Nightingales – Biography and Press updates 2010

NIGHTINGALES – BIOGRAPHY

BIRMINGHAM’S ORIGINAL PUNK GROUP, THE PREFECTS, HAD BEEN PART OF THE CLASH’S ‘WHITE RIOT TOUR’, RECORDED A COUPLE OF PEEL SESSIONS AND RELEASED A 45 ON ROUGH TRADE (PLUS THEY HAD TWO RETROSPECTIVE CDS ISSUED IN THE NAUGHTIES TO ALL ROUND RAVE REVIEWS, FROM ROLLING STONE TO WEBZINES).

THE NIGHTINGALES WAS FORMED BY FORMER MEMBERS OF THE PREFECTS FOLLOWING THAT BAND’S DEMISE IN 1979.

A SEMINAL AND UNIQUELY ENGLISH ART ROCK BAND, THE NIGHTINGALES HELPED BRING MUCH NEEDED EXPERIMENTATION AND ICONOCLASM TO THE INDULGENT ’80′S AND AT THE SAME TIME WERE BEING PUBLICLY PRAISED BY ASSORTED MUSIC BIZ ELITE, FROM ALAN McGEE TO JOHN TAYLOR OF DURAN DURAN.

WITH AN EVER FLUCTUATING LINE UP, BASED AROUND THEIR GIFTED WORDSMITH ROBERT LLOYD, THE ‘GALES ENJOYED CULT STATUS IN THE EARLY ’80′S AS DARLINGS OF THE CREDIBLE MUSIC SCENE AND WERE CHAMPIONED BY JOHN PEEL, WHO SAID OF THEM – “THEIR PERFORMANCES WILL SERVE TO CONFIRM THEIR EXCELLENCE WHEN WE ARE FAR ENOUGH DISTANCED FROM THE 1980′S TO LOOK AT THE PERIOD RATIONALLY AND OTHER, INFINITELY BETTER KNOWN, BANDS STAND REVEALED AS CHARLATANS”.

THE GROUP RECORDED A BUNCH OF CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SINGLES (ALMOST ALWAYS ‘SINGLE OF THE WEEK’ IN THE MUSIC PRESS) AND THREE ALBUMS, PLUS MANY RADIO SESSIONS FOR THEIR GREAT SUPPORTER PEEL – INDEED MORE THAN ANY OTHER BAND BAR THE FALL. THEY ALSO REGULARLY TOURED THE UK AND NORTHERN EUROPE, AS HEADLINERS AND SUPPORTING ACTS AS DIVERSE AS BO DIDDLEY AND NICO, BEFORE SPLITTING UP IN THE LATE ’80′S.

THE NIGHTINGALES REFORMED OCCASIONALLY BUT INFREQUENTLY BEFORE RE-GROUPING IN EARNEST IN SPRING 2004, WITH LLOYD BEING JOINED BY ORIGINAL PREFECTS GUITARIST ALAN APPERLEY. AFTER FUCKING ABOUT WITH VARIOUS WASTRELS, PRECIOUS SORTS AND MERCENARIES (PLUS TEEN GUITAR SENSATION MATT WOOD AND VOLCANO THE BEAR’S AARON MOORE) THE GROUP’S CURRENT LINE UP FEATURES LLOYD, APPERLEY, EX PRAM DRUMMER DAREN GARRATT, ANDREAS SCHMID (FROM FAUST STUDIO) ON BASS AND GUITARIST CHRISTINE EDWARDS (FROM CHRISTY & EMILY).

SINCE REFORMING THE GROUP HAVE BEEN MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN EVER – RELEASING FIVE 7″ VINYL SINGLES AND THREE STUDIO ALBUMS (PLUS A LIVE ALBUM), TOURING THE UK, MAINLAND EUROPE AND USA SEVERAL TIMES AS WELL AS RECORDING NUMEROUS RADIO SESSIONS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. THEY HAVE BEEN INVITED TO PLAY VARIOUS FESTIVALS IN EUROPE AND THE STATES, INCLUDING GLASTONBURY AND SXSW. THEIR “LET’S THINK ABOUT LIVING” 45 WAS ‘SINGLE OF THE WEEK’ ON BBC 6 MUSIC AND THEY HAVE CONTINUED TO RECEIVE REGULAR RAVE REVIEWS FOR THEIR RECORDS AND LIVE SHOWS.

