The Royal Family and the Poor - Part 1 (1978-1982)

The original nucleus of the band was formed by Mike Keane and Arthur McDonald (10 years older than Keane). The two started experimenting with music in their Toxteth flat around 1978, with Keane providing noises (by dismantling a radio receiver and wiring it up to an analog synthesizer and connecting them both to an old stereo gram, to be then manipulated by moving magnets around the receiver in the radio) produced by a synthesizer plugged into a record player) and McDonald taking care of vocals and lyrics (mostly inspired by Situationism, in like the early Scritti Politti).
In Keane’s own words, is was “an Aural-Pychic-audio experimentation in transpersonal forms of communication between ourselves and the listener”, whatever that means.
In 1979 the yet nameless band was invited by Factory Records in Manchester to record for the label, on Tony Wilson’s suggestion. The producer, intrigued by the weirdness of their music, is also responsible for the band’s name, taken from a book about the Sex Pistols (The Inside Story, by Fred and Judy Vermorel). The line-up was completed by Nathan McGough on bass (ex O’Boogie Brothers, with Ian Broudie and Ambrose Reynolds, son of Roger McGough of the late 60’s band Scaffold, and later manager of the Happy Mondays), and Phil Hurst on drums (ex Mystery Girls, Nightmares in Wax) and, with Keane taking care of guitars, synths and some vocals, recorded material to appear on one of the four sides of the Factory Quartet, intended as a sequel to the much celebrated Factory Sample of 1978, and produced by Martin Hannett.
The Royal Family contributed three proper tracks – Vaneigem Mix, Death Factory (featuring Ambrose Reynolds on guitar) and Rackets – as well as three short dirges, all of which recorded as live. None of these track had much connection with rock and roll, but possibly provide the prototype for what is the closest thing to Liverpudlian avant garde music: freeform and wild sounding impros, minimal guitar riffs repeated over monotonous bass-lines overlaid with Situationist oratory.
That’s how the band was presented in the sleeve notes: “The Royal Family. A remarkable S.I. influenced outfit from Liverpool who, with sing along numbers like "Vanneigem Mix," rose such comments as; 'They show The Gang of Four to be the bubble gum band we always thought they were.' - R. Boone.” The Royal Family’s memebrs were indicated as Levi Windsor, Nathan Windsor, Phil Windsor and Mike Windsor.

A Factory Quartet (Side Four)
1 Dirge 1
2 Vaneigem Mix
3 Dirge 2
4 Death Factory
5 Dirge 3
6 Rackets

The following year Phil Hurst left the band (to join Holly Johnson’s Hollycaust) and was replaced by Donald Johnson of A Certain Ratio, who also co-produced the Royal Family’s first single. Art on 45 is Situationist P-funk is certainly cleaner and more danceable but not dissimilar in structure to the tracks appeared on the Factory Quartet. Mike Keane recorded two solo acoustic tracks for the flipside, Dream and Dominion. Recorded in August 1981, this fairly schizophrenic ep (with Johnson producing the a-side, and New Order’s Peter Hook both b-sides) was finally released in February 1982.

Art on 45 (12”)
A1. Art on 45
B1. Dream
B2. Dominion

In the same year Keane recorded a lengthy meditative piece (Midnight Symphony) to be included on a Zoo Records compilation, although finally the label considered the end result too weird, and never saw the light on day (apparently it was re-recorded for a RFATP 2004 release). Nathan McGough left to join Pale Fountains. The band, thus reduced to its original core, performed a few gigs using backing tapes before Keane and McDonald went their separate ways.

Early recordings (1980-1982)

(see also: http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/fact24.html
http://home.wxs.nl/~frankbri/royalhis.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michaelkeane/wizzt.html )

The Eric's Progeny (1974-1980)

Here's the Family Tree done by Pete Frame in 1980 of Eric's Progeny, from the Deaf School to the Bunnymen, Dead or Alive, Dalek I Love You, Original Mirrors, etc.

