Lost Cherrees is an
anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcor ...
band from
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
UK, originally active from 1979 to 1986 and reformed in 2003.
History
Lost Cherrees were formed in
Sutton
Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
England
In alphabetical order by county:
* Sutton, Bedfordshire
* Sutton, Berkshire, a location
* Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire
* ...
in 1979 by drummer Steve Battershill, guitarist Dave Greaves, and singer Siân Jeffreys. They recorded six tracks and released them on cassette as ''The Worst Demo Ever Recorded'', which was split with the band Warning.
In 1981, Greaves left the band and was replaced by Andy Rolfe, while Battershill switched to bass and new drummer Warren "Nuts" Samuels joined.
This lineup recorded another demo in 1982, which was released on the Bluurg label.
The band's first proper gig was at the Swan pub in
Kingston in July 1983 with the band Riot/Clone. The two bands starting working together regularly, leading to the first official Lost Cherrees single release, "No Fighting, No War, No Trouble, No More" on Riot/Clone's label in late 1983.
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...
became an unexpected supporter of the song, and it reached number 27 on the UK Independent Singles chart.
Their next single, "A Man's Duty, A Woman's Place," from a five-track EP of the same title, was released in 1984 and reached number 8 on the UK Independent Singles chart.
The band made the news after a gig at the Surbiton Assembly Rooms, which ended in a pitched battle on the streets of Surbiton with the
Special Patrol Group
The Special Patrol Group (SPG) was a unit of Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for providing a centrally based mobile capacity to combat serious public disorder, crime, and terrorism, that could not be dealt with by loca ...
; the incident was reported as a riot in next day's national press. During this period, the band added keyboardist Gail Thibert and singer Beverly Cook-Abbott. Founding singer Siân Jeffreys announced her departure and the band recruited Debbie McKenna as her replacement. Jeffreys then decided to stay on and the band continued with an unconventional seven-member lineup with three female lead singers.
Lost Cherrees contributed two songs to the compilation ''Who? What? Why? When? Where?'' in 1984. They also contributed a partially spoken-word track to the compilation ''We Don't Want Your Fucking War'' in 1984. Their first full album, ''All Part of Growing Up'', engineered by
Mad Professor
Mad Professor (born Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser, 1955, Georgetown, Guyana) is a Guyanese-born British dub music producer and engineer known for his original productions and remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music ...
and Patrick Donegan, was released on Fight Back Records in 1985.
The album reached number 9 on the UK Independent Albums chart.
Jeffreys left the band shortly before the album's release and joined
Blyth Power
Blyth Power are a British rock band formed in 1983 by singer and drummer Joseph Porter, formerly of anarcho-punk bands Zounds and The Mob. The band's music shows strong influences from punk rock and folk music and Porter's lyrics often centr ...
. Lost Cherrees attracted attention for pushing the boundaries of punk rock, with female singers, keyboards, and
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
elements. Their 1985 EP ''Unwanted Children'' featured a horn section.
At a gig in Birmingham in 1986, singer Bev Cook-Abbott got into an argument with audience members over sexist comments and announced that this would be the last performance by Lost Cherrees, and the band agreed to break up due to disillusionment with their disappointing record sales. The band members participated in various other projects over the next 17 years. In 2003, Battershill learned that Lost Cherrees tracks were being traded on
Napster
Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...
and reformed the band with Cook-Abbott, Nuts, and Rolfe. They were unable to locate Jeffreys, Thibert, and McKenna, leaving Cook-Abbott as the only lead singer, though Rolfe soon took on additional vocal duties.
This lineup began performing regularly in 2003 and were able to reestablish contact with the three missing members, who made occasional special appearances with the band onstage. In September 2003 Lost Cherrees played at the Gathering of the Thousands punk festival with many other bands from their original 1980s punk scene.
Also in 2003, the band released the compilation ''In the Beginning'' as part of a project in which their early works were re-released. They released the five-track EP ''Another Bite of the Cherrees'' in early 2004.
While touring in 2004, Bev Cook-Abbott had to take time off due to
vocal cord nodules and was temporarily replaced by Joey Hill. The studio album ''Free to Speak, But Not to Question'' was released in early 2006 and was praised by
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
as "one of those so-rare examples of a band picking up precisely where they left off, and then astonishing every ear by proving that they lost absolutely nothing during their absence."
References
External links
*
Allmusic.com's entry on Lost Cherrees
{{Authority control
Anarcho-punk groups
English punk rock groups