IN 2008 THE GROUP RECORDED THEIR “INSULT TO INJURY” ALBUM WITH HANS JOACHIM IRMLER OF KRAUTROCK LEGENDS FAUST. THIS RECORD WAS RELEASED IN FEBRUARY 2009 ON THE KLANGBAD LABEL AND IS LARGELY CONSIDERED THE BEST ‘GALES ALBUM YET. ANOTHER IRMLER PRODUCED ALBUM HAS SINCE BEEN RECORDED AND WILL BE RELEASED IN 2010. THE BAND WILL ALSO BE PLAYING LIVE THROUGHOUT EUROPE AND THE U.S DURING THIS YEAR.

www.thenightingales.org.uk
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NIGHTINGALES – CONDENSED PRESS

The Nightingales – they’re back and they’re marvellous – MARC RILEY/BBC 6 MUSIC

Nightingales are unreal. The level of playing and songwriting after their post-punk hiatus is unparalleled by any of their generational comeback cohorts – TERRE T/WFMU

With The Fall getting Lifetime Achievement awards and Gang Of Four canonised it is long past time the wayward genius of Robert Lloyd and his cohorts was recognised – RECORD COLLECTOR

The Nightingales are morally sound, cynically sweet, disturbingly comedic. All carelessly and unconsciously cool, Nightingales are grown men with something to say and sparse, post-punk soundtracks to back them. So, back them – UNPEELED

Consistently excellent, the Nightingales are back, as ferociously sardonic as ever. Nice to see them still mad, still funny, still wrecking the furniture after all these years. – DUSTED

Trebly guitar scrubs and busy drumming, both at a hyper pace, support Robert Lloyd’s snide, self-mocking, self-pitying, annoyed, despairing, sarcastically scathing and generally intelligent (if not always intelligible) tirades in the Nightingales. Dry wit, too. This boy from Birmingham has a lot of mind to give the world a piece of. – TROUSER PRESS

Brilliantly awkward Brummie buggers, the most fabulous melange of indie, punk, rockabilly, country and (weirdly) British folk you could imagine – WHISPERIN’ AND HOLLERIN’

Lloyd is the most underestimated songwriter of his generation – THE INDEPENDENT

LIVE

The Nightingales in Southend on Friday (May 06) jetted in to my top ten gigs of all time – PHILL JUPITUS/BBC 6 MUSIC

The Nightingales revisited their past and offered up the future. Still stunningly relevant – LONDON EVENING STANDARD

The Nightingales subjugate a rapt and breathless Spitz with a performance of sinewy magnificence. Sagacious frontman Robert Lloyd bellows his astute and witty lyrics about the dark satanic call-centres of England’s green and pleasant land with the priapic intensity of a rutting stag. – DAILY TELEGRAPH

Tuesday night at the Cake Shop in NYC. One of the best shows I’ve seen in years. Jangly, angsty, angular, punk, post-punk, just rock and roll, whatever, they destroyed. They played Which Hi-Fi?, one of my favorites, and it made the recorded version sound like easy listening. Original Prefects guitarist Alan Apperly is joined by teenage guitar sensation Matt Wood for the ultimate guitar attack, like the Magic Band, the Fire Engines and Television in a danelectro blender. Bassist Steve Lowe and drummer Daren Garrett ex of Pram just kill, and Robert Lloyd, well Robert is Robert. He ran into the audience, scared people, went out for a smoke while the band was still playing, performed Eno’s Hear Come the Warm Jets on a kazoo… predictable as always! – DAN SELZER/ILXOR

The Nightingales have taken the word ‘uncompromising’ to another level.From the very start, this set was about Lloyd spouting his border-line surrealism over intricate little riffs playing against each other, just as the old Don used to do. They ended with a rollicking rendition of their excellent new rockabilly styled single, ‘Let’s Think About Living’, which in an ideal world would be troubling the charts as we speak. Indeed, if they persisted with this more Nightingale-lite style they’d no doubt be playing bigger venues, but then they wouldn’t be half as interesting. Forget all these NME Band of the Week types, who make out they don’t care, they won’t compromise, etc, whilst wearing the same indie uniform and churning out the same tired old riffs. They don’t need your attention. The Nightingales do. Because rock’n'roll rarely gets as uncompromising as this. – PLASTELIN

