I lived in a high-rise in L8 during the 80's that only had 10 occupied flats in it out of 60, it was just after heroin had hit, there was sick on the floors, aluminium foil littered everywhere, the lifts were nearly always broken, I lived on the 12th floor with an Iron Door for protection from the lads robbing the boilers to weigh in the copper. As I walked up the stairs I used to sing to myself, the rap from Grand Master Flash, 'broken glass everywhere, people pissing on the stairs because they just don't care', at the time Dingle looked like the South Bronx, an endless procession of empty maisonettes, dereliction all the way from Park Street to town. The song spoke to me. The lad I'd 'inherited' the flat off had left some LP's and amongst them was 4 from 8 and it just fitted, the beautiful voice, the harmonies, the lads singing about the struggles of L8 and the solidarity that still existed. I realised how underrated these lads were, if they'd had had the encouragement they had the potential to produce something like Marvin Gaye's 60 masterpiece, What's Going On. Sadly even by then they'd been sucked in and spitten out by the music industry, never taking them seriously, never encouraging that side of them seeing them as a pop novelty band rather than serious artists. Great shame. Just before Eddy amoo died they were playing a festival in Sefton Park and I went especially to see them but unfortunately I was working nights and had to go to work before they came on, never got to see them, a great Liverpool band often not taken seriously
