A Flock of Seagulls

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A Flock of Seagulls is a synthpop group originally formed by brothers Mike (keyboards, vocals) and Ali Score (drums), with Frank Maudsley (bass) and Paul Reynolds (guitar) that gained popularity and subsequently infamy in the early days of MTV with the video for their song "I Ran" which showcased the lead singer Mike Score's distinct haircut. To this day they remain firmly identified with the song, and the early '80s.

1 Band history
2 Current members
3 Trivia
4 Hairstyle
5 Discography
6 Singles
7 See also
8 External links

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Band history

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Beginning

As with countless other groups of English origin, A Flock Of Seagulls was centered around two brothers, in this case Mike and Ali Score. The band started off in 1979 in Liverpool as a trio with Mike on the keyboards and vocals (and the occasional guitar) along with Ali on the drums and Mike’s friend Frank Maudsley on bass. Realizing quickly that their sound needed to be "filled out" a bit, the band brought aboard guitarist Paul Reynolds after a few months of looking around for a suitable addition and then went about the usual business of writing songs, playing clubs and trying to land themselves a record contract.

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Early Sound

A striking aspect of the early A Flock Of Seagulls is that their music is quite simple in construction, and executed with little flash on behalf of the band. While the resulting clean, basic sound may well have been due to their limited abilities as players, it nevertheless made them stand out even more so from the rest of the emerging field, who tended to fill up the spaces in their music with sequenced arpeggios or extraneous electronic percussion effects. Rather than follow this lead, A Flock Of Seagulls chose to leave those spaces wide open, resulting in a sound that soared and conjured up visions of limitless night-time starscapes rather than fancy clothes and swanky night clubs.

Image:LiveInEngland.jpg Balancing their vast sonics with a pop songwriting standpoint, A Flock Of Seagulls came off as more of a synthrock band than many of their peers ever dared to be to some, and it was in this area of that Reynolds became the band’s secret weapon: some of his solos recalling the direct, yet celestial sound of David Gilmour (he also seems to share a bit of the latter’s love for delay and reverb effects). With such a stinging, distinctive tone layered onto atmospheric synth chords and a propulsive rhythm section topped off by the band’s "futuristic" stage appearance, the Flock soon became one of the first signings to the newly-created indie label Cocteau Records.

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Early Recording Career

Not long after the (uneventful) release of their kinetic debut single "(It’s Not Me) Talking" in 1981, the Flock released a debut EP with production handled by ex-Be Bop Deluxe leader and Cocteau Records co-founder Bill Nelson. While this EP made no discernible impact on a commercial level, enough attention was garnered at dance clubs by the pogo-friendly single "Telecommunication" to start turning heads a bit higher up the music industry food chain, and within a few months, the boys found themselves signed to Jive Records and recording their debut album with ex-Gong bassist (and budding New Wave guru) Mike Howlett producing.

Image:DebutSeagulls.jpg Most of the debut EP (including "Telecommunication") made its way in re-recorded form to the combo’s full-length debut album, which was released in the spring of 1982. From the outset, A Flock Of Seagulls initially went nowhere as the band could not find any purchase at radio for the first single, the grandiose alien abduction epic "I Ran." This problem was quickly solved by the content-starved MTV cable network, which at the time was voraciously adding just about anything thrown at it in order to fill up airtime. With "I Ran" now in the channel’s rotation, the band then set out on tour as the opening act for fellow UK pop lineup Squeeze.

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Success

Boiling forth from a doomy, ominous instrumental intro, "I Ran" was for most of America a real blast of fresh air in the increasingly soft/corporate rock-dominated climate of 1982. An imaginative use of aluminum foil and floor mirrors, the promotional videoclip for the song was certainly not a big budget piece in the mold of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf," but it contained enough direct, iconic imagery to make it memorable (not to mention Mike Score’s hair, the shape of which was now beginning to resemble that of a seagull in flight) and it soon became one of the most popular videos on the network. Between MTV exposure, resultant airplay from rock radio stations being bombed by listener requests to hear the song, and the band’s ongoing road work, "I Ran" began to build a good sized head of steam that finally got it into the Billboard Hot 100 by midsummer, with A Flock Of Seagulls nearly outpacing its performance on the albums chart.

The work is a concept album about alien abduction. The first song "I Ran" describes a person walking down the 'avenue' seeing an attractive female and then the alien influences start "a beam of light comes shining down on you, aurora borealis comes in view", the remaining eight songs chart a journey through an alien invasion of earth. The last song "the end" chronicles the alien victory over mankind. Four UFO's are on the cover of the album probably representing the four members. If you look at the picture on the right they are visible in the window to the left of the TV

Winning markets over one by one, "I Ran" took a long time to reach the national Top 10: initially charting in July of 1982, the song finally crested at No. 9 for a couple of weeks right at Halloween with A Flock Of Seagulls reaching the Top 10, selling 500,000 copies as well and staying listed on the album survey for a year.

While "I Ran" remains to this day the song they are best known for, A Flock Of Seagulls had other notable songs like their follow-up single "Space Age Love Song" and the Grammy-winning surf-tinged instrumental "D.N.A.," which were in a similar melodious, epic vein as "I Ran." A decent-sized follow-up hit, reaching the lower end of the Top 30 in February of 1983 (following a similarly lengthy climb as its predecessor), "Space Age Love Song" was a more outwardly emotional, even romantic piece that featured Reynolds’ guitar work effectively making the five-word choruses work in spectacular fashion to some.

