Pool Of Sound - The Boo Radleys

  L-R.  Martin Carr, Tim Brown, Rob Cieka and Sice Rowbottom

Formed in Wallasey in 1988, where Martin Carr was raised, 'The Boo Radleys' took their name from the character Boo Radley in Harper Lee's novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Their initial line-up consisted of Simon 'Sice' Rowbottom on guitar and vocals and primary school friend Martin Carr as songwriter and guitarist with Timothy Brown, a friend of 'Sice', on bass guitar and Rob Harrison on drums. Martin and 'Sice' got £30 Kay's Catalogue guitars each for Christmas in 1982 with 'Sice' getting an amp with his. Tim and Martin had moved to Liverpool quite early on when Tim was 19 or 20 and he and Martin lived in the same house, a bedsit at 58 Huskisson Street. In the same house lived Steve, who did the covers for them, lived there as well. Tim was on the middle floor, Martin was on the ground floor and Steve was on the floor above Tim .They met Rob through a band called 'Dr Phibes And The House Of Wax Equations' in Liverpool. They needed a drummer and the band said he was the best and they used to rehearse on his bed in the squat he lived in on Seel Street in Liverpool. 

Shortly after the release of their first album 'Ichabod and I' on Preston based Action Records, Steve Hewitt replaced Rob Harrison on drums and he was in turn replaced by Rob Cieka. The single and an appearance on John Peel resulted in Rough Trade Records coming down to a couple of shows. They duly signed with Rough Trade Records but almost immediately, after the release of their first EP, 'Every Heaven' in 1991, Rough Trade collapsed. They had recorded 'Everything's Alright Forever' for Rough Trade but released it in 1992 on Creation Records who had now signed them up as their manager Richard Hermitage also managed Slowdive. However it was their next album 'Giant Steps' in 1993 which saw them become the biggest band on the label. 'Giant Steps' was a significant move away from the band's earlier releases, a melting pot of newly-discovered sounds, encompassing elements of dub, noise rock, sixties psychedelia, jazz, ambient and dance to form the quintessential eclectic 1990s album. Martin Carr has said that the 'Beach Boys' albums, 'Pet Sounds' and 'Surfs Up', were a big influence on him at the time. When they were recording 'Everything's Alright Forever', the band 'Moose' were in the next studio to them and, as they were hanging out together, played them 'Pet Sounds'.
NME magazine said of the album "It's an intentional masterpiece" and it was placed second to 'Debut' by Bjork in the 1993 'NMW Album Of The Year' list, voted by the paper's contributors, although it did come in at first place in the subsequent NME readers' poll.

More acclaim was to follow as, despite a cult fanbase, 'The Boo Radleys' were still largely unknown to the general public by the time 'Britpop' broke into the mainstream in 1995. This changed when the band released the upbeat single "Wake Up Boo!" in the spring of that year. 'Wake Up Boo!', along with 'Pulp's' 'Common People', 'Blur's' 'Parklife', and 'Oasis's' 'Live Forever', would become one of the signature sounds of mid-90s 'Swinging London'. Ironically, their biggest hit seemed to have alienated their old audience and their follow-up material sent their new audience running for the hills. Until then each record had offered more confident songwriting and better production than the one before it. Right from the start, the band had displayed an apparent unwillingness to settle upon a consistent sound, style or genre.

 
The follow-up release, 'Find The Answer Within', was the band's only other single to chart for more than two weeks. Their fourth album, 'Wake Up' in 1995 was to be their commercial peakTheir fifth album, 'C'mon Kids' in 1996 was a different type of album than 'Wake Up' as they wanted to try something new, to keep themselves fresh and interested. They were very surprised to find that it was seen by some as a deliberate attempt to scare away newly created fans.
Their final album 'Kingsize' was released in 1998 with only one single 'Free Huey' released from the album. The title track was due to have been released as a second single, but the band decided to split up which found 'The Boo Radleys' disbanded in early 1999.

Talking afterwards to 'Time Out' magazine, 'Sice' explained; "It was such a relief when Martin phoned me and said he didn't want to make any more records. We'd been wanting it to stop for quite a long time, but I couldn't do it – I didn't want to leave. I wanted the band to end and only Martin could have done that. There was always the fear if I left, that they would just get another singer in and I didn't want that." Martin says, " We probably started breaking up the day 'Wake Up Boo' charted. We were interested in other things and money was never a huge motivator for us even though that’s all people used to talk about at the time."

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