Gene

Full of foppish romanticism and soaring, bookish indie anthems, Gene drew from The Smiths' box of tricks and swaggered with mod attitude as they became a staple of the 1990s Brit pop scene. They were formed when guitarist Steve Mason spotted Martin Rossiter strutting across the floor of a Watford nightclub and judged him cool enough to front his then band Spin. They released their first track For The Dead through independent label Costermonger, and received rave reviews from NME and Select magazine, who both named it Single of the Week. Gigs supporting Pulp further enhanced their reputation, before debut album Olympian reached Number 8 in the UK charts and positioned them as one of the more eloquent and high-brow guitar groups of the time. Singles Fighting Fit, Olympian, We Could Be Kings and Where Are They Now? all fared well and third album Drawn To The Deep End (1997) again made the UK Top 10. But, as the decade closed and the scene imploded, the raw, politically charged, harder edged Revelations (1999) struggled and they were dropped by their record label Polydor. The band split in 2004 after playing at the Morrissey curated Meltdown Festival, but Rossiter went on to release the solo album The Defenestration of St Martin in 2012.