Flys

by Dave ThompsonIn 1976, Dave Freeman, Joe Hughes, and Neil O'Connor, together with a string of unnamed drummers, were the Coventry-based Midnight Circus, becoming the Flys after Pete King, brother of the band's manager, joined up. An introduction to the Damned (musically) and the Buzzcocks (personally) gave the group a fairly regular opening slot for the latter group and, in April 1977, the Flys' first demos went out. The response was less than deafening -- spring 1977, after all, was a time when everybody was so busy looking for the Next Big Thing that no one actually had time to listen for it and, by early winter, the somewhat disgusted Flys were readying a five-track EP for self-release. Half punk, half pop, a jangling, jarring cross between the Byrds and the Buzzcocks, A Bunch of Five appeared just in time for Christmas 1977 -- at which point EMI offered the Flys a deal. Weeks later, the Flys were in London, opening for labelmates the Rich Kids at the 100 Club (they blew the headliners off the stage) and preparing for their first single, a major-label release for the EP's "Love and a Molotov Cocktail" -- the first undisputed classic 45 of 1978.
Springtime tours with the Buzzcocks and the magnificent madness of Otway & Barrett followed, together with a new single, "Fun City." Summer then saw the Flys record their debut album, Waikiki Beach Refugees, a power punk tour de force, its title track alone worth the price of entry. The Flys were now headlining their own shows, albeit still confined to the club circuit, but with sufficient sway to organize their own support acts. One of their more inspired choices was Neil O'Connor's sister Hazel, a would-be singer with a nice line in Lene Lovich impersonations; it was chance alone that decreed that sundry associates of would-be movie mogul Dodi Al Fayed should be at the Marquee that particular night. Hazel was scooped off to fame, fortune, and a role in the post-punk apocalypse movie Breaking Glass; her brother's group just carried on scraping round the clubs. The single of "Waikiki Beach Refugees" came close to giving the Flys a hit -- but not close enough. "Beverly" and "Name Dropping" followed it into the dumper and slowly, cruel fate began pulling the legs off the Flys. Pete King was replaced by Graham Deakin (ex-John Entwistle's Ox) shortly before work began on the group's second album, Flys' Own. (King resurfaced in After the Fire and also played with the Electric Light Orchestra. Sadly, he died of cancer at age 26.)
The Flys, meanwhile, buzzed through a competent but none too dramatic new album, highlighted by "Energy Boy" and "Fascinate Me," but never once approaching the exquisite heights of "Molotov Cocktail" or "Waikiki Beach Refugees." Indeed, if there was any unifying feature to the record, it was the gloomy sound of a band crumbling around the edges, the sharpness of earlier work dulled by repeated disappointment. Live, they were still capable of holding their own, as they proved when they toured with the Ruts in the fall of 1979. But "We Are the Lucky Ones," the utterly inappropriately titled new single, failed; an EP, Four from Manchester Square died; and EMI's patience was at an end. For two years, label and group alike had marched along convinced that one more single, one more gig, would be all it would take for a breakthrough. It was time to call a halt to it all. The Flys were finally swatted in early 1980, never re-forming but at least enjoying a revival in their fortunes in the early '90s with the release of a well-received compilation. Neil O'Connor, meanwhile, made a dramatic appearance on Die Toten Hosen's version of "Molotov Cocktail" (from their Learning English punk tribute album).