A Non-Tsunami of Manic Street Preacher Friends
Life not becoming a landslide of fellow Manics-loving mates
I first got into Manics as a high school senior. More than three decades later, they are still my all-time favorite band! So when I started college and the interwebs was still brand new (Netscape browser, anyone?), I was messing around in the computer lab and found alt.music.manicstreetpreachers I think it was.
It was so cool being able to see these forum posts in somewhat real time from people around the world (but let’s face it, mostly from the UK) who also loved “Motorcycle Emptiness.”
One day there was a post from someone who not only was in LA like me, but a fellow student at my same school, in my same year. Wow, what are the chances! You have to understand there were zero people in my orbit who knew them. Not even many people in North America either. I read an article recently where Nicky Wire said their first gig in the US had like 4 people in the audience. And I recall some TV show in the UK where Toni Braxton was the guest, and she was asked if she had heard of Manic Street Preachers. She replied with something like, “No, are they a religious group?”
When you hear the word “mixtape,” the classic image that comes to mind is of a cassette or a burned CD. I have made my share of both…
