Silver vinyl with booklet with liner-notes and previously unseenphotos. Limited 200 copies

Although having only existed for a relatively short timespan(from 1980 to 1984), the band Bashful Alley has nevertheless made aname for themselves during the turbulent period of the N.W.O.B.H.M.Their one and only single called ‘Running Blind’ (released in 1982)is a masterpiece of the genre. Pretty unusual for a Metal band inthe early ’80’s, Bashful Alley was born at university (inLancaster, North-West England, to be precise). Original guitaristand founder Rob Tidd remembers: ‘We played at the universityseveral times – mainly at the smaller, individual bars, but acouple of times at the ‘Great Hall’. At the time this was a verypopular venue on the UK college gig circuit. I saw loads of bandsthere, including Wishbone Ash, The Scorpions, Judas Priest,Motorhead and many more. So it was quite a blast to play on thatstage. One gig was a ‘local talent’ night, and the photo on thecover of the ‘It’s About Time’ CD (which was taken by my brother)came from that gig. The other time we played there was as supportto The Sweet – which turned out to be a real disappointment as theaudience was tiny!’ As mentioned, Rob was studying at theuniversity of Lancaster at the time, and even got a degree in theend: ‘I ended up with a degree in ‘Marketing’, which was arelatively new thing at the time. So technically I’m ‘Rob TiddB.Sc.(Hons)’!And no, I never worked in marketing – although thefact that I had a degree did help me get other jobs. But they’vealways been just ‘day jobs’ to me’. Rob started out as theguitarist for Bashful Alley but after a time he also took overvocal duties, which might have given him a hard time, doing twojobs at once: ‘Truff and I were a bit older than Dave and Donkey(our original singer and drummer), so when we graduated they werestill at university. The two of us relocated to Lichfield(Staffordshire) and wanted to carry on with the band. We found adrummer (Robin Baxter) easily enough, but finding a singer was moredifficult. I basically started doing the vocals at rehearsals andyes, it was tricky at first, but once I got the hang of it we allthought I was doing an OK job so I stuck with it. I was writing thesongs anyway, and would have had to teach them to a new singer, soit just seemed easier. Would we have had some real success if wehad found a ‘proper’ singer? Probably!’ However, in 1982, BashfullAlley recorded and released their first and only single ‘RunningBlind’ (500 were pressed through Ellie Jay and another 1,000through Graffiti a couple of months later). ‘Running Blind’ isbasically a pop song I wrote for a band I was in before BashfulAlley. (They were called ‘Next’ – don’t bother looking, there’snothing to find!) I just beefed it up a bit. But I always tried towrite good tunes – didn’t always succeed, but at least I tried. Iam still waiting for some big band to cover one of my songs andfinally make me some money!’ Even after the single had beenreleased in 1982, Bashful Alley was not approached by recordcompanies: ‘No, we never had any interest whatsoever from anyrecord companies, even local Midlands-based labels like Heavy MetalRecords. Somewhere – don’t ask me to find them – I have a load ofrecord company rejection letters. It was very frustrating. I knewthat our stuff was better than a lot of other bands who weregetting signed – and this is why we thought we’d press a 7? singleourselves. Not many bands were doing that at the time and wethought it might get us some attention (hey – it worked for DefLeppard!). Also, it gave us a product to sell at gigs and throughlocal record shops (remember record shops …?)’. However, therelease of the single spurned the busiest time in Bashfully Alley’scareer, with them appearing live at London’s famous Marquee cluband the more seedy Ruskin Arms pub in London’s East End (home ofIron Maiden and a number of early ’80’s Oi! Bands). Rob thinksback: ‘The Marquee and the Ruskin? We only played one gig at eachof them. At the Marquee we were supporting Midlands glam-rockersWrathchild. They had a cage built around their drum kit which theyrefused to remove for our support set, so we had a ridiculouslysmall amount of stage left to fit onto! There were not many peoplein the venue when we took the stage – but we won them over! As forthe Ruskin, it wasn’t as rough as you may have heard. Don’t forget,we were used to playing at some seriously dodgy venues around theMidlands … Anyway, we were the only band playing but once again itwas sparsely attended and the audience didn’t seem veryenthusiastic at first. But – and this is something very annoyingthat happens to a lot of bands – after we finished (to very littleresponse all night), almost every person there came up and saidsomething like ‘That was great! When’s your record coming out? Whenare you coming back?’ etc. And as a performer you think: ‘Well, ifyou liked it so much, ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU APPLAUD OR CHEER!?’ But mymain memory of that Ruskin gig is this: we had previously beencontacted by a Dutch fan, a girl called Black Rose (probablythrough the tape trading network!) who was going to be in the UK atthe time and wanted to know if we’d be playing anywhere. I told herabout the Ruskin gig and she said she’d be there, along with afriend who was travelling with her. And she did indeed show up –ten minutes before we finished! Lovely girl ‘ By 1984, Rob Tidd hadbeen disillusioned with Bashful Alley and moved to the capital:‘When I moved to London in 1984, that was what ended the band.Looking back, we hadn’t been going very long at all, but I wasgetting frustrated at our lack of progress and I wanted to giveLondon a try. So I left. I didn’t go to London to get a ‘properjob’. I went with every intention of joining a ‘properband’. The closest I got to success was in a band calledDollface in the mid-’90’s. We had a deal with an indie labe, putout three EPs and an album, toured the UK and Europe but,once again, couldn’t seem to get to the next level and split up in1997. The Dollface album, ‘Giant’ is obviously long-deleted butdoubtless there are copies to be found. It’s a good album but I wasnever that keen on the overall production.