SPOILSPORTS

Another sourced from a compilation – this time round it is Make More Noise! – Women In Independent UK Music 1977-1987, a 4 x CD set issued by Cherry Red Records back in 2020.

mp3: Spoilsports – Love and Romance

(Originally released as the b-side to the self-financed You Gotta Shout Single in April 1980).

Spoilsports consisted of Angele Veltmeijer on saxophone, singer Barbara Stretch, songwriter Carole Nelson on keyboards, percussionist Isabel Postill, bassist Lesley Shone (later replaced by Ruth Bitelli) and Sheelagh Way on drums.

The band’s sole self-financed record release was described in the NME as a cross between Steely Dan and The Joy of Cooking, and they became regulars at benefit gigs and women’s music festivals, appearing in Hyde Park at the 1979 Gay Pride show.  The group were never shy about the importance of the lyrical content of their music, or of talking about the sexual side of performance, and spoke often about issues they faced as working female musicians during the 1980s, including the pressure they felt to be feminists first and musicians second.

Here’s the a-side

mp3: Spoilsports – You Gotta Shout

I’ve ascertained that the single was recorded in Archipelago Studios in London in the same year that Elvis Costello and The Attractions used the facility to record Get Happy, from which, just yesterday, a track appeared on this very corner of t’internet.

I have to say, that despite the blurb in the Make More Noise booklet describing the band as that mix of Steely Dan and The Joy of Cooking, I was expecting to hear something that was a bit more angry sounding rather than such a jazzy groove.  Not really my cup of tea, but it’s on offer today as there may be a few of you who appreciate the tunes.

JC