(This was only posible thanks to our friend Webbie)

Care - Singles (1983-1984)

Care formed in Liverpool, England, in 1983, when, after the split of the Wild Swans (with original members Jem Kelly and Ged Quinn forming the Lotus Eaters with Peter Coyle), singer Paul Simpson (also ex-keyboardist for the Teardrop Explodes) teamed up with guitarist Ian Broudie (previously of Big in Japan and Original Mirrors). The first single release came out in June 1983

My Boyish Days (Drink To Me) (12”)
A My Boyish Days (Drink To Me) (12" Version)
B1 An Evening In The Ray
B2 A Sad Day For England

The single well-represented the style of the band: shimmery guitar riffs and gleaming synthesizers (though ‘poppier’ and less elaborated then Kelly’s and Quinn’s) accompanying Simpson's dreamy and heartbroken crooning. Two more singles were to follow the first in October 1983, the second one in March 1984:

Flaming Sword (12”)
A Flaming Sword (12" Version)
B1 Misericorde
B2 White Cloud (alternative versions of the original ‘On The White Cloud’)

Whatever Possessed You (7”)
A Whatever Possessed You
B Besides (One And Two)

The duo was working on demos in view of an album (mainly with Ian Broudie on guitars, production and keyboards, with Paul Simpson on the keyboards and guitars, collaborating with Paul Sangster – formerly of Send No Flower together with Alan Wills and Ian Asbury – and Tony Wikelan), to be possibly titled Love Crowns and Crucifies, when divergences in the musical views of the two members – Broudie's taste for gleeful commercial pop vs. Simpson's penchant for darker more serious fare – caused the band to split. Simpson then re-formed the Wild Swans (with Jeremy Kelly and Alan Wills), while Broudie, some time later, would create the Lightning Seeds.

Care – Singles (1983-1984)

(sse also http://www.flamingsword.co.uk/index.htm
http://www.lightning-seeds.co.uk/Care/history.htm )

The Lotus Eaters - No Sense of Sin (Vinyl,1984)

In 1984 The Lotus Eaters released their first album No Sense on Sin.

No Sense of Sin (Vinyl, 1984)

A1. German Girl

A2.. Love Still Flows

A3. Can You Keep A Secret

A4. Out On Your Own

A5. Put Your Touch On Love

A6. Too Young

B1. Set Me Apart

B2. You Fill Me With Need

B3. The First Picture Of You

B4. Alone Of All Her Sex

B5. When You Look At Boys

B6. Start Of The Search

(The Italian edition features You Don't Need Someone New instead of Too Young)

About the album Coyle remembers: “We eventually signed our own label Sylvan Records to the Arista record company. We recorded First Picture Of You with Nigel Gray. I liked Nigel. He was very quiet and very talented. It seemed like he understood us. The only problem was that for some of the tracks like Can You Keep a Secret the Peel Session sounded better. Nigel liked our melodies but was very keen to change our rhythms. It was a horrible dilemma because he did understand us but we were worried that the album would have too much of a rock rhythm. Out of the five tracks we recorded with Nigel we were only happy with the First Picture Of You.We chose to try several other producers [Alan Tarney, who also produced the 1983 single You Don't Need Someone New, and Bob Sergeant, who also produced the 1984 single Set Me Apart, ndr] , which was a shame because it makes No Sense of Sin less cohesive and flowing as it could have been. What’s more it also made it more difficult because we recorded No Sense Of Sin in lots of different studios.

[…] Anyway the point is that I think it probably would have been better if Nigel had done the whole album. That is not to say that I didn’t appreciate working with the other producers. I did and I have learnt a lot from all of them.”

No Sense of Sin, the Lotus Eaters' 1984 debut album, is a gorgeously crafted collection of melancholic guitar pop. "Love Still Flows" and "The First Picture of You" caress the ears with haunting piano and twinkling guitars; both songs unreel with a cinematic feel, the music and lyrics drawing sentimental memories from the listener's imagination. […] The starry-eyed keyboards and sing-along chorus of "German Girl" and spellbinding violin of "Set Me Apart" deepen the Lotus Eaters' appeal; they further explore Coyle's hankering for affection while lifting the spirits with sharp hooks. (Michael Sutton)

Until the recent new release of 'Silentspace', 1984's 'No Sense Of Sin' has remained their sole long player but such is the addictiveness of the subtle melodies on offer that much of this album sounds like a top quality best-of compilation that avoids the naffness associated with much of 80's pop. 'The First Picture Of You' was their one significant UK hit; a typically innocent pop song about young love but with follow-ups of the strength of 'Out On Your Own', 'German Girl' and 'Can You Keep A Secret' it seems unfair that they were unable to build on their initial success. One fault that coud be levelled at 'No Sense Of Sin' is the production which involved three separate producers so whilst the [some songs] retain their subtle guitar melodies, 'Alone Of All Her Sex' is almost buried by the thudding drums unlike their earlier Peel Session versions whose stark intensity and beauty made them essential listening.

