Dead After Dark: Back Catalogue (with "anorak" details from bass-player, String) You can buy any of the following by sending cheques, Postal Orders, or International Money Orders (Sterling only, made payable to DeAD Music) to: Dead After Dark PO Box 213 Leamington Spa Warks CV31 1ZP England Please remember to send your full name and address, and details of the items you require, when ordering.
	1990 - Cassette: "Dead After Dark" (We're Only Doing What We're Told; Waking Nightmare; Jericho; Speak For Yourself; Going Under) £3.00 We started with "The Blue Tape" - actually it's called "Dead After Dark" but as it's got a blue cover we call it the blue tape, so we know what we're talking about. The 5 tracks, recorded at Rhythm Recording Studios, Bidford on Avon, England, feature a 4 piece line-up with Mark Radley on keys and percussion and Lee Thurstans on drums, plus of course, String (Bass) and Steff (Vocals and guitar). "We're only doing.." is very much in the DeAD tradition - it's a song about how honest and truthful politicians are (Oh really?!). Next is "Waking Nightmare", a song with similar 'eco' lyrical ideas to "Gaia" (see 'No Time To Waste' album below)- but sounding very different! Most peoples' favourite (and mine too) on this tape is the next track: "Jericho". It's built round a keyboard and bass idea and later on features some very bizarre, off the wall piano-playing from Mark (are you sure these are jazz chords?). "Speak for yourself" has a positive, strong and clear message from Steff to other women, plus some sharp comments about women's magazines. Final track on this tape is one that was great live - "Going Under" is built around some excellent drum work from Lee.
	1991 Cassette: "Playing God" (Anger Growing; Playing God; Rumour; Bright Lights; If Not Now,When; Coming Home) £3.00 This is the "The Brown Tape" - but luckily when we recorded this one we'd mastered the idea of demo titles so this one's actually called "Playing God". Planned as a three track demo to attract that elusive record company interest, it features two songs that we played for years and one that we didn't. First up is "Anger Growing" a fast, furious workout. This song is dedicated to a previous drummer: Steff and he had "differences of opinion" as you can guess from the lyric sheet (You'll have to buy the tape to find out). "Playing God" is next - another one with an eco-theme, written long before the BSE scare..... it's about what happens when you feed dead, ill animals to other animals and then eat the resulting animal yourself. Track three is "Rumour" - an early set-ender. Side two was a bonus for fans, with extra tracks that record companies didn't get. "Bright Lights" is first on this side - about homelessness.....so that's another happy DeAD tune then...! "If Not Now When" is inspired by the writings of Primo Levi - he wrote about his survival of the concentration camps in WW2 ..... not happy stuff but a bloody good read. Sadly self-indulgence sets in here with an instrumental work-out featuring some top flute playing by Lal and some noodling guitar from yours truly. Finally, "Coming Home", based round a simple bass idea and piccolo melody, it's about leaving places and getting drunk - not happy either, but at least there's a drink involved!!
	1992 Cassette: "Never Drive A Car When You're Dead" (Anger Growing; Lay Me Down; Bride Of America; Age Of Reason) £3.00 The is known as the "Red Boots" tape - 'cause it's got Steff's red Docs on the front. Actually its really called "Never Drive a Car when You're Dead", which is, of course, to say the least, sensible advice. Perhaps more importantly for you, if you like muso trivia, it's also a quote from one of Steff's songwriting heroes: Tom Waits. Maybe you could win a free tape if you can identify the correct song (e-mail us if you know the song)..........either way, we don't sound anything like him so it's an unusual reference........that's what happens when you let singers design the cover! "Never Drive a car.." was produced, once again at Rhythm Studios, Bidford on Avon, England, with the great assistance of Paul Johnston and it was intended as a "best of....." , at the time. Even now it's good value (at just £3!), since it includes four much-played and much-loved songs. The track listing is Anger Growing; Lay Me Down; Bride of America and Age of Reason. Bride of America was well established in the second set thanks to Lee's, Paul's or Holi's excellent tom-bashing - but the version on this tape is taken from a recording session that actually predates any offical DeADLine-up. We later played it a good deal faster - with our tongues as ever firmly in our cheeks. If you never saw us live you'll need to buy the tape to understand what I'm on about. On the other hand, who expects a bass-player to make any sense? Actually the Age of Reason is also from a similarly old recording session. Both feature Lee Thurstans - drummer on The Blue One - and Adrian "Bonky" Beaumont, now, sadly, lured away to the land of 80's cover bands. We only have a few copies of the Red Boots left so if you want a rare copy of Bride of America it's (probably) worth the £3.
