A French unit working during the late '70s, Garçons didn't release much during the time, but their meld of tight disco and funk with punk ethics (complete with sneering vocals) wasn't approached again for almost a decade, until the vagaries of electronic music caught up with the sweet sound of the '70s. Just a duo, Patrick and Thomas released the LP 'Divorce' in 1979 and worked with John Cale for a time, but weren't heard from again until almost 20 years later, when the album was reissued to an admiring dance music world. Garçons began recording again in Paris, in association with Yellow Recordings. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Thomas Darnell Browder (aka August Darnell) was born in the Bronx on August 12, 1950. In 1965, he formed the In-Laws with his brother, Stony Browder, Jr. He earned a master's degree in English and became an English teacher, but in 1974 he again joined his brother as bass guitarist, singer, and lyricist in Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, a group that mixed disco with big-band and Latin styles. In 1976, Dr. Buzzard achieved a gold-selling album with their self-titled debut release, which featured the Top 40 hit "Whispering/Cherchez la Femme/Se Si Bon," but its subsequent recordings were less successful. Darnell began to write and produce for other acts, co-composing Machine's 1979 chart entry "There But for the Grace of God Go I" and working with James Chance, among others. In 1980, he became a staff producer at Ze Records and created the persona of Kid Creole (the name adapted from the Elvis Presley film "King Creole") with a backup group, The Coconuts, consisting of three female singers led by Adriana "Addy" Kaegi, and a band comprising vibraphone player "Sugar-Coated" Andy Hernandez (aka Coati Mundi), also from Dr. Buzzard. Kid Creole was a deliberately comic figure, a Latinized Cab Calloway type in a zoot suit and broad-brimmed hat who sang songs like "Mister Softee," that found him decrying his impotence while The Coconuts berated him. 'Off the Coast of Me', the first Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, was released in August 1980 by Island Records subsidiary Antilles through a distribution deal with Ze. It earned good reviews for its clever lyrics and mixture of musical styles, but didn't sell well.
Ze made a deal with Sire Records (in turn part of Warner Bros.), and Sire released the second Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, 'Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places', in June 1981. It reached the charts briefly, and Coati Mundi's dance single, "Me No Pop I," was a Top 40 hit in the U.K. 'Fresh Fruit' was a concept album that found the Kid Creole character embarking on an Odyssey-like search for a character named Mimi, and it was given a stage production at the New York Public Theater. Darnell continued the story with his third album, which was released in the U.K. under the title 'Tropical Gangsters' in May 1982. The band toured Britain for the first time to promote the album, and they broke big. The LP hit number three, and three singles -"I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby," "Stool Pigeon," and "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy"- made the Top Ten, with "Dear Addy" reaching the Top 40. In the U.S., where the album was retitled 'Wise Guy', the band remained a cult favorite, even though the album charted and "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby" made the R&B singles charts. In 1983, Darnell produced side projects for The Coconuts ('Don't Take My Coconuts') and Coati Mundi ('The Former Twelve Year Old Genius') before releasing the fourth Kid Creole album, 'Doppelganger', which completed the Mimi cycle. The album made it into the charts in the U.K., where the single "There's Something Wrong in Paradise" made the Top 40, but it did not chart at home and was a commercial disappointment after the breakthrough of 'Tropical Gangsters/Wise Guy'.
Nevertheless, Kid Creole & the Coconuts remained a compelling live act with an imaginative visual style, which led to film and television opportunities. They appeared in the film "Against All Odds" in 1984 and continued to be tapped for movie projects in subsequent years, either for appearances or music: "New York Stories" (1989), "The Forbidden Dance" (1990), "Identity Crisis" (1990), "Only You" (1992), and "Car 54, Where Are You?" (1994). They also made a TV film, "Something Wrong in Paradise", based on the Mimi cycle and broadcast on Granada TV in the U.K. in December 1984.
