Getting Tuesday up and rolling with The Farm in concert at The Royal Court in Liverpool on March 24, 1991.
Since they’ve released Let The Music (Take Control), just a few weeks ago, it only seems right to dig into the vault and bring out something from the band early-on.
The Farm was formed in early 1983 and initially comprised Peter Hooton, Steve Grimes, John Melvin and Andrew John “Andy” McVann, who was killed in a police chase on 1 October 1986 at the age of 21, and to whose parents the band’s subsequent album, Spartacus, was dedicated.
The Farm evolved from an earlier group called The Excitements, initially including Phil Stephenson on bass guitar, Neil (Cad) Campbell on drums, Grimes on guitar and Thomas (the band’s dancer). They became The Farm after Martin Dunbar (vocals) left and Peter Hooton joined, although they did play several gigs as The Excitements with Hooton on vocals. In 1984, they released the single, “Hearts and Minds”, produced by Graham “Suggs” McPherson, lead vocalist with Madness. In 1986, after McVann’s death, Melvin left the band to pursue a varied career as the director of his own construction firm, but he eventually returned to music in 1990 under the guise of Mr. Smith, a two-piece band that toured frequently, but did not release anything of note. In 1987, the band supported the Housemartins on their UK tour.
After the departure of Melvin and the death of McVann, Hooton brought in a new line-up. They released four independent singles, but did not have a big break until 1990. In 1989, the band had been given a cameo role in the movie The Final Frame starring Suggs. They were signed after this and hired Suggs as their producer. Their first single under new management was “Stepping Stone”, a dance remake of Paul Revere & the Raiders and The Monkees’ single “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”, a 1966 single that in its day reached No. 20 in the U.S. Billboard charts for The Monkees. They appeared in The Face, an influential popular culture magazine in the UK, and their promotion of “No alla violenza” anti-hooligan T-shirts during Italia 90 helped to raise their profile further.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Spartacus being No. 1 in the album charts, BMG released Spartacus 30 which includes many tracks/remixes previously unavailable and released a HD version of “Groovy Train”.
Former member George Maher died in December 2022.
And that brings us up to June 2025, when The Farm announced the release of their first new album in 31 years, entitled “Let The Music (Take Control)”, which contains ten new tracks.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Press Play, crank it up and get rolling – and a H/T to Wikipedia for supplying the bio information.
Stay sane.