	1993 Cassette: Dead After Dark featuring STEFF "A Woman With A History" (Then We Die, I Will Remember You, Too Smart Too Soon, Farrell) £3.00 Now this one is a real rarity - that's because it's never really been made commercially available. It's called "A Woman With a History" - Dead After Dark featuring STEFF. It's another Steff cover - no crop circles..... this time it's one of Steff's own paintings!! The 4 track listing reveals 2 tracks which are generally available elsewhere and (for more serious "DeAD Uns") 2 songs which aren't available (obviously!). You've got "Then We Die"; "I Will Remember You"; "Too Smart, Too Soon"; and, "Farrell". Extra high rarity points because one of those tracks has NEVER been performed live ("I will remember you") - in fact the whole thing is a bit of a "conceptual compilation" (not content with designing just the cover of the tapes - this time she's done the whole bloody tape!!!.........no wonder she's able to sing "I am Gaia"....she obviously thinks she's God!) Once again thanks to Paul at Rhythm for twiddling the knobs and switching on all the gadgets in the studio so there'd be loads of little flashing lights on.
	1994 Cassette: "No Time To Waste" (Apathy; The Brewery; Too Smart, Too Soon) £3.00 This is the original 4 track "sampler" (as music biz people like to say) which we released before the "No Time To Waste" album itself. The track listing is: Apathy; The Brewery; Too Smart Too Soon; and My Maker's Gonna Meet Me. It's another one of Steff's cover designs and features a background texture taken from a photo of some rocks on the West Coast of Ireland. The main image is, obviously, Steff, but the cool effect is undermined when you know that the image was taken from a photo of her fending off a load of flies!!!! (You'll never see it quite the same way again...) Anyway this tape represents the Steff, String, Paul, Dunk line-up in action and it's one you've ought to have. If final Dead After Dark audiences were anything to go by, where people seem to know the words better than Steff, everyone's either got this tape or the full CD. To be honest (and this is why my salesman career never got off the ground) I wouldn't bother buying this tape (- unless you're going for the full set), because all the songs are on the album - which is available for not much more money and includes a whopping 11 tracks (but you knew that.....you've read the other pages, been to the gigs, possibly bought the T-shirt and heard the sales pitch!). Because they are basically the same recordings I'll talk about these songs on the No Time To Waste CD section so scroll down to go there now if you like!! Reviews The Edge: England: Charmaine O'Reilly (1995) Gutsy. passionate music from a band determined to make it. Singer Steff Hutchinson's voice reminds me of Hazel O'Connor. If you're bored with Britpop and hate dance, check out Dead After Dark. Definitely worth a listen. Underground: Pittsburgh USA: Lori Burton (1995) Very interesting band... How about what the Pretenders would sound like as an alternative/rock 'n'roll band in the 90's? Yeah, that's the ticket! ... I wouldn't be doing the guys justice labeling them as "alternative" since it's not the "mainstream, bland and safe" american style alternative, but anyhow there's a lot of cool bass licks, and a be-boppy type sound that makes it pretty enjoyable indeed. ...Anyway, write them because they really are a great band and deserve all the support they can get (I'm not just saying that either)! Rock 'n' Reel: issue 20: England: Sean McGhee (1994) Dead After Dark have the advantage of not immediately bringing easy comparisons to hand, with a sound rich in inventive melody lines, and a vocalist, Steff, who displays a swagger and directness that comes from knowing you're something pretty special. Musically they dip a knowing toe in punk's intelligent wing, folk's melodic department, and seventies classic rock, and inject the whole thing with a strength and drive that is at once effective and attractive. National Band Register: England: Pete Whitehead (1994) The lyrics of Apathy are a harsh indictment of the loser attitude, from a gutsy lady called Steff, who fronts an electric folk outfit that leans in the rock direction. Brewery is a story about privilege wasted. Musically it's a romp and though she seems to be having fun, it's a serious song handled with passion. I'd like to see this band live ... the band sound like winners, should be playing Cropredy. Rock 'n' Reel: issue 21: England: Sean McGhee (1995) Dead After Dark combine perceptive lyrics with original tunes and are well worth a few hours of anybody's time. When they go out on tour again this Autumn, in the group's own words, there's "No Time to Waste". Forklift: N. Ireland: Graeme Larmour (1995) Melodic, tuneful, well-presented ... kind of folky, Levellers sort of vibe to it, with an air of anarchy instead of apathy.
