Here’s the story of the band told by journalist Paul De Noyer:
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“They were formed at Liverpool Art College, John Lennon's alma mater, and, like Supercharge, thrived on the developing pub circuit. They were in the Bowie and Roxy traditions, which had been very big in Liverpool, but there seemed to be dozens of them on stage, like a low-budget cabaret revue. The focal points were a suave young crooner with a moustache, one Enrico Cadillac (Steve Allen, later with Original Mirrors, Perils of Plastic), and a sexy, upbeat girl in 60s styles called Bette Bright (Ann Martin, or Anne Martino, later solo artist, with the Illumination). A guitarist, Clive Langer (also part-time player with Big in Japan, later with the Boxes), looked serious and bespectacled, so you assumed he was the musical genius. There was a comedy vicar called the Reverend Max Ripple (John Wood), and another lounge lizard named Eric Shark (Thomas Davis). In fact there was a pile-up of competing looks to accommodate, and a corresponding jumble of musical elements, from Tin Pan Alley to Brecht/Weill cabaret to rock'n'roll satire.
Bette Bright (who was actually Ann Martin, from Whitstable in Kent) remembers: `We started a band that was supposed to be interesting, just kind of different. Originally there were a lot more people in the band - early on it was a bit ridiculous - but it gradually got more serious. Eventually the numbers kind of whittled down to. about eight.'
They won the Melody Maker's Folk/Rock contest in 1975, which led to a record deal with Warners and their 1976 debut LP 2nd Honeymoon. They were massively backed by the company at first, and launched in America with high hopes all round. However, this was also the year of punk rock, and Deaf School suddenly seemed wrong. I know I divided my time that year between Sex Pistols gigs at the 100 Club in London and trips to Liverpool, and despite my affection for Deaf School I recognised the problem. Theirs was a sort of provincial take on Kings Road camp, whereas the mood of punk was something harsher. Fey pastiche was making way for dirty realism. In the end they made a few more, largely unfocussed albums in the 70s, before dissolving.
Yet Deaf School had been a great thing for Liverpool in two ways. Firstly they were a compelling if chaotic live event, a hundred times more interesting than anything else available in the mid-70s. And secondly, they were the first young group to provide the scene with a post-Beatle focus. A new generation of music fans and would-be musicians found their earliest role models in Deaf School. Its personnel would be the germ of Mathew Street's revival.
Bette Bright: 'I think we were a really good band who happened at a really bad time. Punk came along and because we were so different to all of that - although all the time we were changing - we got lumped with this "art college" image, which is really unpopular. I mean, we were a really great live band. But with all that punk thing, the fact that you were Deaf School, you couldn't do anything right. You couldn't cross the road. It was terrible. And that used to really piss me off.
`The way we went about things I don't think we'd ever commercially have been successful. When we started out it was the pub bands like [Ian Dury's group] the Kilburns that we really liked, and we only set our sights at about that level. And a lot of the time the record company wanted us to compromise, for example to change the name because the BBC wouldn't play us. It got to the stage where there was a lot of talent in that band that couldn't be used. It was better to split up and let people continue along their own paths.'
They were in fact an impressive nursery for talent. Steve Lindsey, who liked to call himself Mr Average on account of his semidetached Bebington upbringing, went on to form the Planets. The drummer Tim Whittaker (later Pink Military, Lori and the Chameleons, Galeforce and Sex Gods) was a gifted artist and, as a drummer, hugely admired by local players like the Bunnymen's Pete DeFreitas. Sadly, he died in 1996. Steve Allen, the former Enrico Cadillac, would later found Original Mirrors with Ian Broudie, and is nowadays a music industry big-shot, having become Senior A&R Director at WEAlLondon's Eternal label, where his successes have included Eiffel 65. Clive Langer would become one of the best-known producers of the next decade, working with Madness, Teardrop Explodes and Elvis Costello (with whom he wrote the immortal `Shipbuilding'). Bette Bright went on to make some fine pop tracks, in her inimitably excitable vocal style, including `Hello I Am Your Heart'. `When You Were Mine' and `My Boyfriend's Back'.
(Du Noyer, Liverpool Wondrous Place, 113-114)
In 1976 Steve Lindsey remembered:
“We started in Jan. 74 with 4 Bright sisters, 2 guitars, Ernie and Max. Our 1st gig was in the summer and we lost one Bright sister, and added drums, bass and a two-piece brass-section, violin and 3 more singers incl. the now famous Shark. So we were 15! – One year later […] we were 12 incl. Hazel ‘Hotlips’ Bartram & M. Evans (journalist, DJ, Ex Livpool Scene) who combined within made up our strongest brass section ever! – 9 months later we have lost Roy, one of the original guitarists, and have at present only one Bright sister. Sandy Bright has left to follow her own solo career. – So D.S. is an ever changing band, the sound changes as people come and go.”
Here is one of the earliest song ever recorded by the band (early 74) in their second line-up (13 people), including Enrico Cadillac, Eric Shark and Bette, Ann and Sandy Bright sisters on vocals, Roy Holt and Clive Langer on guitars, Max Ripple on keyboards, Steve Lindsey on bass, Tim Whittaker on drums, and Ian Ritchie, Hazel Bartram and Mike Evans playing brass
Ding Dong (Allen, Langer)
See also:
http://seedyroad.com/seedyroad/deafschool/deafschool.htmhttp://www.nme.com/artists/deaf-school 
In 1981 Bette Bright went back to collaborating with former Deaf School bandmate Clive Langer, and the new line-up of the Illuminations featured all of Langer’s backing band, the Boxes, namely Ben Barson (keyboards, brother of Mike Barson from Madness), James Eller (bass), Martin Hughes (drums). Other members were Ian Broudie (guitar) and Joe Allen (drums). With this line-up Bette Bright & The Illuminations released their first album (on Korova) which features the three singles released since 1980:
- When You Were Mine
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