Album Reviews # 89 A Flock of Seagulls - A Flock of Seagulls

 

I have some good friends in Newcastle where I live called the Cundall brothers. There are three of them in all but I generally just see two of them, Stu and Neil, meeting up at my local Rosie's by chance for an occasional pint and a chat about how life is going. They're good blokes, and every time they get a chance, they put a Flock of Seagulls song or several on the jukebox.The other brother, the oldest I think, is something of a Punk Rock stalker, peppering the internet with photos of himself with members of The Stranglers, The Damned, The Skids and Penetration.

A Flock of Seagulls were never the coolest band, certainly not at the time they first appeared in the early Eighties. They're named after a lyric in The Stranglers 'Toiler on the Sea', which is a Pub Quiz question that sadly never turns up on the Pub Quizzes I go to. Like many of the runts of the UK litter at the time, (see also Wang Chung and The Fixx), who were spurned by critics and hipsters, they went to the States to find acceptance, MTV blanket play and stadium success. They must have minted it.

Achieving an immortality of sorts with Samuel L. Jackson's Jules chilling 'You, Flock of Seagulls' comment to the young kid cowering on the sofa that he is shortly going to kill in Pulp Fiction, this lot were a band that was never entirely taken seriously, even it seems by the Americans. Perhaps by themselves. I don't know. They never frankly deserved to be so. Their songs were slightly daft odes to UFOs and airbrushed teenage romance.

But their debut, eponymous album has an enduring appeal. Its all crunchy synth and guitar anthems. Great Pop songs that don't pretend to be anything else but that. Definitely rather OMD, who seem to be their primary influence. OMD were a geeky band too and never taken entirely seriously either when Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen were readily available. Why should either of them care?

I've come round to A Flock of Seagulls. I still don't take them seriously, I don't think the Cundall brothers do either. The other day I was in Rosie's and Stu was in there with his daughter and his nephew, Neil's son. I asked the boy what he thought of A Flock of Seagulls. He looked rather bemused. Stu said to him, 'they're a band your Dad and me like.' Why not?