Talulah Gosh
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Talulah Gosh were a guitar-pop group from Oxford, England and one of the leading bands of the twee pop movement. Formed in 1986, their original line-up comprised Amelia Fletcher (vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), her younger brother Mathew Fletcher (drums), Peter Momtchiloff (lead guitar), Rob Pursey (bass) and Elzabeth Price (vocals, guitar). Pursey left early on, to be replaced by Chris Scott.
The group made their live debut on March 7, 1986, and later the same year released two singles on the Glasgow-based label 53rd & 3rd, "Beatnik Boy" and "Steaming Train". These singles, especially the first, were unashamedly cutesy, something also reflected in the names the group had adopted for themselves: leader Amelia was "Marigold", while Elizabeth became "Pebbles". Mathew Fletcher was rather less flatteringly nicknamed "Fat Mat".
For their third single, the group returned to a song they had first recorded in session for Janice Long's show on Radio 1 in August 1986, "Talulah Gosh". Elizabeth Price left toward the end of the year, and so the single, released on May 30, 1987, was the first to feature replacement Eithne Farry (vocals, tambourine). The single was less shambolic than their earlier offerings, and a video was made for it which was played on ITV's "The Chart Show", giving the band some mainstream exposure. The single was produced (some critics suggested it was over-produced) by John Rivers, as was the follow-up "Bringing Up Baby", a sophisticated pop song that reduced the band's "shambling" element to the point where mainstream success seemed a possibility. Indeed, The Primitives would later take precisely this route to success - but Talulah Gosh never made the national charts.
January 1988 saw not only the release of "Bringing Up Baby" but also the broadcast of a second Radio 1 session, this time for DJ John Peel. What was to be Talulah Gosh's last single, a Ramones-like punk thrash titled "Testcard Girl" (very loosely based on an old Heinz advertising jingle), was released in May. The group split later that year.
After the split, Amelia and Mathew Fletcher and Peter Momtchiloff regrouped as Heavenly with Talulah Gosh co-founder Rob Pursey also returning to the fold.
Discography
- "Beatnik Boy" (single, 1986)
- "Steaming Train" (single, 1986)
- "Talulah Gosh" (single, 1987)
- "Bringing Up Baby" (single, 1987)
- "Testcard Girl" (single, 1988)
- Rock Legends Vol.69 (singles compilation, 1988)
- They've Scoffed The Lot (radio sessions, 1991)
- Backwash (complete recordings plus live tracks, 1996)