About Me
Formed back in the mists of time, when fuelled by lager Chris & Mac decided a mutual appreciation of Husker Du, Wynona Ryder, and The Arsenal was a good enough excuse to form a band! Both having been musically 'around the block a few times' what could possibly go wrong?Having been dumped as manager by a band of indie kids who went on to get some big cash without him holding them back, Mac thought it a good idea to steal their drummer - enter Alex!Debut show was (and christ only knows how) supporting D.O.A. at The Garage in Islington. That's as good as that story gets as subsequent reports were that they weren't all that impressive. At least one fanzine was critical, but called them Travis! How prophetic - a band called Travis were apparently shit, and 'they' hadn't even formed by then!Once again through blagging like bastards they managed to get put in a studio by EMI Publishing. Selling out at such an early stage? Not on your life matey! A somewhat underwhelming session ensued, and probably put one or two songs to death...... Slumber Jack, Wingless, and Untitled (written in the studio while the band were bored and if memory serves had a touch of The Cramps about it) barely saw the light of day after that. And songs such as Pain Stripper hadn't even made it that far!Next on the gigging agenda were a couple of dates replacing Face To Face on their tour with Lagwagon - a tour that Lagwagon have since denied ever happened!! And before you knew it Travis Cut were busily building a fanbase around the London/Essex area - granted they did it one 'fan' at a time!Along came the first proper break when they blagged the Down By Law tour! And the debut self financed self released 7" - Waking Hours.
Strangely enough it caught the attention of dear old John Peel (RIP) who having played it inspired one punter to go into Rough Trade and ask if they had the "Trappist Cult single".Numerous tours and gigs, single releases, and drum soundchecks later the debut album came out. A joint release on the band's own INCOMING! and Damaged Goods. Not content with simply putting the same tracks on vinyl and cd, the boys decided to add numerous hidden tracks of a few seconds of silence to the cd, followed by acoustic versions of a couple of the songs!!More gigging, more songwriting, more John Peel play, more singles, and an ill-fated 'Single Of The Week' on the Steve Lamacq show which apparently was the only one not to get played every day on the grounds that the producer hated it! High praise indeed!! There had also been the first of many.... errmm no, the first of ONE, TV appearance for the lads, as Channel 4's Board Stupid thought it'd be a good idea to get them to play on the snow at Tamworth Snowdome! Dutifully the band played 'Wuss (Theme From Travis Cut' while Normski pranced around like a twat! Probably nearly a minute of that made the final programme... although Chris's attempts at playing a Stiltskin song while Stilstskin themselves were being interviewed further up the slope got left on the cutting room floor! Of course drummer 1, the mighty Alex, had by this time had his fill of the punk rock world and quit to pursue a career in being in a boy band or something! But he would later return temporarily to the fold! On the night he annnounced his departure, mid Scottish tour (quite possibly Kirkcaldy, maybe not but I just like saying it with a Scots accent!) Chris and Mac phoned a classified ad in the back of Maximum Rock'n'Roll and spoke to an American drummer's mum! Before you knew it, Walton North III, or Budd to most of us, had arrived on these shores drumsticks in hand and little else!And then for album 2! What to do! Well...... having built a relationship with Dave Smalley (oh yes, he of Dag Nasty, Down By Law, and so much more), the guys wanted him to produce it. Fly him over to the UK? Probably too expensive.... how about the band all go to the States for a holiday, and record there? Studios there must be about the same cost as back home right?
Oh yes. Of course Budd had had to go back anyway... visa crap and all that, plus a bit of a falling out with Mac apparently, involving an air rifle and a lot of drinking by all accounts! So Chris and Mac set about writing the new material, and planning a trip to Athens Georgia to rehearse up the album, and then on to DC to record in Inner Ear!!
Less said about Athens the better..... weather was fuckin amazingly wet and hot, the band rehearsed up with borrowed equipment in a rehearsal room lent to them by a local band, spending much of their time wearing only their underwear (because of the heat, get your minds out of the gutter!), drinking Gatorade, and moving amps further and further away from the incoming rain!
