Felt

Ten albums, ten singles, ten years

Felt were led by Lawrence, mononymous, born Lawrence Hayward in Birmingham, who moved as a child to Water Orton, where he met Maurice Deebank and Nick Gilbert. The name came from Tom Verlaine's emphasis on the word felt in Television's "Venus". In 1979 Lawrence released a solo single, "Index", recorded in his bedroom, which Sounds named single of the week; the band formed in 1980 with Gilbert and Deebank, with a plan of ten albums and ten singles in ten years. They signed to Cherry Red in 1981 with the single "Something Sends Me to Sleep", and Gary Ainge, the drummer on all ten albums, joined that year. Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty followed in 1982, with Mick Lloyd on bass. Deebank took a break to record the solo instrumental Inner Thought Zone (Cherry Red, 1984) and returned. None of their releases reached the UK singles or albums charts.

The Splendour of Fear and The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories came in 1984. In 1985 Martin Duffy on keyboards and Marco Thomas on bass joined for Ignite the Seven Cannons, produced by Robin Guthrie, the last album with Deebank. "Primitive Painters" (1985) reached number 1 on the UK independent singles chart. In 1986 they moved to Creation for Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death, an instrumental album, and Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, with Phil King, later of Lush, on bass. Poem of the River came in 1987, The Pictorial Jackson Review and the instrumental Train Above the City in 1988, on which Lawrence did not play, and Me and a Monkey on the Moon in 1989. Lawrence announced the end of Felt after ten albums and ten singles, with a short tour and a last show in Birmingham in December 1989.

Lawrence went on to Denim, whose single reached 79 in April 1996, and Go-Kart Mozart, later Mozart Estate. Cherry Red reissued the albums with his involvement from February 2018, with new mixes and revised tracklists. Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, Tim Burgess and the Manic Street Preachers have cited them. Lawrence has blamed John Peel for their lack of success, saying that the reason Felt didn't make it is because Peel didn't like them. The documentary Lawrence of Belgravia, by Paul Kelly, premiered at the 2011 London Film Festival. On August 15, 2026, Ainge, Thomas and King played as Feel at Glas-Goes Pop in Glasgow, without Lawrence, with Murdoch and Radhika singing "Primitive Painters".