London PX

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In the summer of 1979, like many other punks in London at the time, a crowd of us (from Enfield, North London) were regularly going to see punk and mod revival bands. To me these mod bands sounded like punk bands but with catchy tunes (a bit like Generation X or the Buzzcocks).

A few of us decided we should have a go at this and it was time to form a band like them. There were four of us Ian Burge, Paul O'Brien, Mark Vaughan and me (Mitchell Wells) who in the 2nd week of September 1979 went out and bought our chosen instruments; me and Mark on guitars, Ian on bass and Paul on drums. On the 12th September we set the gear up in my house and started to play, or rather make a noise. We weren't sure who'd be the singer. A a few days later we met Vince Rutterford at a Boys gig and he liked the idea of what we doing and offered to be our manager, and until we found a singer, he would sing. He had been in a punk band called The Lasers and had played The Roxy. He brought a few of his songs to the band.

On the pic cover is a friend of ours - Steve Teeth, the song 'Orders' is about him

Our first gig happened just 17 days after we formed and Vince Rutterford did the the vocals. It was a private party in Bermondsey (along with early mod band The Scooters) and we managed 3 songs before the plugs were pulled on us - it was that bad. A fight broke out and Mark Vaughan had a tooth knocked out by someone who took offence. He decided to leave after that and went to university.

In October we got a frontman, Cliff Hanger, who we'd seen in the George Robey pub in Finsbury Park (where we used to drink). He looked like Russ Abbott but to us he sounded like Mensi (of the Upstarts) - he used to stand on the pool table and do Mensi impersonations. He had great stage presence. We realised we were never going to play as good as the Chords so we remained a punk band throughout our existence. This now was the 'classic' line up. We spent the next few months getting a set together and learning our instruments in Cliff Hanger's squat.

Our first public gig was in Bishops Stortford, Essex in February 1980, supporting a group called Graff X. More gigs followed, some better than others. We'd been friendly with one of Johnny Rotten's brothers, Bobby (he was one of our drinking buddies at The George Robey) and he got us a gig supporting another Lydon brother - Jimmy and his band 4be2s at a big venue in Victoria, called the Venue. Youth (of Killing Joke) was the bassist in 4be2s and he said to me after our performance "I loved the anarchy of it". I was well chuffed.

We did other gigs throughout 1980, mainly as support to bands such as Manufactured Romance, Infa Riot and others. In December of that year we went into a recording studio - Starforce - for the first time and recorded 3 songs, "London PX", "Berlin Bombs" and "Eviction" these recordings have remained unreleased. In 1981 a friend of ours, Paul Morea, started his own label - New Puritan Records (named after a Fall song). He had our first single as the first release. Recorded at Starforce studio, Clapham in March 1981, there were three songs on the single "Orders", "Eviction"' and "The Man They Could Not Buy". It was released in June 1981. There were 1000 pressed up and it made No 10 in Melody Maker's Independent Chart. Gary Bushell gave it a terrible review in Sounds and John Peel played it on his show at least 3 times. It did sell out though.

We continued to build up a following but there was a line up change when Ian Burge in May 1981. I moved to bass and we got Gary Sinclair (another drinking buddy from the pub) in on guitar. In July 1982 we released a cassette (by mail order) of 8 songs that we'd recorded at a rehearsal in December 1979. This was called "Not Music"  and only about 30 were made.

Gary Sinclair left after just a few months, I moved back to guitar and we got Dave Yole in on bass before in September 1982 half the band (Cliff Hanger and Paul O'Brien) left, leaving just me and Dave Yole. At this point we recorded and released the second single in the flexi disc format, a cover version of that Syd Barrett classic "Arnold Layne". It was just me and Dave Yole on this record - I sang. It was released in November 1982 and 1000 copies were pressed up but this didn't do as well as 'Orders'. I did send a copy to Syd Barrett (I had his home address) to get his comments but he never replied (not surprising really).

The last gig we ever played - our 19th - was where it had all started over 3 years earlier , at The George Robey pub in November 1982. We supported Chaos, and Paul Morea (of New Puritan) played drums for us. Shortly afterwards we got a drummer called Bernard Drummond and with a line up of me, Dave Yole and Bernard we had one last rehearsal in Bernard's garage on December 30th 1982. After that we did nothing more!

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Above article courtesy of  Mitchell Wells