Haircut 100 – “Pelican West” (1982)
Haircut 100 were the teen idols of the early 80’s, if only for a short while. They released their debut album, “Pelican West”, in 1982 and from it came three UK top ten hits and two US chart hit singles. Now, forty years on, the band are re-issuing the album on LP and CD to those who remember the best of times for pop music.
Haircut 100 were, are Blair Cunningham (b.1957), Marc Fox (b.1958), Phil Smith (b.1959), Patrick Hunt (b.1959), Les Nemes (b.1960), Graham Jones (b.1961) and Nick Heyward (b.1961). They formed in Beckenham in London and pretty much became stars overnight, being signed to Arista Records in 1981 and before the year was out, had released “Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)”, which would become a big hit and also cracked the US singles chart. 1982 would produce the album, which went on to reach No.2 in the UK and No.31 in America, earning a Platinum disc for sales of more than 300,000 copies at home.
Haircut 100 would achive two further top ten hits with “Love Plus One” and “Fantastic Day” while “Nobody’s Fool”, which was not included on the original album, would give the group a fourth by the end of the year. Sadly, the good times did not last and Heyward left in 1983. The remaining members pressed on and released a follow up to “Pelican West” in 1984, but this and the three singles lifted from it all missed the UK top 40 and were not seen at all in other countries. Haircut 100 split soon after with Nick becoming the most successful of the lot. He achieved three top twenty hits in 1983 himself and has to date released a total of nine studio albums, the most recent being “Woodland Echoes” in 2017.
Haircut 100 called a truce and reformed in 2004 for a series of live performances, while Nick, Les, Graham and Blair regrouped in 2011 for a one-off show in London where they performed “Pelican West” in it entirety. The 40th anniversary edition of the album comes in the standard LP, 3-CD boxset which includes 12″, extended and live version of all the songs, and an LP edition containing the same material.
“Love Plus One” UK No.3, US No.37
“Fantastic Day” UK No.9
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