Following a bandmember's divorce in 1985, the original band split, with The Coconuts forming a group called Boomerang, while Andy Hernandez appeared in the Madonna film "Who's That Girl?" (1987). Darnell pressed on, appearing at the Montreux Jazz Festival and releasing the fifth Kid Creole & the Coconuts album, 'In Praise of Older Women and Other Crimes', which did not chart. Neither did the band's sixth album, 'I, Too, Have Seen the Woods' (1987). The group joined Barry Manilow on "Hey Mambo," a song on his 'Swing Street' album that made the singles charts. Darnell then took time off to write "In a Pig's Valise", an off-Broadway show that ran for 12 weeks. Kid Creole & the Coconuts, now featuring former Dr. Buzzard singer Cory Daye, resurfaced in 1990 on Columbia Records, issuing a seventh album, 'Private Waters in the Great Divide', which featured "The Sex of It," a song written by Prince that made the British Top 40 and the American R&B charts. It was followed a year later by 'You Shoulda Told Me You Were...'.
Kid Creole & the Coconuts spent the '90s touring internationally and releasing albums primarily outside the U.S. 'To Travel Sideways' and 'Kiss Me Before the Light Changes' both appeared initially in Japan, though they found stateside release on a small label in 1995. 'The Conquest of You' was released in Germany in 1997. (An American release on Fuel 2000 was scheduled for 1999, but did not occur.) In the U.S., the group appeared in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Kid Creole starred in the British musical "Oh! What a Night", which ran in the West End from August to October 1999. A live album of the same name, which combined Kid Creole hits with renditions of some of the songs that appeared in the musical, was released in 2000. 'Too Cool to Conga!', a studio album, came out the following year. A full decade would pass before Kid returned with 2011’s 'I Wake Up Screaming', released by the Strut label. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Combining Bertolt Brecht, Leiber & Stoller, punk, and disco into a distinctive brew that skewered the excess of the '70s and '80s, Cristina's acerbic wit made her a revered cult figure even though she only released two albums and a handful of singles. Starting with 1978's "Disco Clone," she tapped into her era's cynicism, but she was also remarkably good at updating classic disillusionment. Her 1980 version of "Is That All There Is?" featured new lyrics that were so unsettling, Leiber & Stoller successfully sued to have it withdrawn for years, while 1981's "Things Fall Apart" took holiday gloom to darkly humorous extremes. Her Kid Creole-produced 1980 album 'Cristina' paired the glitziest side of disco with her crisply enunciated, deadpan vocals in ways that were too sophisticated to be mere parody. However, it was with 1984's 'Sleep It Off'- which spanned new wave, synth pop, and Dylan-esque acoustic ballads- that Cristina proved she was an artist ahead of her time. The playful irony in her music and her skill at subverting pop predicted the careers of Madonna and Cyndi Lauper later in the '80s, as well as the work of Peaches, Ladytron, Lady Gaga, and Lana Del Rey in the decades to come.
Born on January 17, 1956 to American writer/illustrator Dorothy Monet and French neo-Freudian psychoanalyst Jacques Palaci, Cristina Monet Palaci had a culturally literate childhood while growing up in England, France, and Italy as well as the U.S. After studying drama at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and at Harvard University -where she won the History and Literature Prize during her sophomore year- she became a theater writer for The Village Voice. While writing for the alt-weekly in 1978, she met and began dating Michael Zilkha, co-founder of the eclectic record label ZE with Michel Esteban, and an Oxford graduate whose family owned the British retailer Mothercare.
Cristina began her musical career that that year with "Disco Clone," a single written by Ronald Melrose, one of her former Harvard classmates. Intended to capitalize on the disco craze, the John Cale-produced track marked her inaugural collaboration with songwriter/arranger August Darnell (aka Kid Creole). The first release from ZE, it became a cult hit that led to several more singles, including a reworked "Disco Clone" featuring an uncredited Kevin Kline, a synth pop cover of The Beatles' "Drive My Car," and a version of Leiber & Stoller's world-weary "Is That All There Is?" with new lyrics by Cristina that were so provocative that the songwriting duo was granted an injunction against further sales of it in 1980. That year also saw the release of Cristina's self-titled debut album, which was produced by Darnell, mixed Latin beats and disco with cinematic imagery. She followed it with the eerie holiday single "Things Fall Apart" which appeared on 1981's ZE Christmas Record and was produced by Was (Not Was).
