Sounds From The Junkshop #43 - The Yo-Yo's

 

"Too much too soon is not enough..." - The Yo-Yo's - Keep On Keepin' On

So welcome to what can best be described as Wildhearts Weekend here at Nite Songs. Tomorrow and Sunday we'll finally be carrying on with the band story wot we started way back last August by looking at the various projects the group members got up to after their messy split in 1997 as well as a little bit on their initial reunion in the early years of the millennium. This bit on the Yo-Yo's was originally meant to form part of that side projects column but after reading it through and realising that it actually expands quite a bit outside the Wildhearts story frame, I thought it was deserving of its own SFTJ entry. Plus, they were an awesome band who I used to follow quite avidly back around the turn of the millennium so they definitely deserve a full column to themselves.

There Yo-Yo's were formed by Danny McCormack after the Wildhearts went on hiatus, and I remember a great quote from Ginger in his Ginger Says column from his website at the time. Someone asked him if he was a fan of the band and his reply was that he'd honestly thought that when the Wildhearts split that Danny was the least likely of the group to do anything and he basically pulled a Ringo on the other three by putting the Yo-Yo's together!

Formed by Danny and former Lurkers guitarist Tom Spencer (the pair had both guested on One More Megabyte, a 1997 album by Sunderland comedy-punk legends the Toy Dolls), the pair would add guitarist Neil Phillips from the B Movie Heroes and drummer Bladz who'd played with Tom in Sugarsnatch and would go on to join the Dwarves in later years and come up with one of the most under-rated bands of the late '90s.

The Yo-Yo's were pretty much a straight-up cross between the frenetic pop-punk of the Ramones and the classic '50s greaser rock of Eddie Cochrane and they also had the benefit of sounding like the sort of thoroughly disreputable ne'er-do-wells you'd find propping up any drinking den of ill reputation on a Friday night. The awesome Home From Home with its chorus of spending Friday nights down the local because you're too skint to go anywhere else could literally have word for word been about my first year or so back in Leeds after leaving Uni and being stuck in an endless run of temp jobs. Add to that a stream of other classics on their Uppers and Downers album (released on Sub Pop no less!) such as the freewheeling Time Of Your Life, the stark Too Lazy To Bleed, the ominous Rumble(d) and the superb one-two closer punch of the frenetic Keep On Keepin' On and the anthemic Half Hour Heartache ("Won't waste no time cryin' over you/On black cloud nine, floatin' over you..."). Hell they even managed to make ripping off Status Quo riffs sound cool on their debut single (You Got Me) Outta My Mind.

Unfortunately despite general good press (mostly in Kerrang! but they picked up some positive mentions in Melody Maker and the NME as well), chart success just never quite happened for the Yo-Yo's - Time Of Your Life was their biggest hit but that stalled at a lowly number 81. By the close of 2000, the group had left Sub Pop and Danny would have returned to the Wildhearts. As we'll see in the next instalment of the story though, his tenure there was brief this time and after a brief spell fronting the Chasers with ex-Dogs D'Amour man Darrell Bath, the Yo-Yo's would reform again with ex-Black Halos and Amen man Rich Jones replacing Neil Phillips and a series of drummers (including fellow ex-Wildheart Stidi) coming and going.

This incarnation of the group put out a seven track EP Given Up Giving Up in 2005 which was a bit patchier than Uppers And Downers but still had at least two solid gold classics on it in the mournful Tattoos Don't Last Forever (an ode to their friend Danny Frye of underrated greaser rockers the Devildolls who'd died a year or two before) and the raucous closer The Rock 'n' Roll Commandments. Unfortunately the line-up would fall apart very messily on a tour supporting Antiproduct due to Danny's worsening drug issues. He would subsequently take an extended sabbatical from music (apart from a brief Yo-Yo's reunion with Tom in 2012 which also featured ex-New Device and future Terrorvision/Middlenight Men guitarist Nick Hughes) to get himself cleaned up eventually resurfacing with the Main Grains a decade or so later while Tom and Rich would go on to form the excellent Loyalties, more of whom in a future SFTJ I'm sure.

Quite honestly, the Yo-Yo's were a superb band and thoroughly deserve checking out in their own right whether you're a Wildhearts fan or not. Obviously Danny is now back with the Wildhearts after a long period estranged from the group while Tom now fronts the Professionals, Bladz is drumming with the Dwarves and Rich is playing guitar with Michael Monroe. Neil would go back to the B-Movie Heroes and release three albums with them which are well worth a listen also - kind of like the Yo-Yo's but with a Therapy? style angstier edge. Given how busy the various ex-members are, I think a reunion is probably off the table for the time being but Uppers And Downers comes heartily recommended if you've not heard it already - a real lost classic of the early noughties.