Radio Stars


Radio Stars were an English new wave group formed in early 1977. They released three albums and had one UK Top 40 single.

Career

Radio Stars were formed by Sparks exile Martin Gordon, ex-John's Children vocalist Andy Ellison and Ian MacLeod in 1977, following the end of their under-achieving glam supergroup, Jet, the previous year.
The band signed to Chiswick Records and released their debut single, Dirty Pictures, in April 1977. This was included on the Chiswick various artists sampler Submarine Tracks & Fool's Gold . Later that year, it came number 26 in the NME's end-of-year critics' chart. In May 1977, the band both performed live for the first time and recorded the first of three sessions for John Peel at the BBC's Maida Vale studios. Later adding Steve Parry on drums, the band's second release came in August. Playing "No Russians in Russia", the Radio Stars made their TV debut on Marc, Marc Bolan's show. The track later appeared on the 1978 Chiswick sampler Long Shots, Dead Certs And Odds On Favourites . The performance was subsequently included in Columbia's DVD release Marc, featuring all six episodes of the Marc show.
In October 1977, the band briefly entered the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart. "Nervous Wreck" backed with "Horrible Breath" peaked at No. 39. The B-side, "Horrible Breath", was a song written by Marc Bolan from his time with John's Children. The band perfgormed the single on BBC's Top of the Pops on 19 January 1978.
The debut album, Songs for Swinging Lovers, named in reference to the Frank Sinatra album, finally appeared in December 1977. The band toured with Eddie and the Hot Rods and Squeeze, and played the Reading Festival in 1978. The Radio Stars released their second album in 1978, entitled Holiday Album. The album included their live favourite Sex in Chains Blues, about the exploits of the so-called 'Mormon kidnapper' Joyce McKinney. The band undertook an extensive UK tour in 1978, which also featured Trevor White and Chris Gent, but Gordon left soon after. The second album flopped, effectively ending the band, although Ellison attempted to revive the band's name to little success in the 1980s and 1990s.
The group's recordings have been anthologised three times; on 1982's Two Minutes Mr. Smith by the Moonlight record label – Electric Light Orchestra's Hugh McDowell guested on cello – on 1992's Somewhere There's a Place for Us on Ace Records. In 2017 a 4-CD box set containing all the band's recordings, including a handful of singles, B-sides, BBC radio sessions and broadcasts and a specially-recorded revision of one of the greatest tunes, was released by Cherry Red/Anagram Records under the title of Thinking Inside the Box.
A one-off London concert performance took place in March 2008 in support of their live album Something for the Weekend, released by Radiant Future Records that same month. The band played the Rebellion all-dayer at the Kentish Town Forum on Saturday 13 December 2008 alongside the likes of The Damned, Johnny Moped and Penetration. Their concert on 22 January 2010 reprised their earlier tours as special guests of Eddie & the Hotrods.
The 1978 single 'The Real Me' appears in the 2020 TV version of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity

Reviews

Albums

Listing of those various artist compilation albums mentioned in the text of the main article: