My Life Story

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My Life Story were a 1990s pop group regarded as part of the Britpop movement. Fronted by singer/songwriter Jake Shillingford, the group was formed in London c.1991 and inherited the name from an earlier group in which Shillingford had appeared. A cross between a pop group and a chamber orchestra, the band's sound was heavily oriented toward orchestral instruments. At the time of their debut single, "Girl A, Girl B, Boy C" (1994), the group had a regular line-up of twelve members. Though the membership fluctuated continually, it rarely dipped into single figures until 1999, when their third and final album credited just four regular members, though most of the former line-up were still used as session players.

1 History
2 Discography
3 External links

[edit] History

The group released three albums: Mornington Crescent (1995), The Golden Mile (1996) and Joined Up Talking (1999), the latter being on a label offshoot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group. They enjoyed the most success at the time of their second album, which spawned four singles that entered the lower half of the UK top 40.

In 1999 My Life Story released "If You Can't Live Without Me Then Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" as an internet-only download single.

The spirit of the band lives on in Shillingford's current project, ExileInside, which draws its influences from 1980s electronica, thus replacing the lush orchestral sounds of My Life Story with a quirky retro synth based sound. Former members of My Life Story Aaron Cahill and Mal Campbell appear in the line up, and the material is engineered by George Shilling. Shilling also produced many My Life Story tracks, including most of the Golden Mile album.

Shillingford has also presented an electronica music show on Essex-based community radio station Phoenix FM.

On May 26th 2006 the band reformed with the full line up of 13 members to play to a sell-out crowd at the Mean Fiddler on Charing Cross Road in London, in support of their forthcoming "Best Of" album. This gig got an extremely rare review rating of 10/10 from Planet Sound

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Mornington Crescent (Mother Tongue Records - 1995)
The Golden Mile (Parlophone Records - 1996) UK # 36
Joined Up Talking (it Records 1999).
Sex & Violins (The Best of My Life Story) (Exilophone Records 2006)

[edit] Singles

Girl A, Girl B, Boy C (1993)
Funny Ha Ha (1994)
You Don't Sparkle (In My Eyes) (1995)
The Mornington Crescent Companion EP (1995)
12 Reasons Why I Love Her (1996) UK #32
Sparkle (1996) UK #34
The King Of Kissingdom (1997) UK #35
Strumpet (1997) UK #27
Duchess (1997) UK #39
If You Can't Live Without Me Then Why Aren't You Dead Yet? (1999) - Download-only "single" in Windows Media format (later made available in mp3 format)
It's A Girl Thing (1999) UK #37
Empire Line (1999) UK #58
Walk/Don't Walk (2000) UK #48

[edit] Notes

"Sparkle" was a re-arranged and re-recorded version of "You Don't Sparkle (In My Eyes)".
My Life Story produced promotional CDs for a single version of "You Can't Uneat The Apple" but "Duchess" was released in its place.