The band were first introduced to the acid house scene by McGee in 1988. They were at first sceptical; Gillespie said: “I always remember being quite fascinated by it but not quite getting it.” The band developed a taste for it and began attending raves. The band met up with…
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The next album Big Thing (1988) yielded the singles ” I Don’t Want Your Love ” (number four in the US), and ” All She Wants Is ” (the last top ten hit in the UK until 1993). The record was experimental, mixing influences from house music and raves with…
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The band achieved UK Top 40 hits with ” Can U Dig It? ” and ” Wise Up! Sucker ” from their album This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This! In late 1988, PWEI were invited by Rush Management to support Run-DMC on their European tour. Main support…
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They also performed concerts in Budapest and Prague in 1988.
After working the Hamburg underground music scene and releasing albums on European labels, the band began its long-standing relationship with Wax Trax! Records when Don’t Blow Your Top was licensed to the label for US distribution. The album was produced by Adrian Sherwood , and was described by AllMusic critic…
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The Housemartins broke up in 1988. Heaton and the drummer, Dave Hemingway , went on to form the Beautiful South , and Cook returned to Brighton to pursue dance music. He invested in equipment including a mixing console , an eight-track reel-to-reel , an Atari ST computer, an Akai S950…
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Watts left the group after working on just three songs on 1988’s Don’t Blow Your Top to start his own project, Pig .
In December 1987, the band released a further single, ” Touched by the Hand of God “, with a Kathryn Bigelow -directed video parodying glam-metal . The song was one of four new tracks recorded for the American comedy film Salvation! , and reached number 20 on the UK Singles…
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The Music for the Masses Tour began on 22 October 1987.
After hearing Robert Gordon’s remix of their cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik ‘s ” Love Missile F1-11 ” and Age of Chance ‘s mini-LP Crush Collision (also engineered by Gordon), the band glimpsed their future as hip-hop/dance/rock pioneers and recorded their debut album, Box Frenzy , with Gordon at Sheffield’s…
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