City Lights (1977-80)

City Lights formed in mid 1976 as a five piece, with John Scott (vocals), Kymm Morgan (guitar), James Hughes (a.k.a. Jimmy Hughes, keyboards, later Cherry Boys, Exhibit B), Jimmy Sangster (bass, later with Black), and Mark Cowley (drums, later managed Space). By the Fall of the same year, due to some internal disputes, Scott and Morgan quit. Ian McNabb joined the line-up on guitar. Here’s the man’s recollection:

‘I found an advert in the Liverpool Echo for somebody looking for a guitar player/singer. A band who had been working the club circuit for a while had lost their singer and guitar player, and were looking to replace two people with one. I called them up and arranged to meet up at a house in Alexandra Drive in Litherland, North Liverpool. When I got there I met Jimmy Sangster (seventeen) bass/vocals, Jimmy Hughes (sixteen) guitar/vocals, and Mark Cowley (sixteen) drums.

The house we were in was the Sangster family residence where Jimmy lived with his mum and dad - Mary and Lenny – his brother Paul (twelve), and his sister Lyn (fourteen) [both later with Send No Flower, see relevant post]. Also living at the house - curiously - in my opinion, was the manager of the band, Norman Lane. […] Everyone was incredibly friendly and we hit it off right away. We played some Beatle tunes, Everly Brothers, some rock 'n'roll, the usual stuff. Everyone could sing really well, Jimmy S had a Hofner Violin bass - the first one I'd seen in real life. [...] They said they'd be in touch and the next day I got the word that I was in. […]

We started rehearsing a couple of nights a week at the local church hall, and then I was told that Mark Cowley wouldn't be in the band any longer as he'd had a few personal problems. We later heard that he was backing an Elvis impersonator called Billy 'Elvis' Helm. Jimmy S quickly remedied the problem by asking a mate of his, Howie Minns (nineteen) [a.k.a. Howie Di Miunzo and Eddie Shit, later Cherry Boys, Exhibit B, see relevant posts], who lived just around the corner, to sit in on drums with us until such time we found a permanent replacement for Mark. Howie was fantastic. A Keith Moon devotee - he had the biggest drum kit I'd ever seen in my short life. […] He hung by a thread to sanity. He lived to play drums and was at the time in a proper rock band called Flight. Flight had supported the likes of Nutz on the university circuit and were all grown up and didn't do social clubs. […] Howie made sure we knew that he would do a few gigs with us on a temporary basis, but we would have to find somebody else soon - as he was headed for bigger stuff apparently. He was doing us a favour and we should be grateful.’ (Ian McNabb. Mersey Beast, 47)

This new line-up was mainly concerned with playing covers and getting gigs. McNabbs recalls:

‘I still had no great aspirations to be in a band that wrote and played its own material at this time - I didn't really know anyone who did it, and besides that, whenever any scouse band ventured outside the city boundaries trying to get someone's attention in London for instance, they usually failed - and everybody just went on about the Beatles all the time. […] Howie's band Flight were playing their own material but didn't seem to be getting anywhere just yet - Liverpool Express had had a couple of hits recently (fronted by Billy Kinsley, ex Merseybeats - they specialised in McCartney-esque pop tunes and ballads), and that was it. We started getting regular work and having a great time. […] We auditioned fro New Faces (Yay! At last!). We drove all the way to Birmingham for the audition. […] We played our ace first – a modern, beaty arrangement of Strangers in the Night which we were particularly enamoured with. (ibid)

The band (especially McNabb and Hughes) started writing original material but things were as expected. McNabb concedes: ‘City Lights was becoming a drag. We’d started writing songs but we weren’t getting anywhere with them. We were earning good money playing other’s people songs. We’d had a little interest and had even met with a couple of small labels in London, but nothing was happening. The most worrying development recently was that we’d begun doing a bit of comedy – and it was going over well. We’d finish our first spot with the Shadow’s Apache – doing the whole step routine with our white kipper ties tied around our heads. It was very funny. […] Our agent encouraged us to start bringing more of it into the show, promising better money.’ (ibid, 56)

