that isn't King Diamond.



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