Tiger - On The Rose

Label: Trade 2

Year of Release: 1997

Tiger have already featured on "Left and to the Back" courtesy of their album "We Are Puppets". Therefore, the background behind the act can be found in some depth here, and it's hard to find much more to say about them, apart from perhaps underlining and re-emphasising the fact that they were a seriously unusual, skewed and periodically brilliant band. These days they'd be consigned to the margins, but the late nineties were an unusual period when the music industry seemed open to all manner of possibilities.

This version of "On The Rose" is actually sharper and harder than the one found on the album, and actually slightly less satisfying - I'm left wondering why the need to re-record it and actually decommercialise it slightly was felt, although I doubt the latter outcome was anybody's intention. The B-side "On Spanish Farmland" is a period curio, however, and whilst it doesn't feature on the seven inch, I've also thrown in "I'm In Love With RAF Nurse" which came on the CD version and always felt rather wasted there. "I guess I'm a man/ ONE OF THE MEN!" barks Dan Laidler in a rather uncertain, testy way, as the band thud and drone behind him in a manner akin to a military march organised by art-school students with guitars.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, you know.