The Groovy Little Numbers were an indie pop

Indie pop

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...

 band from Bellshill

Bellshill

Bellshill is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, 10 miles south east of Glasgow city centre and 37 miles west of Edinburgh. Other nearby towns are Motherwell , Hamilton and Coatbridge . Since 1996, it has been situated in the Greater Glasgow metropolitan area...

, Lanarkshire

Lanarkshire

Lanarkshire or the County of Lanark ) is a Lieutenancy area, registration county and former local government county in the central Lowlands of Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 centred around former member of The Boy Hairdressers, and future BMX Bandits

BMX Bandits (band)

BMX Bandits are a Scottish 1960s-influenced guitar pop band who have been making music from 1986 to the present day. They have shared members with other Bellshill bands Teenage Fanclub and The Soup Dragons....

 and Superstar

Superstar (band)

-History:The band was formed in 1991 by Joe McAlinden, a former member of The Groovy Little Numbers and the BMX Bandits, who also arranged strings for the band Teenage Fanclub. They first appeared on Creation Records in 1992 with the album Greatest Hits vol. 1, which was followed in 1994 by the...

 member Joe McAlinden.

History

Formed in the mid-1980s, multi-instrumentalist Joe McAlinden was joined by Catherine Steven (vocals) and Gerard Love (bass, vocals), with a brass section from the Motherwell Youth Orchestra comprising Colette Walsh (tenor saxophone), John McRorie (alto sax), Kevin McCarthy (baritone sax), Mairi Cameron (trumpet), and James Wood (trumpet). The band only released two EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

s during their time together, both on 53rd & 3rd, the first of which, "You Make My Head Explode", reached number 25 in the UK Indie Chart

UK Indie Chart

The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...

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The band also contributed a track ('Get it Together') to the Honey at the Core (Part 2)

Honey at the Core

Honey at the Core was the name given to two compilation cassettes of then up-and-coming Scottish rock artists issued in the 1980s and 1990s.The first cassette - which came together with a fanzine giving further details of the artists - was released in 1986 having been compiled by future Glasgow...

 compilation cassette.

The band split up, with McAlinden joining the BMX Bandits as guitarist in 1991. Love subsequently joined Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...

.

McAlinden later formed a new band, Superstar, releasing five albums between 1992 and 2000, and later forming NOM with Sice from The Boo Radleys

The Boo Radleys

-Studio albums:-Compilation albums:-Extended plays:-Singles:-External links:* * * * * * by Laurent Orseau * *...

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EPs

• "You Made My Head Explode" (1988) 53rd & 3rd (UK Indie #25)
• "Happy Like Yesterday" (1988) 53rd & 3rd