Throughout her childhood, Emma was fascinated in music. Her best friend Caroline had piano lessons every Saturday morning, Emma begged her parents to let her have piano lessons too, but they refused. They didn�t even have a record player until Emma was about 9 or 10 years old, the first album Emma bought was The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.

At the age of 11, she was sent to a boarding school on the south coast. Emma was consequently forced to lose her interest in music for a few years, as she and her fellow pupils were allowed no contact with the outside world. During this time, she exercised her interest in music by writing Christmas carols and singing in the choir.

In January 1982 at the age of 14, Emma was sent to a new school, Queen�s College in Harley Street, London. There she met a half Japanese, half Hungarian girl called Miki Berenyi. The pair bonded immediately, music being their first passion and contempt for the rest of the class being their second. They were best friends for years going to gigs together and embarking on their first joint project, a music fanzine called Alphabet Soup. In 1986 when they were students (at different colleges) they joined their first bands. Emma joined The Rover Girls and Miki joined The Bugs, they were both bass guitarists in their respective bands.

Both girls wanted to be guitarists in their own band though, and started rehearsing in Emma�s kitchen in Ealing, west London. Despite being not particularly good musicians, Emma & Miki were very determined, and enlisted the help of Steve Rippon on bass, Chris Acland on drums and Meriel Barham (who left shortly afterwards) on vocals. The first name that Emma and her fellow band members had was The Baby Machines, named after a song by Siouxsie and the Banshees, but they decided to change it to Lush.

Lush signed to 4AD and had a very successful career. In 1992, bassist Steve Rippon decided to leave the band and was replaced by Phil King. Over a period of eight years, Lush made four albums, many singles and b-side tracks, the songs being mainly written by Emma & Miki. Lush travelled the world, and despite the machinations of the bitchy British music press, are still greatly loved today. During their career, they worked with Pulp�s Jarvis Cocker, musician Mitsuo Tate and the extremely talented Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, who produced their 1992 album Spooky.

Then in 1996, commercially their most successful year, tragedy struck. On the 17th of October, drummer Chris Acland was found hanging at his parents Cumbria home, he�d committed suicide. That was the end of Lush, they couldn�t carry on without him.

After Lush split, Emma continued to write songs. Although she didn�t want to be in another four piece band, she very much wanted to find someone she could work with.

She met Lisa in 1997 in a smelly flat in Camden, both girls were going out with guy�s who shared the same flat � Emma and Lisa have both since ditched there respective boyfriends! They also realised they had another connection, Emma�s former school friend, animator Bunny Schendler, had spend time working professionally with graphic designer Lisa.

For her first four years, Lisa and her mum moved between London and Manchester, living in squats, hostels and council flats. At about this time, Lisa�s mum met a Canadian, fell in love and they emigrated to Montreal.

Lisa had a very happy time in Canada, listening to her mum�s records, Pink Floyd and Blondie, and choosing music of her own. The first record she ever bought were Madonna�s Like A Virgin and Kate Bush�s Hound�s of Love.

Eight years later, Lisa, her mum and new baby brother moved back to the UK, when her step father died. They went to live in a beautiful cottage in Wales, in a tiny village called Derwenlas. Lisa went to the local school, and learnt Welsh.

Wales was probably one of the reasons that Lisa got involved in music, as there was very little else to do and no decent record shops. So at 16 she joined a local student band as a singer. Lisa had never held a microphone before, let alone sung into one, but she made it through the audition and was soon playing in every pub in Aberystwyth. Lisa�s first band was Hectors House and her other band was called The Toasters, they use to rehearse in a cow shed!

This carried on until 1989/1990, when Lisa was going to many big parties with a lot of old Welsh hippies. Being in a student indie band didn�t seem quite so appealing anymore. So when Lisa moved to London to got art college, she decided she wanted to sing with more dance orientated acts. She was a huge fan of Stereo MCs and Portished and was also listening to a lot of funk at that time, so getting glammed up to go clubbing in London helped her to re-find her home.

