Bands and projects - an archive of sorts
Link to my page at Discogs
(anecdotes in italics)
Early Days 71 - 74
Folk singer
I picked up a couple of cheap EKO guitars - 6 and 12 strings then started learning Cohen, Harper, Dylan etc Did a few gigs and decided I wasn't going to cut it. So I swapped the guitars for some cheap keyboards and starting hooking up with musicians in Birkenhead.
Strange Band 1974 - 1975
Next 1977 - 1979
In the summer of 77 there was a knock on the door. Who's there? Geoff, Ron and the rest of the band. "We have just got a massive record deal and we need a keyboard player".
The record deal around £500,000 was the largest any UK band had ever been offered, it even made the tabloids. We were signed to Epic Records - the UK subsidiary of CBS.
Next - Next
CBS/Epic, Produced by Rupert Hine (Farmyard, The Manor, Trident 1978)
Next were essentially a rock band but with some theatrical stuff in there with a nod to prog rock. Imagine the reaction during the punk boom of 1977. We played Reading the following year and still got bottled by a few punks. I remember a bottle opener whizzing past my head! Next died a death. I wanted the band to change and get into the New Wave thing viz. Elvis Costello, Stranglers etc. Phil did come up with a lot of new material and I still have the demos somewhere - in hindsight we should have just hunkered down and waited a few years like Marillion.
Afraid of Mice 1979
With the demise of Next
I started to get more interested in synths - I already had an Oberheim
FVS and had recently bought a MultiMoog. So Next split up and we formed
Afraid of Mice with Phil and Geoff. Afraid of Mice was a song Phil had written in the latter days of Next and it was adopted as the band's name. We
did some demos at Amazon - I can remember Phil had written a song "Zone
Ticket for the C5 Zone" with a more electronic vibe. At this stage Phil
was still managed by Gail Colson of Charisma Records and with her backing a breakthrough was still on the cards. Soon after I left Birkenhead for a cottage
near Chester.
I got a call from Roger Eagle about doing a
tour and an album with Pink Military I accepted. I remember meeting
Geoff and Phil in a pub near Sefton Park to explain it would only be for
a while but sadly Phil wasn't interested - all or nothing. Managed by
Colson, Afraid of Mice went on to make two albums with Tony Visconti
but no commercial success.
Y Brodyr 1979 (1984)
I met Dave, Phil and Huw when I was hanging around the Chester music scene. It was the early days of Y Brodyr but they were getting gigs in Wales and because it was a Welsh language thing we did a couple of TV sessions on Harlech and S4C. Later on when they got a deal with SAIN I did a session for Lleisiau.
 |
| Y Brodyr - S4C Studio (L-R) Charlie, Huw, Dave, Phil and Chris |
Pink Military 1979-1980
Despite Jane and Nicky being based in Liverpool we actually rehearsed in the village hall in Dodleston a couple of times. It made some sense because we had Dave Baynton-Power on drums and he only lived up the road in Saltney and Martin Dempsey (ex Yachts) had a girlfriend in Chester. In February 1980 we went into Cargo in Rochdale on the graveyard shift to record Do Animals Believe in God which is where I met Tony Bowers and Bob Harding who were brought in to produce the album.
Annoyingly Dave was replaced with Chris Joyce because Chris was in the same band as Tony and Bob - that was the Mothmen. They went on join Hucknall in Simply Red. PM promoted the album with a tour and we did a Peel Session too. I think Dave returned on drums again, certainly for the Peel sessions - some good stuff on those sessions.
Pink Military - Do Animals Believe in God?
Erics Records, Produced by Bob Harding & Tony Bowers (Cargo, Amazon 1980)
Meadow Cottage in
Dodleston near Chester became the subject of a book - The Vertical
Plane. Towards the end of summer 1980 I asked Ken Webster if he would
like to take the cottage over. So Ken moved in and I moved out
and headed to Manchester. Over the next few years Ken claims there was
massive poltergeist activity and time slips - past and future. He
described these events in the Vertical Plane which was published in
1989. Wonder why Ken never mentioned any of this when he
came to visit us in Manchester?
Club 204, Epping Walk: The Hulme Years 1980 - 1983
Club 204 was the name of the studio at the flat in Epping Walk. It was also the name I went under for live performances. This was where I built the Digisound 80 and built several Powertran Delay units for various people. I was now getting a bit of synth studio together, I still had the Oberheim but only the modules as I had modified so much a lot of the original was lost. Then Do It Records who financed The Mothmen album bought me a Prophet 5.
