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 |
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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. |
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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).
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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
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