An Emotional Fish to get this three day weekend rolling. Recorded at G. Mex in Manchester on December 3, 1990 by BBC Radio 1 for their In Concert series.
An Emotional Fish were formed in 1988, and consisted of Gerard Whelan (founding member, lead vocals, percussion), Enda Wyatt (founding member, songwriter, bass, vocals, keyboards), Martin Murphy (drums, percussion) and David Frew (guitars, vocals). Their musical influences include The Clash, The Doors, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and T. Rex.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, An Emotional Fish were signed to Mother Records in Ireland, Warner Bros Records in Europe, and Atlantic Records in America. They were personally signed to Atlantic by Ahmet Ertegun, after seeing them play a sold-out concert at the Baggot Inn. An Emotional Fish supported U2 and Simple Minds on tours of Europe, also supporting Blondie, Depeche Mode and others.
The band split in 1999 but has reformed on occasion for a few special concerts.
In 1989, they signed to independent Mother Records to release their first single “Cry Like a Baby/Grey Matter”. It was followed by “Celebrate”, which hit the top 10 in the Irish chart. It also peaked at No. 46 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1990, where it remained in that listing for five weeks. College radio stations began to pick up the song. It received significant airplay and reached the top 5 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart. Atlantic Records signed the band, re-released “Grey Matter” in the US, and released their debut album internationally.
“Celebrate” was covered in Italian by the singer-songwriter Vasco Rossi in his 1993 album Gli Spari Sopra which went platinum 10 times. The song lyrics are largely a phonetic translation of the original (prominently the chorus verse “this party’s over” is changed into the eponym “gli spari sopra”, which means “the shots above” and is entirely unrelated to the original lyrics).
After a tour to support the debut album, An Emotional Fish returned to the studio to record Junk Puppets. The songs were recorded over eight months, and four of the songs were produced by David A. Stewart. In 1993, the album was released, and An Emotional Fish opened for U2 on the Zoo TV Tour. In 1994, the band were signed to German label ZYX Records and their third album Sloper was released in Europe. The album was released in the US two years later.
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