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Forgotten Bands

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Currently reading Bob Harris’s autobiography which is very interesting as an historical document.
In it he mentions a band called Fairfield Parlour. I remember the band name and looking on the Tax Dodgers website their album Home from Home is definitely ringing some bells – do I dip my toe into the water or completely leave it?
Any other bands that have come back into your conscious after an extended period of time?

Also the vocalist is Peter Daltrey. Related?

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  1. Let’s put it this way, some years ago when I was looking to winnow the vinyl collection a tad, the Fairfield Parlour album (Vertigo original, mint) was one of the ones that got the Heave-Ho!

    Having said that, I subsequently missed a couple of the tracks (there are some fantastically arcane lyrics: “Spike Kasparak, he died, flying through Woolies’ window”) for reasons of dubious sentimentality, and I bought the Repertoire CD reissue. I played it once, to reacquaint myself, but haven’t played it since.

    They are very much of their time. They previously existed as Kaleidoscope (the UK band, not the David Lindley lot, who are much more interesting!), who released the albums ‘Tangerine Dream’ (yes, really) and ‘Faintly Blowing’. I’ve got the pair of them on vinyl. Think whimsy, think acid-folk-rocky, think Alice Through The Looking Glass and you’ll be on the right wavelength. Big(ish) hit was called “Flight From Ashiya”. They are very much worth a visit, but before you part company with sponds.

    If you think they sound interesting from my description, I’d plump for a Kaleidoscope compilation first; there’s a good one that covers both LPs, called “Dive Into Yesterday”, that was put out by Fontana in 1996, if you can find it. The Fairfield Parlour album is OK, but nowhere near as interesting as their first two under their first name.

    PS I don’t believe Peter is related to Roger, by the way.

    PPS If we do that FOPP mingle, I can provide the lot in er, “backup” format, to alleviate financial risk.

  2. They did the song for the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival (Jimi) as “I Luv Wight.”
    Is this the only Festival to have its own song?

    Unsurprisingly I adore Kaleidoscope as they’re very much in the McCartney, Kinks, Syd envelope.

    Not Fairfield Parlour, admittedly, but I’ve started the year on a similar vibe … Samson (not the heavy metal group but an Andrew Oldham act on Instant), currently Octopus (think Badfinger), and I’ve got The Fox’s “For Fox Sake” lined up.

  3. A few years ago, I was going through the tedious process of digitising all my vinyl and came across an album called ‘Twist’ by a band called ‘The Fat Lady Sings’. Not only had I no recollection of ever buying the album, but had no idea who they were, where they came from or what they sounded like.

    Turned out they were pretty damn good, actually.

    • Blimey, I used to list their gigs when I worked at a London listings mag in the mid-late 80s. Their singer was an Irish fellow, nice chap, used to invite me along to their shows.

    • My best man is probably the world’s biggest The Fat Lady Sings fan. He used to follow them on tour.

      TFLS did one more album, produced by Steve Osborne, but the baggy world didn’t buy it.

      Singer Nick made two solo albums under his own name and two more under the alias Alien Envoy. He’s made an award-winning second career as an advertising creative and directed that Guinness ad with the waves, horses and Underworld soundtrack. He’s just finished his first (award-winning, obvs.) feature film.

      The guitarist and bassist went on to play with David Gray in the White Ladder era and (I think) Robbie Williams.

      Drummer Robert set up the Peace Together foundation.

      They really were ace, all lovely blokes and continued to be creative after the band split. Much like my other fave ‘lost’ band of the time, The Bible.

        • The thing I remember about The Fat Lady Sings was that over here their singer was routinely called “Nicky” Kelly, rather than Nick because of a controversial national figure (imprisoned following a train robbery, reputed to have association with a dubious subversive political organisation, but a cause célèbre for human rights campaigners because of the methods employed in his conviction – said conviction was subsequently quashed IIRC) whose name was everywhere at the time. I mean literally everywhere – “Free Nicky Kelly” was daubed on many a wall, notably along the train line where the robbery occurred.
          And Nick hated being called “Nicky”.
          Mind, they do say any publicity is good publicity; you have to wonder whether a nationwide graffiti campaign that (as a for instance) read “Kelly Lee Owens Is Innocent” would have a positive or negative effect on the dreamy bleep-pop merchant’s profile..?

