Yeah Yeah Noh are a British indie band formed in Leicester in 1983 by Derek Hammond (vocals, guitar) and John Grayland (guitar); Adrian Crossan (bass) joined them for the first single along with Graham Summers (drums). Sue Dorey (drums, vocals) was then recruited to complete the line up, debuting on the second single. Two of the band members, John Grayland and Sue Dorey (along with Damian S), published Printhead, a free magazine focusing on independent music in Leicester and its environs.
Signing to In-Tape records, the band debuted in June 1984 with the Cottage Industry EP, featuring humorous and satirical lyrics and post-punk/jangle-pop music. After adding Tom Slater on guitar, the band moved towards a more psychedelic sound and introduced more serious songwriting for first album proper, Cutting The Heavenly Lawn Of Greatness...Last Rites For The God Of Love in 1985, described by Sounds as "a strange and somehow deeply moving LP" . The band released a further single but split up in 1986. Hammond announced that he was forming two new groups, The New New Seekers and The Time Beings, but neither materialized, and he continued to work as a music journalist under the pseudonym D.J. Fontana.
The group reformed in 2012 including John, Derek and Tom from the 1980s line-up, Dermot O'Sullivan (bass) who played guitar on various later 1980s sessions, Antony Cook (drums) and Eva Landsberg (keyboards).[5] In October 2013, Eva Landsberg quit due to pressure of work, and Fi Hodgson replaced her.
In January 2014, the group recorded five tracks for the album due for release later that year. 'Automatically Saturday' was remixed by the DJ Arc Vel: and the digital single, 'She Pulls the Petal From the Flower', was released on 2 June 2014 on Cherry Red Records, remixed in one dub version by Score and, in another, by the Birmingham, UK, instrument inventors, The Juneau Brothers. The band re-recorded 'Another Side to Mrs. Quill', listed by Mojo magazine as one of the top fifty greatest English pop songs: the Art Collective 'Swoomptheeng' produced a re-mix of the track. The other two tunes were, 'On the Queen's Highway' and 'Up on the Downs'.
As one of Peel's favourites, the band did 3 sessions for his show in the 80's, as well as gaining an entry in the 1984 Festive Fifty with 'Bias Binding'. In an interview with the Penny Black Music website in 2013, guitarist John Grayland, mentioned seeing Peel when his band released a record:
"I used to make a point of when we had a record out of going down to London to meet him. Back then record companies had pluggers and pluggers are paid to be friends with DJs, but we couldn't afford that, So I would go down and talk my way into Radio One, and wander around and used to try to give our single to other DJs."[1]
Y is for...Yeah Yeah Noh
Peel compered the ICA Rock Week in 1984, which the group performed and his voice was sampled on the band's Jigsaw track, which was part of the Temple Of Convenience E.P., released in 1985.
When details of Peel's record collection were first released from 2012, three albums by Yeah Yeah Noh were among the first 100 LPs by artists beginning with the letter Y (see Record Collection: Y). The band were also the subject of a short video, Y Is For Yeah Yeah Noh, released by the JohnPeelArchive and TheSpace websites.
10 December 1986: Trini Lopez (v/a LP - Obscure Independent Classics: Volume 3 "It Was Clearly The Belgium That Was Tampering With The Pilchard) Cordelia
27 December 1986 (BFBS): 'Trin. Lopez (Compilation LP-Obscure Independent Classics: Volume 3 "It Was Clearly The Belgium That Was Tampering With The Pilchard")' (Cordelia)
1987
06 January 1987: Trin. Lopez (v/a album - Obscure Independent Classics: Volume 3 "It Was Clearly The Belgian That Was Tampering With The Pilchard") Cordelia
15 April 1987: (It's) Easier To Suck Than Sing (12" - The Peel Sessions) Strange Fruit
22 April 1987: Stealing In The Name Of The Lord (12" - The Peel Sessions) Strange Fruit
