The Balcony Dogs - Live

The Sex Gods and Balcony Dogs used to have frequent jamming session did not gig around extensively.

On this point Andy Eastwood and Steve ‘Johno’ Johnson recall:

‘Andy: We don’t have to.

Johno: There’s not that many gigs to play in Liverpool, is there?

Andy: I think if you play a gig it should be an occasion, not just an excuse.

[Blast Off]: Do you think it’s more exciting doing one-off gigs?

Johno: No, not really. Not on a level, you are in a group and you work. The more you work the better you get. […] We chose to do it that way because you can’t really afford to go out to many places and play gigs all around the country, because it costs money. If you don’t get covered by the money you get from the gig, you’ve got to be sponsored which is where record companies come in, that’s when you go out and do tours. We’d love to do lots more gigs, but it’s just not feasible at the moment.

Andy: It’s having a solid game plan about how you’re gonna do it. You [Blast Off] suggested there’s a cult status. […] People put that on you because they don’t get the chance to see you that often. But obviously there’s a game plan to do that, so that there’s already something going on, your name goes ahead of you, that’s great’ (Blast Off, Feb 1988 #5)

Sex Gods / Balcony Dogs - Live

- Cross (live)

- Fluency (live)

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The Balcony Dogs - The Trip (1988)

The Balcony Dogs - Andy Eastwood (vocals) and Steve Johnson (guitar), Mooney (guitar), Gary Dwyer (drums, ex Teardrop Explodes, at the time occasionally playing with Black), Carl Washington (bass, ex Wah!) − in 1987 signed to Island recorded and band collected all their material onto an Lp.

About signing to Island records, Andy Eastwood recalls: ‘Really we needed to. Basically Pete [De Freitas] had ‘blown out’ a lor of money getting the whole thing going. Obviously, the controversy started when people started pinning labels on him that he’d ‘flipped’. We had just gone through severe poverty, even though people think you’re just pure decadent. We didn’t have any gear. Most of the geat that we used had to be borrowed and it just came to the point where we realized that we needed backing now, we needed somebody to believe that there was something there worth backing. We knew it, it’s just convincing the bastards to get the cheque books out. […] I’m quite glad that it turned out to be to be Island, because, as far as that bureaucracy goes, I think they are a less of a hassle to deal with, the less of the megabooks vibe.’ (Blast Off, Feb 1988 # 5)

The album was titled Trip (possibly referred to the experience/s in New Orleans that got things going). (Possibly Pete De Freitas played drums on some of the tracks.)

Balcony Dogs - The Trip (1988)
- Fluency 3
- Wheel of Fortune
- Good Little, Bad Little
- Shot to Earth
- Drug Planet #7
- Balcony Dog
- Charlene's Dream
- Rings of Saturn
- Underworld

After the split of the Balcony Dogs, many of the members joined the Divine Thunderbolt, formed by Tim Whittaker, featuring Jake Brokman, Andy Eastwood (vocals), Kate Milner (vocals), and at some point Pete and Frank De Freitas and Mike Mooney.

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The Balcony Dogs - The Balcony Dogs (1988)

The Sex Gods Andy Eastwood (on vocals) and Steve Johnson (on guitar) were joined by Mooney, first on bass, than on guitar, by Gary Dwyer (ex Teardrop Explodes, at the time occasionally playing with Black) on drums, and by Carl Washington (ex Wah!) on bass. Because of all these names and connections the band gained a cult status even before having released anything. The record company refused to release an album under the name of Sex Gods and the band opted for Balcony Dogs (taken from one of their songs). The first vinyl release was the self-title 12”:

The Balcony Dogs (1988):

- Balcony Dogs

- Rings Of Saturn

- Fat Pocket Justice

- McHelicopter

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The Sex Gods - Some Recordings (1985-1986)

By 1985 the Liverpool scene was quite stale. Music creators and consumers alike felt the need of "something fresh to liven up the Liverpool music scene" (Blast Off, Feb. 1988). The Sex Gods, in the mind of their founder members, were probably meant to fill this creative gap.
The original Sex Gods started off in late 1985 / early 1986 as a vague idea of fun born out of the disillusionment Pete De Freitas resented from the whole Bunnymen’s experience. The nucleus was formed by De Freitas himself, Tim Whittaker (ex Deaf School, Pink Military, Lori & the Chameleons, Gale Force), and Jake Brockman, in the Bunnymen’s rehearsal room. When the tension within the band exploded, De Freitas flew to New Orleand (pictures on the left), taking along the Bunnymen road crew of Tim Whittaker, Andy Eastwood (ex Crash Course, The Eye Of…), Steve ‘Johnno’ Johnson (ex Wah! Heat, a.k.a. Johnny Cult, ex Ellery Bop), plus Tim O’Shea (of Send No Flowers). The whole idea of the trip to New Orleans, in De Freitas’ words (1986) was the need “to get away on holiday and come back with more than just memories having spent a lot of money and very big hangovers [but rather] with something positive”. The idea was to work “totally off chance” and was partly inspired by the film The Dice Man, a culty lunatic semi-religion called Bokanism, and the weird notion of “the duck” – which stood for anything which is ridiculous, insane and irrational.

The band was occasionally joined by the Bunnymen’s on the road guitarist Mike Mooney (later Spiritualized) and sax player Mars Williams (Psychedelic Furs). This flexible line-up hung out, occasionally worked on songs, and allegedly documented the whole experience on super 8 film and in a book called The Godlogs.
In fact, the trip turned out to be less inspiring than planned, and all about not eating, not sleeping, ingesting vast quantities of LSD and alcohol, and crashing cars and motorcycles.
Mars Williams remembers that: “[De Freitas] was singing, and also decided that he wa going to play guitar. We rehearsed a bit in the house, wrote and worked on songs, and then we went into the studio and recorded some of it. The thing that was really bad about the band was that Pete should’ve been playing drums, because he was a great drummer, and the guy that was playing drums [Whittaker] wasn’t. And Pete was not a good guitarist, so who knows what he was trying to do. It was more like Pete’s friends hanging out” (1998).
As De Freitas’ finance dwindle, members of the Sex Gods begun drifting home one-by-one, each expressing concerns about De Freitas’ mental health.
Back in Liverpool, Whittaker left the band and De Freitas moved to the drumming stool, occasionally bringing in his brother Frank (Woodentops) on bass. During the summer the band recorded some songs in Rockfield, but this line-up wouldn’t last for long: by the end of 1986 the Sex Gods lost both founder members, as De Freitas rejoined the Bunnymen for good.

Some recordings

- Rings (demo, New Orleans)

- Untitled (Rockfield Studios)

- Nightpatrol

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(All quotations from Chris Adams’ Turquoise Days)