The Moderates - Yes to the Neutron Bomb (1981)

b/w Bus Girl

Great Merseyside based New Wave band [1978-82]

The Moderates seem to have started as something of an ad hoc, Art School student band [Some of them being Part-time staff at the Everyman Bistro]

Possibly inspired by Deaf School’s theatricality, their gigs would involve poetry readings, the odd novelty song and the lengthy ramblings of one Dame Looney [A mention of the band in Record Mirror {26 May 1979} gives the line-up as John Brady (Voc), Heidi & Sharon (Voc), Basil (Bass), Bernie (Guitar), Satie (Keys), Sigger (Drums)] Soon enough though the line-up settled and the band became a tighter outfit, ditching the peripherals to focus on the songs.

John Brady (Voc Keys),

Heidi Kure (Voc)

Tom Gould (Guitar)

Bobby Carr (Guitar, Violin) ex Those Naughty Lumps, Tontrix, Pre Surreal Estate

Martin Cooper (Bass) ex Those Naughty Lumps  Pre O.M.D & Godot

Phil Allen (Drums) ex Big in Japan, Pre Love Look Away

With Help from Bob Moren (Sax on High Heel Shoes)

Discography

09/1979 VA - Street To Street [A Liverpool Compilation] LP [I Don't Want To Go Bald]

12/1979 12" Fetishes EP [High Heel Shoes / Yes To The Neutron Bomb / Don't Be Silly / Sun Tan] - Open Eye Records [OE EP-1001]'

03/1981 Peel Session [What's That Sound (For What It's Worth)/ Nightlife /Housewife For Life /Emile]

04/1981 7" Yes To The Neutron Bomb / Bus Girl -  Hyped Records [BMRB-51]

02/1982 7" For What It's Worth / Emile - Hyped Records [BMRB-53] (

Line-up change for the Peel Session & 2nd 45

Mike Percy (Bass) pre Dead or Alive

John Potter (Drums)

Useless Info 1 - The Moderates Supported The John Peel Radio Roadshow @ Liverpool University Mountford Hall on 02-09-1978

Useless Info 2 - Phil Allen is the brother of Enrico Cadillac Jr. [AKA Steve Allen] frontman of Deaf School.

Useless Info 3 - Martin “Armadillo” Cooper took over Aunt Twacky’s Tea Shop in the Pun School building re-naming it The Armadillo Tea Rooms. He still enjoys a position of great respect in Liverpool’s culinary arena.

Useless Info 4 - The Moderates played to a crowd of over 200 in the Armadillo Tea Rooms, on the same night as U2 [playing the UK for the first time] struggled to attract 60 people to the club across the road.

Below are Tom Gould’s recollections of reconvening in the studio to re-work on ‘Yes to the Neutron Bomb’ for a single release.

‘We were offered a contract by Greensleeves records (biggest reggae label), as ska had taken most of their customers, so they wanted to sign some ‘white pop bands’. They set up a subsidiary label called ‘Hyped Records’ for ours and a band [Close Rivals] from Birminghams’ releases, booking us into a 24 track recording studio in London. During the session we realised that they didn’t really know what they were doing, as previously they bought finished tracks from studio’s in Jamaica. This is where we recorded the second version of ‘Yes to the Neutron Bomb’ and ‘Bus Girl’ (Bus Girl was about taking late night bus journeys in Liverpool, as there always seemed to be a young girl standing at the front of the bus talking to the driver – bus groupies?).

Our experience in the studio was awful as we also had an engineer who thought he was the greatest producer in the world, but was more of a hindrance than any help, so the recordings were pretty bad. At the end of the original ‘Yes to the Neutron Bomb’ on ‘Fetishes’, the explosion was created by four of us holding the keys down on the keyboard, which was plugged into a guitar amp with the settings for distortion, reverb, presence and volume on full, so most of the noise was feedback. On the second recording, the engineer could not reproduce it, he used a pretty weak explosion from a sound-effects record instead which sounded really crap!’

Full Discography & Extras

Feel free to leave any extra info/comments below

Finally 

09 April 1981 : After playing Yes To The Neutron Bomb on his show John Peel quipped 'We're thinking of getting one for the shrubbery actually.')