Debut performance at Charmouth Village Hall

Harvey decided to name her new band the PJ Harvey Trio, rejecting other names as “nothing felt right at all or just suggested the wrong type of sound”, and also to allow her to continue music as a solo artist. The trio consisted of Harvey on vocals and guitar, Ellis on drums and backing vocals, and Oliver on bass. Oliver later departed to rejoin the still-active Automatic Dlamini. He was subsequently replaced with Steve Vaughan. The trio’s “disastrous” debut performance was held at a skittle alley in Charmouth Village Hall in April 1991. Harvey later recounted the event saying: “we started playing and I suppose there was about fifty people there, and during the first song we cleared the hall. There was only about two people left. And a woman came up to us, came up to my drummer, it was only a three piece, while we were playing and shouted at him ‘Don’t you realise nobody likes you! We’ll pay you, you can stop playing, we’ll still pay you! ‘ ” The group relocated to London in June 1991 when Harvey applied to study sculpture, still undecided as to her future career. During this time, the group recorded a set of demo songs and distributed them to record labels. Independent label Too Pure agreed to release the band’s debut single ” Dress ” in October 1991, and later signed PJ Harvey. “Dress” received mass critical acclaim upon its release and was voted Single of the Week in Melody Maker by guest reviewer John Peel , who admired “the way Polly Jean seems crushed by the weight of her own songs and arrangements, as if the air is literally being sucked out of them … admirable if not always enjoyable.” However, Too Pure provided little promotion for the single and critics claim that ” Melody Maker had more to do with the success of the ‘Dress’ single than Too Pure Records.” A week after its release, the band recorded a live radio session for Peel on BBC Radio 1 on 29 October featuring “Oh, My Lover”, “Victory”, ” Sheela-Na-Gig ” and “Water”.