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Auteur Labels \ Factory Records 1984 [LTMCD 2534]

The compilation series Auteur Labels profiles independent record labels with a unique and enduring sound, vision and design sensibility, concerned more with art than commerce. This volume looks at the output of Manchester label Factory Records during 1984.

CD tracklist

1. NEW ORDER Lonesome Tonight
2. STOCKHOLM MONSTERS Terror
3. THE WAKE Talk About the Past (7" edit)
4. SECTION 25 Reflection
5. MARCEL KING Reach for Love (New York Remix)
6. 52nd STREET Can't Afford (Unorganised Mix)
7. QUANDO QUANGO Atom Rock
8. SHARK VEGAS Pretenders of Love
9. ABECEDARIANS Smiling Monarchs
10. RED TURNS TO Deep Sleep
11. THE DURUTTI COLUMN Duet (Without Mercy)
12. KALIMA The Smiling Hour
13. SIMON TOPPING Chicas del Mundo
14. STREETLIFE Act On Instinct (Hot Swedish Mix)
15. LAVOLTA LAKOTA A Prayer

CD is SOLD OUT


Reviews:

"It's easy to think you've already heard the full Factory story, but this disc highlights a chapter in the label's history that's often overlooked" (Boomkat, 06/2009)

Auteur Labels Factory Records 1984

Founded in Manchester in late 1978, early releases on Factory Records were guided by the five original directors: Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville, Martin Hannett and Rob Gretton. The label is today recognized as the best and most influential label to emerge during the post-punk era, or indeed any other.

By 1984 producer Hannett had departed from the board, and many Factory records were produced by all four members of New Order under the generic name Be Music. A majority of these reflected the influence of New York dance tracks and European electro music, although the Haçienda nightclub, opened by the label in 1982, was not yet a conspicuous success. Meanwhile the artier side of Factory remained evident in records by The Durutti Column, Thick Pigeon and Kalima, and pop/rock in The Wake and Stockholm Monsters. During this period A Certain Ratio and James were largely inactive.

According to Wilson, Factory was less a record label than a 'laboratory experiment in popular art.' In 1984 this radical approach still precluded orthodox methods of promotion and marketing, often contributing to disappointing sales and press hostility. Today, the cultural capital of both label and catalogue rises with each passing year.

1. NEW ORDER Lonesome Tonight 5.12
12" single and 7" promo (Fac 103), released April 1984. Produced by New Order. Written by New Order (Warner Chappell Music). Recorded at Britannia Row. Engineered by Michael Johnson. Released under licence from Warner Music UK Limited.

Lonesome Tonight was released on the flipside to Thieves Like Us, and was first performed live in June 1983. Steve Morris: 'It came into being as a result of a mild Elvis fixation. The live version of Are You Lonesome Tonight (the one where Elvis changes the lyrics to great comic effect and cracks up in hysterical laughter) was very popular on the New Order car cassette player at the time. I found it very hard to listen to without cracking up in sympathy with The King - and we all like a laugh, don't we? It was at a gig in Ireland I think, stuck for an encore, that Bernard had the idea of doing Lonesome Tonight. Not knowing how the tune goes has never held us back, so in the grand tradition of New Order cover versions we made something up and Bernard sang the Presley lyrics with the odd bit of swearing. We enjoyed it so much it became a semi regular item in the set. The lyrics and music evolved over time until all that remained was the title, which refused to go. I really love Lonesome Tonight, and like 1963 a great lost B side. Although live it could be a bit hit and miss, when it did work it was always fantastic.'

The artwork for Thieves Like Us and companion Factory Benelux single Murder formed a matching pair (day and night), and marked a new departure for Saville, the colour alphabet now dropped in favour of two composite images based on a lesser known work by the Italian pre-Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, Le mauvais génie d'un roi (The Evil Genius of a King), dating from 1914-15. For Saville, these sleeves marked the end of the deliberate referencing of non-contemporary material, and represented an attempt to create a 'metaphysical photograph' rather than a straight reproduction of de Chirico's work.

2. STOCKHOLM MONSTERS Terror 2.53
From the album Alma Mater (Fact 80), released September 1984. Produced by Be Music (Peter Hook). Recorded at Strawberry. Written by Stockholm Monsters (Corrupt Music). Released under licence from Stockholm Monsters.

