Three bands

When I started performing in bands, I was a perfectionist and ambitious for success. By 1975 reality had broken through.

Chris, Chris, Dave and I played together for a couple of years. We were all in the sixth form at Wisewood, and shared a lack of talent for singing. Chris played bass, Chris lead, me rhythm. Dave also played rhythm and knew Dylan back to front so he was the soul of the group. We never played any Dylan though. With no drums, we were a kind of light, unaccented, soft rock band. Our finest hour was playing Brain Damage at the school concert. From Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, this is a song that sounds difficult but really is easy. We were even able to do some harmonies comfortably within our vocal ranges. Someone at the concert had a contact at Radio Sheffield and thought we were good. Within a week we were installed in a Radio Sheffield studio for our broadcast debut. For some reason which I can't begin to imagine now, we decided that we weren't going to repeat our proven success with Brain Damage, and instead we did an absolutely abysmal All You Need is Love with me on piano instead of guitar. I'm sure it was never broadcast. At least, I hope not.

Italics was an even softer rock band, despite having drums. But it was fronted by Kay, who could sing. We played the Carpenters, John Denver and such. Our finest hour was backing Martyn's band Zenith. In fact there were three bands, with us at the bottom of the bill. The programme wasn't exactly balanced: Zenith did stuff like Feel like making love, Smoke on the Water, and even Brain Damage (see above), the second band, consisting of teachers(!) did a very cool Get Back, while we thrilled them with Yesterday Once More. I was particularly proud of one part of the programme that I'm sure everyone else (including the rest of Italics) thought was silly. I'd been listening to the way Keith Emerson added bits from classical and jazz standards into the live version of The Sheriff on Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends. We did Remember You're a Womble as a novelty song (we sang "Dismember all the Wombles"). In the middle there's a little violin bit that I played on the keyboard. The last time this came round I repeated it interspersing bits of Mozart, Chopin and silent-film-melodrama type music. I no longer know how to play this stuff.

Sons of Dust was a particularly downbeat name, with a particularly unfortunate acronym, for a gospel rock/folk band. 1975 was the height of its activity, including a performance at one of the band members' 18th birthday party. In the photo of this gig it looks as though I am jumping on my guitar, just the sort of thing that Pete Townsend would do, which I was therefore very pleased to see. In reality, it's a trick of parallax - I certainly couldn't afford to do it. I still have the guitar. Sons of Dust was founded in March 1974, and every March 31st for many years there was a celebration to commemorate the event. Thus Sons of Dust's legacy was a Dinner and Dance, not a songbook. Paul (who played bass) and myself were the prime movers in keeping the memory alive for the group of friends that we were all part of at the time. The death in 1997 of Martyn, our lead guitarist and vocalist, and also the most entertaining after-dinner speaker at the Dinner and Dances, marked the end of the era.