Happy Birthday to Stan Cullimore, Mr. Housemartin, born April 6, 1962. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if Iman hung out with them, but I didn’t.
Where is Stan now? Well he opened (and closed) a vegetarian wholefood shop (life long veg FTW), but now writes children’s stories and owns a video production company making programs for BBC and ITV.
The Housemartins were a love um or hate um band. Some finding them too preachy others finding them too highbrow, others just not catching on. To generic? Too weird? Meh, who knows.
But their fans were diehards and they did have some great stuff in the day. “Happy Hour” may have been the best known. A bit Smithsy in a way, with a bit of Polecat tossed in for hipness? That’s a pretty good description if you know who the Polecats were if not stick with happy Smiths.
I liked “Sitting on A Fence”, it wasn’t as popular but it had a tin can sound and the vocals are pre puberty sounding Brit fun (along with a squawking falsetto thingy)
So I say throw down the cake, crank up some “We’re not Deep”, which is a happy little ditty and blow the noisemakers.