guyitho's video: The Reegs - All Tomorrow s Parties

After a succesful american tour and the tragic death of their Manager and good friend Tony Fletcher [ Kennedy Street Enterprises] , The Chameleons UK drifted apart, although the band never officially broke up. Mark and John quickly formed the Sun And The Moon and Dave and Reg some time after began rehearsing togehter as 'The Reegs'. They were asked by a friend of Dave's Brother from the new independent label 'Imaginary Records' to record a track for a Kinks tribute album. In some ways, as Dave has confirmed in interviews, '....it was the guys from Imaginary who got The Reegs'rolling really'. There was only one last thing, Reg wasn't comfortable with the vocals, so Gary Lavery, a friend of the band finally joined them. Gary used to play with local band 'Partisan Grey' as support for The Chameleons during their early days so it was not difficult for him to get along with the lads. The Reegs surfaced with some recordings for tribute albums: 'The Last time' by The Rolling Stones [Recorded under the moniker of 'Three Imaginary Boys' and a nod to the Velvet Underground's 'All Tomorrow Parties', followed by two LPs, 'Return Of The Sea Monkeys', ['These days'and 'Pond Life' been amongst my personal Highlights], and then 'Rock The Magic Rock', ['The Dream Police' and 'JJ180' are indeed some of my favourites]. Both are excellent albums with a very personal and unique 'Northern Sound'. Well worth picking up a copy if you can find one. There are also a couple of CD singles ['As You Leave' and 'You told me before'] with very interesting B sides and two more 12" edited in Vinyl 'See My Friends' [April 1989] and 'Chorus Of The Lost' [August 1990]. 'As You Leave' and 'The Nasty side' are the gemms not to be missed. Other unreleased tracks were played live like 'Subject to status' which was supposed to be next single. The Reegs played some gigs in England mainly upnorth in small local venues, like The Roadhouse in Manchester, The Duchess of York in Leeds, The Witchwood in Ashton -under-Lyne or Kaleida and Night&Day in Manchester city center. I personally attended to the last 3 shows while I was living in Manchester, been 'TheWitchwood' and 'Night and Day' the ones I keep the best memories from. They also supported 'The Wedding Present' on few ocasions. Although there are no official videos of the band, a bootleg was recorded in The Tivoly in Buckley.