The Real Tuesday Weld is the band identity of singer/songwriter
Stephen Coates. The London-based
Coates trained as a visual artist before leaving the Royal Academy of Art in 1997 to explore a career in music. Though
Coates names South Africa-born, British-based big-band singer
Al Bowlly (a jazz cult figure who might have become one of the best-known big-band singers in the world had he not been killed in a German air raid on London in the early days of World War II) as his primary musical influence,
the Real Tuesday Weld's largely electronic music more vividly recalls more standard Europop touchstones like
Burt Bacharach,
Ennio Morricone, and
Serge Gainsbourg. After a trio of EP releases -- 1999's The Meteorology of Love (originally released under the name
Tuesday Weld but cleverly changed after legal threats), 2000's
Valentine, and 2001's
L'Amour et la Morte --
the Real Tuesday Weld finally released a full-length debut,
When Psyche Meets Cupid, in the summer of 2001. Since that time
Coates has released a handful of albums including
At the House of the Clerkenwell Kid in 2002,
I, Lucifer in 2004,
The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid in 2005, and
The London Book of the Dead in 2007. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide