I HEARD THE NEWS THAT YOU WERE LEAVING – MOVING ON
I THOUGHT THAT IT COULD NOT BE TRUE
IT SEEMED THAT THINGS WERE GETTING STRONGER – I WAS WRONG
I GUESS THAT’S NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU

YOU SAID YOUR GOODBYE
NOW I SEE YOU RIDING HIGH
THINGS HAVE CHANGED

YOU ARE MOVING ON
AND TOMORROW YOU’LL BE GONE
YOU HAVE CHANGED
(YOU’RE NOT TO BLAME)

YOU SAW THINGS HAPPENING AROUND YOU – GOING ON
AND FELT THAT YOU’D LIKE TO MOVE ON
I’M SURE THAT IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN – BEFORE LONG
MOST GOOD THINGS NEVER LAST TOO LONG

NOW THAT YOU HAVE GONE
AND I HEAR YOU PLAY YOUR SONG
I FEEL STRANGE

A PART OF YOU HAS GONE
CAN YOU MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN?
TIME WILL TELL
(TIME WILL TELL)

YOU TOOK YOUR CHANCE
NO SECOND GLANCE
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO
YOU MADE THE MOVE
NOW YOU MUST PROVE
THAT WHAT THEY SAY IS WRONG
YOU STILL BELONG

NOW THAT YOU GAVE GONE
AND I HEAR YOU PLAY YOUR SONG
I FEEL STRANGE

A PART OF YOU HAS GONE
CAN YOU MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN?
TIME WILL TELL
(TIME WILL TELL)

X2

There’s no more satisfying feeling in the world that having paid your hard earned cash to see a band and being hit by a gem of a support band all for the same price. Picture this: a seething, sweaty Fulham Greyhound more akin to a Turkish Bath than the usual black hole of Calcutta. An army of Morrissey T-shirts push and shove for position. The steam around the stage lights is clearly visible, when into this tropical environment walk AVO-8. Fronting for the Darling Buds, they seem not quite sure what to make of it all but looking like they’re going to have a good time anyway. From the first gritty guitar onslaught, through every harmony Jan and Claire release, the seething throng is won over.

JAN: “We were totally surprised. We came out after the soundcheck, right, and you could hardly get through the crowd. It was unbelievable. When we came out on stage, out of 600 folk that were there, there must have been about 5 that knew us, but this big cheer went up and it was like ‘Good God! Has someone famous come on?’ People knew who were were – it was such a buzz!. Its swings and roundabouts, though. One minute you’re getting written about and doing good gigs, and then you’re back doing your washing and going back to work again.”

Oh well, if 30 minutes of crushing, barbed wire tinted pop results from 2 days’ laundry, scrub on. Edinburgh is the hometown of the AVOs, a place not renowned for its musical offerings.

GEORGE: “Edinburgh’s not the greatest scene in the world. We had to get out to make something.”

JAN: “Its never done us any favours at all. Quite honestly, Edinburgh, thanks for absolutely nothing!”

STEVE: “Its amazing when you play a gig and think ‘What a great gig that was, everyone was jumping about at the front and cheering and things’ and you read a review in the local Edinburgh newspaper thing and its like ‘AVO-8 had a couple of fans at the front and they were absolute shite’ and things like that.”

JAN: “In Edinburgh, there’s this big group of funk bands and this big group of soul bands and this big group of sort of funk/soul bands and there’s only, like, two venues you can play.”

CLAIRE: “No one goes out to see a band – they go out for a drink and if there’s a band on you don’t get the comeback. They’re not there to see you.”

GEORGE: “Edinburgh’s a city that’s got a festival and a very arty reputation. People get entertainment through the festival and they get passive. They’re very picky, very choosy, very stand-offish.”

JAN: “So we’re not that enamoured of Edinburgh music-wise at all.”

The Scottish connection doesn’t end there. Pick any review of AVO-8 and words like Rezillos and Tourists abound, Me? Well, I’d fall in with the latter.

JAN: “The Rezillos and The Tourists we could handle. The Primitives and the Darling Buds…we feel we’re doing a more similar poppy thing but we’re a bit sort of heavier. The Buds don’t see the similarity between us at all, but we’ve been getting doors shut on us by certain majors who’ve said ‘We want nothing to do with you because you’re too much like the Darling Buds.'”

This I find a disturbing factor. Certain areas of the press have put several female-fronted bands high up on a pedestal and I wonder how long it will be until the inevitable backlash commences. I wondered how the AVOs felt about being seen as just another of the same ilk?

JAN: “Some reviews you read of girlie guitar bands, people are starting to knock it a bit you know, ‘Oh my God, another guitar band with a female vocalist’. I guess its inevitable we’re gonna get it but I hope we can ride over it. What bugs me is that there’s only a handful of bands at the moment that have got girl singers – what about all the bands that’ve got male singers? Who ever turns round and says ‘Oh God, not another male vocalist with blonde hair’, or whatever. Why just pick on girls? I’m not saying that I’m a big feminist or anything, but its annoying.”

However, on one occasion, the pigeonholing actually worked in their favour when one Andy Kershaw picked up on their vinyl debut ‘Is This The End?’…

JAN: “It came out about February but it wasn’t until about April when Radio One picked up on it. We got the Kershaw session and he took it round to people like Steve Wright and Gary Davies who played it as well.”

