The Wake (band)
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The Wake were a British post punk and later indie pop band, founded in Glasgow in 1981 by Gerard "Caesar" McInulty, 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 a Part.
Contents |
[edit] Discography
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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.
