I first came across the Gigolo Aunts when they opened for The Wonder Stuff on a couple of tours around Europe and the UK in 1993 and ‘94. They were young, musically extremely proficient, a bit starry eyed at being on tour with what was at the time a very big band, genuinely bloody nice people and hell’s teeth did they have a knack with a song.

If they entered the mainstream consciousness in the UK it would be when their song “Where I Find My Heaven” was used as the theme tune for some utterly forgettable 90’s sitcom. Internationally it also featured on the soundtrack of the mind numbing movie “Dumb And Dumber”. That song is a Power Pop masterpiece. Not Power Pop as we think of it here but US Power Pop in the vein of Big Star, Jellyfish, Player etc. American rock bands with great songs and an ability to utterly destroy you with seemingly effortless 3/4 part harmonies, they’d obviously worked at their “craft”. Three of the band sang lead vocals (Dave Gibbs, Phil Hurley and Steve Hurley), Phil was (and still is) a superb guitar player. The bottom line here is I bloody loved the Gigolo Aunts and they shoulda been massive.

Highlights on this album would be the aforementioned “Where I Find My Heaven”, the single “Cope” with it’s big fat wah-wah’d guitar riffs and chorus to kill for, “Bloom” featuring Phil Hurley on vocals which was always a live highlight and the ending title track, a great “ballad” about being at the edge.

I’m still in touch (virtually) with Dave, Phil and Steve and they’re all doing well in their own thing now, still all playing either full time or occasionally. I found this album on lovely red vinyl quite recently so I’ve been playing it a lot. It’s great, you should try it.

Cope - https://youtu.be/ZcnoFqvrS2g