The Chemistry Experiment

High school friends Archie Girlschool and Carlton Wokesley started the Chemistry Experiment in St. Ives during 1987, relying on a four-track recorder along with a broken Casio keyboard and a Spanish guitar. Flutist Calvin Pzchortsy, drummer Mathew Collins, and bassist Wilma Bear joined soon afterward, allowing the group to formalize its lineup by year's end while aiming to move beyond rehearsal-room sessions. Wokesley died in a car accident that August, prompting the survivors to carry on in tribute to their late keyboardist by bringing in Gregory Harrison on keys. Their first live performance occurred in 1989, followed two years later by the debut album The Underground Cows of Mozambique on Slating Longberry. After maintaining a steady presence in London venues throughout the subsequent three years, the band issued its second album, Real Life Is Not Much Like Real Fun, on the self-run Peanut Factory Records imprint in 1994. A near dissolution in 1996 was averted when Collins drew fresh motivation from a reported supernatural meeting with Wokesley's ghost; the resulting roster changes placed Bear on keyboards, Harrison behind the drums, Girlschool on bass, and Collins handling guitar and vocals. That configuration first appeared on the home-recorded Giraffe Album in 1997, which preceded the Hatchet and Barrel EP in 1998 and the 2000 Fortuna Pop Records album Be My Postman.