The La's

The band, named after the Scouse for "lads" as well of the obvious musical connotations of "la", attracted the attention of several record labels after a series of performances in their home town of Liverpool in 1986. Bootleg demo tapes copied from a session at the Flying Picket rehearsal studio in Liverpool in 1986 began circulating. After several record labels heard these and offered recording contracts, the band chose to sign with Go! Discs. The band's first single ("Way Out", released in October 1987 on Go! Discs (GOLAS 112)), was mixed with producer Gavin MacKillop, but attracted little notice. It was praised by The Smiths' frontman Morrissey in the music magazine Melody Maker, but otherwise went generally unnoticed. Five thousand copies were pressed, making it a sought-after item for La's record collectors.The band continued to perform shows around the UK and continued to gain success as a live act and drew comparisons to the Beatles due to their origins, vaguely Merseybeat sound, and Mavers' expressive lyrics. Another single (from the Woodcray recording session), "There She Goes", was released in 1988 with the B-sides "Come In Come Out" and "Who Knows". The song garnered moderate attention and airplay, but performed poorly in the charts. The music video for "There She Goes" features the La's scampering through run-down Liverpool streets and was filmed in an afternoon on a handheld camera. The song has been used on several soundtracks, including the films So I Married an Axe Murderer and Fever Pitch and was later re-released.After working with producer Jeremy Allom at the Pink Museum Studio in Liverpool in May 1989 the band were set to release "Timeless Melody" (GOLAS 3) as a single. While it became a "record of the week" in the UK magazine New Musical Express, Mavers was unhappy with how it sounded and it remained commercially unreleased. B-sides included a version of "Clean Prophet" that is still not officially released to this day, and a blues jam entitled "Ride Yer Camel" which ran for about nine minutes. This record is extremely rare, as a handful of test pressings were completed. The group then spent two years fruitlessly recording and re-recording their intended album, with a constantly changing band lineup, where only the core of Mavers and Power remained the same. Discarded producers included The Smiths' producer John Porter, John Leckie, and Mike Hedges. Interestingly, both Leckie and Hedges in interviews have been very complimentary about the band's songs and their respective sessions, in spite of the fact both their efforts were ultimately rejected by Lee Mavers.The previously volatile band lineup settled in 1989 with Neil Mavers, Lee's brother, as the drummer, and Peter "Cammy" Camell as lead guitarist. The group then entered Eden Studios, London in December 1989 to again attempt to record the debut album with Simple Minds and U2 producer Steve Lillywhite. Despite this lineup being arguably the strongest, and press interviews from the time painting them as extremely confident, the sessions still did not satisfy The La's. The Eden sessions would become the band's final attempt at recording their album, and the frustration of not achieving the right sound and mood in their songs - as well general friction with Go! Discs, who had spent a considerable sum of money on recording sessions for the band - led to them simply giving up on the sessions, leaving Lillywhite to piece together their recordings into what became the actual released