Iterations: Catherine Wheel – “Black Metallic”

Iterations: Catherine Wheel – “Black Metallic”
Catherine Wheel - "Black Metallic"

I didn’t think this post was going to be as long as it has turned out to be, but I somehow forgot that Catherine Wheel fans are a devoted lot, and so it figures there’d be no shortage of quality versions of the band’s signature song. But that’s cool. This one goes out to my friend Kyle, as big a CW freak as ever there was, on his birthday.

The band’s first single from their 1992 debut Ferment, it was released in November 1991 accompanied by their first official video:

An earlier recorded version of the song also exists, as it was part of their John Peel Session from April 1991:

There’s some pretty good professional live footage from their appearance at the Great Xpectations festival sponsored by radio station Xfm in June 1993 at London’s Finsbury Park:

Washington, DC station WHFS included an acoustic radio session version of the song on a 1996 compilation CD, Just Passin’ Thru:

A live recording of the song from the University of London in February 1998 was included as a b-side on one of the CDEPs for Adam & Eve single “Broken Nose“:

And here’s Rob Dickinson as a solo artist doing an acoustic version of the song while touring his 2005 solo record Fresh Wine For The Horses. I was going to say “I was at this show” but as it turns out I was not – I was at his October 2005 gig at The Horseshoe and his March 2006 show at Lee’s, but not this last one. I think I was on an intense run of shows then and figured I could give this one a pass. Of course, I then skipped his next two local shows – his final ones, as it turned out – so… yeah.

And to the covers. The song closed out the first volume of Never Lose That Feeling, a series of early ’00s shoegaze tribute compilations assembled by Club AC30 – full intent to write a little more about those in the future – as interpreted by American electronic composer Plumbline:

And it also opened the second volume of the series in 2006, as interpreted by Nashville ambient duo Hammock with vocals by Christine Glass. It also appeared on their 2013 EPs, Singles & Remixes digital compilation:

And finally, a mournful and acoustic version by Anna-Lynne Williams as Lotte Kestner, included on her Covers Vol. 2 album last year.

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