And then up to DC for recording! Inner Ear!! Mac & Chris were in their element gazing at the records on the wall in a sort of 'schoolboy swapsies' "got that" "got that" "want that" "got that" sort of way, and being regaled with tales of Bad Brains recording there. Had to be borrowed equipment to record on, so off to Fugazi's place to borrow drums, guitar amp courtesy of Brian from Bad Religion... blah blah blah. Ask them and they'll name drop til the beer runs out!
Chris managed to fuck Brian Baker's guitar amp up somehow so a weekend was lost while they tried to fix it. That gave Mac the opportunity to go to Boston on the bus and get pissed with a band called Bastard Squad, and Budd went home to Georgia having become surplus to requirements.
Giving up on the guitar amp, it was time to confess to Brian. His attitude was "I'm in Bad Religion, I've got a stack of these. Sorry my amp's held up your recording, is there anything I can do to make it up to you"! Whaaaaa! Didn't take much convincing to get him playing guitar solos on the album (something the 'Cut had never mastered themselves!). And what with Dave Smalley on backing vocals, this was a giant of record...... and criminally ignored! Maybe it should have been called "Featuring Brian Baker and Dave Smalley"!Chris & Mac returned to the UK with Seventh Inning Stretch in the bag..... released on Karma Records, but once again drummerless!
For one night only Alex returned to the fold for a gig that will forever be remembered as a neo Nazi riot! Headliners The Business barely played a chord before the show was halted by some hardcore smashing of people and things, and the Cut limped home to Harlow with Alex now reassured that leaving the band had been the right decision! Undeterred, Chris & Mac stole another drummer, Oscar, from Fair Dinkum, but famed for being the Newsbunny on the long since forgotten Live TV!
During this time there were two radio sessions for the John Peel show, and more gigs, and even more singles, compilations, and writing and recording. There was even a story about Oscar on tour, drunk, going into a petrol station to pay wearing a full mask and clutching a half empty bottle of Blue Curacao..... but who knows the truth!
Drummer 3 lasted quite a while, but eventually had to quit (what IS it about Mac & Chris?), and another album was due.
Oscar was replaced by Jamie, from Harlow punk pop hardcore types Dwarf Antidote. There is no photographic or recorded evidence of Jamie's existence, but he did exist. He barely spoke to anyone, or made a sound other than drumming for pretty much his entire time as Travis Cut's tub thumper, and it was probably the Cut's first lean period as far as gigging goes.
With plans afoot to go take that 'Cut sound to the land of the rising sun, the third album was a singles and rarities compilation called Another Day Another Drummer, partially for that Japanese market, and partially because it was cheaper than recording new stuff It came out on Snuffy Smile in Japan and Them's Good in the UK, and the sleeve included a 'Drummer Required' advert - an innovative tactic in recruitment!
And answered by the current, and longest running stick botherer, Tony. Seemingly tired of covering Dead Or Alive with Caffeine, he came over to the dark side that is Mac & Chris's drummer-ruining punk rock ways!
And off to Japan they went...... to surprising acclaim... courtesy of Akira of Caeser Soze, and Yoichi from Snuffy Smile. A week of drinking, temples, and punk rock kids singing along phonetically to every song on the 'Japanese album'
So, onto album 4, back home in the UK. Shambles came out on Chris's own Firefly, and was easily the best to date. Tony's drumming had certainly added some power, and he seemed capable of dealing with both of the wayward 'founding fathers' of the 'Cut!
A third and final John Peel session also came up...... but with Mac's move to the East Midlands and Chris's move into London, rehearsal got less and less frequent, and once a handful of songs (two of which can be heard on this page) for the next album had been recorded things ground to a bit of a halt.BUT.......... THE HIATUS IS OVER FOLKS!! The 'Cut are back, and with a vengeance!! There's even talk of 'new songs'... I kid you not! Maybe now the long awaited 5th album could be revisited, rewritten, recorded and thrust upon a public who had forgotten they were waiting for it!