STEVE: “We didn’t hear Andy Kershaw play it – it was a guy at my work. His brother normally tapes Andy Kershaw and plays it later, and he said ‘I was playing Andy Kershaw last night and he mentioned you, saying that if you got in touch he would play it and take it round to his daytime colleagues. On the tape he said ‘If anyone had said to me 12 months ago the Primitives would get where they are today, I’d have told them “rubbish”, but there’s no reason why AVO-8 can’t do it’ The whole day was absolutely brilliant, we were over the moon. You know, the 5:25 Steve Wright show with people sitting in traffic jams and later on we’re sitting in the pub and a guy we know came in said ‘I just heard your single on the radio; Liz Kershaw at 9 o’clock – magic twice in one day!. And we were sitting with this wee Walkman in the pub and Andy Kershaw started, not even an introduction – straight into the single – 3 times! Brilliant!! 5:25, 9.00 and 10:02.”

You see, AVO-8 are that kind of band. The kind you remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard them. For me, things had come full circle. Here I was, sitting in the same (although less sweaty) Greyhound, interviewing the band that had brought a sparkle to an otherwise sweaty night. The AVO’s had spend the day in London conversing with Cherry Red Records.

GEORGE: “I think with independent labels you’re more likely to get people who are not gonna force you.”

JAN: “We’re quite happy to be with an independent at the moment.”

STEVE: “There’s a couple of majors at the moment that are signing everything that moves, and bands think ‘Great, great, great, we’ve signed to Virgin’ for example, and they get so much money and all they do is put out about 8 singles a week and the ones that sink start getting pushed aside. They chuck the singles out and see if anything happens and push the ones that do.”

CLAIRE: “Casual signing.”

GEORGE: “Yeah, casual signing – wear a condom!”

JAN: “AVO-8 are not into casual signing.”

What more can I say?

STEEV C

HOUSE OF DOLLS – ISSUE 21

AVO-8, Victims of the Pestilence – Fulham Greyhound

Yet another jingle jangle guitar-based girl-fronted pop band. Where are they all coming from? We seem to be saturated with this style of music. Not that it’s bad. It’s great – but it’s pretty easy to become cliched.

Fortunately AVO-8 manage to escape this categorisation. They had their work cut out for them though as support band Victims of the Pestilence almost stole the show!

Around 9.30pm the drabness of the Greyhound explosively transformed into a visual extravaganza – paisley, streamers, confetti whirling tambourines. An androgynous lead vocalist delivering adrenalin-charged glam/rock anthems accompanied by lurid pelvic gyrations. All very bizarre!

The mind was just beginning to meander back to reality when AVO-8 appeared. A very slick five piece pop outfit featuring two strong female vocalists.

They play spontaneously boppy pop songs without locking themselves into too much or a format. This is mainly due to innovative guitar work. They’re no lightweights in the thrash department either and are great lovers of raunchy bass lines. Wistful guitar licks accompanied some sweet ballads and a nostalgic delve into the punk archives wound up their encore.

Their first single ‘Is This The End’ unfortunately never took off, but there’s plenty more potential singles in the pipeline. They should do very well

By Vic Park

November 1998

If AVO-8 find a following whose enthusiasm for the music matches their own, they may well have ‘cracked it’.

True, the Venue hadn’t reached capacity and it was Wednesday, but who cares? Certainly not the Avos, they take the stage to deliver their songs with real punch and undeniable conviction.

Jan and Claire lead the attack with comfortable ease and a sense of fun which spills from the stage to the dance floor and back again! ‘Don’t call it hard edged pop’, okay I won’t, suffice to say Stevie Hastie puts guitar where it should be while rhythm boys, Gourlay and Glen trade niceties for honest thump. Tracks from their ‘At the Pier’ cassette EP are featured with ‘Pink’ and ‘The Voice’ showing up as strongest. Other highlights include a re-worked version of ‘Revenge’ and the impressive ‘Big Car’. Indeed a night with AVO-8 defies you not to at least indulge in some serious foot tapping! Plans for a vinyl product later this year may well take shape soon. Oh and don’t forget your lapel badge, because, fashion lovers, without it, you could be ‘nothing at all’.

Robert Read

AVO-8 are an Edinburgh guitar-based, five piece band with a strong love element in their line up! The pub and club circuit seems to have had a romantic effect on the combo, resulting in two weddings in recent months, and a third on the way.

Steve and Jan Hastie have already tied the Knot. Likewise Kenny and Claire Gourlay. Bassist George Glen will shortly complete the romantic circle by marrying lights operator Karen Trotman.

Romance hasn’t done any harm to their hard-edged rock numbers with a strong vocal content. Best of their demo tape are ‘Is This The End’ and ‘Pink’, both of which rattle along at a cracking pace.

Present line-up was formed a year ago, though the band go back to the mid-70s in one form or another.

At the moment they’re filming an educational video for Lothian Council to bring home to school pupils the realities of making pop music a career in today’s cut-throat market.

You’ll be able to hear them all over the country when they embark on dates taking in Inverness, Nairn, several festivals across the country, and some Central belt dates.

By Kenny Blair

Sunday Post 1987