Stage Frite

Country: UK
Genre: Psychobilly

Clive Perchard: vocals, double bass
Dave Rounce: guitar
Stevie Death: drums

Stage Frite began their relatively short career as a rockabilly band in 1988 but soon opted for a more agressive sound and Psychobilly.
They supported bands like the Griswalds, Skitzo and the Frantic Flintstones and developped a friendship with Chuck Harvey who at that time was scouting band for Link. The result was two tracks recorded for the compilation album “Kats Keep Rockin’”. This gave them a wider exposition and audience and it wasn’t long before Link proposed them to record a full album.
Thus, in August 1988, they found themselves in studio with Mark Hunt (who at that time recorded most of the Frantic Flintstones albums) to cut their debut album “Island Of Lost Souls”.
It sold relatively well and as a result they played bigger gigs and appeared on the bill of a few all-dayers. But when the band was working on a possible second album they split in the Spring of 1991, each member having different ideas about the style they should play.
They remained active musically, Rounce later joined the Roswell Invaders, Stevie drummed for punk outfits and Perchard played bass for the East Coast Bluegrass band and the Ugly Dog Skiffle Combo.

Stage Frite later reformed and released an album in 2017 on Western Star records.

Adapted from the liner notes of the CD reissue of Island Of Lost Souls (Anagram-CDM Psycho 48) written by Alan Wilson.

Stage Frite – Island of lost Souls

Anagram cdmpsycho48 [1989 – reissue 2006]
Island Of Lost Souls – Pink and Black – Noises – One Last Dream – Bad Moon Rising – Black Magic – Slippin’ In – The Ripper – Take The Money and Run – Searchin’ – Baby Let’s Play House – Freight Train – Get Away Little Girl – My Baby’s Gone – Long Blond Hair – Island Of Lost Souls – There Goes My Baby – Get Away Little Girl

Island Of Lost Souls is a good album. Understand me; it’s not an essential one like The Meteors’ In Heaven, Guana Batz’s Held Down… At Last or Frenzy’s Hall Of Mirror to name but three of the classics but if Stage Frite’s Island Of Lost Souls was a movie, it would be a honest and pleasant horror B-movie you enjoy watching with friends. They have good originals like the title track, Black Magic or the Ripper. In comparison their covers are far less convincing, lacking of an angle to approach them. Produced and engineered by Marc Hunt, who was in charge of many Frantic Flintstones early recordings, it’s not a surprise to find some common point with late 80’s albums of the gang of Chuck Harvey. The cd reissue is completed with two tracks that were previously only available on vinyl on compilations and four early demos.

Fred “Virgil” Turgis