Thinking about it now, I owe my career to Liam Maher, the frontman of Flowered Up who died yesterday.

Back in 1990 I was just another a teenager in thrall of the music press itching to leave my hometown of Newport. There were no clubs in South Wales playing acid house or its low-slung rock’n’roll counterpart, “baggy” (not yet a term of derision). Flowered Up were part of that new breed. They had graced the cover of the Melody Maker before releasing a note. They embraced a club culture that seemed utterly vital from my voyeuristic standpoint on the wrong side of the Severn Bridge. I put a call in to Flowered Up’s record label – Heavenly Recordings – and asked whether I could book them to play “the legendary TJ’s”. I had never promoted a gig before – I didn’t even know what a rider was. With a float that I’d cobbled together doing summertime odd jobs, I set about learning.

You can read the rest of the story on the Guardian website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/oct/21/liam-maher-flowered-up

& here’s the last recording the band made for Heavenly back in 1994, a fitting way for Liam to be remembered

FLOWERED UP — BETTER LIFE