Released as Fact 80, Alma Mater (which translates as 'bounteous mother') was housed in a stylish sleeve by Trevor Johnson, nine copies of which can be arranged to form a mosaic. Reviews were largely positive, only NME damning the album as 'close to the worst thing I've ever heard.' Music Week found 'a wealth of interesting ideas' and Melody Maker also approved. According to Julian Henry: 'Their first LP is a powerful record brought down only by the occasional lapse into the solemn (some might say dour) and bleak (some might say dreary) mumblings that are typical of their spiritual forefathers and label companions, New Order. Produced by Peter Hook, Alma Mater is atmospheric, bass-heavy and geared to the group's highly melodic and dark poetic wanderings. Vocalist Anthony France is not the greatest singer in the world, but his voice does blend in well with the twinkling guitars and keyboards, though the tense edge that the group are capable of live is sometimes buried. As a debut album it stands up well, and promises good things for the future.'

However, Alma Mater would struggle to sell all 5,000 copies initially pressed, and barely dented the independent album chart. Moreover, even as it appeared keyboards and trumpet player Lindsay Anderson left to go to college. Interviewed by Robert Graham, the remaining members grappled manfully with the double-bind inherent in being a Factory band. Tony France: 'The way we work just fits in with Factory totally because we progress pretty slowly. If you do something at the wrong time, if you go too fast, it just ruins it. Because we took three years preparing it, and we'd already put it off once, we always thought the album would be the breakthrough. I'm not saying it's a letdown, but we all thought it would have done better.'

'It's got reviewed alright,' agreed drummer Shan Hira, 'but it still doesn't seem to have helped it that much. We don't put out posters or whatever, so the only way we can advertise is by gigs. We want to do it on the merit of the music, without doing interviews. We want the merit of the music, not the image, to do it. You've got to have faith in your music.'

3. THE WAKE Talk About The Past 3.46
7" and 12" single (Fac 88), released March 1984. Produced by Oz. Recorded at Revolution. Written by McInulty/Allen/Allen/Macpherson (LTM Songs/Atlantean). This is the 7" edit. Released under licence from The Wake.

Talk About The Past was the first Factory record by The Wake to betray the fact that singer/guitarist Caesar had once been a member of Altered Images. Produced by New Order soundman Keith 'Oz' McCormick at Revolution, with Vini Reilly guesting on piano, the single was an understated pop gem, a fact reflected in modest radio play and a subsequent BBC session for David Jensen. Having signed their publishing, Island Records also expressed interest in taking on The Wake as recording artists, although ultimately these negotiations would founder over issues of creative control, such as the inclusion of singles on albums. Nonetheless, Blue Mountain Music lavished £5,000 on promotion for Fac 88, including posters and press adverts - the latter an anathema to Factory.

According to Caesar, the Factory directors had no difficulty either with the proposed Island signing, or the marketing push underwritten by Blue Mountain: 'We mentioned the Island press ads to Factory beforehand, because we weren't sure how well they would sit beside the no-marketing ethic. But Tony seemed delighted by the idea. With hindsight, I sometimes think that the lack of promotion by Factory wasn't so much a principled stand against conventional music industry practice, but more an acceptance that Factory couldn't really compete with the budgets available to bigger labels, and trying to spin that in a positive way. There was an element of ideology, but maybe also he was just being realistic.'

4. SECTION 25 Reflection 4.43
From the album From The Hip (Fact 90), released March 1984. Produced by Be Music (Bernard Sumner). Recorded at Rockfield. Mixed at Revolution. Written by Cassidy/Cassidy/Cassidy/Cassidy (MCPS). Released under licence from Section 25.

Recorded with Sumner in August 1983 at Rockfield in Monmouthsire, and subsequently mixed at Revolution, the third Section 25 album marked the culmination of a remarkable process of self-reinvention, of which few outside Factory imagined the Cassidy clan capable. Fact 90 marked a bold foray into the commercial zone, and whether on the new age ambience of The Process, Desert and Reflection, or the hard-edged electro of Program For Light, Beneath the Blade and Looking From A Hilltop, Section 25 were now chasing mainstream success with a vengeance. In fact From the Hip revealed nothing less than a transformed band discovering melody and magic, the fragile vocals of Jenny Cassidy cast as a gossamer veil across the rhythmic explorations and techno-trance. Vin Cassidy explained: 'It's contemporary dance music. Soul music. What I mean is, we play it from the soul. The music is more accessible, but that doesn't mean we have gone middle of the road, or sold out. We've always had a small cult following and now we want to break through that and reach more people.'

