A  fans eye view of the band tells how  I came to meet them back in 1977 amidst the musical revolution that was punk rock. The original line-up from Blackpool, Lancashire had Ian on vocals, Kev on Bass, Phil on guitar and Grinny on the drums. There was an earlier version of the band called Tumbling Dice and they played Stones covers around the Fylde area. They were Stones fans and in the 60’s the Stones had a keyboard player called Ian Stewart who was often referred to as the fifth Rolling Stone. I think Tumbling Dice played at Roosters in Kirkham once in where I used to live.

In early 1977 I went to see AC/DC at Blackpool’s Imperial Hotel on the High Voltage Tour, their first proper UK tour. I remember my mate shouting Sex Pistols to Bon Scott, to which Bon replied fuck your Pistol. We were already into punk, the Ramones first album was out and all sorts of bands were releasing singles. So when we noticed these two punks at the AC/DC gig in their DIY garb we went over for a chat. The one bloke who turned out to be Ian said they had a band, straight away we wanted to Know when they were playing next, they had no gigs lined up but we were welcome to come along to their rehearsal place in Blackpool. I phoned Ian a couple of weeks later to set something up and off we went. Musically they were good and way above a lot of the stuff of the time. I was 17 and by now totally converted to this new high-energy music.

I remember Kev was playing a Burns bass and Phil had some sort of custom guitar I’d never seen before. Grinny played the drums like I’d never seen before and Ian put the vocals across with such intensity. If I remember rightly they played Your So Dumb, Anti-Social, the Stones 19^th Nervous Breakdown, the Stooges No Fun and the Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again. After the rehearsal they told us they had signed to Chiswick Records that week and were off to London for a couple of gigs. Chiswick also signed The Radiators from Space at the same time. Shortly after signing they released their debut 45 Your So Dumb b/w Better off Crazy and I got a free copy through the post. Gigs in Blackpool were few although they did play in Stanley Park in the town and were banned from playing there again for some reason. The song Too Much Confusion from the All Skrewed Up album tells the story. I’d often bump into Ian and Kev at gigs; they were at the Electric Circus in Manchester to see The Clash on The White Riot tour. Also remember them at Wigan hoping like the rest of us for the Pistols to turn up for a secret gig as the SPOTS, which they didn’t. By then Skrewdriver were playing all the London venues regularly, Vortex, Roxy, Music Machine etc.

 Just as the second single came out Anti-Social b/w 19^th Nervous Breakdown Phil left the band and Ron also from Blackpool came in on guitar. Ron appears on the cover of All Skrewed Up but I think Phil played on it as it was recorded before his departure. About this time Skrewdriver had a gig report on the live reviews page in NME. They got absolutely slated by one Julie Burchill. I was so angered by the write up that I decided to reply. My letter nailed Burchill. I was surprised they even printed it, so much so that the editor of the rag or what ever he did at the time Tony Parsons put the boot in both Skrewdriver and me the following week in his reply. Rons stay with the band was to be brief. Then there was the incident at the Music Machine with Bob Geldof plus several exchanges in the music press between Skrewdriver and another band of the time. Not sure whether Skrewdriver actually split around this time but I remember Kev and Grinny also playing with The Nipple Erectors. Purely coincidental but myself and a couple of mates were trying to put a band together a month or two later and we had an advert in the music papers for a guitarist. Much to my surprise then when a guy called Ron phoned from Blackpool and said he used to be in Skrewdriver. He came down to my house on a Friday met the others we drank some Boddingtons and we decided to rehearse the following day at a youth club in Preston. Ron fancied my sisters mate Tracey and my sister too if I remember rightly. Unfortunately on the Saturday we realised Ron was streets ahead of us musically, we were learning, very learning and he wanted live work soon to earn a crust. We couldn’t have expected him to wait him to wait around for us to catch up. So that went no further.

My last recollections of Skrewdriver were after Chiswick Records they moved to Manchester and released an excellent EP on TJM Records, Built Up Knocked Down with a new guitarist Glen Jones. I had all the Skrewdriver records from this period and a badge, which I used to wear everywhere.