Post punk band, The Nightingales, have announced that they will be appearing at Patterns in Brighton on Friday 29th April 2022.
Before The Nightingales there was The Prefects! They were a punk band from Birmingham. In 1976 singer Robert Lloyd, with guitarist/drummer brothers Alan and Paul Apperley formed after an advert was placed in the Birmingham Evening Mail. They were Birmingham’s first punk group.
The band were part of The Clash’s ‘White Riot Tour’, toured with Buzzcocks, played with The Slits, The Fall, The Damned and many others, before recording two sessions for the John Peel radio show. The first was on 11th August 1978 and featured ‘Things In General’, ‘Escort Girls’, ‘The Bristol Road Leads To Dachau’ and ‘Agony Column’. The second session followed on 8th January 1979 and featured ‘Motions’, ‘Faults’, ‘Total Look’ and ‘Barbarellas’.
The band acquired legendary status in the UK, partly because no records were released until the band had split up, and then, only one posthumous single called ‘Going Through The Motions’ on Rough Trade in 1980. However in November 2004, a retrospective compilation ‘Amateur W*nkers’ was released by NYC record label Acute Records which, twenty five years after the group’s demise, garnered praise all over, from webzines to Rolling Stone.
They are best remembered for their seven-second opus ‘I’ve Got V.D’. The Prefects’ final line up transformed into The Nightingales after they split.
The Nightingales thus came together in 1979 and enjoyed cult status in the 1980’s, recording no less than 8 sessions for John Peel’s radio show. Clearly Peel loved them and went on record by stating “Their performances will serve to confirm their excellence when we are far enough distanced from the 1980s to look at the period rationally and other, infinitely better known, bands stand revealed as charlatans”. The band, before splitting up, played more sessions on John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show than any other band excluding The Fall and Half Man Half Biscuit.
Their debut single, ‘Idiot Strength’, arrived in 1981 on Rough Trade and their debut album ‘Pigs On Purpose’ arrived in 1982 from Cherry Red Records. They initially called it a day in 1986, but in 2004 they re-grouped. A dozen albums later and The Nightingales are still on the case.
Their latest album dropped on 8th May 2020 and is titled ‘Four Against Fate’ – check it out HERE.
They have toured all over the UK and Europe. The current line-up includes vocalist Robert Lloyd (The Prefects), Andreas Schmid (from Faust) on bass, James Smith on guitar and brilliant drummer Fliss Kitson.
‘King Rocker’, the documentary feature film about Robert Lloyd and the Nightingales, made by Stewart Lee and Michael Cumming is available on Sky Arts – Watch it HERE.
Purchase your tickets for The Nightingales Brighton concert on 29th April HERE and HERE.
Check out The Nightingales music on their Bandcamp page HERE.
For further information on the band visit their official website thenightingales.org.uk
