Steve Avo Lindsey - Deaf School & The Planets

Steve Avo Lindsey in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://linktr.ee/steveavolindsey

A nervous suitor, a guitarist at the end of his Strat and his tether, wistful ex-partners on a work trip to Wales. Art school Futurists and singalongs in Cooper’s Bar, Denmark Street and suburbia’s (two) ups and downs – and earbudded Londoners on the Tube, sailing away on their own private playlists. “In my head,” confides STEVE ‘AVO’ LINDSEY, making his solo long-playing debut just five decades into his music career, “this sounds like a Nick Lowe album.”

But given that PING is the work of the Wirral-born bassist of DEAF SCHOOL and frontman of new wave chart act THE PLANETS who would later become a music exec known for his ears and acumen, it’s hardly surprising that these twelve tracks offer more than just fond footnotes to Lowe.

Factor in Lindsey’s love of Donald Fagen and Jimmy Webb, Arctic Monkeys and Tom Waits, Todd Rundgren and Nashville-style storytelling, and his lo-fi, groove-driven takes on Motown, and you’ll have an idea of what to expect from this joyful, playful, gorgeously varied sheaf of love letters to music and Merseyside, sweaters and Swordfishtrombones.

Listen to tracks like the finger-clicking soul of ‘Beautiful 45’ and the bottoms-up vaudeville of ‘Cheers My Dears’, the rockaway baroque pop of ‘Royal Iris’ and the sultry Latinisms of ‘To Know You Better’, and you’ll also hear warm and winning musical contributions from family and friends: Lindsey’s daughter Uainín Lindsey on backing vocals; the late Tony ‘Wims’ Wimshurst, ex-Planets and Nasty Pop, on lead guitar; and drummer Josh McCartney, the nephew of a local lad named Paul.

But first, some back story. When Deaf School invented itself in 1974 at Liverpool College of Art, Lindsey, one of two Steves in the band, modestly opted for the moniker Mr Average. Deaf School would become (nearly) famous for its extravagant Sparks-via-Kurt Weill pop and its distinctly un-average cast of sirens, showmen, keyboard philosophers and future superstar producers.