A Hampstead musician is set to release an as-yet unheard track recorded by his award-winning band nearly three decades ago.
Sebastian Wocker, a founding member of the indie group Yeah in the late 1980s, was clearing out his Hampstead home during lockdown when he stumbled upon a track recorded by the band in 1993.
Happening, and a handful of other tracks recorded at the same time, was never released.
Unsure what to expect by work created such a long time ago, Sebastian listened to it and was pleasantly surprised.
READ MORE: Iconic grassroots music venues make open plea for financial support“In lockdown I found myself going through the cupboards, as many people did, and I found all these things I meant to do and never got around to doing,” said Sebastian, who used the stage name Don Sebastiano when Yeah recorded the track.
“I found the record and it was better than I remembered. It’s such a good little track.”
After a few tweaks to the track, a music video for Happening was edited together by a hairdresser who works in Heath Street, Shogo Hino.
The makeup of Yeah changed multiple times before the group split up around 2000, but when Happening was recorded, it included Sebastian and Paul Hodnett on vocals and guitar, Peter ‘Tex Super’ Hinderthür on the bass, Archie Weiss on the drums and producer Michel Van Dyke.
In its heyday, Yeah played in London and Hamburg, having signed with SMV, and appeared on German and UK-based TV shows, such as Channel 4’s Under The Moon.
Sebastian said they also won 10,000 Deutsche marks in the John Lennon Talent Awards 1993.
Yeah’s last gig, around the year 2000, was in Camden’s Underworld.
Now-55-year-old Sebastian said: “It was brilliant, and we knew it was the last gig for some reason, I don’t know how, but there was an energy in the room that made for a great night.”
Sebastian is now the editor of Hampstead Village Voice, and is negotiating with publishers on a book called The Joy of Addiction under the pen name Emmanuel ‘Mustafa’ Goldstein.
He is also in a band called Ridiculous using the stage name Basti, with Jon Moss of Culture Club and Sacha Baron Cohen’s brother Erran, which is hoping to start playing live again next year when the coronavirus lockdown has been eased.
Happening will be released on July 16.
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