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Jangle pop cult heroes the Siddeleys formed in London in the spring of 1986 after singer/guitarist Johnny Johnson gave a tape of her home-recorded songs to fellow guitarist Allan Kingdom. After posting flyers seeking rhythm section recruits in the Rough Trade Shop, the Ladbroke Grove club Bay 63, and other area locales, Johnson and Kingdom inducted bassist Andrew Clark and drummer Phil Goodman prior to the Siddeleys’ debut gig at the Clarendon Ballroom on December 1, 1986. Early the following year the group made its recorded debut with “Wherever You Go,” one side of a flexi-disc included with the fanzine Trout Fishing in Leytonstone. Upon signing to the Medium Cool label, in July 1987 the Siddeleys issued the single “What Went Wrong This Time?” After Goodman exited to focus full-time on his jazz band, drummer Dean Leggitt filled the void, only to quit just a week before beginning the band’s first U.K. tour; permanent drummer David Clynch was installed in time for the Siddeleys’ next single, “Sunshine Thuggery,” issued on Sombrero in August 1988. A month later, the band recorded its first session for John Peel’s famed BBC radio show; a second radio date followed in May 1989, but with the release of the single “You Get What You Deserve” scheduled for imminent release, Sombrero collapsed and the Siddeleys disbanded soon after, with their cover of Edison Lighthouse’s “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Grows)” appearing posthumously on the Alvin Lives (In Leeds): Anti Poll Tax compilation in mid-1990. In the summer of 2001, Clarendon Records released the Siddeleys compilation Slum Clearance. |
