The Moving Jelly Brothers
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The Moving Jelly Brothers were an indie-pop five piece band from Derby, England formed in 1987 and split in 1992.
The members of the group were, Matt Holmes - Vocals, Jim Upton - Guitar, Chris (Doz) Dorricott - Guitar, Gary (Gaz) Roberts - Bass, Mike Cousins - Drums
Anyone who lived in Derby, England and maybe further afield from the late 1980s to 1991 might just remember The Moving Jelly Brothers. At the time they were the local band that were most likely to make it big. Peddling powerful punk/pop hammered out on cheap second hand instruments with borrowed amps they travelled around the country playing wherever promoters would book them.
They were helped and assisted by their ‘roadie’ / photographer, Mark ‘Gordon’ Bennett who travelled with them to every gig and became just as well known as the band members themselves in the local scene.
From humble beginnings at the Mickleover Youth Centre, Derby a naive expedition into the world of showbiz soon began. Following their first embrassingly awful gig at a house party (after drinking a whole case of Skol lager) followed by a hugely hyped night club appearance ending with the manger cutting the power, they played a number of amusing and slightly embarrassing engagements while cutting their teeth and gaining much needed experience.
Highlights included; Playing a gig on the wrong day due to a promoter's mistake at a large country and western club based inside a nursing college campus in Leeds complete with two life sized cannons either side of the stage. The fans had turned up the day before.
Playing in a dangerously overcrowed live music venue in Hull that was inside of converted terraced housing (the most well received gig they ever played) and an alarming Spinal Tap parallel in which they played on the same bill as a puppet show and were asked to take the stage at 11am in the morning for students at a local college.
The lowest point was turning up in Northampton to discover that the waiting audience consisted of a 70 year old drunken man with his dog and nobody else. The venue hadn’t even bothered to put up a single promotional poster nor contact local media. A few hard-core fans arrived from Derby to save the day, but it was one many attempts that the band made to try and build a fan base away from their home City.
Such was the life of a band struggling to break it in the late 1980s. There was no internet or mp3 downloads, myspace or online promotional tools to help. It was all about gigging around the land in a transit van trying to get yourselves known.
From 1987 to 1989 they were a loud disorganised rabble with strange haircuts and at least one beard, but there was something about them that people liked. However, they had a silly name and they spent too much time in the pub working on their master plan and not enough time in the rehearsal room perfecting their song writing. Middle aged people would sometimes stare at them in the street but they didn't care. However they gradually improved and success started to become more of a reality than a dream.
With time however, more credible and substantial venues opened up to the band as they improved significantly and become more experienced in the whole process of trying to break into the music business. Having better songs and actually being able to play their instruments rather than 'make noise' with them helped as well.
As securing gigs in known venues outside of Derby was often impossible for bands trying to break the circuit, singer, Matt Holmes would often ring the promoters using a pseudonym and massively overstate their level of fan base and position in the UK’s indie music scene to secure a support or headline spot. It worked on more than one occasion. They would also have pre-gig contracts signed if possible so they would have a better chance of being paid if very few paying customers turned up on the night.
In the last 18 months of their existence they were far more competent songwriters and performers. Things were moving forward and they opened for Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, The Levellers, Senseless Things and Snuff. They were also guaranteed headline status in their home town, selling out the larger venues receiving modest payment and even being able to demand pre-show riders and have a guest list – trappings that only successful bands could enjoy.
Bona fide pop stars Carter U.S.M. and Mega City Four wore their promo t-shirts and they were receiving interest from record companies. It was generally assumed that it was only a matter of time before they were to become fully signed up members of the glamour business that is rock 'n' roll. Sadly it never happened; they ended up on page 9 of The Derby Evening Telegraph and not on page 1 of the NME.
The seeds of doom were sown during the rushed released, badly recorded and expensive debut single, Oddball. Following that, after some awesome delusions of grandeur during new and highly promising recording sessions, spectacular bouts of rock star style in-fighting caused the band to quickly fizzle out.
The single itself is now a rarity, but still available on occasion from specialist outlets. The band destroyed many unsold copies after poor sales and very few are now known to exist, which could be argued is a good thing. Mp3’s of the single, its b-side tracks and other songs (including re-mastered and remixed versions) are available on the internet, but also fairly hard to find.
Oddball is not the best of the bands work; however, ironically it now receives more airplay than it did during its release, mostly outside of the UK. It’s lo-fi quirkiness now becoming its appeal rather than its downfall.
There was some post-split record company interest from a major record company in the USA, but it came too late to save the band. A specially extended version of their single, Oddball was also included in a popular skate boarding video compilation that also gained them posthumous interest from new fans.
Members went their separate ways with singer, Matt Holmes running his own recording studio and forging a name for himself as a producer. Shortly after the band split he also went on to join the band The Stance and then signed a solo deal with Rondor Music.
Matt Holmes and Mike Cousins remained good friends for several years after the band's demise and shared writing credits on the song, We Carried On performed by Holmes as a solo artist in the years that followed.
Gary Roberts and Mike Cousins also worked on other projects together, but they never really left the rehearsal room. The pair also briefly joined Derby based, White Town but left after a short time. White Town went on to score a British Number One some years later.
In a new twist to add to their initial fame, Matthew (Matt) Holmes was elected in May 2008 as a Conservative councillor for the Chellaston ward in the city of Derby.
Sadly, Mike Cousins died on May 28th 2008.
