Pete Astor has recently been unearthing early recordings from before The Loft and these are now available to order.

Over two cassettes are 16 tracks recorded between 1980 and 1982, one cassette is by Damp Jungle and the second is by The Living Room. Below Pete Astor talks about the recording of these demos.

Damp Jungle
‘These songs were recorded at Street Level studios by Kif Kif and Grant Showbiz: they liked what we did and asked if they could release it on their Fuck Off Tapes label; we agreed but didn’t have a name, so Kif Kif named us Pete Astor’s Jungle Orchestra, which we shortened to Damp Jungle. I don’t think the tape ever came out.’

Pete Astor – guitar, vocal
Adam Sutherland – bass, guitar, vocal
Shaun Belcher – drums
Liz Ayres – drums

The Living Room
‘We recorded these songs at our rehearsal space at 85 Crayford Road in Tufnell Park where drummer Andy was living; a bit later on, he disappeared, then Dave Morgan joined, and we started to play at Alan McGee’s Living Room club. It seemed a bit awkward for us both to call ourselves The Living Room, so we moved upstairs into The Loft’.

Pete Astor – guitar, vocal
Andrew Strickland – guitar, vocal
Bill Prince – bass
Andy Nott – drums

Order the cassette bundle or a digital version here.

Many thanks to Keir for letting me know about these.