Friday again! So that’s exciting!
Dear Boy: this Los Angeles band sounds really good! My introduction to the band is their latest digital single, “Heaven Moves”, which sounds gorgeous, very much influenced by classic British guitar pop. What’s even cooler is that they are touring (sadly no New York), but my Mexican friends can catch them on November 16th in Mexico City. How cool is that!
A Certain Smile: the Portland, Oregon, band is back with a new EP called “Bae”. It will include 3 songs, “Cherry Bomb”, “Honey Do” and “Original Replacement” and it is going to be released on the fine Jigsaw Records. Very exciting indeed! And it will be on 7″ vinyl to boot! You can preview the opening track, “Cherry Bomb” on Bandcamp now.
Champion of Youth: another superb release on Jigsaw Records is the self-titled mini-album by this Manchester band! Champion of Youth is actually a band formed by ex-members of the formidable Amida, so you can expect jangly and ramshackle guitars which is something I love!
New Wave of Hype: this the name of the latest compilation released by the great Jakarta label Dismantled Records! It includes 5 songs, all of them covers of songs by The Wake! So we find Turks & Caicos playing “Provincial Disco”, Ultraviolence plays “Solo Project”, Les Mains Immaculees “Carbrain” and Sharesprings “Talk About the Past”.
Puzzles y Dragones/Alborotador Gomasio: the two Madrid bands, two of my favourite Madrid bands, are releasing a split 7″ on Discos Garibaldi! Each one of them contribute one song, Puzzles y Dragones has “Formas de Mirar” while Alborotador has “Los Bosques”. This is a great sort of reunion, as members of each of the bands were once part of the Aplasta tus Gafas de Pasta DIY collective!
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Kelvin Davis on lead vocals and guitar, Tony Vessey on bass guitar and backing vocals, Steve Bessemer on drums and percussion and Doug McNair on keyboards and backing vocals were the mid-80s mod band The B-Team. They were to release just the one single, but what a great single that is!
The wonderful “All I Ever Wanted” on the A side, penned by Kelvin Davis, is a burst of joy. And then on the B side, a joint effort by all 4 members, we find “Bad Day”, another fine track! The songs were recorded at Empire Studio’s in Manor Park, in London. If you want to hear both of them, they are available on Soundcloud. This account is by Jon Vessey, maybe a brother of Tony?
The record was released in 1985 by Diamond Record Corporation (DIA 008), a small UK label that was active in the mid 80s. The art for the sleeve is credited to Artschool while the photography of the band to Deborah Laight and Jo Baker. There is a credit to Brenden Wilson for processing. Not sure what it means though. It also seems that the letter B is printed on both labels, as if there was no A side. The thing is that the matrices do show which one was the A side.
Many years later, in 1996, the band would see their two songs included in a 22-track compilation called “This is Mod Volume 3 – A Diamond Collection”. On this one they appear alongside many bands that were on their old label Diamond Record Corporation like The Moment or The Scene. This comp was released by Anagram Records (CDMGRAM 106).
Then in 2018 the Japanese label DDA Confidential would release “Ita Cemetry Gates Volume 3” (DDAMDC 016) and would include “All I Ever Wanted” on it. This is an interesting compilation as it includes bands like Dolly Mixture and then you see Big Star or Elvis Costello.
I check on Discogs if any of the members were involved in any other bands but it doesn’t look like it.
On a forum I see a mention of a live tape, probably from a gig at the Wood Green in London 1986. This same forum mentions that Tony Vessey left the band in the early days of 1986 to start his own band Amo Amas and was replaced by Paul Rosendale. It also mentions a second single with the song “And All Because” on ASM Records. Never heard about this! Then that they split up in 1987. At the time of the forum post, 2007, it says that Kelvin was playing in a band called Blow Up, Steve was playing in a Jam tribute band while Paul Rosendale was living in Spain and he did a solo rock n’ roll/mod/new wave show there.
I would really like to find out more about this 2nd record!
So at the end of my little research I am left with more doubts and questions than I had at the beginning. I hope someone can fill in the blanks, paint me a better picture of this superb mod-revival band and about that second single!
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One Response to “:: The B-Team”
Hi, I am the Paul Rosendale mentioned in the above article, if you have any questions you would like answered feel free to email me. I also have a copy of the 2nd record you mention (although not a fantastic quality recording).