I suppose at first we got on; I started teaching the bass to Gil (who took to it with natural aplomb) and before you knew it we were gigging as 'Lucy and the Lovers'. We were OK. Punk/Roxy/Art rock. We used to play 'The Pose' at Barbarellas, Birmingham's first proponent of the punk scene. Then Punk became obvious - not as a commercial choice, this was still 76 - but as a thing you wanted to do. So we bought a disgraceful old Tranny (really - it was completely the road icon) and moved to London. At first we stayed in a disused Barclays Bank on the corner of Tolmers Square in Euston. Its principal resident was Nicholas Slagg, who took us in so he could 'paint our vibes'. We lived on soya beans and stolen vegetables and Nicholas gave me and Gil our first taste of sulphate. We cut our hair and did our Oxfam shopping and took showers in the Euston Station superloos. Gil and I used to treat ourselves to a Caramac once a week - we were that poor. We got gigs at all the essential places - the Nashville, Greyhound, that place at World's End. On the whole this phase was fun; buying my guitar strings in Tin Pan Alley rather than Selly Oak was marvellous - and the many potential divisions were still buried under all this new 'stuff'.

At one of these gigs we met up with Lee Wood from Raw. I don't remember clearly, but I have a sense that it was just about the right time, that maybe our energy for what we were doing and how we were doing it needed just this recognition, before it went into decline. We whizzed up to Cambridge and did the single. Four tracks were laid down, including Johnnie and Naive. 'At Night' is known, and another, 'Recognition', was also recorded. This latter song perhaps symbolised my first clear understanding of the underlying structure of this group. You see I co-wrote Recognition but, regardless of whether it would ever be released, the Rowland Brand was clearly going to dominate, and all songs seemed destined to go out under his name.

Still, it didn't rankle too much at first. There were people to meet and places to be. Though we were returned to Birmingham as our base, our perspectives had grown noticeably broader. We'd been out there and we weren't coming home. So, there were the Peel sessions, there were the Roxy and the Vortex, there were London studios, and various Festivals; there were trips up and down the country - we met enduring friends - and there's no doubt that we experienced as strong a sense of zeitgeist as the Haight Ashbury people of ten years before, or the Shoom people 10 years after.

But the rot did set in. Kevin was autocratic and arguments were well on the increase. Powerpop came and blew through us at a time when Gil and I were keen to consolidate a more angular style that we felt was developing. Powerpop won.

In fact, this is where the story segues very well with Keith Rimell's piece, which I think tells it exactly how it was.

What happened next? Gil and I worked moved back to London for keeps, and formed 'Sister Sister' - back to our art rock-ish roots. Then she joined Girlschool and I moved on to project work. I had a boys town disco chart hit in Spain; wrote and produced the music for a substantial multi-media installation in Tokyo and Osaka; produced/wrote/sang  on records/TV/shows around Europe. I went and lived in a tiny Portuguese north-country hamlet for a while.

Moving swiftly to the present. Last year did a remix of Tell Me (Madonna) and continue to do the odd and sod that fit in with life as an official at Her Majesty's Treasury, where, in my small way, I help run the country.

Selah, as Hunter S Thompson would say.

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