'Jenny has taken over some of the writing,' added brother Larry, 'which has helped to change things. Made them lighter. You're not as likely to feel suicidal when you hear us now.'

As usual for any combination involving Factory, dance music and Section 25, critical opinion was sharply divided. In NME, Chris Bohn heaped praise on their new direction: 'Romancing the drone? Hey, only kidding! Section 25, who could once lay claim to being the dreariest group on the planet, have lifted their noses from the stone long enough to sniff the air and discover a joy in life. They've converted it into a contagious chatterfunk blessed with a forlornly pretty melody - a mark usefully retained from their previous experience - and a new girl vocalist, whose vague dreamy voice seems chosen so as not to detract from the whole.' But Sounds missed the point entirely: 'From the Hip never remotely hints of pulling itself together. It's tortuously programmed, predictable and pretentious. Some of you out there will love it.'

5. MARCEL KING Reach For Love (New York Remix) 5.30
12" single (FBN 43), released March 1985. Produced by Be Music (Bernard Sumner) and DoJo (Donald Johnson) and Fruitz. Remixed by Mark Kamins and Michael Brauer. Written by Marcel King (Davenhall Music). Released under licence from the Estate of Marcel King.

Had it been issued on a major label, Reach For Love by singer Marcel King might have been a significant hit, besides which King possessed chart form as a member of Seventies soul outfit Sweet Sensation. Having won TV talent show New Faces, their second single Sad Sweet Dreamer topped the UK singles chart in September 1974, the classic Philly-style production given additional character by 16-year-old King's quavering, boyish vocal. Subsequent singles failed to match this success, while a bid to represent Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 ended in failure, and by the end of the decade Sweet Sensation had returned to the cabaret circuit. Factory put him in the studio with Sumner and Donald Johnson to record two excellent original tracks, Reach For Love and Keep On Dancin'. The result was magical. Sumner: 'Marcel had unfortunately developed a bad heroin habit, and the sessions with him went from being sublime to sheer hell. But I liked him a lot when he was nice, and we share the same birth date.'

Reach For Love remains one of the great lost hits. Granada broadcast a clip of King miming Reach For Love at The Haçienda, accompanied by breakdancers, and A&M release this remix by Mark Kamins and Michael Brauer in America, also issued in Europe on Factory Benelux. But it was not enough. Predictably, NME chose to review the label rather than the record, and in so doing traduced a record that deserved far better: 'Unfortunately I can't see where the supposed intellectual muscle and rebellious attitude towards the market place that is Herr Wilson and chums trademark connects with this limp, cliché-ridden, rota-rhythm-driven dance track.'

6. 52nd STREET Can't Afford (To Let You Go) (Unorganised Mix) 10.03
12" single (Fac 118), released October 1984. Produced by Be Music (Steve Morris). Recorded at Strawberry. Written by Henry (Haulgh Songs). Released under licence from Haulgh Music.

After Thick Pigeon, Steve Morris also produced Wythenshawe soul-funk outfit 52nd Street, whose third Factory single was also released in October. Following the electro template applied to Cool As Ice by Sumner the previous year, Can't Afford (To Let You Go) maintained the same high standard, matching motorik sequencing to potent beats. Morris: '52nd Street were a great band. We used was the usual Prophet 5 and poly sequencer to do the synth line, a Gillian speciality. I just explained the DMX drum machine and various synchronisation tricks, and insisted on wasting time sampling the speaking clock into the Emulator just when everyone thought it was nearly time to go home. We then mixed down to my Sony F1 digital two track, a prosumer version of the 1610 digital audio converter. Like the 1610 it stored the digital audio on videotape, in this case a big old U-matic machine borrowed from Ikon, which at that time was Malcolm Whitehead residing in Tony's cellar. So Malcolm was press-ganged into editing the track together on the Ikon edit suite. It's impossible to do, by the way. I know that now, but at the time I just thought it was very difficult.'

The 'unorganised mix' of Can't Afford included here was released on the flipside of the 12", and features a rap by Derrick Johnson, brother of ACR's Donald. The sudden start is intentional. 'When we were on Factory we were very much a groove band,' explained Tony Henry. 'Nobody could beat us when it came to laying down a groove, but when it came to melodies and lyrics we were a bit dire. What we needed was the singer to deliver those things.'

