BUM!

BUM! started as an idea Dave Ramwell and Graeme Martin had in the late eighties to be a two piece "Pet Shop Boys with attitude" which would go under the moniker 'THE BUM BOYS'. They had hoped to give it that Electro-Punk feel, but the vibe they were into at the time was a mish-mash of Buzzcocks, Boys Wonder, bovva boots, braces, and a sense of Britishness. With this in mind, their brief foray into the world of camp euro-pop mutated into the blue-print for BUM! They eagerly recruited Marcus Boyd having been impressed with his monkeyboy antics in the very stylish band 'Lunatic Soup'. With him he bought bass-boy supremo Mick Carroll and a combination of NME ads and networking at gigs brought them Stuart Soulsby on drums.In their early days the songs were crude but required four things: 1. Quirky lyrics from Marcus. 2. Ultra fast rhythm section. 3. Deconstructed lead guitar lines. 4. Toy town piano and organ sounds.The band got very tight and gained a reputation as musical mavericks peddling frantic three minute pop tunes played in two with a sense of humour at it's core.This was a time when shoe-gazing was all the thing and boys and girls were trying hard to pout and affect disaffection. You can imagine how well this bunch of spotty 'erberts went down.Eventually the band came to the attention of Dave Goodman who produced their epic 'The Valerie Brown EP', which earnt high praise in certain quarters and picked up some good radio airplay.The band lasted for a couple of years in its original line up before they all went their own seperate ways. Stuart to old punkers 'Chelsea'. Mick into occasional collaborations with the likes of 'The Godfathers'. Dave to live in Thailand. Graeme to write and perform solo/accoustically and Marcus to addle his brain down in Bristol on a strict diet of class 'A's and scrumpy. Let us not forget Steve Humphreys who was the non-playing member of the band. he put his time into organising recordings, gigs, promos etc.