sound of the suburbs

today's post concerns a little known (?) UK band from the nineties called Back To The Planet. The actual inspiration on my part comes from the stupid and dangerous situation in the middle east. The song in question starts of with some low key speed metal guitar before a hammond comes crashing in to be followed by a high pitched female voice singing the title lines. As the song develops we get a strong stomping beat with half rapped half sung vocals, this is topped off with some tasty oriental inspired licks and sublime reggae fills. All said and done it sounds very much a summer song, very uplifting. And the title 'Please Don't Fight' , I know it sound very naive and if only things were as simple as seen through the eyes of Back To The Planet, another example of their hippy naive ideals is the more dub influenced 'Starved By Ignorance'. Both songs are taken from the bands long deleted debut album from 1993 'Mind And Soul Collaborators'.

So who were they? Formed in 1989, they met while unemployed and while they were squatting a disused unemployment benefit office. They made their own melting pot from the music that influenced them Ska, punk, rave ......... and quickly became a regular fixture at UK underground free festivals and clubs. Keeping true to their ideals they released their own cassette 'Warning To The Public' that managed to sell 5000 copies by word of mouth alone. It was around this period that I became aware of the band, while DJing for the 89.9 in Montpellier I was still a regular reader of NME, this was before I lost the faith or they the direction, I'm still not sure which came first. Always looking for new ideas NME published a UK campus chart for a few months, this was compiled by a promotions company specialising in students called Streets Ahead. I contacted them with a view to basing a regular program on their chart, one of the results of which was that for the next two years they sent me regular packages of the latest singles and albums. And so it was that I first heard Back To The Planet's debut 12" Revolution of Thought', and loved it. Despite their involvement in the squatters movement and the free festivals and the rave scene and being so outspoken against the Criminal Justice Act (ask your older brother or sister) the band were snapped up by the major Parallel, who released their album and a hand full of singles. Their live popularity was not to have a crossover effect on record sales and 'Please Don't Fight' and 'Daydream' were both flops and their label lost patience and dropped them. The band continued, well there are free festivals and squats everywhere, aren't there? The last I heard of them was a self released album called 'Messages After The Bleep' in 1995, which I've never heard, so if anyone does have a copy..........Since then everything seems quite maybe they are still going but I rather doubt it, a google search didn't come up with much and there does not appear to be a web site.