my old band..
It’s been an interesting couple of months for me. The lull between the busy summer and xmas holiday seasons isn’t normally anything to write home about. However this year I decided to make good use of the extra time I’ve had, and harness the power of the internet to track down a few long lost friends. Most of my attempts have so far come to nothing as I can’t for the life of me remember most people’s last names, which makes searching for them like looking for a needle in a f*ckin’ haystack. Ha, ha.. But thanks to myspace, I did manage to track down Frank, my long time best friend, and bass player in the punk band we formed in the eighties. And not only have Frank and I started to rekindle a long dormant friendship, but he’s also kindly passed on to me some live recordings and photos of our band, that he had held onto all these years. There’s not alot, and the recordings are p*ss poor quality, but they capture the raw energy of the band, and a lil’ of the magic too. And although the songs are worlds away from the music I’ve since become associated with as a dj, they are a revealing expression of who I was back then, and who I still am today..
Honestly, listening to the band again has been an unexpected treat. After putting it behind me for the last 18 years, and despite our chaotic renditions of the songs, and the lo-fi state of the recordings, I am very proud of what we accomplished musically. .
We gigged in and around the 80’s anarcho-punk scene, including some memorable nights at the squatted “Centre”, next to the Cricketers pub in Stoke Newington. We never however got it together to record anything in the studio - in true punk style we were simply too poor to afford it. Ha, ha.. but assuming we can track down our singer and original drummer (our 2nd drummer Pete has passed away unfortunately), myself and Frank are considering finally recording the songs properly. It’s even possible (thanks to the internet and the digital age) that we could do it without me having to travel back to England to rehearse/record etc.. We’ll see, it’s just an idea at this point, but considering how inspired I feel about such a project, I reckon it might just happen..
There’s 6 mp3s here for you to check out, if you feel so inclined. Five of them are are our own original songs, plus a cheeky cover version of Holidays in the Sun by The Sex Pistols, that we did purely for the fun of it. As a side note - I had half expected our rendition of Holidays to induce groans of unfashionable disapproval from our audiences, but truth is it went down a storm whenever we played it. The songs were all recorded at the same gig, at a large, wild and chaotic squat party in North London. The line-up for this gig was:
Anne - vocals
Amelia - backing vocals
Brayo - Drums
Frank - bass
and myself - guitar
Brayo was later replaced by Pete on drums, and Amelia dropped out of the band at some point..
Anne’s voice gives out during some of the songs - she was sick with a bad throat that night - but she still pulls it off remarkably well, her Welsh opera trained and Siouxsie inspired vocals giving the 3 chord noise a dark and delicious flavor.
The photos I’ve included are from later in our band’s history (I believe they are actually from our last ever gig in ‘89 with anarcho-punk legends The Instigators), but neither I nor Frank have so far tracked down any pics of our early days, so they’ll do for now. As you can see from the way we dressed in these later pics we don’t look much like a typical punk band - truth is we had no interest in doing so, we had our own thing going on. As for my super casual and loose fitting attire - it simply gives away the fact that I was by this time dancing/raving/djing pretty much full time.. hee, hee.. Frank may have something to say about this, but as I recall it was in large part due to my focusing more and more on my djing that I lost interest in the band, and caused us to finally break up. But it aint over ’til the fat lady sings (as they say), so if/when we do get back together to record again I’ll be sure to keep y’all updated with our progress..
So here you go, and enjoy. You can click on the pictures to bring up a larger copies, and simply click on the song titles to listen to them..
Oh and lastly, a big thankyou to Frank, for all his help..
How Do You Clear Your Conscience?
Tuning up. From left to right - myself, Anne, Pete, Frank
Anne & Frank
Anne, giving it up..
all eyes closed - deep into it..
rockin’ out..!
And like I already said, click on the pictures for a larger copy..