Stone-age hippies who cocked up their finest Top Of The Pops moment All About Eve, have cleared the hair out of their eyes to make a second LP, 'Scarlet and Other Stories'. Andrew Collins goes Eves dropping and discovers Julianne and co still cool in their Kaftans.

LOB! All About Eve's long haired guitarist Tim Bricheno hurls a half-brick recklessly from the balcony of Phonogram Towers into the River Thames. It hits a passing seagull on its way into the shit-stinking depths. Amazingly, the seagull lives.

"Wait 'till I get you home!" scolds long-haired vocalist Julianne Regan, quietly ticking him off for almost breaking the mould.
All About Eve had five hits to their name when 1988 finished, and a debut album called 'All About Eve` which. to date, has shifted 200.000 copies in the UK. Not bad for a bunch of cultural stereo-types from Coventry and the North. And now the difficult 'follow-up' has arrived, an 11-song artefact called 'Scarlet And Other Stories'. They are a band who have completely failed to reinvent themselves for Chapter Two. All About Eve look and sound more like All About Eve than ever. Hair today. hair tomorrow, hair next week. Some things in life don't change. I tell the band that their second album didn't shock me.

"It's good to hear that, " says Julianne. It's only our second album ! And there's a very subtle pressure around (she gestures towards the red-brick shrine that is Phonogram Records) you know - 'Right! This is your second album. Your next one's gonna be really different isn't it? Your image is gonna be really different isn't it?
"It's like changing lanes too soon. We haven't made a safe album for the sake of safety. We had no desire for a massive change of direction, or getting into technology or anything. The rate at which we're progressing - or regressing - is fine for us. "

So whose opinions do you really care about?
"Each other's. Friends. Mums and Dads. Although my Mum doesn't like it as much as the first album!"
"I don't think my Mum and Dad do actually!" confesses long-haired drummer Mark Price. "I played it to them and Mum went and washed up."
"She was inspired to clean !" offers Tim
"My Dad wasn't listening," Mark recalls. "I wish I hadn't put it on actually."
Julianne's mum had some more constructive advice.
"She said 'Ooh, you want to get some more beaty ones on the next one. Haven't you got any that are a bit more swinging?"
All About Eve haven't surrendered to the lure of the disco beat. or the temptation to become an American Heavy metal band. They haven't evolved into Sort Of About Eve - it's still All or nothing. 'Scarlet' is a collection of choruses. Its disguised as an album, by the way of intros, breaks, and tactically-laced verses, but while these peripheral diversions are happening. you can actually hear the record thinking to itself "Heh heh heh! you wait 'till we get to the chorus you bastards. That'll show ya. "
A track entitled 'December' is the epitome of this fanciful notion. It creeps in and surrounds you like an early morning mist, lulls you into a false sense of 'just another track' security via Julianne's inspirational vocal incense, then POW! It's effective stuff, and patently a much, much better choice for a single than the current 'Road To Your Soul'. which peaked at 34 and refused to climb any higher.
"We're truly not bothered," Julianne assures me. " ..but we were a bit nervous about coming in here today because we felt that people who worked here- y'know, it's like somebody died - they'd say 'Oh I'm sorry to hear about the single ! When we heard the chart positions there was maybe a minute of disappointment but that's it. It's not that big a deal. But I'm sure papers will be shuffled today, and phone calls will be made. "People are always thinking ahead for us - so it's already a case of 'Is that the next single? Oh, it's called 'December', let's bring it out in December. Innovative ideas like that. "

All this talk of business, profit margins and formats is enough to make you want to go and sit in a remote field for three days, eat vegetable chilli and listen to All About Eve. Which sounds a bit like a flashback. That's exactly what 60,000 people did at Glastonbury '89 - and how neatly the oblivious, mystical zodiac time warp of All Above Eve slotted into that unreal vacation's groove. The time has come, let's face it, for the word Hippy to be redefined - because with the current post-Gorbachev possibilities of widespread Green participation, surely the '90s Hippy must be a completely desirable stereotype to be. Do All About Eve subscribe to this?
"Well, as you can imagine, we're naturally very cautious of that," whispers Julianne. So they still wince at the actual word Hippy. " Its just that particular unfortunate stereo-type which involves the smell of Patchouli and an Afghan coat, and a vocabulary that consists of 'Cosmic' and 'Wow!'. There is something nauseating about meeting someone like that. "
"We've been burned by the word so much," expounds Mark. "It was a nice idea when we first started out. It was kind of 'Ooh! Are we Hippies? That's quite nice!' We're probably the wrong people to ask."
Don't you ever get the urge to have your hair cut ?
"No," smarts Julianne. "It's not worth the sacrifice. I mean - four flat-tops?"
Okay. It was a stupid idea. All About Eve's Samson-like strength lies in their hair, in their unified image, their shared motivation. Do you think, then, that you'll all be sitting on this balcony in five years' time?

"l hope not!" says Julianne, and she means it. "If I'm still making music in five years I hope I never have to come into this building. I'll just send in some tapes now and again - the artwork man can come to my house! I think if it's just this a few years on, I won't be able I to handle it. I'd like to be a bit more outside of it all. "When I stop doing music I want it to be because I want to stop, rather than pressure making me think 'Oh sod it. I can't do this anymore'. My ambition is to leave at my will.'

No. All About Eve don't want to go into films. Which is a pity as lyrically 'Scarlet' is a volume of bedtime stories. Like 'Blind Lemon Sam', the one about the Hollywood wife who ditches her two kids to go and shag an old blues man in a swamp. It has to be asked: when are All About Eve going to write their own rock opera? They laugh in my face at the very thought.
"I used to make up rock operas in my head to albums I listened to," Julianne concedes. "To Queen songs. But if our excursions into video are anything to go by we're not making a rock opera!"
Back in July '88, Julianne and Tim blew their TOTP debut with the delicate, folksy 'Martha's Harbour'. The song started; they didn't. And it was live. "It was completely technical," recounts Julianne. "One wire disconnected from another wire, and some poor sod was held responsible for it and lost his job. The big feeling was 'Why us?'. I just thank God that I managed to not move. because in my heart I wanted to stand up, knock something over, go 'Fuck' and storm off.
"We got in The Sun and the headline was 'Sad Eves Suffer In Silence'. And there was this thing about Kylie Minogue sending us a bouquet of flowers. It wasn't true! It was Fairground Attraction - which was very nice of them .And The Beehives sent us a condolence card. The head of Phonogram sent some flowers."
Because you DIED?
"They really ballsed it up," says Mark, more bitterly. 'For a live programme like that, they should have videos for back up. But there was nothing."
Julianne has no regrets about making Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" Single Of The Week when she reviewed the NME singles in February.
"I had a feeling that no one else would've done it. You'd have got your P45 in with your payslip wouldn't you?"
Well, would you like now to smash your favourite All About Eve myth for us.
"That we're a bunch of whimsical gypsy fairies, " she says. a huge weight lifted from her cardigan-covered shoulders. "When you're a 27-year-old woman and people think you're a fairy living under a bloody mushroom who just comes out for gigs!"