Pros and cons of being in a band with your sibling. On the one hand, you’re super sensitive to all the trigger points and know how far you can push him or her before it all explodes. You’ve been stealing each other’s Etch-a-sketch since you were three. On the other hand, if you completely lose it with him or her, like one of the March sisters does in Little Women and burns her sister’s novel manuscript, then all bets are off.
In the “all bets are off” camp first and foremost must come The Kinks. If you only know them from the melodic wistfulness of Waterloo Sunset or Autumn Almanac it might come as a shock to hear about Ray and Dave Davies’s fistfights and the trail of destruction, quite literal in the case of hotel rooms, that they left behind.
Some siblings are more mysterious – what’s it like to be in the wilds of northern Scotland, creating and curating the strange soundscapes of Boards of Canada with just your brother for company? Better than working in an office, for sure. But, well, also a bit weird. I tend to think of them as in their mid-twenties, but they must be in their fifties by now.
Sparks I’ve banged on about before. But I’ll just add that I kinda mentally assumed Ron and Russ shared the same house until I saw The Sparks Brothers documentary. Probably should have given that some more thought. They are, after all, in their mid-seventies now. Maybe it’ll come full circle and they’ll end up in the same nursing home. But meanwhile these dudes are currently embarking on a worldwide tour. Full and massive credit.
Sisters seem maybe to get on more easily in bands. Interviews I’ve read with the Deal sisters, for example (The Breeders) suggest as much. Probably best not to extrapolate too wide ranging a theory from that data point, since see the March sisters above. Brother-sister combos are intriguing – see Fiery Furnaces and Minimal Schlager. Then there are the trio of siblings in The Cribs and Womb. Plenty of scope for old kindergarten grudges to bubble to the surface. And what about The National where there are two, and sometimes three sets of siblings, kicking around, with their secret codes and impenetrable silences.
One final observation - I did a previous episode about ‘Brothers and Sisters’ as a theme, way way back, which you may also be interested in digging out.
Tracklist:
Coffee in the pot, Supergrass
Men’s needs, The Cribs
Here comes the summer, Fiery Furnaces
David Watts, The Kinks
One million kisses, Half Japanese
No aloha, The Breeders
Plateau, Meat Puppets
Star, Belly
Over the horizon radar, Boards of Canada
Scientific romance, Lymbic System
Sylvan’s song, Womb
On this day, And Also The Trees
Safe in your hands, Title Fight
Inside me, Jesus and Mary Chain
Hasta manana monsieur, Sparks
Forbidden fruit, Minimal Schlager
Before the water gets too high, Parquet Courts
Slow show, The National
A great northern river, The Unthanks