Questions Time

Phew! Let's take a break form all this electro-jiggery pokery (Credo and Interplay on heavy rotation, as they say) and take you back in time for a nice bit of...80s soul?
Heard Isley Bros.' classic Harvest For the World on't wireless this morning and thought 'what a cracking song that is'. Looked it up on't Tube and then came across this pretty amazing version by a hitherto by-us-underheard of beat combo The Questions grooving along on some 80's telly programme with none other than Paul Weller's Ver Style Council (bongos n joanna) left of stage. Amazing!
Even more amazing is that they all look about 14, and isn't that future Style Council choriste Tracie booging along up front too?

Turns out that The Questions were in fact a product of the late 70s/early 80s Scottish scene togther with the likes of Aztec Camera, Orange Juice et al, although opted for Zoom Records (rather than the more trendy Postcard) to give them a contract as far back as 1978. The young Edinburghians won the accolade of Best Young Band from Southern Television and released two singles on Zoom .. and all this before leaving school! Paul Weller picked them to support The Jam in 1980 and also signed them to his label Respond Records a year later, where they then met Tracie Young (backing vocals on Beat Surrender and Speak Like a Child).
Tracie's first hit The House That Jack Built was actually written by Questions members Paul Barry and John Robinson, fact fans, who also wrote three more songettes for her debut album.

Amazingly The Questions didn't get round to releasing their own album until 1984. Sadly, Belief got nowhere and they packed it all in at the 100 Club later that year.
Hard to say whether they deserved better but I'm indebted to Kenneth in the 212 for his blog post on the band's history and the two tracks made available for download. Not really my cup of tea but on this sunny Wednesday, Tuesday Sunshine sounds quite lovely in a 1983 kind of way. they did try very hard, bless 'em.