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Archive July 2008

Piranhas split with Virgin plus more free mp3's

punkdaddy writes:

Euro 2008, Wimbledon, Glastonbury et al - stiff competition for punkbrighton, but despite it all here are our regular monthly freebies, does it get any better than this? You lucky bastards! Again we're giving away more Birds With Ears and Ammonites tracks and thanks to contributors we've built two new band pages: Slaves of Janet and Psycho Normal & His Stiff Victims, two brilliantly named outfits.

Not much on either of these bands, so if you have any recollections or other stuff you think we may be able to post, please get in touch. Links to all the giveaways and updates are listed in the box below. To find all our archived front pages click the Archives button.

Also feast your eyes upon an article from Brighton fanzine Situation Butane featuring a downloadable pdf of the Piranhas split with Virgin Records. Based on Bob Grover's obsession with Space Invaders machines, (newly installed in pubs and clubs), the Piranhas had written a song about it. Backed with Cheap 'n Nasty, a great live favourite, it certainly should have been pushed more than it was. It bombed. You can't blame the band. If a seemingly sympathetic record giant like Virgin couldn't push the right buttons, who could?

After the initial enthusiasm, Virgin got cold feet. As part of the general economic cutbacks in depressed little Britain at that time, Virgin decided they needed to trim their roster of bands - and our lovable Piranhas were the first to go. Some such comment was forthcoming from Richard Branson's first born: "We've already got Madness, we can't take a chance on another ska-based act..." Cowardly, I'd call it. Shortsighted. Typical record company. Up yours!

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