McCarthy
Barking Abbey Comprehensive school, in Essex, England, acted as a meeting point for McCarthy in the early part of the '80s. Eventually, in 1984, Malcolm Eden (b. 1 September 1963, Ilford, Essex, England; vocals), Tim Gane (b. 12 July 1964, Barking, Essex, England; guitar), John Williamson (b. 28 December 1963, Ilford, Essex, England; bass) and Gary Baker (b. 8 September 1963, Barking, Essex, England; drums) formed the band and released a self-financed single, limited to 485 copies. The quartet's profile was further raised with the inclusion of Celestial City on the New Musical Express' influential C86 cassette, but while McCarthy certainly shared many contemporary bands' tastes for rough-edged guitars, they forced themselves away from the crowd by anointing their music with an extreme left wing political stance. Perhaps it was pure coincidence that the similarly-minded songwriter Billy Bragg attended the very same school, yet the Red Sleeping Beauty single—a poetically-veiled commentary on the Thatcher government of the time—was just one of a series of sharply-toned releases where the message never suffocated McCarthy's melodic instinct. After a series of label changes and a highly successful last gasp evolution towards the more fashionable, upbeat sounds of 1990, McCarthy finally tired of battling against their apathetic surroundings and dissolved, playing their final gig at the London School of Economics at the start of the new decade. Gary Baker turned to radiography, Malcolm Eden concentrated on literary writing, while Tim Gane remained in music and started receiving numerous critical recommendations for his new band, Stereolab. He would also use his Duophonic imprint to release Malcolm Eden's first post-McCarthy venture, Herzfield.