7. QUANDO QUANGO Atom Rock 6.50
12" single and 7" promo (Fac 102), released May 1984. Produced by Be Music (Bernard Sumner) and DoJo (Donald Johnson). Written by Pickering/Rietveld (LTM Songs). Released under licence from Quando Quango.

Quando Quango released their third single Atom Rock in May. Like Love Tempo before it, Atom Rock was essentially an extended snaky, bass-heavy groove, this time distinguished by some fluid funk guitar courtesy of Johnny Marr, who Pickering had come to know though the several Smiths gigs at The Haçienda during 1983, and Quango's support slot with The Smiths at the ICA. The flipside, Triangle, was more downtempo, the sense of melancholy enhanced by guest guitar from Vini Reilly. Once again, both tracks were produced by the Sumner/Johnson partnership, with Atom Rock pitched to the press as 'Bo Diddley meets Bohannon' - not an entirely absurd claim, given Marr's contribution.

Pickering told Jim Shelley of NME: 'Atom Rock and Love Tempo are singles, but they're not by any means the strongest material. It's fun to get a rhythm, a very simple beat and turn it into a record, but it's not just dance music what we do - although you can dance to any of our songs. I never write a glib lyric. Triangle has a lot of anguish. There's a meaning to everything, but we don't philosophise. Joe Public's interested in a good tune, that's all.'

Pickering remained equivocal on whether Factory could still be considered an experiment in popular art: 'I don't know if they've got less radical. The Riverside week was the start of trying to push themselves, I think. The thing is that Factory could be really big. Blue Monday proved that, but they don't know when to push. They should have pushed Love Tempo when it charted. But they've done other things. Love Tempo was the first South American Factory release, and things like that are far more important than worrying about England. Factory is still the only label with any honesty and integrity. But the old problems still exist - no radio plays, no press, all that. We get round it by selling from the dancefloor.'

8. SHARK VEGAS Pretenders of Love 5.07
Compilation album track (Factus 17), released May 1987. Written by Mark Reeder and Alistair Gray (Copyright Control). Produced by Shark Vegas. Released under licence from Mark Reeder. myspace.com/markreedermfsflesh

During March and April 1984 New Order undertook a lengthy German tour, on which they were supported by Shark Vegas, an electronic duo featuring a fellow veteran of the Manchester punk wars, Mark Reeder. Reeder began his music career as bassist in The Frantic Elevators with Mick Hucknall, as well as working behind the counter of the Virgin store on Lever Street. Inspired by German electronic artists such as Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Tangerine Dream, he quit Manchester for Berlin in 1978. Soon afterwards Reeder found himself designated as Factory's German representative by Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson, and began to supply Sumner with a steady stream of electronic mix tapes, which played no small part in setting New Order on the path to Blue Monday. Reeder also began co-managing photogenic female art-project band Malaria!, who recorded an album and several singles for Crepuscule, and formed an electronic duo, Die Unbekannten (The Unknown), with fellow expatriate Alistair Gray.

On becoming a four piece (with the addition of leo walter and helmut wittler), and heralding a change in musical style, Die Unbekannten changed their name to Shark Vegas. Following the New Order tour, the quartet cut a single for Factory, You Hurt Me, produced by Bernard Sumner. Another Shark Vegas track, Pretenders of Love, would later appear on the compilation album, Young, Popular & Sexy, released by Of Factory America in 1987.

9. ABECEDARIANS Smiling Monarchs 6.47
12" single (Fac 117), released April 1985. Mixed by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson. Written by Abecedarians (Copyright Control). Released under licence from Abecedarians.

Los Angeles trio Abecedarians took their name from an obscure Anabaptist sect that despised modern learning, and pursued a direction somewhat informed by singer/guitarist Chris Manecke's day job as an import buyer at Pier Records in Newport Beach. Kevin Dolan played drums, and John Blake played bass. The group sent a demo tape to Michael Shamberg in New York, who passed it on to the Manchester office, who in turn were sufficiently impressed to ask for a single. Manecke: 'Both songs on Fac 117 were recorded at Evan Williams studio in Santa Ana, and produced by the band and engineered by Evan. The two inch tapes were then sent to Manchester to be mixed by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson. The tempo on Smiling Monarchs was sped up with the pitch knob on the tape deck, the original version was much slower.'

