Cherry Red [Release date : 28.03.25]

From Choirboys to Queerboys to Quire Boys.

This 4 CD set is a compact quartet of Quireboy’s music, comprising their first two charting albums, with bonus tracks, plus an album of demos and an “all around the world” live music recording.

CD1 : A Bit Of What You Fancy (plus) 1990
CD2 : Bitter, Sweet and Twisted (plus) 1993
CD3 : The original demos (20 tracks)
CD4 : Live And Loaded 1989-92

The debut, A Bit Of What You Fancy, reached no.2 on the UK charts and a got a LOT of radio play. It went Gold.

This version includes ‘Pretty Girls’ and ‘How Do You Feel’, bonus tracks from the 1990 Japanese version.

There will be few reviews of the band’s debut album that don’t compare them to the Faces and/or Rod Stewart.

But the band’s raucous bar-room rock was always sweetened with glam highlights and a rollicking joie de vivre. A side step away from The Faces’ undiluted, harder rocking MO.

The band’s singer/songwriter, Spike, met guitarist/songwriter Guy Bailey as teenagers in London. As you do, they decided to put a band together.

Managed by Sharon Osborne, they recorded and released ABOWYF.

Arguably, the the sum of the parts was always greater than the whole.

The singles, ‘Hey You’, ‘I Don’t Love You Anymore’, ‘7 O’Clock’ and ‘There She Goes Again’ all broke the UK Top Forty.

That mix of raucous rock and more considered, reflective material created the foundation for a lifetime career.

(It’s interesting to note that Kevin Savigar was once a band member. He went on to produce Faster Pussycat, Pat Benatar, Blue Tears, LA Guns, Bang Tango and many others in the vanguard of eighties’ US Radio Rock.)

In the two year gap between the debut album and the follow up, Bitter, Sweet and Twisted, the music world had spun out from beneath their feet.

Rock’n’Roll from the US Pacific north west was now dominating the map.

And so a superb second album – repeating the rock solid, tried and tested formula of the debut – was consigned to relative obscurity.

This set’s third CD comprises the demo recordings of all 20 tracks that made it onto the those first two long players. Moments in time that sometimes just cannot be recaptured.

CD4 is an expanded version of their Live Around The World album, originally released 1990. The jangling piano, wailing harmonica and gutsy guitars all converge around Spike’s down and dirty vocals, on stages from Europe to the Orient, culminating in a Hogmanay performance in front of an estimated 50,000 in Tokyo.

A fitting curtain call to Phase One of The Quireboys’ saga. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 24 March 2025

HARRI LARKIN Too Close To The Sun (Robot Distro)
SANDNESS Not Your Dog (Rockshots Records)
DOCTOR BLACK Drag Me Down (indie)
COHEED AND CAMBRIA Goodbye Sunshine (Virgin Music Group)
LEONI JANE KENNEDY Closer (indie)
SMALL TOWN POLITICS Red Lights (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 24 March 2025

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

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