If you wanna smile (and trying to sing like Frankie L.)

Peter Astor was born to be a superstar but he wasn't. As Abe Smith he began playing guitars in Colchester, England, in the sixties. Later he formed The Loft, the band which released a few interesting singles for Creation records before splitting up in 1985. Then came The Weather Prophets, definitely the most underappreciated Creation band ever! Maybe just because they were one of the least heralded bands to record for Creation in the '80s, maybe because they jumped to the short-lived Creation-fed/Warner Bros.-financed Elevation imprint, or maybe because they didn't overflow with flash like the Primals or mess with heads like My Bloody Valentine. They just played their straightforward indie pop songs with a minimum of fuss and left the scene, doomed to be forgotten and undervalued. Chief songwriter/vocalist Pete Astor wrote and played at a same level as Lloyd Cole and Edwyn Collins and those were great songs... So Peter really has a stunning back catalogue for those eager to indulge and of his later stuff, the Wisdom of Harry is worth diving around on-line to find. Please take a listen again to the prophets playng germany in the late eighties and enjoy once more the wonderful jangly sound of the lost decade.