Debbie Googe

Last updated

Debbie Googe
Debbie Googe en Porto.jpg
Googe performing with Thurston Moore in 2015
Background information
Born
Deborah Ann Googe

(1962-10-24) 24 October 1962 (age 63)
Yeovil, Somerset, England
Genres Alternative rock, shoegaze
OccupationMusician
Years active1985–present
Labels Fever Records, Kaleidoscope Sound, Lazy Records, Creation, Island, MBV.
Member of My Bloody Valentine Thurston Moore Group, Brix Smith, da Googie
Formerly of Primal Scream, Snowpony, Bikini Mutants

Deborah Ann Googe (born 24 October 1962) [1] [2] [3] is an English musician, who achieved international fame as the bassist for My Bloody Valentine. Their studio albums Isn't Anything (1988) and Loveless (1991) established Googe as a pioneering figure in the shoegaze genre. She has also worked with Snowpony, Primal Scream and Thurston Moore.

Contents

Career

My Bloody Valentine

Goog (center) playing live with My Bloody Valentine, Dublin 2005 My bloody valentine Dublin 20058.jpg
Goog (center) playing live with My Bloody Valentine, Dublin 2005

Googe was born in Yeovil, Somerset, England. Prior to joining My Bloody Valentine, she played for a band called Bikini Mutants in her hometown of Yeovil, who gigged with The Mob. [4] Googe had moved from Yeovil to London| and in early 1985, an ex-girlfriend of hers recommended her as a bass player to Kevin Shields and Colm Ó Cíosóig of My Bloody Valentine. She joined the band after an audition in April 1985. She left the group in 1996, noting she "hadn't been happy for a long time". [4]

Googe is known for her raucous style of bass playing in MBV's live performances. She rejoined My Bloody Valentine in 2007 for the reunion tour and has remained with them since, playing with them on all of their subsequent tours.

Other work

After leaving MBV in 1995, Googe briefly became a taxi driver. She formed Snowpony in 1996 with her then-girlfriend, Katharine Gifford, formerly of Stereolab. [4] They released three albums and four EPs between 1997 and 2003. She occasionally plays keyboards with the massed fuzz organ experimentalists band Pimmel and also plays drums and sings backing vocals for Rockhard. In 2014, she joined Thurston Moore for his solo project The Best Day , and continued this collaboration with his subsequent albums Rock n Roll Consciousness in 2017 and By The Fire 2020, alongside Steve Shelley, and the UK musicians James Sedwards. [5]

She contributed bass for two tracks on the 2018 Tim Burgess album As I Was Now and collaborated with the American poet Ann Waldman for the 2020 album Sciamachy , along with William Parker and Laurie Anderson. In November 2023, Googe announced a new solo project under the name da Googie. She released a split 12" record with the duo Too Many Things on one side and three da Googie tracks: Slither/ Pipe Dreams/ November New, on the other side.

References

  1. Cavanagh, David. "3AM Eternal" Select 1992
  2. Maconie, Stuart. "The Artery of Noise!" NME 21 April 1990
  3. "Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006". Search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 Googe, Debbie (August 2001). "My Bloody Valentine" (Interview). Interviewed by Creation Records. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
  5. Reed, Kayla (5 August 2014). "Thurston Moore forms new band with members of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine". The A.V. Club .