Once a vehicle for like-minded stars, these days supergroups allow unlikely friends to indulge their experimental side
I have a tone on my phone that announces the arrival of a new indie supergroup, and it's bleeping a lot at the moment. Appearing to peak a couple of years ago, the event of members of blog-standard alternative groups forming relatively engaging side projects intensifies all the time, and two of the biggest groups in the world at the moment, Arcade Fire and Gorillaz, are built on indie supergroup principles; the fluid, cosmopolitan fusing of talents, taste and attitudes taken from differing places and styles.
There goes my alert now: Gayngs, a super-sized soft-rock Jagjaguwar supergroup, featuring 23 members of Bon Iver, the Rosebuds, Solid Gold, Megafaun, Digitata and Doomtree. And again: Wild Flag, comprising members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium and the Minders. That might not be as impressive as, say, Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley, Don Covay, Ben E King and Joe Tex getting together, vocally, as the Soul Clan in 1968, but if there is one thing that the history of popular music has shown us these past 50 years, things change. Once, the supergroup was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, now it's the Monsters of Folk (a mix of Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket and M Ward), although that possibly tells us that, actually, nothing changes, apart from packaging, T-shirt design and distribution methods.
Once, the supergroup mixed up Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson (Bad Company). Now, sure, there is still the big-time blending of Led Zeppelin, Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age (Them Crooked Vultures) or Joy Division, Stone Roses, Primal Scream and the Smiths (Free Bass), or dubstep top dogs Skream, Benga and Artwork (Magnetic Man), but my alert (it's SXSW time of year) has just gone off announcing members of Delta Spirit, Dawes and Deer Tick combining as Middle Brother. In some quarters, that inspires the modern equivalent of hold the front page. And today's typical blogger will describe the Mister Heavenly combination of Nick Thorburn (Islands), Honus Honus (Man Man) and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse) as a "pitch-perfect indie supergroup".
Some might say supergroups are convivial side projects; carefree friends enjoying/indulging themselves in studios and rehearsal rooms; a way of time travelling into a previous decade; swift post-group break-up rebounds (Billy Corgan's Zwan); a self-aggrandising way of extending various lucrative franchises (see Velvet Revolver, half Guns N' Roses, half Stone Temple Pilots, and Audioslave, half Soundgarden, half Rage Against the Machine, or even Child Rebel Soldier, with Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Lupe Fiasco.). Then there's Tinted Windows ? a curdle of Hanson, Cheap Trick, Fountains of Wayne and the Smashing Pumpkins ? and Tired Pony ? REM, Snow Patrol and Belle and Sebastian ? who truly prove some musicians have only one group in them and they should only be in one group. If that.
The original concept of the 60s supergroup, when rock royalty was forming, was more plain or ugly than beautiful. The embryonic muso matiness of 1968's Super Session (guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills) and Eric Clapton's Blind Faith led to mutant 80s supergroups such as Asia (Yes meets ELP meets Buggles meets King Crimson meets arthritis) and Power Station (Robert Palmer meets Duran Duran meets Chic meets shoulder pad). Supergroups for a while were just the way old bands kept going before the internet found them, mixing ageing members and vintage histories, and triggering a little bit of publicity by putting someone from Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann with Jimmy Page (the Firm). These days, with an eye and an ear on synergetic hip-hop methods, the insider/outsider tough love of the Highwaymen (Nelson, Cash, Kristofferson, Jennings) as well as the classic on-the-road rock camaraderie of the Traveling Wilburys (Dylan, Harrison, Lynne, Petty, Orbison), Jack White, post-White Stripes, forms groups like it's a habit he can't quit. It's how he gets high.
In this post-record label, cut, paste and remix world, where commercial, critical and artistic standards have, for better or worse, greatly relaxed, the trend is for chummy, occasionally creative collaborations between members of different groups that fancy experimenting with other sides of their musical characters, because they can. Without having anyone to answer to now that they can do it themselves, groups, scenes, musicians and eras are increasingly tangled up. This is a sign either that we now live in a golden age of unchecked creative opportunity, or in that collapsing period of rock history ? the aftermath ? where you can do what you want because it really doesn't matter.
A new alert. Not, alas, stupefied singer Taylor Swift, Chris Watson (once of Cabaret Voltaire, now natural history BBC sound recordist), artist Jeremy Deller, poet Don Paterson and sound deconstructionist Actress, forming my kind of mixed media supergroup, Union of Glamour. Alas, it's Candy Golde ? classic duff supergroup name alert ? who comprise members of Cheap Trick, Wilco and Eleventh Dream Day. Oddly, they make me yearn for Katmandu, a 1984 group featuring Mungo Jerry's Ray Dorset, Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green and Atomic Rooster's Vincent Crane. Super.
Eve Brittany Lee Daisy Fuentes Asia Argento Charisma Carpenter
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