Birds With Ears

Formed in 1980 when the five members were all students at the Art College and Sussex Uni, they developed a post-punk funk sound around a tight rhythm section: Smith’s sneering, theatrical vocals and music teacher Billy Cowie’s imaginative keyboard arrangements. With influences from afar as Viv Stanshall, 60’s west coast r & b and poltico-dance bands like The Gang Of Four and Pigbag, Birds With Ears originally had two vocalists, one of them a female. She was Laurie Morris, who left the band in late 1980.