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Press Release online
Release date: 12 May 2007
Format: CD / Cat. No. AAZCD12
THE SINISTER CLEANERS’ album Shine is being released on the 20th anniversary of the band splitting up in 1987!
In the 1980s BBC Radio 1’s John Peel was a Cleaners’ fan, playing all their 12” singles - and so was Janice Long, who invited them to the BBC for tea. Deals were discussed in London record company offices; tours were undertaken throughout the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Holland but the group was too independent and maverick to play the corporate game.
The Sinister Cleaners had three songwriters and took their influences not just from the 1980s but from the whole rock’n’roll canon. They referenced Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, British psychedelia and punk while disconnected 1980’s TV pop stars ignored politics and made sure their eyeliner looked OK.
The Sinister Cleaners were born into Margaret Thatcher’s Yorkshire during a time of mass unemployment and miners’ strikes. They were part of the scene that produced The Sisters of Mercy, The Age of Chance and The Three Johns. They were desperate times in the north: the selfish got richer and the caring got poorer. Everyone was politicised.
Then out of the blue, The Sinister Cleaners had a 7” single success in the USA, where When I Feel Strange was a college radio hit. Perversely, they split up. It was 1987 and they were about to release their first LP. They had four songs left to record.
Recently, they traced each other via the internet. They agreed to meet up at the Corner Café, their favourite Indian restaurant in Leeds. Over a curry they decided to record the remaining four songs and finally to release the Shine album twenty years on.
All have been involved in other projects: Simon with The Wedding Present, Beachbuggy, & Cha Cha Cohen, Len with The Ukrainians, The Wedding Present and The Legendary Len, Andrew with The Tripping Cherubs and John with Whole Sky Monitor, Fuzzbird and as solo artist John Parkes.
Len says, “Our reviews agreed we made a pretty interesting racket and that we could write excellent songs, but the fact we refused to compromise our Indie principles got in the way of our success more than once. We could have been bigger than we were, but if we’d taken the deals we were offered and played the corporate game, in our own eyes we would have failed.”
For more information:
Aaz Records
66 Victoria Road, Wargrave, Berkshire RG10 8AE, ENGLAND
Tel: +44 (0)118 940 4672
Email: johnaazrecords AT ntlworld.com