- Introduction
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- ***
- The Bollweevils story
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- Formation
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- A Gigging
Band
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- The Record
Deal
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- It starts to go
slightly wrong
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- It goes very, very
wrong
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- Aftermath
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- ***
- Recordings
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- ***
- Downloads
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- The Bollweevils
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- Press
- click on links to go direct to
review:
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- Live: Take Two Club,
Sheffield, Melody Maker, June 30th,
1988
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- Talk to Me (review),
Melody Maker, March 17th,
1990
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- Talk To Me (review),
Sounds, April 14th,
1990
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- Talk To Me (review),
NME, May 5th,
1990
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- Labelled With Love,
NME, May 5th,
1990
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- Live: London School of
Economics, NME, May 19th,
1990
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- Live: Camden
Falcon, Sounds, July 24th,
1990
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- _________________
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- Live:
Take Two Club, Sheffield
- THE
Bollweevils are a spontaneous, combustible thrust and a
minor miracle at that. For those of you who consider this
new-spangled blonde business to be something to get
cantankerous or flabbergasted about, here are several
further excuses for flicking the switch to voluntary
lapse of reason. Seven pristine, propulsively prickly
excursions, dynamically delivered through some typically
wired, high-tension electric instruments. Mark Johnson's
guitar, for example, fires shards of sheer crystal
shimmer into the audience and, of course, beyond. Up and
away in fact.
- Dave
Lloyd plays rhythm as if he couldn't possibly do anything
else. That's a compliment. Broadly speaking, it's
glamorous. London at night doesn't come into it. Steve is
the anchor, man, executing reliably untroubled bass
patterns with extreme incaution. It never falls apart,
shambolists. Sure, we are looking at razor cuts and ACR
shorts. We are, indeed, Up North. No problem, as long as
it catches fire as often as this, if it keeps
kinetic.
- Singer
Sarah Griffiths, the group's vivacious implement of
euphoria and a hyperdermic needle when it comes to the
high notes, exudes ticklish, pink satisfaction and
appears genuinely touched by the crowd and their
rapturous response. Doubly persuaded, now. Plus, "Mind In
Mindless Movie" and "Out Of Time" crackle and bake more
in the Maniacs or Muses kitchen than, say, the Miaow or
McCarthy cupboard. By "That Little Red-Haired Girl" (the
naughty kid sister of "Velocity Girl", the one who messes
with make-up and drugs), I've got ecstasy for blood. This
must be what electricity tastes like.
- The
Bollweevils, how do I love thee? I count the ways but get
lost during the sixth million. Thrilling stuff and, quite
definitely, up where we belong.
- PAUL
LESTER
- Melody Maker, June 30th, 1988
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- _________________
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- Talk
To Me (review)
- NICELY
uppity on "Talk To Me", Sarah Griffiths sings, pleading
for someone to tell her things they wouldn't even tell
their own family, inside perfumed music with grizzled
undertones, where guitars are lifted up and flipped over,
and muckily intense drums are pulled in tight.
Specialising in buzzing structures, there is surliness to
counter any silliness, but the male vocals are not of the
same quality.
- MICK
MERCER
- Melody Maker, March 17th,
1990
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- _________________
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- Talk
To Me (review)
- Sounding
like The Parachute Men colliding with Ride, The
Bollweevils are quite a revelation. Charged to bursting
point, the four tracks on this EP spill Sarah Griffith's
rich vocals over fractious, full tilt guitar fuzz. The
juxtaposition of perfect pop voice with gleeful rawk
bliss out is a finely balanced one, but it works by
lulling you into a false sense of security and then
blowing your ears off (with a shotgun?-Ed). Only 'It
Cheers Me Considerably' is trite and whimsical, the rest
are black bullets in a sherbet bag.
- CATHI
UNSWORTH
- Sounds, April 14th,
1990
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- _________________
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- Talk
To Me (review)
- The
Bollweevils scuttle from Sheffield with sprightly aplomb.
'Talk To Me' is chuffworthy, but flip over and find 'All
The Same', wherein Sarah's well-mannered warblings do
their damnedest to soothe a welter of caustic chord
rushes.
- SIMON
WILLIAMS
- NME, May 5th,
1990
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- _________________
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- Labelled With Love
- Among
the bands currently on Decoy are other new signings,
Dublin's Would Be's, plus Mega City Four, Edsel
Auctioneer, Sink, Les Thugs, The Bollweevils and Venus
Beads - all very different bands, but with a common
streak of bitter, guitar pop that withdraws from the
ballooning shadow of fashion.
- Decoy's
attitude is a simple one. They sign things they like,
they talk to you straight and they (as a label) don't see
themselves as bigger than the bands they work
with.
- "We sent
a tape in and they phoned up and said it's great, come
down and we'll talk about making records," says Steve
McKevitt from The Bollweevils. All the other labels we'd
talked to had said "You've got to do 'Turn Your Head' as
a single", so we asked Decoy, "What do you want?" And
they said, "Anything you like, here's the money, go and
record it."
- The
Bollweevils' 'Talk To Me' EP is a brittle, engaging piece
of fizzing pop edged with some attractively poignant
vocals from singer Sarah Griffiths. It's just one of the
good records the label's got out at the moment….
- STEVE
LAMACQ
- NME, May 5th,
1990
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- _________________
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- Live:
London School of Economics
- THE
BOLLWEEVILS deal with fizzy burblings and demure
deception: a Sheffield foursome with simplistic overtones
disguising a crafty undercarriage, theirs is a boisterous
bag chock-full with adroit tunefulness. Singer Sarah toys
with her fulsome follicles and an unrepentant voice, more
sassy than classy, leads the boys a distortive dance
across pop's grave. 'Turn Your Head' turns heads with
acoustic wah-wah. 'Out Of Time' is ribald and hairy, kind
of All About Buds with deliciously scatty blonde
intrusions, while 'Talk To Me' sees Sarah's larynx
lacerate a bloated guitar. Quite right, too. Recalcitrant
with reckless promise.
- SIMON
WILLIAMS
- NME, May 19th, 1990
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- _________________
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- Live:
Camden Falcon
- THE
BOLLWEEVILS have got it. One mind numbing moment when the
chorus bursts through like midday sunshine and the guitar
blisters like a radiation burn.
- It's at
the point when Sarah Griffiths starts to sing 'Find
Somebody Else', and suddenly the notion of girl singer
guitar pop becomes something exciting again. For these
first three glorious minutes she is Helen of Troy
conversant with the best of Blondie; a voice to launch a
thousand trips into chart territory.
- Yet just
as suddenly it's gone, and The Bollweevils' cranking pop
cocktails begin to taste like all the others.
'Unreasonable' is a mish-mash of regulation clatter,
'Turn Your Head' a drooping Darling Buds, the almost
funky 'Mouth' a confusion of skipped beats and half
chances.
- Amidst
it all, Sarah's voice swims against a tide of breezeblock
guitaring that builds into a brick wall of fuzz into
which their more poignant moments crash headlong. It's as
though the 'Weevils lose the thread of the story
themselves, chasing an elusive glimmer of genius they've
commanded only once.
- In
search of it, The Bollweevils may wobble, but they seem
unlikely to fall down.
- PAUL
MOODY
- Sounds, July 24th, 1990
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