Late 70s new wave band who were very popular in Birmingham and played by John Peel on his show, particularly this single, released on Big Bear Records in 1979 ‘There Must Be Thousands”.
Celebrating Birmingham's Popular Music History
There Are Currently 12 Comments for this Post
I remember sneaking into the Mercat Cross with a mate regularly on a Friday evening (we might have been underage, it was such a long time ago Officer…)to watch a band called the Winners. They had a great live set and a guitarist who appeared not to have any bones – freaky dancing mannnn! Anyhoo – they changed their name to the Quads and released a single called ‘UFO’ which I think got a fair bit of airplay courtesy of John Peel. Then – they vanished – although I did spot the lead singer on the number 50 a few times and at St Andrews! Apart from the band, my abiding memory is that the Mercat’s bitter was barely drinkable!!
I saw The Winners at the Town Hall around ’77/78 – my brother-in-law was involved in managing them as far as I remember so I got in (I was 9 or 10). It was bloody fantastic. The first proper live gig I ever went to. I became a fan. It was raw but melodic punk rock.
As for John Peel, he definitely had a soft spot for them. He not only played UFO but their most successful single There Must Be Thousands – which got to around no 65 in the charts at the time. So close and yet they didn’t quite ‘make it’.
I still have a cassette tape of all the Quads songs – there’s around 10 of them… The melodies are great, the guitar clean but aggressive at the same time, distinct vocals. They share space on there with Spacemen 3, another local ish band. Anyway, here’s teh tracklist:
There Must Be Thousands
You Gotta Jive
Never Been A Night
Take It
UFO
Astronaut’s Journey
Gotta Get A Job
Gang of Kids
Still Moments in Time
Hey Fiona
If it’s possible, do you think I could get a copy of that tape?? For research purposes only obviously…
Cheers
Dave
Hi Dave – yes, get in contact – I’m at fionacullinan at hotmail dot com…
Hi Fi, if you have them all on tape and can share, I would love to hear them again. I can only find the usual 4 tracks but in my opinion… there are better and would love to hear them again, whatever quality .. 🙂
(The Winners were renamed The Quads, for some reason. Another successful band with same name?)
The joys of the internet…for years I’ve been trying to remember a local band who I used to see with my first proper girlfrind back in 79/80. Could remmeber seeing them at the Mercat Cross, usually the lead singer wearing all black & them having a minor hit (There must be thousands- which is on U Tube I’ve discovered). No one seemed to recasll them at all so really pleased to find this site & bring back memories of…The Quads !!!
the guitarist had a sound like no one else ive ever heard, bloody brilliant
I had forgotten about this band, I did a few gigs with them as stand in engineer. They were contemporaries of U2 but ten times better.
The gigs I can remember working on include Manchester University, Durham University and The Marquee Club Wardour st.
Hi All,
We are trying to trace and make contact with:
Jack Jones
Jim Doherty
Johnny Jones
Of The Quads, Does anyone have any leads on how we can do so?
Thanks for your help.
Kind regards
Russell Fletcher
Josh jones is my dad contact me @ danieljones2006@outlook.com thanks
They changed their name from The Quads to The Natives (I think!) in the mid 80’s.
Saw them at Peacocks and did an interview with them for Radio WM’s ‘Rock and Pop’ show on a Sunday.
(Not to be confused with the Gloucester band The Natives)