Fay Ray were a Welsh new wave band who were active from 1979 to 1982. The band formed in Bangor in north-west Wales in 1979 and despite rumours to the contrary were not named after the dog of photographer William Wegman. The band was signed by producer

Nigel Gray Nigel Gray (1947 – 30 July 2016) was an English record producer. His album credits include ''Outlandos d'Amour'' (1978), ''Reggatta de Blanc'' (1979), and ''Zenyatta Mondatta'' (1980) for the Police, ''Kaleidoscope'' (1980) and '' Juju'' (1981 ...

to his Surrey Sounds label, and they released a single, "Family Affairs", in 1980. The single "Family Affairs" was one of three records of the week selected by Lynden Barber in his "Essential Buys" column in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

''; the other two being " Reward" by

the Teardrop Explodes The Teardrop Explodes were an English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978. Best known for their Top Ten UK single " Reward", the group originated as a key band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s. ...

and "

I'm in Love with a German Film Star "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" is a post-punk song by British band the Passions. It was released as a single by Polydor Records on 23 January 1981,''Post Punk Diary: 1980–1982'' by George Gimarc and reached No. 25 on the UK Singles Char ...

" by the Passions. However, as a small independent label, Surrey Sound did not have the distribution network in place to capitalise on this success; it was not in the shops to buy. Image of Fay Ray CD

It did, however help spark the interest of Fred Hyam of

Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...

. Following a chance meeting with the band's prospective manager at the annual MIDEM record business festival in 1981, Fay Ray were then signed to

WEA The Wea were a Miami–Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as being either closely related to the Miami tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami. Today, the descendants of th ...

. The band recorded their debut album ''Contact You'' with Gray and it was released in 1982, preceded by the single "(Waiting for the) Heatwave". Two

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

s were made for songs from the album, "Heatwave" and "Modern Lovers". The band also recorded two live performances of "Heatwave" and "Contact You" in summer 1982 at the BBC Television Centre as part of a show made about music in Bangor, Gwynedd by the BBC Community Programmes Unit and The Gwynedd Union of Musicians. Despite some commercial success in the US and in Europe, including an appearance on episode 71 of Germany's ''

Musikladen ''Der Musikladen'' () was a West German music television programme that ran from 13 December 1972 to 29 November 1984. The show continued the 1960s ''Beat-Club'' under a new name, and in turn was replaced by ''Extratour''. History Around 90 ep ...

'' (the German equivalent of the UK's ''

Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British record chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its histo ...

'') on 20 May 1982, sales of ''Contact You'' in the UK were poor. A second album had already been recorded but was not released when the label dropped the band. Disillusioned with the music business, the band split up shortly afterwards. In 2018, due to increased attention to their music via the Internet, the band reissued a remastered ''Contact You'' on CD, with five bonus tracks and new sleeve notes. On 23 March 2022, band members announced that guitarist John Lovering died on 21 March 2022, following a long illness.

Band members

*Sheila Macartney – lead vocals, guitar, organ, tambourine *John Lovering – guitar *Jeff Taylor – saxophone, accordion, flute, backing vocals *Tony Travis – bass, backing vocals *Owen Hughes – drums

References

External links

Discography
on

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

''Contact You'' album playlist
on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

{{Authority control Musical groups established in 1979 Musical groups disestablished in 1982 Welsh new wave musical groups Welsh rock music groups Warner Music Group artists Elektra Records artists