THE YAZ BAND

On this side of the pond in their native Britain, Yaz were actually known as Yazoo - they only dropped the latter part of their name in the States because somebody else had gotten there first, and legal action was threatened accordingly - and are actually quite the oddity, in terms of the eighties. They weren’t together long, with their initial career lasting from just 1981 to 1983, but in that time, they did enough to leave a lasting legacy; any group soundchecked on LCD Soundsystem’s now-famous ode to James Murphy’s musical heroes, ‘Losing My Edge’, is clearly still considered important by contemporary standards, and the likes of La Roux and Hercules and Love Affair have also cited their influence, too. After their initial split was acrimonious, the group’s members - Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke - went onto successful careers both solo and with Erasure, respectively, but Moyet had long harboured the desire to play songs from their second album, You and Me Both, live. She and Clarke put their differences aside to do just that across the UK in 2008, on their Reconnected tour; it met with rave reviews, and whilst more dates have failed to materialise, they haven’t been ruled out, either.