Thursday 1 July 2010, 8pm
The A Band are a British musical collective formed in Nottingham in the late 1980s. In 2005, The Wire compared the bands importance to that of AMM and SME, and noted their lack of musical training.
The line-up of the group has never been fixed with many people all credited on various A Band releases as participants. Several are known only by single or nicknames.
Some of the early A Band members had previously recorded material in the 1980s as Well Crucial, a group scattered across the UK and, in some cases, collaborating by post. A core of members was based in Kettering, Northamptonshire around Neil Campbell, Stewart Keith and Stream Angel, with other contributions by Youngs. However, by 1990 these members had moved to Nottingham and the focus shifted there, with Well Crucial effectively ceasing to be.
The A Band itself was founded at the behest of saxophonist Vince Earimal, who required a backing band, and the unit quickly became an ever-changing, freeform improvisation unit, able to play without Earimal, who, despite eventually never performing with the band, is credited with their formation. Richard Youngs joined upon moving to Nottingham and he recalled in The Wire (also issue 259) that Jim Plaistow and Neil Campbell were the only constantly present members. They could number up to 18 on any given occasion. The original collective came to a halt around 1994.
The group never performed under the name A Band or any obvious permutation thereof (they are occasionally listed as The A-Band). Instead, the group used a different name for each performance, all of which began with the letter "a". These included Anusol, Arachnid, Arse-over-tit, Awkward, Anaglypta, Artex, AC/DC, Ack Ack, Anglegrinder and Advent, the latter in commemoration of the then-recently released Richard Youngs LP - in fact, it was at this show that Youngs' spoken word record 171 Used Train Tickets (released 2004) was recorded. However, the releases were almost always credited to "A Band" and these included several cassette releases, an LP on Siltbreeze and a 7" single. Some archive recordings later saw daylight; a CD of recordings from 1991 was issued in 1997 and live activity, also from 1991, was given a vinyl release in 2002, the material being edited by Youngs with artwork from Campbell and Plaistow. Much of the interest in the band that followed the initial releases came more from the United States than Great Britain, but this was insufficient to keep the band going, and the various members pursued music in smaller groups, or solo.
In April 2007 the A Band reformed, perhaps due to renewed interest in them, and performed at the 4th Festival Of Improvised Music at the Pyramid in Warrington, which took place on June 16. Billed as "Afterclap", the line up included many original participants; the full group was consisted of Walden (who has since changed his name to Stewart Keith), Campbell, Lent, Higginson, Foster, Woodward, Jon Lander, Andrea Fletcher, Megan Fletcher-Cutts, Dylan Bates, Pascal Nichols (1st appearance - percussion) and Joincey (1st appearance - mouth noise).
The next performance, as "American Evil" (an anagram of "Vince Earimal"), was on 19 August in Shoreditch, London. On this occasion Stewart Keith and Sharen Woodward were the only regulars of nine players to perform; the seven debutants were John Aziz, Martin Bizarro, Zoe Darling, Philip Julian, Simon Murphy, Phil Todd (of Ashtray Navigations) and Karl Waugh.
Since this they have performed several times throughout the UK with a variety of old and new members, and have recorded for a forthcoming double album. In 2009 the A Band performed for a week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as "An Audience? With...", completing the name with a different (and absent) band member for each performance. A tour is planned for the spring of 2010.
A film documenting the genesis and growth of the A Band is said to be in development.
Sogabe Hidekazu
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