Against a backdrop of swaggeringly macho heavy metallers and grizzled grunge
bands, 10,000 Maniacs brought a brand of elegant, folksy, alternative rock to
the US music scene in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Named after a cheaply made
horror film, the band originally formed in New York in 1981 with 17-year-old
college student Natalie Merchant as their singer and trawled the country playing
gigs and living out of a tent. Merchant's elegant, rootsy, lyrics propelled the
band, and their independently released debut Secrets Of The I Ching (1983)
caught the ear of Radio 1 DJ John Peel, p...