The Bolshoi were a London-based music group prominent mostly in the mid to late 1980s. They are best known for the hits "Sunday Morning" and "A way" or "Away".
History
The band formed in 1984 in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. The original lineup consisted of singer/guitarist Trevor Tanner, drummer Jan Kalicki, and bassist Graham Cox. Tanner and Kalicki had previously played together in the short-lived punk band Moskow, where Trevor performed as Trevor Flynn. Early gigs supported the likes of the Cult, the March Violets and the Lords of the New Church. After eight gigs bass player Graham Cox was replaced by Nick Chown. In 1985, the band released their debut single, "Sob Story", followed by the mini-album, Giants and their hit song "Happy Boy". Word of mouth was such that the Bolshoi were able to sell out many of their early headlining performances. The band moved to London in 1985, and their lineup expanded to include Paul Clark on keyboards. In 1986, they released their first full-length album, Friends, and expanded their touring schedule to the U.S., South America and Poland. It was followed in 1987 by the albumLindy's Party, on which the sound was more pop-oriented. TC Wall, reviewing the album in Underground magazine, described Lindy's Party as "completely confident, commercial, professional, and dangerously catchy" and "a fine album that'll be caressed for generations." Stylistically, the Bolshoi was difficult to categorize. The band has been described as a proto-goth band, similar in their live act to fellow Beggars Banquet signees, Bauhaus. Tanner was recognized for his dark, pensive lyrics that belied a social responsibility and awareness. After the release of Lindy's Party, the band recorded a fourth album, but problems with their record label management impeded its release, and they disbanded as the 1980s drew to a close. The previously unreleased fourth album, titled Country Life, had been lost for years but has now been resurrected by Beggars Banquet with extensive help from Tanner's current record label-head and Creative Director, David Paul Wyatt Perko. This new release is now available as one of five CDs in Beggar's 5-CD box set, put out via Beggar's imprint, Arkive. In December 2018, the Bolshoi's official Facebook page announced that Trevor Tanner and Paul Clark were recording a new album, under the name The Bolshoi Brothers.
