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Introduction LAF are a recording band from Derby, England. The band was first formed in the mid 1980s by Phil Matthews and Alastair Boden as a vehicle for their self-penned songs that were recorded in a small home-studio.

History

Originally named Lost and Found, the pair released a ten track album titled Ten By Two which provided a blueprint for what was to come. A decision was made to bring in a couple of extra musicians before starting work on the next batch of songs. Chris Charlesworth, a classically trained keyboard player and chorister was added on keyboards, while Steve Shephard played both guitar and bass. Bizarrely though everyone knew everyone else the four never all attended band sessions on the same nights. This was partially through practicality and partially availability. Chris came over on Sundays, Al Mondays and Steve Thursday or Friday.

The band, in truth, had never been averse to augmenting their sound with other performers when available, a fact borne out by the inclusion of Rod Doherty playing saxophone on Rebel Without a Cause on Ten By Two, and The Kissing Game on a later album. LAF’s second album, On My Own, was named after one of the songs included on it and featured a cover that pastiched Let It Be by the Beatles. Although Al had played a full part in writing the material he had gone "missing in action" at this stage, and local vocalist Stewart Ryan handled most of the vocals this time out.

It was round this time that the band’s home studio received a major round of upgrading. In the early days this had been crude to say the least; iThe lo-fi approach also included studio innovations such as a recording rack crammed full of high tech effects units and processors built from an old drinks trolley.

The second album featured the only vocals provided by anyone outside of the band’s inner circle as Jeff Tracy took the lead on Thunderbirds Are Go - with help from his son Scott, along with Lady Penelope and Parker! By now LAF were starting to hit their stride and improvements in equipment meant a huge improvement in production values. Songs such as Psyched Out would have been impossible a year earlier. Everything seemed to peak at once during the making of the finest album to date A Walk In The Sun.

Alongside a whole raft of sparkling tunes including the aforementioned Psyched Out was a suite of three songs based round the last day in the life of a group of World War One soldiers waiting for the order to go over the top for the final push. The three tracks were Sunrise, A Walk In The Sun and Sunset - although for some strange reason the running order on the original album does not place them next to each other.

It was a further two years until the album Blues For Kirsty was produced. This time there was to be no central theme as the band presented, once more, a collection of individual songs though much of the progression from A Walk In The Sun was clearly apparent. Blues For Kirsty featured the only lead vocal thus far from Phil on the eerie and cinematic Mystery Train.

No sooner was Blues For Kirsty in the public domain than Phil and Al began work on what they hoped would be their magnum opus - a collection of songs that they hoped would show all that they had learnt about the craft of song-writing, the art of recording, and benefit from their ever improving performance skills. Almost a dozen songs had been written and recorded when along came one of those opportunities that you never foresee coming. A new record label called Escutcheon Records formed by a remarkable man by the name of Arthur Strand, who alongside a lengthy and impressive musical CV was also a qualified cricket umpire, came a calling. Arthur was looking for artistes for his record label and LAF immediately donated three songs intended for their next album to become what was the first ever release on Escutcheon, Summer Rain.

A compilation album entitled LAF Presents was released in early 1995, before the Summer Rain e.p. which appeared towards the end of the year. It is at this stage that the LAF story stalled. Personal circumstances of the various members meant that the nucleus of the band drifted apart for many years. However, in early 2009, when a renewed interest in LAF’s output followed the creation of a dedicated MySpace page which has seen the band find a new worldwide fan base that it could never have imagined when first starting up. Feedback on the best of their older songs has proved so positive that Phil and Al decided to revive the band as a going concern and immediately set about writing fresh material and instigating their own band website. The first new tunes in over a decade were completed and released in early 2010, a four track EP called Sparkle.

LAF contributed 2 tracks to the Assisted Flight cd released by a group of Stackridge fans in the summer of 2010 to aid the band’s funding attempts to play in the USA. As a result the record label (Jupiter’s Moon) that produced this cd offered to release a compilation of tracks from the entire back history of LAF. The cd, which was the first full length album from the band in 15 years came out in September and was titled “Random Play All”

Discography

Ten By Two (1988) 1) Sweet Surrender 2) Rebel Without A Cause 3) Innocent Prisoners 4) Raiders Of The Lost Heart 5) Looks Like It's Friday Again 6) Transylvania 65000 7) The Pact We Made 8) Tonight 9) The Question 10) Christmas Song

On My Own (1989) 1) Running All Around The World 2) Chasing Shadows 3) On My Own 4) Cry 5) See You Smile 6) Be There 7) You're Nearly Pretty 8) I'll Tell You What You Don't Want To Know 9) Thunderbirds Are Go 10) All The Tears I Cried For You

A Walk In The Sun (1991) 1) Don't Go Burning Out My Love 2) Goodbye Time Again 3) ShadowPlay 4) Brief Encounter 5) Psyched Out 6) Sunrise 7) This Is My Life 8) Stop 9) A Walk In The Sun 10) Sunset

Blues For Kirsty (1993) 1) Broken Moon 2) Wonderful Obsession 3) Fools Gold 4) The Key 5) Blues For Kirsty 6) Leaving 7) Talking To Myself 8) All The World 4 U 9) Prayer 10) Mystery Train 11) World

LAF presents (1995) 1) Summer Rain 2) Nostalgia 3) Save Us (From The Knowing Eyes) 4) Distant Windows 5) Fragile 6) Running Man 7) Who's Driving Your Car? 8) Indian Summer 9) Kissing Game 10 Sorry 11) Mother's Prayer 12) Up In The Air 13)Gothick

Summer Rain EP (Escutcheon Records) (1995) 1) Summer Rain 2) Save Us From The Knowing Eyes 3) Mothers' Prayer

Sparkle (2010) 1) Random Play All 2) L'autobus 3) Running Out Of Time 4) The Philosopher

Random Play All (Jupiter’s Moon) (2010)

1) A Walk in the Sun 2) Random Play All 3) L’autobus 4) Sweet Surrender 5) Summer Rain 6) Save us from the Knowing Eyes 7) The Philosopher 8) Mystery Train 9) Mother’s Prayer 10) Chasing Shadows 11) Running Out of Time