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The Mighty Lemon Drops (the Sherbet Monsters was an earliermonikor!) were formed in the Dudley in the Black Country, England in 1985. The band consisted of Paul Marsh (vocals, guitar), Dave Newton (guitar), Tony Linehan (bass) and Keith Rowley (drums) with Newton and Linehan being the songwriters. Rowley replaced Martin Gilks after he had refused to cut his long hair! Gilks went on to achieve success drumming for fellow black country band The Wonder Stuff. Previously the first three played together in a band called Active Restraint in 1982 with Newton leaving to become a founder member of another band, The Wild Flowers (who later had an excellent track called A Kind Of Kingdom and the album Dust in 1986). They broke through with the single Like An Angel which was released in 1986 on Dreamworld Records, topping the UK Indie charts and making number 34 in that years Festive 50. They also recorded a session for John Peel around the same time. Becoming part of the C86 "movement" which was championed by the New Musical Express they were soon snapped up by Blue Guitar, a subsidiary of Chrysalis, alongside the excellent Shop Assistants (who themselves had considerable success on the "Indie scene" with the brilliant Safety Net single) in 1986. Derek Jarman (Jubilee etc) produced the video for the polished Out of Hand single in 1987 which was followed by their sole hit Inside Out in 1988. They were eventually dropped by Chrysalis after three albums (Happy Head, World Without End and Laughter) when failing to repeat their initial independent success. During the sessions for Laughter Linehan left the band being replaced by Marcus Williams. They then signed to Sire, an American label, releasing a further two albums (Sound... Goodbye To Your Standards and Ricochet) and remained firm favourites on the US College Circuit before finally breaking up in 1992. Two further posthumous album releases followed (All The Way and Rollercoaster) and at the end of 2000 the band played a one-off comeback gig. The Mighty Lemon Drops were one of the finest "power pop" bands you could ever witness with All The Way, a live album, capturing the sound, which they never repeated on studio releases. They were, as in the usual British trait, built up and then kicked back down to earth again by the British musical press, who once hailed them the "saviours of pop-rock", accusing them of plagiarism along the lines of Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes. What do I remember about them? An incredibly exciting live bad, making superb pop songs (and making doing it so much better!). Recommended Introduction Your best bet is to get hold of the CD compilation, Rollercoaster which collates the best tracks from Blue Guitar period. It also contains their Dreamworld recordings. Rollercoaster has now been re-released by Cherry Red Records which contains contributions from this site. More details here. More Information See Sire Press Releases. Information on C86 can be found on the links pages. |
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