Movies

The Movies had its roots in the Cambridge progressive rock band Public Foot The Roman, who had released one album in 1973 on Capitol/Sovereign. PFTR effectively disbanded after the release of their album, but keyboardist Dag Small, drummer Jamie Lane and guitarist Greg Knowles soldiered on, reconstituting a new band featuring singer/guitarist Jon Cole and percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Julian Diggle from a competing Cambridge rock band, Thunderbox. Add Venezuelan bass player Durban Laverde, and the Movies were born.
Almost immediately, the Movies found themselves with a record deal for A&M. Their self-titled 1975 debut (produced by ex-Vinegar Joe guitarist Pete Gage) didn’t shift a lot of units, but it created enough attention in music circles that got them a lot of good gigs right out of the gate. The first of these was a support/backup gig for singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading, whose sophomore 1975 release (Back to the Night) was likewise produced by Gage. Their association with Armatrading was a lasting one: Diggle guested on her 1983 album The Key, while Lane drummed on 1988’s The Shouting Stage.
1975 also brought difficult change to the band. Four members (Lane, Knowles, Small and Laverde) were in a train crash in Nuneaton. All four were injured, but they were the lucky ones; many other passengers died. But Laverde was injured so badly he was unable to continue playing with the band. His slot in the subsequent tour was filled by newcomer Dave Quinn.
Though incredibly talented, the Movies never found the success they so deserved. Part of it may have something to do with the fact that there was no ready-made audience for their quirky brand of rock & roll, but a big stumbling block turned out to be plain old bad timing. In the U.K., the mid-to-late seventies were a bad time for any young rock band that wasn’t explicitly punk in orientation. And while they were erroneously introduced as a “British punk band” at a concert in Norway, they were decidedly un-punk. Which is not to say they were exactly prog-rock (despite being erroneously billed as such in the occasional vinyl dealer’s catalogue), though their virtuosic playing and conceptual nature (“every song is a picture that moves”) were enough to brand them as “hippies” by the snotty safety-pin set. The fact that Knowles and keyboard player Mick Parker both sported beards and shaggy manes probably didn’t help their case any.
(read more on Progbear)
==Links to Peel==
The band did a session for Peel's programme in 1978 and played their track, 'No Class', on his 04 July 1978 show, according to available tracklistings on this site.
==Sessions==
1. Recorded: 1977-06-28. First Broadcast: 07 July 1977
*Yo-Yo / Big Boys' Band / Heaven On The Street
==Other Shows Played==
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*04 July 1978: No Class (LP - Bullets Through The Barrier) GTO
==External Links==
*Progbear
*Discogs
Category:Artists