I ended up with an ARP Odyssey partly thanks to Martin Dempsey. While we were playing in PM I used to have to take the case off my MultiMoog and fiddle with it as it had a fault. I had it open at the BBC in Maida Vale and I think Martin decided we had to get it fixed. We went back to Chase Music in Manchester and Martin virtually demanded a new synth. So we ended up talking to their technician, turned out to be Mike Appleton who I used to drink with in the Black Horse in Heswall! Anyway walked out of the shop with a brand new Odyssey and the service manual for the Oberheim FVS.
The Mothmen 1981 - 1983
The Mothmen - One Black Dot
Do It Records, Produced by Hugh Jones (Rockfield, Sarm 1982
Cover - designed (?) on my first computer, an Acorn Atom. Photographed and colourised by Paul Ridout. The cover of In Rainbows always reminds me of this.
The ghoulish photo was
taken by Andy Dodd. He wasn't credited, perhaps in retrospect it was
probably for the best ;) However, I was blamed for the omission but it was the record company's responsibility to check the credits.
Band on the Wall and Jazz Centre North 1981 -1983
Andy Dodd left Chester and started working at JCN. This was located in offices above Band on the Wall and they also ran gigs at BOTW. Andy did a good job of promoting BOTW which I think might have been struggling at the time. He designed the iconic logo which I think is based on Dizzy Gillespie.
I did everything from putting up posters to tour managing. It was a great time for European Jazz and the ECM label. So Jazz Centre were able to promote artists like Eberhard Weber and Jan Garbareck. I was also lucky enough to get down to Bracknell and see Pat Metheney amongst others. I also did some tour manger duties driving jazz musicians Johnny Dyani, Dudu Pukwana as well as the legendary Phil Woods around the UK.
If only we'd had Wikipedia in those days - I had no idea....
his best known recorded work as a sideman is a pop piece, his alto sax solo on Billy Joel's 1977 "Just the Way You Are".[1] He also played the alto sax solo on Steely Dan's "Doctor Wu" from their 1975 album Katy Lied,[5] as well as Paul Simon's "Have a Good Time" from the 1975 album Still Crazy After All These Years.[6]
One dark and rainy autumn evening I loaded my Yamaha CP70 piano into a van and drove to a pub in Sheffield. They held a jazz night every month in a room upstairs - so we dragged the piano up a couple of flights of stairs and there was Stan Tracey. I sat a few feet from him while he played a solo set. Wasn't impressed with the piano but just got on with it. Unforgettable.
The Mighty Wah! 1983 - 1884
The Mighty Wah! - A Word to the Wise Guy
Eternal, Produced by Mike Hedges & Pete Wylie (Yellow, Eel Pie / Battery 1984)
The BBC Tape Swapping Scandal
Story of the Blues got to No3 in the UK charts and had got there thanks to an appearance on TOTP the week before. You never did consecutive appearances on TOTP but the show would have normally played the video instead.. That would have pretty much guaranteed a number 1 spot! The song was pulled from the show because someone called the BBC to say the tapes had been swapped. Let me explain:
You would get to the studio on the Wednesday morning and spend a whole 3 hours re-recording the track you had previously spent days recording and mixing with your producer! I think an MU official was supposed to be there too ensure there was no tape swapping. The original single had strings on it so I had to show the hired string players the parts. At the end of the session the tape was discretely swapped for a copy of the original single. And that should have been that. Off to the TOTP studios in the afternoon to film the show.
When we appeared on TOTP we were miming to the original single - unfortunately, one of the string players who played on the original sessions saw the show and knew the tapes had been swapped. Wylie and his manager Pete Fulwell should have seen this coming and could have averted the crisis if they had invited them to appear on TOTP. It wasn't helped by the demeaning credit on the LP which states the strings were played by "some girls". Not surprising then that one them decided to ring up the BBC and blow the whistle that the tapes has been swapped.
The BBC pulled the song from the show the following week and Story of the Blues stalled at No3. All bands did it but Wah! got caught out - karma?
Simply Red 1984 - 1985
I was originally hired as a keyboard techie but I was upgraded to second keyboards to cover some of the additional parts. I did one UK tour to promote the first single while Picture Book was being recorded. Did some radio as well.The Rhythm Sisters 1985-1986
Not much to report apart from playing Womad in 1986 and seeing The Bhundu Boys, The House Martins and Siouxsie and the Banshees (I think?). I did go into the studio with them but not sure if anything was released from those sessions.