	1995 CD or cassette: "No Time To Waste" (Never Joined the Party; End of the Light; Apathy; Feeding the Hand; Lay Me Down; Too Smart, Too Soon; Gaia; My Maker's Gonna Meet Me; Anger Growing; The Brewery; Then We Die) £9.00 CD, £7.00 cassette So to our very first album. Recorded in 1995 it's a record of where the band had got to and where it was going! It's the definitive recording of the Steff, String, Paul, Dunk line-up (with some additional musicians) - a four-piece line-up that out-lasted previous similar incarnations by a couple of years and topped them by more than 100 gigs. It's an 11-track album with the following songs: Never Joined the Party; End of the Light; Apathy; Feeding the Hand; Lay Me Down; Too Smart Too Soon; Gaia; My Maker's Gonna Meet Me; Anger Growing; The Brewery and Then We Die. This was also recorded at Rhthym Studios (well, when you find a producer and sound engineer that's as NICE as Paul Johnston you just have to stick with him - right??) "Never Joined the Party" is dedicated to Tony Blair - we wrote the song long before he became Prime Minister - around about the time he was "modernising" the Labour Party. If you check the lyric sheet I think you'll see that it won't be a CD on his favourite music listings. "End of the Light" plays with those optimistic phrases like "every cloud has a silver lining" and "light at the end of the tunnel". Being a natural pessimist I always assume the worst in every situation, that way you're never disappointed and sometimes you're really pleasantly surprised. So of course for me there is no light at the end of the tunnel - or even if there is light.....well, I just see the tunnel at the end of the light (happy huh?). So I'm pretty sure Steff had me in mind when she wrote the lyrics. "Apathy" is next and it's a song (along with several others) that we were worried would go out of date once Labour was elected. Having spent years singing about things that were wrong with the world and blaming the Tories we briefly thought we would have nothing to sing about once "Tone" was in power. We needn't have worried of course, today we see the same old s**t as before....Apathy is as relevant now as when we wrote it ! "Feeding the Hand" - more of the same really. I don't think I should explain what it's all about - you'll have to buy the CD and work it out for yourself! Next up is "Lay Me Down". Actually I'm not quite sure myself what this one is all about - but it sounds kinda meaningful (That's Steff's lyrics for you). It's not a love song though because, as Steff always says " I don't do love songs". [You'll have to look to Shakespeare for the inspiration for this one - says Steff] "Too Smart Too Soon" - the title actually comes from an old jazz song that I heard when I was on the M25 driving round London, I was zipping round the dial on the radio and heard a song on Jazz FM with that as a chorus. It seemed too good a title to waste so we wrote a song around it. As usual for us there are many references to drinking! "Gaia" - is all about the waste and exploitation of resources on the planet earth using the ancient Goddess and linking to the Gaia theory that earth is a self regulating organisim that will sort itself out and regain a natural balance - probably minus the negative and destructive human race. (Nice!) "My Maker's Gonna Meet Me" - perhaps sounds to some people a little bit like Christian rock but it's not.....but it is all very tongue in cheek. "Anger Growing" - dedicated to a former drummer who crossed swords with Steff a few too many times "You sit behind me and you criticise...." it was a joke in the band that a drummer was always on the way out when Steff had written a song about them.....sadly for most drummers they usually didn't realise that the song was about them and so didn't see the writing on the wall. "The Brewery" - "our favourite place" as we like to say. Actually another song about inequality and class in modern day Britain......oh and about drinking too!!! and finally "Then We Die" written in the dog days of the last Tory administration when it seemed that they'd be in power forever (now we know only the name has changed the policies are still the same...) later on it became modified live as Steff took to including lyrics about, well, erm...drinking.....whiskey if you must know... So that's No Time To Waste - a title designed to announce the band's philosophical position. Reviews Rock 'n' Reel: