Wendy Robinson, Polly Hancock, Anne Rogers, Dana Baldinger, Seamus Feeney, Ben Kesteven, Sam Kesteven.
Influences
Everything we ever heard I suppose, but that might be a little bit time consuming to etch into the bed post of listening right now. So, here's a list of stuff we might have been listening to around that time (1988-1994), and in no particular order; The Chameleons, Microdisney, They Might Be Giants, Sugarcubes, PO!, Felt, Cherry Red Records, 4AD, Punk Rock, Kraftwerk, The Byrds, Cheap Trick, Burt Bacharach, The Who, The Small Faces, French and Saunders, Roseanne, John Peel, The Wonder Years, The Wonder Stuff, Fatima Mansions, Nick Drake and Uncle Tom Cobbly etc.
This is great because we're not trying to sell you anything and we haven't played in over 10 years so there's no chance of suddenly being invited to see our next gig.
The Popinjays got together in 1988 around a nucleus of Wendy Robinson and Polly Hancock. Our aim was to release a single, do a Peel session and get a review in the NME. 6 months down the line, we kind of had. The first line up, if you will, was Wendy, Polly and the drum machine. After a few gigs around London, mainly but not exclusively at The Bull & Gate in Kentish Town, we found Abbo and signed to his label Big Cat UK for a one off single. This made us label mates with their other new signings Carter USM and north London's finest The Wood Children. The single "Don't Go Back" made Single of the Week in Melody Maker and spawned a Peel Session which we recorded at the Golders Green Hippodrome. It was time to expand the line up, so when Wendy ran into Seattle's own Dana Baldinger at a Chameleons gig in Camden she was asked round for a cold beverage. We moved from Big Cat onto One Little Indian in 1989 and started working on the first album "Bang Up To Date...with The Popinjays". We recorded the whole thing in about 10 days with engineer/ producer Brian Pugsley who had previously worked with other OLI bands including the Sugarcubes and the Shamen. As we were getting ready to tour the album we were told that Dana (the bass) was returning to the States. So we went back to the Bull & Gate and managed to find the bass playing honey called Anne Rogers whom we borrowed from her band The Crowd Scene. We toured Bang Up to Date with OLI labelmates Kitchen's Of Distinction and decided to marry them, but somehow never got round to it.
Thinking about LP number 2, we returned to the spare band member exchange that was the Bull & Gate (not that we spent all our time there you understand) and found Seamus Feeney, and no longer content with borrowing, we stole him from another band.
Meanwhile, in a Sheffield by-election, there was a candidate from the Elvis Presley Party, who promised that if everyone listened to Elvis they'd be no more wars. It appeared as an "and finally.." at the end of the news.
So like an extended step family slouching all over the stretch covers on the Trisha show we caught the tube to Old Street and recorded our fabulously inspired new song with producer Jessica Corchoran at Pat Colliers Greenhouse Studio. We played it to some people and One Little Indian played it to some people, and one day Rick from US indie label Alpha International called up to say I'd like to release this in the States. "Vote Elvis" was a surprise modern rock hit and catapulted us into the boardroom of Epic records who told us that it was time to catch the metropolitan line to Chesham to make LP number 2 "Flying Down to Mono Valley" with Lightning Seed Ian Broudie.
More tours, this time with Cud, Fatima Mansions and label mates the Heart Throbs, as well as our own headline tour and Reading Festival appearance. So just as we were getting nicely settled Anne decides to return to the US of A and on the brink of yet another tour, Seamus breaks him arm. We were forced to call the 5th emergency service...Airhead. Can we have your drummer and your bass player please? It seemed we could. So, in a Pete Frame runs out of paper way, yet another line up hit the boards featuring Ben (the Bass) and Sam (the Drums) Kesteven and it was this line up that recorded the third and final LP "Tales from the Urban Prairie".
Thanks for the add and fancy finding you folks here. Bringing back some awesome memories of 1990-92 ish for me listening to the tunes. Wheres Helicopter People? Have a good one. T
