The Immediates
The Immediates was a Manchester post-punk band, performing and recording between 1978 and 1982. The main members were Mike Dunne, Franny Dunne, Andy Connell and Phil Tomlinson with Jane Lancaster sometimes fronting the band live. They were members of the Manchester Musicians' Collective which also included Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and The Frantic Elevators but The Immediates had a sound more influenced by The Ramones, XTC, Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. The first Immediates single, "Do the Don't" c/w "This is a Window", on Central Sound, received airplay from John Peel and Janice Long and was performed live on the Granada TV show, Exchange Flags. The second single, "Can Anybody Tell Me..?" c/w "Forever" was championed by Terry Christian on his BBC Radio Derby show, "Barbed Wireless".
When The Immediates split in 1982, Andy Connell joined A Certain Ratio (and later created Swing Out Sister with Corinne Drewery and Martin Jackson). Jane Lancaster released "It's a Fine Day" with Edward Barton on Cherry Red Records in 1983. (In 1992 a version was released by Opus III in an early example of a mashup and became a major international hit.) The brothers Dunne signed to MCA Records as The Dunn Thing and cut two singles, "Sticking to My Guns" c/w "Make Your Mind Up" and "Ain't Nothin' But a House Party" c/w "You've Got My Number". "Sticking to My Guns" has since become something of a collector's item, changing hands for anything up to $200 per copy.
In 1997, Frank Dunne executive produced the album Now and In Time to Be (Grapevine), a compilation of W.B. Yeats poems made into songs by artists such as Van Morrison, The Cranberries, World Party, The Waterboys, Christy Moore and Shane McGowan. He is currently an Italian football correspondent for The Independent newspaper.