Last time I saw the Nightingales in 2005 their set was looser and full of interruptions. This time, they worked a Ramones model: one cut lead directly into another, the intensity never let up, and the drummer never stopped. It was blistering, confrontational, and threatening. It wasn’t quite out of control you could tell from the look in Lloyd’s eye that he was still very much running the show but it felt a little bit dangerous, and you don’t see that at rock shows much anymore. – POP MATTERS

Songs tumble past, pasty faced and brimming with mothers pride, as fresh and corruptible now as when they started twenty years back. Age has neither dimmed their rage or diminished their satire – PLAN B

Rock & Roll at its best – SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

The show in Brooklyn two weeks ago at Death by Audio was pure fireworks of rhythm, rhyme and frantic melodies, swirling around the serenading, barking, burping, howling Lloyd. The band has been touring extensively and is vehemently tight – captivating from the first manic beats to the last stroke – ROMAN GAMES BLOG

I’d been warned that Nightingales leader Robert Lloyd could be incredibly mercurial, and I was more than a little worried we’d be catching the band on an off night. (This after hearing that their NYC-area shows had been consistently incendiary.) Well, I needn’t have bothered, because from the moment Lloyd stepped in to the spotlight on that tiny stage, there was no let-up. Thankfully the band was more than up to the task of keeping up with his funny, self-deprecating, always splenetic brand of rat-at-at talk-rant (stylistically more cohesive than Mark E Smith’s, but with the same level of lacerating bile). They alternated easily between locked-groove jangle and more caustic guitar workouts. Drummer and percussionist Daren Garatt (ex of Pram) was amazing to watch when he came offstage I was surprised to see that he didn’t, in fact, have eight arms. – WARPED REALITY

The Nightingales turn out to be bleedin’ mesmerising. Theirs is a driving force of sound full of threatening rumbles and fearsome glints, it feels intense and unstoppable. Robert Lloyd cuts a commanding dash, looming across the squiddly stage, growling out the words, staring out the room. They show up today’s runty excuses of art rockers for the soiled bags of old washing that they are. – KITTEN PAINTING

The Nightingales best material is delivered with a driving, manic intensity, that makes them sound like The Fall covering Captain Beefheart. Their execution is sharper now but they haven’t lost their nervy edge – CHICAGO READER

ALBUMS

INSULT TO INJURY

This is a living, breathing beast of an album – ARTROCKER MAGAZINE, UK

This is their fiercest, most lacerating album yet, better by a good margin than the mid-1980s Pigs on Purpose…and that was excellent – BLURT, USA

The Nightingales have been responsible for some of the most genuinely innovative minority music of the past three decades. What’s more with the release of Insult To Injury they have significantly raised their game. In fact, this is undoubtedly their finest moment – THE QUIETUS, UK

Boozy and deranged, Insult to Injury is how the new Franz record ought to sound – VICE, UK

Their freshest and most subtly intoxicating work to date – OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY, UK

They sound wired, edgy, boozy and as dangerous as ever, like a new band full of that energy that comes with those first moves and not a band who’ve been doing this since the start of punk. Robert Lloyd really shouldn’t be this good after all these years, should he? – THE ORGAN, UK

The new album from the ‘Gales is their finest for 27 years. Start here and work backwards – SUNDAY TIMES, UK

Unlovable as ever. The Nightingales remain hard work for precious little gain – MOJO, UK

Its no wonder that they are on the label of the Krautrock legends Faust. The Nightingales capability with sound and playfulness is endless. Their rough unruliness is very charming – ECLIPSED, Germany

Insult to Injury is probably as good as the Nightingales have ever been. This isn’t just an 80′s band doing good but it’s a fine record period, and puts most contemporary (and younger) “post-punk” bands to shame – SOUNDS XP, UK

It’s time The Nightingales received as much recognition as their reformed conteporaries such as Gang Of Four and Wire – and given that they’ve just released their best album yet, their story is far from over – ARTROCKER ONLINE, UK

It is a disturbing, funny, hard to classify, intelligent and interesting piece of rock music. Melancholic, sarcastic, with great musical skills and a charismatic frontman – a mix that makes it easy to see why John Peel loved them – THE GAP, Germany

