Flys Today Belongs To Me: Complete Recordings 1977-1980 CD

Two CD collection. After witnessing the Birmingham leg of The Clash's White Riot tour in the spring of 1977, Coventry rock band Midnight Circus adopted a more streamlined, urgent sound and a more punk-friendly name. As The Flys, they issued a self-financed five-track EP at the end of the year before signing with EMI on the back of a tour with Buzzcocks. Over the next three years, The Flys were responsible for a dazzling run of witty, supremely melodic, endlessly inventive singles and two superb albums, Waikiki Beach Refugees and Own, with the latter standing some 40 years later as the Great Lost Album of the pop-punk era. However, a lack of commercial success and endless internal bickering saw guitarist, singer and chief songwriter Neil O'Connor pull the plug in mid-1980 to join sister Hazel during her rise to prominence with the film Breaking Glass. Today Belongs To Me is the first complete anthology of a band that, despite critical acclaim and major label support, somehow fell through the cracks. It includes every known studio recording - including that early pre-EMI EP - as well as nine previously unreleased, from-the-masters studio demos, with two early versions of 1979 single 'Living In The Sticks' joined by seven previously-unheard late '70s songs in the classic Flys tradition. Today Belongs To Me is the definitive document of the greatest pop-punk band never to score a Top Thirty single.

1. We Don't Mind the Rave 2. Beverley 3. Looking for New Hearts 4. She's the One 5. Monsoon Sky 6. Fun City 7. Don't Moonlight on Me 8. Some Kind of Girl 9. I Don't Know 10. Waikiki Beach Refugees 11. Saturday Sunrise 12. Dark Nights 13. Love and a Molotov Cocktail 14. Can I Crash Here? 15. Me and My Buddies 16. Just for Your Sex 17. Civilization 18. Fun City (Single Version) 19. E.C.4 20. Waikiki Beach Refugees (Single Version) 21. Beverley (Edited Single Version) 22. Name Dropping 23. Fly V. Fly 24. Adrian (Don't Call Me Jimmy) 25. I'll Survive 26. Living in the Sticks (First Demo Version) 27. Let's Drive 28. Energy Boy 29. Fascinate Me 30. Talking to the Wall 31. 16 Down 32. Fortunes 33. Night Creatures 34. When 2 and 5 Make 9 35. Undercover Agent Zero 36. Cheap Days 37. Walking the Streets 38. Through the Windscreen 39. Freezing 40. Frenzy Is 23 41. We Are the Lucky Ones 42. Living in the Sticks 43. Night Creatures (Single Version) 44. Lois Lane 45. Today Belongs to Me 46. What Will Mother Say? 47. Undercover Agent Zero (Single Version) 48. Come on Stupid 49. Program 50. Down Your End of the Phone 51. Hang on 52. I Say 53. Living in the Sticks (Second Demo Version)