AlleyBrat

Canada-Alaska Tour (1979-1980)

AlleyBrat was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1979 after the fracturing of Sweeney Todd and side project music project Rags that same year, the founding members were: Christopher Booth, Philip Booth, Barry Muir, Randy Parr and David Omstead (also refereed to as Bud Omstead). During AlleyBrat's early days, their work mainly consisted of AC/DC covers and Sweeney Todd songs, doing live shows in the Vancouver area and around Canada, becoming well known in the Glam Rock music scene. Despite the good reception of AlleyBrat in its early days, Chris and Phil moved to Seattle, Washington, in early 1980, ending AlleyBrat's tour.

AlleyBrat's First Single (1980)

After relocating in Seattle in february 1980, AlleyBrat regrouped with a new presentation and style resonant of Clockwork Orange, helping them stand out in the wave of new styles and artists. This era of AlleyBrat featured Christopher Booth, Philip Booth, Brian East and Steve Carlson, eventually leading to big artists like Mötley Crüe opening their shows. Brian East met the brothers through a drummer who auditioned for a bar band he played in. AlleyBrat’s first public live performance in Seattle took place on March 27, 1980, the same day Mount St. Helens erupted. Likely before Steve Carlson joined the band since he joined later. It was held at a private party using borrowed equipment, where the only song played was a demo of "My Description Of You." a song about a man having fantazies about a fictional girl.

In June 1980, AlleyBrat released their first single "It's The Wave / My Description Of You", which was received well in the community. The single was recorded at Thuder Oak Studio in mid 1980. For both songs, drummer Ric Haugin was chosen instead of Steve Carlson, however, although Carlson did not play drums on those tracks, he was credited regardless. Keyboardist Roger Halvorson, who also worked for Roland, was invited to contribute as a session musician to the song using a Roland RS-202 Strings synthesizer (manufactured in 1976), an instrument he would later gift to the band.

During this period, the New Wave and Pop musical genres began to take shape and gain popularity. AlleyBrat maintained that this music was not good, so Christopher and Philip wrote "It's The Wave", a song about how New Wave was a bad genre. After releasing the first AlleyBrat single, Philip began describing the band as "rock and roll with a touch of the future." AlleyBrat also claimed that their mission was to save rock and roll from New Wave, asserting that the genre was dying because of it.

Frank Forman became AlleyBrat’s manager in summer of 1980 after Brian East called him and introduced him to the band, through his dad who worked with Frank previously. Brian told him that he was part of a rock group called AlleyBrat and that they had recorded a single. The band had also been selling their equipment to make money. Frank agreed to meet the members. After meeting them and listening to their music, Frank recognized their talent and decided to help them. He used his experience in sales and marketing to promote the band and find opportunities for them. He eventually developed an interest in managing AlleyBrat. They had already invested nearly $75,000 in the project. Despite the financial risks, he believed the band had commercial potential. Frank Forman took the band to Bellevue High School for the state DECA convention to test whether or not they were any good. A survey was conducted, and 58% of the 600 students who watched the performance thought they were good, and 45% said they would like to buy a record. They were sold a copy of the single "It's The Wave / My Description Of You", described as a "promo disc", which included a photo of the band and the survey results.

AlleyBrat's Second Single (1981)

In 1981, throughout all the good reception AlleyBrat was gaining, there was a noticeable group of people who were against AlleyBrat, mostly due to their clothing and music not fitting in with new 1980s trends. An official AlleyBrat Fan Club was made by AlleyBrat's costume designer Lori Tucker around the same time. This became more evident with the release of their second single Singing In The Rain / We Are The Future, which featured a cover of Gene Kelly's song "Singing In The Rain", coming from the Triad Studio sessions. The band covered "Singin' in the Rain" because it appeared in the film A Clockwork Orange, and they were obsessed with the movie, creating a hard rock version of the song. The original demo featured a different ending, where the track faded out into original song. "We Are the Future" is a song with lyrics heavily inspired by A Clockwork Orange, while the instrumentation, according to the band, is influenced by Queen. The song also revisits the theme of the band’s mission to save rock music. The original demo had different lyrics. Frank contacted American Variety International, a Hollywood company, and sent them a copy of the single and the company’s president, Seymour Heller, was impressed and snet a letter to Frank to make a demo tape, so they started working on it, the demo tape featured both songs from their second single and two new songs, "Livin' On A Capsule" and "She's An Invader", which were also recorded on Triad Studios. A copy of the demo tape was sent to Seymour and other copies were sent to the band members. The tape also had "Singing In The Rain" with its original ending. Seymour after getting the tape said that Chris and Phil were really talented.

On February 20 and 21, 1981, the band played live at The Showbox, the show was opened by the band "The Cor". Frank Forman, invested $250,000 in advertising for the event, but the audience was so mad, as the show was not what they had expected and failed to meet their expectations, that they went as far as damaging the band’s posters and singles. This is the AlleyBrat show with the highest number of confirmed songs performed, they are as follows: "Singin' in the Rain," "We Are the Future," a 10-minute medley of AC/DC covers dedicated to Bon Scott, a song dedicated to John Lennon (likely a cover of "Imagine" or "Modern Hero", an article refers to the track as an original, and its the closest matches), "Fashion Shock," and "Love on Mars."

Relocation to California (1981)

In March 1, 1981, they sold copies of their second single at Everett Community College, then later that month, the band relocated to Van Nuys, California. In March 16, 1981, the band was rehearsing at the venue the "Woodstock" and they found out the band U2 was performing at the same place that same day, so after their rehearsals they went to watch them and chris said only 14 people were watching the performance. Around July, Brian East was removed from the band because Steve Carlson thought he was an inferior musician, leaving Brian to join Savage Grace, with Chris taking over the role of bass.

Later that year, AlleyBrat began recording new songs for an album and a European tour, but both were ultimately cancelled.

In October 1981 the songs "Love In Space", "Memory Banks", "Drop" (Also known as "Drop All Your Neutron Bombs") and "I Live Sci-Fi" (Also known as "I Live In Sci-Fi Movies") were recorded at the studio Stone Fox Rehearsal Studio in Hollywood, Los Angeles. These songs were added to a reel-to-reel tape featuring a fifth song called "Goodbye Spy Girl" which was not labeled and finished. Later in December 1981 they recorded at the same studio the songs "Modern Hero", "To Sir With Love" and "One Last Look" and were feature to reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes that were duplicated in 1982 at the, now difunct, tape duplication company "Project One A/V". These tapes were previously never released to the public, but have since been released from 2024-2026 via Christopher and Philip Booth’s “Lost Album” series (Released under Who’s Who?). After Frank Forman left the band, Marko Van Der Werff, their guitar technician and engineer, turned into their road manager.

End of the Band (1982)

In AlleyBrat's final year, the band recruited bassist Brian West, from the metal band London, through a newspaper ad in which they announced they were looking for a bass player who could sing, and Rick Knutson would turn into their new road manager, leaving them to take over a new rock sound, recording songs like "Ain't No Way" at the Troubadour, leaving behind the glam and punk look of the late 1970s and very early 1980s. After this change, Steve Carlson left the band to join the local band "REDAX" in late 1982. This radical change in style caused the end of AlleyBrat, and the band to reform as Affair.

Singles

Songs