Five-piece avantgarde-experimental group formed in late 1979 by Howard Gray (later Apollo 440) − and originally his brother Trevor Gray − and fellow schoolfriends Jono 'Kumo' Podmore (guitars, later Kumo), James Gardner (keyboards, later Umbrella, Luxuria, Apollo 440), Norman 'Noko' Fisher-Jones (guitars, later Umbrella, Cure, Dynamo Futurista, Luxuria, Maximum Roach, Th’Ends, Apollo 440) and Gary Hancock (tape operator). Noko recalls:
‘[As] a teenager, I was messing around with reel-to-reel tape recorders and building fuzz-box circuits before I ever learned any actual chords.
Even though we only started @440 in 1990 (a number of years after I’d been making music for a living), it still feels like my first band, as Howard, Trevor and original founder member James Gardner were all schoolmates @ Old Hall High School, Maghull, L31. My actual first band was Alvin The Aardvark & The Fuzzy Ants and our first gig was on Granada TV’s “After All That…This” late-night arts magazine show in 1980 and was completely live and broadcast just the once! […] Our second was supporting Cabaret Voltaire at Plato’s Ballroom in Liverpool, a radical avant-garde nightclub/art-happening organised by Nathan McGough that was way ahead of it’s time. New Order played their very first UK ‘post-Joy Division’ gig there a few weeks earlier.
A.T.A.A.T.F.A sadly never made a record, although we’d recorded a single @ Liverpool’s seminal Open Eye Studios in 1981 that never saw the light of day. John Peel was a fan though, and one of my most exciting moments as a teenager was my mum handing me the phone and saying “It’s John Peel for you son”’. (http://www.apollo440.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=94)
Named after a children’s toy the band created a original mix of avant-garde and jazz rock which materialized in 1981 on some tracks which appeared on the tapezine Merseysound Vol.2 (namely the oddly tilted ‘23across the Impresario 5 Letters 4 Letters’ − apparently a homage to Radio Merseyside Roger Hill − ‘Pip’s Tune’ and ‘Chumakin Dust’). Six other tracks have been recorded for a cassette EP (‘6 Audio Events’, July 1981), other 6 live tracks recorded at Plato’s Ballroom (25 February 1981) appeared on the tape ‘New’, and the band also recorded what should have been their first vinyl release (namely the single ‘Pip’s Tune’) at Open Eye Studios but they disbanded before the end of the year, and the single was not released.
Reviewing the A.T.A.A.T.F.A. last gig, (in October 1981) Breakout Magazine wrote:
‘The Ants have become almost a legendary cult band on Merseyside. With their select random non-promoted gigs and unique equipment and sound. If you have not seen The Ants then you have missed out on a unique and wondrous set. They would be an excellent soundtrack to a weird dream. The Ants are very committed to what they do, sometimes too committed. One shall always strive to be an artist. I’ve a feeling the ants think they are artists, a dangerous position. Nevertheless, what did we have here tonight. Five musicians putting noises together to create a feeling more than a sound. The Ants biggest problem is not being taken seriously by the audience, a pity as I find them listenable above all else. […] There is not a more extravagant band on Merseyside. […] I hope this is not the last we hear of the Ants. Merseyside need them badly’ (Breakthrough Magazine #3, October 1981).
The same month Hancock and Padmore left, and the Ants split.
(see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gray ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gardner_%28musician%29 ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Fisher-Jones )
left Alvin The Aardvark & The Fuzzy Ants, the remaining three members − Norman 'Noko' Fisher-Jones (guitars, later Cure, Dynamo Futurista, Luxuria, Maximum Roach, Th’Ends, Apollo 440), James Gardner (keyboards, later, Luxuria, Apollo 440), and Howard Gray (later Apollo 440)− moved to London and formed what was to become the Umbrella. In London Gardner played and programmed keyboards and synthesizers for a variety of artists. In the meantime, Gray started working as a tape operator and sound engineer for Richard Branson’s Virgin, first at Manor Studio (Oxford) and then at Townhouse Studios in London, working with producers like Steve Lillywhite and artists such as Public Image, Stranglers, and fellow scousers OMD. In the same period, around 1983, Norman 'Noko' Fisher-Jones briefly joined the Cure on bass for some European and UK live-TV dates and started putting together another band, Dynamo Futurista. 
Make Hell (For The Beautiful People) (1985)
