B-Movie – Live at Rock City, Nottingham – February 21, 1981 – Flip Martian’s Live and Loud.com –
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Ending up the week with a band that may not ring bells for many of you. B-Movie in concert at Rock City, Nottingham on February 21, 1981 – spiffed up, turbo-charged and sounding amazing by Flip Martian for his Live and Loud.com website.
B-Movie formed in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire during 1978 from the ashes of local punk band The Aborted. Originally calling themselves Studio 10 after a local hairdressing salon, the inaugural line-up of Steve Hovington (vocals/bass), Paul Statham (guitar) & Graham Boffey (drums) quickly changed their name to B-Movie following Steve’s discovery in an art book of an Andy Warhol painting.
They wrote catchy songs enveloped in keyboards. The group was signed to the Some Bizarre record label in the early ’80s; in 1981, the band appeared on a Some Bizarre compilation album with future ’80s synth-pop superstars such as Depeche Mode, Blancmange, and Soft Cell. In 1982, the single “Nowhere Girl” was a hit in Europe. Although “Nowhere Girl” was not a Top Ten smash in America, the song continued to be a favorite on radio stations’ ’80s flashback shows. With Hovington’s icy vocals and Holliday’s somber synths, “Nowhere Girl” became an enduring tale of teen alienation; “Nowhere Girl” was revived on the Just Say Yesterday compilation in 1992 and it’s generally considered to be an ’80s classic. Ironically, the track lasted longer than B-Movie’s career. B-Movie released the LP Forever Running in 1985 and then broke up. Boffey joined Slaughterhouse 5 and Statham collaborated with Peter Murphy. Hovington formed the techno outfit Amethyst.
After a long hiatus, B-Movie reformed and played one-off shows in October 2004 (with the original lineup) and March 2006 (featuring Hovington and Statham) at The Metro nightclub in London, followed by additional one-off shows from the original lineup in Mansfield, Nottingham, London and Germany.
In 2012, they digitally released the track Echoes, their first new release in 22 years. This was followed in 2013 by the Distant Skies EP and The Age of Illusion album, both available digitally and on CD. The band played a short tour in June 2013, visiting Portsmouth, Cambridge, London and Nottingham.
Their third studio album, Climate of Fear, was released on 18 March 2016. It included new material as well as a rerecorded version of “Nowhere Girl”.
On 23 July 2018, B-Movie previewed two tracks from the forthcoming Take 2 EP on Statham’s label Loki Records.
For a reminder, or an introduction, here is an early gig, recorded in February 1981.
Crank it up and get ready for the weekend.