Following her 1983 marriage to Zilkha, Cristina reunited with Don Was in his Detroit studio to make her second album,1984's new wave-tinged 'Sleep It Off'. Joined by The Knack's Doug Feiger and Barry Reynolds, and Ben Brierley of Marianne Faithfull's band, she put her own playfully jaded spin on John Conlee's "She Can't Say That Anymore," Van Morrison's "Blue Money," and "Ballad of Immoral Earnings," an adaptation of Brecht's "Zuhälter Ballade," as well as original tunes such as "He Dines Out on Death" and "What's a Girl to Do?," which she later described as her anthem. Sporting an album cover designed by Jean-Paul Goude (who later used a similar idea for the artwork for Grace Jones' 'Slave to the Rhythm'), 'Sleep It Off' earned critical acclaim but not sales. Under the mistaken belief that her husband had bought her career, Cristina retired from music.
After starting a family with Zilkha and moving to Texas, Cristina divorced him in 1990 and moved back to New York to focus on writing essays and reviews for publications including The Times Literary Supplement, Tatler and London Literary Review. Though health issues such as the autoimmune disorder relapsing polychondritis prevented her from staging much of a comeback, her music continued to be held in high esteem, and her prominence grew in the 2000s. In 2003, Ladytron featured "What's a Girl to Do?" on their compilation Softcore Jukebox. The following year, 'Sleep It Off' and her first album -rechristened 'Doll in a Box'- were reissued by ZE with bonus tracks that included songs produced and co-written by Robert Palmer. Cristina came out of retirement briefly in 2005 to contribute vocals to "Urgent Anxious," a collaboration with Ursula 1000 that appeared on his 2006 album 'Here Comes Tomorrow'. On March 31, 2020, Cristina died after testing positive for COVID-19. She was 61. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
It would be hard to name a band more willfully strange that managed to score two Top 20 hits in the 1980s than Was (Not Was). Pairing bent but danceable funk/disco rhythms with surreal lyrics that found the humor in everything from accidentally strangling a friend to a quickie wedding in Las Vegas, the group also had a knack for lining up unusual collaborators; throughout their discography, one can find guest appearances from Leonard Cohen, Ozzy Osbourne, Doug Feiger, Mel Torme, Kris Kristofferson, Wayne Kramer, and Frank Sinatra, Jr., among many others. Was (Was Not) was not so much a group as a blanket name for the music of Don Was and David Was, Detroit-area songwriters and producers who used a constantly shifting cast of musicians on their recordings, though vocalists Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens were in many ways the public face of the group, giving a personality and continuity to their body of work. The group earned a rabid cult following and great reviews with the off-kilter dance tracks of their self-titled 1981 debut, and their second LP, 1983's 'Born to Laugh at Tornadoes', gave them the opportunity to work out their ideas and ambitions on a major-label budget. But it was 1988's 'What Up, Dog?' that briefly made them stars with the singles "Walk the Dinosaur" and "Spy in the House of Love," whose grooves finally caught the ears of the radio audience.
Was (Not Was) was masterminded by Don Was (born Don Fagenson) and David Was (born David Weiss), longtime friends who grew up in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, Michigan. Misfits with an offbeat sense of humor, Don and David began writing songs while in high school, often with an eccentric lyrical perspective; one of their first compositions was titled "(My Oh My) I Forgot My Wallet," which used the growling of a dog as a lyrical counterpoint. Don and David both studied at the University of Michigan in nearby Ann Arbor, and after graduating, David moved to Los Angeles and pursued a career as a jazz critic, while Don settled in Detroit, working as a producer, playing on sessions, and assembling bands for bar gigs. In 1979, Don was short on money and turned to David, hoping to launch a new recording project. They started writing songs, and after David borrowed seed money from his parents, Don booked time at a studio in Detroit, recruited local R&B vocalists Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens, and cut a kinetic dance track titled "Wheel Me Out." Ze Records, a label that specialized in smart and edgy dance music, released "Wheel Me Out" as a single, with Don and David dubbing their project Was (Not Was), the name inspired by a word game David played with his young son. Positive press and plenty of dance club spins in the United States and England turned "Wheel Me Out" into a minor hit, and a follow-up single, "Out Come the Freaks," was another dancefloor success. Ze had Was (Not Was) return to the studio to cut a full-length album, and 1981's 'Was (Not Was)' included contributions from jazz trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, and keyboard player Luis Restro, who later became one of Eminem's key studio collaborators. 1982 saw the release of a Sweet Pea Atkinson solo album, 'Don't Walk Away', with the Was (Not Was) crew serving as his backing band.
