The Yes/No People

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The Yes/No People were a band on London Records that featured Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas and now are best known for their dance theatre performance pieces called Stomp.

The Yes/No People grew out of another act called Pookiesnackenburger that was formed in Brighton in the early 1980s and named after a character on a compilation album of 1960s American radio recordings. The band released a number of albums that were a mixture of rhythm and comedy and also had a television series on Channel 4 in 1985.

Pookiesnackenburger were also responsible for the Heineken Pilsener "Bins" commercial which would be further developed into climactic dustbin dance in the Stomp shows.

In 1986, the Yes/No People signed to London Records and started work on their debut album.

A Yes/No People performance can be seen in the Bette Midler HBO special Mondo Beyondo.

A track from the band appeared on the London sampler Giant in September 1987, amongst tracks by other bands such as Hothouse Flowers and Voice Of The Beehive, whilst in 1988 their debut single Mr Johnson was released. However the single failed to reach the Top 75 (peaking at #99), and apart from the theme tune to Channel 4's TV show Wired no further music was heard from the band in the 1980s.

At this point, with the traditional band set up failing to make much headway in the charts, the Yes/No People moved into other areas and decided to go back to the musical theatre idea of Pookiesnackenburger.

In 1991, there was an ITV Children's show presented by Andrea Arnold, called A Beetle Called Derek. This included a number of percussive video shorts by the Yes/No People, and from these parts "Stomp" was developed as a full length theatre show. Stomp had a large and varying line-up centred around Cresswell and McNicholas, appearing first at the Edinburgh Fringe, Royal Court Theatre, and for several years on international tour.

In 1994, they recorded the theme tune for the children's television show, Blue Peter.