One week at number one on 5th July 1986
Despite the fact he had an established platform to build on, it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that the group’s lead singer Pete Astor was lucky, however. Fate seemed to slap him encouragingly on his leather trousered arse wherever he went in the mid-eighties. In 1984 Janice Long, at this point presenting an early evening show on Radio One, selected their single “Why Does The Rain” as one of her three favourite singles of the year, an unexpected boost for both the band and a tiny, cash-strapped label like Creation. Intriguingly, I’ve also never met anyone else who genuinely believes it to be in the top three best records released that year – but if you’re going to win those kind of wild plaudits with anyone, a national radio DJ is surely your best outcome.
Then in 1985, journalist Danny Kelly was at a football match where he met Peter Hadfield, the manager of Terry Hall’s new group The Colourfield. Kelly enthused about The Loft, and Hadfield wondered if they might be available to support his group on a major venue tour of the UK. No money changed hands, and sweet and simple arrangements were made to give The Loft a lift on to the professional circuit. As anyone who has ever been in a band will tell you, things seldom happen this easily without meetings, pluggers and expensive tour budgets being involved.
Despite all this, Astor was unhappy, feeling as if he had little in common with the rest of his group and mumbling to McGee and other parties that he didn’t see them as a long-term proposition. He eventually split them up live on stage at the Hammersmith Palais while supporting the Colourfield, a move some deemed legendary and others strangely cold. Vague insults were directed at other band members, and the whole thing drew to a messy close – two singles and endless love and good fortune later, the group were no more.
Astor decided before they even split that The Weather Prophets sounded like a good name for his next group, and they were up and running relatively swiftly, recording a radio session for the ever enthusiastic Janice Long before a single note was captured on vinyl. “Almost Prayed” featured on that debut session and McGee felt strongly it should be their first single, but numerous attempts to re-record it at other studios ended unsatisfactorily, with the group failing to capture the snap and spontaneity of the BBC session. Eventually, all concerned had to reluctantly lease the recording from the BBC for commercial release, though the text on the rear of the sleeve informing you of the fact is written in such a tiny font you might miss it.
There’s a simple reason both Creation and the band were a bit ashamed of this step. BBC sessions often differ from the finished product in many ways, but are usually more stripped back and basic. Fans of bands will often nudge those not in the know and tell them that actually, the John Peel session version of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” has a bite the single version didn’t, or that Microdisney’s Peel Session versions of the “Crooked Mile” era material punch more forcefully than the Lenny Kaye produced LP. Despite this, the suggestion that any polished, professional recording following a session simply wasn’t as good as the BBC’s quick efforts would be embarrassing for any up-and-coming band, especially one the major labels were keeping a close eye on. It carries suggestions of amateurism and an inability to hold it together as soon as the grown-ups leave the room.
The Weather Prophets would eventually re-record “Almost Prayed” for their debut major label album “Mayflower”, and sure enough, even with WEA’s money and time being spent on it, it remains feeble by comparison, as if the group have been asked to imagine the song being covered by Big Country. So what did producer Barry Andrews (no relation to the ex-XTC member) get right at Maida Vale that everyone else got wrong?
I wasn’t there obviously, but my suspicion is that “Almost Prayed” is one of those songs which gets duller, rather than shinier, the more you scrub it up. In its BBC form, it’s a thing of beauty, three minutes of simple indie-pop which jangles and thumps through Astor’s angst about the fluidity and unpredictability of life; the phrase “You can never go home again” given its best representation on 45. The song’s fuel comes from the almost folky simplicity of its hooks (you can imagine “I almost prayed” being murmured repeatedly at a folk night) and its directness. Place a mid-eighties production over that, and you’re smothering the track in padding when its bare bones need to be visible. Here is a song, after all, with limited chord structures and a simple swing which veers close to something approaching pop, but is ultimately too melancholy – it’s the sound of damp, drizzly nights spent by the coast attempting thought-walks, an introvert’s basic whistling tune. It’s not a daring, bold statement, which is what the band probably wanted their debut single to be, but it is strangely beautiful, which is all that matters in the long term.
It’s not clear what inspired Astor’s lyrics, but they really took a hold of me in the nineties. Back then, I embarked on a degree at the University of Portsmouth and his words about smoking cigarettes alone by the harbour felt like a literal soundtrack to my new life. In the early nineties, Portsmouth as a city wasn’t doing brilliantly – the unemployment rates were, for a period, among the highest in the country, unusual for a southern city in those days, and the streets became filled with cheapo bric-a-brac stores and low rent bedsits.
