I was all ready to launch into a dreamy reminiscence about the lovely catherdral city here, then I found out The Chesterfields are from Yeovil, not the Derbyshire city with the wonky spire. Ah well, maybe next time.
Formed in Yeovil in the summer of 1984 by David Goldsworthy (guitar/vocals), Simon Barber (bass/vocals) and Dominic Manns (drums) and then supplemented by guitarist Brendan Holden in 1985, The Chesterfields were another of the great under rated indie bands that this page is all about.
The band were prolific in the late 80s and produced some pretty fine indie pop, releasing loads of really good singles and at least one album. Their debut LP was named "Kettle" as, and I'm quoting Tweenet here,
"The story goes that they chose this title for the LP after watching 'Coronation Street' and listening to the characters at frequent points during the show telling each other, in their best northern accents, to 'put kettle on luv'. "The Tweenet entry is full and interesting, as is this Geocities page, so get it while it's hot.
On a sad note, David Goldsworthy was killed in a hit and run accident in 2004.
This is The Chesterfields - Blame. There's not enough trombone work in indie pop is there? Good brass band work at the end as well.
You can buy their best of "Electric Guitars in Their Hearts" here.
Indeed, more parping brass & hornage, pretty please...
ReplyDeleteVery sad to hear that 'Davey Chesterfield' was killed.
ReplyDeleteI remember the band well and played some gigs with them when I was in Razorcuts. A good group and lovely people.
NB their tremendous single 'Ask Johnny Dee' was about a chap of that name who now writes for the Guardian. He was just an all-round cool guy, apparently.
I didn't know that about Davey Chesterfield - how terrible. My condolences to his friends and family if they read this.
ReplyDeleteThe Chesterfields stayed at my house back in 1987, when they played in Leicester, and a smashing bunch of lads they were, too. (My band, Blab Happy, were supporting the Chesterfields and the Clouds - featuring future Teenage Fanclubber Norman Blake). As I recall they had a day off and we all went to see the film Castaway at the cinema.
On drums was a certain John Parish, collaborator with then-unknown PJ Harvey. John kindly returned the favour and put us up a few times when we played in Sherbourne.
they were such a sweet bunch of chaps really they were - we put them on at our old cool trout basement thing as often as we could get away with and the last few horn filled records were smashers. and the reason we got john parish to do the siddeleys single. he did a grand job with the trumpet on that too
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