Pool Of Sound - Blue Poland

Logo designed by Nigel Robinson and Neil Morgan in 1980

'Blue Poland' was formed in Crosby, Liverpool in 1979 with a line-up of Neil Morgan on vocals, Chris Larsen on bass guitar and Nigel Robinson on guitar and vocals. At the time they had no drummer so had to get drummers in for demos and gigs. They finally got a permanent one a couple of years later called Steve Thomas who considerably improved the sound and structure of the band (he was a member of an early version of 'The Real People', called 'Jo Jo & The Real People'). Chris and Nigel from the band were only aged 16 and still at school when they made their first demo tape. An earlier version of the band without Neil Morgan was called 'The Neutral Cover Ups'. During this time they also formed a punk band called 'The Rampant Nasties' with Tony Elson but were stopped/banned from playing at a sell out gig in Crosby.

Neil Morgan on stage at The Warehouse

The band would play regularly around Liverpool at The Warehouse and do double headline gigs with 'The Icicle Works' until one day the NME started to compare the two totally dissimilar bands, causing this arrangement to cease. 'Blue Poland' shows received rave reviews from the national music papers and local fanzines including 'Merseysound' and 'Breakout', a fanzine started by Neil Tilly in 1981.
They made three demo tapes and had one John Peel session recording 'Find Out Why', 'Time And Motion', 'Household Goods' and ''Puppet Nation'.  They also appeared on a BBC2 programme in the early 1980s called 'Something Else' alongside a London band called 'Doctor Fantasies Devils' which featured Keith Moore, now in 'The Popticians' with poet John Hegley and a socialist poet called Pete Sinclair (now a comedy writer for Graham Norton, Jack Dee, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and lots of other comedy programmes). Also as guests on 'Something Else' were George Melly and Nick Lowe who 'Blue Poland' nervously interviewed.

The 'Something Else' broadcast featured 'Blue Poland' in their first 'Breakout' gig at the Warehouse Club on March 4th, 1982. This line-up included Melanie Deeprose on backing vocals who remembers,

"I've done my fair share of singing over the years: in my school years, I even made it into a Liverpool pop group called Blue Poland and we had a whole lotta fun tinkering around the edges of 'making it'."

 They had recruited another member by then who sang backing vocals, Melanie Deeprose. 'Something Else' was directed/produced by Mike Dick and Paul Pierriot who were part of the community programmes unit at BBC and were responsible for putting 'Joy Division', 'The Jam' and 'U2' on the  same programme.
'Blue Poland' played at Deeside Leisure Centre in the Futurama Music Festival devised and promoted by John Keenan. Other acts included 'New Order', 'Dead Or Alive' and the 'Damned' and many others, following which they received a rave review in the NME and were chased by many major record labels. The main one being Sire Records (WEA) in New York and Seymour Stein, the man responsible for signing 'Talking Heads' and later 'Madonna', telephoned Nigel while he was having his dinner, which he initially thought was a hoax call. Stein then paid for the band to do a showcase gig at the Warehouse in Liverpool, with Nigel inviting Pete Sinclair down to do some poetry as well.
Unfortunately nothing came from this, and the band became restless and anxious that they hadn't released any records yet, so they stopped playing even though they had achieved a lot of exposure over a short space of time.
Other early supporters of the band included Janice Long who would regularly play their music and interview the band on the 'Street Life' radio show on BBC Radio Merseyside as did another DJ called Phil Ross. They also played a gig with John Peel as the DJ at Keele University.
Their career was cut short by the illness and the tragic early death of Neil Morgan. 

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2019/08/pool-of-sound-ellery-bop.html