Scarlet Fantastic

The duo Scarlet Fantastic were formed in Birmingham, West Midlands, England in 1985 when the briefly successful Swan’s Way collapsed. After a single album the trio lost Robert Shaw, which left vocalist Maggie DeMond and instrumentalist Rick Jones to continue as Scarlet Fantastic. Dressed in garish costumes befitting the New Romantic era, Scarlet Fantastic achieved two hit singles, ‘No Memory’ (number 24, October 1987) and ‘Plug Me In (To The Central Love Line)’ (number 67, January 1988). They also recorded a sole, non-charting album which Jones remembers as ‘disjointed’. They broke up 1988, with DeMond forming a folk/rock duo with American guitarist Lief Kahal. After recording an album, Blue Mirror Music, credited to Pilots Of The Impossible, they changed their name to Milk in an attempt to secure a new recording contract in the mid-90s. Rick Jones, having left because of personal as well as professional differences with DeMond, then formed disco group Freakout, before opening the London club Fever and becoming a noted club DJ. By the mid-90s he was recording his own music once again.