Circa 2014, Northern Irish writer/musician and adopted Brightonian Brian Bell was working on a collection of short stories, having written the Belfast/Brighton-set pulp fiction novel ‘Die Hard Mod’ (Pulp Press, 2010) under the pen-name Charlie McQuaker. One of Brian’s new tales, The Unsung Classic, told of an ill-fated retro band from the early ‘90s called The Raving Beauties, heavily influenced by the American West Coast scene of late ‘60s. Having read the story at local spoken word events, Brian came up with the idea of making a vinyl EP of what he imagined the fictional combo might have sounded like and self-releasing it as a ‘benign hoax’, purporting to be the unreleased recordings of a long-forgotten retro band. Brian then managed to convince acclaimed Scottish singer/songwriter Gordon Grahame (Lucky Jim/Lost Soul Band) to collaborate on the project. When Brighton-based label At The Helm heard the resulting recordings, they were so enthused that they promised to release a full album if the duo could muster enough tunes of equal calibre. The eponymous debut album in 2015 was followed by a Bap Kennedy tribute EP in collaboration with The Dreaming Spires (Raving for Bap) in 2017. Autumn 2021 saw the release of the single 'This is the Train' which was playlisted by the BBC in Northern Ireland. Fast forward to '24, Brian is collaborating with producer/multi-instrumentalist Tom Collison (Americana Awards UK Instrumentalist of the Year) on a new Raving Beauties album.