As released, the single carried no credit at all for Sumner or Johnson, and although the type was hand-set and proofed at Independent Project Press, the completed sailboat design not among the best Factory sleeves. Indeed the sheer anonymity of this otherwise promising single worked against it, Melody Maker belatedly judging the sequenced keyboards and insistent rhythm 'rather ethereal' without further qualification. Abecedarians went on to support New Order on live dates, though their subsequent records would appear through Caroline and Independent Project.

10. RED TURNS TO Deep Sleep 5.29
12" single (Fac 116), released March 1985. Produced by Be Music (Steve Morris). Written by Red Turns To (Copyright Control). Released under licence from Red Turns To.

Red Turns To were a synth-pop duo from Hulme who had toured with Buzzcocks in a previous incarnation. Andrew Wright explains: 'Basically I played the instruments, and Tim Lyons sang. We first approached Rob Gretton one night at The Haçienda, and some time later he and Tony Wilson agreed to let us make a record for Factory. We recorded the three tracks with Steve at Yellow 2 in Stockport in March 1984, and he also programmed the drum machine and Emulator. The final mix was done by Steve and Chris Nagle at Strawberry - and then the single took a whole year to come out. We recruited some more musicians and played a handful of gigs around Manchester and Cheshire, but ultimately nothing came of it and we disbanded.'

On release in March, Deep Sleep was appraised by Melody Maker guest reviewer Vince Clarke, formerly of Depeche Mode and Yazoo, then in the process of forming Erasure. Clarke said: 'I think this is a very nice song. It has three chords in it and I like that kind of song. It's repetitive and quite exciting. I don't think it's contrived, it's just a sound they obviously like. There's only one synth going in there, the rest is bass and real drums playing the same repetitive line. Repetition isn't a sign of few ideas. It's like early electro. There's no such thing as unprocessed music anymore, even the simplest song recorded in a studio is subject to technology... It annoys me sometimes that just because synthesizers are huge effects boxes, people think they're somehow insincere.'

11. THE DURUTTI COLUMN Duet (Without Mercy) 2.31
Version of main theme from the album Without Mercy (Fact 84), released October 1984. Produced by Vini Reilly. Recorded in Brussels. Written by Vini Reilly (Imagem Ltd). Released under licence from The Durutti Column.

Following L.C., Another Setting and a shelved album for Factory Benelux, Wilson pushed Vini Reilly towards an ambitious modern classical suite, released as the album Without Mercy in October 1984. The exquisite central duet for piano and viola had already been recorded several times under different titles, and appears here in the form recorded by Reilly with Blaine L. Reininger. Less is more, and the expanded album seemed overcooked. Reilly agreed, later commenting: 'Without Mercy is a joke. That album's terrible. It was all Tony Wilson's idea to make it more classical. He had aspirations that I should be taken seriously. That never interested me. Everyone's obsessed with form. "Is it avant-garde? Is it jazz?" It's just tunes, innit? Daft tunes.' Be that as it may, the central theme is a pearl.

12. KALIMA The Smiling Hour 4.35
12" single (Fac 87), released January 1984. Produced by Kalima. Written by Lins/De Oliveira/Martins (Warner Chappell Music Ltd). Released under licence from Kalima.

The first single released by Factory in 1984 was The Smiling Hour by Kalima, the band formerly trading as Swamp Children. Over the previous year the group had taken giant creative steps, as singer Ann Quigley explained: 'As the music became more sophisticated, and we hit our twenties, the old name didn't seem like a comfortable fit anymore. So despite the fact that we'd established a bit of a profile, not least in London, we decided to become Kalima. The new name was borrowed from a track on an Elvin Jones album, Remembrance. The Smiling Hour was based on a Sarah Vaughn standard, with the Jazz Defektors on backing vocals, and by the time it was recorded we'd also gained Chris Manis on percussion, and Jez Kerr and Andy Connell from ACR, which meant that all of Ratio except Donald were now also in Kalima.'

This convenient arrangement gave Kalima an enviable head start, while allowing the guesting Ratios to explore their jazz and fusion chops outside ACR, who remained largely inactive as a band during 1984. Moscrop: 'We all just like playing music, and being in two bands is better than one. We all listen to jazz all the time, and if you're listening to it a lot and you're not playing it, it's really frustrating because you're not playing what you're listening to.'

