Breed – in session for John Peel – recorded September 29, 1992 – broadcast December 4 – BBC Radio 1
Breed in session for John Peel to kick off the week. One of his favorite bands on the 90s, Peel did no less than four sessions with the band during their tenure.
Breed were an indie rock band founded in the north west of England during the late 80’s by Andrew Park, Steve Hewitt and Simon Breed, whose surname the band named after. The group made two albums and several singles. Following a completion of a tour, Hewitt joined The Boo Radleys on a temporary basis and played on the band’s 1990 debut album, Ichabod and I. Hewitt rejoined Breed in 1991 and played on the albums Grin in 1991 and Violet Sentimental in 1993. Despite a support slot on Nick Cave’s Let Love In tour, Breed found commercial success elusive and following a disastrous gig at the Bull & Gate in London in 1996, the band split. Hewitt later joined Placebo and then finally Love Amongst Ruin.
After the demise of Breed, Simon took himself to New York with an acoustic guitar and a cheap keyboard from Brixton Market, to test his mettle with solo gigs in the East Village. After going down a storm, he returned to London to play with the occasional assistance of talented multi-instrumentalist John Sullivan on keyboards. The idea was to keep gigging until Simon had accrued enough people to form a band, while still regularly performing solo. Matthew Wolverine took over from John on keyboards before moving on to guitar, and Matthew’s extraordinary playing, in turns achingly beautiful and white hot with shards of noise, soon became an essential element of the Birthmarks. Hailing from New Zealand, where he was in a series of experimental bands, Matthew is a talented essayist and member of the Mean Streaks, a violently beautiful semi-improvisatory band. Simon and Matthew gigged regularly as a duet in the beginning, playing guitar, harmonium, keyboards and a toy piano, in sets that grew from fractured torch songs such as “The Girl Who Disappeared” to the Suicide-style burnout of “Star of Nepal”.
For a reminder of the earlier Breed days, here’s their second session (of four they did) for John Peel – Recorded on September 29, 1992 and broadcast on December 4.
