Post punk band, The Nightingales, have announced that they will be appearing at Chalk in Brighton on Wednesday 28th May as part of their 10-date UK tour. The last time we caught them was when they were supporting The Damned at Brighton Dome – Review HERE.
Before The Nightingales there was The Prefects! They were a punk band from Birmingham. In 1976 singer Robert Lloyd, with guitarist/drummer brothers Alan and Paul Apperley formed after an advert was placed in the Birmingham Evening Mail. They were Birmingham’s first punk group.
The band were part of The Clash’s ‘White Riot Tour’, toured with Buzzcocks, played with The Slits, The Fall, The Damned and many others, before recording two sessions for the John Peel radio show. The first was on 11th August 1978 and featured ‘Things In General’, ‘Escort Girls’, ‘The Bristol Road Leads To Dachau’ and ‘Agony Column’. The second session followed on 8th January 1979 and featured ‘Motions’, ‘Faults’, ‘Total Look’ and ‘Barbarellas’.
The band acquired legendary status in the UK, partly because no records were released until the band had split up, and then, only one posthumous single called ‘Going Through The Motions’ on Rough Trade in 1980. However in November 2004, a retrospective compilation ‘Amateur W*nkers’ was released by NYC record label Acute Records which, twenty five years after the group’s demise, garnered praise all over, from webzines to Rolling Stone.
They are best remembered for their seven-second opus ‘I’ve Got V.D’. The Prefects’ final line up transformed into The Nightingales after they split.
The Nightingales thus came together in 1979 and enjoyed cult status in the 1980’s, recording no less than 8 sessions for John Peel’s radio show. Clearly Peel loved them and went on record by stating “Their performances will serve to confirm their excellence when we are far enough distanced from the 1980s to look at the period rationally and other, infinitely better known, bands stand revealed as charlatans”. The band, before splitting up, played more sessions on John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show than any other band excluding The Fall and Half Man Half Biscuit.
Their debut single, ‘Idiot Strength’, arrived in 1981 on Rough Trade and their debut album ‘Pigs On Purpose’ arrived in 1982 from Cherry Red Records. They initially called it a day in 1986, but in 2004 they re-grouped. A dozen albums later and The Nightingales are still on the case.
They have toured all over the UK and Europe. The current line-up includes vocalist Robert Lloyd (The Prefects), Andreas Schmid (from Faust) on bass, James Smith on guitar and brilliant drummer Fliss Kitson.
Their last studio album ‘The Last Laugh’ dropped on 10th October 2022 and their new album ‘The Awful Truth’ is imminent and will be released on 4th April – Find it HERE and check out The Nightingales music on their Bandcamp page HERE.
Details of the ‘King Rocker’, the documentary feature film about Robert Lloyd and the Nightingales, made by Stewart Lee and Michael Cumming on Sky Arts, can be located HERE.
Support on the forthcoming tour will come from the unique Thomas Truax who we had the pleasure of witnessing live on more than one occasion. The last being in Lewes on 6th October 2023 – Read our account of that amazing night HERE.
Tickets for The Nightingales Brighton concert at Chalk on 28th May are now on sale and can be purchased HERE.
