Frantic Elevators

Voice in the Dark; Passion; Every Day I Die; You Know What You Told Me; Production Prevention; Searching For The Only One; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Holding Back The Years; Pistol in My Brain; See Nothing and Everything; I Don't Care, Nobody Stays Here; Here I Am, I'm Back Again; I know You Know; The Fair; Hey Hey; Don't Worry; Hi Hi Hi; Don't Judge Me; After Hanging Around; I Have No Fear; What To Do; Nothing At All I Can Do; Stay

The Frantic Elevators were one of the best bands that ever existed.

Punk/post punk Manchester circa1980 - the music scene was buzzing with bands like Joy Division, The Fall, The Buzzcocks and hundreds of others. Indie labels were springing up,

and lots of small venues were putting on gigs. The Frantic Elevators were one of the many bands to emerge from this scene.
They played a quirky kind of guitar music - clever songs with a different approach to youthful angst. They recorded 4 singles and a Peel session, but never came across well on record.......

Picture a dingy bar somewhere in central Manchester - its around midnight, and on a small stage in the corner, there's a small black Ludwig drumkit; a big old Vox bass cab, with a Hofner violin bass propped up against it and a Les Paul copy next to a scruffy amp. On shuffle the Elevators. The bass player has shoulder length hair and looks like George Harrison. The drummer has blonde hair and a moustache and the guitarist is tall with short brown hair. They're joined by the singer who has cropped fiery red hair and a Just William complexion.

' Right - er - hello, we're called The Frantic Elevators and this song's called Here I Am, I'm Back Again.'

......and off they go - they play seventeen songs. They're not a punk band, they're not a pop band. There's an element of rough edged R&B, a flavour of Stooges, a hint of mid Beatles and the rest is their own. The sound and musicianship is crisp and precise. What really makes their sound though is the dynamite of the singer's voice. Despite a trace of boyish shrillness, there's no doubt that this voice is in the same league as the greatest of the soul greats. Proof of this comes when six songs into the set, the band start up an R&B classic - he bends slightly at the waist, screws up his face then belts out the most blistering of blistering ' Hey Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut ...

The response is lukewarm and there's even a dickhead heckler shouting ' you're shit Ronnie' - this is post-punk Manchester, and somehow they don't quite fit in - 5 years later, no doubt they would have found their niche, but they were a bit too clever and obscure for their time.

So what happens next? - well they struggle on for a couple of years,

and inevitably the singer goes off and becomes as famous as all the other greats, but of course, he loses that raw edge and his chart topping band is just like any other sanitised chart topper.

Maybe this was gig was as good as any anywhere, and if only there was a fly on the wall.............

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