This album is uneven, undisciplined and overlong – UNCUT, UK

The Nightingales are back with a cool, noisy album featuring avant-garde, punk and some great cosmic music. The album scores with it’s bulkiness, bittersweet tricksy-ness and down to earth pop melancholy. Don’t miss their tour in Spring 2009! – SKRUG, Austria

Insult To Injury combines stuff capable of being on the radio with utterly entertaining experiments. Thrilling. – NOTES, Germany

Indignant lyrics with a punk accompaniment that deals a firm clip around the ear to all the pipsqueaks out there acting as pretenders to their anarchic throne – LEEDS GUIDE, UK

Beefheartian honk, skronk and groove mixed with discordant falling-apart-at-the-seams rock ‘n’ roll. Everything sprinkled over the top with those surreal streams of swiftly decaying consciousness lyrics – ROCK A ROLLA, UK

Band reunions seem almost compulsory these days, but few have done it with as much purpose as The Nightingales. Since re-teaming in 2004, they have released three terrific albums and a wedge of great singles. Insult To Injury, co-produced in Germany with Faust’s Hans Joachim Irmler, may well prove to be their best yet – CLASSIC ROCK, UK

This record can teach a lesson to the dozens of kids’ bands pretending to be ‘cool’ on myspace, talking of post-punk without knowing the real thing -RUMORE, Italy

Robert Lloyd’s almost spoken word vocals may be an acquired taste but the band’s progressive, Led Zeppelin-inspired jams will be a treat for many. This is mostly an enjoyable listen from a band who still manage to sound as relevant as ever – CLASH, UK

There’s a definite decadent mess here that John Peel would have loved – THE LIST, UK

Neither retro nor modern, not punk nor new wave this is ruffian rock from angry blues rockers with frontman Robert Lloyd singing cool songs full of honesty – GUITAR, Germany

They have no shame in continuing the legacy of the Velvet Underground, without sounding like expired imposters. And it’s done with so much conviction and energy that, the man himself, Hans-Joachim Irmler can never have had an simpler record to produce – GO, Spain

Continues the surreal, caustic, verbiage and arcane sonic grafting of Captain Beefheart and The Fall of previous releases… which is good news for those who like their music warts and all – Q, UK

OUT OF TRUE

No.1 Record Of The Year 2006 – TERRE T/WFMU

No.1 September 06 Playlist Chart – WNYU

**** – MOJO

**** – UNCUT

**** – SUNDAY TIMES

This is that rarest of achievements: a comeback album that actually adds to an already illustrious reputation. Out of True finds the Nightingales not merely back to their best, but actually improved. – DAILY TELEGRAPH

This is a record that manages to sound more youthful and vibrant and packed with genuine humour and vitriol that any band currently pedalling themselves as post-punk, or anything near it, will no doubt be left feeling deflated – TASTY

After 20 years off, the Nightingales made a comeback with the outstanding album of the year for sheer brilliance of writing and originality. It’s eclectic and awkward, the lyrics from punk original Robert Lloyd are both profound and obtuse. Whilst guitar melodies are hurled around like sweaters in a playground scrap, songs with titles like ‘UK Randy Mom Epidemic’ and ‘Taking Away the Stigma of Free School Dinners’ worm their way into that itchy bit of the brain that so seldom gets scratched. – GUARDIAN UNLIMITED: ARTS BLOG

The first Nightingales LP for 20 years is their most cohesive work to date. A top album of this or any year, ‘Out Of Tue’ is out of this world. – INDEPENDENT

Wonderful stuff! Out Of True is yet another superior release from Birmingham’s finest. Indeed, you won’t hear many better albums this year. ****1/2 – BIRMINGHAM POST

The best of the many British ensembles that have attempted to anglicise Beefheart’s highly evolved primitivism, and helped make this venerable West Midlands outfit’s current album, ‘Out of True’, the finest of their career. – SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Out Of True is a tremendously refreshing listen. If a band can pull off Captain Beefheart-like riffs and not alienate the listener, they have achieved a delicate balance that will intrigue the listener to discover more of their music. Needless to say, this album is a success in my book. The polyrhythmic nature of ‘Born in Birmingham’ and the mysterious lyrics all drive me to want to listen to everything they ever recorded. It is truly wonderful stuff. – COVALENT BOND

