Indians in Moscow, originally formed as a three-piece in Hornsea, near Hull, in 1981. Pete, Stuart and Adele formed the core of the band, later adding a drummer and a guitarist to the line up. As part of the Hull scene, the band came to the nation’s attention via an energetic performance playing their 1983 debut single “Naughty Miranda” on The Tube’s Hull special.
Introduced in typical Yoof TV style by Jools Holland, from inside a public toilet (how edgy), Indians in Moscow splattered onto the TV screen screaming “I just killed my father”, which guaranteed our full attention, and still not quite knowing if they were serious or joking, we were hooked.
Indians in Moscow came out of that fertile post punk time of the early 1980s, where suddenly everyone was in a band. Good bands, terrible bands, short-lived bands, it didn’t really matter. It was a new era, and people were still finding their feet. Using synthesisers along with the classic guitar, drums, and bass, Indians In Moscow were part of that new post punk breed of commercially viable noise peddlers. So who were Indians in Moscow? A serious synth combo? A comedy band? Or Proto-goth shock-rockers maybe? The not-knowing was always part of their charm.
For the single, vocalist Adele Nozedar actually became “Naughty Miranda” and delivered the song in character, her performance was as charming as it was unnerving, and it wasn’t Kate Bush in her mime school prison of Wuthering Heights. Adele was mesmerizing.
Adele looked and moved around like the missing link between a bleached blonde slightly deranged Siouxsie, and the future troubled-pixie Katy-Jane Gartside from Daisy Chainsaw.
Despite their catchy Indie Number One smash hit-er-roo, and a few later contenders, Indians In Moscow never really made it into the mainstream. Confounding their audience with their ever shifting, mutable identity, and impossible to pigeon-hole they dropped off the screen almost as quickly as they arrived. However for one (or two) glorious moments back in the early 1980s, and after a couple of underage shandies, there was nothing like a couple of verses of “Naughty Miranda” on the way back from the pub.
Adele is now an author and forager and can be found HERE