Weather Prophets – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 28 of 48)

This really should have been written in advance of last week’s piece on The Weather Prophets but I just thought I’d be a bit twisted.

As I mentioned seven days ago, the first two 45s by The Loft had gone down a storm in the music press. The thing is, I’m bemused as to why a single from September 1984 finds a place an album looking at the class of 86…especially when the band in question had broken up in July 1985.

But mine is not to reason and so as part of the look at the 48 songs on the compilation, here are the two songs that made up the piece of plastic that had the label number Creation 009:-

mp3 : The Loft – Why Does The Rain
mp3 : The Loft – Like

Oh to hell with it, here’s Pete Astor‘s Take 2 version with his next band. This saw light of day on the 1987 LP Mayflower:-

mp3 : The Weather Prophets – Why Does The Rain

Enjoy

Weather Prophets

NEXT YEAR’S NOSTALGIA FEST (Part 27 of 48)

Creation Records thought they were onto a good thing with The Loft. The four piece’s first two singles – Why Does The Rain and Up The Hill and Down The Slope in late 1984 and early 1985 had picked up a fair amount of critical acclaim and sold reasonably well for a purely indie-based label. Theirs was the sort of music that had mainstream radio chart potential.

But The Loft called it a day in mid 1985 and out of the ashes emerged The Weather Prophets just under a year later with Pete Astor (vocals/guitar) and Dave Morgan (drums) joined by Oisin Little (guitar) and David Goulding (bass).

The debut single, Almost Prayed, wasn’t all that far removed from the sound of The Loft and by the end of the year a second single and a German import LP that had come out on an overseas imprint of Rough Trade Records had seen many tip them for great things in 1987.

By now Alan McGhee had been given money by Warner Brothers to form a new label which he named Elevation Records and its first releases involved The Weather Prophets – two singles (one of which was a re-recording of The Loft’s debut 45) and an album. But pop music and critical acclaim have always had a fickle relationship and those who had supported the band through the Creation years were disparaging with the Elevation releases although musically there wasn’t much between them.

The band went back to Creation in 1988 and released two more singles and an album which was a little bit rockier than previous efforts but still success eluded them. The band broke up in late 1988 at which point Pete Astor pursued a solo career and Messrs Morgan and Goulding became part of a new alt/country group called The Rockingirds.

The Weather Prophets are still fondly remembered and regarded as one of the ‘should’ve been’ bands of the era and so it is no surprise that they were included on the CD86 double CD. The song was one of the b-sides on their 12″ debut single for Creation back in may 1986:-

mp3 : The Weather Prophets – Like Frankie Lymon

The actual single itself is a belter:-

mp3 : The Weather Prophets – Almost Prayed

Enjoy