      • The Guinness surfer ad with the Leftfield soundtrack was directed by Sexy Beast/Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer, I think, who also made the Radiohead Street Spirit video and Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity.

          • The surfer ad that Nick Kelly wrote was for Allied Irish Bank in 2011, not the famous Guinness one (“Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock” etc), which was directed by Jon Glazer and written by Tom Carty in 1999.

            Nick Kelly did however write several Guinness ads in the Noughties, including the one where Michael Fassbender swum across the world to say sorry to his pal.

  4. Man Jumping were a band comprising 3 keyboard player/composers, a bassist/composer and a saxophonist/composer, plus a session percussionist friend.
    They released an album “Jump Cut” and a 12″ single on Bill Nelson’s Cocteau label in the early ’80s and then another album on Editions EG called “World Service” in the late ’80s and disbanded.
    Experimental Electro-Funk is as good a description of their sound as I can manage. John Peel, Brian Eno and various critics (some of them in serious publications) raved over them but the public were not moved to buy their records.
    I can’t remember how but their 2nd album attracted my attention at the time and I bought it. It has had fairly regular play ever since. I didn’t even know their first album existed until I saw it on Spotify a few weeks ago and gave it a play.
    Liked it and discovered it was available on CD from Music Magpie for £1.74 (via Amazon) as a 1999 French reissue with both sides of the 12″ now included.
    I bought a copy and it arrived in yesterday’s post.

    Strangely, although Spotify are showing the cover of the reissue version, not the same as on the original release, they have omitted the two 12″ single tracks that were tacked onto the end of the CD.

    • That first album is great isn’t it? I didn’t know there was a second one! I’ve now put that right with a quick 2nd hand purchase via the dodgers.

      My vinyl copy of the debut has a gymnast bloke up on the rings on the cover.

  5. I used to like a band from Leicester by the name of Diesel Park West. I have a shed full of their CD singles along with The Fat Lady Sings in the err, shed. Must be hundreds of ’em, I’ll have to reacquaint myself with them when I get a minute. When I say hundreds I don’t mean by the bands above.

  6. I’m assuming I’m the only person on this board who has heard of or cares in any way about the Jazz Devils. That said, I know precisely two fifths of bugger all about them, but back in the late 80s a work colleague insisted I listen to them and gave me a tape of their album, which I loved and played to death in the car. I eventually found a CD of it and bought it, which I still listen to. This was not enough to help their sales figures apparently.

  7. I interviewed Johnny Coppin a few years ago, and doing a bit of prep reminded me of his old band Decameron who I had completely forgotten about…odd, as he had started them in Cheltenham when we were both students there (different establishments), and I’m sure now that I saw them. The first album is very good….and, going off topic now, the coincidences kept coming, as I subsequently interviewed a couple of ladies from The Old Swan Band and found that their origins were in the same town, and one of them is on the cover of said album (a schoolgirl at the time). Oh, and Johnny grew up in the same bit of London as me and went to primary school where my uncle taught…small world ain’t it?

    • I saw some of those Decameron guys singing BVs (one of them a sort of nasal baritone, like the grizzled pathologist from easrly Inspector Morse episodes trying to sing – Derek Cadbury, maybe?) at a Steve Ashley comeback show in Cheltenham some years back. They were the Ungodly.

  9. A good but never quite made it band were the (are the?) Downliners Sect. They were, I would describe, to the Pretty Things what the Pretty Things were to the Stones. So if the Pretties 12 bar thrash was too sophisticated, and this is way before any later psychedelics whimsy of torpedoes, try this:

    Of course they are still going!
    https://www.downlinersect.com/shows.php

    • Not forgotten by me, I saw them a couple of times in their heyday. Good raucous stuff.

      I also saw them some time in the Noughties at some music biz even in a pub in Stoke Newington. They were backing Terry hitmaker Twinkle. Random.

  10. Who knows Flairck? A sort of Dutch progressive hillbilly act from the early 80s? Somehow, they were on something like Pebble Mill At One at the time and – I must have been off school – I saw it, and bought the album. This was on it, ‘Sofia’. Still great.

