Minty was a performance-art band and possibly the most creative acts from the 90's.

Leigh Bowery was the lead vocalist, along with his wife Nicola Bowery, and musicians Richard Torry and Matthew Glamorre among others.


"Minty emerged in 1993 from Leigh Bowery's increasing interest in expressing himself through music, an ambition which seems to have stretched back to the mid-1980s. In the early 1990s he had been involved in two musical outfits, The Quality Street Wrappers and Raw Sewage (both essentially the same band), but Minty was a much more serious attempt to be taken seriously. The name Minty comes from "an old theatrical term for someone who's very off-hand". Minty quickly gained notoriety for their performances, the highlight of which was usually Leigh "giving birth" to Nicola on stage - she would be concealed upside-down underneath his costume (see the Open Wide CD tray if you're interested in the mechanics of this) and would emerge at a strategic point when Leigh went "into labour" In this initial incarnation, Minty recorded a single, Useless Man, before Leigh's death on 31 December 1994, which was released in 1995.

The remaining members of Minty chose to continue the group following Leigh's death and three further singles (Plastic Bag, That's Nice, Nothing) and an album (Open Wide) were released throughout 1995, 1996 and 1997, the album containing material recorded with Leigh. The band have toured with Pulp and appeared on the UK TV programme Top of the Pops, but despite their history of notoriety and their flamboyant performances, widespread recognition and publicity seem to have eluded them. At the time of writing, Minty are dormant with no immediate plans for further activity."
Extract from the Minty Website where you can read a complete biography of the band, plus a lot of other interesting insights.

Creation date : 21/06/2006 @ 20:31
Last update : 19/01/2007 @ 15:35
Category : Music
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