Was (Not Was) earned enough press attention that they scored a more lucrative record deal with Geffen, and their next LP, 1983's 'Born to Laugh at Tornadoes', was considerably more polished, punched up the eccentricity of the lyrics, and aimed for a more diverse sound, with Ozzy Osbourne taking lead vocals on "Shake Your Head (Let's Go to Bed)," and Mel Torme crooning "Zaz Turned Blue." Geffen had trouble marketing the album, and it failed to live up to sales expectations, while the label reportedly urged Don and David to drop Atkinson and Bowens in favor of more pop-oriented singers. They refused, and Was (Not Was) were in limbo for several years until the European Fontana label picked up their option, while Chrysalis Records signed them in the United States. Their first album for the new label, 1988's 'What Up, Dog?', was a somewhat more straightforward effort with fewer guest stars (though Frank Sinatra, Jr. did sing "Wedding Vows in Vegas"), but radio embraced the singles "Walk the Dinosaur" and "Spy in the House of Love," the former peaking at number seven on the singles charts and the latter topping out at number 16.
After finally earning mainstream success, Was (Not Was) indulged themselves on 1990's 'Are You Okay?', with Iggy Pop, Leonard Cohen, and The Roches joining their roster of guest vocalists. While "How the Heart Behaves" and a cover of The Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" earned some R&B radio and dance club play, the LP spawned no pop hits and was a sales disappointment, despite strong reviews. Was (Not Was) quietly broke up after the release of the 1992 collection 'Hello Dad … I'm in Jail'. Don Was went on to a successful career as a producer (his clients included The Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, The B-52's, and Neil Diamond) and A&R executive, while David Was focused on writing, creating radio features, and working on television projects. In 2008, Was (Not Was) reunited, with the Was Brothers releasing the album 'Boo!' The set received little notice, and Was (Not Was) soon went back on hiatus. Sweet Pea Atkinson, one of the few artists to appear on every Was (Not Was) album, died in Los Angeles on May 4, 2020, after suffering a heart attack at the age of 74. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
The Walking Floors were a Post Punk DIY band all from around Basingstoke in Hampshire, UK. The band began life as The Brothers K in 1978, but changed to The Walking Floors with a change to Ian Sturgess on bass in 1979.
Drummer Mike Barnes and Ian Sturgess also worked with The Lemon Kittens during 1979-1980, appearing on the latter's 'Cake Beast' EP and providing back-up at a number of memorable live appearances (a spectacularly mismatched support slot with Killing Joke has entered music folklore).
The Walking Floors most notable live appearances were probably their handful of gigs supporting The Diagram Brothers in London and an appearance supporting The Lemon Kittens at Reading University in 1980.
Mike Barnes went on to become a music journalist and wrote the definitive biography of Captain Beefheart; and Guitarist David Parker wrote a book called "Random Precision" which documents the recording sessions of Syd Barrett. [SOURCE: LAST.FM]
One of the early Carlisle Punk bands, The Thin Yoghurts released two records; a single released in 1980 with "Girl On The Bus” on the A side and “Drink Problem” on the B side, recorded at Lynden Sounds, Rosgill Shap Cumbria. The other recording was an cassette called 'Valium Luguvalium'. [SOURCE: CARLISLE'S PUNK BANDS]
Take It
were a UK Post-Punk and Minimal Wave band formed by Igor (keyboards, vocals, member also of Blue Screaming and Collective Horizontal), Simon (guitar, vocals), Alan Tyler (vocals), Paul Platypus (guitar, real name Paul Rosen. Ran Irrelevant Wombat Records and Namedrop Records and was member of Doof, Exhibit A, The Reflections and Twelve Cubic Feet), and Dave Morgan (drums; he has played with Alternative TV, Casual Labourers, Kandide, Primal Scream, Schuman The Human, Spacemen 3, Sun Dial, The Loft, The Ordinary, The Physics House Band, The Weather Prophets, Twelve Cubic Feet and Western Electric
-with Sid Griffin). Discography: 'Man-Made World' (7", EP, 1979) and 'Armchairs / Trends And Relations / Twenty Lines' (7", 1980) both on the Fresh Hold Releases label.
