EMF (Coventry Ska Band 1980)
(EMF stands for Elctro-Motive-Force)
Front Cover of their 1981 RCA single - Photo by John Coles.
This Coventry b and from the very early 80's are not to be confused with the alternative dance band who had a hit with Unbelievable in the 1990's!
EMF was a
Ska band created c 1979 by Tony (Mojo Morgan) in Coventry.
Ska with elements of blues, Jazz and punk.
Line Up
Donna Elkington, vocals. Sharon Elkington,vocals. Jim Allen, sax and vocals.
Tony (Mojo) Morgan, bass. Fitzroy Wilson, rhythm guitar, Leroy Wright, drums.
Dave
Gordon, lead guitar.
Tony Mojo Morgan is now vocalist with his current outfit The Hoochie Coochie Blues Band in south wales.
The band were finalists in the Battle of the Bands 1981 and their CND inspired track Ante
 |
| Tony Mojo Morgan bass |
bellum was featured on the RCA Battle of the Bands album. Teesside band Carl Green and the Scene won the competition.year.
The track was the A side of the RCA single
A side Ante Bellum ( Anti-Bellum = to be opposed to war) B side One Way Girl both written by EMF.
PHOTOS FOR THE COVER OF THE SINGLE TAKEN BY TWO TONE PHOTOGRAPHER JOHN COLES.
Sharon and Donna Elkington went on to do backing vocals for Isabelle Antena Mediterranean Songs. Check them out here
Trev Teasdel recalls - I'd known Tony Mojo Morgan from the City of Coventry Boarding School, Cleobury Mortimer in the mid 60's and in the early 70's re-met him at the Coventry Arts Umbrella Club. He was playing bass in a three piece band The Mick Green Blues Band. The drummer, Steve Harrison asked me for some lyrics for the band and Tony had put music to one of them when the band split up.
Fast forward to 1980 I once again bumped into Tony Morgan outside the Dog and Trumpet in Coventry - The Specials and Selecter had broken through and Tony told me he was putting together a new band called EMF (Electro Motive Force). Tony was a blues man but said he intended that EMF would be a ska band but with blues bass lines.
He had some musicians lined up including Jim Allen on sax who had played with Tony in the past and through musician Amos Anderson (a relation of Charley Anderson of the Selecter) had recruited the other musicians but not the two female singers Donna and Sharon Elkington.
Tony invited me back to his flat in Hillfields to talk about me writing a couple of songs for the band, which i did - With Someone Nice Like You (rough demo and lyric below) and Saturday Night with the lyric set in the Dog and Trumpet cellar involving a drunken brawl - at a time when there was racial tensions and cities were becoming violent. I remember had ska style verses and a 12 bar bridge to fit in with Tony's concept of using blues bass lines.
After writing the songs, Tony told me that Elkington sisters had joined the band and had their own material - I met them all down the Dog and Trumpet.
Donna and Sharon had been busy writing songs and trying to form a band themselves and had advertised in the Coventry Telegraph. Tony had seen the advert and contacted them.
In the Coventry Telegraph the narrative goes that Donna and Sharon started everything off but putting the ad in the paper but according Tony and my own memory, there were two parallel and independent developments which came together when Tony responded to the girls advert.
20 year old Sharon Elkington of Woodshires Road, according to the article, wrote songs about her own and her friends experiences. Apart for the two sides of the single, her songs included Don't Push me, Black Girl, White Boy, Cheesed Off. Things that were happening at the time like Anorexia.
Although my songs didn't get in, EMF were a lesser known but great Ska band. I used to go to their gigs at the Dog and Trumpet and a regular gig in Tile Hill and mostly was the frist one up dancing trying to encourage others to join in.
By 1981, I had moved to Teesside to do a degree and found the Battle of the Bands album with EMF's Ante bellum on in WH Smiths in Middlesbrough. Teesside band Carl Green and the Scene had one but EMF had a single out - not a hit but nonetheless a single on RCA.
Tony Mojo Morgan recalls "EMF supported The Specials, Bad Manners, The Beat, and the Bodysnatchers. I was doing a lot of blues riffs in the band on bass. We played all over the country, and just had a great time.
With EMF. I just wanted to do something different! I had just met Amos Anderson who knew Fitzroy Wilson - rhythm guitarist and Fitzroy knew Leroy Wright - drums.I alredy knew Jim Allen (Sax) and I think Dave Gordon - lead guitarist heard what we were doing and just turned up. The first practice we had all together was in Hillfields in one of the flats! and it just came together like that. It just jelled straight away!After a while we got under Oak Agency from Birmingham, and then the gigs started rollin in, playing all over the country in collages and then we started supporting all the Two Tone acts which was a great buzz!
WITH SOMEONE NICE LIKE YOU
©Trev Teasdel 1980 Coventry.
I torture myself, with pent up fears,
I brood a lot, I brew tea for one
I ask myself “How come”,
How come I just can’t face the pots.
I tie myself right up in knots,
Chorus
And I long to spend my time
And I long to spend my time
Yes I long to spend my time
With someone nice like you.
I smashed a cup, washing up.
I burnt the toast, I missed the post.
I ask myself “Whyfore”
Whyfore I haven’t fixed the drafty door.
I’m frozen right through to the core.
Chorus
And I long to spend my time
And I long to spend my time
Yes I long to spend my time
With someone nice like you.
Oh the nights are cold.
Oh the nights are long.
All I do, it comes out wrong.
I wash my clothes but still they pong.
How come I just can’t get it right?
Sadness got me in his long-range sights,
To chorus..
Bridge
When I see a lover by your side,
I turn my love lights low.
Take my part in a melancholy show.
Oh I just don’t know
Don’t know how to show that I just don’t care,
When my feeling set fire to my hair.
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