issue 22: England: Sean McGhee (1996) Opening their debut album with "Never Joined the Party" is an inspired move, powering in like a rougher Chumbawamba, complete with new wave flavourings and a penchant for instrumental interchange. "Apathy" has equal amounts of imagination and bluster as it builds to a suitably epic climax, with fiddle adding melodic suspense throughout. Numbers like "Feeding the Hand" and "Too Smart, Too Soon" are undeniably well constructed that offer much for the future of the band.... And with a song book as strong as is demonstrated here there's bound to be much to look forward to in the future, and with a vocalist with the strength and charisma of Steff Hutchinson they'll surely catch the ears of all but the most blinkered musically. Feedback: Mensa Magazine: England: Kevin Rowland (1997) Steff Hutchinson (vocals and guitar) and Chris Radley (bass) were founder members of D.A.D. .. This album was released last year, and they've been building on it by touring in the UK and Finland (where they have quite a following). Songs are the order of the day, but as to classifying them, that is something of another matter. Roots rockers, they've also been described as "anarcho-folkers", "alternative rock", and "melodic folk/rock". They have been compared with Chumbawamba, the Levellers (this comparison works best for me I think), Patti Smith and the Poison Girls! In other words, they're difficult to pigeonhole, which can only be a good thing. The important thing to consider is whether the CD is enjoyable, and the answer to that has to be a resounding yes. They seem to enjoy playing and as I said in my recent TUT review I get the impression that they are extremely strong live. This is not to say the CD is lacking, far from it, but that the songs seem geared to a live environment. The songs are full of social and political comment, and very powerful: "I'm a pessimist prophet, I'm a bringer of doom, I ask no forgiveness for spreading the gloom." (Too Smart, Too Soon).
	1998 CD single: "See", (Cheers Will; You Don't See Me Anymore; Up and The Last Millennium). £4.00. Click on any of the song titles to hear an excerpt from that track. This is the last from Dead After Dark, the CD e.p. "See". It's available, like all the others, from our postal address but if you want to hear how it sounds, click on the cover image to hear part of track one, or one of the titles above, before parting with hard-earned cash. The CD is the only recording to feature the Steff, String and Holi line-up, and had 4 new songs: Cheers Will; You Don't See Me Anymore; Up and Last Millennium. Yet again, it was recorded at Rhythm, with production by ourselves and Paul Johnston. "Cheers Will" is a "response in song" to a speech from Lady Macbeth, based on a widdling bass-line that String had been mucking about with for ages. "YDSMA" is another of Steff's songs to a retiring drummer - another one who didn't notice. "Up" is .. well, almost a ballad, but NOT a love song (obviously, with Steff in charge of lyrics). In fact it's written for two of Steff's friends, and their own personal crises. The last track "The Last Millennium" is yet another eco-destruction song, with the immortal line "Keep on drinking, 'cause the drink is fine." Reviews Rock 'n' Reel: issue 25: England: Sean McGhee (1998) DEAD AFTER DARK, the Midlands act now slimmed down to a three-piece, present a taster of their forthcoming album on the four-track CD e.p. "See". Offering an original and unique fusion of folk/psych and post-punk stylings, what sets them apart is their ability, perhaps, desire to never sit comfortably in any pigeonhole, instead firing off into different musical areas at will. "See" is easily their most assured and strong recording to date, overflowing with panache and real spirit. (D.A.D., PO Box 213, Leamington Spa, Warks, CV31 1ZP) Feedback: Mensa Magazine: England: Kevin Rowland (1998) Dead After Dark are now a three-piece and apparently this four track EP is a good indicator of their current live sound. Steff Hutchinson has a very powerful voice and along with String and Holi Bush has yet again produced some very strong songs indeed. I doubt if this is generally available but if you are into roots rock/folk rock then this is a band you definitely should know about. The new album should be completed before the end of the year but why not write to the band at PO Box 213, Leamington Spa, Warks, CV31 1ZP.