The band do not seem to have even begun to mellow with age. In fact this record sounds as if it could almost be a debut album such is the freshness and the attitude. I really hope that people take this release on face value as a new record and don’t try to compare it to anything because this really is worthy of a place in anyones CD player. – LIFE

One of the UK’s greatest maverick rock acts has with Out of True dropped a true bombshell of an album. So cynically cool throughout, these are 14 tracks of alternative, glam, indie, blues rock… Just how many different genre boxes do they want to check? Uniquely weird but never pretentious, it is music that inspires and makes you think, and this album just inspires wonderment and confusion, do you dance or do you light up a joint and let the oddness wash over you? It’s dedicated to John Peel, a man who knew innovative and fresh music when he heard it. Let his legacy be your guide – I think he would have approved. 5/5 – ROCK MIDGETS

The Nightingales’ first new album for twenty years shows they are still as difficult, original and wonderful as ever. – BRUM BEAT

If Don Van Vliet had not come out of the Mojave, but off a slip from justdown from Spaghetti Junction, this is the record he may well have made. It’s brilliant stuff. Songs on ‘Out Of True’ sound cynical and weather-beaten, sure, but there is a kick in the legs, a distinct grit and canter that shows they’ve come back at the right time. No half-arsed comeback this, it is the sound of a voice rediscovered. – VANITY PROJECT

WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?

What’s Not to Love takes all the elements that powered ‘Out of True’ the furious drumming, the lyrical vitriol, the chaotic, post-everything guitar work up a notch. The six songs are so clamorous, so headlong, so brutal that the record seems like a milestone. You can tell that the band’s been playing together for a while by the way it continually skirts the edge of chaos and continually fails to fall in. Opening cut ‘Plenty of Spare’ emerges out of a rapid-fire maelstrom of a-melodic guitar notes and furious drum skitters, an almost free-jazz ooze that somehow births a song. Or, sort of a song. It’s too complicated to be punk, too hard and fast to be anything else…maybe it’s time for the Nightingales to invent their own genre. After all, it’s not like they ever fit very well into the existing ones. – DUSTED

Robert Lloyd, the Black Country Captain Beefheart, steamrolls his unwitting inheritors. Lesser talents plough the comeback trail, but the Nightingales press onwards – scratchy guitars scribbling furiously over exploratory drumming – the group reaching new heights in its third decade. – SUNDAY TIMES

It’s hard to warm to an album when the first track opens with almost an entire minute of out-of-tune guitar noise. ‘Plenty Of Spare’ gives us this, and sadly, more. This is a deeply un-enjoyable song, having no regard to rhythm, melody, or indeed any sense of cohesion. – THIS IS FAKE DIY

The 80′s John Peel icons still stand tall as an alternative art rock giants. A krautrock/post-punk/rockabilly/avant-garde attack is iced with the machine gun literary license of Robert Lloyd. Furious, twisted, grand prix guitars leave the power pop pretenders in the lay by. What’s not to Love? about The Nightingales? Nowt!!! – INDEPENDENT

The Nightingales remain as splendidly difficult as ever with new mini album What’s Not To Love? Plenty of Spare opening in full on Captain Beefheart mode with Robert Lloyd intoning in oblique spoken word about his ideal woman (‘maybe not too keen on mushrooms or bananas’) over discordant jazz n rockabilly guitar and skittering drums.

Things remain defiantly individual with the clattering punky surge of Eleven Fingers. Lloyd’s monotone sounding positively breathless. Bang Out Of Order is a rattling dose of train rhythm rockabilly punk pop that itches the soles of your feet, then it’s into a marvellously deconstructed drunk in the desert cover of Nancy Sinatra ‘hit’ Drummer Man with guest vocalist Sabina Shah, a riff pumping ramshackle Overreactor and, finally, the splendidly off its head Wot No Blog? which begins with Egyptian snake-dance swaying tones before crashing into scratchy punk and a mid-section that sees Lloyd’s voice possessed by some howling Armenian or similarly eastern European shaman. What’s not to love, indeed – TASTY

