The continuing adventures of The Adventures… the Belfast band once overseen by Simon Fuller. Kid Jensen introduced their ‘Broken Land’ on Top Of The Pops as it entered the Top Twenty, flaunting that big sweeping sound filled with eighties flourishes and girls with big hair – it was no.15 (21 May 1988) the week Fairground Attraction’s ‘Perfect’ stepped down from the top slot to make way for Wet Wet Wet’s ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. The Adventures made a video for the hit – shot it in LA. It cost a fortune, but it was never TV-screened because the single dropped a few places on the chart the following week. Instead, they kidnapped Andy Kershaw for an Old Grey Whistle Test sequence as they tour with Tears For Fears. They made four studio albums for prestigious labels, Elektra, Chrysalis and now Cherry Red. They toured with Fleetwood Mac. But they were always ‘too sophisticated for post-punk, too ambitious for chart fodder’ according to The Strange Brew website.
To Pat Gribben himself, his voice betraying the northern Irish burr, ‘we were never fashionable. Never NME darlings or anything like that. We could never play that game. Hopefully that’s not an issue anymore.’ He wonders why it is that one particular song becomes a hit. Why was it ‘Broken Land’?, because despite its obvious merits, they’ve made other records as good, or arguably better, before and since. Maybe it’s the time of season, maybe it’s the time of man, maybe it’s the cosmic alignment of the planets? It’s a chance listen on the radio at exactly the right time, its luck, its happenstance. More recently, the Adventures songwriter spoke at length to radio presenter Garry Foster, admitting how, ‘to be honest, the music industry is alien to me these days. I don’t really understand it… I don’t. When we were doing our thing in the eighties it was very straightforward. You tried to make a good record. You did your very best to get it played on Radio 1. If you didn’t get radio plays, in the genre we worked in – you probably were going to fail.’ That’s likely a barbed reference to the BBC’s decision not to air the Adventures’ later single ‘Monday Monday’, because the radio-controllers had already filled their playlist quota of covers, and it was a new arrangement of John Phillips old Mamas & Papas hit. Otherwise, events might have worked out differently. But they didn’t.
The Adventures broke up and reformed, vocalist Terry Sharpe took time out to cowrite for Bananarama, then joined covers band The Dead Handsomes. But the lure of new Adventures was too strong. Now Terry is back with Eileen Gribben and songwriter Pat Gribben, plus Mark Toman on ‘real’ drums. The new album – Once More With Feeling, was recorded largely on home-computer, then studio remixed and overdubbed. ‘All the vocals, keyboards and acoustic guitars were recorded here at my home studio’ explains Pat, ‘all the bass, electric guitars and live drums were recorded at Einstein Studios.’ And it’s melodic, with stinging keyboards that trip all over the programmed beats. ‘My Imaginary Girlfriend’ is an instant stand-out, it flaunts the same dance of eighties electro-keyboards, only Terry’s voice benefits from a little more world-texturing.
‘Songwriting is all about running the rusty water out until the clear stuff flows’ says Pat. ‘First thing to do is satisfy yourself, then hope others are as into it.’ He started out influenced by Rory Gallagher, Peter Green, and the classic Pop-Rock of the Beatles, Dylan, Kinks, Motown and the Rolling Stones. He started out by thinking of himself as a guitar-player who also wrote some songs. Now, that equation has reversed, and he sees himself more as a songwriter who also plays guitar. ‘We’d been musing over the possibility of making another Adventures album for some time, until the Covid lockdown. Then, after the initial few weeks of sitting around in the sun drinking cocktails, I found myself spending more time in my little home studio where I could dedicate myself to a songwriting binge, it gave me a concentrated time-space to immerse in the writing in a way I haven’t done for many years. ‘Hanging Tree’ was the first song I finished, and this gave us the impetus we needed.’
‘You know… I felt… I always wanted to make a record that I could be proud of’ he confides. ‘We made four albums. Quite some time ago – obviously. But I was never really satisfied with any of them. The first album would be my favourite, simply because of the… I just like the innocence and naivety of that first album. The second album had ‘Broken Land’ on it, and it did well for us and all the rest of it. But to be quite honest, I never felt that any of those four albums were good enough. So, I always wanted to do something that I – personally, could be very proud of – and, I am proud of this one. So, that’s the main thing I can tell you.’
Although they evolved from Punk-Pop bands Starjets and Tango Brigade, when Pat’s lyric insists that ‘sixty-nine was my favourite year, Abbey Road and walking on the moon’ he’s talking about Neil Armstrong, not Sting. Offering evidence in ‘With The Cats’ of what he calls a ‘grungy Beach Boys vibe’, but the treacled harmonies leak over into ‘When The Sun Goes Down’, and ‘Lovetalk’ which even quotes Petula Clark. There’s a syruping of sweet vocal blends for ‘I Still Dream Of You’ and dense harmonies on ‘Down By The Water’. Cathy Dennis gets a way-back cowriter credit for ‘L.U.C.Y’, where Eileen deservedly takes vocals, while the narrative of the rockabilly ‘The Hanging Tree’ fights the law, but the law won. ‘I’ve never been to Sunset Boulevard’ he confesses on the organically simpler ‘Song For You’, and he even wonders where have all the flowers gone amidst a massed fade-out choir of voices on ‘To Whom It Concerns’.
‘So it’s happened, and that’s it’ he concludes. ‘You do a thing like this, you think, yeah, I’ve got something here, but you’re never sure how it’s going to be received. But so far, people’s reactions have been very very positive. That was always the main objective.’ With cover-art of swirling green aurora borealis lighting up the sky, these are Adventures renewed, upbeat with a measure of danceability, in a very satisfying return. Ideals might fray, and yet they persist.
‘It’s unfinished business’ Pat concludes. ‘It’s to let people know that there was more to the Adventures than maybe they thought.’
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BY ANDREW DARLINGTON
Albums:
1985 ‘Theodore & Friends’ (Chrysalis CHR1488, issued in the USA as ‘The Adventures’) includes single ‘Feel The Raindrops’ which hits no.58
1988 ‘The Sea Of Love’ (Elektra 960-772-2) includes hit single ‘Broken Land’
1989 ‘Trading Secrets With The Moon’ (Elektra 7559-60871-2) includes ‘Desert Rose’ cowritten by Pat Gribben with Lloyd Cole. ‘The third album was difficult. It’s a very pared-down naked sort of record’ says Pat Gribben.
1993 ‘Lions & Tigers & Bears’ (Polydor 51385-2), includes John Phillips ‘Monday Monday’, suggested by producer Stephen Lipson. When Radio 1 refused to play it, that killed off the single, and also – in a sense, brought the first phase of the band to a close.
2025 ‘Once More With Feeling’ (Cherry Red Records)
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Mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/garry-foster/unchained-25032025-hour-two/
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