Sorry, guys, no link. Censorship again.

(http://www.petercoyle.com/bio.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/no-sense-of-sin
http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Article.aspx?id=2781
http://www.leonardslair.co.uk/lotus.htm )

Mental Aardvarks - Some Recordings (1979-1982)

Liverpool and avant-garde are certainly not “mots qui vont très bien ensemble”. They probably do in Sheffield, but not in Liverpool. If I had to sketch a ‘symbolic’ history of post-punk in Liverpool, I would take the Big in Japan / Chuddy Nuddies split single as the point of departure, since the two sides also mark the different trends in Liverpudlian music: ‘experimentation’ and tradition. Big in Japan propose an eccentric cabaret version of punk, a musical pastiches capsizing rock conventions complete with high-pitched type vocals. The Nuddies offered an example in line with the easily recogniseable upbeat, nervous, kind of two-tone, pop tradition of the time (the Deaf School and Clive Lager, but also Madness, Specials, English Beat, etc.). The two polar sides would produce the Pink Industry, and the one hand, and the Yachts / It’s Immaterial, on the other, influencing either way everything growing in the middle between.
But experimentation in Liverpool is never avant-garde. It rather ranges from cabaret to electronic music through the back door of psychedelia. It plays with forms without deconstructing musical schemata. It always verges on melody rather than on noise. It is always soundly structured and never free form. It is usually enjoyable, rather than disturbing.
Nevertheless there are some noticeable exception. One of the most remarkable is represented by Mental Aardvarks

Mental Aardvarks was an avante-garde experimental band active from 1979 to 1982, brainchild of Paul Grady, who was the only member. They (he) ran their own label Trazom which issued all the band’s material on cassette, and operated from Paul's house in the Platt Bridge area of Wigan. Very much an experimental outfit, not at all easy listening, was played with regularity on 80's pirate station Merseyland Alternative Radio. Following their releases they came to the attention of the United Dairies label and had a track Bogart...Was Three Lemons included on the compilation 'Hoisting The Black Flag'. Another couple of songs were featured on the compilation ‘Sudden Departure’, namely Radio Caroline North and What Have You Done (Pieces of Meat).

Some Recordings

The Lotus Eaters - Single Releases (1983-1985)

Towards the end of the experience with the Wild Swans, Paul Simpson allegedly teamed up for a very short period of time with Peter Coyle in a band called Living Legend (1982). No evidence of this collaboration survives, but a relevant link between the Swans and Coyle was established. Coyle had also been a member of the short lived (1980-1981) R’n’B orientated rock band No Trace (which released the tracks Africa / Talks in Tongue), Tin Ethics (1981), and most remarkably of The Jass Babies (1981-1982) – formed with former Visual Aid members Rob Boardman on guitar (later Personal Column), Dave Whittaker on bass and Steve Brown on drums (both later in Here’s Johnny). In October 1981 The Babies recorded a 4 track peel session. With the aim of giving some sense of direction to the career of the group and some coherence to their music in the fall of 1982 Coyle contacted the other Wild Swan, Jeremy Kelly, to play guitar on some demos he was doing with the band. Coyle and Kelly immediately hit it off, and since there was not enough space for Kelly’s inventive guitar parts in the Babies, Coyle left and the two began trying new stuff on a portastudio (a little 4 track home studio) in Kelly’s bedroom. Since Peel had booked the Jass Babies for a session, and the Babies were no more, the two had only a couple of weeks to find a name, to write some songs, and to put together a band to go with the name. The name would be Lotus Eaters. The shortest way to gather a band was by contacting members and session players of the disintegrating Wild Swans (mainly Gerard Quinn on keyboards, Phil Lucking – a.k.a. Looking – on bass and Alan Wills on drums). And as to the songs? In one of those home sessions Kelly played the guitar riff he used in the chorus of the Swans’ song (Opium) accompanied by Quinn’s keyboard parts, on which Coyle improvised the melody that was to become their most successful hit, The First Picture of You. Soon after the Peel broadcast (18 October 1982) records label contacted the group, and the Lotus Eaters had a deal. The band recorded and released The First Picture of You, which entered the UK pop charts before the band have even played a live gig. (No wonder Paul Simpson took the whole Lotus Eaters affair very personally as a treason.) In 1983 the Lotus Eaters put out two singles (12”) (ndr. There are rumours about a third 1983 single, German Girl b/w Can You Keep a Secret / You Fill Me with Need, but there’s no evidence of it in the official LE discography or in Coyle’s and Kelly’s accounts).


