School friends Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith formed Tears For Fears after they had spent their teenage years in bands together, including a Mod/Ska revivalist…
Browsing: New Wave
Singer/guitarist Sean Kelly’s first band was Spred, which he formed in Melbourne (Australia) in 1977 with his school chum James Freud (born Colin McGlinchey). The band…
The inaugural house band at CBGB’s in New York, and contemporaries of Patti Smith and later Blondie, The Ramones and Talking Heads, Television figure large in American punk rock pre-history. The band began…
There were neither any Thompsons nor any twins in the band, but this former seven-piece anarchist collective made it big as a trio in the…
Like any group of sensible young people going into business for themselves, the Boston-based band ‘Til Tuesday had a plan. Singer/bassist Aimee Mann and androgynous…
Tom Tom Club began life as a side project for Talking Heads members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth to keep themselves busy while David Byrne gallivanted about…
The Tourists were a typical British post-punk new wave group, except for the fact that in a brief career spanning 1979 and 1980 they recorded three albums (The…
No other band in the select coterie of the New Romantics expanded beyond its initial frontiers as radically as the London-based Ultravox, whose early work bore all…
Led by vocalist/guitarist Dave Fenton, The Vapors were a short-lived new wave guitar group that is best remembered for the pop single Turning Japanese. Fenton formed the first…
Poster boys for the New Romantic movement until Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran came along, took their ball and ran off with it, Steve Strange’s Visage had more of a career…
In 1986, Australian band Wa Wa Nee were in the unusual position of having a recording contract (with CBS records) but never having played a live…
Formed in 1978, The Waitresses existed for the purpose of performing the witty, often female-oriented songs of guitarist Chris Butler, who had previously led a…
Releasing its first effort (a self-titled EP) in 1980, this Los Angeles punk dance band offered a serious version of Devo’s new wave. Led by…
The London-based new wave group Wang Chung had a handful of hits in the mid-80s, achieving their greatest popularity in America. Originally called Huang Chung,…
Eric Goulden grew up in Newhaven, near Brighton. From there he went to Hull Art School in northeastern England until he was drawn to London…
Formed in Wiltshire, England, in 1972 as Star Park (“Rats Krap” backwards) this widely beloved UK pop unit became the Helium Kidz in 1973 with…
This little known British band produced some killer power pop during the early 80s and should have been huuuuuge stars – but sadly they weren’t and their…
Adelaide band Young Modern was one of Australia’s pioneering power pop/new wave bands of the late 1970s. Vocalist John Dowler formed the band (taking their…