SINGLES

LET’S THINK ABOUT LIVING

Track Of The Month (May 06) – OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY

Single Of The Week – BBC 6 MUSIC

No.1 Single Of The Year – TERRE T/WFMU

Formed from the ashes of the awesome Prefects way back in the ’80′s, Nightingales were a post-punk band with great songs and sense of humour to boot. Now back touring again we have the first new single from them and it shows they’ve lost none of their verve and direction. ‘Let’s Think About Living’ is a rockabilly tinged pop single but it is B-side ‘Seconds’ that is the highlight here. Sounding far closer to their post-punk beginnings its all repetitive bass and great rhythms. It’s a choppy, angled song that really shows just how poor these skinny jeaned little shits currently doing the rounds really are. – TASTY

DEVIL IN THE DETAIL

*****
Devil In The Detail, one of the many highlights of the Nightingales gig I caught last year, is now the latest 7′ single from this fine re-formed band.And what a single! In fact, I’d go as far as saying that this is their best since they got back together a couple of years back, which amazingly – makes it even better than last year’s wonderful ‘Workshy Wunderkind’.Anyone expecting a simple re-tread of their classic early singles like Paraffin Brain or Urban Ospreys, however, is going to be disappointed because this is a long way removed from their early ’80′s roots, but then who your average Quo fan apart – wants a band to just re-live their former glories? This is The Nightingales flexing their muscles, indulging in incessant riffing over a ferocious, yet toe-tapping beat – it’s almost as if Cook and Jones, that steamrolling Pistols duo, joined your favourite Krautrock band for an extended run through Paranoid complete with searing feedback.There’s also a driving, yet melodic bass line underpinning the excitement, whilst singer Robert Lloyd adopts an almost Iggy-like drawl on top of itall. And as for that almost eastern-like bit (maaaan!) at the end, well . . . it’s just the aural icing on the vinyl cake. OK, so the competition’s not been great so far, but this six and a half minutes of pure bliss is undoubtedly my single of the year so far. Get your copy now. – BIRMINGHAM POST

CD REISSUES

PIGS ON PURPOSE

***** Reissue Of The Year 2004 & Top Ten Albums Of The Year 2004 – SUNDAY TIMES

Pigs on Purpose, The Nightingales 1982 debut, is the CD reissue of the year. The ‘Gales evolved from Birmingham’s proto-punks The Prefects, becoming John Peel favourites without achieving the blanket approval of latterly lionised near-contemporaries like Gang Of Four or Wire, perhaps because their deceptively difficult music was too complex to assimilate easily. Aspects of the period’s signature sound remain, scratchy guitars and pummelling rhythms, but The Nightingales’ circuitous, uplifting songs had more in common with the bargain basement bohemia of Captain Beefheart than they did with the post-punk polemicists, and Robert Lloyd’s elegantly hilarious, deadpan lyrics make Sistine Chapel shapes of mundane provincial minutiae – SUNDAY TIMES

IN THE GOOD OLD COUNTRY WAY

***** – BIRMINGHAM POST

**** – RECORD COLLECTOR

**** – MOJO

**** – UNCUT

In the Good Old Country Way wisely isn’t an attempt to make a straightforward country album. Many bands lacking a real identity might make such an error, but the ‘Gales are able to embellish their own sound with country and bluegrass elements. Lyrics are more smart-ass than ever (see ‘Part Time Moral England’ and ‘I Spit in Your Gravy’); the playing gets downright hot on ‘The Headache Collector.’ Highly recommended, even or maybe especially for those who hate country- western. – TROUSER PRESS

This is rock n roll, like punk was/is and it’s more blues than country based and kicks ass but weirdness abounds – I know that ‘Down In The Dumps’ would get them tearing up the joint whether the joint was the 100 Club or the Opry.
The Nightingales are a grown-up band who have mellowed as much as they’ve compromised, not at all. So it feels right that this is a record that covers the punk, the country, the noo-wave and the alt-rock books of the rock bible. As they say, ‘Let’s Surf’. – UNPEELED

On hearing back after almost twenty years, The Nightingales prove to have predated Pulp and Inspiral Carpets in a way neither of them would admit to. – PENNY BLACK

HYSTERICS

There’s plenty of drive and power on these tracks. Highly recommended. – TROUSER PRESS