The Starlets

Once upon a time, singer Biff Smith's sister Gill attended The Glasgow School of Art where drummer Craig Laurie was working. Gill mentioned Craig's name to Biff who was trying unsuccessfully to get a band together and they met up for a rehearsal. On the day of the rehearsal Craig had been to a football match and was slightly the worse for wear after having had "a few". He entered the practice room, sat behind the drum kit and fell backwards off the drum stool. It was love at first sight. Over the next year or two, other members came and went until The Starlets finally settled on their first team of Biff Smith - voice, Mark McSwiggan - Guitars, Stephen McGourty - Bass, Craig Laurie - Drums, Nigel Baillie - Brass, and Iain White - Strings, in time to deliver their debut album "Surely tomorrow you'll feel blue" (2001). Inspired in part by alternative guitar pop and old string-laden movie soundtracks, it was a lush poetic album which, despite being utterly out of step with prevailing musical trends, gained critical acclaim, winning "Jockrock album of the year", and was included in "Is this Music" top 100 albums by Scottish artists, as the band began to find an audience beyond their home town of Glasgow. This continued with the release of the second album "Further into night forever" (2003) which was again a critical success and brought the band to the attention of the Japanese label Muzak which licensed the record for Japan and helped promote The Starlets' first ever live performances in Tokyo. The new album, "Out into the days from here", is out now in Japan on Fastcut Records and has sold out it's first pressing of 1000 in the first week of release. The Starlets have just returned from a two week sold-out tour of Japan and are now acclimatising to cold and rainy Glasgow whilst planning the UK release of the new album, "Out into the days from here" which is released on April 27th 2009 on the band's own label, Stereotone Records.