Daze of Future Past, Leeds (1981)

More Way of the West - live at the Peppermint Lounge 1982

After posting the Way of the West music earlier today, I got to poking around singer Pete's WOTW blog, and discovered he had posted some live video of he band performing at NYC's Peppermint Lounge back in 1982. So here's some more Way of the West.

I'm not sure if this flyer, to the left, is the same gig the video is from, but there's a good chance that it is.

Special thanks to Novemberer over at I Love Total Destruction for inspiring this to happen.

Way of the West by request

By request, Way of the West is back. This will be available for a limited time. Otherwise, please consider buying it on iTunes.

Way of the West on iTunes!

After posting this about a year ago, it's finally come to pass. Way of the West's music is now available on iTunes, and I'm happy to say that I played a part in it. Congrats to Pete and the band finally having their music available after over 20 years!

Way of the West where are you? Here!

After writing about Way of the West here several months ago, they went back into the recesses of my memory. However, they recently popped up online again and I was lucky enough to notice. Singer & guitarist Pete Kearney has started a blog. Let's hope this means a little more visibility & maybe some reissues if we're lucky! Drop him a line.

Way of the West where are you?

Of all of the old bands that I grew up with, none seem to come close to the strange case of Way of the West. From the early to mid 80's, Way of the West released a string of excellent singles, perhaps 5 or 6 in total, but never managed to get an album out. Their biggest tune was "Don't Say Thats Just For White Boys," and they even had a song called "Monkey Love" on a flexi in Flexi Pop Magazine. They were from the UK, but did especially well here in the northeastern US getting loads of airplay on New York area radio stations like WDRE/WLIR, WNYU and WFDU. They played live here - one of my friends saw them at the Mudd Club. They probably played Danceteria as well, if not more. And then...???

I was able to find out that guitarist Reid Savage currently plays with London-based singer songwriter Lucinda Sieger. And drummer Dave Bonnefoy lives & works in Australia with a label called Stickylabel.

Trying to find anything else about them on the ol' interweb is next to impossible. I've come across a couple of blogs that have posted tracks, and judging by the comments there are plenty of people who remember them and would love to see some sort of release or availability of their music. Even looking for images of their singles is next to impossible...it's difficult to believe that, in this age of the long tail, these guys haven't gotten it together to release a compilation of their stuff...seems crazy to me, but maybe they have their reasons.

Here are 13 tracks for you to check out...relive old memories or make new ones. Hopefully you'll enjoy this collection. These tracks will be up for one week or 100 downloads - whichever comes first: Way of the West - 13 tracks