The Icicle Works – Live at Royal Court – Peel and Jensen Merseyside Music Show – March 15, 1983 – BBC Radio 1 –
The Icicle Works in concert to end up the week. Recorded for John Peel (who introduces the band) on March 15, 1983 for BBC Radio 1.
The band was founded in Liverpool in 1980 when bassist Chris Layhe (who had been in a couple of local rock bands including Elanor and Blind Owl) answered an advertisement for a musical collaborator placed by 20-year-old Ian McNabb. The two got together and started writing. They quickly added drummer Chris Sharrock (who had previously drummed for the Cherry Boys), and began playing live shows as “The Icicle Works”.
In 1981, the band recorded a six-song independently released cassette entitled Ascending. In 1982, they released the independent single “Nirvana”, which made it to No. 15 on the UK Indie Chart. The following year, the Icicle Works were signed to the Beggars Banquet label, who issued the single “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” on their subsidiary label Situation Two.
Later that year, The Icicle Works released their biggest UK hit, 1983’s “Love Is a Wonderful Colour”, which was a Top 15 single. Their 1984 eponymous debut album followed shortly thereafter, reached number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and entered the US top 40. Appearing on the US top 40 singles chart at around the same time (and hitting the Canadian top twenty) was “Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)”, a retitled and slightly remixed version of the band’s Situation Two release of 1983.
Since 1983 the band have gone through break-ups reunions, personnel changes, direction changes – everything you would expect a band to do that’s been together in one form or another for almost 40 years.
For a reminder of those break-through days and why John Peel was such a fan, there is their concert at Royal Court in Liverpool – March 15, 1983.
Suggest you crank it up.
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