All About Eve

All About Eve biography

All About Eve were a British rock/pop band. The creative core consisted of the Coventry born Julianne Regan (vocals), and the Huddersfield born Andy Cousin (bass guitar), with other members changing over the years. Their biggest commercial success was "Martha's Harbour" (1988), although the band's tenure ran between 1984 and 2004, and included four UK Top 50 albums.

History

Foundation

Julianne Regan, a former journalist, played bass in an early line-up of the gothic rock group Gene Loves Jezebel. before leaving to join All About Eve, previously known as the Swarm. The initial core of All About Eve was Regan, guitarist Tim Bricheno, and bassist Andy Cousin. As a three-piece (plus a drum machine), they released a series of independent singles in the mid 1980s including "D for Desire", "In the Clouds" and "Flowers In Our Hair". After Regan sang backing vocals for The Mission's God's Own Medicine album, the band received greater attention and were signed to Phonogram. Drummer Mark Price was added around this time.

Debut and chart success

Their self-titled debut album was produced by Paul Samwell-Smith and released in 1988. It included the UK hit single, "Martha's Harbour".

The album itself reached #7 on the UK Albums Chart, with much of its lyrical material drawing from hippie ideals, white magic and dreamlike fairy tales, the album's gentle folk rock inspired pop sound won the band many fans (nicknamed 'angels'). Their music was sometimes considered gothic rock by the media, some fans claimed the band did not play gothic rock after 1986, though are connected mostly due to the engagements of ex-bandmembers in the musical scene of the time.

In a well-known incident, the band later performed a dubbed version of "Martha's Harbour" on the BBC1 television show Top of the Pops, but, owing to a studio technical error, the taped vocals were broadcast without the band being able to hear them, resulting in the TV audience hearing the recorded version of the song, while the band members sat motionless on screen waiting for their cue to begin. By way of compensation, the band were invited back on to the show to perform the song the following week, this time with the vocals performed live. This performance passed off smoothly.

The following year, their second album, Scarlet and Other Stories, was released and the band toured around the UK. It was another Top 10 hit.

Activity through the 1990s

In 1990, Bricheno left the group (later to join The Sisters of Mercy for their Vision Thing era, and subsequent bands XC-NN and Tin Star) to be replaced by The Church's Marty Willson-Piper. They went on to record Touched by Jesus in 1991 (which featured David Gilmour of Pink Floyd on guitar on two tracks), which made the UK Top 20, before changing record labels and releasing Ultraviolet, the year after. Released by MCA it reached UK #46. The band continued working on new material, but Regan soon left. Although remaining members continued for a couple more months without Regan's input, they disbanded in early 1993, with the album they had been working on being subsequently released under the group name Seeing Stars.

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