The Railway Children (band)
Encyclopedia
The Railway Children are a British
alternative rock
band, formed in Wigan
in 1984, by Gary Newby (songwriter/vocals/guitar), Brian Bateman (rhythm/guitar), Guy Keegan (drums), and Stephen Hull (bass).
recorded
their debut single A Gentle Sound in 1986, followed by their debut album
Reunion Wilderness in 1987, both releases topped the UK Indie Chart
, along with their second single
, "Brighter". They left Factory shortly afterwards and were signed to Virgin Records
.
1988 saw the release of their second album
, "Recurrence", on Virgin Records
, and support tours with R.E.M.
in Europe (Work Tour) and The Sugarcubes in the U.S. A national chart hit eluded them with singles "In The Meantime", "Somewhere South" and "Over and Over". In 1990, they released Native Place, an album that saw the band take a more power pop direction, with keyboard textures coming more to the fore then previously. "Every Beat of the Heart" became a Top 40 hit
in the UK
with a peak at #24, and the song became a #1 hit on the newly-founded Modern Rock Tracks
chart in the U.S.
In 1992, EMI
took over Virgin Records, and the band left the label. Two years later, the original line-up broke up, leaving Newby to continue alone. Newby has since released two albums as The Railway Children: Dream Arcade (1997, Ether Records) and Gentle Sound (2002, Ether Records) as well as a Rarities album in 2007, available only by download
from his official site (listed below).
Keegan later had a spell in the Wigan
based folk-rock band, The Tansads
.
Newby spent several years in Japan
, writing
/arranging
music
and lyrics
for several major Japanese artists
, including Anna Tsuchiya
, Every Little Thing, V6, (film) Detroit Metal City
and (TV) Sailor Moon
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band, formed in Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
in 1984, by Gary Newby (songwriter/vocals/guitar), Brian Bateman (rhythm/guitar), Guy Keegan (drums), and Stephen Hull (bass).
Career
Factory RecordsFactory Records
Factory Records was a Manchester based British independent record label, started in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, which featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Northside and James and...
recorded
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
their debut single A Gentle Sound in 1986, followed by their debut album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
Reunion Wilderness in 1987, both releases topped 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...
, along with their second single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, "Brighter". They left Factory shortly afterwards and were signed to Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
.
1988 saw the release of their second album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, "Recurrence", on Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
, and support tours with R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
in Europe (Work Tour) and The Sugarcubes in the U.S. A national chart hit eluded them with singles "In The Meantime", "Somewhere South" and "Over and Over". In 1990, they released Native Place, an album that saw the band take a more power pop direction, with keyboard textures coming more to the fore then previously. "Every Beat of the Heart" became a Top 40 hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
with a peak at #24, and the song became a #1 hit on the newly-founded Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
In 1992, EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
took over Virgin Records, and the band left the label. Two years later, the original line-up broke up, leaving Newby to continue alone. Newby has since released two albums as The Railway Children: Dream Arcade (1997, Ether Records) and Gentle Sound (2002, Ether Records) as well as a Rarities album in 2007, available only by download
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
from his official site (listed below).
Keegan later had a spell in the Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
based folk-rock band, The Tansads
The Tansads
The Tansads were an English band from Wigan, Greater Manchester who were active during the 1990s. Playing a mix of folk, punk and indie music they developed a strong following on the festival circuit and on the crusty/traveller scene but never managed to achieve a commercial breakthrough...
.
Newby spent several years in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, writing
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
/arranging
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
for several major Japanese artists
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, including Anna Tsuchiya
Anna Tsuchiya
is a Japanese singer, lyricist, actress and semi-retired model.Tsuchiya was born to a Japanese mother and an American father of Polish-Irish descent from Buffalo, New York. In her earliest years, she spoke English and Japanese...
, Every Little Thing, V6, (film) Detroit Metal City
Detroit Metal City
is a vulgar comedy manga series, serialized in Young Animal from 2005 to 2010. An anime OVA series, twelve episodes of approximately 13 minutes each, was released starting on August 8, 2008. A live film adaptation directed by Toshio Lee appeared in Japanese theaters on August 23, 2008...
and (TV) Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
.
Albums
- Reunion Wilderness, Factory Records, FAC185, 1987 - UK Indie #1
- Recurrence, Virgin Records, V2525, 1988 - UKUK Albums ChartThe UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
#96 - Native Place, Virgin Records, V2627, 1990 - UK #59
- Radio One Evening Sessions, Strange Fruit, CDNT002, 1993
- Listen On: The Best of, Virgin Records, CDOVD451, 1995
- Dream Arcade, Ether Records, ETH1, 1997
- Gentle Sound (acousticAcoustic musicAcoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
compilation albumCompilation albumA compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
), Ether Records, ETH3, 2003 - Rarities (download only) 2007
Singles
- "Every Beat of the Heart" (1990) - UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#24, US Alt. #1 - "Music Stop" (1990) - UK #66
- "So Right" (1990) - UK #68
- "Something So Good (1991) - UK #57
See also
- List of alternative rock artists
- List of bands from Manchester
- List of bands from England
- List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Modern Rock chart
- List of performances on Top of the Pops
- List of Virgin Records artists
- List of Peel sessions
- List of Factory Records recording artists
External links
- Official Site
- [ The Railway Children biography] at Allmusic websiteWebsiteA website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
- The Railway Children fansite