Ruth PO!

Back in 1987, PO! was a great name for a band: This was the exact moment when we decided to call the band PO! - outside a white-tiled cinema in Leicester ................... and look at my Walkman on the ground! PO! was short, so that you could print it in font size 300 to be easily seen on a poster. It was trendy to have an exclamation mark back then. I chose the word PO! because it meant lots of different things in different languages; it was a common word around the world  but a bit intriguing for the English.  In 1987, there were no other bands called anything like PO! as far as I know.  This photo session was done while we were talking about possible names. The original band members were me - Ruth Miller, bass player Julian Glover and Drummer Marc Fuccio. If only we had thought a bit harder about possible future inventions that might impact on us.... In 2019, PO! is about the worst possible name for a band.  Internet protocol means that an unknown ban

I'm just about to put together a website and make PO! songs available in a digital and physical way again. It might take me a few months, but I'm determined to do it. In the days when letters came through the post and I parceled up cardboard on a daily basis, it was fun to run a record label, but I guess it can be just as fun with instant downloady technology, analytics and 'likes'. Just got to get used to it, that's all.  In the meantime, here are links to all the tracks I can find online at present:  A Page A Day  Northern Wonder Danny's Girl Your Shout Appleseed Alley  I Took My Head on a Date Sunday Never Comes Around   Treasure Haunt You Fay  Good Behaviour  Jacqueline's House Things That Might      https://soundcloud.com/user-795124448/things-that-might Bus Shelter .... in the Rain   https://soundcloud.com/user-795124448/bus-shelter-in-the-rain   I Won'

My first experience of seeing a band rehearse was in Newark, Nottinghamshire when I was about 15. Before that, I had never considered that a group might need to play their songs over and over again with a bit of arguing, blaming and shouting in between. At the end of the '70s, there were two significant rock bands in Newark: Paralex and Overlord. Although I was too much of a punk to admire the hard rock of these bands, the different youth cultures tended to mix together in such a small town. Paralex were the first band I ever saw rehearsing. They went on to join New Wave of British Heavy Metal One Sunday afternoon in the late 1970s, someone took me and a friend to see one of these bands rehearse - I tend to think it was Paralex. The rehearsal took place in a small detached bungalow. Each member of the band was in a different room, with cables running down the hallway. The noise was unbearably loud, even as we walked up the road, but worse still inside. Looking back,

My ambition for PO! was serious; that's why I paid for a Post Office Box so that we could receive letters and not have people knowing where I lived. I also thought it made us look very professional. PO! recorded three tracks for a demo tape, funded by Leicester City Council and sold copies of the cassette at gigs. As a result, someone called Charlie offered to make a flexi-disc to go with his fanzine ‘Samantha’ The songs were 'Confidence' and 'Appleseed Alley'. At this time, before the Internet and social media, the only ways to find out about new indie bands were through fanzines and John Peel’s Radio 1 show. The mainstream music press, such as the NME also promoted a small number of ‘next big things’ according to the whims of the writers. The PO! flexi peeking out from Samantha Fanzine Fanzine Charlie was a lovely person; he was so dedicated to promoting new bands and single minded in his efforts to make his fanzine successful. In fact,