Bill Byford nearly killed us on the way back from Womad when he drove into the back of a lorry on the M5. He was a proper brat. The police arrived and he showed them his licence and pointed out he was Sir Lawrence Byford's son - he just happened to be the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. On your way son nothing to see here....
Black 1987 - 88
Black - Live at the Tokyo Power Station
A&M , Produced by Jon Lemon, Dave Dix Tokyo Power Station1988
We were at the Diamond Awards do in Antwerp and Barry White was there. He put his arm around Colin and with a big smile said "Black and White". I took a picture but back at the hotel that evening I left my coat, and camera, in the bar. It was gone the next morning. I still wonder if the person who took it ever developed the picture?
Stuart James was our sound man on the last European tour and he knew a bit about contemporary music. We arrived in Utrecht the day before our gig and Stuart spotted that Philip Glass was doing a performance of that evening at the same venue. Don't know who he spoke to but he got our names on the door, watched the show and then went back stage. Special!
James 1989
Although I worked for Martine McDonagh Management from 1990 - 92 where I was looking after the money, touring, merchandise and the fan club,
I did actually do a live TV session with James for the Other Side of Midnight presented by Tony WIlson. Before we started recording for the show Tim Booth asked me to remove my glasses because Elliot Rashman, their manager at the time, thought too many of the band wore glasses doh!
Gary Boyle Band - Gil Evans Hendrix Tribute 1990 - 1991
Live at Holmfirth (unreleased)
Little Chief 1991 - 1994
Little Chief - Spirit
Fut Gut, Produced by Will Jackson & Little Chief (Blue Strike1993)
Jo Lemaire - 1994
Mike Mooney, who I had worked with before, roped me into these sessions. The studio was located in Lark Lane in the trendy part of Liverpool. Interesting sessions in an unusual building.
Jo Lemaire - Liverpool
Play That Beat, Produced by Carmel McCourt (Pink Museum Studio1994)
Pepperjam 2008 - 2011
I used to see Lorry around as we lived in the same valley and he asked me to come to watch him play a solo acoustic set at the Regents pub in Armley, Leeds. I liked what I heard as it was a complete change of direction from Little Chief, more traditional singer/songwriter stuff, a bit David Gray. Later he explained the band had done some recording but needed more work. So with the offer of working and recording with Lorry on material that wasn't Ska or Reggae I got on board.
Pepperjam - Taxi to Whitby
Distilled Records , Produced by Huey Dowling and Pepperjam (Unit 7 Studios 2010)
We recorded the beds at Highfield Studios at the college where I worked.
Pepperjam - Under the Radar
Distilled Records , Produced by Huey Dowling and Pepperjam ((Unit 7 Studios 2012)
The beds were laid down at Huey's studio and I then worked my overdubs at home and sent him the stems. We continued to mix and work on the songs but towards the end of the process I discovered that Simon Pugsley (ex Little Chief) had been working up brass parts for all the songs. Suddenly the production moved into a more 2 Tone direction and I departed.
The Fevertrees 2011 - 2015
The Fevertrees - Underground
Produced by Tim Malster and the Fevertrees 2011
T-Bone 2013 - 2016
Fronted by Chris "T-Bone" Jones who was songwriter from Manchester. It was a county/americana band and did a lot of festivals, particularly those with Americana flavour. Somehow the entire band ended up comprising of members of Fez and the Fevertrees.
We never did any recording and it eventually ran out of steam partly due to Chris having health issues. The last gig I did with them at the Big Barn festival didn't feature Chris at all but Ruth and Des Horsfall fronted it.
Fez 2014 - 2021
Fez - Napoleon
Produced by Fez
Zef'r Band 2015 - 2017
After The Fevertrees ended Fevertrio continued but a new band was created out of members of T-Bone. I was involved with T-Bone for a few years but it got messy as more musicians were invited to play. At the last count there were 8 in the band. Less money and less musical space to play. I left. the Zef'r band was basically Fez (Zef) fronted with a female vocalist Ruth (r) - hence the name.I got fed up with the rubbish gigs and the set - I left!
Horsfly and Kuschty Rye 2025 -2026
Decided to come out of 'retirement' to do a few gigs with Des Horsfall and Martin Davies - 2 musicians I have always had a lot of respect for.
Des got me to sit in on a few Kuschty Rye gigs but after one gig I decided to stop playing live.
I have produced a lot of ideas over the years - mostly instrumental and ambient. I have uploaded a selection to Bandcamp including Postcards which was a full album but never released.
