Monograph Biography

In Surain's car, 1998

[Most of the words below were provided by Rob - thank you!!!]

Pacific Radio is the new name for the band formerly known as Monograph - essentially the nom de plume of North Londoner Rob Crutchley.

Monograph officially came into existence with the release on Shinkansen in June 1998 of the Paper Museum EP, combining songs from two sets of demos recorded at Animal, the home studios of Broken Dog's Clive Painter & Martine Roberts.

On the first two singles, everything was played by Rob with a little help from Martine (backing vocals) and Clive (keyboards), but by the time second single Please Don't Be Afraid Of Anything was released in February '99, a live band had been established with the help of friends Gethyn Jordan (drums), Surain Lokuge (bass) and Steve McNairn (guitar), and a few isolated gigs were arranged in the cellars and backrooms of swinging London - the Monarch, HQ's, Dublin Castle and Hope & Anchor (where Clive played keyboard seated next to the promoters due to the less than spacious playing arena).

Songs from the two EPs were played on both Peel and Lamacq, and a Peel session was offered at the start of '99. By this time, recordings had started to feature the band as well as Rob's solo efforts, which made for some interesting scenes on the second floor of the Animal studio complex with Rob in the corridor, singing into one room, whilst the others cramped into the adjacent bedroom and tried not to hit each other with sticks and guitar necks.

A third single - a version of Don't Gimme Shelter, probably the stand out song from the live set - was released in September, and the album - Lorelei - the following month. By now, however, the band (OK, it was mainly Rob) were tiring of live activity and decided to revert to the Shinkansen blueprint of never being seen outside of their bedrooms, ever.

In March 2000, Rob went back into the studio, again with Clive at the controls, and emerged with 7 new songs. These were released as a mini-album by Shinkansen on September 25th. For no apparent reason, the band name for this, and all future projects, has been changed to Pacific Radio.

Setting up at Maida Vale for the Peel Session, clockwise from above:
Steve, Surain & Geth contemplate an amp
Clive & Geth address the drums
Martine with bass
Rob, crouching awkwardly