Voice Of The Beehive

Anglo-Californian rock band formed in '86 by American sisters Tracey and Melissa Belland, who were the daughters of Four Preps singer Bruce Belland. The British contingent consisted of Martin Brett on bass, Daniel Woodgate on drums, and Mike Jones (formerly of Madness) on acoustic guitar. Releasing only two albums in a ten year period ('Let It Bee' and 'Honey Lingers'), these yielded a surprising number of hits for them, including 'Monsters and Angels', 'I Say Nothing', 'The Beat Of Love', 'I Walk The Earth', 'Don't Call Me Baby' and a superb cover version of 'I Think I Love You'. Thoroughly nice people, the two girls sported distinctive bright pink manes and devised some very funny videos to accompany their songs. 'The Man In The Moon'is one of their lesser-known tracks, also the punkish 'There's A Barbarian In The Back Of My Car', which was written by Zodiac Mindwarp. Their final split in '96 after releasing a third album, 'Sex & Misery',was a tragedy, and the band have since all gone their seperate ways- Tracey (now Tracey Bryn) has become a teacher in Laguna Beach, whilst her sister lives nearby and runs her own company 'Made In Heaven'. Martin Brett runs his own music production company based in London, whilst Daniel Woodgate rejoined Madness as drummer and Mike Jones lives quietly in Norwich. However, the band reformed in 2003 for a one-off fortnightly tour, which averaged 5,000 seats per night! A fascinating combination of punk, Indie and just straight rock, Voice Of The Beehive were a superb antedote to the dominance of techno and acid-house music in the late '80s / early '90s. I have a copy of 'Honey Lingers' on cassette- I thoroughly recommend their albums to anyone.