Edgar Broughton Band, The - Parlez-Vous English ? & Live Hits Harder ! (2on1 CD)

2 original recordings on 1 CD:

- Parlez-vous English? (1979)
- Live Hits Harder (1976)

Re-issue 2005 Sunrise Records

Edgar Broughton, guit., voc.
Steve Broughton, drums
Arthur Grant, bass
Kris Gray, bass (ersetzte Grant 1994)
Victor Unitt, guit.,harm (Ex Pretty Thing)
John Thomas, guit (ersetzte Unitt 1975)
Luke Broughton, keyb. (Sohn von Edgar Broughton)
Ian Hammond, guit.

Biography:

Having come down from Warwick to London in 1968 and signed to the Blackhill Enterprices agency that had just launched Pink Floyd, the band - brothers Edgar (guitar, vocals) and Steve (drums) Broughton plus bassist Arthur Grant - were clearly going places. A dynamite live act, they'd play anywhere and everywhere, often free for worthy causes, and flatly refused to tow the official line, once playing on the back of a lorry after being refused permission to play in a public park. This was more than just rock 'n' roll rebellion but a sincere commitment to the underground, which Edgar described as 'subverting what's above- and that's what we want to do.'
Very soon the Edgar Broughton Band were making bread for EMI and a reputation for themselves. 'Death of an electric citizen', their first single released in June 1969, was less a calculated bid at the charts, more 'totally spontaneous, recorded in 15 minutes, no overdubbing of the vocals whatsoever.'
They continued forming and reforming through the seventies and early eighties, recording for several labels. After remaining comparatively silent through much of the eighties, a clean-shaven Edgar combined a solo career in the early nineties with a job as a youth worker in the London suburd of Wandsworth - and by all accounts was still reaching people. He was still fighting the establishment - advocating 'a few clever computer viruses' to lay low the Stock Exchange - and planned to use computer-based industrial sounds for a new band project.