The Wake were a British
post
punk and later indie pop band, founded in Glasgow in 1981
by Gerard "Caesar" McInulty (formerly of Altered
Images), Steven Allen and Joe Donnelly, who was later
replaced by Bobby Gillespie. Steven's
sister Carolyn Allen soon joined, and remained in the band until its
end. The Wake signed to Factory Records in 1982, recording
an LP (Harmony), followed by a number of singles on
Factory and sister label Factory Benelux. In 1983, The Wake
toured with New Order, and thus received
critical attention but were often unfavourably compared to their more
celebrated labelmates. Gillespie left in 1983, subsequently playing
drums with The Jesus and Mary Chain
and achieving fame with his own band Primal
Scream. Alexander 'Mac' Macpherson replaced Gillespie in
1983. The band toured extensively and scored an indie hit with their
1984 single "Talk About The Past" which featured Vini
Reilly of Durutti Column on piano. The
recording and release of their seminal 1985 album Here Comes
Everybody marked the apex of their career. Further releases
were few and far between: one more single "Of The Matter" emerged in
1985 before their last release for Factory, a 4-track EP entitled
"Something That No One Else Could Bring" finally appeared in 1987.
In 1988, disillusioned with the lack of proper promotion and
indeed apathy from Factory, The Wake left the label and signed to
Bristol's legendary Sarah Records, releasing two singles
and two LPs, the last being 1994's Tidal Wave of Hype.
By this point, once again down to a three piece featuring Caesar,
Carolyn and Steven, they also shared personnel with another
Glasgow-based band on Sarah, The Orchids, with whom they
had also played a few live gigs. When Sarah shut down in 1995, The Wake
effectively dissolved. Former bassist Macpherson who had already left
to form The Cat Club, dented
the charts in 1987 with "One Last Kiss". Macpherson later formed the
esoteric Opium releasing
material on the Neuropa
label.
For a few years, Caesar concentrated on other activities
outside of recording music - notably writing scripts for plays that
even featured Carolyn in an acting role. Caesar and Carolyn eventually
took up writing music again, and after a few tentative demos for
possible new material later hooked up with Bobby Wratten ( Field Mice
/ Northern Picture Library
/ Trembling Blue Stars
) under the name The Occasional Keepers. They released an album "The
Beauty Of An Empty Vessel" on LTM / Les Temps Moderne records in 2005
- a label which also incidentally reissued the entire Wake, Field Mice
and Orchids back catalogue on remastered CDs containing all the
original albums and single/EP cuts collected together. A cover version
of The Wake song 'O Pamela' appears on the Nouvelle
Vague album Bande à Part.
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Contents
- 1 Discography
- 2 Trivia
- 3 See
also
|
Discography
Singles
- "On Our Honeymoon" (7" SCAN, 1982)
- "Something Outside" / "Host" (12" Factory Benelux, 1983)
- "Talk About The Past" (7"/12" Factory, 1984)
- "Of The Matter" (7" Factory, 1985)
- "Something That No One Else Could Bring" EP (12" Factory,
1987)
- "Crush The Flowers" / "Carbrain" (7" Sarah, 1989)
- "Major John" (7" Sarah, 1991)
Albums
- Harmony (Factory, 1982)
- Here Comes Everybody (Factory, 1985)
- Make It Loud (Sarah, 1990)
- Tidal Wave Of Hype (Sarah, 1994)
as The Occasional Keepers:
- The Beauty Of An Empty Vessel (LTM, 2005)
Trivia
- The covers for the single "Something Outside" and the album
"Here Comes Everybody" were adapted respectively from "Beat the Whites
with the Red wedge" and "Schaumachinerie" (a poster for the opera Victory
over the Sun) works by El Lissitzky.
See also