    If you want to avoid the Dutch Michael Parkinson’s gravelly spluttering, music starts at 0:51:

  11. I have Engineers eponymous debut album from ten years ago. Dreamy Shoegaze, I believe it’s called, but there are plenty of dramatic, swirling crescendoes. The second album is just as good but, then, their rhythm section upped sticks and left, taking their soul with them.

    Come In Out Of The Rain

  12. I was going to say Rialto – late 90s Britpop band who emerged just as that sound was becoming deeply unfashionable. So I was amazed to discover that their signature song has over 1 million views on YouTube. Perhaps a revival’s in the offing?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyN2I-TlyA

    Animals That Swim have managed just over 4000 views so perhaps they better qualify:

  13. The Vapors
    They only did one song didn’t they, that one about w*nking (apparently)?

    Wrong: one very fine album, and a second almost as good (but not quite, but still better than some others I could mention)

    Somehow

  14. The Gents – Mod Revival band whose first commercially released album came 5 years too late.
    Had both albums, but lost the second (Waiting To Be Seen) when it was nicked at a party
    (that was the last time I ever took records to a party).
    Rarely seen again, and was either stupidly priced, or I never managed to get the winning bid on ebay.
    In 2012 and 13, both were finally released on CD – I’m not letting them out of my sight this time

    The Gents – Revenge

  15. Any love around here for early-80s combos the Golden Palominos and also Material? More projects than bands, both drew on NYC-based musicians in the orbit of Bill Laswell and tended to meld funk ‘n’ jazz ‘n’ no wave ‘n’ turntable scratching and these new-fangled hiphop rhythm machines into a genre-mangling whole. Even tunes in there, not always, mind. Always regarded them as the same pool of people, basically, and thank them for introducing John Zorn to the mainstream.

    This was Whitney’s very first exposure, one-off track, also featuring Archie Shepp on tenor.

    https://youtu.be/zJpN8QkXQ54

    Whereas this is a little more abstract.

    https://youtu.be/8ysFM_KYg_s

    Oh, this contains RT!

  16. In between Godley & Creme and Gong, I have a couple of theirs on vinyl: the albums “A Dead Horse” and “Drunk With Passion”. I think I bought the first one because it has such a ghastly title I was just curious, and the second one because it’s got RT playing on almost every track. As you say, the rest of the alumni are a pretty impressive bunch too; there’s even a cameo from Mr. Stipe (not the track above).

  17. Likewise re DwP, the lure of RT and Stipey proving irresistible. It has aged OK and I see now I have no end of Laswell side and front projects, he being a somewhat remarkably prolific musician. A bit like an even more prolific Jah Wobble, with whom he has worked, he is a white bassist drawn irresistibly to the rhythms of black music, from Jazz, Funk and Dub, to weirder avant-world, if such a name exists, projects. Some incredibly difficult listening amongst his output, but also a lot that is a joy. Where to start? Perhaps lower yourself in gently with the Palominos, then some ethiopian jazz-world, Gold and Wax featuring the vocals of his wife, Gigi. His work with Wobble includes, unsurprisingly, some of the slowest and deepest dub in babylon, Radioaxiom; a Dub Transmission. His re-mixed album of Bob Marley is, to my ears, easier listening than the equivalent album of re-mixed Miles Davis. Much of his work is not easily available or still in print, it being possible you will have to resort to listening, “strictly for review purposes” in the deeper recesses of the web. Or Spotify, who have lashings.
    I am sure there will be some here with way more knowledge, no doubt @duco01 . They may be able to prompt better than my paddling in the shallower pools.

  18. Ellis Beggs & Howard. Emerging at the same time as Roachford, somebody decided to release the quirky “Big Bubbles, No Troubles” as their first single which got a lot of airplay and tickled the lower end of the Fun 40. Their only album “Homelands” is a magnificent beast and live they were awesome, fronted by the tall charismatic Austin Howard, ably abetted by the Chapman Stick wielding Nick Beggs (Yes him)

  19. Forgotten by whom? I’m not sure if in this age of YouTube there any truly forgotten bands. Nevertheless, I’d suggest Ultra Vivid Scene on 4AD records: they were largely a one-man studio project by Kurt Ralske, and the second album ‘Joy 1967-1990’ (1990) was especially good, somewhere between Scritti Politti and The Magnetic Fields. Like label mates The Pale Saints (underrated Shoegazers, whose first album is a psychedelic marvel), they seem to have disappeared from the archive.

