Anson Men

Poor Strangelove. I should have loved them, really.

They were from my birthplace Bristol. They made epic indie music that reached beyond the boundaries of the small gig circuit and on a par with their contemporaries. Yet... Patrick Duff and his band of merry men got (excuse the pun) duff treatment from me back in the early to mid 1990s.

Today's post focuses on their support slot for American Music Club at The Anson Rooms (aka the University of Bristol Student Union) in Clifton, the posh part of Bristol, both literally and metaphorically elevated above the city and it's surround.

The date was Friday 21st October 1994 and I was there, purely and simply, to see American Music Club. My (soon to be) ex-girlfriend wasn't. I wrote about my experience of their performance last May and had this to say:

[My] college ex was a fan of Strangelove, especially Patrick Duff, 

so for her this would have been the appeal of the gig over the headliners.

Sadly, not my first time seeing Strangelove - 

I would have seen them at least once 

at the Bristol Community Festival at Ashton Court - 

but I can't remember much, other than they were 'good'.

At the time of the gig, my girlfriend and I were still a couple, though it must have been one of the last things we did together as I was temporarily living in Derby before the year was out. 

Maybe it was our souring relationship and her interest in the floppy fringed frontman of Strangelove that made me disinclined to like the band. Yes, I could (and probably still can) be that petty.

Not a lot of personal memories of their set that night then, or previous Ashton Court Festivals, which is less surprising as they were frequently spent oiled up and under the influence and in the company of like minded friends.

Which makes recreating a setlist both a challenge and an opportunity to give Strangelove another (fair) hearing, thirty-odd years later.

The details of their set at The Anson Rooms in 1994 has not been captured online, so I've created a composite 12-song setlist, drawn from three contemporaneous performances: the Marquee Club in London on 8th June 1994, followed by the Astoria on 19th August 1994, with a Black Session @ 'La Maison La Radio' in Paris on 28th October 1994, a week after their Bristol gig.

Three quarters of this imaginary set is drawn from Strangelove's debut album, Time For The Rest Of Your Life, albeit out of sequence apart from the opening song. The remaining three songs include their 1992 debut Visionary, Hysteria Unknown and Wolf's Story Part I, which didn't a physical release until 1996, when Parts I to III appeared on CD2 of the Beautiful Alone single.

I've never heard the Strangelove album before now and of the smattering of songs already in my collection, none feature here, so the playback of this selection was as fresh to me as it will be to you, listening to it for the first time today.

The verdict? Strangelove got the shitty end of the stick from me back in 1994 and in 2026, I've really enjoyed their music. Time for the rest of my life, perhaps, but I will make more time to listen to Strangelove and catch up with what Patrick Duff has been up to since.

1) Sixer

2) Hopeful

3) Visionary

4) Wolf’s Story Part I

5) Quiet Day

6) World Outside

7) Hysteria Unknown

8) Time For The Rest Of Your Life

9) Low Life

10) The Return Of The Real Me

11) Is There A Place?

12) Sand

1992: Visionary EP: 3

1993: Hysteria Unknown EP: 7

1994: Time For The Rest Of Your Life: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

1996: Beautiful Alone EP: 4

Anson Men (58:13) (GD) (M)

If you want to recreate the whole evening (musically speaking, no relationship breakdowns please!), then you can find my recreation of American Music Club's set here.