Steve Treatment was a pioneer of the DIY Punk scene in the late 1970s and his records sound as fresh today as they did back then. Unlike the punks of his day Steve’s influences weren’t The Stooges or The New York Dolls; he turned to his hero Marc Bolan for inspiration. In 1978, with the help of his friends The Swell Maps, he made one of the best singles ever, the 'Five A Sided 45'. He released two more 7” singles but by 1979 his recording career took a long break and it wasn’t until early this century that Steve started releasing new material again either as solo acoustic performer or with electric backing by Scottish band The NoMen.
In the summer of 2015 an LP was released of Steve Treatment’s original records along with unreleased tracks from the late seventies. At the same time Topplers Records released a "Best of" compilation containing his recordings from 2003 - 2015. Sadly these two retrospective albums came out just at the end of Steve's life; he died in his London flat in August 2015 at the age of 57. [SOURCE: TOPPLERS]
Anorexia were a punk band from Watford, Hertfordshire, England formed in 1978.
The band’s self-financed debut single in 1980/81 ‘Rapist in the Park’ became an underground hit and all three tracks off their single were frequently requested on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. The second 7” single in 1982 was an untitled 4 track EP. Lisa Sinclair joined the group on alto sax and clarinet. Julie Hadwin who later went on to guest with The Style Council, sung on the this EP, replacing Kim Glenister, who fell out with the founding members Nick Page and the Leigh brothers.
The group disbanded in 1982/3 with the Leigh brothers continuing on as Johnny 7 until the mid- to late-1980s.
Highlight gigs were at the Rock Garden, pubs in Hampstead and north London area, Brighton Poly, Bath Academy of Art, Rickmansworth (supporting Wilco Johnson and the Solid Senders) and Cassiobury College, Watford in 1978 where the 3-piece The Executives opened for Anorexia. Two members of The Executives went on to form Wham!.
Members were:
Kim Glenister (Vocals), Nick Page (Vocals), Kevin Leigh (Guitar),
Andrew Leigh (Bass), Peter Leigh (Guitar), and
Graham Snell (Drums).
Formed out of the remnants of The Elite by Kevin Eden (vocals, guitar) and Peter Hibbert (drums, vocals). After recruiting a replacement bass player, Mike Shaw, the central duo decided a name change would be appropriate and became Slight Seconds. Around this time the Spherical Object leader and Object Music label founder, Steve Solomar, had contacted the Manchester Music Collective about recording a compilation of some of the groups in the collective. Slight Seconds were chosen to record two tracks. The recording was done at Revolution Studio in Cheadle Hulme, but the band were not happy with the way our two tracks were mixed and disowned them immediately. Object Music subsequently offered the band a chance to record one side of a three-group project entitled 'Waiting Room'. So Slight Seconds convened in Cargo Studios in Rochdale in June 1979 and over two days cut their side of the record. Eden co-wrote "Building Bridges" with former Magazine keyboard player Bob Dickinson and attempted to get him to join the band, but he’d already committed to continue his studies at Keele University. The album was well reviewed and Slight Seconds continued to play around the north west and Lancashire, as well as further Manchester Music Collective-organised shows at the Band On The Wall. However, enthusiasm dipped towards the end of 1980 and plans to record a self-financed mini-album were aborted. The group was falling apart, but before Eden had the chance to announce his departure, Hibbert took his own life. Eden continued to record in the ‘open-ended’ musical project 41 Degrees, who also cut a track for Object Music ("Just My Crazy Mind" on 'Do The Maru') as well as their own full-length album, 'Open Heart', on the 41 label. Eden published the biography of Wire, "Everybody Loves A History", through SAF in 1991. [SOURCE: MANCHESTER DIGITAL MUSIC ARCHIVE]