Image:Listen.jpg By the spring of 1983, the band’s follow-up album Listen was ready for release, and was presaged at radio and MTV by the single "Wishing," which some have said is their most affecting song in the band’s canon. While it didn’t glide quite as gracefully as their preceding singles (the drum sound here was far more robotic and mechanical in nature than what had come before), "Wishing" was a more hypnotic kind of work that was all about scale and austerity. It also featured a 2 1/2 minute instrumental coda with Reynolds’ oddly-muted guitar presence emerging from the background like a pitched-down whalesong. While "Wishing" stalled at the bottom of the U.S. Top 30 (a little below the peak of "Space Age Love Song"), it became the first and only of the band’s singles to be embraced by their home country: reaching the Top 10 of the UK singles survey.

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Decline

Those awaiting more of the same on the second Flock album were disappointed to find Listen offered up a different listening experience than the debut. The band still maintained parts of their earlier sound: "that intoxicating sweep and sense of space was still there, but the feel of the music was colder, darker, and more overtly synth-driven than what had come before, which was fully the band’s intent" describes music critic VBC. The changes are likely due to the record being recorded in Germany in the studio owned by legendary Krautrock producer Conrad Planck (though Howlett was manning the boards again). Other tracks like the failed second single "Nightmares," the bracing techno-rocker "Over The Border," or the chilling instrumental "The Last Flight Of Yuri Gagarin," display Neu! and Kraftwerk influence in the final mix. Also included was the sublime electro-ballad "Transfer Affection," which remains a favorite among their fans.

Image:The Story of a Young Heart.jpg Listen was viewed as a commercial letdown in comparison to A Flock Of Seagulls, even though it reached to #16 on the album charts and was listed for five months, but it was on the 1984 album The Story Of A Young Heart that the wheels really started to come off. Listen may have been alienating to those who wanted more of "I Ran," but The Story Of A Young Heart offered up more of the "classic" Flock sound, and still didn't please anyone. While the group appeared to be trying to reclaim lost ground in already-changing times, their once charming shortcomings had started to become a bit glaring, particularly in the areas of songwriting and artistic growth to critcs. "By switching back to their "classic" sound, A Flock Of Seagulls weren’t at all rejuvenated, but instead sounded like they were running out of gas", notes VBC. The public also agreed, as the The Story Of A Young Heart flamed out at #66 on the album chart, ten notches below the peak position on the Hot 100 of its one and only single "The More You Live, The More You Love." Both album and single represented the last appearance of the Flock on the U.S. charts.

The next couple of years for the band weren’t pleasant for anyone involved as some massive changes fundamentally altered the direction and sound of the band, the most damaging being the departure of Paul Reynolds. A bit of a fragile soul during the best of times, Reynolds descended into serious drug and alcohol abuse as a result of stress and constant rigorous touring. By all accounts, Reynolds was a physical and mental wreck and leaving the band probably saved his life. At the time, however, the loss of his highly distinctive guitar work (a crucial part of Flock’s signature sound) really took the wind out of the band’s sails.

Image:DreamComeTrue.jpg The magnitude of this loss became glaringly apparent when the band’s fourth album, Dream Come True appeared in the spring of 1986. Recorded in Philadelphia, co-produced by Mike Score and Wayne Braithwaite and with a far different sound and approach than any of the albums preceding it, Dream Come True was deemed "a clunky, misguided disaster on just about every imaginable level, from the embarrassing, over-shellacked techno-funk production to the frankly hideous cover art" by VBC, and similiary derided by other critics. The album didn't do better with the public, and the band came to crashing halt.

Following the complete dissolution of the band in the wake of Dream Come True, Mike Score laid low for a while and then resurfaced in 1989 as A Flock Of Seagulls with an entirely new band installed around him. This new lineup would change regularly around Score over the years, with the odd single ("Magic") or album (The Light At The End Of The World) to flog for a small group of remaining die-hard fans. Image:The Light at the End of the World.jpg

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Recent Events

In November of 2003, the original line-up (Mike and Ali Score, Paul Reynolds and Frank Maudsley) reunited for a one-off performance on the VH1 series, Bands Reunited.

In September 2004 they reformed again and played a small number of live shows in the United States, but broke up immediately afterward. The reunion included a performances at Nike Run Hit Wonder, a series of 5000 and 10,000 metre road races, featuring popular one hit wonder bands (including Devo, General Public, Tone Loc, and Tommy Tutone) playing along the race course.

Mike Score continues to tour under the band's name with a new line-up, but the other original members have retired from music.

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Current members

Mike Score, lead singer, keyboards
Joe Rodriguez, lead guitarist
Robbie Hanson, bass
Albert Cruz, drums

In June, 2005, the current line-up appeared on the debut episode of the American edition of NBC's Hit Me Baby One More Time. Besides performing their hit song I Ran (So Far Away), they also performed a cover of Ryan Cabrera's "On the Way Down".

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Trivia

"I Ran (So Far Away)" was the lead theme used in commercials for the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City".

An "I Ran (So Far Away)" cover was used opening theme for the US version of Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac)

"I Ran (So Far Away)" was sung by Fez in the sitcom "That '70s Show".

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Hairstyle

Mike Score's distinctive hairstyle has been mentioned, copied, and parodied many times in the media, most notably in the American Television Sitcoms Friends and That 70's Show. It has also been referenced in movies such as Pulp Fiction, The Wedding Singer, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, where the 1970s and 80s are dismissed as little more than "a gas shortage and A Flock of Seagulls".

A Diet Pepsi commercial shows a man telling us that he wants to feel young again, then it shows a montage of the man with Score's hairstyle but finding out it's a bad idea.

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