THE BODINES
Decide
1989 Play Hard Records
The Bodines, comprising of Mike Ryan, Paul Brotherton, Tim Burwood and Paul Lilley, emerged from Glossop, England, near Manchester, in 1985. Fronted by the floppy-fringed Ryan, they became one of the better-known outfits from a crop of jangly indie bands that sprang up around that time. They made their debut with “God Bless”, an early release by Creation Records. Shortly afterwards, Lilley was replaced on drums by John Rowland. Two further singles followed; their second, “Therese”, was included on the famous C86 compilation album. Like their contemporaries Primal Scream, The Mighty Lemon Drops and the Weather Prophets, The Bodines went on to sign up with a major label with great hopes of transferring their success to the mainstream charts. The group joined Magnet Records, where a remix of “Therese” became their major label debut.
The Bodines’s debut album, Played (produced by Ian Broudie, later to enjoy success as a recording artist as the Lightning Seeds) was a fine jangly pop artifact, but it only scraped in to #94 in the album charts, in the summer of 1987. Sadly, none of the Bodines’ singles for Magnet got into the top 75. Under pressure for failing to deliver the hit record that their major label backers required, the Bodines split up, albeit temporarily. Rowland went on to play with The Rainkings.
In 1989, a reformed line-up of Ryan, Brotherton, new bassist Ian Watson, and new drummer Spencer Birtwistle released the single “Decide” on Manchester’s Play Hard label and contributed a further new track to the same label’s Hand To Mouth compilation. A couple of years later, Ryan reappeared with a new band called Medalark Eleven (mis-named after Harlem Globetrotters’ Meadowlark Lemon), assisted by Gareth Thomas on bass and Adrian Donohue on drums. Reunited with Creation Records, they released a couple of singles ahead of Shaped Up, Shipped Out, an album of pleasant, if rather unexceptional indie pop.
01. Decide
02. Hard On
03. The Groove
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