Valerie and the Week of Wonders
Formed at Glasgow Art School in the early 80s and signed to A&M Records and Rondor Publishing ‘Valerie and the Week of Wonders’ featured Gerard M Burns (bass guitar and vocals), and brothers Brian and Ewan Mcfie (lead guitar and drums). The band was later joined by multi-talented Greg Kane (one half of Hue and Cry) who played bass, keyboards and sax. Managed by the irrepressible Ian Smith (Miff), sound man Gordon Rintoul, and ‘Roadie’ Derek Patterson.
The band’s sound hovers somewhere between Simple Minds, U2, Psychedelic Furs, Magazine, and REM, however, what began as a serious post-punk outfit, eventually developed into something much more complex, with songs like ‘Unawares’ and “The Big Kill” being created just before the band split.
The record deal experience sadly wasn’t a particularly good one for the band, as despite the fact that they initially signed a multi-album deal, the A&R man who signed them left soon after in a blaze of glory, and the new-broom swept most of the bands he’d signed out the door along with him. As a consequence, the band only ever released one single on A&M Records, ”Real Surprise” which went on to be a Radio One single of the week in 1985. This was released on both 7″ and 12” and copies have since become serious indie collector items!
The band did release an earlier single ‘Too Late” on their own “Soon Come” record label, and in 1984 this received its first UK airing on the legendary John Peel show.
Somewhat perversely “Real Surprise” was arguably the least representative of the band’s developing sound, so the fact that this was the only song which made it onto vinyl made the whole experience just that bit more difficult to swallow.
It’s fair to say that Valerie and the Week of Wonders could justifiably be labelled “the band who never were” as despite operating at a fairly high level, virtually no record of the band ever having existed remains. In reality, all that physically remained from their very considerable output were the two aforementioned singles and a big box of unreleased demo tapes which were languishing in their ex-manager’s loft!
During lockdown, Burns decided to do something about this, and with the help of Greg Kane, he re-mastered as much of the material as possible, bringing some 15 tracks back finally into the light of day.
The resulting album ‘Helpless” can now be found on Spotify.
The results so far have been pretty spectacular so the plan is to release the material on limited edition vinyl and to put it up on Spotify. Hopefully, that will happen over the next couple of months.
As well as the studio recordings we were given the opportunity to make a music video for one of our songs “Ships on the Clyde”… and the chance to write the music for a short film entitled “Happy the Man“ which was named after one of our songs. Set in a post-apocalyptic Scotland and featuring the brilliant ‘Brian Pettifer’ and the main character the film is a real gem. It undeniably shows its age at points, but there are some brilliant moments so definitely worth watching.
The Director in both cases is the now internationally renowned ‘Jim Gillespie’ (of ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ fame) who at that point was a just young up-and-coming filmmaker looking for material to build his portfolio.
Ships on the Clyde
‘Ships on the Clyde’ reached second place in the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ review of videos in 1985, and ‘Happy The Man’ won various awards in the short film category at the Cannes film festival… However, for me, the crowning glory of it all was when ‘Happy The Man’ was screened for the first time at the GFT in Glasgow… an experience I will never forget!
Enjoy
G
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