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