Mavis

Like anything of any worth of beauty, Mavis is the result of a long and emotional journey – fraught with heartache and difficulty, tears and bellyaches, and a whole lot of spilt blood. Hailing from the city of Sunderland, and encompassing the skills of Andy Stead (drums), Ricky Murray (bass/vox), Claire Dembry (viola/vox) and James McMahon (vox/guitar/songs), we came together out of a need to make music to communicate our love and disgust of all things human. We make music to win friends and to escape from the monotony and tedium that fills our lives. Our songs are like letters, begging you to listen. We’ve been saying since childhood that we could *be* something… if you’d only let us. If we were allowed to the ball, we’d be the greatest dancers there *and* we’d pay for the taxi home…

Formed in January 2000, we’ve been playing our fragile and delicate indie pop to anyone who’ll listen, up and down the country, even since then – and it’s been tough. People have left, people have got sick, and after all that, some new people joined and our line up stands as stated previous. In June 2001 we were asked to support our heroes Leatherface and kings of the Florida post-hardcore scene Hot Water Music on a few dates on their UK tour. We did a few shows, and took lots of notes. We made some friends too. It was all very exciting – you should have been there. We had a few phone calls from major labels, we had a few column inches, and we had a few people tattoo ‘Mavis’ on their skin. It was great… and then, like we say, some people left.

And then we met alphabetty, ace DIY indie pop label from Scotchland who offered to release the forthcoming split single (with cool as indie rockers 1” Volcano from Dundee), and naturally we said yes. We’re looking forward to its release with glee. It was recorded at First Avenue, Heaton, Newcastle and produced by a nice man called Dave, whilst Frankie Stubbs of Leatherface tried to turn the viola levels down. It was a fun day, and it sounds the business. We hope you like it when you get the chance to have a listen. Recently we’ve been playing shows with our favourite bands and being asked to have our songs feature on a variety of compilations. Things are looking good. We’re getting out of our humdrum existence for a few nice weekends and people keep writing us nice letters. We await the future with glee. Contact us! Be our friend! Viva la indie pop!