Terry and Gerry
| Terry and Gerry | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Birmingham, England |
| Genres | Pop |
| Years active | 1980s-present |
| Website | www |
| Members |
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Terry and Gerry are a British pop band, originally formed in the early 1980s by Terry Lilley and Gerry Colvin in Birmingham, England. Unusually for the time the band was based on a skiffle sound, making use of a washboard for percussion instead of a drum kit. Terry Lilley plays double bass, and Gerry Colvin sings lead vocals and plays acoustic guitar.
Gerry Colvin had studied American Studies at university and worked for an American bank before turning to music. Americana and comment on American politics and culture were to feature strongly in some of the band’s songs ("Kennedy Says", "Reservation", "A Thousand Towns", "Pizza Pie and Junk"). Terry Lilley had previously been a member of punk band Dennis & the Din Makers and later of Vision Collision.
Terry and Gerry took their style from nineteen fifties pop artists – they wore black evening suits and ribbon ties in the style of the Everly Brothers while sounding more akin to Britain’s Lonnie Donegan. The songs written by Colvin/Lilley were remarkable for their brevity with the three songs on the first side of their debut EP Butter’s On the Bread totalling just four minutes and five seconds. Butter’s on the Bread referred to the miners’ strike of 1984.
Butter’s On the Bread appeared on Robert Lloyd’s Vindaloo records but subsequent records were released on the In Tape record label run by Marc Riley (ex The Fall).
BBC disc jockey and Donegan fan John Peel promoted the band when apparently by chance he picked out their demonstration tape because his wife’s best friends were also known as Terry and Gerry. He thought the coincidence was too great to ignore. The band recorded three sessions for the John Peel programme.
Their second and most successful release "Clothes Shop" was reviewed by Morrissey on BBC Radio who declared “I like it – don’t know why”. It reached number 5 in the UK Indie Chart.
The band’s third release "Banking on Simon" was used in abridged form as the theme to the ITV children's television music-themed quiz game Poparound, which was produced by Central Independent Television and ran for two series between 1985-6. Terry and Gerry appeared on one edition of the programme to perform the song (with "Doreen" playing washboard). Despite the use of the A-side as a children’s TV theme the B-side featured a song about a young man named Joey tragically addicted to illegal drugs. At the time the name Joey had a particular stigma attached to it after children cruelly used it to abuse others in reference to Joey Deacon a man with cerebral palsy who had appeared on BBC children’s TV show Blue Peter. Another theme was recorded for the Newshound show but not released on record.
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