I left school at about 16 and did a few different jobs, painting lamp posts, gardening, driving a Fyfees banana lorry & one time working for two weeks on an oil rig in the North Sea where Lee's Dad was providing the "top class" english painting team. Then after one year at art school in Crouch End which wasnt what I had envisiged I Started a band with my friends Lee J Thompson & Christopher -Chrissy Boy- Foreman, (Carl joined on bass for a little while) we started rehearsing in my brother Bens room, (he had a baby grand piano and a guitar amp) and later (after the amp was broken!)we moved into the small room on the landing where we had an old upright. Chris was learning the guitar and Lee the sax and I could already play the piano a little bit as we always seemed to have a piano somewhere in the house. Both my older brothers, Ben & Dan played, so of course I tried to catch up with them. Ben could play guitar really well as well, I remember once listening to him jamming along to Ian Dury's, Kilburn and the Highroads first LP 'Handsome', and Dan was the singer in a Rock and Roll band called Bazooka Joe who used to play regular in Hampstead Town Hall, the bass player was Adam Ant tho in those days he was more of a 'background' figure. They also featured the talented Willy Wurlitzer who played... organ & wrote the classic 'Rockin in A Flat', but of Course my brother Dan was the real star who caused the ladies to become weak at the knees with his 'Deeper than Elvis' vocals. So anyway we started little get togethers I seem to remember of all songs maybe the first we did that sounded half alright was 'Its too late Baby' by Carol King! featuring Carl Smyth on bass. We also learnt 'I'm Walking' by Fats Domino in those days as Lee was a keen Fats Fan. We had various rehearsals in that time, I remember round John Haslers house (Carls mate) in Muswell Hill one sunny afternoon listening to 'White man in Hammersmith Palace' by the Clash on his Dads stereo in the front room, John Hasler was a bit of a clash fan, though that song was definitely great… I thought! And John played us 'Touch me in the Morning' by John Holt & someone had the Max Wall single, an Ian Dury cover of Englands Glory, but the real treasure was the B side ‘Dream Tobacco’ which had great piano and some nice brush work on the drums. I believe I was playing on an old organ in those days which I’d bought with Chris I think in some suburb like Neasden or Golders Green or somewhere like that, (I remember as well going to pick up a white 2nd hand Fender Stratocaster with Chris around that period in my Morris van somewhere in South London one drizzly afternoon. Chris’s first real guitar!) Anyways the organ sounded pretty good too, you couldn’t get a piano sound then and I’d seen Elvis Costello and the Attractions on the Stiff Tour in Croyden and Steve Naïve’s Vox Continental Organ had sounded very moody indeed - I was impressed! In those days we’d often go to gigs, we used to turn up at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park, trying to get in some back door for Roxy Music, Stevie Wonder but best of all was Ian Durys band ‘Kilburn and the Highroads’ in places like the ‘Hope and Anchor’ and Dingwalls where you could try to slip past the doorman while looking the other way. Suggs joined the band at a certain point thru a recommendation of Mr Hasler who’d been impressed by his vocal skills one night walking home from the pub. As I recall we were playing in the small room on the landing where we had turned down a sax player a few weeks before – far too professional! Lacked the ‘flexibility’ we were looking for. Anyway Suggs could sing ‘See you later Aligator’ by Bill Haley so obviously he got the job, (though Chris’s Guitar solo might have been the best thing in that song). So slowly we started getting better and progressed to doing some gigs here and there around the neighbourhood.Gotta go now, maybe write some more later? .
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