Majesty was a brief pop project by Debbie Wiseman and Tony Wharmby. Debbie has gone on to become a noted British composer, and her husband Tony has worked as a recording engineer.
Both tracks were taken from the band's debut album, Glances Askances, on Red Flame. Initially consisting of Rebecca Pidgeon and Roger Fife, they then released a second album and some singles on Fontana between 1988-1990.
A new artist discovery for me this year, I'm not sure why Richard's excellent album Anytime At All was only released in Germany as it includes many great tracks, including both sides of this single.
One of the (many) 80's singles in my box I have held off posting, President was at the time a vibrant young British band centered around two brothers, Geoff and Tony Wright. Given that the summer of 1987 also brought us droves of europap like Spagna and Sabrina, you might well fear the worst, but in fact despite only having one song the songwriting ability was immediately in evidence. The single was released on a small label (Rekords UK) and I suspect would have been well received by a wider audience if it had made more radio playlists at the time. There was also a video filmed at Saltburn by the Sea in July 1987.
For much of the music I feature, that would be the end of the story, but happily in recent years Geoff and Tony have returning to recording and performing with impressive results. They released an album, Breathe, in 2014 and posted some videos. I really liked "Coast" which saw a digital release a couple of years ago.
I'm not going to post my rips of the "European Summer" single here - I also have the 12 inch - because all the tracks are available on Spotify and other digital media outlets if you search for the European Summer EP. Kudos to the band for keeping their name all these years, even if in the internet age it makes it a little harder to google search them.
They also have a new single out this week called "Reach Out" which is nothing if not timely.
I just love this single, which makes me wonder all the more why I had never heard of it before I bought it last year. His voice reminds me of Richard Butler from the Psychedelic Furs. I figure there has to be a story as to why such a talented singer releases one single on a major label, with a big time producer and then does nothing else for ages.
Simon went on to release an album called Waiting Rooms on CD, in 1997.
Bonk was an early alias of Barry Flynn, who would continue to release a clutch of quality singles under The Chant of Barry Flynn, The Big Supreme, and, finally, just Flynn. A long time ago I put together a compilation called "Pot Shots" which I should probably revisit at some point.
Michael Anderson and Jim McKinven, both previously with Altered Images, joined forces with vocalist Tina Winters for this one off single. Interestingly, it was co-written with Peter Capaldi before his acting career took off.
National Euphoria were Nicky Ager on bass and vocals, Paul Tempest on guitar, and Steve Sinclair on drums. This was, I believe, their only single release. On the Amidisque label.
The only Suburban Sprawl album I could find information on was called Ice and was released in 1989-90. I'm presuming that an earlier album exists - the excerpts are quite tasty - but I can't confirm this.