    • @pessoa

      Not forgotten by me , I’ve got TWO whole tracks on my iPod …Mercy Seat and Special One, both of which are pretty good. Seem to recall they were Snub/Rapido regulars . That first Pale Saints album (is it Comfort of Strangers you refer to?) was really good. Strange but good. I had it on tape but it never made the transition to cd…might have to rectify that.

    • The Pale Saints get plenty of love here.

      For those dreamy of the heady days when Rialto and Pale Sainst were Big Things (ahem) the compilation “The Brit Box’ is what you need. Really well curated.

  20. City Boy very nearly made it. They had one reasonably successful single and their first couple of albums sold really well. At the time I really loved this song but listening to it now it hasn’t aged that well:-

      • Until very recently my eldest daughter’s maths teacher was Max Thomas, keyboardist in City Boy. He’s a nice chap and sent me one of their CDs after I mentioned I’d been a fan in the 70s

  21. Occasional support band in the provincial concert halls of your youth – usually ignored by the small audience of long hairs awaiting Argent or Uriah Heep – ladies and gentlemen…The Global Village Trucking Company.

    Proper hippies – posh as well apparently – and if you wondered whatever happened to them…

    • Known as “The Globs” for short. Hippy festival favourites of yore*. I can’t recall ever hearing any records of theirs.

      *”Yore” in their case being early>mid ’70s.

    • Back awhile, we had adverts over there —> on the right hand side of the page for some company putting out dubious bootlegish boxed sets, and wasn’t one of them a Globs collection? Probably mastered from third generation C120 tapes recorded in mono with flattening batteries by some chemically flattened hairy sitting on a hay bale at Stonehenge or somewhere similar.

  22. A ‘band’ I liked in the mid 80s was White & Torch – haven’t heard any of their stuff in years, I wonder if I’d still like…… shuffles off in direction of YouTube

  24. I loved Inaura. They were of all things a ‘romo’ band, and chose to launch their career with an eight-minute depress-a-thon called ‘This Month’s Epic’. But it’s ace and I still play it all the time. Great vid too.

    • Good lord, “Romo”, the genre that dare not speak its name! Surely the shortest-lived non-movement ever, probably a month from first mention in the NME and a freebie covermounted cassette, to never being mentioned again…

      Mind you, only a month or so ago I came across this CD single by Sexus in my last box of CDs from the attic to be ripped…

  25. I imagine nobody remembers Titus Groan except me and my mate Tony, who played sax, flute etc in the band. They were a competent but utterly generic 1970 prog band who released one album and one single, an underpowered cover of Dylan’s Open the Door Homer. Both disappeared without trace, probably because they got involved with the ill-fated Dawn label progathon. Inevitably the original vinyl will set you back a few hundred now. Guitarist Stuart Cowell went on to do session work, notably with Al Stewart on Year of the Cat.

    They did score an appearance in a dim sexploitation flick called Permissive, and can be seen giving it some in this trailer, including a nanosecond of Tony on sax. Warning: completely safe for work.

    • Titus Groan are another band that I know of thanks to Tony Miles much missed “See For Miles” label, who reissued their album on CD and vinyl in 1989 as “Titus Groan …plus”. I bought the CD, which has a very useful booklet setting out the band’s history.

      According to said booklet, Stuart Cowell’s duty with Al Stewart was on the album “Modern Times” rather than YOTC. He also appears on albums by Paul Brett, FF&Z (remember them?) and Jaki Whitren, amongst others. The rest of the band (with the exception of the drummer, whose musical career seems to have been truncated by a serious accident) also went on to play with several well known names.
      If you want a scan of the booklet, @mikethep, just PM me and I’ll send you a pdf.

      • Well, among the well known names Tony went on to play with was me! He and I, Guy Evans of VDGG and my son put a little band together for a friend’s birthday party. Not recorded, sadly.

        I’m good for the booklet, thanks – the CD was one of the few I hung on to when I left Blighty.

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