	Video Compilation: Playing Live. £8.00 A video is available that is a visual compilation and history of the No Time To Waste line up. The video is a (smallish) slice of DeAD life during what I'm sure historians will one day call "the Paul N Dunk years". It features clips from: a Cable TV appearance in Coventry; a "Live at the Y" show broadcast on Leicester Cable TV; some hand-held footage from the now famous first Finland tour and The Square in Harlow, Essex. Some are produced professionally but overall the sound quality is a bit mixed, then again, this is (now) more of a historical document than a music vid. (Pretentious moi?) Song 1:Apathy - (with thanks to COLT TV). First broadcast on Coventry Cable in 1995 and filmed at the The General Wolfe. The sound track is straight off the album with the video bizarrely featuring what looks like "wide screen format" - you know, like at the beginning of some films that you see on Sunday afternoons (if you don't have cable/Sky/MTV/ a life). Thanks to Ade there's loads of smoke ("you can never have too much smoke") but as a testimony to Paul and Dunk it's a bit poor coz they're only just in it (but fear not - there's loads of them later!). Song 2 : Gaia. Live at The Square in 1996. Steff is big mouth once again even before we start: "I AM GAIA", she helpfully explains to the audience (yes we know!). Thanks to The Square team there's some snappy visuals - all mixed live, there's no post production here. The sound's a bit muddy and as usual the bass player starts too fast (why didn't they get rid of him?) - but it looks GREAT - check out the end section! Song 3: (My) Makers Gonna Meet Me - Live at the Y, also 1996. The sound isn't great because the video only gets what's going through the mixing desk which is why there's loads of drums, voice and keys and not much bass - still it looks quite good as we rip through another song at many bpm's more than we recorded it at (It's the bloody bass player again!) Song 4: Fever. This is us "on stage" at the Many Faces bar in Helsinki, Finland. We look very "Metal" thanks to the Marshall stacks on loan from Varatie. It's all a bit "arty", filmed on the one camera which was being waved about by Petri (a drunk but very friendly Finnish guy). Visually it's about the closest you can get to being gloriously drunk - which after all is what going to Finland is largely about!!!....... Fans of Dunk's cheesy smile will be gratified in this clip, also look out for Dunk on tambourine (breath-taking) and even Paul gets into the shot in a couple of places. Song 5: Anger Growing - (The Square). A terrifyingly fast version (though you're probably used to it this way) - and again lots of Dunk and some Paul (it's a bummer being the drummer!) Song 6: The Brewery - (Coventry Cable) - it's the album version with (sadly) not much Paul N Dunk - but we make up for that on Song 7: Shall We Go Out Tonight again from Harlow - the sound 's ok but the Paul N Dunk drum and percussion bit is bloody great AND you can see them ......lots. Finally Song 8: It's actually called Married with Children but we just call it The Oasis Song. Well worth checking out coz a) it's the only recording wehave of it , b) it's the last one, so it's nearly all over and c) it features Dunk's "cheesy" organ sound AND Dunk "singing" (if that's the word to describe it). An incredible historical record of the fabulous, definitive No Time To Waste line up (so that's the marketing crap out of the way) it's available from the PO Box - price £8.00. Get your orders in now!
	1996 - Cassette: "The BBC Tapes" (Lightning Strikes; Never Joined the Party; End of the Light; My Maker's Gonna Meet Me; Gaia; and Bride of America) £2.50 To be honest, I thought I had pretty much exhausted everything that DeAD have committed to tape. However, there was one tape I had forgotten about. We've not released this one in any form but it's just possible that you might have heard the contents before if you live anywhere from Shrewsbury to Boston (UK). This is a tape of the session we did for BBC in the Midlands in late 1996. (There is actually another tape of an "unplugged" session we played "live" on BBC CWR in Coventry but I don't think that one will ever see the light of day!) We recorded a session for the John Taynton Radio Show in August that year at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham. We eventually did a live interview with John but before that we were ushered, with a trolley -load of equipment, into a huge studio more usually used by the BBC Radio Orchestra. Paul, along with his drum kit, was locked into a bizarre contraption resembling a pile of garage doors which apparently is the BBC way of separating his drumming excesses from the sound of the rest of the band. We recorded the six songs in less than two hours. Possibly due to this high productivity rate, partly due to the manic producer telling us we were "sounding like 90's Ska" (something to do with coming from Coventry I suppose) and partly to do with such an alien environment, I'm not sure that these are our best performances ever. (Still we did get a few letters after the songs were broadcast from people wanting CD's.......so it can't have been all bad). These are in fact some of the fastest versions of these songs ever recorded. There is a really "live" sounding (and very good!) version of Gaia which has more energy than the album version. And there is a punky sounding-totally-rock Bride of America..... so it's not bad at all really!!! The full track listing is: Lightning Strikes; Never Joined the Party; End of the Light; My Maker's Gonna Meet Me; Gaia; and Bride of America. This tape is available (if you want the whole set!) and coz there's no official cover it's a bit cheaper - £2.50 gets you a white label cassette in a brown paper bag!! Just send your cheque to PO Box 213.
	This page was last updated on the 16th of September 2002.