What the city sorely needed was regeneration, which came not long after I left in the form of a slick harbour based shopping centre (Gunwharf Quays), a restructuring of the roads, and a demolition of some of the more sorrowful concrete aspects such as the Tricorn Centre, once voted among Britain’s ugliest buildings. When I return, “Almost Prayed” still remains my little personal soundtrack, focusing on the second half of the song which despairingly begins “Back in the same place but everything’s changed”.
The lyrics were hardly likely to win Astor any Ivor Novello awards, but their plaintive nature has always been a balm to me. Purposefully or otherwise, they tell a very honest story of the eighties and nineties, as heavy industry and the docklands gave way to the age of mall consumerism and everyone’s town or city got torn up, pulled inside out and represented to them as a glossy, shiny Saturday spending opportunity (if they had the money). In the case of Portsmouth, I don’t think you would find anyone willing to vote for a return to the bad old days just to make me feel better – the fact that the oily, cobbled streets with nothing in them are a thing of the past is doubtless seen by most as a good thing – but with its twanging stride, “Almost Prayed” captures the simple yet often indescribable sadness you feel when someone permanently deletes the stage backdrop to the most exciting period of your youth and offers you something cleaner, slicker and “better”.
Perhaps too, Astor’s prayers (or close calls towards prayer) in the first chorus are for something better, less abandoned, before then nearly being uttered later on because he realises he wants everything put back the way it was. If that’s true, it recognises how unsatisfied we often are as humans, sniping at the soullessness of urban improvements while we also, in the same breath, swipe at the poverty and messiness of an area. The song finishes on a final chord which doesn’t really resolve things one bit, ending the same way it came in and making Astor seem like some kind of modern-day version of the man from the Strand cigarettes advert, endlessly moping about the docks with his tobacco.
It’s a marvellous, treasurable single whose heights the Weather Prophets would never quite match again, though they certainly had other moments. I’ve still got my slightly dog-eared copy in my 7” singles box by the stereo, and it will likely stay with me forever. McGee had wanted them to be huge – they never really got close to that, but “Almost Prayed” is a landmark indie single nonetheless, and that really should be enough for anyone. Despite being the Creation label's second NME number one after the Jesus & Mary Chain, it doesn't seem to get talked about often now, swamped over instead with tales of Oasis and Primal Scream, but for a brief few moments, Peter Astor - and not Bobby Gillespie - was the label's great hope.
As for The Loft, they very recently reformed to release their long-abandoned album, citing unfinished business. Given the hostile nature of their dissolution, this is surely not something anybody saw coming. Perhaps you can go home again after all.
New Entries Elsewhere In The Chart
12. Cabaret Voltaire – The Drain Train (Doublevision)
Peak position: 5
An odd one, this, in that if you hear it for a brief 30 seconds or so – as I did when walking into a club once – it sounds like absolute dynamite, and you’re left begging to hear the rest. Then you do just that, and realise that 30 seconds is enough to give you the full idea. The track is filled with insistent repetition and barked demands, built entirely on a funk hook that’s glorious enough to sustain it. Nonetheless, by Cabaret Voltaire’s usual standards, it feels strangely simple, and would almost be pop if it weren’t for its contrary and excessively minimalist approach to melody.
19. Frenzy - I See Red (ID)
Peak position: 19
The psychobilly scene may have been losing some of its broader appeal by 1986, but that didn’t stop some of the circuit’s biggest groups like Guana Batz and this lot from continuing to make some very serious in-roads. Frenzy were a popular live draw right across Europe, and “I See Red” jumps right out of the stereo to make it seem as if they’re right there in your living room, providing the evidence why. The musicianship is as frantic as it is sharp, and the rhythm section in particular take psychobilly to places some other groups lacked the skills to visit. Fashions may come and go, but killer live acts never fade away.
21. We Free Kings - Death of the Wild Colonial Boy (Howl)
Peak position: 21
We Free Kings were another Janice Long favoured group, albeit one who failed to make as much of a broad impression as The Weather Prophets. From Edinburgh, the group created roots based music combined with a wild energy, resulting in them becoming renowned in Scotland for their frantic live shows.
The Waterboys employed them as a support act for a number of their shows, and their backing vocalist and mandolin, guitar and flute player Colin Blakey eventually decamped to that group when the Free Kings ceased to be in 1988.
Number One In The Official Charts
Wham! - "The Edge Of Heaven" (Epic)
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