A Formal Sigh formed in the summer 1980 as This Is This, featuring Flo Sullivan (aka Gayna Rose Madder, vocals), Mark Peters (bass, guitars, formerly with The Names, aka The Famous 
Names), Robin Surtees (guitars), Wally (keyboards) and various temporary drummers. Sullivan and Peters had been playing together since 1979 in an art college agglomeration. At the beginning, Surtees remembers “we all had different or no ideas about what we wanted to do” (Bobeve mag. 3/1982). In June 1980 This Is This (for a shot time also known as Unit Germane) played their first gig at Lincoln’s Inn (Eric’s had just been closed down). Greg Milton and Roger Sinek (members of a still embryonic band called Barbel) were in the audience and some time later the joined respectively on guitar/bass and drums. Around September 1980 the band established a new name, A Formal Sigh (form a quotation of Ned Rorem: ‘An artist is like everyone else, only more so; he speaks with a formal sigh.’), and started gigging just before Christmas 1980 (playing at the Polytechnic, Masonic, Kirklands, Brady’s – with the Last Chant). As to the music they developed a very personal guitar-based but un-rock, almost ‘ethereal’, style. A Formal Sighre recorded a four-track demo tape at SOS Studios in Liverpool, 14 and 15 February 1981, which were later (August 1981) to appear on a Merseysound tapezine).
Demo (1981)
- Laundrette
- Bleak Intrusion (aka Oblique Intrusion)
- Aspects
- We Are Looking at Walls
On 5 September 1981, the band recorded a Peel session, in the BBC Maida Vale 4 studio (produced by Dale Griffin, ex-drummer of Mott the Hoople, and engineered by Mike Robinson).
Names), Robin Surtees (guitars), Wally (keyboards) and various temporary drummers. Sullivan and Peters had been playing together since 1979 in an art college agglomeration. At the beginning, Surtees remembers “we all had different or no ideas about what we wanted to do” (Bobeve mag. 3/1982). In June 1980 This Is This (for a shot time also known as Unit Germane) played their first gig at Lincoln’s Inn (Eric’s had just been closed down). Greg Milton and Roger Sinek (members of a still embryonic band called Barbel) were in the audience and some time later the joined respectively on guitar/bass and drums. Around September 1980 the band established a new name, A Formal Sigh (form a quotation of Ned Rorem: ‘An artist is like everyone else, only more so; he speaks with a formal sigh.’), and started gigging just before Christmas 1980 (playing at the Polytechnic, Masonic, Kirklands, Brady’s – with the Last Chant). As to the music they developed a very personal guitar-based but un-rock, almost ‘ethereal’, style. A Formal Sighre recorded a four-track demo tape at SOS Studios in Liverpool, 14 and 15 February 1981, which were later (August 1981) to appear on a Merseysound tapezine).Demo (1981)
- Laundrette
- Bleak Intrusion (aka Oblique Intrusion)
- Aspects
- We Are Looking at Walls
On 5 September 1981, the band recorded a Peel session, in the BBC Maida Vale 4 studio (produced by Dale Griffin, ex-drummer of Mott the Hoople, and engineered by Mike Robinson).
Peel Session (1981)
- Ev Rev (aka Evolution Revolution)
- Bleak Intrusion
- Walls (aka We Are Looking at Walls)
- Ad Nauseam
The session got quite some airplay by John Peel himself and on Radio Merseyside. A Formal Sigh became quite popular in the Mersey area. A second four-song demo was also recorded at SOS, 6 and 7 March 1982. The track-list is as follows:
Demo (1982)
- It’s Too Easy
- Pushover
- There Is No Hell
- A Zoo with no Walls
A Formal Sigh gigged regularly in Merseyside and the Northwest. In April 1982, when a couple of record companies were showing genuine interest in signing the band, Sullivan and Surtees quit to form their own act, Shiny Two Shiny (see relevant post, below), before going their separate ways respectively as Gayna Rose Madder and with Benny Profane (with ex members of The Room) . Roger Sinek and Greg Milton revived their old band, Barbel, whereas Peters quit music altogether (to return only in 1987 as a solo artist).
1 commento:
A Formal Sigh's 13-track retrospective CD 'A Far Cry' is now available from Amazon.
Posta un commento