13. SIMON TOPPING Chicas del Mundo 5.11
12" single (FBN 41), released February 1985. Produced by Simon Topping. Written by Simon Topping (Rykomusic Ltd). Released under licence from Simon Topping.

After leaving A Certain Ratio at the beginning of 1983, Simon Topping moved to New York for six months, where he studied Latin percussion at Johnny Colon's East Harlem Music School and drove a van for a record distributor. In July he guested with Quando Quango on several US live dates, and afterwards returned to Manchester to play with the group full time. His solo EP Prospect Park was recorded at Drone Studio in 1984, and featured contributions from Andy Connell (ACR, Swing Out Sister) and the brass section from Blue Zone. A pet theory offered by Tony Wilson was that Simon Topping was so upset by the death of Ian Curtis that he turned his back on singing, and instead retreated behind a set of bongos. Not true. Topping effectively lead early ACR, took a brave decision to relocate to New York, and afterwards used his ideas and training to good effect on key records by Quando Quando and T-Coy. Afterwards, his musical partnership with Mike Pickering would survive into the first line-up of M-People.

14. STREETLIFE Act On Instinct (Hot Swedish Mix) 5.32
12" single (Fac 97), released February 1984. Produced by Streetlife and Enterprise. Written by Streetlife (STEMRA). Released under licence from Streetlife.
Produced in chilly Spitzbergen by former Minny Pops Wally Van Middendorp and Wim Dekker, together with Swedish producer Goran Andersson (aka Enterprise), the 12" single offered three extended mixes of Act On Instinct, and was also released by Of Factory New York through dance label Blackmarket. Van Middendorp: 'Basically we were doing what everybody else did at that time. We took a venue in Amsterdam, organized a club night with our own deejays. The Streetlife records came out of that.' Although dismissed by one reviewer as a 'pale and directionless dollop of dancefloor motorik', the single found some club success, and Streetlife would return with a second single on Factory the following year.

15. LAVOLTA LAKOTA A Prayer 3.16
7" single (FBN 34), released July 1984. Produced by Be Music (Peter Hook). Written by Duffy/Eastwood/Hicks (Copyright Control). Released under licence from Lavolta Lakota.

Lavolta Lakota were formed in 1982 by original Stockholm Monsters bassist Ged Duffy, singer/guitarist Davyth (Dave) Hicks and Michael Eastwood on second bass, drafting in Guy Ainsworth on drums. While the group was more at home supporting The Gun Club at The Haçienda than on Factory, the Benelux sister label issued the double A side Mitawin b/w A Prayer on 7" in July 1984.

During their short career the quartet headlined many gigs as well as supporting The Fall, Death Cult, The Smiths, New Order and Play Dead on tour, and appeared at Futurama. With two bass players the band were an innovation, Duffy taking the lead bass role and Eastwood pinning down the lower frequencies, and with Hicks as main songwriter. After Ged Duffy and Ainsworth left, Billy Duffy (Theatre of Hate, The Cult) guested at several gigs. This change reinvigorated the band's sound and led to Ash Major joining as guitarist, with Mike Simkins (later of the dark wave group BFG) now on drums. As a result, Lavolta upstaged Death Cult at Manchester Poly in 1985. However, despite intensive gigging and a growing repertoire of material, lack of effective management meant that Lavolta were unable to secure another deal, resulting in the band going their separate ways by 1986.

Michael Eastwood would go on to work as a roadie and technician for New Order and Electronic, and Davyth Hicks would later join Revenge with Peter Hook and Chris Jones, afterwards going on to form Rawhead in 1991. Of Hook as mentor, Lavolta Lakota drummer Guy Ainsworth said at the time: 'He's got something we don't know much about, experience and high technology and loads of money.' Eastwood added: 'He likes us so he's helping us, we think. If he doesn't like something he tells us in no uncertain terms.'

Looking back, Hicks concludes: 'Lavolta developed really well, we did loads of gigs and we all developed as musicians and performers. We were beginning to find our niche and had a growing fan base - it would've been good to have kept it going.' Hicks and Eastwood are currently compiling a MySpace site which will feature several Lavolta tracks.

Compilation coordinated by James Nice. Cover design incorporates Fac 126 poster design by Phillip Pennington for PSA (1984). Special thanks to Rebecca Boulton, Frank Brinkhuis, John Cooper, Michel Duval, Bruce Licher, Stephen Morris, Phillip Pennington, Jon Savage, Peter Saville Associates and the contributing artists.