The Story Unfolds

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The Moors Murderers story all starts with punk face on the scene Soo Catwoman at the Vortex club idly musing on forming a band and a newspaper wanting a fake punk band

"With regard to Steve Strange...The Moors Murderers thing was a big joke to be honest.  I was joking about getting a band together called the Moors Murderers and doing sleazy love songs, I had no idea he would actually go out and do it, it was fitting that he got slated for it.  As for the paper bag over his head on the cover (no I won't say it).  At that time a magazine here and there would grab a bunch of 'punks' and do a photo session, for which you'd get paid a small sum, enough to buy dinner or get a cab home from a gig.  Strange got into it much more than I did, he always loved posing.  At one point the German magazine Bravo hired out a studio to take pictures of a fake band.  Strange got into pretending to be in a band despite no crowd and no music being present, but after about thirty seconds I got off the stage saying 'this is crap, I don't want to do this'.  I also remember meeting someone (not sure who it was), who told me he had showed Strange a poem he wrote and then found out Strange had used it as lyrics for a Moors Murderers song and claimed to have written it himself, which didn't surprise me. "

 

  So there was a fake band set up in the beginning. But Strange takes it further and actually forms a band taking the idea and lyrics.

 

 

The Moors Murderers were formed around July 1977 and after short rehearsals they played their first public performance one afternoon at Holland Park Comprehensive School supporting the Slits. .. Around August/September 1977 the song was recorded at Pathway studious in North London. Another song recorded for the b-side appears to have been the Ten Commandments( as in the Bible) put to music. Earlier ideas for the b-side included involving Lord Longford in

 

 

 

 

 

 talking or singing (!?) 

This would suggest that the idea for the main song had been around  for some time. ...The band then began rehearsing in the basement of a building in Fulham (London) which housed a record company called the Label run by Dave Goodman (who had previously been the sound engineer or the Pistols and of course released Eater). In December 1977 the band informed him that they and arranged for journalists from the News Of The World and other newspapers to visit the Fulham, office for an interview. The band members attending wore black hoods to hide their identities and despite an offer of £500 to take them off refused. Dave Goodman's only role was letting the band use his basement rehearsal studio.

 

 

   

he band changed to a different rehearsal  studio in the basement of 29 James Street in Covent Garden ( London WC2) and here gave a private performance for a reporter from Sounds Music paper by the name of Bruce Elder. Wearing their by now infamous black hoods they performed (and its possible that an amateur recording was made) Free Hindley, Caviar and chips , Mary Bell and Streets of The East End. At this James Street. performance another figure enters the story- Danny Secunda of Track records appears to have been interested in signing them to a recording contract (he unsuccessfully tried to sign the Banshees and they were desperate for a punk act only having the Heartbreakers). Soho Records ( released the Nipple Erectors) happened to have their office at 29 James Street and also took an interest in signing the band.

We are now into early 1978 and the band are rehearsing at an unknown address in the Waterloo area of London. One performance was filmed  by an Italian TV film crew playing (yes, hooded as ever) Free Hindley and other songs. After this Strange lost interest and the band disintegrated.

 

C) In a fanzine interview a member of the band states that the single had been bootlegged. have you got the single yet asks the Interviewer. 'Yeah' Came the reply.

D) Was Dave Goodman more involved than previously thought and what was the band that he put together that the fanzine Flex mentions ??

I (Lee Wood) once offered £1000 for a copy of the record but nobody contacted me. After a lot more information than is given above I found out the identity of a very famous pop star (not famous at the time) who financed the recording. In return for this information I had promised not to reveal his name or the label it was to appear on (as this would be a clue to his identity).  I will always honour that promise.What I can say is that as far as I am aware Malcolm McClaren was not involved nor Richard Branson. I can reveal that only 2 or 3 acetates and 6 cassette copies were made. No records exist. I paid £50 to someone to 'borrow' a copy of this acetate for a couple of  hours so I could (hear) not buy the song and its surprisingly good. "

 

 

 

 

Jane Suck.Well known  punk music journalist for Sounds Music Paper

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