The Beefeaters

The story of The Beefeaters is one of the more unusual ones to come out of the British punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s.
Immensely talented, unnervingly focused and unswervingly true to their musical vision, a bronze of The Beefeaters should stand front and center in the pantheon of punk.
Yet, a series of what some might describe as inexplicable business decisions, including their shunning of record companies as a means of distribution and insistence that their presence at shows not be publicized in advance, had more than one of their friends wondering out loud if the band might actually be criminally insane. The truth, however, can now be told and the band—finally free of a myriad of legal entaglements—are anxious to do so.
Plus, 30 years after London neighbours Grant Jones and Nigel Striker formed The Beefeaters, the band is back together and going through all available tapes, to prepare a career retrospective, which will include two new songs. Release is scheduled for the summer of 2008, but the band has promised to make some of the songs available here in the meantime. The first one is the demo for Redemption Alley, the title song of the anthology (click to listen or right-click and hit "Save Target As" to download).
Over the coming months, we'll be adding a discography and as much memorabilia as we can find. We recently added the newly-remastered KCMU tapes. While done as a lark, these parodies were the way that many in the USA first heard The Beefeaters, so it wouldn't be right to omit them. These recordings have not been heard in 25 years!
Thanks for listening. The revolution starts here!

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DISCLAIMER: The Beefeaters are not related to the alternative band, Beefeater, which came much later, nor to the psychedelic band, The Beefeaters, which came a bit earlier. They are also not affiliated with the Beefeater restaurants, which began about the same time, nor with Beefeater gin which came much earlier. There's also no affiliation with the Yeoman Warders of Her Majesty's Tower of London who were around for centuries before any of the above. Finally, if there's anyone else out there calling themselves "The Beefeaters," they ain't us and we ain't them. That may be redundant, and quite possibly even ungrammatical, but we don't care.

Actually, while we're in a disclaiming mood, we might as well include the adult film, Beefeaters, starring Peter North, Randy West and Jade East. Rumor has it that our lads were to do the soundtrack, but walked off the project when they found out that there was no one in it whose surname was "South." The Beefeaters may have odd standards, but they are standards nonetheless.

When The Beefeaters need a good plectrum, they use Brasilia ultra-thin stone picks. As the band might say, that's not an endorsement, but it's a lot like an endorsement.

Our mate, Mike, created this site for us, so we're letting him say:

…it's either that or pay him!