The Bollweevils
(1985-1993)
Introduction
 
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The Bollweevils story 
 
Formation
 
 A Gigging Band
 
It starts to go slightly wrong
 
It goes very, very wrong
 
Aftermath
 
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Press
 
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Recordings
 
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Downloads 
 
Talk to me, 12" EP, Decoy Records, 1990
 
The Record Deal
A&R men were persuaded to come to the gigs, but it was not until late 1989 that the band signed a lengthy deal with the popular indie record company Vinyl Solution. Apparently the bittersweet "It Cheers Me Considerably" was the song that persauded the company that The Bollweevils should be label mates with Mega City 4 and the Sensless Things. In March 1990 their first single was released on the Decoy label, the self produced four track Talk To Me EP. It had been recorded in a couple of days in a local Sheffield studio for just £280 and the whole process was highly enjoyable. It received airplay from John Peel on Radio One, received very good reviews, and sold well. The assumption was that the band would follow it up with another single in the early summer.
  
In many ways this was the high-point for most of the members of The Bollweevils - the song-writing was developing with Sarah taking over the role of lyricist and Mark was writing some of his most assured tunes to date. Steve, Dave and Chris gave the music, both live and in the studio, a full and exciting power and the band's reputation was growing.
 
The future looked bright, and nobody was worried when Vinyl Solution suddenly declared that they were restructuring their company. The decision was made to drop many of their bands so that they could concentrate their resources on the few they thought were bound for chart success, and this included The Bollweevils along with The Edsel Auctioneer and The Would Beez. Bigger budgets were discussed and an album was proposed with Husker Du's Bob Mould pencilled-in as producer. At this time Ray relinquished his last responsibilities to the band and Steve ably took over as manager.
 
  
Next page: It starts to go slightly wrong
   
This rough artwork was produced for the front and back covers of the projected album. Dated 1990 it lists the tracks as:
Side A: 'Find Somebody Else', 'I....', 'Unreasonable', 'All The Same', 'Out of Time'
Side B: 'Carry On', 'Nothing Now', 'How Did You Manage That?', 'Mouth', Taking This Well', 'Bubble of Passion'