Furniture

Furniture were a British new wave band, active from 1979 to 1991. The band is best known for the 1986 Top 30 hit, "Brilliant Mind".
The longest-serving and best-known line-up of Furniture (from 1983–1990), comprised founder members Jim Irvin (vocals), singer/multi-instrumentalist Tim Whelan and drummer Hamilton Lee, plus bass player/occasional singer Sally Still and keyboard player Maya Gilder. Larry N’Azone (saxophone) was an occasional member during this period and often appeared with the band live. Furniture's chief success was in the UK but they also enjoyed a following throughout Eastern Europe where they toured in 1987 and 1988.
Since the break-up of the band, Furniture has retained a certain cult appeal, partly due to a continuing high reputation for songwriting and partly due to the nature of the band's career. Noted for the bad luck and practical frustration that prevented them from making a long term-breakthrough, Furniture have been described as "one of the most unfortunate of bands, and a salutory lesson for any young hopefuls being courted by minor labels."
After the band's break-up, Whelan and Lee went on to form Transglobal Underground (which rapidly eclipsed their prior band in terms of success and recognition), while Irvin and Still became high-profile British music journalists (as well as continuing their work in music, predominantly as songwriters).
== Links to Peel ==
Singer, Jim Irvine, wrote a piece on his official website in 2009 when reviewing the Kats Karavan boxset (a collection of artists that Peel played on the radio), about his reaction when Peel played their debut single in the early 80's:
"In 1981 I made a record. In the spirit of the times it was a totally independent effort, recorded, designed and funded by the band, 1000 copies pressed on our own label, The Guy From Paraguay records, with a Xeroxed picture of a naked man sitting on a sofa as a sleeve. We had no idea what we were doing. Our ‘fling it at the wall’ philosophy was hopelessly naïve, and we finished the adventure with about 400 copies still under the drummer’s bed. But, one night, John Peel played it! He segued into it from another record. I heard myself singing and I screamed. Then the phone rang. Obviously one of the band calling. I ran downstairs, snatched up the phone and yelled “I KNOW!” into it. “Er, hello, is Jim there?” said the unmistakable voice. It was Peel. “I’m playing your record on the radio.” “I know,” I choked. I wasn’t expecting that. “It’s very good,” he said. “Thank you,” I mumbled. I’ve forgotten the rest of the conversation. There can’t have been much more, the song only lasted two and a half minutes, but I left the ground. For someone so obsessed with pop culture, the thrill was intense, unique and only bettered when somebody rang up five years later to say we had a Top 40 hit." 
In fact, the band release their debut single not in 1981, but in 1980. However, in later years, Peel rarely played much of the band's material and didn't play their single, Brilliant Mind, which later became a Top 30 hit. Jim Irvine by the end of the 80's seemed to have been disillusioned with Peel's show, in which he commented on his website: 
"As time wore on, though, youthful obeisance to Peel’s nightly gumbo definitely wore off. There was a sense of bands forming specifically to get to him, of tail wagging dog. The recipe – several parts obscure, incompetent, tedious or insane to one part undeniably excellent – started to sour. I felt drabness was winning. Even on a good night his shows were patchy to the point of perversity." 
Nonetheless, Irvine respected Peel's moral sense of duty to support musicians making an effort to make a record themselves and claimed that he once wrote a letter to him, which he received a reply back:
"I once wrote him a long, impassioned letter questioning an apparently indiscriminate selection process. He sent a beautifully hand-written reply which said that he felt a duty to represent as much of the music he was sent as possible. One sensed that he was driven by something other than an aesthetic sense, being genuinely moved by the artistic impulse, by the fact that people had bothered to make a noise and then chosen him to disseminate it. It’s that Peel, champion of the misfit, lover of the flawed, the mischievous, the daring and the deluded that this box salutes." 
== Shows Played ==
;thumb|330x330px1980
*27 September 1980 (BFBS): Shaking Story (7") The Guy From Paraguay
*30 September 1980: unknown
*04 October 1980 (BFBS): Shaking Story (7") The Guy From Paraguay
== External Links ==
*Wikipedia
*Discogs
*Official Website (Jim Irvine)
Category:Artists