Department S

Department S were a British new wave band formed in 1980, who took their stage name from the 1960s TV series.

Career

Department S evolved from a previous punk/ska combo, Guns For Hire, and featured former Madness drummer John Hasler. Mike Herbage joined them and wrote Guns For Hire's only single - "I'm Gonna Rough My Girlfriend's Boyfriend Up Tonight" - which emerged on the Korova record label. The group then became Department S, with the addition of Eddie Roxy (later replaced by Mark Taylor) and Stuart Mizon.

They made their live debut at the Rock Garden, London, on 24 September 1980. Demon Records subsequently released their debut single, "Is Vic There?", in March 1981. It was produced by former Mott the Hoople members Buffin and Overend Watts, but its initial success led to the better-equipped RCA Records picking it up. The single?s b-side, a cover of T.Rex's "Solid Gold Easy Action", featured Thunderthighs on backing vocals.

The group recorded a session for the BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel on 3 December 1980. The tracks laid down were "Is Vic There?"; "Age Concern"; "Ode To Cologne (Stench Of War)"; and "Clap Now".

The follow-up single "Going Left Right", released on the Stiff Records label fared considerably worse (while still managing to sell 60,000 copies), and their days were numbered despite a number 1 single in Spain ("I Want"). Poor subsequent sales and differences of opinion with their record label, resulted in the band being dropped by Stiff, but not before ?50,000 was reputedly spent on what was to be their debut album, Sub-Stance (subsequently released on LTM in 2003).

Toulouse later worked as a DJ under the name Main T, before recording as a solo artist with a 1985 single "Cruisin' the Serpentine", and as part of The Style Council's miner's charity project the Council Collective. He died in 1991, from AIDS related causes.

In February 2007, Department S recorded their first new single for twenty six years, a cover version of Alvin Stardust's 1973 hit "My Coo-Ca-Choo". It was released on Sartorial Records in October 2007. It included a guest appearance by Mark Bedford of Madness on bass guitar. A re-recording of "Is Vic There?" and new tracks "Wonderful Day" "God Squad Saviour" and "Outside" have now been recorded, and include contributions from Glen Matlock, Marco Pirroni, Michelle Brigandage of Brigandage, Susie Honeyman of The Mekons and John Keeble of Spandau Ballet contributing drums to the latter two tracks. Live concert dates were planned for September 2008, but were postponed until Spring 2010. In August 2008 drummer Stuart Mizon left the band due to family commitments, while former guitarist and songwriter from Back to Zero, Sam Burnett joined on a full time basis. An album is due out in April 2010, with a new single ('Wonderful Day') due for release in August 2009. Both releases will be on Sartorial.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Department S; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department S