Before Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke formed the Smiths with Morrissey and Mike Joyce, they played in a funk band called Freak Party. And, as The Manchester Evening News reports, their former drummer Si Wolstencroft recently unearthed a lost Freak Party cassette entitled Kraak Therapy, a two-song studio demo recorded in 1981. He's releasing 500 vinyl copies of the first track, "Firefly," on Monday, and plans to release a remastered version of second track "Don't Push Your Luck" at a later date. "Firefly" features vocals from Angie Brown and additional guitar from Craig Gannon, who appears on the Smiths' "Panic" and "Ask" and toured with them in 1986. Hear a snippet below.
Six months after Kraak Therapy was recorded, Johnny Marr invited Morrissey to form the band that would become the Smiths with him. Wolstencroft was involved with the initial recordings, but decided to leave soon afterwards. "I did them then said, 'Thanks, but no thanks, Johnny'," he recalls. "The music wasn't funk any more, it was songs about the Moors murderers, and that wasn't for me."