The band played extensively (with an average of gigs per year in the period 1977-80). Recorded several demos (some produced by Roy White, former Pink Military, later White and Torch), but nothing would be released on vinyl. The last live performance of the City Lights has acquired the aura of a legend. They played at the final night at the Warehouse, performing the Door’s Light My Fire: later the same night the whole club burnt down. In 1980 McNabb quit and the City Lights disbanded in the following months. According to some sources Keith Gunsun (with the Cherry Boys) played bass with the band at some point.

The Jass Babies (1981-82)

Peter Coyle begun his career as a singer during the early post-punk period (1978-79) with the punk act Tin Ethics. About the band Coyle remembers:

‘The main reason why I make music is because I love writing and singing. It is also very good for me. Its hard to explain but it helps me survive in life. It started when punk was happening.

I was in a school band called Tin Ethics and Pete Wylie (he lived just round the corner from me and he had just made "You Better Scream", a great record) came to see us play live at Kirklands in Liverpool city centre. Pete loved us. We were so excited that we took a cassette of our live gig down to London to play to the record companies.

The only problem was that it was Sunday. That didnt bother us. We played it to the security people and they liked it. That was enough for us so we came back on the same day because we didnt know anyone in London. I think that is a symbol of how aware we were of the music industry. But crucially for me, I thought, if he can do it coming from Walton in Liverpool then so can I.

At that time (I was 17) 1979 I would do gigs wrapped up in bin bags or hanging upside down or something. I was very influenced by Peter Gabriel and Ian Curtis and would perform like a screaming banshee. I have wore so many masks while singing live. I was very intense and if the truth be known I probably would have been more at ease with aliens than human beings. I dont know where my head was but it wasnt on this planet. I used to frighten people. To be honest I used to frighten myself.

After forming a band called No Trace I eventually left to form the Jass Babies.’

Apparently No Trace (1980-81) were remarkable on stage, and some of their numbers, like Talk in Tongues and Africa, became instant favourites for the band’s fans.
In 1981 Coyle formed The Jass Babies with former Visual Aids Rob Boardman (guitar, later Personal Column), Dave Whittaker (bass, later Here’s Johnny) and Steve Brown (drums, later A.O.M. and Here’s Johnny). About the band, Coyle says:

'People seemed to love us when we could get gigs but unfortunately they were few and far between. People didnt know how to take it because we were so aggressive, but I would be dressed up in a red twin set, which kind of blew it. The gigs were not enough to enable us to go full time in music. That was my only concern. I was on the dole. I didnt take my place up at university in London. All my mates had gone off to university but I had stayed behind. I was desperately trying to make music full time. It was very difficult. […]

The Jass Babies did a peel session that went down a storm. We just couldnt get the gigs or any records out. We didnt really fit in with anything. That didnt stop us jamming every week. Those were important days for me musically. We never practised songs. We only ever jammed and improvised new material. It forced me to come up with stuff immediately and to be honest it has been the driving force of almost everything I have ever done since. It taught me that songwriting is at its best when the people involved are channels or transmitters rather than consciously setting out to write a specific song. To write songs is to be in a state of grace. In other words, if you write songs you need to be open and receptive. If you dont like that language, tough, its the truth.

I didnt know it at the time but there are not very many musicians who can let themselves fuck up horribly and be spontaneous. Also writing songs on the spot with three or four musicians gives a song a dynamic that is not found in a lot of music. You can get amazing coincidences where you all join forces together out of the chaos and the results can be truly magical. So even though the Jass Babies were a resounding commercial disaster. For me, they were the building blocks of all my subsequent songwriting. Besides that, I still work with David Whittaker and Steve Brown (the Jass Babies) and we still find those moments of magic.’