Sadly, none of her attempts to form bands or get sessions in London were successful, until a demo of hers fell into the hands of Mark Van Hoen. She met him in his studio in 1997 and wrote a song in a day. It came out so well, he decided to put it on his newly finished album, Morning Light. By chance, Emma had bought that album and heard the song, she loved it. Purely by coincidence, Emma realised that the girl who wrote and sung it, was going out with her boyfriend�s flat mate. The two of them had already met!

As time went by, Emma & Lisa started thinking about a second album. They set up their own website, and in 2004 recorded the Madame Sing-Sing EP which featured four new songs: Ruby, A Modern Girl, Everyday & I Do. Having financed the EP themselves, Emma & Lisa hoped that with sales from their EP, they could then record their next album.

Despite the fact the EP had sold well, the girls hadn�t made quite enough money to go and record album number two. Although they could have approached a record label, both felt very strongly that this was something they wanted to do themselves, and neither wanted to repeat the frustrating experiences of having to deal with yet another record label. In April 2004, the pair launched the following appeal to their fans.

Sing-Sing were completely overwhelmed by the response they got from their fans. Three months later, the duo had raised enough money, and were able to go into the studio and start recording.

In July 2005, their second album Sing-Sing And I, was finally released. As well as featuring seven new songs, there was also a new recording of I Do. Following the release of their new album, Sing-Sing played some acoustic sets in London to promote Sing-Sing And I.

Later that year, Emma & Lisa played yet more shows in London to promote Sing-Sing And I. The first was at Marquee in Leicester Square on the 4th November. Again, I attended this show and had a wonderful time. I�ve posted photos from that show in the Gallery pages of this site.

About a month later, I saw Sing-Sing play for the third and final time that year. This was at The Legion/Sonic Cathedral in Old Street, London. Again, there are photos in the Gallery pages, although the photos don�t show the technical problems within the venue. The onstage lighting was terrible, and the only light came from some Christmas tree lights which hung at the back of the stage. It was literally pitch black. I was standing in the front row, about a meter away from the stage, and could still see virtually nothing! The photos I took that night actually came out rather well. I had to use my flash (unlike on the two previous occasions where I had my flash switched off), or the pictures wouldn�t have come out at all! Sincere apologies to Emma, Lisa and the other musicians on stage, as I and the other people with cameras did somewhat blind them with our flash photography.

Sadly, Emma & Lisa played their final show on the 7th December 2005, their live events being cut short due to Lisa�s impeding pregnancy. On the 15th February the following year, Lisa gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Florence Johanna.

Although Sing-Sing haven�t played any live shows for a while, Emma did appear on stage in June 2006 with Robin Guthrie, at the Gate Picture House in Nottinghill, London. I was fortunate enough to attend this show, sorry there are no photos. Despite the heat and a few technical problems (certain pieces of equipment broke down half way through the show), I had a wonderful time. I think everyone in the audience was completely in awe or Robin�s musicianship, I know I was!

In October 2006, Sing-Sing made their most recent recording, Sunbathing, a cover of an old Lush song for a compilation album called Never Lose that Feeling � Volume Two. The album was put together by Club AC30, and features covers of artists such as My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and of course Lush. The song Sunbathing was one of the first Emma ever wrote, back when she and Miki first formed Lush. Lovely to hear it re-worked with the Sing-Sing treatment!

Sadly, in January 2008 Emma and Lisa announced their decision to call it a day, i.e. end Sing-Sing. In 2006 Emma moved to Brighton, East Sussex where she is involved in music publicity and in 2007 Lisa wed her long-term partner Run Wrake, moved to the Kent countryside and is enjoying her newly found freedom as a mum and freelance graphic designer. Even Mark van Hoen, their erstwhile producer, is moving to the USA later in 2008.

So ten years of Sing-Sing and two wonderful albums have come to an end. I'm going to miss them.