The Wake

The Wake were a British post punk/ goth rock and later indie pop band, founded in Glasgow in 1981 by Gerard "Caesar" McInulty (formerly of Altered Images), Steven Allen and Joe Donnelly, who was later replaced by Bobby Gillespie. Steven's sister Carolyn Allen soon joined, and remained in the band until its end.

History

The Wake released their first single on their own Scan 45 label, coupling together On Our Honeymoon and Give Up. This single eventually caught the attention of New Order manager Rob Gretton, who helped the band sign to Factory Records in 1982 and record an LP (Harmony) at Strawberry Studio in Stockport. This was followed by a number of singles on Factory and its Belgian sister label Factory Benelux. In 1983, The Wake toured with New Order, and thus received critical attention but were often unfavourably compared to their more celebrated labelmates. Gillespie was asked to leave in 1983, subsequently playing drums with The Jesus and Mary Chain and achieving fame with his own band Primal Scream. Alexander 'Mac' Macpherson replaced Gillespie in 1983. That same year the band recorded a session on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme. The band toured extensively and scored an indie hit with their 1984 single "Talk About The Past" which featured Vini Reilly of Durutti Column on piano. The recording and release of their seminal 1985 album Here Comes Everybody marked the apex of their career. Further releases were few and far between: one more single "Of The Matter" emerged in 1985 before their last release for Factory, a 4-track EP entitled "Something That No One Else Could Bring" finally appeared in 1987.

In 1988, disillusioned with the lack of proper promotion and indeed apathy from Factory Records, The Wake left the label and signed to Bristol's legendary Sarah Records, releasing two singles and two LPs, the last being 1994's Tidal Wave of Hype. By this point, once again down to a three piece featuring Caesar, Carolyn and Steven, they also shared personnel with another Glasgow-based band on Sarah, The Orchids, with whom they had also played a few live gigs. When Sarah shut down in 1995, The Wake effectively dissolved. Former bassist Macpherson who had already left to form The Cat Club, dented the charts in 1987 with "One Last Kiss". Macpherson later formed the eclectic Opium releasing material on the Neuropa label.

For a few years, Caesar concentrated on other activities outside of recording music - notably writing scripts for plays that even featured Carolyn in an acting role. Caesar and Carolyn eventually took up writing music again, and after a few tentative demos for possible new material later hooked up with Bobby Wratten ( The Field Mice / Northern Picture Library / Trembling Blue Stars ) under the name The Occasional Keepers. They released an album "The Beauty Of An Empty Vessel" on James Nice's LTM record label in 2005, which also incidentally reissued the entire Wake, Field Mice and Orchids back catalogue on remastered CDs containing all the original albums and single/EP cuts collected together.

Recent developments

In autumn 2009, The Wake (Caesar and Carolyn) came together once again to record a new album, set for release in early 2010.

On the 12th December 2009 The Wake will perform a one-off concert, with other Factory labelmates such as Section 25 and A Certain Ratio, at the legendary Plan K venue in Brussels

Discography

Chart placings shown are from the UK Indie Chart.^[1]

Singles

• "On Our Honeymoon" (7" SCAN, 1982)
• "Something Outside" / "Host" (12" Factory Benelux, 1983) (No.23)
• "Talk About The Past" (7"/12" Factory, 1984) (No.11)
• "Of The Matter" (7" Factory, 1985) (No.22)
• "Something That No One Else Could Bring" EP (12" Factory, 1987)
• "Crush The Flowers" / "Carbrain" (7" Sarah, 1989)
• "Major John" / "Lousy Pop Group" (7" Sarah, 1991)

Albums

• Harmony (Factory, 1982)
• Here Comes Everybody (Factory, 1985) (No.20)
• Make It Loud (Sarah, 1990)
• Tidal Wave Of Hype (Sarah, 1994)

as The Occasional Keepers:

• The Beauty Of An Empty Vessel (LTM, 2005)

Trivia

• The covers for the single "Something Outside" and the album "Here Comes Everybody" were adapted respectively from "Beat the Whites with the Red wedge" and "Schaumachinerie" (a poster for the opera Victory over the Sun) works by El Lissitzky.
• A cover version of The Wake song 'O Pamela' appears on the Nouvelle Vague album Bande à Part.
• The band is named after James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
• "Here comes everybody!" is one of the many names of the book's protagonist, HCE.

See also

• The Wake discography (The Crepuscule and Factory Pages)

References