BAND INFORMATION & HISTORY

CHAPTER 5

When the debut album Garbage was released, the previously fawning media began to grumble about Butch's band being a privileged rich man's toy. Even so, the sheer quality of the record itself dispelled these snipes easily, and the general reaction was one of critical acclaim. Indeed, Butch argued that having him in the band on most occasions worked against them, because people were coming to Garbage's music with preconceived ideas or agendas. Shirley acknowledged this fact when she said in Retroactive Baggage, "We knew we had to make a good album, we wouldn't get a second chance at it. If we'd come out with a below - average album, we'd have been crucified, so it had to be good and we were shitting ourselves."

The opening 'Supervixen' blasts the listener into Garbage's world, interspersing long drawn out silences with a cutting and memorable riff splicing the song together. Next up was the soon-to be single 'Queer', infectious and dark, mellow guitar work behind the tale of a street-working woman paid to go and make a son into a man. 'Only Happy When It Rains' continues the onslaught of quality, with its pseudo-goth gloomy mood and ironic chastisement of the self-indulgent alternative rock martyrs. Future singles 'Milk' and 'Stupid Girl' were instant classics, and the scary 'Stroke of Luck' reminds the listener that Garbage are never going to be merely a superficial pop band. The entire record was a concoction of brilliant creativity, and was rightfully heralded by critics and the public alike as the arrival of a major new force on the scene.

The Internet magazine Addicted To Noise said "The sound of Garbage is akin to a Jackson Pollock painting, thick layers upon layers of sound that have been stripped down, torn apart, pasted together and then stripped again, until the result is a dizzy soundscape that reveals fresh nuances upon repeated listening." NME said: "Garbage's eponymous debut album confirmed them as, quite simply, a fantastic pop group: luscious guitar layering, meddling with samples and loops. and studio boffinary, 'FX' as conjured by, literally,some of the finest minds of a musical generation, resulting in melodious avant-garde electra-pop-rock mastery featuring a vocal sound of delicious perversion."

Having not played a gig thus far, Garbage now began a world tour to promote their album which would last for over two years and see them sell out concert halls across America, Europe, Japan, the Far East and Australasia. They started small - there first gig was at a dingy club in Minneapolis, where they were disappointed to discover that the large crowd snaking around the block outside was actually queuing to see the shock horror band Gwar, who were playing upstairs!

Hitting the UK in late November 1995, with a show at the famous Town & Country Club (now renamed The Forum) in Kentish Town, London, Garbage set about conquering the world with their still-fledgling live show. Very quickly, it became apparent that reproducing their complex and musically diverse recordings in an unforgiving live environment was going to prove very difficult. Firing off the numerous samples, Loops and noises meant that their early shows were rather shambolic, with less forgiving on-lookers claiming that the studio creation of Butch Vig was little more than a sterile fabrication. Butch acknowledged these difficulties when he said to the LA Times, "the first shows were just kinda out of control. We were all musicians before we were producers but I'd forgotten what it's like to be out there. It's exciting and fun, but it's also terrifying, because you can't control things the way you can in a studio setting." Still, Shirley's parents finally got to see their daughter play live!

Over the coming month, Garbage began to settle into a live show that was as dynamic and compelling as their records, except that their gigs were far more brutal, more organic and striking than the studio precision of the album. Wrapping her microphone stand in a pink feather boa, Shirley became very much the center of attention, wrenching the focus away from the previously central Butch Vig. Her sexuality on stage and strong minded character in the press created an aura around her that propelled her to the status of one of the pop world's leading female light's. She is very blunt about her pride in being a woman, telling The Face "A lot of women still feel like they can't play up their feminine side and be taken seriously as an artiste, but I still see that as suffering at the hands of a male dominated industry. I've always felt I am female and I'm not gonna hide that for anyone. I love wearing make up and I love for people to make me look as good as I possibly can. And I don't want to play down my breasts or my bum or my legs. I mean, fuck it, it's there to be enjoyed - being a woman is to be enjoyed just the same as being a man is to be enjoyed."

With her tight bra-less mini T shirts, knee high boots, soft Scottish accent and tantalizingly short skirts, Shirley seemed able to play the adoring crowds into the palm of her hand. Her overt sexuality was reinforced by the series of provocative interviews she did in the press at this time. In one article, she claimed she enjoyed nothing more than pulling a man's trousers down to see if he was wearing any underwear. In another, she claimed she to have shit on a former lover's cornflakes as revenge for his infidelities, having previously pissed in his belly button. And yet another headline grabber, she said she was fascinated by the idea of having a penis for a year, just to see what sex and life with one was like. At the same time she mentioned she had thought of becoming a priest! The resulting fan cult that built around her was all the more peculiar to Shirley in the light of her own childhood, and indeed adulthood, insecurities. For one who was used to being bullied and isolated for her looks, to be revered and admired for the same appearance now was something of a culture shock.

Unfortunately for her legions of male fans, Shirley was not available - on 7th September, 1996 she married her long term boyfriend Eddie, having first met on a farm in France on holiday. Shirley's mother credits Eddie, an artist and groundskeeper, with saving her daughter from "going off the rail's", claiming that he single-handedly turned her life around. The happy couple took time off from Garbage's hectic tour schedule to set up home in a small cottage in Edinburgh next to a dry cleaners.