A few months ago David Quantick wrote about "his band", The Distractions, in his first Record Collector column. I think there's a few of us out that think the same of this wonderful group...
DAVID QUANTICK LIKES
The debut of our new columnist David Quantick
I don't know if you have a band that you love beyond all reason. I'm sure you do. Mine is The Distractions, a Manchester group who emerged during punk with a melodic genius, a way with wry lyrics and, in Mike Finney, the great blue-eyed soul voice of its day. The Distractions, who had great singles like Time Goes By So Slow and It Doesn't Bother Me, always sound to me like Buzzcocks on Mowtown, and I love their sole album from the time, 'Nobody's Perfect'.
They also wrote, but never recorded, a beautiful, sad and powerful song called Nothing Lasts, which you can't get anywhere. When they re-formed a few years back to make their second album ('The End Of The Pier', only 32 years after their debut), I asked them about Nothing Lasts. They made polite noises, but it was from the end of their early career and it seemed they didn't really want to talk about it. (Mike did find me an old live recording of it, which was wonderful.)
One night I went to see The Distractions in Salford, where they were playing two nights at Paul Heaton's pub, The King's Arms. They were brilliant, the years falling off them like leaves from a mighty oak. And then Mike introduced a song, and Steve said, "This one's for our friend Dave," and they played Nothing Lasts. And I could barely hear it for the tears. So that was all right.
The Distractions' third and final album, 'Kindly Leave The Stage', is out on Occultation Recordings on 12 May 2007.
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