Furniture

London's Furniture is best known for the hit song "Brilliant Mind" that appeared on the soundtrack to the 1987 film "Some Kind of Wonderful" but their story started long before then. They played gigs as early as 1979 when the band was all around 19 years old and issued a single, "Shaking Story" on their own label in 1981. They released a couple of albums on the Premonition label in the mid 80's before signing to the legendary Stiff Records label and recording the album "The Wrong People". As with many bands (see Dirty Looks) this became a problem as the label soon closed down and the album was sold to ZTT Records. ZTT deleted the album after it sold out it's initial pressing. Due to legal wranglings with ZTT they never signed to a label again until 1990 but never achieved the success they deserved.

Furniture was:
Jim Irvin - vocals, percussion
Sally Still - bass, vocals
Maya Gilder - keyboards
Hamilton Lee - drums, vocals
Tim Whelan - guitar, vocals
Larry N'Azone - saxophone

Go to the download page to get Furniture - "Brilliant Mind"

The Keys

The Keys formed in London in 1979 and signed to A&M records. They recorded one album of jangly, beatlesque power pop called "The Keys Album" but it only was released in the U.K. The album was produced by Joe Jackson and contained a bunch of potential hit singles but sales didn't materialize.

The Keys were:
Drew Barfield – vocals, bass. Drew went on to the form Big Heat and oddly enough still plays in a Tex-mex band with 80's superstar Paul Young called Los Pacaminos. He also is releasing a solo
album.
Steve Tatler – vocals, guitar.
Ben Grove – vocals, guitar. Now plays with the Retros
Geoff Britton – drums (formerly with East Of Eden and Wings)

Go to the download page to get The Keys - "I Don't Wanna Cry"