Sounds From The Junkshop #7 - Voice of the Beehive

“We are all together alone, and these are just wishes, and I am just dreaming...” - Voice of the Beehive, Perfect Place, 1991

So one week we're dealing with the scuzzy rock of Love/Hate on this column and the next it's the pure pop of Voice of the Beehive. Well, say what you like about Sounds From The Junkshop but you can't say we don't vary things up on here...

It's rare that you'll see a pop band that you get into as a 9-year-old who'll stick with you through your teens and who you still listen to some 30-odd years later but Voice of the Beehive definitely fall into that category and that's why I think they're definitely a justified choice for a SFTJ column. Indeed, the group actually had their origins in the indie scene of the mid-'80s putting their first single, the lovely languid Just A City out on Food records, then a tiny indie run by ex-Teardrop Explodes man Dave Balfe and also the home of the likes of Zodiac Mindwarp (who co-wrote the single's B-side There's A Barbarian In The Back Of My Car). And lest we forget the original line-up featured Madness' old rhythm section of Mark Bedford on bass and Dan Woodgate on drums (the latter would stick around for the group's first two albums but the former would leave a couple of singles down the line). Snapped up by London records, the group's singles crept slowly up the charts and eventually gave them their first bona fide hit with Don't Call Me Baby, a Top 20 hit in 1988 which was where I first encountered them.

I thought the single was a great pop tune which really showed off joint frontwomen and songwriters Tracey and Missy's vocals and knack for a catchy singalong tune. The pair had grown up in California in the '60s and their dad was a member of a '60s power pop group called the Four Preps so they clearly had some grounding in this and were putting it to good use. I got the single but didn't buy the follow-up I Say Nothing (which I have to be honest, I wasn't as big a fan of) or the puntastically-titled album Let It Bee so the next time I ran into them was three years later in 1991 with the lead-off single to their second album Monsters and Angels. To me, it's still their finest work - I think as a kid who even as a 12-year-old sort of felt they were a bit "different" and didn't really fit in, the lyrics kind of resonated with me and it's still a song that comes up regularly on my Ipod now.

The Beehive's second album, another puntastically titled effort called Honey Lingers, I ended up borrowing from the local library (along with Let It Bee which they also had) and taping from there. Both are good albums that still hold up well from the dark pop of Beat Of Love, the yearning melodies of Say It and the nagging hooks of I Walk The Earth and Adonis Blue. Yes, it's classic pop but there's definitely a clever undercurrent of stuff bubbling underneath the surface just the way all great pop music should have. I would definitely recommend them both to anyone curious.

Unfortunately, VOTB put out a bit of a lazy choice for their second single with their cover of the Partridge Family's I Think I Love You which didn't really add much to the original and stalled outside the Top 20. Third single Perfect Place was much better, a lovely yearning torch song about trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel when things seem bleak. Unfortunately it only just dented the Top 40 before disappearing again (they really should have put it out as the second single in my opinion but there you go).

It wouldn't get any better for the band either. Early 1992 saw Madness reform after getting a Top 10 hit with a re-released It Must Be Love and Woody would promptly return to the Nutty Boys full time leaving the band to struggle on. Guitarist Mike Jones and bassist Martin Brett would follow him out of the door soon afterwards leaving Tracy and Missy to soldier  on as a duo and the pair were understandably disheartened. It would be 1995 before their next album surfaced with the group moving from London records to a new label EastWest (uh-ohhhhh...) and relocating back to their native California in the meantime.

I have to be honest, I was surprised to find out as a 16-year-old that the Beehive had a new single and album out as I was convinced they'd split a couple of years before but nevertheless I ended up buying Sex And Misery a couple of weeks after it came out. Perhaps unsurprisingly given its darker less immediate sound it bombed as did all three of the singles from it - by all accounts the girls felt that they were banging their heads against a wall trying to get their label trying to promote the album properly (I know, EastWest signing a great band and then completely getting it wrong with them - who in Ginger Wildheart's name saw that one coming?). It's a real shame because it's a decent album even if not quite up to the same standard as the first two. Lead-off single Angel Come Down was a great longing ballad (albeit a really odd choice for a first single from an album) while Scary Kisses and Heavenly showed that they could still write great pop songs even if they'd clearly been through the wringer (as songs like Moon Of Dust and Still In Love laid quite bluntly bare in their lyrics).

 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sex And Misery would end up being the end of the road for Tracy and Missy - Voice of the Beehive were dropped after the album flopped and, after a brief and unsuccessful run of trying to find a new record deal in California by playing gigs anywhere that'd have them, they called it a day demoralised. The group would reunite in 2002 with the original line-up (minus the Madness lads) for a few shows but then fell out when Tracy and Missy couldn't make it over for a tour leading to Mike and Martin recruiting a couple of replacement singers and billing the shows as Spirit of the Beehive. That went down about as well as you'd probably expect and also saw a major fallout between the American and English arms of the band. It seemed hell was likely to freeze over before we saw another Beehive show.

It wasn't quite that long though as the band reunited in 2017 for what was billed at the time as their "final shows" including a gig at the Lexington in Islington, just a half hour train journey from where I was living at the time. Unfortunately tickets went on sale a week before my payday and by the time I had money in my account it was sold out. Gutted is an understatement - I guess I can only hope that at some point they decide to treat us some more music and a couple of shows but I'm not holding my breath...

Regardless of Muggins 'ere blowing his chance to finally see them live though, the fact remains that Voice of the Beehive are still one of my favourite bands ever - between those three albums there are at least a dozen absolute gold-plated classics and I really recommend listening to them if you get the chance. With just that right mix of California sunshine and British cynicism, music to sing along to really doesn't come much better than this.