Wide Boy Awake

  • Wide Boy Awake
  • Bona Venture EP (UK RCA) 1983 
  • Wide Boy Awake EP (RCA) 1983 

Ex-Adam and the Ants bassist Kevin Mooney formed and led London’s Wide Boy Awake, an exciting interracial quartet which never got around to issuing an album. The band’s first two British 12-inches were collected on an eponymous American 12-inch. Hard to classify, the Wide Boys offer clever wordplay and a preponderant funk beat on “Slang Teacher,” while square-dancing into wonderful country- tinged pop for “Bona Venture.” Elsewhere, they try scratch cajun and dance-rock.

[Ira Robbins]