Gregory Gray

Gray formed Perfect Crime, a four-piece post-punk band, for which he was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter, in 1981. The other original members of the group were Donal Boyle (guitar), George Nelson (bass), and Pete Kerr (drums). The group released two singles on MCA records—"Brave" in 1983 and "I Feel Like an Eskimo" in 1984—before breaking up in 1984. The band was promoted in the UK and gave performances on television.[6] A rehearsal space was provided for the group by Dominican nuns in Portstewart.[3]

The group was a support act for U2, Eurythmics, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Talking Heads, and Paul Young.[3] On their own, they toured the UK, often performing in university towns and small venues in rural Northern Ireland. In provincial regions, Gray's flamboyant style was often the target of hecklers, to whom he dealt sharp-witted put-downs.[6]

Perfect Crime was an opening act for U2 on the first leg of the War Tour international concert tour on 28 March 1983 at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.[7] Along with Steel Pulse, Big Country, Eurythmics, and Simple Minds, Perfect Crime performed before a crowd of 15,000 on 14 August 1983, at a nine-hour concert at Phoenix Park Racecourse, Dublin, when they were supporting U2 on a later leg of the War Tour.[8] It was described by RTÉ as "the rock event of the year".[9] Perfect Crime's set received positive press reviews.[10]

Gray was signed as a solo artist to CBS Records in 1985. His album Think of Swans was released in 1986. It was produced by Walter Samuel and featured the double-bass player Danny Thompson. Two singles, "Sensual" and "Books to Read Twice", were released from the album. A music video of "Sensual" was aired regularly on MTV.[6] Gray made appearances on UK television and radio shows, including being interviewed by Eamonn Holmes and on The Dave Fanning Show. He toured venues in England and Northern Ireland.[6]^{:p. 259} However, the album did not sell well enough, and his contract was cancelled the same year.[11][12]

His second solo album, Strong at Broken Places, was produced by Davitt Sigerson and released by Atco Records, a subsidiary of PolyGram, in 1990. Sigerson became the CEO of EMI in 1994,[13] and he signed Gray to that label, on which he released Euroflake in Silverlake in 1995. It was produced by Stephen Hague. Its title is a reference to the Silverlake gay district of Los Angeles. These two albums were released in the United States, mainland Europe, and East Asia, but not in the UK.[6] They received favourable reviews in Rolling Stone and were popular on US student radio. They were a hit in Japan and sold well in southern Europe.[11]

In the late 1990s, Gray and his partner moved from Northern Ireland to Hertfordshire on the outskirts of London, where they bought a home and built a music room where Gray created his own work independently. He began to make his work available for free on platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube, under the deliberately ambiguous nom de plume Mary Cigarettes; he continued to use the name Gregory Gray in his personal life.[5][11]

As Mary Cigarettes he became more adventurous and experimental, embracing a diverse range of styles, including indie pop and rock, techno, jazz, and folk.[6] He collaborated with Fish Go Deep, a duo from Cork, creating electronic dance music.[11] His music was admired by the British musician and radio presenter Tom Robinson, who played Mary Cigarettes' tracks on his programme on BBC Radio 6 Music.[5]

In 2012, Noel McLaughlin, a senior lecturer in film, television, and popular music at the University of Northumbria, and Martin McLoone, Emeritus Professor in Media Studies at the University of Ulster, published the book Rock and Popular Music in Ireland Before and After U2 with a chapter dedicated to the work of Gray as a solo artist working under his own name, his work with Perfect Crime and his work under the Mary Cigarettes nom de plume.[6]