The Higsons- "I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys"
The Higson's came together at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Their first single, "I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys" was released in 1981 on the Romans in Britain label. The band was fronted by Charlie Higson who called himself "Switch" and featured Terry Edwards on guitar and brass. The band "tried to put some funk in the punk" and according to Charlie, "We were often accused of trying to be the English Talking Heads, which we always strenuously denied, but let's face it, that's what we were trying to be." The label on the B-side states: "Anyone caught doing anything illegal with this fine record will have their backs broken, and they will end up mad like Charlie", so please don't download this track! The Higsons did a cover of "Music to Watch Girls By" which earned raves and chart success with the title changed to "Music to Watch Boys By". The band called it quits in 1986. In 1985 Robyn Hitchcock released an album entitled "Gotta Let This Hen Out!" named after a Higson's song. The live album included a song called "Listening to the Higsons". The Higson's were: Charlie Higson (lead vocals, harmonica, piano) who later found fame as a comedy writer and actor on the BBC's "The Fast Show", Terry Edwards (guitar, trumpet, sax ,piano ,vocals) fronted his own band and is a prolific session player, Simon Charterton (drums, vocals) played in Camden based "The Aftershave". Stuart McGeachin (guitar,vocals) and Colin Williams (bass, vocals) left the music business.
Get The Higsons "It's a Wonderful Life"
Go to the download page to get The Higsons- "I Don't Want To Live With Monkeys" mp3 here
6 Comments:
do you know anyhting about the radio ghosts? i picked up one of their records (handfuls of everything) for cheap in a 2nd hand record shop, but none of my music mates(who are in their 30's-40's, i'm young you see) have heard of them. i think it'll be a really great idea to post them up. i could email the songs to you but i havent scanned the artwork that goes with it yet.
btw, the other songs you have listed to download,any reason why they're not downloadable now?
Myles. bm301@gre.ac.uk
Okay, I downloaded this song when you first posted it, and it's slowly worked its way into one of my favorites. Thanks so much for sharing it!
This Higsons were also connected to the (mainly) ska based 2Tone label. For more reading, pics and discography info, check out
http://2-tone.info/artists/the_higsons.html
The Radio Ghosts were a Glasgow-based band knocking around in the early '80s - 'handfuls of everything' their definate high point. This got quite a bit of airplay on local radio in Scotland but they seemed to disappear thereafter.
I saw the Higsons a few times in the 80s (great gigs!), was inspired to "borrow" my old man's Hawaiian shirts! Still love the songs, so my cassette (an ancient form of technology for you youn'uns) of the singles (lost in various moves, alas) is almost worn out. Good to have found the CDs online.
I saw the Higsons live, and they were great. They put the fun in funk. Such a shame that it was the Farmers' Boys that 'made it', having also started in the Norwich area and rode on the Higsons' coat-tails, rather than the genuine articles (not that the Farmers Boys were that bad to start with). Glad to hear the lads are all recovering well!
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