The First Picture of You (June 1983)
- The First Picture of You

- The Lotus Eaters
- Stranger So Far

You Don't Need Someone New (August 1983)
- You Don't Need Someone New

- Two Virgins Tender
- You Don't Need Someone New(Charleston Mix)

By this time, towards the end of 1983 the Lotus Eaters began to think about releasing an album. Coyle and Kelly wrote more songs and reshaped the line-up of the band: they had already acquired the Cure and Associate bassist Michael Dempsey and drummer Steve Crease, both appearing in the video for You Don’t Need Someone New, and now they added keyboard composer Stefan Emmer replacing Quinn. This was officially baptised as the definitive line-up during the bands second Peel session (10 October 1983). Before the album another single was released:

Set Me Apart (1984)
- Set Me Apart (Full Length Original Version)
- My Happy Dream

After the album No Sense of Sin (1984), two more singles were released in 1985:

Out On Your Own (1985)
- Out On Your Own

- Endless

It Hurts (1985)
- It Hurts

- The Evidence

The Lotus Eaters suspended animation in March, 1985, subsequent to the release of It Hurts, their final single. Jeremy Kelly left and the group split up. At this point Paul Simpson, Jeremy Kelly and Alan Wills re-formed The Wild Swans. Peter Coyle started a solo career (see below).

Peter Coyle remembers: “At that time for me personally the best bit about doing music was playing live. It was the honest bit. It was that that kept me going. Playing live and the b-sides to The Lotus Eaters singles. I still think they were our most successful recordings.”
Now you have a chance to listen to them.

Singles 1983-1985

The Dance Party (1979-1980)

The Dance Party formed in 1979 by Yorkie (a.k.a. David Tracy Palmer, friend of the Teardrop Explodes and of the Bunnymen) and Mike Head. The two will then play in Egypt for Now – see the Street to Street vol. 2, below – before going their separate ways: Yorkie with Balcony and then Space; Head with the Pale Fountains and then Shack. Over the course of the two years the line-up was quite fluid, comprising first Rod Bennett on guitar, then replaced by Jeremy Kelly (of the Wild Swans, then Lotus Eaters). The band recorded a couple of songs, only one of which survives.

Where I've Been

Here are some memories of Yorkie about the days where the Teardrop and the Bunnymen would rehearse in his mother’s basement, and about the first musical experiences of the Dance Party.

“Having both bands rehearse in the Basement meant that I had a cellar full of equipment at my disposal and it was time to start a band of my own. I was introduced by Paul Simpson (of the Teardrop Explodes and later Wild Swans, ndr) to Michael Head, who had an equally burning desire to make music, but a similar inability to myself as to how to go about it. We flitted from instrument to instrument until we settled on Bass Guitar (for me) and Keyboards (for him). We recruited some musicians who could actually play, and out first band was underway! We were christened Ho Ho Bacteria! by Julian (Cope, ndr) after he saw it written in the middle of a huge black stain on a toilet wall in a venue he had played. We recorded our first demo under this name before changing it to the much more user friendly The Dance Party (named after a Pere Ubu song). A second demo was recorded […] and a debut gig was forced on us by Pete Wylie!
[…] Our line ups changed a bit at this period; a second line included Jem Kelley from The Wild Swans and the Lotus Eaters. A further line-up change also meant a band name change to Egypt for Now. We recorded a session to be used for the Street To Street Volume 2 album, but the band was short lived as I had recently played Mike the band Love, and it changed his life forever. Musical differences in direction split the band: Mike wanted to sound like Love and I wanted something far more experimental. (As an aside, EFN actually recorded a cover of Love's She Comes in Colours at the very same session).”

( see also: http://www.incendiarymag.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1176
http://www.yorkiestinyuniverse.co.uk/Pages/Dance%20Party%20Gallery.html
http://www.yorkiestinyuniverse.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=31 )

(Photo copyright Julie Marsh 1980, and Francesco Mellina 1980)