On 19th October 1981 the Jass Babies recorded a Peel Session in Maida Vale Studios, with Dave Dade as sound engineer and Tony Wilson as producer. The Session was eventually broadcast on November the 3rd. The track-list featured the songs:

Peel Session (1981)
- Let Me Soak It Up
- My Love Makes You Melt
- Parable
- Talk In Tongues

This recording ‘with the sustained distorted guitar & flanged bass [and] an almost Gothic tinge [to] their sound’ presented a band ‘that really wasn't the norm of the Liverpool bands of the time’ (cf. Fruitier Than Thou). Talk in Tongues was an original No Trace number. The song Let Me Soak It Up would be selected as the band’s first single. Apparently the band worked on it with other fellow musicians like Pete Wylie, Wayne Hussey and John Whitehead, but split, in 1982, while still working on the project. (One track by the Jass Babies would later appear on the Liverpool tapezine Quest N° 2, in September 1982)

Soon after the split of the Babies, Coyle joined Paul Simpson and other former Wild Swans members in the short-lived Living Legend, before eventually joining the remaining Wild Swan, Jeremy Kelly, in the Lotus Eaters. Coyle remembers: ‘In 1982 (I was 20) the Lotus Eaters started off with me singing on a portastudio (a little 4 track home studio) in Jerrys bedroom. This was a major change for me. I was now singing in a softer way. Whats more the melody from Jerrys guitar was a real joy to sing against. We did a version of the First Picture Of You on that portastudio.’

The rest is history.

The Jass Babies’ Peel Session can be found here (thanks to our friend at Fruitier Then Thou, without whom…)

( see: http://www.petercoyle.com/bio.html )

The Cherry Boys - Only Fools Die (1982)

The second single by the Cherry Boys, released in the Fall 1982, featured a re-recorded version of two of the songs that were performed during the Peel Sessions broadcast in 1982.

Only Fools Die (1982)


- Only Fools Die
- Come The Day




cherry boys - fools


(see also: http://thecherryboysband.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Boys )

The Cherry Boys - Peel Session (September 1982)

After the release of their first single (Man to Man b/w So Much Confusion, November 1981) and before the second (Only Fools Die b/w Come The Day, September 1983), the Cherry Boys –John Cherry (guitar, harmonica), Jimmy Hughes (guitar, keyboards), Keith Gunson (bass) Howie Minns (drums) – recorded two Peel sessions which would later be used for a six-track demotape privately released in March 1983 (Give It Rice).
The first session was recorded at Maida Vale Studio 4 on August,16th 1982, with Tony Wilson producing and Anthony Pugh engineering the sound, and broadcast on September, 2nd 1982. It featured the new and still unreleased single and other original tracks, namely:

- Only Fools Die
- In the Dark
- Nightmare
- I'll Keep on Movin'

cherry boys - peel

Foundation - Wise Up! (1984)

Foundation formed in 1983 by Gary O’Donnell (vocals, keyboards, former Korean Kareer) and Andy Pearl and John Cornforth (respectively drums and keyboards, both former Western Diplomats and Ocean’s Eleven). The trio released a three track demo-tape in August 1984 (featuring Wise Up / Inspire the Desire in Me / Nothing Can Stop the Heart from Beating) and soon acquired a loyal local following. O’Donnell recalls: “It all started off originally as with most local bands when you play a gig first of all it’s friends who come to see you. At our first gig at the Mayflower we sold over 300 tickets and the place was bursting at the seams. (…) Gradually it grew by words of mouth and the next gig people would say that they wanted three or more tickets.” By the end of 1984 Pearle was replaced by Gary Cooke (former Hi-Tech) and the new line-up recorded the band only single:


Wise Up! (1984)

- Wise Up
- Love Is



In 1985 Cooke was replaced by Jimmy Hughes (previously with the heavy metal band Madame and then in Holiday for Strings) and Gordon Longsworth (former Motion Picture, Visual Aids, Pnderosa Glee Boys) was added to the line-up on guitar, but by mid-1986 Foundation split and O’Donnell and Cornforth formed Fine Life with Letitia Suffield (vocals).

foundation