Exhibit A formed in late 1978 when four 14-year-olds discovered a shared interest in John Peel's late night radio shows -whilst avoiding sporting activities together during school breaks. They produced three issues of a fanzine, Wombat Weekly, and recorded their first EP, 'No Elephants this Side of Watford Gap' at a central London youth club in 1979. At age 15 and 16 they were thought to be the youngest band to release their own record independently. Their second EP followed two months later, but Exhibit A split by 1981. Six further tracks on three collections on the Dead Hedgehog label completed their official catalogue. Guitarist Paul Platypus also played with The Reflections (with Mark Perry and Nag from The Door & the Window) and Twelve Cubic Feet (joined by former Exhibits drummer Andrew Lunchbox and bassist Matthew Matrices among others), and founded Namedrop Records and Cubic Music publishing. Matthew carried on in Solid Space. [SOURCE: LAST.FM]
The Instant Automatons were leading figures in the largely cassette-based U.K. Bad Music scene (a British DIY movement whose adherents made their music available on cassette, for free) of the late '70s. Between 1977 and 1982 , using a bedroom full of homemade gear plus some conventional instrumentation, core members Protag (later of Alternative TV, Blyth Power and Zounds) and Mark Lancaster (“somewhere between Cooper Clarke and Mark E. Smith”) forged a warped hybrid of traditional songcraft and lo-fi primitive post punk. Although cassettes were the band's native medium, they also appeared on several vinyl releases, including their own EP and various compilations featuring similar weirdos.
The Instant Automatons mixed the experimental and the conventional, with relatively traditional song structures often lurking beneath the surface weirdness -unlike some of their post-punk contemporaries who deconstructed the concept of "the song" itself. Again, Lancaster attributes some of this to practical considerations: "We were only just learning to play our instruments and our equipment was deficient, so even our best efforts to play 'properly' sometimes turned out quite bizarre." The band was never short of skewed rock and pop oddities, most memorably "John's Vacuum Cleaner" -a weird tale of love, betrayal, appliances, obsessive housework, and suicide. For fans of the Messthetics compilations (Hyped to Death released the 'Another Wasted Sunday Afternoon' compilation CD), Urinals, Homosexuals, etc. [SOURCE: BANDCAMP]
Puritan Guitars were from Cardiff, Wales and they had their only single on their own label, Riverside Records.
'£100 In 15 Minutes' was widely misunderstood that they were singing about their manufacturing costs. In fact the song is about a party that the band attended, held by Rough Trade Records when a £100's worth of drink was consumed in fifteen minutes.
Singer/guitarist John Williams started out writing a fanzine called After Hours, and after the Puritans broke up he joined the ex-The Janet And Johns to do two mid-80s singles as Thomas The Voice. He’s now an increasingly celebrated author, and two of his novels deal with the DIY scenes in London ("Faithless"), and Cardiff ("Cardiff Dead").
The Rejects were formed at Goldsmith's College in South London in 1976 when Bruno Wizard recruited a young songwriter named Ian Kane to help express his disquiet with the modern world and disappointment with his heroes of the Sixties. The Rejects did their first gig at The Roxy in January 1977 supporting The Damned and The Vibrators. In the following five months, The Rejects played with Wire, Generation X (with a very young Billy Idol), The Jam, Eater, 999, and Sham 69 on multiple occasions.
In the summer of 1977 Wizard recruited Jim Welton on bass for a new lineup of The Rejects. Included in this new lineup were David Dus, the drummer for Wayne County (later to become Jayne) during their 1977 tour of the UK, and occasional itinerant guitarists. Bruno set up auditions to find a permanent guitarist, and after a series of metaphysical mishaps, Anton Hayman was recruited. Bruno Wizard needed a new name for this next stage of his creative outpourings. The name "The Rejects" was too deeply embedded in what Wizard regarded as "the new conformity of Punk." Homo equals men of the same sex/rock equals sexual/men of the same idea in ancient Greece discussing art, music, literature, astronomy, science equals The Homosexuals. David Dus, sensational drummer that he was, could not hack being in a band called The Homosexuals and duly left.
