Yeah Yeah Noh

Derek Hammond and John Grayland launched the inventive post-punk outfit Yeah Yeah Noh in Leicestershire during 1983. BBC Radio 1’s John Peel soon discovered the group, which led to five singles plus one album on Marc Riley’s In Tape imprint and four Peel sessions over the ensuing two years while psychedelic elements gradually entered their expanding set list. Despite steady appearances on the U.K. indie chart the band dissolved in 1986, only to reconvene at Grayland’s 50th-birthday celebration in 2012, an event that prompted fresh live dates and the 2015 release Automatically Saturday.

Hammond and Grayland first crossed paths in 1981 at an Oadby pub, where shared musical interests created an immediate connection. While studying at Leicester Polytechnic, Grayland occasionally coordinated campus events, securing bookings for the Fall and performing in support slots with Soft Cell and the Thompson Twins. Alongside Sue Dorey he co-edited the fanzine Printhead, which eventually secured funding for a compilation LP showcasing local indie acts; the resulting Let’s Cut a Rug contained “Bias Binding,” credited to Hammond and Grayland under the Yeah Yeah Noh name. Frequent national airplay from Peel convinced the pair to assemble a full band.

The caustic, droll Cottage Industry EP arrived in June 1984 as their debut, with Graham Summers of the Deep Freeze Mice on drums and Adrian Crossan on bass. Dorey replaced Summers for the October follow-up single “Beware the Weakling Lines.” February 1985 brought the Prick Up Your Ears EP, after which the first three releases were gathered on the mini-album When I Am a Big Girl. Tom Slater then joined as second guitarist, steering the sound toward greater experimentation and psychedelia heard on August’s “Another Side to Mrs. Quill” and the year’s debut LP, Cutting the Heavenly Lawn of Greatness…Last Rites for the God of Love. Insufficient income forced the 1986 split once Grayland relocated to London and Dorey moved to Egypt. The same year’s Peel-sessions collection Fun on the Lawn, Lawn, Lawn served as a final release when Peel issued the last session on his own Strange Fruit label.

In later years Hammond turned to writing, producing a London travelogue and a volume of football memorabilia. When the band reassembled in summer 2012 only Hammond, Grayland, and Slater returned from the original lineup, although bassist Dermot O’Sullivan had previously recorded with them; drummer Antony Cook and keyboardist Eva Landsberg completed the new configuration, the latter soon succeeded by Fi Hodgson. After demoing fresh songs in 2013, Yeah Yeah Noh accepted an invitation from former label head Riley to record for his BBC 6Music program. Sessions for the second studio album Automatically Saturday commenced in January 2014, yielding a 2015 release whose cleaner production distinguished it from all earlier work.